Delving, version 5.0
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 3:09 am
Change Log:
- Modified rule for Plight >= Torch condition
- AngelAlex's suggestion for Group Hazard name adopted...still need mechanics
- Modified rule regarding Durin's Way and Tunneling on Delving tests.
- Added two rules for reducing Plight
Here is my latest pass at rules for Delving. This is the relatively fluff-free version; When I finally get the rules nailed down I'll add descriptive language, quotes from the texts, tables, etc.
I tried to incorporate and honor applicable rules found in both Tales from Wilderland and Rivendell.
It still feels like a lot of dice rolling, but this is as lean as I could get it while still incorporating all the factors that I think make for a great dungeon crawl, in (what I hope is) the TOR style.
Feedback of all sorts welcome, including (especially?) on terminology.
Delving Tests
Delving is the art of exploring underground realms. These rules are meant to allow LMs to run vast delving adventures without having to map out every twist and turn, chamber and cavern, while still conveying a sense of epic scale and (more importantly) epic terror to the players.
In general, Delving requires heros to accumulate successes at certain common skills, although unlike normal sustained tests the skills tested will probably vary. Each leg of a delve, between plot points prepared by the LM, requires a defined number of successes at a specific TN. Each individual roll represents a challenge to the fellowship of their Body, their Heart, or their Wits, which translates to a test of Explore, Travel, or Riddle.
For each roll, a single Success die is rolled, with 1-2 indicating a test of Body, a 3-4 indicating a test of Heart, and a 5-6 indicating a test of Wits. (That distribution table might be different for specific Delves.) Each success, e.g. 3 for an Extraordinary Success, count toward the total needed. When the total is reached, the adventurers reach the next plot point.
Following rule has been updated:
When a hero with Durin's Way or the Tunneling trait makes a Delving test in a delve that was created by members of his own culture*, the Feat die is rolled twice and the higher result used. E.g. Dwarves in Moria, Wood Elves in Dol Guldur, or Hobbits in the Lower Dungeons of Brandy Hall. (“Delving test” in this document refers specifically to the Explore, Travel, and Riddle tests made as part of the sustained tests, and does not include tests resulting from Hazards triggered while Delving.)
If all goes perfectly, getting through, say, Moria would require a whole bunch of Success die rolls to determine the types of challenges faced, and a lesser number of Explore, Travel, and Riddle tests, all producing lots of Tengwars.
But things never go perfectly, do they?
Plight
The two adversaries reliably found in every delve are darkness and getting lost. These enemies are represented by two variables: Torches, which despite its name is an abstract measure of their supply of light sources, and Plight, which measures both how lost the heroes are as well as how lost they think they are. (Torches are addressed later.)
Plight ranges from 0 to 10, sometimes but not always starting at zero. Each time the heroes fail a Delving test, Plight increases by one. There is no corollary rule for decreasing Plight: it never goes down automatically. There are two ways for heroes to lower Plight:
1) When Great or Extraordinary Successes are rolled on Delving tests, the player may choose to spend one or more extra successes on reducing Plight instead of counting toward the sustained tests. Reduce Plight by 1 for each success so used.
2) The company may choose to spend points directly from the Fellowship Pool to reduce Plight at a 1:1 ratio.
Additionally, some events in the Delve may, at the LM's discretion, reduce Plight. For example, a successful Lore roll may let a player recognize an historically significant room, giving a sense of where they are.
Question: What's best? #1, #2, or both 1 and 2?
When a Delving test is failed with an Eye of Sauron, Plight increases and a Hazard is triggered. (See Hazards, below.)
When a Delving test succeeds, if the Feat die was less than or equal to current Plight, a Hazard is also triggered, but it is optional: the heroes may, if they choose, avoid the Hazard and look for another route. Doing so increases the number of successes needed for the sustained tests by one.
Fatigue and Individual Hazards
In addition to increasing Plight, whenever a Delving test is failed all companions make a Fatigue (Travel) check. Fatigue only increases by 1 for each failure while Delving, regardless of season outside, as it represents the emotional burden of being trapped underground in the dark as much or more than physical exertion.
When Fatigue checks are failed with an Eye, the hero triggers an Individual Hazard.
Torch Rating
The default starting score for Torch rating is 2 times the size of the Fellowship, roughly approximating each member carrying two torches. Any time any companion rolls an Eye of Sauron on a common skill test, deduct one from the score. Spending a point of Hope negates this loss.
There are some ways to modify this:
Individual heroes may choose to carry extra torches: Torch rating increases by 2 for each point of Encumbrance. This increases Fatigue as normal, and does not decrease as the torches are consumed.
The heroes may need to or want to Craft their own torches:
- On a failure, the torches are poorly made and anemic, and the starting score is only one times Fellowship size
- On a normal success Torch is calculated normally.
