Optional Spell Points variant

The default rule of Dungeon World is that Wizards can just cast a certain number of spell levels (Level+1) Clerics can Commune for the same number of spells, and everyone else in Core operates under the assumptions of any spells they chose for Multiclass Moves. It is with that in mind that I give you

Empowered Spellcasting

Replaces Commune or Prepare Spells

Instead of having to pray for spells or prepare spells, now you do that with Spell Points. You are not shoehorned into a restriction of which spells you can cast on any particular day, merely how many spell points you have. There are a few options here depending on what your GM wants to use

Eqivalent Spell Power

You get Level+1 Spell Points that you can spend as desired.

Attribute Based

You get Level+(Casting Attribute), where Casting Attribute for Clerics and Disciple (Class Warfare) based casters is +Wis, Casting Attribute for Wizards and appropriate Magician (Class Warfare) based casters is +Int, and Casting Attribute for Bards and other Magician (Class Warfare) casters is +Cha.

High Power

You get Level*Casting Attribute Spell Points.

Risks

As per normal spellcasting, there are risks associated with the amount of energy you spent to cast the spell. In this system it works differently. A badly cast spell generates a number of risk equal to its level. So a 3rd level miscast spell generates 3 points worth of effects

Variable

• Forget the Spell: Doesn't happen. You know the spells you know and that's it. You merely lose additional spell points, reducing risk by a point per Risk reduced.
• Let's Make a Deal: You are contacted by a powerful, potentially corrupting, entity. This removes all Risk Points your last failure or 7-9 generated.

1 point

• Unwanted Attention: A single Horde tagged creature appropriate to the spell or the area arrives. before your next turn.
• -1 to Cast: This lasts a number of your turns equal to the spell's Level

2 Points

• Unwanted Attention: A single Group tagged creature appropriate to the spell or the area arrives.before your next turn.
• Valuables are Damaged: When you roll Treasure, reduce the number of rolls you make by -1, or assume the value or amount of goods in a roll with a value or amount is halved.

3 Points

• Unwanted Attention: A single Solitary tagged creature appropriate to the spell or the area arrives before your next turn
• Environmental Effects: Everyone should Defy Danger for the remainder of Combat before they can make Hack and Slash attempts. If damage is to be had, the amount is either the Caster's Base Damage (possibly with added moves) or the Spell Damage, whichever is better. 

4+

Mix and Match: Choose effects from lower point value entries in combination with each other.

Backwards Compatibility

Some of the Risks are appropriate choices for 7-9 or 6- in games that don't otherwise use the rule.

Generating a random dungeon in DW with Tarot

This reddit post suggests you can draw tarot cards to make a dungeon, but doesn't provide much in the way of guidelines to finish it off. In Dungeon World, it could be fair to assume the same thing about dungeons that you do about treasure. That they are related to the damage dice of the enemy. Damage dice in dungeon world are very small. I don't recall seeing anything bigger than (b[2d12+9] damage, which I duplicated on the Dungeon World Codex). The average dungeon befitting a boss monster with just such damage would be 6.5+9 or 15.5. Call it 16 since it's the better of two rolls. Another example, the bandit king (b[2d10]), would be probably about a 6 room dungeon. You can toy with it too. Goblins might not have half the damage roll in dungeon rooms, and a Noble who has a Knight probably has twice the Knight's damage roll of rooms in his castle.

Gashes: An Alternate take on HP

From a redditor: 

I’m not about this stressing over games business. I think it’s completely valid to just wing it. [...]
Let’s say my immolator gets a 6. I don’t mark health points, I just tell him you’ve got a decent cut on your leg. My thing is to just make it believable. So you can’t take a ton of gashes and just be ok, but other than that, health is totally in the fiction.

So I know people like and take comfort in knowing their HP, and I told them so, but I had another redditor bring up Defy Danger. On the G+ community, there are a lot of people who don't like Deal Damage As Established as a move. And of course, this player doesn't really like HP. This got me thinking about medical states (good, fair, serious, critical, dead)

When you have have not been injured, you are in Good Condition +(CON-gashes)

If you suffer up to +CON gashes, you are in Fair condition (-1)

If you suffer up to twice +CON gashes, you are in Serious condition (-2)

Anything more is Critical condition (-3)

Endure Punishment

When you take a hit or worsen an injury through vigorous activity, roll +Condition. *On a 10+, you're fine and can continue. *On 7-9 take 1 more gash. On 6- you're out. What this means depends mostly on your Condition. At Fair you are merely unconscious. At Serious or worse, take your Last Breath.

Armor
Keep rolling damage normally. Use the damage value to find out if damage exceeds armor. If it does, a gash is scored. If it doesn't, nothing happens.

Getting Bogged Down
Wounds in real life don't really get reflected in games that have HP. If you would like for wounds to have impact, if you are Fair or worse, add +Condition to any +STR, DEX, CON or WIS rolls.

Monster Gashes
A monster can take 1 gash per 8 HP rounding down (so the Apocalypse Dragon {26 HP} can take 3 gashes if you can find a way to gash it).
A monster can deal 1 gash for every 8 average damage it can do rounded up. Add a gash for using b[2d6] or higher.

Recovery
Healing Magic
Whenever someone casts a Cure spell or uses a move like Lay On Hands, each d8 they heal counts as one condition state (e.g. healing from Critical to Serious, Serious to Fair, or Fair to Good)

Recover Move
Normally this heals you in full, but this change itself is evocative of a far grittier game, and as a result, you can say that each day using the Recover move only heals one condition state.

