Damage/Fatigue on Character sheet

By asmeus, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Hello!

Wanted to ask,

does anyone else find FFG system cumbersome, how, when you receive damage, you put damage tokens on hero sheet, the same with fatigue.

We have switched to alternative - at the start of the encounter put maximum health points/fatigue on hero sheet, and then discarding them, when receiving damage/fatigue costs.

With the RAW , there were multiple instances, where I as overlord thought that I will kill the hero, however he has Leather Armor: +1 Health, or some other item, which I had overlooked on the run.

Now, if Hero has 1 health token on his hero sheet, I'm sure, he only has 1 health without thinking much.

Are you playing RAW or also something modified?

Your way of playing is quite like Arkham Horror's system (place health on card, and discard tokens when wounded).

Your system is interesting for the memorizing special effects - such as the cloak you mentioned.

I have played RAW up to now, but your idea is interesting and I might give it a try.

I also made "MP" tokens, both for normal MP and MP won by fatigue, so that I can track the type and number of MPs I still have in my MP pool.

My group and I are playing as you explain at my request. Much more easier for OL to track down when the player is about to experience death :)

On the other hand you have to be cautious because some skills or effects expect you to play RAW and therefore it can be confusing. I'm thinking of things like one CK hero feat which allow to hit harder depending on the number of hearts you have on your character sheet etc.

Anyway i'd prefer loosing hit points to taking damage token :)

One of my heroes uses a D20 and a D8 to keep up with his health and sweat. It's been very helpful. I always know how much he has. I would recommend you trying this if you have enough D20s and D8s to pass around. That same hero uses brown D6s as tokens for his stones (he's the geomancer) and places it on two. If they take damage and doesn't die, the dice is turned to one. I really REALLY love that.

My other heroes, I have them stack up their available hearts and sweats in front of their hero sheets, including whatever gear they have that boosts it, and they place the hearts on their sheets as they take damage. I always know how much they have by seeing how many hearts are above their sheet. VERY helpful.

I am not a fast thinker and I don't always remember who has what that boosts this at all times. Having something to see like that is super helpful. My heroes cater to that very well <3

The d20 and d8 idea is an excellent one.

I just ordered four sets of "jumbo sized" dice (red d20 and yellow d8). ;)

Edited by Robin

So why not just make a token, use a sheet of paper, or a die that sits on the health for what their max health is? Something that makes it obvious to remember. Then you don't have to worry about dice getting knocked around and trying to remember what their current health was beforehand. You can always calculate the max health and re-place the die if that's what you use.

Edited by griton

So why not just make a token, use a sheet of paper, or a die that sits on the health for what their max health is? Something that makes it obvious to remember. Then you don't have to worry about dice getting knocked around and trying to remember what their current health was beforehand. You can always calculate the max health and re-place the die if that's what you use.

I work with allot of honest heroes with good memories of their heroes. Everyone needs to remember all of their hero's health and stats. In the same token, I need to remember all of my monster's stats.

Tokens being scattered is just as likely as dice being moved. We work with cats often, so that's nothing new to us.

Ah cats.

Wonderful, enigmatic, purring and messengers of chaos!

In a magazine devoted to Advanced Squad Leader, there once was a hilarious article about "FOBA", that is "Feline Offboard Artillery". :-D

I have two of those uncontrollable domestic tornadoes, but they haven't "tried" their gifts on Descent... yet!

Edited by Robin

Ah cats.

Wonderful, enigmatic, purring and messengers of chaos!

In a magazine devoted to Advanced Squad Leader, there once was a hilarious article about "FOBA", that is "Feline Offboard Artillery". :-D

I have two of those uncontrollable domestic tornadoes, but they haven't "tried" their gifts on Descent... yet!

hehe. I have four but none of them have tried anything... yet. I have preemptively called Edger our Quest destroyer, but he would rather sit at my feet and howl for me to pick him up for pets and attention. I'm the OL, so I can't spend fatigue to bare it. Though one of my heroes has one cat and yes, he had made himself know and grew quite salting when he was removed from the map.

Some years ago, I posted a thread on Gamesquad (in the main ASL forum) devoted to "FOBA".
Here is the link to the thread : http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread.php?78903-Foba

Afterwards, the thread went wild, with a lot of posting of images of cats (quite a number of the links seem broken, bu there still remain a lot which display pictures correctly) and insider ASL jokes.

Post 67, page 7 of the thread, is a sequel of the first post : http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread.php?78903-Foba&p=1060337&viewfull=1#post1060337

(and, yes, my pseudo there is "Swiftandsure", and my nickname is "the Swiss Moron")

Edited by Robin

We also do it the same way. I understand the hearts are meant to show the amount of damage taken, since the hearts on effects and dice represent damage being dealt. It works perfectly well but somehow it was just easier for us to look at it like starting with max health and deducting from it as we took damage, sorta like the way it is in most RPG games. We tried using dice... but it got confusing when looking for dice to roll haha. Okay I will attack the goblin minion, *roll* oops, I just rolled my life dice.

@Robin

That's pretty awesome! I got a good laugh. My cats have more fun eating and setting on my paintings then destroy our games. One time Edger (as seen on my blog) carefully navigated through a full game of Arkham on the floor with it's many piles if cards for encounters without tipping over a character token of misplacing a card. We all held our breath and then was amazed.

@ModernMan55

I can see your point and I can see where that would be annoying. At least for Descent they don't use traditional dice for their game.

this may poses problems with some heroes (like Krutzbeck) or some abilities (like one of the berserker) if you do the opposite.

Got my (jumbo sized) dice...

l8nn.jpg

Edited by Robin

Theses french traductions are really stupids lol !

My group has an idividual pile of their characters max fatigue and hearts sitting off the card. We place them on the card as we take damage and or spend fatigue. This way the overlord can look at the pile off the card and see how much fatigue and hearts the character has left.

We play the same way, we have enough fatigue and hearts to match what is on our cards; as well as what items or skills we have. That way you can always tell how much health/stamina anyone has remaining before being tapped out.

Theses french traductions are really stupids lol !