Hi. Long time no see. I was kinda absent for a while, and I see I've missed a lot.
So, if I were to try to PBF a boardgame here, would anybody actually play that? You know, not those make-believe games which have flooded this entire forum, but rather those boardgames where you constantly roll dice and move figures around? Like snakes and ladders except much more complicated?
Preceding the question "what boardgame?" - a one you never heard about, because it's of my own creation. All I can say that it's based on Doom the Boardgame(although the basic idea of the game has changed a LOT), and it is somewhat like chess, except much less boring and much more imbalanced.
So if anybody shows interest in playing a boardgame over a forum, I'll post the rules of it. There is no hard limit on amount of players, though the maximum amount I have attempted is 3 and I have no idea how well it will work with more.
=====================PREPARATIONS=========================
Once the map is built(leave that to me), the players must choose their spawn locations. The order in which they do so is decided at random or agreed upon by players. When deciding a spawn location, the player can choose any square that isn't occupied by a wall. Spawning on objects such as air vents, item spawn zones, teleporters and toxic sludge is totally fine, though the last two are ill-advised.
However, this only applies to the first player. Consequent player spawns must follow two rules.
1) A player must not spawn within a line of sight of another player.
2) Between any two players, there must be no walkable path that is less or equal to 12 squares in length.
Note for rule 2: the actual distance between any two players might be just 1 square, as long as this square is a wall and it extends far enough. Toxic sludge are considered walkable terrain, shortcuts offered by teleporters are taken into account, shortcuts offered by air vents - not.
Note that for teamgames, theese rules are not applied to players on the same team. Teammates can freely spawn in the line of sight of each other, and on any distance from each other, providing they are not in the line of sight of enemy players and the distance between them and the enemies is more than 12.
And yeah, this means that the first player to choose his spawn has more freedom than the next one.
The players start with an armor quality of 2, 10 health points, and 2 mana points.
===================MAKING A TURN==========================
Your turn always starts with the turn of your Summoner. Always. Providing he is alive of course.
After your Summone has made a turn, it's time for your monsters to make their turns. It does not matter in which order your monsters take their turns - you can juggle that around all you want. However, you cannot interrupt the turn of one monster by the turn of another monster - you must finish the turn of this monster before doing the next one.
During the turn of any unit, this unit gets to do two actions. Monsters have only two actions to choose from - Move and Attack, while Summoners have three - Move, Summon and Use Item. You cannot repeat an action per turn, meaning you can't attack twice while standing still. However, you do not need to use both actions - you can use just one, or none at all.
When all of your units have made their turn, you pass the turn to the next player. The turn order is the reverse of the order in which you have chosen your start locations, meaning that the player that chose his spawn last gets to go first, and vice versa.
When all players have finished their turns, the Game Turn ends, and the next one begins. The immediate effects of it will be explained later.
===================MOVING AROUND==========================
When you take a Move Action, you become able to move to an adjacent square the amount of times the Speed value of the unit is. So if your speed is 4, you can move to an adjacent square four times. Diagonal squares are considered adjacent. When you are standing on a teleporter, the teleporter destination is considered an adjacent square. When standing on an air vent and having the Crawl ability, all air vents on the map are considered adjacent squares.
You can return to the squares you've already been on during the same turn. Like, moving two squares forward, and then two squares backward is fine, providing you have enough moves(this one in particular needs 4)
You are not forced to use all your moves. You can move only three squares out of four, two squares or even one.
You can interrupt moving by other actions. Moving two squares, doing an attack and moving some more is fine.
You cannot move through other units.
Some units take more than 1 unit of space. While it's obvious how do the 1 space units move, it's not really obvious with larger units. Here are some ASCII examples.
Baron of Hell, a unit taking 4 squares and having a speed value of 3:
Initial:
....
....
BB..
BB..
1st move:
....
....
.BB.
.BB.
2nd move:
....
.BB.
.BB.
....
3rd move:
BB..
BB..
....
....
Demon, a unit taking 2 squares and having a speed value of 4:
Initial:
....
.c..
.c..
....
1st move(forward):
.c..
.c..
....
....
2nd move(sidestep):
c...
c...
....
....
3rd move(turn):
....
cc..
....
....
4th move(diagonal step):
....
....
.cc.
....