A Change in Bonds

In pbp, DW and other Apocalypse World Engine games tend to die with Bonds. So the idea I randomly had is to reconstruct how Bonds work.

Firstly, there's a bit of inconsistency with the DW Core rule:

Fill in the name of one of your companions in at least one

and Class Warfare, which specifies each Archetype as having a set number of bonds.

Personally I don't really like either rule--because I don't get the logic--and there's that problem about PbP games I mentioned. So I propose the following Caveat:

• Players get bonds equal to Level+CHA (minimum 1) which they can come up with in play. (this becomes part of the Level Up move)
• Other than your Level+CHA you have no restriction on how many bonds you can spend on one subject.
• Players are not initially restricted to bonds specified for their Playbook/Class Warfare build, so long as they write their own build in a way that fits the concept. OF course in order to preserve what I assume DW intended as balance, fitting the concept is subject to the group's collective opinion.
• Players may spend bonds on the world representing events that have happened in game. (that's right, I like the idea of players being more and more connected to the world in a statistical way.)
• If it exceeds +CHA or +1 per 100 coins spent, they can use it in relevant situations.

The reason for explicitly stating you can spend any number of bonds you want on the same subject is because I've never explicitly seen it stated (though rules implied) and I've never played in a group that used more than one bond on an individual. The last bullet point is for situations that come up a lot in my game where the players saved a town from a massive horde, and they get amnesty/favors returned/wenches.

Abstracting Coins

Someone on reddit made me think about not keeping up with specific amounts of coins. They thought of using coins as a sort of +Wealth. The values I thought of for +Wealth were as follows:

+3: A chest of riches

+2: A giant sack of loot

+1: A few coin purses

+0: A small purse

-1: Some dusty old coppers.

You could give them a wt. score equal to their respective score. Then instead of specifying an amount, you can let players lower their +Wealth by one or more to get a bonus to a Carouse, Parley, Recruit, or Supply roll.

For Carouse, sacrifice 1 point to get the full bonus associated with the old level of wealth
For Parley or Supply roll Wealth as noted below
For Recruit you only sacrifice Wealth if their Cost is Money. Otherwise roll Wealth as noted below

If you have them roll +Wealth, use the following results

10+: They get the thing without lowering their wealth or having another incident

7-9: They get the thing but pick one:

• take -1 wealth
• the item is contraband, inferior, or stolen

6-: They get the thing and

• Lose 2 wealth 
• Just kidding, they don't get the thing, but lose -1 wealth anyway (such as by a finder's fee, a local ordinance levying fines against the intended purchase, and so on)
• must do a favor for the seller
• must steal the item

Abstract Warrants
So you've done something against the law, or something that pissed off the powers that be, but might not have been against the actual law... Whenever you have this sort of charges against you if a bounty is to be levied you need to know how many points of wealth you need to even be able to make a roll to pay off any bounty, or fine The list below is a start but is by no means complete:

+0: Minor Assault, Petty theft, Negligence
+1: Battery, Burglary, unarmed Robbery, Swindling
+2: Manslaughter, Impersonating a higher social status, Lewd Behavior
+3: Murder, Theft of extremely valuable property (such as a horse, or the keys and deed to a house), Rape

Weight and Loot

The +Wealth level of  whatever you have for positive values also corresponds to its weight. For the purposes of load, Wealth from 0 to 3 has Load 1 per point, while -1 has Load of .1.

Starting with Abstract Loot
Characters whose playbooks canonically suggest they have any coins (up to about 50 or so) should start with +0.

If they're playing something custom like a Class Warfare build or unofficial playbook that gives them up to 100 coins, they can start with +1 (300=+2, 900=+3). 

Otherwise they will -1

Gaining Abstract Loot

The easiest abstraction of increasing loot would be the rule of threes

Some Dusty old coppers>A handful of dusty old coppers>A lot of dusty old coppers>

A small purse>Two small purses> Three small purses>

A few coin purses>Several coin purses>Many coinpurses>

A giant sack of loot>Two "">Three ""

From a chest of riches, keeping track further seems futile, but it could be fair to say that 3 chests generates "A small hoard". For the purposes of A Whole Damn Army, Resources is increased by 1 point for a small hoard. Beyond that, each additional larger size (Medium, Large, Huge) is an additional Resource point.

Steading Prosperity and Abstract Coins

Dirt: This town won't sell you anything worth more than 5 core coins. (-1)

Poor: One person in the town can sell you something up to 25 core coins. (+0)

Moderate: Less than 10 people can sell you up to 100 core coins worth of stuff. (+1)

Wealthy: Any merchant can sell you up to 100 core coins worth of stuff, one can sell you up to 300 coins worth of stuff. (+2)

Rich: Anything of any value is probably here, but in order to preserve magic items, you may find one specific item in such a place if it has been explicitly mentioned in the fiction. (+3)

Real Estate

A Cottage is 500 coins in the core rules. As per Gaining Abstract Loot, it takes 3 units of a wealth level to move up to the next. As per the starting rules, it takes either A giant sack of loot, + 2 chests of riches, or simply reducing Wealth by 2 points to just buy a cottage. For simplicity, I'll just say how much the party's total wealth needs to be reduced to purchase a particular housing unit

