Editing Dungeons: the Dragoning 40,000 7th Edition (section)

== Crunch ==

Characters have 9 characteristics divided in three categories: Mental (Intelligence, Wisdom, Willpower), Physical (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution) and Social (Charisma, Fellowship, Composure) which are reminiscent of the White Wolf system; alongside an assortment of skills also divided in these three categories and which seem to be taken from  the W40K RPGs. Both the characteristics and skills range from 0 to 5, characteristics always being at least 1, this being like in [[World of Darkness]] games. The game uses a roll and keep system, expressed as XkY. Using a dice pool of d10's equivalent to the sum of the corresponding skill and its tied characteristic the player rolls all of the dice and keeps an amount equal to the characteristic and add the result of those dice for their roll, as in [[7th Sea]] or [[Legend of the Five Rings]]. For example, a character trying to drive a car with 4 dots on Dexterity and 3 in their Drive skill would roll 7 dice and keep and add the value of the highest 4 (7k4). The objective being to [[roll over]] a target number, which is for an average skill check 15. Ballistic, Weaponry and Brawl rolls do not use a characteristic, instead being just the value of the skill itself being rolled and kept, with the character level added as rolled dice if one is proficient with the weapon they are using.


Every player character has an [[Exalted | Exaltation]]. The benefits and abilities granted by these exaltations aren't as heavily weighted, starting as just some small nifty bonuses to have (like a free rank in a magic school) but eventually developing into very powerful tools and powers that can outright break the game (like an Atlantean being able to cast magic as a free action or a Dragonblood transforming into a full fledged dragon) if the player is willing to expend the experience cost. All Exaltations have a pool of resources (Vampires have Blood Points, Werewolves have Rage, Chosens have Favor, etc.) that can be spent for things like recovering health, adding dice to a roll or for exaltation-specific abilities.


Character advancement is a point buy system like in World of Darkness, but with a twist, characters can only spent experience points on the characteristics and skills that their class allows them to. The class system works similar to the system of [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay | Warhammer Fantasy RPG]]. Each class has some requisites for entry (for example being a cleric requires two points in both Forbidden Lore and Academic Lore), imposes restrictions on what the character can learn and upgrade, like magic and sword schools, and allow the player to learn feats that enhance their capabilities like in [[Dark Heresy]]. Once a character has purchased all the required feats (many classes have optional feats) from a class they can move to a different class if they have the prerequisites for it. Most classes have 5 levels, or tiers, the level of the character equals that of her highest class that she has completed.

[[File:Dungeons the dragoning dino.png|300px|thumb|right|average low level encounter]]
Magic is divided into the classical seven of D&D: Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Healing, Illusion, Necromancy and Transmutation. Mechanically it's like casting psychic powers in Dark Heresy. The amount of spells is staggeringly low, there are 5 levels for each school, and only two spells per level save the last, which is only one, although the second book added one more for each level for each school, but this is offset by these spells being really powerful, if not game breaking, and being able to be cast repeatedly. To balance this the game has a Physic Phenomena table that the character has to roll on every time they keep a 10 when they cast spells, causing a huge assortment of effects that range from annoying to incredibly dangerous if the magician is unlucky enough to get into the perils of the Warp Table (which being a roll of over 75 on a d100 is more likely to happen than one would think). While the Physic Phenomena are noticeable less deadly than in the Warhammer RPGs it is still capable of inflicting much pain upon the caster.


Now onto combat. Characters have static defense equal to [(Dexterity+Wisdom)*3]+10-(size*2) and a Resilience stat equal to the average of their level+size plus 1. Static Defense is the target number to beat when attacking that character and Resilience divides all incoming damage rounded down before being applied to hit points (a character with 4 resilience taking 22 damage would divide it and suffer 5 wounds), the result being that large characters are easier to hit but suffer less damage in return. Combat is the main attraction, having as many actions in combat as, once again, the W40K games and that's not including all the possible special attacks, spells and feats. 

Rolling to hit, then the enemy rolling to dodge (which adds half the rolled value to Static Defense), then rolling for damage and doing a sum (then subtracting the armor), a division and then subtracting the hitpoint loss seems convoluted on paper but it actually flows pretty well while playing, except if you are surrounded by retards.

It helps that the game is actually quite lethal, the most puny handgun being a 2k2 (which becomes an 8k2 if fired on full auto) and a normal mundane sword being at least 4k2 (and that's only if wielded by a character with the lowest strength possible) will deal around 18 damage on average, and considering that the average resilience is 4 and the wound average for starting players is 10 then you see why combat rarely lasts more than two or three turns. Thank god for the existence of fate points that can be spent to survive death a limited number of times, albeit here they are called Hero Points.


There are many more things that could be mentioned: the alignment system, [[exploding dice]], backgrounds, [[Awesome | critical tables like those in DH]], spell combos, [[The Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic | Sword Schools]] and Gun Kata, the bestiary that has both Dark Mechanicus Techpriests and Zoanoids, the social combat rules and more. It is a very crunchy game that runs on "you can play anything", geared for high power characters and surprisingly favors a lot narrative-style combat. It certainly favors more people who have already some experience in RPGs and /tg/ stuff, if only to get the references.


Protips:

-Sword Schools and Gun Katas are the way to break the game with melee and ranged characters respectively. More than a rigid set of techniques, they're a list of advantages and disadvantages which can be mixed freely to create your own maneuvers.

-Being so similar to DH, one would think that equipment like powerful weapons is very important, but that's not the case.

-'''Remember your fucking feats.''' If you have a feat that makes you deal more damage with all attacks its your fault if you don't account for it. GMs do not have to remind you of what you have constantly.

-Just have fun, really, you can play anything and it will probably work (we are not held responsible in case fun results in adverse effects. Take in moderation and consult with your GM)