Rules clarification...

[Cyril]

Hello everyone,
I recently acquired the dungeon pack after being seduced by the philosophy of a small scale (in both time and size) dungeon crawl. Seriously, I've been looking for this kind of game for years !
Of course I could praise Pendraken for hours but this is not the good topic. Anyway, I read the rules and some parts remain quite vague :

- during the melee phase, it is said the "to hit" roll needs to score 4+ on each attack dice in order to succeed. The "kill roll" is then done against the target(s) armor with the dices that have passed the to hit test.
Since the "to hit" roll always have 50% chance to succeed, why not simply halving the number of attacks and directly do the kill roll ?
(the same question can be asked for the shooting, dividing the number of attacks by 3...)

- I don't really understand the concepts of mover and non mover action phase. I actually have two questions :
1/ Provided we are 3 players, being respectively : the warrior, the mage and the draken master. Are the two "hero players" considered on the same side for the mover/non mover action phases ? Because it seems there is only 1 mover and 1 non mover during a turn..

2/ If I'm unlucky for the initiative rolls, does this mean I could never be the "mover" ?

I hope these questions have not been already answered elsewhere.

Regards,
Cyril

[FierceKitty]

Congratulations on having the logic to see that one roll can do the work of ten with proper maths behind it!

[Leon]

It'll probably be best if 'SixSidedDice' can answer those questions, I'll ask him to have a look.

[Cyril]

@FierceKitty: no problem, I'm a psychopath when it comes to analyze rules. I had a... difficult childhood playing miniature games with a bunch of hardcore gamers..

By the way, is it ok to talk about some suggestions on the rules or is 'SixSidedDice' a zealous rule master ? 

[Leon]

@FierceKitty: no problem, I'm a psychopath when it comes to analyze rules. I had a... difficult childhood playing miniature games with a bunch of hardcore gamers..

By the way, is it ok to talk about some suggestions on the rules or is 'SixSidedDice' a zealous rule master ? 

No, Six is a cool guy, so I'm sure he'd be interested in any feedback on the rules.

[sixsideddice]

Oh God, I`m so sorry, I only just spotted this thread.
   

{{- during the melee phase, it is said the "to hit" roll needs to score 4+ on each attack dice in order to succeed. The "kill roll" is then done against the target(s) armor with the dices that have passed the to hit test. Since the "to hit" roll always have 50% chance to succeed, why not simply halving the number of attacks and directly do the kill roll ?}}


Good question. The reason is simply that if you halved the number of successful “To Hit” attacks and counted those as direct wounds (Kills) the game would play more like a table wargame and the imprecise element of chance would be removed (never a great idea with role playing, however mathematically probable the results).


{{the same question can be asked for the shooting, dividing the number of attacks by 3}}


Again, would you really like to see the rules for ranged combat brought to such a mathematical certainly? Would there be as much fun in watching your opponent simply calculate the amount of damage he does on your own guys with no variation? Or would you prefer to see his shark like grin as he rattles his dice menacingly... only to watch his glib delight fade away as his D6`s all roll low and miss, only producing a pile of 1`s and 2`s? I`ve seen the most amazingly unlikely rolls occur during game play; to remove this factor from the game would lose something precious I think.

The “To Hit” roll represents just that, i.e. the chance an enemy has that his swing or ranged attack will connect with a target. The “To Kill” roll is then made to determine whether the hit actually does any damage; i.e. penetrates armour or skin.


{{- I don't really understand the concepts of mover and non mover action phase. I actually have two questions : 1/ Provided we are 3 players, being respectively: the warrior, the mage and the draken master. Are the two "hero players" considered on the same side for the mover/non mover action phases ? Because it seems there is only 1 mover and 1 non mover during a turn.}}


Correct.

The players are assumed to be a single working team. The Draken Master is the team`s opponent and vice versa.


{{2/ If I'm unlucky for the initiative rolls, does this mean I could never be the "mover" ?}}


Correct.

The player team and the Draken Master roll for initiative each move of the game. The winner of that initiative roll becomes the mover and may move/shoot and use any special abilities his miniatures possess. The non mover merely gets to respond with ranged weapon attacks, but cannot move any of his own miniatures.

Remember, initiative is rolled for EACH new move of the game 


Please don`t hesitate to ask any questions. I am always very happy to clarify things which might seem a little complicated or misleading. I am putting together a large battle report for DW, which should be up (linked) in less than a week. This will be a blow by blow account of the rules in operation, and a breakdown of game moves in consecutive order of play. This should help you a lot I think, but if you still have any problems, let me know.

All the best, and happy gaming.


Six

[Cyril]

No problem Six (can I call you Six ? ), since I've basically been spamming the forums for a week, I hesitated to update this thread.
Anyway, I understand your point and I'll try both methods. I agree I often try to minimize "functionally useless" rules in order to speed up the game play, sometimes to the detriment of fun.

Looking forward to reading your batrep !