an old school dnd er from 1980, time off for life and now back since 2021...holy crap soo much to catch up on humble beginnings of my Swords and Stones ttrpg content...and maybe an occasional vid on other game books, and game stuffs have patience as im not very comfortable being on camera, so most of my vids will not feature my face, maybe one day
Some encounters should be fled. If you have a campaign that doesn't have an encounter that will kill the players unless they run, I think you have removed the danger of death which is part of the fun of playing. Every player character should be one encounter away from potential death. Not having encounters that overwhelm the PCS robs them of the joy of coming back 5 levels later and trashing that SOB 🤣. In your example, I would have the beholder at full power full hit points and full abilities. I would however telegraph its presence so that the player character can choose to avoid it if they are paying attention and role-playing.
@crappphone7744 If playing regular dnd then yes absolutely to what you mention. In my game however things happen a bit different. 🙃 but ya players learn to recognize that they prob shouldnt pursue combat every encounter if they want their pc to continue to live
@RIVERSRPGChannel Its a pretty simple game set up which i like There is more info through out the pdf about how to run hirlings, npcs, create cities, etc. Theres a bestiary and random monster tables So lots if info to use On its own the game of knave is cool, got a fair bit of inspiration for my own game from it. This book though i will use as an encounter building book of tables for my game. Cheers Thanks for watching bud
one thing i forgot to mention is that when using a melee weapon you add your strength modifier to the D20. If attacking with a range weapon, bow and arrows or throwing a weapon like a spear or axe, you would add your dexterity mod to the D20 roll. When the npc or monster rolls a nat.20 on the attack, you take full damage without deductions even if you make your defense roll. so you could still be killed depending on what your hp is at.
also if you are not level 4 and havent chosen the spell skill as an advanced skill, then as soon as you use a spell stone it is done, have to find another, same works for heal stones
if an attacker, either the PC or NPC fails the attack roll, no need to roll damage for the defender. basically means the defender avoids the attack. if the PC rolls a NAT 1 on defense, you add an additional D6 to the attackers damage, which could kill the PC, if the NPC rolls a nat 1 on defense the same applies, full damage for whatever level and an additional 1D6 so this could easily kill that critter.
an added note about the use of healing stones, when you successfully are able to use it, then you roll 1D4 and add your constitution mod to get the number of hp back, for a possible max of 10.
for magical weapons damage, it is the weapon damage die, your level damage die, plus one D4, so if you are 5th level, you find a magical sword [insert whatever magic it might do] you roll a good attack, you roll 1D8 [weapon damage] 3D6 [level damage] and 1D4 for additional magical damage.....boom! if you roll the max this could be a total of 30 points of damage!! at 5th level monsters have up to 32 hp so that could almost wipe them out in one roll! on the other hand the NPC / monster also rolls 3D6 damage so PCs can have up to 34 HP, so your PC could also die!
ok so i watched this vid and timed myself rolling up the character, paused during the spots where i was describing how something works etc. and total time to roll a character in Swords 'n' Stones was 5 minutes 20 seconds :) this will vary depending on how much you chat while you are doing this and if you spend time on your back story details but for the most part a mere five minutes to just roll up the character and fill out the sheet. not too bad if i say so myself :)