=====================SUMMONING============================
When summoning, you choose a monster you want to summon, expend the amount of mana equal to the cost of the monster, and place him on any square that is adjacent to you. Air vents and teleporters count as adjacent squares for purposes of moving, but not summoning - you can't summon through a teleporter or an air vent. You can summon monsters ON theese things, as well as toxic sludge, though it's obviously advised against.
The monster always skips the first turn of it's existance. This means you cannot summon a monster and lead him to the victory right away - you will need to wait for the next turn before you can do something with him.
You obviously cannot summon monsters that you do not have enough mana for.
There is a cap on the amount of monsters of the same type under your command. You cannot summon a monster if doing so will exceed said cap. The cap is 4 for basic monsters, 2 for advanced mosnters, and 1 for boss monsters. Note that this doesnt mean you can't have more than 4 basic monsters under your command at the same time - it means you cant have more than 4 basic monsters of the same type under your command. Since there are three basic monster types, this sums up for a grand total of maximum 12 basic monsters under your command.
Detailed tables of monsters for you to summon will be given later.
=====================ATTACKING============================
When making an attack, you, well, attack?
Melee attack can only target adjacent squares, while ranged attacks can target all squares within line of sight.
First thing you do when making an attack is check for random miss. Roll a d6. If the result is 1, the attack misses no matter the criumstances. If it's not, the attack does not miss due to random miss chance. This means that melee attacks will connect, while ranged attacks might not, depending on the range check.
Second thing you do is roll for damage. Just roll the dice indicated for the unit you're making an attack with.
For melee attacks, you just apply the damage towards the target. For ranged attacks, you must first check range. Much like Damage, it's a unit-specific stat.
If the distance between the attacker and the target is LESS that the rolled out Range, the attack hits. Otherwise, it misses. Example for range:
@..X
Here the distance between the attacker(@) and target(X) is 2 squares. That means any attack that has a range less than 3 will miss.
Note that the damage of the attack is decreased by Distance divided by 2, rounded up. Meaning that the above attack will suffer a 1 damage penalty.
If the ranged attack misses, that doesn't mean it just disappears in the sky. It still hits, just not the square it originally targeted.
To calculate which square was hit by a missed attack, roll d9. This will define the direction in which the attack went. Here is a table that tells which value corresponds to which direction:
123
4@6
789
You may notice 5 is not present there. If you roll out 5, the attack fades into nothingness.
If you haven't rolled out 5, you roll a d4. This will define the amount of spaces the attack will travel. For example, if the first roll was 1 and second roll was 2:
+....
.....
..X..
.....
.....
Then it's like this. X is the targeted square, while + is the square that was actually hit due to a miss.
If there is something that can take damage on the square that was hit, it does take damage. Even if it's a friendly monster. Be careful when firing around your teammates!
Do note it does not matter if there is a line of sight between attacker and the square hit or not. With misses, it is possible to hit squares you would be normally unable to hit due to blocking obstacles. With power of Magic, apparently. Although, the attack can only pass through blocking obstacles like barrels and monsters, but it can't pass through walls, because that'd be ridiculous.
If the melee attack misses, we just pretend it never happened. The misfires are impossible with this one.
When applying damage, we take the damage value of the attack, and divide it by the armor rating of the target, rounding down. This means that less powerful attacks applied against more powerful monsters may and probably will deal 0 damage. After that, we decrease the health of the monster by the resulting value.
Example: an Imp attacks, rolling out 4 damage. Let's say it hit and it was attacking a Mancubus(AP 3 HP 3). We divide 4 by 3, getting 1,(3) - round that down to 1. This means Mancubus loses 1 health. If the attack would deal 3 damage, Mancubus would still lose 1 HP, meaning that the fourth unit of damage is wasted.
=========================INVENTORY=======================
The inventory of the player consists of his Armor Class(AC), his Health Points(HP), his Mana Points(MP) and an array of collectible items he might have stumbled across.
The armor acts exactly the same for the Summoner as for other units, with one change. If the Summoner's AC is more than 2(attained through picking up armor vests), then each time the Summoner is hit, regardless if the attack did any damage and how much damage it did, a d6 is rolled. If the result is 1, then the AC of the Summoner is reduced by 1. Note that this happens after the damage is applied.
