Notes & Rulings from Felltower session 168

A few rulings and issues and notes from last session.

Walls

I still struggle with walls. I really need to master the tools I have right now so I can:

- put down vision-blocking walls

- put down visible terrain walls

- have areas big enough that my players can freely move over a large area, if a fight spills out that way

This is on me. I'll complain when my tools suck, but these tools don't suck, they just aren't very intuitive. I have not put in the time to make them work better for me. I need to make sure to do that.

As a stopgap, Vic made a "cobblestone" image I could use as a blank. I will make a light grey field I can use instead so I can just lay down hexes, and see if the wall images someone else gave me might serve until I master Dungeon Draw.

As I run, I look!

My players are big fans of "I take a quick look . . . " Basically, it means, they want a Perception check or an automatic success of vision while they still take their full action. So it's "I look left and right and then attack in the center with my full complement of attacks" or "I run past this hallway at Move 11 and look down it without actually losing my full Perception roll to spot anything in front of me."

So how to resolve that? I decide it's a flat -10, plus an additional -5 per direction. Looking left and right and then back to center to do your thing? -10, -5 = -15. Looking right as you spring past the hallway but keeping an eye forward? -10.

An object in plain site is generally +10, so this cancels that out. A man-sized object is +0, so a Per 10 guy has a 50/50 shot of noting a normal, unconcealed human with a quick passing glance. If he's trying to scan left and right, he has a 5 or less . . . not likely. A direction is basically a hex-line, although that naturally means a cone-shaped sight line. You can easily miss something by trying to look in many directions at once.

Seems workable.

Teleport Nude

An oldie but a goodie. You know I had to include it somewhere, right?

The PCs might not be in the worst possible place. Prior exploration made them more equipped to deal with this. They've likely been to this area before, they're unworried by the loss of magic, and might even be able to win free. Or not. We'll see. But it could have been far, far worse. It could have been to some deep area of the dungeon they'd never been to, or a sealed room, or above the flooded prison. It's not a perfect trap, but much of Felltower is that way - it's a layer cake where not everything is in tip-top shape or ideal circumstances for delvers or inhabitants. It serves a purpose, and it makes sense given sufficient information . . . which the PCs may or may not be able to acquire.

And it's fun as hell. Plus, we found out Gerry has a massive skull tattoo on his chest. Win-win!