Hi,

I just want to compare how you guys are doing it?

I am pretty sure that there is NO table in the rulebook that says:

Partial Cover (25%-50%) - 1 Black Dice

Hard Cover (50-75%) - 2 Black Dice

Fullcover (more than 75%) - 1 Purple DIce.

I'd do it above. Could be the next session I throw one more Black to it.

May players are fine with it. They usually don`t complain, sometimes they haggle (but that's OK)

So how do you handle it? For what circumstances do you use how many (B/P) Dice?

I very seldom throw in purple dice unless the difficulty issue is one that really makes "massive cock-ups" likely since they add the chaos star chance. For "it's just more likely to fail", black dice whereas "more likely to fail massively badly" purple.

Otherwise, what you describe sounds pretty fine, and in line with shields (e.g., a tower shield gives 2 black dice via Defence value, the Fortified Entrance location gives +2 defence from its crennelations).

Rob

Thanks.

I didn't thought of the shield, it was just a by the guts rule. But we have 4? Purple dice in our bag. Insome miscast the caster must have 2 chaos symbols to have a bigger effect.

So why do we only throw in just only one?

Greets WK

There are 2 and 3 chaos star miscasts, yup.

Don't have rules in front of me but recollection is that quickcasting gives you a challenge die, some spells have one and some don't etc., so it's all a matter of how powerful a spell you're trying. Stick with weaker (no challenge die) spells and even quickcasting no more than one chaos star effect.

(Slightly off topic, you have caught that if you do have multiple chaos stars and draw a 1 chaos star only miscast, that effect occurs and you draw another until all the chaos stars are used up - so the cards with multiple chaos stars on them are simply making having to draw more less likely).

I give purple dice for actions that normally garner black dice, but are more severe.

Lower ground is one black, so prone is one purple; darkness is 1 or 2 black, so painful glass in the eyes is a purple....

As for spell casting - if I lightning bolt (one purple on the card), it's versus target defence (another purple, standard) and I quickcast it (another purple) than I have 3 purple dice. Were the enemy a wizard with improved counterspell, than I can toss in another purple, for 4. Were all of these near a magical nexus (adds a yellow and a purple) than that's 5....they can stack up fairly fast.

For melee, if I'm knocked prone and cannot afford a maneuver to get up, than that's a purple, versus target defence (purple), and the opponent does a block and improved parry (1 black, 1 purple) than I'm a 3 purple, 1 black...they can also stack up. Off the top of my head, cannot summon up more purples here though, least not in many situations.

For ranged, it is versus defence (purple), if target is at long range I'll often add a purple. If they target is in a ton of cover (basically shooting them through an arrowslit) than that's another purple...up to three again.

However, in the immortal words of Cindi Lauper, "[Player's] just wanna have fu-un", so it's best to go easy on them, and easy on those purples.

As a side note, I did have a player with the following dice pool my last game - 2 green, 3 blue (stat), 3 white (fortune), 1 white (under the sky for celestial mage), 2 white (intel fortune dice), 1 white speciallized, 2 yellow (trained twice), 5 black (target defence), 2 black (dark as could be), 2 black (long range during deluge in the Eye of the Storm adventure), 1 black (for being in the downpour, sorta GP), 1 purple (vs. defense), 1 purple (lightning bolt), 1 purple (quickcasting) for a total of: 2 green, 3 blue, 7 white, 10 black, 2 yellow, 3 purple. He still hit, barely.

there is a table that says somethign like:

routine 0 purple

easy 1 purple

average 2 purple

hard 3 purple

extreme 4 purple

i believe purple dice represent the inherant difficulty of the task and black dice are random outlying modifiers or modifiers imposed by the actions of other individuals. i ran my first session last night but i think this worked. and with the issue of adding the chaos star chance, remember this, the old world is perilous and danger lurks at every turn, the shadow of chaos is constantly present in all things.

W1nterKn1ght said:

The "Dying Earth rpg" has something called "the Rule of Efficacious Blandishment", which basically states "if the player can make a convincing argument, let them have it", which I stand by in most cases. The harder a player argues for something, the more they obviously want it, and - so long as it isn't game breaking - my job as GM is to let the players have fun; so I say never be afraid to let a player haggle so long as he can take your final decision for what it is. (remember that it is okay to let a player argue for something once, but be sure to be firm when you say "no" and don't let them continue belaboring the point)

I know this wasn't the point of your post - but others have answered that and I thought your sentence above worth commenting on.