House/Land     Wealth Reduction total         Upkeep

Hovel          A small purse                  N/A

Cottage        2 chests                       a small coinpurse

House          8 chests and a giant sack      a few coinpurses

Mansion        166 chests and 2 giant sacks   1 chest, 2 giant sacks

Keep           250 chests                     2 chests, 2 giant sacks

Castle         833 chests and a giant sack    8 chests, 1 giant sack

Grand Castle   3,334 chests                   33 chests, 1 giant sack

Upkeep

1% upkeep may be difficult to track with this system. so we match 5 coins (the upkeep on a 500 coin cottage) to a small coinpurse. Since that's 1% of 2 chests, we go from there

Haggling

A group of adventurers can pool their resources, and negotiate with Charisma, reducing the price accordingly. The highest charisma score can reduce the cost of the real estate by the Upkeep per point of Charisma, rounded up to the biggest unit (e.g. 8 to 18 small coinpurses for a cottage, 16 to 36 chests for a mansion, 272 to 612 chests for a Grand Castle). It's up to the GM whether this in turn reduces the upkeep based on the haggled price as well. 

A Whole Damn Army Simplified

I have discovered a shortcut for making Group/Horde monsters into A Whole Damn Army of its own

If two questions would grant the same tag don’t worry about it. If you like you can adjust damage or HP by 2 to reflect the tag that would be repeated, but it’s not necessary.

What I'm about to tell you is strictly not RAW... but it is simple. You ready for it? Here Goes:

Take any Core example monster of Horde or Group organization sizes and add 1 instance of Uncanny Endurance (+4 HP) for every multiple of the party's number. So a party of 4-5 members fights a horde of 50 whatever as if it had 10-12 levels of Uncanny Endurance.

If they number more than 50 or so, you should probably also add Huge since a platoon is roughly 4 squads of 10. That and 50 people probably don't fit into a house. This addition is optional though.

For the purposes of Damage From Multiple Creatures, add +1 per Uncanny Endurance (equal to +1 per multiple of the party's population) rather than one per individual monster. If the party has allies that make the ratio smaller, don't increase damage as much as normal (to reflect the fact that some of the damage goes to the players' allies). So for example, in the above 10-12 levels of uncanny endurance, the party would take the full +(levels) of damage if they were the only combatants. If they had 20 allies though, the ratio is 2/5 so players would take +4 damage instead of +12.

Backstab: What I don't like about it and how I "fixed" it.

Let me just say it's not a bad move, but it has a few problems that don't really jive well with my idea of the fiction, and how I think thieves should work. Here's the default rule:

When you attack a surprised or defenseless enemy with a melee weapon, you can choose to deal your damage or roll+DEX. *On a 10+ choose two. *On a 7–9 choose one.

• You don’t get into melee with them
• You deal your damage+1d6 
• You create an advantage, +1 forward to you or an ally acting on it
• Reduce their armor by 1 until they repair it 
• Use a bit of gear for another effect that fits within the fiction

What got me even thinking about it in the first place is a player asked me [sic] "would that provide any bonus? sneaking around attacking a creature from its opposite flank? or would it be just the same as running up and punching it in its smug face?" Initially, I couldn't really answer the question, or at least didn't answer it correctly.

I said no, DW doesn't do that per se, your situational bonuses are in moves. But then I read closer "you create an advantage, +1 forward (etc)." Alright, that's all well and good, but they rightly pointed out "surprised and defenseless". So it dawned on me that the onus is upon me to determine every time whether a foe is surprised and/or defenseless, and I thought the way to do that was Defy Danger. I didn't like that.

Next there was "you can choose to deal your damage or roll +Dex", then choose 1-2 options, one of which is damage with a bonus, and a couple others have nothing to do with hitting anyone. So I  removed the redundant option, and wrote the following "replacement" move for use in my games:

Skullduggery

When you engage in tricky underhanded tactics, roll+Something*. *On a 10+ choose 3 different options. *On a 7-9 choose 2.

• You don’t get into melee with them
• You deal your damage+1d6
• You create an advantage, +1 forward to you or an ally acting on it
• Reduce their armor by 1 until they repair it(edited)

*Depends on how you describe the tactics.

It removes the need for me as a GM to define if the opponent is surprised (that can be an assumption behind "tricky underhanded tactics", but it doesn't have to be) and make the player roll Defy Danger. It doesn't force the player to strike immediately, and allows them to represent flanking or planning as appropriate with +1 forward. And finally, I prefer "choose 3/choose 2" over "choose 2/choose 1"

Is it broken? Probably, but I thought Backstab was broken in the other way (in being too narrowly defined).

Dragging a Corpse

RPG characters die or are knocked out a lot. In DW, there isn't really much in the way of unconsciousness either. At 0 HP you roll to see if you take your Last Breath. If you win, you're alive, and if you lose, you die. So what happens if part of the bargain is that you're unconscious. and your friends have to drag you to safety? What follows is copied over from here but usable by people who don't care about wench vital statistics.