Example: the Summoner is attacked by an attack that does 4 points of damage. He has an AC of 5, so the attack does no damage. A d6 is rolled, and the result is 1. Summoner's AC gets decreased by 1, becoming 4. This means that an attack with 4 damage points would take 1 HP away from summoner - however, it doesn't happen now, because the damage was applied before the armor was damaged.
The AC of a Summoner can never be below 2 and never be above 5.
The deal with HP should be obvious. A Summoner starts with 10 HP, and when he runs out of them, he dies. It should be noted that there is absolutely no way to recover lost health - each hit you get counts.
The MP should be explained fairly well above. You cannot have more than 25 MP.
Inventory items are various items that you might find during the battle. You can hold 3 of them at max, and you need to use them with a Use Inventory action.
The list of inventory items is somewhere below.
==========WHEN THE END OF GAME TURN HAPPENS===============
When the end of game turn happens(that is when every player has made their turn), we spawn powerups!
But before, we give each player 2 mana points. This is known as natural mana regen.
There are two exceptions where the mana is not give.
1) If the player is berserking(explained somewhere below)
2) A player cannot have more than 25 MP. All given MP that will exceed that value will be lost.
After that's done, I handle items. First, I determine if an item is eligible to spawn on this round. To do that, I roll a d6 and check if the given value is lower than the amount of Game Turns spent after the last item has been summoned. If yes, the powerup is to be spawned. This includes the turn that just ended, meaning that two items can spawn within two Game Turns, although that is rare. This also means that at least one item is guaranteed to spawn per each 6 Game Turns, and that on average an item will spawn once per 3-4 Game Turns.
If an item is eligible to spawn, I determine if it's an actual item or a barrel. To do that, I once again roll a d6 and check if the value is lower OR EQUAL than the amount of items that have been summoned since last time a barrel has been summoned. Once again that means that two barrels can spawn in a row, although that is rare.
If I spawn an item, I determine in which item spawn zone it will be. To do that, I number each zone and put it's number in a hat. Whatever I pull out will define the zone where the item will spawn. Simple as that. Some zones have "increased spawn chance" - I put the number of theese zones in the hat twice.
I won't go into specifics on determining which of the items I will spawn, because lazyness. I'll say that some items are less common than others.
If it's the barrel that I need to spawn, things are slightly different. The barrel spawn locations are not set in stone, instead, they depend on the location of units on the battlefield. I randomly take any unit from the battlefield(once again, using the Hat). Then I roll the dice as if a ranged attack was made against that unit, but missed. Whatever square I end up rolling becomes the square where barrel appears(note that this time I do not take walls into consideration). If the square I roll out is occupied by toxic sludge or a blocking obstacle(wall, monster, barrel), I choose the nearest square that is free.
You probably don't need to know a good half of that though.
==================WINNING CONDITIONS======================
You lose when all your units have been destroyed. That means ALL of them - you can continue the game after your Summoner has been killed, though its unlikely you will win.
You win when all your enemies lose.
Simple as that.
=======================MONSTERS===========================
The only really important part.
(Note: if Range is 0, then the monster uses melee attack.)
Zombie
Letter: h
Speed: 3
Armor: 2
Health: 2
Size: 1
Cost: 2
Damage: 1+(2d3)
Range: 0
Special: None
Type: Basic
Description: The strongest of the basic units, has the most health and damage. His drawbacks are the low speed and melee only - most monsters will just outrun him. Useful for cheap tanking/damage
Imp
Letter: i
Speed: 4
Armor: 2
Health: 1
Size: 1
Cost: 2
Damage: 2d3
Range: 1+(2d3)
Special: None
Type: Basic
Description: The only ranged basic unit. Has balanced stats, good all arounder.
Trite
Letter: s
Speed: 5
Armor: 1
Health: 1
Size: 1
Cost: 2
Damage: 1d5
Range: 0
Special: Crawl
Type: Basic
Description: An interesting unit. Has the lowest damage of basic units, and only 1 HP, instantly dying upon all succesful attacks. However, he can use air vents, and has very high speed. This makes him a good hit and run unit.
Mancubus
Letter: M
Speed: 2
Armor: 3
Health: 3
Size: 4
Cost: 5
Damage: 3d3
Range: (3d3)-1
Special: Blow-through. The detailed explanation of this is somewhere below.