- On a Great Success, the starting score is increased by 2, and on an Extraordinary Success by 4.
If the companions possess an oil lamp or lantern, whenever an Eye of Sauron is rolled on a skill test, that player may make a Craft test: on a success, no torch is lost.
Whenever Torch rating is below a hero’s Shadow score, that hero is considered Miserable. Durin’s Way or the Tunneling trait grant immunity to this condition.
Alternate Rule: when Torch is not greater than Plight, all heroes are considered Weary when making Wisdom or Valour rolls. Durin's Way and Tunneling still grant immunity. Better?
When Torch reaches zero, the heroes are in Darkness and are considered Severely Hindered in combat, and suffer +4 to TNs for all Movement, Perception, and Survival skill tests. Durin’s Way or Tunneling trait halve these penalties.
Hazards
As mentioned above, there are two kinds of Hazards: normal Hazards and Optional Hazards. Many or most Hazards can be of either category, and thus can be used for either situation. For example, for a normal Hazard the party may find itself in the middle of sticky spider webs, requiring Stealth or Awareness rolls to wend safely through them without getting stuck, whereas in an optional Hazard they may see a corridor filled with the same webs, and opt to not go that way.
When a Hazard is encountered, the player first rolls a single Feat die. An Eye of Sauron indicates a specific, particularly bad Hazard. A Gandalf indicates a specific, surprisingly beneficial Hazard. (Details vary depending on whether it’s a group or individual Hazard; see "Special Hazards", below.)
In general Hazards correlate to the type of Delving test that was faced. That is, when it’s a challenge of the Body (the party rolled Explore for their Delving test) the Hazard will generally require the use of Body common skills, and/or have consequences affecting the Body...Fatigue, Wounds, etc. Similarly for Heart and Wits. Instead of creating rigid tables, the LM is free to pick appropriate Hazards from the default list, or from new Hazards created for specific delves, or to improvise on the spot. (Examples to follow...eventually.)
Unlike Journey Hazards, Delving Hazards generally do not require a specific hero to make a skill test. In fact, many of them will require the whole company to make skill tests: overcoming fear, leaping a chasm, sneaking past sleeping spiders, etc.
Special Hazards (on Eye of Sauron or Gandalf)
Group Hazards
Eye of Sauron: Delved Too Deep: Question: any good ideas for something appropriately bad here, that is categorically different from the other Hazards?
Gandalf: Unexpected Party: when this occurs, the party stumbles across unexpected succor, although usually still requiring a skill test. Perhaps a locked door must be opened to retrieve some torches and provide a safe place to rest, or a room might be recognized with a Lore roll, decreasing Plight.
Individual Hazards
Eye of Sauron: Left Behind: when this occurs, the companion is Separated from his party. Normally this is not a big deal, as his absence is soon noticed and the party rejoins, perhaps with a slight loss of time. However, if the individual is currently Miserable and thus has triggered a Bout of Madness with his terribad Fatigue check, or perhaps if the party is due for a Revelation episode, then things can be much worse. Think of Bilbo tumbling off into the darkness in the goblin tunnels and getting knocked out. What does he do...stay put and wait for rescue, try to find his friends, or just look for a way out? What does the main group do? Question: any ideas for elegant mechanics here?
Gandalf: “What Have I Got in My Pocket?” The hero puts his hand on something in the dark, which turns out to be an item that’s beneficial in a minor way. Perhaps a torch, or a key whose purpose will be revealed, or simply a silver coin. But if the hero is also suffering from at least one of: Miserable, Weary, Poisoned, Wounded, Separated, and/or in the Darkness, treat the find as a T* trove and allow a single roll of the Feat die to determine if magical treasure is found. If a Gandalf or Eye of Sauron is rolled, the hero may then roll Success dice as normal, with the restriction that he may not choose to roll more dice than the number of aforementioned conditions under which he suffers. (E.g., if he is Weary and Wounded, Separated, and in the Darkness, he can roll up to 4 dice.)
Adversaries
There are no “wandering monsters” implicit in the Hazards. Rather, this is where the Eye of Mordor rules in Rivendell come into play. Delving involves a rather lot of dice rolling, and is generally undertaken by advanced heroes, in dark places. Therefore there will be an awful lot of Revelation episodes.
Hazards will all (or mostly) include notes on how to “upgrade” them to account for Revelation episodes. A normal Wits Hazard might result in the heroes seeing their own tracks on the floor as they realize they are going in circles. The same Hazard with a Revelation episode may involve an extra set of unfamiliar tracks. A normal Body Hazard might require an Athletics test to squeeze through a narrow gap. The same Hazard with a Revelation episode might have a slavering beast appear just as the middle hero fails his roll and gets stuck. Etc.