Ned's Head has Weight 1 (because DW doesn't care about lbs, this is somewhat abstract). After a bit of a wiki-walk, and some Google Fu, I find that there are a number of both medical and non-medical consensus that indicate a head weighing between 4500 grams, and 6500 grams. It would not be unreasonable to assume 10-15 lbs is fair (and wt 0 items are below 5 lbs). a study in 1983 said that the head itself was about 8% of a body's weight. 8% is about 1/12th, so we can assume humans are base Weight 12. Given that, we can assume the following: 

• A dwarf is weight 12.
• An Elf is weight 10.
• A Halfling is weight 6. Though I haven't seen them, gnomes are fairly traditional in gaming, so if your game has them, a gnome is weight 5.
• An Orc is considered to be 15 weight rather than 12.
• Add +Str.
• Multiply Weight by 1d6+9 (which is a number between 10 and 15) to get lbs.

A minor note on Load
I've noticed that using a normal range of Load scores (6-12 plus +STR) would make it difficult for even the strongest party member to carry back anyone who died and any gear if using the +stat rather than the score. With that in mind, a fighter would have up to 30 Load with 18 Strength. It's actually pretty standard in a great number of RPGs for a 18 STR equivalent to have a maximum carry weight between 300 and 450 lbs. If you use +Stat instead, Fighters max out at 15 Load, which is only 150-225 lbs. Use whichever you prefer, I'm gonna use Strength SCORE+x

A Whole Damn Imperium

Conscripting a Whole Damn Army

It takes at least a City of Steady Population to conscript A Whole Damn Army, while a Steady Keep can conscript a Whole Damn Battalion, and a Steady Town can conscript a Whole Damn Platoon. If a population is better than steady, you can raise it in a steading one step smaller. Whenever they mobilize, the steading reduces in size by one step. If it is worse than steady, you need a steading one step larger. These conscripts are “Green” until they are trained and maintained They have -7 HP and deal (w[2d6+whatever] damage) no piercing, since they are not seasoned veterans. Also if they have no notable commander, they don’t add +whatever, it’s just w[2d6]. These statistics are modified as per Fortified Superiority if applicable.

Guard Forces

A Whole Damn Army is the equivalent of Legion Defenses, a Battalion is Battalion, and a Platoon is Garrison Defenses. Guard Defenses or less are not worth representing with A Whole Damn military unit (at least not without conscription above). If an army has trained for a season, or been to more than 3 real battles, they are no longer considered “Green”.

Collapse

You can militarily cause a steading to shrink based on its “Conscription” statistics as well. For example, if you have a Whole Damn Platoon, you need a steady town. A Whole Damn Platoon only gets 15 HP, but a conscripted one from a town only has 8 HP (and deals the worst damage roll as noted above). If any city has been reduced to 0 HP, it becomes a village in exodus. If they surrender beforehand, they are reduced to a size appropriate to their HP (benchmarks of 8, 15, and 23 HP, modified by Fortified). Prosperity is reduced a similar number of steps.

Want

When a steading is pressed to provide for an army larger than they could conscript other than their Defenses indicate, they gain Want (military and adventuring goods) and reduce prosperity by one step.

Resources (Everything from here down is Optional)

By default, a Whole Damn Army has far less stability than a steading due to not really having much in the way of consistent trade. They take what they can, and consume it. This is represented by Resources. By default resources are +0. You gain resources by lowering the Prosperity of a city (1 point for every step in reduction, and 1 point per every lost Resource), or by winning a battle against another army. Divide HP by 5 to determine how many points of Resources you get. for a steading of Moderate Prosperity. Add or subtract 1 per level of Prosperity deviating from that. “An orc warchief’s tribute” is reasonably 1 point of Resources.  Resources increase by about a point for every factor of 10 above that. You can spend Resources after battle to gain the following:

• +2 HP in the form of new recruits, healing supplies from the infirmary, and so on. (For every +6 HP gained, you can add an additional move (or 5 if you want to go with the original rule, 5 HP))
• +1 piercing damage for the whole of the next battle costs 2 Resource points.

Multiple Resource Coin Value
Whenever you are attacking a group of targets with multiple resource values, you don't add them up to determine the cash value of your earnings for the battle. For example, in a fight against a 6 Resource Whole Damn Army and a city of conscripts (22 HP or 4 Resource) you don't gain 10 Resource. You would need four 6 Resource Point  sources to have the fight be worth 7 Resource (it takes 4 250s to get to 1,000, 4 2,500s to get to 10,000 and so on). It would be fair to say that if you fight any fight involving a force of one level lower than your own, you gain 1 Resource (though not mathematically accurate). If the force is 2 points lower than yours, you need to fight two such forces to gain a point (again, fair but not mathematically accurate) and so on.

Opportunity

The normal rule for opportunity states: 

Subtract the distance (in rations) between the steadings from the steading with enmity’s defenses. If the result is greater than the other steading’s defenses +defense for each step of size difference (village to town, town to keep, keep to city) they definitely attack.

Under these rules, subtract the distance in Resources between the steadings instead to determine if a force will attack. If the distance is greater than the resources, the attacking force loses 2 HP per additional needed Resource.

Surplus and Settling Down

A Whole Damn Army can use resources once the war is over to set up a steading. They gain the default steading appropriate to their army size plus 1 tag per point of resource they spend to advance the steading. 

Commanding a Whole Damn Army

So I recently made a blog and G+ post about size, tactics, and morale of military units in light of my Whole Damn Army creature. A question was posed "Do you see this as characters interacting with GM controlled armies, or allowing players to control armies as well?" in the context of me potentially making a book out of mass combats in Dungeon World. So I while I'm still not sure I want to create a whole book about mass combat, the idea was intriguing to discern the difference between a GM move and a player move as the distinction is relevant. Consider the moster as written, a pile of GM moves. Player moves are going to be based on different assumptions of GM moves.