Type: Advanced
Description: Crowd control unit. Slowest of all, and not toughest of all, it's still robust, does fair damage and has the blow-through ability.
Baron of Hell
Letter: B
Speed: 3
Armor: 4
Health: 3
Size: 4
Cost: 5
Damage: 1+(2d3)
Range: 0
Special: Radius Attack(a melee attack targets all adjacent spaces rather than just one) and Knockback(if damage is applied towards a target, it gets knocked back 3 squares. The attack doesnt have to do practical damage - just needs to hit.)
Type: Advanced
Description: Roadblock unit. His damage is subpar, however, his radius attack capabilities coupled with knockback and his high armor and health make him excellent for blocking corridors and covering your escapes. And yes, that's right, in my game, this guy has no ranged attack.
Demon
Letter: c
Speed: 4
Armor: 2
Health: 3
Size: 2
Cost: 5
Damage: 1+(3d3)
Range: 0
Special: Awareness. When a monster enters Demon's melee area, or moves within it, the Demon gets a free melee attack at it, even if it means interrupting the turn of the enemy. More info somewhere below.
Type: Advanced
Description: Damage unit. Not very tough, but fast, and does most damage out of advanced units. Plus, melee only units are going to have tough time dealing with it, although ranged ones will have no problems.
Archvile
Letter: A
Speed: 4
Armor: 3
Health: 2
Size: 1
Cost: 5
Damage: 2d4
Range: 7+(2d4)
Special: Decreased miss chance. This unit rolls the random miss dice twice, and only if both rolls give out 1 Archvile will miss.
Type: Advanced
Description: Sniper unit. Not much health, not much damage, but can make attacks over REALLY long range.
Cyberdemon
Letter: C
Speed: 4
Armor: 5
Health: 4
Size: 4
Cost: 10
Damage: 1+(4d3)
Range: (4d3)-3
Special: Decreased miss chance.
Type: Boss
Description: A better zombie. Lots of health and LOTS of damage, this guy seems undefeatable at first. However, his attack doesnt do any radius damage, targetting only one square. And he can't pass through people, either. Crowds is how you deal with this guy.
Varagy
Letter: V
Speed: 5
Armor: 3
Health: 4
Size: 4
Cost: 8
Damage: Xd2
Range: Special
Special: Telekinetic attack. Can target any square within a radius of 1 to 4 squares. The Line of Sight is not required for this, meaning that the attack can pass through monsters. However, it cannot pass through walls. The player is deciding the radius before attacking. It can be anything between 1 and 4. The X in damage formula is (5-Range). Meaning, for example, an attack with range of 2 would do 3d2 damage. The damage and random miss rolls are made separately for each target.
Type: Boss
Description: Crowd control boss. Not as tough as Cyberdemon, but is much better at dealing with crowds. Use monsters with high damage.
Summoner
Letter: @
Speed: 4
Health: 10
Size: 1
Type: Summoner
Description: Your main unit. You should know enough about him by now.
=====================ITEMS LISTING========================
There are following items you might come across while playing. In the brackets, the rarity and type of the item is specified.
Three item types exist:
1) Instant(their effect is applied as soon as you step on them)
2) Inventory(no immediate effect on pickup, is stored in inventory and has to be used via Use Inventory)
3) Upgrade spell(no immediate effect on pickup, is stored in inventory, can be used during a Summon action)
4) The berserk is it's own, separate type of item.
To pick up an item, simply walk on it. Picking up items is free and instant, with exception of Berserk. You can freely drop an item from your inventory if you need some extra space or want to share.
Note: you can explicitly specify to NOT pick up an item should you want to. Unless you do that, and there are no conditions that block the item pickup, I will assume you want to pick up the item and add it to your inventory.
Only Summoners can pick up and use items.
Medkit(Common, inventory)
Upon using, allows you to heal a monster adjacent to you. When healed, monsters restore to their full health, with exception of CyberDemons, who only restore 2 HP max. You can heal monsters that are not under your command - heck, you can heal monsters that are under enemy command, though not sure why would you want that.
Adrenaline stim(Uncommon, inventory)
Doubles your movement speed for this turn. Cannot be used for offensive since you're wasting one action for Use Inventory(to activate the stim) and one for Move(because not doing so would be pointless), but is useful for quick get-the-crap-aways.