- Modified rule for Plight >= Torch condition
- AngelAlex's suggestion for Group Hazard name adopted...still need mechanics
- Modified rule regarding Durin's Way and Tunneling on Delving tests.
- Added two rules for reducing Plight
Here is my latest pass at rules for Delving. This is the relatively fluff-free version; When I finally get the rules nailed down I'll add descriptive language, quotes from the texts, tables, etc.
I tried to incorporate and honor applicable rules found in both Tales from Wilderland and Rivendell.
It still feels like a lot of dice rolling, but this is as lean as I could get it while still incorporating all the factors that I think make for a great dungeon crawl, in (what I hope is) the TOR style.
Feedback of all sorts welcome, including (especially?) on terminology.
Delving Tests
Delving is the art of exploring underground realms. These rules are meant to allow LMs to run vast delving adventures without having to map out every twist and turn, chamber and cavern, while still conveying a sense of epic scale and (more importantly) epic terror to the players.
In general, Delving requires heros to accumulate successes at certain common skills, although unlike normal sustained tests the skills tested will probably vary. Each leg of a delve, between plot points prepared by the LM, requires a defined number of successes at a specific TN. Each individual roll represents a challenge to the fellowship of their Body, their Heart, or their Wits, which translates to a test of Explore, Travel, or Riddle.
For each roll, a single Success die is rolled, with 1-2 indicating a test of Body, a 3-4 indicating a test of Heart, and a 5-6 indicating a test of Wits. (That distribution table might be different for specific Delves.) Each success, e.g. 3 for an Extraordinary Success, count toward the total needed. When the total is reached, the adventurers reach the next plot point.
Following rule has been updated:
When a hero with Durin's Way or the Tunneling trait makes a Delving test in a delve that was created by members of his own culture*, the Feat die is rolled twice and the higher result used. E.g. Dwarves in Moria, Wood Elves in Dol Guldur, or Hobbits in the Lower Dungeons of Brandy Hall. (“Delving test” in this document refers specifically to the Explore, Travel, and Riddle tests made as part of the sustained tests, and does not include tests resulting from Hazards triggered while Delving.)
If all goes perfectly, getting through, say, Moria would require a whole bunch of Success die rolls to determine the types of challenges faced, and a lesser number of Explore, Travel, and Riddle tests, all producing lots of Tengwars.
But things never go perfectly, do they?
Plight
The two adversaries reliably found in every delve are darkness and getting lost. These enemies are represented by two variables: Torches, which despite its name is an abstract measure of their supply of light sources, and Plight, which measures both how lost the heroes are as well as how lost they think they are. (Torches are addressed later.)
Plight ranges from 0 to 10, sometimes but not always starting at zero. Each time the heroes fail a Delving test, Plight increases by one. There is no corollary rule for decreasing Plight: it never goes down automatically. There are two ways for heroes to lower Plight:
1) When Great or Extraordinary Successes are rolled on Delving tests, the player may choose to spend one or more extra successes on reducing Plight instead of counting toward the sustained tests. Reduce Plight by 1 for each success so used.
2) The company may choose to spend points directly from the Fellowship Pool to reduce Plight at a 1:1 ratio.
Additionally, some events in the Delve may, at the LM's discretion, reduce Plight. For example, a successful Lore roll may let a player recognize an historically significant room, giving a sense of where they are.
Question: What's best? #1, #2, or both 1 and 2?
When a Delving test is failed with an Eye of Sauron, Plight increases and a Hazard is triggered. (See Hazards, below.)
When a Delving test succeeds, if the Feat die was less than or equal to current Plight, a Hazard is also triggered, but it is optional: the heroes may, if they choose, avoid the Hazard and look for another route. Doing so increases the number of successes needed for the sustained tests by one.
Fatigue and Individual Hazards
In addition to increasing Plight, whenever a Delving test is failed all companions make a Fatigue (Travel) check. Fatigue only increases by 1 for each failure while Delving, regardless of season outside, as it represents the emotional burden of being trapped underground in the dark as much or more than physical exertion.
When Fatigue checks are failed with an Eye, the hero triggers an Individual Hazard.
Torch Rating
The default starting score for Torch rating is 2 times the size of the Fellowship, roughly approximating each member carrying two torches. Any time any companion rolls an Eye of Sauron on a common skill test, deduct one from the score. Spending a point of Hope negates this loss.
There are some ways to modify this:
Individual heroes may choose to carry extra torches: Torch rating increases by 2 for each point of Encumbrance. This increases Fatigue as normal, and does not decrease as the torches are consumed.
The heroes may need to or want to Craft their own torches:
- On a failure, the torches are poorly made and anemic, and the starting score is only one times Fellowship size
- On a normal success Torch is calculated normally.
