“…whenever anyone came to inspect it before purchase, the caretaker used to praise the house in the words that Nuth had suggested. “If it wasn’t for the drains,” she would say, “it’s the finest house in London,” and when they pounced on this remark and asked questions about the drains, she would answer them that the drains also were good, but not so good as the house.”

—Lord Dunsany, How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon the Noles

The upper part of the range of the d20 roll used to resolve #downtimes in the previous article determines whether the downtime was particularly successful or unsuccessful.

The lower part, indicating an average result, provides space for other complications, and consists of a seperate 1-8 table written for each available lodging, such as the default lodging of the campaign:

A Room at the Inn

An unpretentious room at a local inn, with a small fire in the grate. Recovery Rate: 1d6 CON/DT Ameneties: None. [Some kind of bonus to hiring retainers might be appropriate if we envision the inn as a clearing house for would-be adventurers.]

1-5: Pay Your Tab – 100cn upkeep (+50 per retainer) 6: Petty Theft – the cheapest gem, jewellery or other small treasure is taken. 7: Disturbed Sleep – Rowdy patrons reduce base recovery rate to 0 this DT. 8: Nemesis – If an enemy is looking to harm the PC, they gain access to the Inn.

#RedHack uses discrete descriptive experiences rather than points. To level up you must checkmark a number of Experiences equal to 2 plus the level you’re advancing to.

All four basic classes cap out at 12, at which point you can either just play the domain game or introduce Advanced classes for the next 12 levels, similar to the Paragon Paths of 4e or 3e Prestige classes.

Once HP are depleted in #RedHack further damage spills over into CON. Upon taking CON damage a character must make a CON test to keep fighting.

Once incapacitated, a character’s fate is determined by the downed table:

* this save is made on your CON value before the damage was dealt.

Last month we tried out some new wilderness travel rules in #RedHack. The party were travelling from Castle Mystamere to the Iron fort, through hexes 502, 402, 302 and 202.

I keep coming back to the question of encumbrance in #RedHack. It's a hard thing to streamline, because the input consists of numerous very different items, from loose coins to plate armour, and the output is some point at which the PC slows down to some degree, and another point at which the PC cannot move, ideally mediated by some combination of STR and CON. (I like CON as a measure of how much you can carry, as opposed to how much you can lift.)

But items move around a lot, so it all has to be recalculated anytime something is dropped, picked up or traded.

#RedHack combat rounds are 30 seconds long – long enough for multiple attacks and for a sprinting PC to cover 180' or more. Each character only has one action during this time, but the additional opportunities for action are provided by reactions. These might be the biggest divergence between the rules and B/X D&D.

Each character with class levels has a pool of reactions per round based on level:

Wizards have one reaction. They aren't good at fighting. I'm toying with letting them spend it to maintain certain spells or fire off magic-missiles, rewriting some spells to utilise the mechanic.

Thieves have one reaction, but it hits hard. If they use it to attack, they deal double damage plus half their level, and may roll DEX to attack instead of STR. They can also spend it immediately to attack an unaware or surprised foe, dealing triple damage plus their level.

Fighters gain a reaction every other level, and also have special Techniques which give them additional opportunities to spend them – for example Riposte allows the Fighter to make a reaction attack against anyone who misses him in melee.

Clerics also gain a reaction every other level, but can only use them in the standard ways.

On the one hand, writing #downtimes has been one of the most rewarding parts of running games with #RedHack. On the other, it’s also the most time-consuming and demanding, equivalent to prep for the game itself.

So as well as providing for a range of downtime activities and results, I’m looking for ways to reduce bookkeeping.

In a addition to resolving downtime actions, I like the idea of Lodgings: Allowing PCs to trade upkeep costs for ameneties and the security of their possessions and persons, but there’s a risk of ending up with many steps of bookkeeping for each character – deducting upkeep, checking for illness, robbery, poor maintenance of equipment and so on, applying any perks, before even getting into downtimes and having to design progress clocks and roll for complications.

How much of this can we concentrate into one roll?