Armor vest(Rare, instant)
Adds 1 to your AC upon pickup. Can't raise AC higher than 5.
Mana pack(Common, instant)
Grants you some Mana Points upon pickup. Comes in three varieties - small(1 MP), medium(2 MP) and large(3 MP). Cannot raise MP higher than 25.
Weapon item(Uncommon, inventory)
Gives you a weapon item. Upon using it, your summoner can make a direct attack. Note that whatever the result of the attack was, the weapon item is discarded after that. There is a variety of weapon items - see below.
Upgrade Spell(Common, Spell)
Theese things are identical to inventory items, differentiating only by method of usage. When taking a Summon action, you can opt to using a Upgrade Spell if you have one in your inventory. This does not require any additional actions to be spent. Upon doing so, the monster you will summon will benefit from the Upgrade Spell.
There are following varieties of the Upgrade Spells:
Sprint: allows your monster to Sprint. Sprinting doubles your movement speed for this turn but disallows you to make an attack.
Aim: allows monster to attack better. When making an attack, roll the attack twice - then take the best result.(If both miss, does not matter; if one hits, take the one that hits, if both hit, take the one that does most damage).
Shield: the reverse of Aim. When an attack is made against a Shielded monster, roll the attack twice - then take the worst result(If both miss, does not matter; if one hits, take the one that missed, if both hit, take the one that does least damage).
Special Ability: is special enough to deserve a dedicated paragraph on it.
Special Ability grants a special ability to the monster it is summoned with. When a Special Ability Spell is spawned on the map, it is unidentified, meaning you don't know what ability it will come with. However, it is identified on pickup. To identify it, simply roll a d6.
1: Crawling - the monster grants the ability to use Air Vents(see Trite)
2: Blow-through - the attacks made by this monster become blow-through(see Mancubus)
3: Radius - if the monster is melee, he can target all adjacent squares when attacking(see Baron of Hell), if he is ranged, the attack hits the target square and all squares adjacent to it
4: Knockback - the attacks made by this monster do Knockback(see Baron of Hell again)
5: Awareness - this monster receives Awareness status(see Demon)
6: Sniper - if melee, the monster will never miss, if ranged, grant +4 to accuracy.
If the monster already has the special ability natively, nothing happens.
Only one spell can be applied to a monster. Spells can only be applied on summon, they can't be applied to monsters already summoned.
Berserk(Rare)
This one's interesting.
To use this, you must perform a Use Inventory action while standing on it. Doing so will immediately end your turn, not allowing you to make any turns with your monsters. You are granted Berserk status for the next three of your turns.
While Berserking, your summoner has the following advantages and disadvantages:
Pros:
-Completely immune to most kinds of damage. You still receive damage from toxic sludge and you still can be telefragged, but immune to anything else. You are also immune against Knockback.
-Moving 8 squares per turn opposed to usual 4
-Having the ability to pass through other units. Every time a berserking summoner will pass through a unit, it will die instantly. You can pass through your own units too, though it will kill them as well. You can pass through barrels, though this WILL deal damage to you.
Cons:
-Berserking summoner cannot pass through(and therefore kill) other Summoners
-Berserking summoner cannot take any actions other than Move
-Berserking summoner does not receive Mana due to constant MP regen(he can receive it through mana packs though)
-When your summoner is berserking, you have no control over your other units. They will have to stand still until berserking ends.
Berserking lasts for three turns - after you have made the third turn while berserking, you stop berserking. You can't take control over your units until the next turn, but you can receive damage fron now on.
Generally, using this powerup can give you a room-cleaner, but carries a degree of risk. Being unable to control your units allows the enemies to safely chew them, and when you will stop berserking, you will be at -6 MP disadvantage against other players. Plus, you cannot harm enemy Summoners in any way, giving them some breathing room. Use wisely.
=====================MAP OBJECTS==========================
Air Vents: kinda like teleporters, except different. If a unit with Crawling ability is standing on a Air Vent, he treats all the other Air Vents on the map as adjacent spaces, making it able to use them to quickly move between various ends of the map. You cannot move on an air vent occupied by other unit, but you can smack him through the vent without a fear of retaliation, since you're actually miles away or so.
