I started writing my own fantasy heartbreaker, and it's all Prismatic Wasteland's fault!

The title says it all, really. Have you ever been so inspired by a blogpost that you immediately started writing a brand new elfgame? Because folks, that's where I'm at right now. Prismatic Wasteland's rehabilitation of the To-Hit roll touched on an aspect of TTRPG combat that never quite worked for me. Automatic hits are cool, don't get me wrong, but they often still produce low/no damage hits, depending on the system, and that's almost as unsatisfying as missing. 

The ambiguity of Hit Points only makes things worse, in my experience. Some people see them as a character's health and damage as wounds (which is unfeasible in the long run), but personally, I like them better as Hit Protection, as exemplified by Cairn. This abstraction of how long a character can safely avoid a truly serious hit is much more satisfying to me than actually treating each and every lost point of HP as an injury.

And with that in mind, I started tinkering just like Tony Stark in that damn cave, but instead of scrap, I had pure gold to tinker with. Thanks, Warren.

ATTACK CHECKS

To make an attack check, roll your character's Attack Die. If the result is higher than the opponent's Defense, they lose an amount of HP equal to your base damage. If the roll’s result is lower than their Defense, you only deal half your Base Damage to their HP, rounded down.


Enemy attack checks are made with their Attack Die against the PC’s Base Defense. Rolling above it deals their full Base Damage to the character’s HP, while rolling below it does only half their Base Damage, rounded down.

Sometimes, it will be impossible to overcome the opponent's Defense with your attack die (e.g. d4 against 6 Defense). In this case, just apply half your damage to their HP normally, without rolling dice. The same goes for enemies.

Quite simple, yeah? What I tried to achieve with the rules in the excerpt above was a compromise between to-hit and auto-hit, while removing those pesky whiffs. You're always gonna deal some damage to the enemy's Hit Protection, you're always gonna soften them up a little. Defense, then, isn't a way of negating hits, but an abstraction of how good someone is at delaying the inevitable, and how much their armor can help them with that.

For clarity's sake, Base Damage is determined by adding the character's Attack Bonus (tied to class-based progression) to their weapon's damage. Base Defense works much the same way, adding the character's Defense Bonus to their armor's defense. That, of course, brings us to weapons and armor rules.

WEAPONS, ARMOR AND DURABILITY

To determine a weapon’s damage or a piece of armor’s defense, simply roll its damage/defense die once after purchasing, forging or finding it. The result is not permanent and can be increased by blacksmiths or decreased by excessive use.


At the end of a combat, if you rolled a 1 on any attack check, roll your weapon's Usage Die. If you suffered damage during combat, also roll the Usage Die for your armor and/or shield. Results of 1 to 2 reduce the damage or defense of the equipment corresponding to the die. 


The base price to recover defense points lost by a damaged weapon or armor is equal to ⅓ of its total value, rounded down. The price for improving the damage or defense of a weapon or armor by 1 point is equal to ½ of its total value. Blacksmith skill and special circumstances may increase or decrease both the price and the efficiency of the service.





Have I mentioned how much Prismatic Wasteland's blog influenced this? The coolest part of these rules was lifted straight from his blogpost! I just added durability and some tables. Speaking of which...

Fresh off the layout test!

Now, what use would those rules be without a list of weapons, armor and shield?

Kindly ignore the gibberish placeholder prices, please. I'm postponing those for as long as I can, lmao.

While writing this post, I realized I have yet to translate my armor and shield tables to English. Oops. I might update this later with them. Or not! My memory is rubbish.

INITIATIVE, DYING AND TACTICAL DEPTH

If you're curious about how I'd handle Initiative with these rules, then look no further than my previous blogpost! I'm still not 100% set on how I want to handle death, though, but one thing's for sure: lingering wounds after 0 HP are gonna be a thing, with "negative" HP being added to a roll on a lingering wounds table.

As for tactical depth, well, those of you who follow me on Twitter may be aware of my plans for a big two-parter post on expanded combat maneuvers and magic rules. Those are still happening, rest assured, and they're gonna play a big part in whatever comes out of this lapse in judgement (which has a tentative name already).

THE WYVERN HACK? REALLY?

I swear to god this came to me in a dream or something. It's (probably) not final. It's not original at all. I'm not even sure if it's good! 

So, what is The Wyvern Hack? Above all else, it's a marriage between my two favourite playstyles. NSR sensibilities with a PbtA bent. It's also a collection of procedures and random tables I made throughout the years, and an opportunity to put my own spin on some classic elfgame classes (check out the Dungeoneer!). And it's yet another fantasy heartbreaker with a generic name.

Still. A name is a powerful thing. It gives things purpose. Drives them forward. It inspires. If this project has any chance in hell of taking flight, that's what I'll need to be: driven and inspired.

And you know what? I always thought wyverns were much cooler than dragons anyway.