MCDM Patreon Playtest Packet 1 is out.
- Thread starter darjr
- Start date
Lemme see what I can do to provide some summaries of what's in the packet.
Dice - The game uses d6 primarily, but also uses d4 and d8.
Victories - Each time you complete a challenge, whether it be combat or noncombat you gain a victory point. They power up your character in a variety of ways, here's some examples for the pregens:
Orc Fury
Test - roll 2d6 and add appropriate characteristic modifier and compare it to the target number (TN) the director picks. The examples in the rules say an easy task is TN 7, moderate is TN 9, and hard is TN 12. If you have a skill that relevant to the test being performed, you gain a boon die on the roll. For example, a character with the Stealth skill and it relies on your agility of 4, you'd roll 2d6 + 4 + 1d4. The game does describe how you can mix and match skills and characteristics as needed depending on the test being performed, with an example of a Might - Intimidate test being an option for a physically imposing character or a Presence - Intimidate test with verbal threats.
Skills and conditions were pretty straight forward.
Combat - initiative by default is both sides roll 1d6, winning side has someone go first and then each side alternates until everyone has gone. For the players, they can discuss and go in whatever order they want so it encourages strategy and setting each other up. It does say if that doesn't work, you can just have everyone roll an agility test and have that determine the order the representative from your side can act in when it's your side's turn.
Action economy - On your turn, you can take 1 maneuver and 1 action (which can be used to make a 2nd maneuver).
Critical hits - If you roll an 11 or 12 on your 2d6 damage roll, that's a critical hit and it grants you an extra action. If you were worried about there not being a roll to see if you hit killing the excitement, you'll still have players cursing when they roll snake eyes or high fiving on a crit. It just shifted to a different part of the combat phase.
Negotiations - the mechanic is basically this: the NPC has an interest level, a patience level, a motivation, and a pitfall. There's a table to determine the starting values of patience and interest, along with the target number you need to meet for each argument made. If interest hits 5 (max), the negotiation ends. If patience hits 0, the negotiation ends and the result is determined by the interest level when it ends. Motivation are what the NPC wants and pitfalls are things to avoid bringing up. The final offer the NPC makes in the negotiation depends what the interest was at the end, from 5 ("Yes, and.."), 4 ("Yes), 3 ("Yes, but.."), 2 ("No, but..."), 1 ("No"), and 0 ("No, and.."). Hopefully that makes sense, I'm trying to condense down 4 1/2 pages of rules into a paragraph. lol
Monsters - it describes a few different roles for monsters, but Minions were the interesting one to me. They have 1 health and a damage threshold value. Every time that threshold is broken by your damage roll, you kill an extra minion within the reach of your attack. The example minion in the adventure had 5 as its damage threshold value, so if you hit that minion for 12 damage you kill it and up to 2 additional minions within reach of your attack. There's some other rules for minions that allow up to 5 of them to go at the same time and allow flexibility of how they use their maneuvers and actions, but they do less damage (1d4 for the sample adventure minion).
That's basically what's in the packet rules. I skimmed over most of it, so if there's something you want explained better feel free to ask.
- 32 page rules document. More on this in a bit.
- 2 page cheat sheet, which skims a bunch of things from the rules document and provides a decent quick reference.
- 9 page adventure. It's a 7 level tower climb, with a variety of encounters both combat and noncombat.
- 5 pregen characters (Dwarf Tactician, Human Conduit, Orc Fury, High Elf Talent and Wode Elf Shadow)
- They also provided VTT friendly maps and tokens for the adventure.
Dice - The game uses d6 primarily, but also uses d4 and d8.
- d6 are used for core rolls, which are 2d6. This is used to resolve damage, tests (ability or skill checks), and resistance rolls (saving throws)
- d4 are mostly used for boons and banes, which are bonuses or penalties applied to a core roll. They counteract each other on a 1:1 ratio, so if you have 1 boon for a damage roll against a prone target and 2 banes from having the weakness condition, you only apply 1 bane. d4 are also used for a few damage types, like traps and minion damage from what I saw.
- d8 are impact dice, which are added to your damage roll by certain abilities or attacks.
Victories - Each time you complete a challenge, whether it be combat or noncombat you gain a victory point. They power up your character in a variety of ways, here's some examples for the pregens:
Orc Fury
- does extra damage equal to it's victory point total
- allowed to move an extra number of squares based on the number of victory points when they move.