Teleporters: same as Air Vents, with several obvious exceptions:
-All units can use them, regardless of size and having/not having Crawl ability
-You cannot attack through teleporters
-You can telefrag. If the destination is occupied by a destructible object, it gets destroyed instantly. Apply extreme caution when moving your Summoners to the teleporters, unless you want the enemy to telefrag you and end the game early.
-A teleporter can only lead to the teleporter of the same color rather than all teleporters.
Toxic Sludge: if during a turn a unit has spent any amount of time standing on the toxic sludge, by the end of the turn he loses 1 HP, ignoring armor. This happens after the turn is made, so a 1 HP monster can stand on toxic sludge, fire, and then, when his turn is finished, die.
If a monster has been knocked back on toxic sludge, but has finished moving on a non-hazardous square, when his next turn will end he will still take damage.
Explosive Barrels: they are like monsters, except they are not controlled by anything and cannot move on their own. If you try to step on a barrel, you stand still, but push the barrel instead, kinda like in doomRL. You cannot push a barrel if there is something blocking it. Teleporters, air vents and toxic sludge do not block the barrel, although pushing a barrel in the sludge will destroy it instantly. Barrels block line of fire.
A barrel has 1 HP and 1 AP. When it is destroyed, it deals 3d3 damage to the square it was standing on and all adjacent squares. It can be destroyed by a telefrag.
================DEFINING LINE OF SIGHT====================
Now this is a tricky one. Instead of just blabbering, I'll show you some example figures in ASCII. The only thing I'll say in text is that line of sight is not limited by range.
Oh, and also. Some shootable objects take more than one square. If at least one square is within the line of sight, the whole shootable object counts as being within line of sight.
# - wall or other vision blocking object(monsters ARE a vision blocking object), . - spaces that are not within line of sight, + - spaces that are within line of sight, @ - the object we calculate the line of sight for
Example 1:
++++.
+++++###
+++++@+#
+++++###
++++.
Example 2:
++...
++++.###
++++++@#
++++.###
++...
Example 3:
++++.
+++++###
..#++@+#
..#++###
.+++.
Example 4:
++...
+++++###
..#+++@#
..#++###
.....
Example 5:
+++...
.+++#+
.#++#+
.+++++
.##+@+
.##+++
..++++
...Yeah I'm bad at this. Well, if all else fails, you can just ask me. I'll calculate it and tell you if the square is in LoS or not.
=======================AWARENESS==========================
Each time a unit ends movement in a melee range of a unit that has Awareness trait, that unit gets a free melee smack. Here how it works.
Initial:
#..#
#.c#
#.c#
#..#
#s.#
Here we see a corridor partially blocked by a Red demon(that's 1 demon, not 2), and a Blue trite. Blue trite will now try to pass the corridor past the Red demon. This will end badly.
Move 1:
#..#
#.c#
#.c#
#s.#
The Blue trite has entered Red Demon's melee range - the Red Demon gets a free melee attack in. It should probably die for now, but for tutorial purposes, we have made the Blue Trite invulnerable to damage.
Move 2:
#..#
#.c#
#sc#
#..#
And that's one more melee attack.
Move 3:
#..#
#sc#
#.c#
#..#
Move 4:
#s.#
#.c#
#.c#
#..#
Two more melee attacks from Red Demon. That's a total of 4 this turn now.
At this point, the Blue Trite decides to attack the Red Demon. Which is stupid. But it does it. The Red Demon does NOT get a free melee attack here, since the Blue Trite has not moved.
Move 5:
#s.#
#..#
#.c#
#.c#
#..#
And with this last move, the Blue Trite escapes Red Demon's melee range. Once again, Red Demon doesn't get a free attack, since the Blue Trite has finished movement outside of it's melee range.
Now let's see how does Knockback and Awareness interact.
Initial:
#.c#
#.c#
#..#
#A.#
#BB#
#BB#
Here we see Red Demon blocking a corridor, then a Blue Archvile, standing in the melee range of Green Baron(it's 1 baron, not 4.) The Baron attacks the Archvile and deals damage. The Archvile gets knocked back 3 squares.
Knockback:
#Ac#
#.c#
#..#
#..#
#BB#
#BB#
Despite the fact that Archvile has technically passed three squares of Demon's melee range, the Demon gets only one attack in, because the movement was caused by Knockback.