I guess I read too much in to the names of the dice themselves. I generally tend to add more challenge dice to my player's rolls than misfortune dice.

To me the purple dice represent the direct difficulty the PC have in accomplishing an action. Where the black dice (and white dice for that matter) represent the whims of Fate (or the gods both good and ill).

For example, to me a character that has demonstrated over several game sessions that they are exceptionally adept at climbing might only get 1 challenge dice and no misfortune dice to scale an outside tavern wall to sneak back into his room.

However, if it was at night, I'd probably add another challenge dice to represent trying to find the right handhold in lowlight (even if he were an elf or dwarf), and if it were cold or raining even more.

Misfortune dice would enter this example to represent his how successful he was at hiding his presence. If, perhaps, the town watch was looking for him, I would probably add one misfortune dice to the initial example. The darkness and rain may add both Fortune and Misfortune dice as failure (a failed handhold or slip and a loud thump as he fell into his room) could reveal his presence, but also help conceal him from prying eyes.

In situations like this, where it's not defined, I use the Chaos stars to add Stress/Fatigue or I'd use it to force another check perhaps with an additional challenge dice this time as the PC has moved into a position that is tenuous, dangerous, or just plain foolish.

Inevitably for me, it's using the dice as tools to advance the story rather than simply determine success or failure.

cliffetters said:

There is an interesting philosophical distinction to be made: is the challenge level based on a standard rating no matter who attempts, or is the challenge level based on the skills and aptitude of the person attempting the task? You seem to be taking the route of the latter, and I would be curious to see how it skews (pos or neg) results.

I actually hadn't thought about it that much. I generally have considered the PCs skills and abilities before adding challenge dice, but in a very holistic sort of way. One member of the group is the "face man".

A social situation where he acted as the intermediary might be assigned X challenge dice, whereas when the pit fighter attempts to schmooze, I would consider X+1 or 2X challenge dice as he's likely to be as combative verbally as he is physically, and say the wrong thing. Negotiating the invisible dangers of court are more of challenge to him.

Of course, put the foppish dandy in a fighting pit and rest assured of the assignment of several challenge dice where the pit fighter may receive one or even none.

Admittedly, the group is still fairly low level (since we don't play as often as we like), but I could see reaching a point where what would be a significant challenge to a lower level character is quite easy for a character with more experience. Consequently, fewer challenge dice would be added.

cliffetters said:

The obvious argument against that is that the pitfighter being bad at social interaction and the "face man" being good at it is allready represented by their Fellowship stats and the "face man" problably getting a yellow dice, possibly a white for specialisation and probably has some social action cards as well. Put in the same social situation, the "face man" will perform better without scewing the challange.

I do like putting in black dice to represent the NPCs biases and such though. A man might be more easily convinced by a woman. Or he might disrespect women and not want ot hear what she has to say. The NPC might look down on anyone of a lower social stature and might only talk to fellow nobles.

But just making the challange harder for some characters is a bit odd if you compare it to other challanges. A social challange is just a challange where you use the Fel stat a lot. Say they're trying to jump a gap and you tell the "Face Man" that, because he's physically weaker, he must do a 2xChallange Dice athletics test to make the jump, while the Pit Fighter only needs to do a 1xChallange Dice check to make the jump. The Pit Fighter is probably allready getting a bunch of bonus dice representing how much easier it is for him. Making it a 2xChallange for the Face Man is like saying "you're weaker, so you have to jump farther".

I agree with Ralzar.

In general, misfortune dice should be the "variable" die. Challenge dice are used to reflect the difficulty inherent in the action/test. Misfortune dice are used to represent environmental or other minor variables related to the action/test.

Charming two people are (generally) similar in difficulty all the time (Opposed checks represent the inherent difficulty based on the person). In general, anything else that positively or negatively affects the chances will be represented by a fortune or misfortune die. Loud music, distractions, body odor, etc. all really should use .