- On a Great Success, the starting score is increased by 2, and on an Extraordinary Success by 4.
If the companions possess an oil lamp or lantern, whenever an Eye of Sauron is rolled on a skill test, that player may make a Craft test: on a success, no torch is lost.
Whenever Torch rating is below a hero’s Shadow score, that hero is considered Miserable. Durin’s Way or the Tunneling trait grant immunity to this condition.
Alternate Rule: when Torch is not greater than Plight, all heroes are considered Weary when making Wisdom or Valour rolls. Durin's Way and Tunneling still grant immunity. Better?
When Torch reaches zero, the heroes are in Darkness and are considered Severely Hindered in combat, and suffer +4 to TNs for all Movement, Perception, and Survival skill tests. Durin’s Way or Tunneling trait halve these penalties.
Hazards
As mentioned above, there are two kinds of Hazards: normal Hazards and Optional Hazards. Many or most Hazards can be of either category, and thus can be used for either situation. For example, for a normal Hazard the party may find itself in the middle of sticky spider webs, requiring Stealth or Awareness rolls to wend safely through them without getting stuck, whereas in an optional Hazard they may see a corridor filled with the same webs, and opt to not go that way.
When a Hazard is encountered, the player first rolls a single Feat die. An Eye of Sauron indicates a specific, particularly bad Hazard. A Gandalf indicates a specific, surprisingly beneficial Hazard. (Details vary depending on whether it’s a group or individual Hazard; see "Special Hazards", below.)
In general Hazards correlate to the type of Delving test that was faced. That is, when it’s a challenge of the Body (the party rolled Explore for their Delving test) the Hazard will generally require the use of Body common skills, and/or have consequences affecting the Body...Fatigue, Wounds, etc. Similarly for Heart and Wits. Instead of creating rigid tables, the LM is free to pick appropriate Hazards from the default list, or from new Hazards created for specific delves, or to improvise on the spot. (Examples to follow...eventually.)
Unlike Journey Hazards, Delving Hazards generally do not require a specific hero to make a skill test. In fact, many of them will require the whole company to make skill tests: overcoming fear, leaping a chasm, sneaking past sleeping spiders, etc.
Special Hazards (on Eye of Sauron or Gandalf)
Group Hazards
Eye of Sauron: Delved Too Deep: Question: any good ideas for something appropriately bad here, that is categorically different from the other Hazards?
Gandalf: Unexpected Party: when this occurs, the party stumbles across unexpected succor, although usually still requiring a skill test. Perhaps a locked door must be opened to retrieve some torches and provide a safe place to rest, or a room might be recognized with a Lore roll, decreasing Plight.
Individual Hazards
Eye of Sauron: Left Behind: when this occurs, the companion is Separated from his party. Normally this is not a big deal, as his absence is soon noticed and the party rejoins, perhaps with a slight loss of time. However, if the individual is currently Miserable and thus has triggered a Bout of Madness with his terribad Fatigue check, or perhaps if the party is due for a Revelation episode, then things can be much worse. Think of Bilbo tumbling off into the darkness in the goblin tunnels and getting knocked out. What does he do...stay put and wait for rescue, try to find his friends, or just look for a way out? What does the main group do? Question: any ideas for elegant mechanics here?
Gandalf: “What Have I Got in My Pocket?” The hero puts his hand on something in the dark, which turns out to be an item that’s beneficial in a minor way. Perhaps a torch, or a key whose purpose will be revealed, or simply a silver coin. But if the hero is also suffering from at least one of: Miserable, Weary, Poisoned, Wounded, Separated, and/or in the Darkness, treat the find as a T* trove and allow a single roll of the Feat die to determine if magical treasure is found. If a Gandalf or Eye of Sauron is rolled, the hero may then roll Success dice as normal, with the restriction that he may not choose to roll more dice than the number of aforementioned conditions under which he suffers. (E.g., if he is Weary and Wounded, Separated, and in the Darkness, he can roll up to 4 dice.)
Adversaries
There are no “wandering monsters” implicit in the Hazards. Rather, this is where the Eye of Mordor rules in Rivendell come into play. Delving involves a rather lot of dice rolling, and is generally undertaken by advanced heroes, in dark places. Therefore there will be an awful lot of Revelation episodes.
Hazards will all (or mostly) include notes on how to “upgrade” them to account for Revelation episodes. A normal Wits Hazard might result in the heroes seeing their own tracks on the floor as they realize they are going in circles. The same Hazard with a Revelation episode may involve an extra set of unfamiliar tracks. A normal Body Hazard might require an Athletics test to squeeze through a narrow gap. The same Hazard with a Revelation episode might have a slavering beast appear just as the middle hero fails his roll and gets stuck. Etc.
