Happy Easter!

 HE is risen!

There is new light in the world.  Be strong.  Be brave.  Keep the faith.  

There is always hope.

Vaccine (in)effectiveness

 First, read this.  "Over 100 fully vaccinated people in Washington State test positive for COVID-19."

There is a reason why nobody every bothered to make a vaccine for a cold before.  They mutate so quickly that by the time the vaccine is developed, tested, approved, and produced, the virus it treats has already mutated into dozens of variants.

President Elect

 Annoy your Leftist enemies.

Bash & Slash v2 update 2

 Been doing a little more fiddling with this rules set.  I'm still happy with the basic way it works.  I redefined the stone to be 8 pounds ("butcher's stone") to get rid of most of the 1/4 weights, and put coinage back on the decimal scale.

Bash & Slash v2

Attribute or Skill (Level):
None(0).  Unskilled.  Roll with Disadvantage (roll twice and take lowest).
d2(1):  Inept (half a d4 or one third of a d6)
d3(1½):  Novice (half a d6)
d4(2):  Layman
d6(3):  Apprentice
d8(4):  Journeyman
d10(5):  Craftsman
d12(6):  Master

Attributes: When referred to as the first letter or name#, use the (number) value.  When referred to by name, use the die type.  A standard human has a d4 in all attributes.  A grimdark adventurer starts with 1(d2), 2(d3), and 2(d4).  A standard adventurer starts with 1(d3), 3(d4), and 1(d6).  A heroic adventurer starts with 2(d4), 2(d6), and 1(d8).

Skills:  If your characters had useful skills, they wouldn’t be exploring dangerous caves for pennies.  Begin with 4(0), 2(d2), 2(d3), 1(d4), and 1(d6).  Skills can’t be raised higher than two levels above their associated attribute.  An unskilled attempt rolls Attribute with disadvantage (roll twice and take the lowest).  (The combat skills are Fight, Throw, Shoot, and Dodge.  The magic skills are Mana and Moxie.  Grit aids survival.  Strong lets you carry more and hit harder.  Fiddle and Sneak are useful for getting through or avoiding obstacles.)

Attribute (hit on):  Skills:
Agility (1):  Fight, Dodge
Brawn (2-3):  Throw, Strong
Cunning (4):  Shoot, Mana
Deviousness (5):  Fiddle, Sneak
Endurance (6):  Grit, Moxie

Stamina:  B+E+Grit#  (round halves down)

Carry Capacity is by weight in stones.  (A gallon of water = 1,000 coins =  one stone.)  Your carry capacity is 2+B+E+Strong#.  Every stone more that you carry increases your Burden by one, which effectively decreases your Stamina by one.  Most items are carried on your belt or in your pack.  It takes d4 rounds to find something in your pack.  The smallest unit is ¼ stone.

Sweat is how much effort you can make (or how many hits you can avoid) before you start taking real injuries.  When sweat equals (Stamina-Burden), you are exhausted.  Each hit while exhausted is applied randomly to your attributes with a d6 roll (hit on).

 

Test:  Roll Attribute and Skill, take higher, opposed by difficulty (a target number, or the highest result of a die roll).  If player rolls equal to or higher than the difficulty, the test succeeds.  If you beat it with both dice, it is a double success.  If you beat the difficulty by 6 or more, it is an extra success.  If you beat the target by 12 or more, it counts as three extra successes instead of one.

Combat applies successes (hits) to Sweat, or an Attribute (roll randomly for each) if exhausted.  Each time an attribute is reduced, roll the attribute’s new (lower) die – on a one, you forfeit the next round (take no action and make all rolls at Disadvantage).  When an attribute reaches zero, you forfeit your next d3 rounds, and thereafter all its skill tests are made with disadvantage (and no attribute die, of course).  When any attribute goes below zero, roll Grit & Moxie against a difficulty of 4.  If both succeed, character stays on his feet, forfeits the next d6 rounds, and all rolls are at disadvantage until healed.  If one succeeds, character passes out. If both die rolls fail, character dies.  A passed out character dies if he receives any further injury.  At the end of each hour that a character remains passed out, roll a d6:  on 1-2, they die; on 3-5 they remain passed out; on 6, they wake up and will survive, but are exhausted until healed.

