I love the system, but I fail to understand how defenses are supposed to work. Armor and shields make reference to defense rolls, but those rolls aren't defined. When being attacked, do you need to roll for each point of damage that your armor or defense action would block? That would mean that instead of the Defend action blocking 1 damage as stated it would allow you to attempt to block 1 damage, or maybe even to attempt to block damage until you block 1 damage.
And less a gripe than a jovial poke in the ribs: exploits are brilliant, but I feel the perfect opportunity to refer to them quite literally as "experiences" was missed.
The defense roll for armor is the same as any other roll: 3d6, take the middle die, add a relevant bonus, and succeed on a 5 or more (or another number if the GM decides it should be higher or lower). The defend action is an action that blocks damage by parrying, dodging, etc.
Armor works like the defend action, but it doesn't count as one of your actions. You can still add a bonus if you have one that is relevant to using armor. A "wizened sage who brews potions" would just roll the bones and hope for the best, but a "brave knight who slays dragons" would add the +2 bonus for being a knight: he knows how to roll with the blow and tuck his arms in (to avoid exposing the less armored spots like the inner elbow and armpit) to get the best use out of his armor.
Regarding "exploits" versus "experiences": it's mostly a branding thing. The word "experience" has been an abstract number in games (both tabletop and video games) for several decades now. It's the default understanding of "experience". It really needs a different name to avoid confusion, just like games that require you to spend points to attack call them "action points" or instead of "hit points".
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Hey, just wanted to drop a line to mention that I enjoyed the Exploits advancement and I mentioned it on my stream today.
Kudos on the game!I love the system, but I fail to understand how defenses are supposed to work. Armor and shields make reference to defense rolls, but those rolls aren't defined. When being attacked, do you need to roll for each point of damage that your armor or defense action would block? That would mean that instead of the Defend action blocking 1 damage as stated it would allow you to attempt to block 1 damage, or maybe even to attempt to block damage until you block 1 damage.
And less a gripe than a jovial poke in the ribs: exploits are brilliant, but I feel the perfect opportunity to refer to them quite literally as "experiences" was missed.
The defense roll for armor is the same as any other roll: 3d6, take the middle die, add a relevant bonus, and succeed on a 5 or more (or another number if the GM decides it should be higher or lower). The defend action is an action that blocks damage by parrying, dodging, etc.
Armor works like the defend action, but it doesn't count as one of your actions. You can still add a bonus if you have one that is relevant to using armor. A "wizened sage who brews potions" would just roll the bones and hope for the best, but a "brave knight who slays dragons" would add the +2 bonus for being a knight: he knows how to roll with the blow and tuck his arms in (to avoid exposing the less armored spots like the inner elbow and armpit) to get the best use out of his armor.
Regarding "exploits" versus "experiences": it's mostly a branding thing. The word "experience" has been an abstract number in games (both tabletop and video games) for several decades now. It's the default understanding of "experience". It really needs a different name to avoid confusion, just like games that require you to spend points to attack call them "action points" or instead of "hit points".
Three Bones v1.1 fixes a typo, a minor layout item, and adds in a line about damage (under the Defend action) that got accidentally cut in editing.
"Three Bones plain.txt" is a plain text file of the game with a written description of the map for those who prefer to use a screen reader.