True20 Demo this Saturday

[DnDChick]

I will be running a quick demo of True20 this Saturday as part of a bunch of games sponsored at my FLGS for National Games Week.

I made up 4 pregenerated characters (human warrior focussing on Dex, dwarf warrior focussing on Strength, elf adept, and halfling expert -- got all the basics covered) and I will using the short intro adventure "The Burning Plague" which I downloaded from the Wizards of the Coast site and converted as needed.

If anyone signs up for it and the demo actually goes on, I will post the results here if anyone is interested.

PS.
My FLGS is the Dragon's Hoard, at 17 E. Johnson St. in Staunton, VA. I will be running my demo at 4pm this Saturday. If you're local, come on by! We will have lots of games of all types (wargames, card games, rpgs, and even a LARP!).

[Tim Gray]

Cool, do give us some feedback. And do make sure you've grokked those damage rules first!

[DnDChick]

Definitely! I will be using FickleGM's excellent damge "cheat sheet," verified as accurate by Steve Kenson:

- A character who takes a Hurt also takes a Bruised, but not vice-versa (-1 to future Toughness checks, Bruised only applies to non-lethal damage).

- A character can take multiple Hurt and Bruised without succumbing to the next wound level (the Toughness penalty is cumulative).

- A character who takes a Wounded also takes a Dazed, but not vice-versa (-1 to future Toughness checks, Dazed only applies to non-lethal damage).

- A Wounded condition also inflicts a -2 penalty to all rolls except for Toughness until all Wounded conditions are eliminated.

- A Dazed condition also leaves a character Stunned for one round.

- A character can take multiple Wounded and Dazed without succumbing to the next wound level (the Toughness penalty is cumulative, but not the -2 penalty and the stunned happens for each Dazed condition - and by extension each Wounded condition).

- A character who is Wounded or Dazed does not become Hurt or Bruised (unless already injured at those levels, but does not gain additional Hurt or Bruised conditions).

- A character who is Disabled also becomes Staggered, but not vice-versa.

- A character who is Disabled or Staggered does not become Wounded, Dazed, Hurt or Bruised (unless already injured at those levels, but does not gain additional injuries at those levels).

- A character cannot take a second occurance of the Disabled or Staggered injury levels, but instead automatically take the next level of injury (Unconscious for Staggered and Dying + Unconscious for Disabled).

- Successful recovery checks only remove one occurance of the highest injury level (lethal first, then non-lethal).

[FickleGM]

Darn, I wish I was in the area (that would be quite the drive, from Wisconsin)...

Good luck with this. I can't wait to hear how it goes.

[langeweile]

cool

i asume the dwarf is a rather soldier type, while the dex one is rather a ranger (including ranged combat) type ?

but for interest - where is steve's post with the dmg clarification ?
must rather have missed it

[DnDChick]

Thats a copy-and-paste from an EnWorld thread FickleGM started.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=154558

[DnDChick]

cool

i asume the dwarf is a rather soldier type, while the dex one is rather a ranger (including ranged combat) type ?

but for interest - where is steve's post with the dmg clarification ?
must rather have missed it

Actually the way it worked out the halfling is the ranged weapons expert. He is also a stereotypical "rogue" type. Stealh, sleight of hand, disable device, etc.

The human warrior has Str and Dex of +2 each, and has defense-oriented feats. (Don't remember exactly what I gave the human, and I'm at work righ tnow ... when I get home I'll post the stats, skills, feats, and equipment of each, if you'd like)

The dwarf warrior is just pure unadulterated TANK ... Str +4, Dex +1, with weapon focus and specialization in the battleaxe.

The elf adept has powers I thought would be fun for a new player and helpful in the adventure. I gave the elf purifying light because there are some undead in the adventure and I figure that would be the elf's moment to ... er ... shine, if you'll excuse the pun.

(This leads to yet another reason why I like True20 for its open-ended character design -- there is no real distinction between divine magic and arcane magic. You can make a Gandalf or Elrond type "spellcaster" without having to multiclass. Even the adepts are not forced into strict roles of wizard = firepower, cleric = medic.)


Burning Plague is a good intro adventure, because it has a little of everything. There are combats to fight, traps to avoid or disarm, undead to battle, and evil spellcasters to overcome. Each basic character type gets to take a role in completing the adventure. It can be fun for newbies and old grognards alike.

[Wrathx]

the only thing I found missing from that chart was that wound apply a cumalitive -1 to toughness saves same as a hurt

otherwise you can keep getting wounded and nothing happens past the first wound

[DnDChick]

It's there ... right in the middle of the post:

- A character can take multiple Wounded and Dazed without succumbing to the next wound level (the Toughness penalty is cumulative, but not the -2 penalty and the stunned happens for each Dazed condition - and by extension each Wounded condition).

[KyleC]

Good luck with your demo!

Regarding the clarified damage, the only thing that doesn't make sense to me is how the Wounded condition imparts a -2 to all checks but the Disabled condition does not. I can just envision a player saying, "Whew, my character is Disabled! I can barely move, but thank God my Reflex save is untouched so I can still dodge those grenades! I'd really be in trouble if I was only Wounded!"

-KyleC

[FickleGM]

Good luck with your demo!

Regarding the clarified damage, the only thing that doesn't make sense to me is how the Wounded condition imparts a -2 to all checks but the Disabled condition does not. I can just envision a player saying, "Whew, my character is Disabled! I can barely move, but thank God my Reflex save is untouched so I can still dodge those grenades! I'd really be in trouble if I was only Wounded!"

