If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon series, there’s an index here.

I’m going back over some complex subsystems and reconsidering them in light of my new version of hit points. General principles:

• If either anyone encounters someone else unexpectedly, they roll for surprise.
• The surprised group has disadvantage on defence.
• The unsurprised group has advantage on fleeing and attacks, and gets a free round of attacks with weapons but not spells. If they planned an ambush, they get spells too.
• Chance of being surprised is 30% and is higher if you are fleeing, in darkness or twilight, panicked, en mass or smell.
• Your opponent is more likely to be surprised if you are silenced, invisible, anticipating attack or suspicious.

If you might be surprised, make a dexterity check. On a failure, you are surprised and must spend 1d6 HP. On a success you are not surprised. On a partía success, you suffer a minor consequence.

If you can’t see as daylight or are carrying light, you have disadvantage. If you can’t see the opposing party, you are automatically surprised.

Other modifiers can impact surprise at the GMs discretion, for example noise and state of mind.

This is just so much better. So much neater. There will have to be playtesting around how much damage is feasible as these HP mechanics proliferate (I feel like they’ll be a part of forced marches and things like that as well), but I’d rather balance at the other end.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on surprise. Are there glaring questions left unanswered, or have I overlooked anything important, or is all of this a waste of time!

Idle Cartulary

24th April 2022