I hope you understand stuff now.
======================BLOW-THROUGH========================
Blow-through attacks can target any square which are 2 or less squares away from the initial target, providing they are within line of fire. However, for each square you walk away from the initial target, you lose 1 dice from either Range or Damage, on your choice.
Let's see several examples on how this madness works.
Initial:
#.cc.#
#..i.#
#..h.#
#A.s.#
#.MM.#
#.MM.#
Here we see a Red Mancubus standing before a whole lot of Blue monsters - particulary, a zombie, an imp, a trite, a demon and an Archvile. The Mancubus aims his initial attack at the trite. It rolls 3d3 for damage and (3d3)-1 for range, which is more than enough to blast the Trite to oblivion.
#.cc.#
#..i.#
#..h.#
#A...#
#.MM.#
#.MM.#
Normally, the attack would end here, and the rest of the enemies would have to be taken out by something else, but this is a blow-through attack we are talking about! KEEP FIRING
We switch our attention to the Archvile to the left. He is 2 squares away from the initial target. That means we can smack him as well. However, we have to lose 2 dice for this attack, meaning we would have to roll either 3d3/(1d3)-1, 1d3/(3d3)-1 or 2d3/(2d3)-1 (as in Damage/Range). Seeing as how the guy is in point-blank range, it would make sense to take the dice out of Range, and roll 3d3/(1d3)-1. We roll Range... 1d3 comes out as 1, 1-1=0...
We get 0 range.
The attack misses.
Whoop de doop.
(Note: this is when we roll 1d4 and 1d9 and determine where the attack has landed, but I'm lazy. This is not essential for this example.)
Anywho, ignoring our recent failure, we continue to look for target. We see a zombie right behind the trite we have previously destroyed! And he is only 1 square away from original target, meaning that we will have to lose only 1 dice, rolling either 3d3/(2d3)-1, or 2d3/(3d3)-1. We go for the first option cosidering the low range.
This time, we bloody damn hit, with 4 range. However, we rolled out only 3 damage. Enough to damage that zombie, but not enough to kill him. Sadness. This is why you need to pre-roll 1's out of your dice!
Ignoring our yet another failure, we continue to spy for targets. What about that Imp who is right behind that Zombie? He is 2 squares away, meaning that we can smack him, right?
Nope. The thing is that the Imp is not within our line of fire. If only that previous attack killed the zombie, the imp WOULD be in our line of fire and we could smack him - but we can't currently. That's sad.
And for the final possible target, the demon. He is partially obstructed by the Imp and the Zombie, but a part of his body is well within line of fire, so we can attack him anyway. Or COULD attack him, but he stands three squares away from out initial target - that's out of range.
With a single attack, we have killed a trite and damaged a zombie, and, if luck wasn't so bad, would also damage/kill an Archvile and kill an Imp. Blow-through attacks are good for crowd control - with a single attack, you can kill a maximum of 23 monsters(!!!), though that will require perfect positioning and improbable dice luck.
Note that a single blow-through attack can't hit the same monster twice. For example
#cc#
#..#
#MM#
#MM#
In this example, we can hit the demon only once, even though theoretically we could target both of the squares he is standing on. But that would be too OP.
========================CAMPING===========================
This is another trickie. Generally, camping is disallowed and will result in meteors starting to fall from the sky on your head.
What is tricky though is figuring out what is "camping" and what is "playing defensively". The former is banned, the latter is totally fine.
What I can say for sure is that if you will go all "Okay guys I'm skipping my entire turn" I will give you a Barrel Hat and shoot it with a sniper rifle.
It's okay to have some of your units continiously do nothing as long as some of your other units are doing something. Avoiding attacking while having ability to do so is frowned upon. If you do not have ability to attack currently - keep moving. And no, moving two squares forward and then two squares backward and calling it a day doesn't count.
Well, if I'll see you trying to stall the game too much, I'll warn you. If you disagree, we will sit and discuss it in a peaceful manner over a cup of tea. No, that tea is definitely not poisoned, I'm not sure what you're even talking about.
This section is open to discussion.
EDIT EDIT: okay fixed the formatting a bit, holy mackerel its painful.
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Topic: If I were to try to PBF a boardgame... (Read 25773 times)