Melee Weapon:  Agility & Fight vs/ Fight & Shield, then weapon & Strong vs/ armor
Thrown Weapon:  Brawn & Throw vs/ Dodge & Shield, then weapon vs/ armor
Missile Weapon:  Cunning & Shoot vs/ Shield & Shield, then weapon vs/ armor
Brawl:  Brawn & Strong vs/ Brawn & Strong
Magic:  Cunning & Mana vs/ Mana & Moxie, then check wand and spell effects
Social:  Cunning & Devious vs/ Cunning & Devious, then check Sneak vs/ Moxie

Boosts:  When you really need to succeed, you can sacrifice one level of an attribute or skill to replace its die roll (after the fact) with the roll of a d20.  The level loss remains until the character takes a full rest.  (Only in the room after winning a Boss fight.  Everywhere else is subject to wandering monsters.)  You can also voluntarily damage your weapon, armor, shield, or other item to replace their roll with a d20.  Different items have different amounts of durability before they become useless or break.

Attribute Improvement:  After defeating a boss, the Dungeon will grant both treasure and the chance to improve one attribute.  (Why else would people voluntarily enter trap laden, monster infested dungeons?)  Pick the attribute that you wish to increase, and roll the next higher sized die.  If the result is the highest number of that die, your attribute increases one level.  If not, too bad, better luck next time.  Attributes can at most be raised to a number level equal to the dungeon level plus two.  So, the first dungeon level cannot raise any attribute higher than a d6.

 

Heroic Sacrifice:  If you have a skill or attribute at 0, you can still boost it, even though doing so will probably kill you.  If your skill was reduced to zero, you roll a d12 instead of the usual d20.  If you are untrained in that skill, you roll a d6.  Your fellow adventurers will thank you as they loot your corpse.  ½  ¼  ¾

Armor (weight): Protection                           Shield (weight): Protection
None (-): Roll weapon with advantage.
Improvised (1): d2                                          Bracers (½): d2
Cloth (½): d3                                                  Improvised (1): d3
Leather (1): d4                                                            Buckler (½): d4
Chain Shirt (2): d6                                          Small (1): d6
Mail (4): d8                                                     Medium (1½): d8
Scale/Brigandine (5): d10                               Large (2): d10
Plate (6): d12                                                  Tower (3): d12

Weapon (weight)[durability]:  Damage         underlined may be thrown
None (-):                                                          Roll Strong with disadvantage
Improvised (-)[1]: d2                                      rock, bottle, stick
Light weapons, 1 hand (3/ ¼)[2]: d3              knife, throwing knife, club, dart
Light weapons, 1 hand (¼)[3]:  d4                 dagger, hand axe, hammer, javelin, war club, staff
Medium weapons, 1 hand (½)[5]:  d6                        sword, war hammer, battle axe, mace, spear[3]
Light weapons, 2 hands (½)[3]: d6                 axe, flail, war club, staff
Medium weapons, 2 hands (½)[5]:  d8           long sword, war hammer, battle axe, mace, spear[3]
Heavy weapons, 2 hands (1)[3]:  d10             great sword[4], pole axe, maul(1½), pike
Heavy weapons, 2 hands (1)[3]: d12              halberd
Missile weapons, 2 hands (1)[2]: d4               sling (missile weapon weights include ammunition)
Missile weapons, 2 hands (1)[3]: d6               short bow, staff sling (also counts as a staff)
Missile weapons, 2 hands (1)[3]: d8               long bow, light crossbow (takes one round to load)
Missile weapons, 2 hands (1½)[3]: d10          heavy crossbow (takes two rounds to load)

A poor item rolls two die types lower.  An inferior item rolls one die lower.  A superior weapon rolls one die type higher.  An excellent item rolls two die levels higher.  Anything lower than a d2 grants disadvantage.  Anything higher than a d12 grants advantage.  Yes, an excellent halberd would roll three d12 (four against an unarmored opponent) and take the highest.