Damage
As a GM move- Wall of Steel deals (b[2d6+7] damage, 1 piercing). This assumes a couple of things

1) a soldier deals 1d6 damage, so a group of them deals the best of 2d6

2) with enough adversaries at least one of them will get through for 1 piercing

3) The unit will be lead by a fairly reliable character equivalent in combat to a knight who deals (b[2d10] damage), so it's reasonable to attribute the +7 to the Knight. We can assume a knight probably has some score of 14 (reserving 16 for PCs), which means a modifier of +1. Because the knight swings the better of 2d10s, we assume an average of a 5 and a 6 and use that to come to +7. A leader that leads through fear and Intimidation could use STR, one who uses charm and likability uses CHA, one who uses superior memory of military history, and actively being educated uses INT, and one who has a "feel" of battle through experience with it uses WIS.

As a Player move- assumptions 1-3 above suggest that a fighter with a d10 should probably get STR of +3 ASAP to get (b[2d6+9] damage, 1 piercing). Other players could progress their optimal score to that point if it's one of the modifiers listed above. Each lower dice type reduces the 9 by a point (meaning d6+3 will hit the NPC Knight at even damage by virtue of taking the better of a 3 and a 4). GMs can also ignore the average and change the damage code for players to (b[2d6+2dx] damage, 1 piercing) where x is the type for your class if he wants really swingy combats.

Hold the Lines

As a GM move- Armies are not afraid of players, but they might be afraid of players' armies. Whether they are afraid of each other is a function of size (a smaller army being afraid of a larger one) and whether they are fanatic or frenzied. 

As a Player Move- Roll Defy Danger Subtract your army's HP from the other army's HP. if negative that means you have a bigger army and are more likely to Defy. Because you are a notable individual, you may add half of your HP to your army's HP for intimidation purposes.

Sound the Reinforcements

As a GM move- Since those reinforcement numbers count as HP, it would be reasonable to say that this recovers 1d8 HP, but a lot of people don't like rolling for GM stuff if they can avoid it so they can use 4 points. This move can be used as many times as appropriate to the fiction

As a Player move- Roll 1d8 to determine how many points each unit heals. You can do this once per unit of reinforcements you narratively have. Remember also that the default Whole Damn Army is 2-3 units, so if you know you have more on the field, HP can go over 30.

• If you have Bardic Song, or can cast a Cure spell as a rote, you may use it on A Whole Damn Army.
• Some moves may also effect healing rate

Racial Tactics

This section will cover a number of moves that players can earn to reflect their race's heritage for war. They are not like racial starting moves, because almost no members of a race are required to be born great tacticians. They can however be learned as starting Racial moves if you have a reason to have war in your background. 

Dwarves

Dwarven Turtle

Dwarf units have shields that can interlock, while also allowing their polearms to protrude slightly. In return for changing damage to (w[2d6+3] damage) they gain +1 armor and can negate Artillery Superiority. This means that a unit with this move can disregard the Ignores Armor and Piercing tags on their opponents' moves.

The Stonefist Gambit

When dwarves following a commander with this move fight with either mountains or a cavern ceiling looming overhead deal +2 damage.

Liquid Courage

When a commander with this move uses a Keg of Dwarven Stout to carouse with his men, he may also heal them for 1d4 HP.

Elves

Elder Guardians

When elves following a commander with this move fight within sight of The Great Forest, they may deal +2 damage

Treetop Striders 

When elves following a commander with this move do battle within The Great Forest, they count as devious, and negate both devious and Engineering Superiority of their opponents. If the commander also has Elder Guardians, that it applies as well.

Mystical Warpaint

There is a plant that grows within The Great Forest that bolsters elven morale. When a commander with this move orders his men to apply it, they are considered to have +4 HP for the purposes of Hold the Line. That is, they cannot be terrified by a unit whose HP isn't 5 more than their own.

Halflings

Don't Disturb the Shire

When halflings following a commander with this move hide in the hilly terrain surrounding their homeland, they are short enough they can ambush for +1d6 damage.

Can't Touch Dis

When halflings are fighting an army whose individual members are Large or Huge, or an actual creature that is Large or Huge, they gain +1 Armor.

Humans

Racist Bastard

Pick another race. Whenever you fight that race, you deal +2 damage. It's probably fair to allow you to pick multiple races for this one, but if you pick very many it may also be fair to assassinate you in your sleep.

Inquisitorial

When you fight an army whose leader's alignment opposes yours, you deal +2 damage. Alternately, if you are a cleric, you may take this bonus against people who are heretical from your god's point of view if the GM and group allow it. It's probably fair to pick multiple religions but if you pick very many it may also be fair to assassinate you in your sleep.

Pincer Maneuver

Whenever you have Engineering or devious units, you do not have to use your +1d6 damage on the first attack.

Orcs and Half Orcs

Berserker

Whenever orcs work themselves into a frenzy before battle, they are considered to have +4 HP for the purposes of Hold the Line. That is, they cannot be terrified by a unit whose HP isn't 5 more than their own. If you are their commander, and you order a retreat, you must Defy Danger to avoid becoming the enemy.

Troll Blood Stew
If a commander with this move has allied with trolls asks them to augment the rations with their restorative blood, he may roll +Stat for the stat used with Wall of Steel. On any 10+ over the course of the next battle, his unit heals 2 HP. (for NPCs, this occurs when the PCs roll 6-).