- adds their victory point total to any health recovered by an ally within 8 squares when they used one of their recoveries.
- If an ally within 8 squares makes a resistance roll, the result is increased by their victory point total.
- does extra damage equal to it's victory point total
- when they force move an enemy with a power, they move the enemy an extra number of squares based on their victory points
- does extra damage equal to it's victory point total
- when they use their teleport maneuver, they move an extra number of squares equal to their victory points
- allies within 5 squares deal an extra point of damage per victory point
- allies within 5 squares of you move an extra number of squares based on your victory points.
Test - roll 2d6 and add appropriate characteristic modifier and compare it to the target number (TN) the director picks. The examples in the rules say an easy task is TN 7, moderate is TN 9, and hard is TN 12. If you have a skill that relevant to the test being performed, you gain a boon die on the roll. For example, a character with the Stealth skill and it relies on your agility of 4, you'd roll 2d6 + 4 + 1d4. The game does describe how you can mix and match skills and characteristics as needed depending on the test being performed, with an example of a Might - Intimidate test being an option for a physically imposing character or a Presence - Intimidate test with verbal threats.
Skills and conditions were pretty straight forward.
Combat - initiative by default is both sides roll 1d6, winning side has someone go first and then each side alternates until everyone has gone. For the players, they can discuss and go in whatever order they want so it encourages strategy and setting each other up. It does say if that doesn't work, you can just have everyone roll an agility test and have that determine the order the representative from your side can act in when it's your side's turn.
Action economy - On your turn, you can take 1 maneuver and 1 action (which can be used to make a 2nd maneuver).
- Maneuvers - move, assist, drink potion, grapple, hinder, throw an object are some examples.
- Actions - Attack, Charge, Defend, and Recover.
Critical hits - If you roll an 11 or 12 on your 2d6 damage roll, that's a critical hit and it grants you an extra action. If you were worried about there not being a roll to see if you hit killing the excitement, you'll still have players cursing when they roll snake eyes or high fiving on a crit. It just shifted to a different part of the combat phase.
Negotiations - the mechanic is basically this: the NPC has an interest level, a patience level, a motivation, and a pitfall. There's a table to determine the starting values of patience and interest, along with the target number you need to meet for each argument made. If interest hits 5 (max), the negotiation ends. If patience hits 0, the negotiation ends and the result is determined by the interest level when it ends. Motivation are what the NPC wants and pitfalls are things to avoid bringing up. The final offer the NPC makes in the negotiation depends what the interest was at the end, from 5 ("Yes, and.."), 4 ("Yes), 3 ("Yes, but.."), 2 ("No, but..."), 1 ("No"), and 0 ("No, and.."). Hopefully that makes sense, I'm trying to condense down 4 1/2 pages of rules into a paragraph. lol
Monsters - it describes a few different roles for monsters, but Minions were the interesting one to me. They have 1 health and a damage threshold value. Every time that threshold is broken by your damage roll, you kill an extra minion within the reach of your attack. The example minion in the adventure had 5 as its damage threshold value, so if you hit that minion for 12 damage you kill it and up to 2 additional minions within reach of your attack. There's some other rules for minions that allow up to 5 of them to go at the same time and allow flexibility of how they use their maneuvers and actions, but they do less damage (1d4 for the sample adventure minion).
That's basically what's in the packet rules. I skimmed over most of it, so if there's something you want explained better feel free to ask.
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Did MCDM have minions in their 5e material or were they from something else I'm not thinking of?
Here's the general creature roles described:
Ambusher - creatures that are good at hiding both in and out of combat
Artillery - ranged attackers
Brute - lots of health and damage, not very disciplined
Bystander - victims, onlookers, or captives, they spend most of their combat time defending and trying to avoid getting hurt
Controller - debuff, move, and obstruct their enemies sometimes with a crowd-control action
Leader - powerful action oriented creature that fights with underlings. The example in the adventure had a section for Villain Abilities that could be used a limited number of times in the encounter and were pretty useful.
Skirmisher - hit and run tactics, designed with traits to emphasize that type of strategy.
Soldier - designed to draw attacks, allowing their allies to move around more.
Solo - designed to fight on its own
Support - aids their allies with buffs, heals or other help
darjr
I crit!
Minions are in Flee Mortals.
overgeeked
B/X Known World
The YouTube channel d20play has a flip through with the playtest, a video about the characters, and a third that's an interview with James.
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