dungeondevil
3rd Level Troll
Give me grain and I'll give you guns!
Posts: 174
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Post by dungeondevil on Oct 26, 2017 15:26:19 GMT -5
I've been reading around here and I noticed mention of an intriguing rule that piqued my curiosity: if x number of dice turn up sixes, that "activates" some special ability of the monster*. Could anyone elaborate on that a bit more? Is this a canon rule, and, if so, where may I find it? (I now have PDFs of 1st, 4th, 5th, and Deluxe.) ________________________ * as in "4/Medusa".
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Post by sonofliefeld on Oct 26, 2017 16:29:15 GMT -5
I've been reading around here and I noticed mention of an intriguing rule that piqued my curiosity: if x number of dice turn up sixes, that "activates" some special ability of the monster*. Could anyone elaborate on that a bit more? Is this a canon rule, and, if so, where may I find it? (I now have PDFs of 1st, 4th, 5th, and Deluxe.) ________________________ * as in "4/Medusa". The 6's activating special abilities of monsters was a feature of 7th/ 30th anniversary and 7.5 editions of the rules In The Monsters & Magic book included with 7th/30th anniversary and The Monstrum Codex included with 7.5
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Post by stefanj on Oct 26, 2017 19:47:46 GMT -5
I have my own monster collection, "Beasties, Haunts, and Boojums" in the works. Pretty much written; members of the old Trollholla board may remember previews I posted now and then.
Big hold up to self-publication is artwork. I'd need a B&W illo for each critter, plus a few mood pieces and a cover.
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Post by ProfGremlin on Oct 27, 2017 3:02:08 GMT -5
Could anyone elaborate on that a bit more? Is this a canon rule, and, if so, where may I find it? SonOfLiefeld has the right of it, DungeonDevil. It's a secondary application of the Spite rule. When Monsters roll sixes you can either use them to score Spite on your heroes, if the monster is the losing side of the melee, or if enough sixes are rolled, a special ability of that monster can be activated, GM's fiat. It's a way to add a little more drama into the game and unique monster abilities while avoiding having those abilities constantly in play and overpowering the players.
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Post by jeffepp on Oct 27, 2017 3:13:18 GMT -5
Also, it wasn't a part of the rules proper, but a supplement included with the set. Many people assume it was, though. This has lead to the misconception that it was dropped in deluxe.
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Post by zanshin on Oct 27, 2017 13:44:00 GMT -5
There was an article in Trollszine expounding house rules for monster activated spite called ‘they know Kung fu!’ Might be worth a look, he says modestly.
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dungeondevil
3rd Level Troll
Give me grain and I'll give you guns!
Posts: 174
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Post by dungeondevil on Oct 28, 2017 18:58:30 GMT -5
Are there any noteworthy discussions of this topic in the pages of Sorcerer's Apprentice magazine?
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Post by stefanj on Oct 30, 2017 9:29:05 GMT -5
Are there any noteworthy discussions of this topic in the pages of Sorcerer's Apprentice magazine? SA had an essay series about monsters, but they were short on game mechanics. More about mythical roots.
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Post by khaboom on Oct 30, 2017 12:00:11 GMT -5
The 6's activate elaboration really opened the door for the GM to improvise special attacks for his/her monsters. I like very much with T&T that you meet an ogre, say, but you do not know what this ogre will be like - making assumptions can be fatal. The flipside is that monsters and npcs never know what they'll endure from the pcs.
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Post by mahrundl on Oct 30, 2017 14:03:54 GMT -5
Are there any noteworthy discussions of this topic in the pages of Sorcerer's Apprentice magazine? There was some discussion of spite damage, but not a great deal. And as far as I'm aware, the ability activation idea came about long after Sorcerer's Apprentice had ceased publication.
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Post by zanshin on Oct 31, 2017 7:11:53 GMT -5
Monster special attack abilities long predates 7e, but the idea of a Spite activation was a clever mechanical breakthrough.
I can think of Nevet in 'Beyond the Silvered Pane' who drained the strength of delvers attacking him with metal weapons.
Lots of examples in 'Arena of Khazan' of monster special attacks.
Can others think of referenced examples?
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Post by joelmarler on Oct 31, 2017 14:50:50 GMT -5
The 6's activate elaboration really opened the door for the GM to improvise special attacks for his/her monsters. I like very much with T&T that you meet an ogre, say, but you do not know what this ogre will be like - making assumptions can be fatal. The flipside is that monsters and npcs never know what they'll endure from the pcs. I really like spite abilities too (as you can probably guess from my martial arts article): maybe somebody should write an article creating lots of spite abilities for monsters which GMs could draw on?
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dungeondevil
3rd Level Troll
Give me grain and I'll give you guns!
Posts: 174
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Post by dungeondevil on Oct 31, 2017 16:26:47 GMT -5
I'm currently reading up on spite in the dT&T, and am wondering if there is a mechanical rule whereby the spite dice (for monster special abilities/attacks) must be a certain percentage of the total dice rolled. I also wonder if the "spite range" must neccessarily be only 6's or if it can expand to 5's and 6's also, otherwise spite will only occur 16.67 percent of the time. It seems like a fertile, flexible kind of mechanic, IMHO.
BTW, the "Example of Everyday Spite Damage" on p. 76 is super confusing. Am I to understand that the 9 is a typo for 10?
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Post by khaboom on Oct 31, 2017 17:01:39 GMT -5
It does look like it - 10 damage to the losers and 4 to the winners.
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Post by zanshin on Oct 31, 2017 18:41:01 GMT -5
The 6's activate elaboration really opened the door for the GM to improvise special attacks for his/her monsters. I like very much with T&T that you meet an ogre, say, but you do not know what this ogre will be like - making assumptions can be fatal. The flipside is that monsters and npcs never know what they'll endure from the pcs. I really like spite abilities too (as you can probably guess from my martial arts article): maybe somebody should write an article creating lots of spite abilities for monsters which GMs could draw on? Ahem, ‘They know Kung Fu!’ Cough
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