DwD Studios
Actions vs. Resistance Rolls
Mon, 05/08/2017 - 8:49am | 
Lustmored
I'm GM for BareBones for years now. There have always been one thing that was bothering me and I usually resolved it by heart. I hope you will help me understand this basic concept in "vanilla system", so that I can start playing with rules ;)
As topic states it's about actions and resistance rolls.
It's quite obvious that in a turn each action character takes gives cumulative -20 to next ones. No problem here.
It's quite obvious to me that each "defend/avoid" action (shall I call it resistance too?) is also considered an action and therefore has cumulative penalty from actions taken and adds another -20 to next actions.
My main problem is about other resistances. For example - spells like dominion. If one of the characters took 2 actions and is a target for dominion - does he/she have -40 for resistance check? And more importantly - does it count as an action for this turn? If so - should player have choice whether to resist spell or not? In my settings players usually don't even know what is casted at them until the effect takes place, so it'd be hard.
And of course the special case of offensive strike - how should I resolve resistance for it in "vanilla system"? Plain DEX-10*[spellcaster level] or should I substract 20*[amount of actions taken]? I've read many house rules about offensive strike, so any suggestions about handling it "out of rules" is also very welcome :)
Bonus question: When character is under spell effect like dominion should he/she be able to overcome it anyhow? I sometimes allow 1 resistance check for spell each turn, but feel like this is against balance in some ways.
Thanks in advance for any clarification :)
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BareBones Fantasy RPG is not associated with Skaldcrow Games' Bare Bones Multiverse, despite similar names. Check out Glenn's products by clicking here.
Yes - every resistance check and action check - basically EVERY roll of the percentile dice - increments the multiaction penalty. It's at the heart of the system. When facing wizards, you have to be careful about leaving yourself unable to defend yourself. It's the core economy of the multi-action penalty.
Of course, that doesn't mean people don't houserule it differently. We encourage houserules with BBF. There are a lot of people who think magic is over-powered, though I'm not one of them. If enemies have magic users and so do the players, it's balanced. Magic can be powerful, for sure. But it's the intentional way it works in this setting/game.
However, if we ever do a 2nd edition, which we've considered, we may reduce the power of magic, based on the feedback of people who just expect a different balance than we offered in this game.