Race Trained

You may take a move not belonging to your race only if you either have a background of significant time with them, or spend enough in game time that the advance follows logically from the fiction. Statements within the move that refer to the race you chose refer to you.

Relevant Core Rulebook and Class Warfare Moves

Dwarf

When you share a drink with someone, you may parley with them using CON instead of CHA.

Halfling

You sing the healing songs of spring and brook. When you make camp, you and your allies heal +1d6.

When you attack with a ranged weapon, deal +2 damage.

Human

Once per battle you may re-roll a single damage roll (yours or someone else’s).

Mass Combat Revisited: A Whole Damn Army, and subsequent divisions thereof

Because I'd already codified how a large military unit could work with the existing Horde rules and constitute an entire horde rather than giving each soldier statistics here, Curiosity overtook me and I decided to find out what a A Whole Damn Army would look like in the Dungeon World Codex. This led to a posting and a discussion in the Dungeon World Tavern G+ community Some banter expanded the scope of what the Whole Damn Army could do. Once the whole army was ironed out there was further questioning on the line of writing an Army playbook. While I'm not sure I want to do that, the army does deserve something of a closer look. Here goes

Size

A Whole Damn Army should represent at least 1000 soldiers, but reasonably up to 5,000

Morale

A Whole Damn Army is immune to being Terrified by a smaller army (less HP)

Superiority

This article discusses Superiority. Rather than modifying its text, use the rules below

• For mobility superiority, each "doubling" in the original rule provides armor 1
• Armor superiority is only available for units with a default armor above 4. Use their new armor as the base.
• Artillery Superiority has 4 Piercing (or more). The attack doesn't do more damage than normal, just 4 damage blows through armor
• Engineering superiority or other armies with devious may ambush their foes, dealing +1d6 damage on the first attack.
• Fortified armies (those that are garrisoned in a settlement) have several advantages. If they are at least Steady they add +2 HP, and another +2 for each of Growing or Booming. If they are at least a Town, they gain +1 armor, while a Keep gains +2 and a City gains +3. Keeps and cities also have Artillery superiority, while any smaller steading has Ranged and all have Transport. A town or better also has Sound the Reinforcements.

Scaling Down

A Whole Damn Army is an abstraction of 2-3 units plus a commanding officer. It is reasonable to divide them into military units. A Whole Damn Platoon only gets 15 HP, and isn't big enough to Shatter Their Morale. They get one other move of the ones listed. A Whole Damn Battalion gets that move, plus Shatter Their Morale and has 22 HP.

Scaling Up

Having more than 30 HP for any Dungeon Worlds monster was decidedly obnoxious, but it's not unreasonable to give armies over 5000 men one extra move per +5 HP. Even I don't recommend giving any more HP out after you've got all the moves.

If you're interested in playing these, or any of my other Dungeon World ideas, you can join my discord, DW Linky Here!

FF3e Houserules pt. 2

New Abilities
It was suggested to me that I should hack some stuff from FFd6 for use with FF3e. The first one isn't strictly canon FFd6, but it helps to make interesting characters. My Magicite Infused Thief, Rachel would pretty much be impossible without it. Been thinking about redoing her as a Cross Trained Thief/Red Mage. (Some of the abilities have been renamed)

Non-Job Abilities

Cross Trained

Level 8+

Target: Self

Type: Support Ability

Pick a class. The character gains all level 1 abilities of that class, as well as weapon and armor proficiencies, and gain an MP dice if they don't already have one, but retain HP Accuracy, Skill points and Aptitudes, etc. If the new class also gives expertise, the character gains that.

Subtract level when the ability is learned from total level and add 1 to determine effective level for gaining abilities in the new class. For example, if the character learned this ability at 8th level they act as if they are 7 levels lower for determining what abilities they can learn in the second class.

Different Strokes 

 Level 1

Target: Self 

 Type: Support Ability

The character has developed an unusual way of doing some things. Pick two skills. The character may trade the default attribute in those skills for another.

Infinite Arsenal

 Level 1

Target: Self 

 Type: Support Ability

The character is a master of using improvised weapons. If using the standard rules for Improvised Weapons found on p. 190, use the full weapon tier of your default weapon rather than half. If you don't have a default weapon, or are using the houserules I posed above, use full material tier rather than half. Furthermore, you have such an awareness of your situation that whenever an improvised weapon is used up, you can find another as a zero action. This ability can be used as an alternative to the monk's Brawler ability.

Defy Gravity (A New Resistance)
6 Points: Conditions of the Fatal type and Gravity subtype that target the character have their CoS halved after modifying for Evasion or M. Evasion. In addition, the character gains a Skill Affinity for Acrobatics. If the effect includes an ejection, the character is not immune to that effect, and the effect doesn't protect a character who has heavy objects fall on them by virtue of gravity.

Additional Options
This rule inclusion makes certain assumptions of the game world that aren't traditional of FF, but aren't really unheard of either--the effects of gravity.

• Falls from a tall ladder or scaffold are probably equivalent to a Gravity spell.
• Falls from a taller bridge onto a dry riverbed or a fairly high cliff are probably equivalent to a Demi spell.
• Falls off of a mountainside or canyon are at minimum a Quarter effect that Ejects the victim. If the victim survives at all.