-KyleC

I noticed that, too. I hope that these are clarified in the print version (nothing serious, but they are annoying).

[Tim Gray]

There was a thread that I started about the damage stuff, to clarify it - FickleGM's summary got repeated there, and that's where Steve Kenson's confirmations appeared.

You don't need to take all that into the game with you. I found the GM cheat sheets that appeared in another thread here very useful for cutting through all the verbage. I've done my own version, slightly altered to suit.

Both these threads are probably still on the top couple of pages.

[Tim Gray]

Regarding the clarified damage, the only thing that doesn't make sense to me is how the Wounded condition imparts a -2 to all checks but the Disabled condition does not. I can just envision a player saying, "Whew, my character is Disabled! I can barely move, but thank God my Reflex save is untouched so I can still dodge those grenades! I'd really be in trouble if I was only Wounded!"

I think I'd rule diving out of the way of a grenade as an action that would drop Disabled to Dying. But I know what you mean.

[DnDChick]

The demo went off well. The players had fun, and so did I. We didn’t finish the Burning Plague adventure, but we got far enough into it to demonstrate everything. Players got to use skills and feats, and got to experience combat and the True20 damage system.

The Adept: When they encountered the kobolds en masse in the cavern complex, the elf adept had lots of fun flinging kobolds into walls using Move Object. The damage (+5 for something their weight) seemed a bit high, and the little kobolds were popping off into unconsciousness very quickly. (I ruled that hurling someone into a wall does non-lethal damage.) The adept wanted to use Purifying Light on them, but couldn’t because they weren’t “supernatural evil creatures like demons and undead” as stipulated in the power description. (I gave the adept Purifying Light because there are zombies later on in that adventure, but the group never got that far before we had to stop the demo for my scheduled game.) The kobold adept (a “sub-boss” in the adventure) nearly incinerated the poor human warrior with an elemental strike: fire, but wore himself out quickly by casting fatiguing powers.

The Expert: The halfling expert didn’t really get to do all that much. When he approached one kobold, the elf adept threw it into a wall. When he approached another, it was killed by the dwarf. Finally, he squared off against a lone kobold that was popping crossbow bolts into melee. The kobold turned to flee and the player wanted to roll an attack of opportunity. I reminded him that there were no such things, and he mulled his options for a moment and burned a conviction point. He killed his kobold in one shot.

The Warriors: The human and dwarf warriors did well in the combat, but the human came out somewhat worse for wear because of the above-mentioned elemental strike. They liked the damage system, but they missed rolling damage. They did like that the damage system is easy enough to reverse into a damage roll rather than a Toughness save, so one could run the game according to preference.

All the players frequently spent conviction points, but I get the feeling that they would be a little more stingy about that in a campaign they knew wasn’t just a one-off demo.

The players commented that the magic seemed a little powerful, and I agreed but pointed out that unlike in D&D, there are consequences for using magic more powerful than you can reasonably control. The kobold adept, for example, burned himself to Exhausted after only a few spells. Behind the screen, that is why I didn’t have the kobold adept use a conviction point to rid himself of the fatigue … I wanted to demonstrate to the players how easy it was for an adept to become powerless.

All in all they liked it, and thought it played very well. They liked that there were consequences for being injured. Even though the player of the human warrior grumbled a bit about the -2 penalty he accrued for being wounded, they still liked the fact that if you take a nasty hit you “feel” it. Also, not having a static number of hit points to look at and “know” they would be ok, the uncertainty of the Toughness save forced them to think twice about how to approach combat.

They liked the changes (all three of the major changes … character creation, damage, and magic), but also liked that at its heart it was still d20 and they could pick up on it very quickly. It was a successful demo game, and I think everyone had a very positive opinion about the game.

[FickleGM]

Two words: Awe some

Good job...(back to work now)...

[timemrick]

I found the GM cheat sheets that appeared in another thread here very useful for cutting through all the verbage. I've done my own version, slightly altered to suit.

Both these threads are probably still on the top couple of pages.

Any chance someone could post a direct link to those cheat sheets? I seem to have missed them. (Maybe they were buried deep in a long thread that I stopped following...?) Seeing what someone else has done in this vein would save me having to do it all from scratch myself. Thanks!

[FickleGM]

I found the GM cheat sheets that appeared in another thread here very useful for cutting through all the verbage. I've done my own version, slightly altered to suit.

Both these threads are probably still on the top couple of pages.

Any chance someone could post a direct link to those cheat sheets? I seem to have missed them. (Maybe they were buried deep in a long thread that I stopped following...?) Seeing what someone else has done in this vein would save me having to do it all from scratch myself. Thanks!

Here we are:

Wound clarification thread from EN World

Cheat Sheet thread from this forum

[Spectral Knight]

I will be running a quick demo of True20 this Saturday as part of a bunch of games sponsored at my FLGS for National Games Week.

I made up 4 pregenerated characters (human warrior focussing on Dex, dwarf warrior focussing on Strength, elf adept, and halfling expert -- got all the basics covered) and I will using the short intro adventure "The Burning Plague" which I downloaded from the Wizards of the Coast site and converted as needed.

If anyone signs up for it and the demo actually goes on, I will post the results here if anyone is interested.

PS.
My FLGS is the Dragon's Hoard, at 17 E. Johnson St. in Staunton, VA. I will be running my demo at 4pm this Saturday. If you're local, come on by! We will have lots of games of all types (wargames, card games, rpgs, and even a LARP!).

Have you considered running an online demo?

[DnDChick]

Actually I have never tried running an online game. I'm not sure I'd be very good at it.