If the weapon rolls at least six higher than the armor, the armor takes one point of damage.  If the armor rolls at least six higher than the weapon, the weapon takes one point of damage.  If the difference is 12 or more, the item takes 3 damage instead of just one.  This includes missile weapons, which have strings that fray and break.  An item reduced to 0 durability is useless, but can be repaired.  An item reduced below 0 durability is broken and cannot be repaired.

 

Coinage:  10 copper Copeks (commonly called a penny, plural pence) equal one silver Shilling.  10 shillings equal one gold Guinea.  10 guineas equal one platinum Pound.  10 pounds equal one mithril Mark.  Each coin is scored to be broken into halves or quarters.  A quarter copek is a farthing, and will purchase a half-dozen fresh eggs or a piece of cheese.  A quarter shilling is a groat.  A quarter guinea is a florin.

Learning Skills:  Skills are taught by the Adventurers Guild, for a fee.  Training takes one week.  At the end of the week, roll Cunning.  If the result is anything but a one, you successfully learned the new or higher level of skill.  If you rolled a one, better luck next week.  No refunds.  Note that the Guild will not teach anyone without a prestige at least equal to the skill#.  (1½ (d3) counts as 1 for this purpose.)  You cannot skip skill levels.  You cannot train in more than one skill per week.  You cannot advance a skill# higher than its attribute# plus two.  Example:  You must have a Cunning of 1½(d3) to learn Mana at 3(d6), but cannot yet learn it at 4(d8).

Skill level:        1(d2)   1½(d3)              2(d4) 3(d6)  4(d8)   5(d10)   6(d12)
Cost:                1c        5c          1s       5s        1g        1p          1m

 

Enemies are divided into generic types:  Vermin, Minions, Champions, Bosses, and Villains.  Vermin and minions pass out when exhausted.  Champions take damage to Brawn only.  Bosses have full attributes, but do not use boosts.  Villains are treated as characters.

Goblin:  A(d4) B(d3) C(d3) D(d4) E(d3)  Fight(d4), Throw(d6), Dodge(d4), Strong(d2), Fiddle(d3), Sneak(d4)

Hobgoblin:  A(d3) B(d4) C(d3) D(d4) E(d4)  Fight(d6), Throw(d6), Dodge(d4), Strong (d3), Grit(d2)

Bugbear:  A(d3) B(d6) C(d3) D(d4) E(d6)  Fight(d6), Throw(d4), Dodge(d4), Strong (d6), Grit(d4)

Orc:  A(d4) B(d6) C(d3) D(d3) E(d4)  Fight(d6), Throw(d4), Shoot(d4), Strong(d4), Grit(d6)

Kobold:  A(d6) B(d2) C(d2) D(d3) E(d2)  Fight(d3), Throw(d4), Dodge(d6), Sneak(d6)

Bash&Slash v2 update 1

This rules set is going well, if slowly due to other concerns.  I'm still happy with it, though a bit disappointed that it's not d20 based.  Oh, well.  You follow your nose down the rabbit hole, and you shouldn't be surprised when you encounter strangeness.

I have no idea why the coinage systems seemed so important to detail.  This is intended to be a solo dungeon crawl.  I was originally just going to use "coins".  I'm still not certain if I want to use weight or slots.  With the low starting attribute numbers, using weight in "stones" (16 pounds for simplicity) seems to work well enough, especially when limiting things to 1/2, 1/4, and 1/10.  Weight also includes a measure of bulk.  Note that a starting character with Layman level attributes and no appropriate skills can only carry 4 stone.  A chain shirt (1 stone), a medium shield (3/4 stone) and a spear (1/4 stone) is half of his total carry capacity.