Demolisher (Advanced Trait)
Effect: The character's Strength Based weapons count as explosives for the purposes of dealing damage directly to the Durability of structures.
-1 Point (Tied): By spending 1 Key Point, a character can use his weapon's Strength Multiplier in place of Explosives Grade (up to x10 in the interest of maintaining compatibility) to attack the durability of a structure.
+1 Point (Tied): For 1 Key Point, any miss while inside a structure causes damage to it and bits of the structure may start to crumble around the party dealing (usually earth) Elemental damage equal to 10% of their maximum Hit Points for each Round spent in the structure; calculate this damage during the Status Phase.

Objects, Improvised Weapons, and Destruction

Basically I really had to dig for rules. I found that all objects have durability ranging from 1 to 10. I think it's probably fair to use Material Tier for this number.

Regarding scale, it can go from 1 (a trash can or crate) to 30 (large buildings) as an environmental feature, but I'd rather keep this consistent with Size Grades. This can be done by assuming that normally an object uses its longest dimension for Scale, but it can use its smallest dimension if that is significantly lesser (this would the large 4 foot tall trash can made of thin flimsy materials at scale 1 where it won't do any sort of absurd damage)

To advance Size Grade past 10, we can continue where it left off and multiply by 1.25 every time (at least for simplicity sake) and come to these numbers (which are admittedly rounded at my whim)

Scale/Size Grade Measure (in meters)

1           .1

2           .2

3           .4

4           .7

5            1

6            2

7            4

8            8

9            12

10          15

11          18

12          24

13          30

14          36

15          45

16          60

17          70

18          90

19          110

20          140

21          175

22          220

23          275

24          350

25          425

26          535

27          666

28          832

29          1,040

30          1,301

Improvised weapons deal (ScalexAttribute)+xdy where x is 1/2 Durability (Material Tier) and y is either d6 for Size Grade 1-3, d8 for size grades 4-6, d10 for size grade 7, d12 for anything bigger.

Reality Check:

It should be noted that the largest buildings are under about a thousand meters in the real world but nobody cares about that in Final Fantasy. Also, minimum durability should be no less than 1/3 of Size Grade. Note this applies to materials normally of a lower durability too. If a building is Scale 11, but made out of Iron Girders, it should not be tier 1, it should be tier 3 or 4. As well as the same Durability.

Explosives deal damage to Durability directly, based on their tier (1-10) we'll leave that unchanged, although it's noteworthy that if you want to use anything that's... say 1600 meters tall, you should probably try exploding it first.

FF3e Houserules

So back in the day, I used to peruse the giant in the playground forums because I had a strong desire for something different from your standard RPG fare. I looked over everything from houserules for porting existing systems to other uses, to 1km1kt and other 24 hour RPG sites, you name it, I'd give it a once over. I found one on giantitp called FFd6 that said it was based on the idea of simplifying FF3e Both systems are beautiful, but FF3e is complicated, and never had a bestiary. I've been trying to play the game for ages now, but so far I get GMs start a game, and fall flat. Anyway, there's a bit of an abrupt stop in FF3e's rules, so I thought of something they missed as a way of expanding them. (these rules will be crossposted on my discord https://discord.gg/JQ6jTvP)

Limit Breaks

Characters in Final Fantasy are famous for flipping out. They are able to use power beyond the potential of most humans. This ability is often unlocked at dramatic moments. Sometimes it is called Trance, Desperation Attacks, or Overdrive. Nonetheless, FF3e doesn't seem to have a system to replicate this. Or does it?

I noticed that the Monster Creation System has a nifty little XP/Gil Modifier system for creating monster attacks. Since we don't want players to throw limit breaks willy nilly, we need to establish some provisions.

Characters only limit whenever they are in dire situations, or when they have a lot of power to burn. The default rules allow for Key Points to be spent on certain special circumstances. As a result, Limit breaks occur either on a critical hit at 25% HP or less, or with the expenditure of 3 Key Points per level of the break. This is slightly worse than SOS Gain.

Characters limit breaks automatically hit. End of story.

The two modifiers roughly cancel out, and they're always on limit breaks, so those modifiers should be ignored when designing limit breaks.

Now on to the actual building of Limit Breaks. There are two camps that I'm aware of regarding limit break quality and quantity. The first wants 3 limit breaks, the second wants considerably more.

If you want 3, the limit breaks are gained at 15th 30th, and 60th level and are worth "Limit Points" equal 3x the level they are obtained at using the XP Modifier columns.

If you want 6, they are gained at 15th, 30th, 45th, 60th, 75th, and 90th level, and are worth twice the level they are obtained at using the XP Modifier columns.

Appropriate Limit Break Abilities

Attack, as well as any modifiers other than Auto-Hit or SOS Gain.

Add Status

Auto Status (until the end of battle)

Critical Attack

Elemental Absorbance, Immunity, Potency, Resistance (until the end of battle, possibly in conjunction with Weakness)

Imprison

Field Effects

Restore

Status Resistance or Immunity

or Steal Status

Lengthy Limit Breaks:

In doing a bit of research into Slow Actions for incorporating some FFd6 stuff into FF3e, I found out that spells don't seem to have CTs, but do seem as if they might tick off initiative. This is similar to my view of Limit Break cinematics inasmuch as they seem to take a while depending on the game, but nobody can really interfere. It is with this in mind that I make the following suggestion:

If your limit break is worth more than 35 points, it is "Extremely Lengthy" Feel free to be extravagantly lengthy with your description, and throw what you think is more than 1 turn of detail in there (additional details on pp. 188-189)

Advantage Rules

Maximum Advantages

When you make characters, the book suggests you should have a total of 0 or less in Advantages and Disadvantages. This houserule would change that by allowing your starting total to increase by 1 for every 10 levels. With these additional points, you may buy off disadvantages, or purchase additional advantages at the GM's approval.

