April 2022

If you’re walking in on the middle of the advanced fantasy dungeon series, there’s an index here. The core text attempts to make combat chaotic, dynamic, vivid and simple. This doesn’t describe a war of attrition. Given there’s no definition of HP in second edition, let’s define it as energy, taking inspiration from Oh Injury. Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the advanced fantasy dungeon series, there’s an index here. The core text attempts to make combat chaotic, dynamic, vivid and simple. How do the existing systems facilitate this experience? Saving Throws “save you from certain destruction, or at least lessen the damage of a successful attack”. This Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here. As I was writing Surprise, I realised (although I decided to scrap) there are rules for group checks in second edition. This is something that really needs to exist, and if it did it would simplify a bunch of checks like Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon series, there’s an index here. Surprise and ambush are simple in second edition, so 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, Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the advanced fantasy dungeon series, there’s an index here. Vision gets a lot of time in second edition: Visibility by size and distance in optimal conditions outdoors Visibility by weather condition Visibility while moving Light source radius, direction and speed of exhaustion Fighting with mirrors Light reducing Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon series, there’s an index here. Timekeeping basics in second edition are quite straightforward and iconic, although it’s obscured in intent compared to earlier editions. Combat rounds of 1 minute, and dungeon turns of 10 minutes, with encounters every hour. Days measure overland travel, Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the advanced fantasy dungeon series, there’s an index here. Second edition really believes in verisimilitude of equipment. How much can you carry, punishments if you carry more, weights in pounds and ounces, preparation and resource management. It feels like a major legacy from earlier, primarily dungeon-crawling versions Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon series, there’s an index here. Experience, oh how have I been dreading you! The reason being that there are challenges, between the variable progression tables, and the varying monster experience awards, that I’m not keen to tackle. Let’s begin with some assumptions: XP Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here. As discussed in the Player’s Handbook Read-through, alignment is problematic in its word choices and not particularly useful as a guide for decision-making or role-playing. It’s at once too specific and too general, but second edition comes with a separate system Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here. The main subsystem I didn’t interacted with in the last post on Heritage is ageing, which in second edition is poorly designed and weirdly ageist. It wasn’t my plan. I’m going to detour here, as I’m not sure it’s a value Continue reading