Bash & Slash v2

Attribute or Skill Levels:
Unskilled(0).  Roll with Disadvantage (roll twice and take lowest)
d2(1):  Inept (half a d4 or one third of a d6)
d3(1½):  Novice (half a d6) (round halves up)
d4(2):  Layman
d6(3):  Apprentice
d8(4):  Journeyman
d10(5):  Craftsman
d12(6):  Master

Attributes: When referred to as the first letter or name#, use the (number) value.  When referred to by name, use the die type.  A standard human has a d4 in all attributes.  A grimdark adventurer starts with 1(d2), 2(d3), and 2(d4).  A standard adventurer starts with 1(d3), 3(d4), and 1(d6).  A heroic adventurer starts with 2(d4), 2(d6), and 1(d8).

Skills:  If your characters had useful skills, they wouldn’t be exploring dangerous caves for pennies.  Begin with 4(0), 2(d2), 2(d3), 1(d4), and 1(d6).  Skills can’t be raised higher than two levels above their associated attribute.  An unskilled attempt rolls Attribute with disadvantage (roll twice and take the lowest).

Attribute (hit on):  Skills:
Agility (1):  Fight, Dodge
Brawn (2-3):  Throw, Strong
Cunning (4):  Shoot, Mana
Deviousness (5):  Fiddle, Sneak
Endurance (6):  Grit, Will

Stamina:  B+E+Grit+Will

Carry Capacity is by weight in stones.  (250 coins and the purse they’re in weighs ¼ stone.)  Your carry capacity is B+E+Strong.  Every stone more that you carry increases your Burden by one, which effectively decreases your Stamina by one.  Most items are carried on your belt or in your pack.  It takes d4 rounds to find something in your pack.

Sweat is how much effort you can make (or how many hits you can avoid) before you start taking real injuries.  When sweat equals (Stamina-Burden), you are exhausted.  Each hit while exhausted is applied randomly to your attributes with a d6 roll (hit on).

 

Test:  Roll Attribute and Skill, take higher, opposed by difficulty (a target number, or the highest result of a die roll).  If player rolls equal to or higher than the difficulty, the test succeeds.  If you beat it with both dice, it is a double success.  If you beat the difficulty by 6 or more, it is an extra success.

Combat applies successes (hits) to Sweat, or an Attribute (roll randomly for each) if exhausted.  Each time an attribute is reduced, roll the attribute’s new (lower) die – on a one, you forfeit the next round (take no action and make all rolls at Disadvantage).  When an attribute reaches zero, you forfeit your next d3 rounds, and thereafter all its skill tests are made with disadvantage (and no attribute die, of course).  When any attribute goes below zero, roll Grit & Will against a difficulty of 4.  If both succeed, character stays on his feet, forfeits the next d6 rounds, and all rolls are at disadvantage until healed.  If one succeeds, character passes out. If both die rolls fail, character dies.  A passed out character dies if he receives any further injury.  At the end of each hour that a character remains passed out, roll a d6:  on 1-2, they die; on 3-5 they remain passed out; on 6, they wake up and will survive, but are permanently exhausted until healed.

Melee Weapon:  Agility & Fight vs/ Fight & Shield, then weapon & Strong vs/ armor
Thrown Weapon:  Brawn & Throw vs/ Dodge & Shield, then weapon vs/ armor
Missile Weapon:  Cunning & Shoot vs/ Shield & Shield, then weapon vs/ armor
Brawl:  Brawn & Strong vs/ Brawn & Strong
Magic:  Cunning & Mana vs/ Mana & Will, then check wand and spell effects
Social:  Cunning & Devious vs/ Cunning & Devious, then check Sneak vs/ Will

Enemies (Stamina):  Minions (E), Champions (B+E), drop when out of stamina.  Bosses are treated as characters, but cannot use boosts.  Villains are treated as characters with boosts.

Boosts:  When you really need to succeed, you can sacrifice one level of an attribute or skill to replace its die roll (after the fact) with the roll of a d20.  The level loss remains until the character takes a full rest.  (Only in the room after winning a Boss fight.  Everywhere else is subject to wandering monsters.)  You can also voluntarily damage your weapon, armor, shield, or other item to replace their roll with a d20.  Different items have different amounts of durability before they break and become useless.  (When they reach zero, they roll with disadvantage.  They break when reduced below zero.)

