September 10, 2024

All of the work I’ve been doing on A Dungeon Game over the past few months has been what people love to refer to as “content creation” these days. I’ve been slowly working on a few supplements and adventures that aren’t ready to be shared yet, and I’ve also been running a lot of games.

Today’s update is the result of that play experience. I’ve tweaked a few things that didn’t feel quite right, and I’ve finally fixed something that has been bothering me for about 18 months at this point.

Here’s what’s changed:

• I’ve simplified the explanation for how Exertion works. The original wording was clunky and hard for people to understand. I hope that this is clearer. The original wording still exists as a more detailed example in a footnote.
• I’ve reduced the frequency with which you can use Scars from once per initiative round to once per day. Once per round felt like too much to remember/keep track of, especially when combined with Exertion, and I found that people simply weren’t using their Scars. This makes them less effective, but more memorable when used.
• The AC of all armour has been lowered by 1. The majority of the creatures in the bestiary have also had their ACs lowered by 1. This makes armour slightly less effective, and makes combat more dangerous.
• I’ve changed hits critical hits work, and given them their own subheader in the Violence section. In the past they simply reduced an enemy’s AC by 1, but this wasn’t satisfying when an enemy was almost dead and was struck with a crit. You now have the choice of damaging the armour, dealing double damage, or dealing normal damage and getting a second attack against a different enemy.

At some point in the near future I plan to update the conversion guide to reflect these changes to AC, and to make it a little more user-friendly. The version currently available on itch is the version I use at home and was never written with public consumption in mind, which is why it’s so bare-bones. I intend to fix that as soon as I get the chance.

That’s all for now. The Fractured Nations will hopefully be coming soon, and I’m still working on both the larger book-length version of the dungeon generation tools and a treasure supplement. More information on them as they become available. I’m also working on level zero rules to go with a funnel adventure. An early draft of those rules can be found on Patreon.