The Black Sword Hack Tutorial Part 1: Rules and Combat

[@KonradZielinski]

You made one rules mistake. You have to roll under your attribute to succed. Rolling on or over your attibute counts as a failure.

[@Sebbaasdungeon]

Yes, you are correct.

[@thanksmisterx]

I am here just for the combat examples!! Thanks for reading through the rules and providing your insight.

[@Sebbaasdungeon]

Before making this, I thought this video would be 10 minutes long, 15 min tops. I was gravely mistaken.

[@maxkongress6312]

Hallo, nice video but beware: as stated at page 16 "During their turn , your character can take two actions (move, attack, use something, cast a spell, etc.). DON'T FORGET YOU MUST ROLL YOUR DOOM DIE IF YOU TAKE THE SAME ACTION TWICE." So during your turn you can do (freely) only two DIFFERENT actions.

[@MrRourk]

An Excellent source for OSR GM Advice

[@gendor5199]

I look forward to really dig into this as I was halfway through the core rulebook last weekend already! I also found the idea at around 6:50, that sometimes I will ask players to make a test that they can "do for as often as they like until they succeed" to just see how long it takes them, or if it's catastrophic, maybe their, say alchemy set, becomes broken because they pushed it too far and maybe something got burnt and is now stuck to the surface, or an important thing broke. Something I also struggle a bit with it the attribute stats, mostly because I am against needing a table to figure out what my roll meant. So much easier to say "2d4 +6" for an example.

[@Sebbaasdungeon]

The formula underlying that table is 7+(2d6/2) rounded down.

[@gendor5199]

@@Sebbaasdungeon Good catch! I missed that bit. Something else I really enjoyed in the book was the example cities!

[@gendor5199]

Absolutely also love the "Disadvantage makes the GM choose, Advantage player choose", while not optimal, it allows for players to choose a worse roll and a GM can still give the players abit of easing off, it is essentially "Rules as Written Fudging"!

[@Feraille]

Brilliant combat exemple! Enjoyed it very much.

[@sawe3172]

Reading it myself, I saw how powerful shields are. Advantage on a d6 is 1 or 2 points more of damage. But advantage on a parry means that at 14 STR you almost never get hit. I may nerf shields in my games

[@Sebbaasdungeon]

I think you are right. An option might be to make shields give +1 armor. Or make parries 2 points easier. Or a d4 easier. A d6 usage die easier might be an interesting option. And you could rule two-weapon fighting in parallel: +1dmg, or +2at or +1d4 at.

[@leonardorossi998]

Also shields allow you to parry ranged attacks at the DM's discretion In theory the downside is that in case of a natural 20 the shield breaks... but in melee you have advantage, so the chances are 1/400

[@Tysto]

This is a great review. When i looked at this system on my own, i dismissed it, because the opposed combat rolls seemed like they would slow combat way down. But i really like the effects & the death save. They're quite cinematic. Death & recovery are too generous, tho.

[@blackraptor311]

What miniatures are those that you used as the cultist? I know I have seen them before but I can't point them out.

[@Sebbaasdungeon]

They are from Bestiarum Miniatures. From the Remade collection.

[@blackraptor311]

@@Sebbaasdungeon Thank you.

[@tobiasbenitez65]

I was wondering whats the diference with dodging and blocking? Good video btw

[@Sebbaasdungeon]

Parrying is a STR test, dodging is a DEX test. You can use a shield while parrying, which gives you advantage on the roll. Ranged attacks con only be dodged, unless you have a shield. That's it.

[@ChuckBarchuk]

I have a question about ongoing damage. Say a level 4 enemy does six UD4 ongoing damage. Does this mean my character would take 6 damage every turn automatically till I roll 1 or 2 on the UD? Would I roll the UD before taking the damage or after?

[@Sebbaasdungeon]

I don't think there is an enemy like that. Normally, you only use one Usage Die at once. But let's go with the six UD4 as an example. You roll six d4 and take that ammount of DMG. Every UD that shows 1 or 2 is depleted. Next round, you roll all UD that are not depleted and take that ammount of DMG. Repeat until death or depletion of all UD. Normally, you only have to worry about one UD. Say 1UD6. So roll 1d6, and take that amount of DMG. On a 1 or 2, the dice type is lowered to d4. Roll the d4 every round, until it shows 1 or 2 and is depleted.

[@MrAntwerpe]

Keeping with this, as if the PCs in your example threw flaming oil on a cultist with Ud6 damage. And the first round the damage is 1, downgrading the damage die to Ud4. But THEN the PCs throw more oil at the same cultist. Would you have a Ud4 and a Ud6, or bump it up to one Ud12? (I've wondered about this with Usage Dice in other games as well.) Thanks. Great video!