Attribute Improvement:  After defeating a boss, the Dungeon will grant both treasure and the chance to improve one attribute.  (Why else would people voluntarily enter trap laden, monster infested dungeons?)  Pick the attribute that you wish to increase, and roll the next higher sized die.  If the result is the highest number of that die, your attribute increases one level.  If not, better luck next time.  Attributes can at most be raised to a number level equal to the dungeon level plus two.  So, the first dungeon level cannot raise any attribute higher than a d6.

 

Heroic Sacrifice:  If you have a skill or attribute at 0, you can still boost it, even though doing so will probably kill you.  If your skill was reduced to zero, you roll a d12 instead of the usual d20.  If you are untrained in that skill, you roll a d6.  Your fellow adventurers will thank you as they loot your corpse.

Armor (weight): Protection                           Shield (weight): Protection
None (-): Roll weapon with advantage.
Improvised (½): d2                                         Bracers (¼): d2
Cloth (¼): d3                                                  Improvised (½): d3
Leather (½): d4                                               Buckler (¼): d4
Chain Shirt (1): d6                                          Small (½): d6
Mail (2): d8                                                     Medium (¾): d8
Brigandine (3): d10                                         Large (1): d10
Plate (4): d12                                                  Tower (1½): d12

Weapon (weight)[durability]:  Damage         underlined may be thrown
None (-):                                                         Roll Strong with disadvantage
Improvised (-)[1]: d2                                      rock, bottle, stick
Light weapons, 1 hand (⅒)[1]: d3                 knife, baton, throwing knife
Light weapons, 1 hand (⅒)[2]:  d4                dagger, club, hand axe, hammer, dart[1]
Medium weapons, 1 hand (¼)[4]:  d6             sword, war hammer, battle axe, mace, javelin[2]
Medium weapons, 2 hands (¼)[3]: d6            staff, axe, flail
Medium weapons, 2 hands (¼)[5]:  d8           long sword, war hammer, battle axe, mace, spear[3]
Heavy weapons, 2 hands (½)[3]:  d10            pole axe, maul, pike
Heavy weapons, 2 hands (½)[4]: d12             halberd

A poor item rolls two die types lower.  An inferior item rolls one die lower.  A superior weapon rolls one die type higher.  An excellent item rolls two dice levels higher.  Anything lower than a d2 grants disadvantage.  Anything higher than a d12 grants advantage.  Yes, an excellent halberd would roll three d12 (four against an unarmored opponent) and take the highest.

If the weapon rolls at least six higher than the armor, the armor takes one point of damage.  If the armor rolls at least six higher than the weapon, the weapon takes one point of damage.

Coinage:  20 Copeks (commonly called a copper or penny, plural pence) equal one silver Shilling.  20 shillings equal one gold Guinea.  20 guineas equal one platinum Pound.  Twenty pounds equal one mithril Mark.  Each coin is scored to be broken into halves or quarters.  A quarter copek is a farthing.  A quarter shilling is a groat.  A quarter guinea is a florin.

 

B&S v2

OK, so I'm seldom completely satisfied.  B&S started out as a mod of D100 Dungeon, but I really want skill to play a more important role.  So here is version 2, which is almost but not quite completely different.  I'm pleased (for now) with how its going.  Hit points are very low, but most hits only do one point of damage.  I'm really liking how Boosts work in this version.  Decisions are what makes a game.

This is a very rough draft, after about an hour of working on it.  (Edited early the next morning.)

Bash & Slash v2

Attribute or Skill Level:
0: Unskilled:  Roll with Disadvantage.
1: d2:  Novice
2: d4:  Layman
3: d6:  Apprentice
4: d8:  Journeyman
5: d10:  Craftsman
6: d12:  Master

Attributes begin with 2(d4), 2(d6), and 1(d8).  For a greater challenge, start with 3(d4) and 2(d6).  For grimdark, start with 1(d2), 3(d4), and 1(d6).  When referred to as the first letter or name#, use the number value.  When referred to by name, use the die type. 