Vehicles using Animal Companion

As with Animal Companion, Vehicles have 10 points per Advantage Point they are worth. The following Animal Companion features are appropriate for vehicles:

Sentient (2)

Summoned (2)

Packrat (3)

Flying (changed, see below)

Keen Senses (5)

Large (5)

Very Large (10) Extrapolating from this cost, a Multipilot vehicle could feasibly be 20 points

Additionally, vehicles may have the following:

Provides Rest (Varies)

If a vehicle is at least Very Large it can provide rest. A Fitful Rest costs 2 points, a Travel Rest costs 5 points, and a full rest costs 10 points. (This one may be appropriate for hideouts as well)

Combat Statistics

Hit Points/Mana Points-A vehicle has HP as a normal monster with a Hit/Magic Base of 1, 2, 4, or 8 for twice that number of points (e.g. 2, 4, 8, or 16 points). Otherwise, the vehicle just breaks when it breaks.

Calculate Acc, M. Acc, Eva, M. Eva, DEX, and Mind as if the vehicle has the character's attributes.

Armor and M. Armor Base is the same as a monster (.5, 1, 2, 4, or 6) for twice as many points.

Vehicles may purchase Attacks, Action Abilities, Field Effects, Reaction Abilities, and Support Abilities (except Comeback, or Minion) at full price.

Movement Abilities and Spells at half price (round up to the next whole number).

Use the Gil Modifier price to determine their point cost. Typically Boss Abilities are not appropriate for player created vehicles.

Experience

FF3e:
Due to the speed with which they are resolved and the large number of potential ‘safety nets’ players have at their disposal in the event of failure, physical challenges should not yield XP or Gil. Rather, they are best treated as obstacles to be overcome on the way to a greater reward.

That's debatable, but it leaves me context for my next point:

FF3e:
As with physical challenges, overcoming a social challenge rarely yields Gil or XP.

I don't like that. It contributes to a pure hack and slash game. If you have a conversation that has world or region changing ramifications but doesn't result in combat, it should be worth XP.

FF3e:
The effects of failure depend on the stakes; attempting – and failing – to intimidate a powerful political figure, for instance, could well land the entire party in jail indefinitely.

Be that as it may, it's not really a valid reason to disallow the player to gain XP or other rewards where appropriate (and successful). I'll concede that it may not be appropriate all the time (negotiating for a sword never is, nor is 'Roll play' Epically describing what happens on your end may be grounds for an award though).

Where appropriate, an XP or Gil award for a physical or social challenge is worth a little less than a monster: 25 EXP or 10 Gil x level.


Senses
For reference, here is the default rule:

Because FFRPG monsters have no Skills, they cannot use Awareness to spot or track a party. Instead, they use Senses as a When creating the monster, give each of these Senses a Rating from 0 to 100. If a situation arises where one or more party members are using Stealth to sneak by the monster, use the highest rated Sense in place of an Awareness Rating for the Opposed Skill Test to see whether the monster notices. Conditional Modifiers imposed on the characters sneaking by should be appropriate to the monster's primary sense. Wearing camouflage will do nothing to fool a creature using Life sense, for instance – the only way to completely disguise yourself is to cast Zombie.

I don't really buy that monsters not having skills is a good reason for not giving them a default Awareness rating. It would be fair to assume they also have a base 30 awareness to be further modified as follows

Add a number of points equal to the monster's level, so a 1st level monster gets 1 to spend somewhere and a 10th level monster can tweak one or more senses up to a total of 10 points.
You may add points in one sense after that, but should subtract points from another sense.
Alternately, if you aren't sold on base 30, there are 6 senses so you could spread 180+Level points among the senses as you wish provided you don't exceed 100 in any of them or go below 1. The main reason for this rule is that it feels less arbitrary. If you don't mind the arbitrary, you can always stick to the default rule.

Notice Me Senpai

I've been working on Visual Novel World for a while now, and here it is, ready for playtest! It takes the "Class Warfare approach" of presenting character subtypes and allowing people to cobble together a character from 2-3 choices of those subtypes. All of them are geared either to anime/manga/visual novel stereotypes, or a(n admittedly western) idea of (mostly modern) Japanese culture, or at least the culture that Americans see, which is mostly varying degrees of cooking/food culture, martial arts, mecha, romance, schools, or squick depending on the example media.

Edits to the Brewmeister and Wench

I took heed of some advice given to me in the previous post, and removed some 6- results (but not all) tweaked the brewmeister's gear (but didn't make any eliminations per se...) tweaked the way Improvised Weapons works, may do some more tweaking.

Randomly stumbled upon a way to make Influencer not so abusive, so I fixed that. Been thinking about making the ongoing drunk penalty "either an hour, or until the end of the next combat. or other high adrenaline situation."

As before, the files are: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rgmsj9c8uq2stb1/AAC7gh4LdGrRw0DV9J_aCfBJa?dl=0