Skills begin with four at 0, three at 1(d2), two at 2(d4), and one at 3(d6).  Skills can’t be raised higher than two levels above their associated attribute.  An unskilled attempt rolls Attribute with disadvantage (roll twice and take the lowest).

Attribute (hit on):  Skills:
Agility (1):  Fight, Dodge
Brawn (2-3):  Throw, Strong
Cunning (4):  Shoot, Mana
Deviousness (5):  Fiddle, Sneak
Endurance (6):  Grit, Will

Stamina:  B+E+Grit+Will

Carry Capacity is by stones.  Your carry capacity is B+E+Strong.  Every stone more that you carry increases your Burden by one, which effectively decreases your Stamina by one.

Sweat is how much effort you can make (or how many hits you can avoid) before you start taking real injuries.  When sweat equals (Stamina-Burden), you are exhausted.  Each hit while exhausted is applied randomly to your attributes with a d6 roll.

Test:  Roll Attribute and Skill, take higher, opposed by difficulty (a target number, or the highest result of a die roll).  If player rolls equal to or higher than the difficulty, the test succeeds.  If you beat it with both dice, it is a double success.  If you beat the difficulty by 4, it is an extra success.  If you beat it by 8, it is three extra successes.

Combat applies successes (hits) to Sweat, or an Attribute if exhausted.  Each time an attribute is reduced, roll the attribute’s new (lower) die – on a one, you forfeit the next round (take no action and make all rolls at Disadvantage).  When an attribute reaches zero, you forfeit your next d3 rounds, and thereafter all its rolls are made with Disadvantage.  When any attribute goes below zero, roll Grit & Luck against a difficulty of 4.  If both succeed, character stays on his feet, forfeits the next d6 rounds, and all rolls are at disadvantage until healed.  If one succeeds, character passes out for d6 hours.  If a passed out character receives further injury or is not medically treated by the end of the time, he dies. If both die rolls fail, character dies.

Melee Weapon:  Agility & Fight vs/ Fight & Shield, then weapon & Strong vs/ armor
Thrown Weapon:  Brawn & Throw vs/ Dodge & Shield, then weapon vs/ armor
Missile Weapon:  Cunning & Shoot vs/ Shield & Shield, then weapon vs/ armor
Brawl:  Brawn & Strong vs/ Brawn & Strong
Magic:  Cunning & Mana vs/ Mana & Grit, then check spell effect

Enemies(Stamina):  Minions(B), Champions(B+E), drop when out of stamina.  Bosses are treated as characters, but cannot use boosts.  Villains are treated as characters with boosts.

Boosts:  When you really need to succeed, you can sacrifice one level of an attribute or skill to replace its die roll (after the fact) with the roll of a d20.  The level loss remains until the character takes a full rest.  (Only in the room after winning a Boss fight.  Everywhere else is subject to wandering monsters.)  You can also voluntarily damage your weapon, armor, or shield to replace their roll with a d20.  Different items have different damage thresholds before they break and become useless.  (When they are on their final point before breaking, they roll with Disadvantage.)

 

6.8 Western cartridge

 The 6.8 Western (.277) round is intended for long range hunting.  If that's your thing, then by all means, go for it.  It make perfect sense to have a hard hitting, flat shooting round when hunting elk from one ridgeline to another.  With an OAL of 2.995, it fits in a short action, so the rifles built for it can be a tad lighter.

The 6.8 Western is, in reality, the .270 WSM cartridge with the shoulders pushed back, the neck stretched, and a chambering optimized for longer, heavier bullets.  It holds a bit less powder than the WSM, but the longer, higher BC bullets drop less and are deflected by the wind less.  At ranges over about 200 yards, bullets fired from the 6.8W are actually outpacing those of its parent cartridge.  This makes them better for both hunting and long range target shooting.  The slight reduction in recoil won't hurt, either.

Is it better than the venerable .270 Winchester?  Yes.  Yes, it is.  Is it worth getting?  That's entirely up to you.  If you like your .270, you can keep your .270.