Sunday, March 29, 2020

Tiny Dungeons - a Tiny D6 Armor Variant


I don't think I've written much about the Tiny D6 system, but it's one of the better minimalist/entry level RPGs out on the market and has a great range of books (fantasy, SF, mecha, post-apocalyptic, supers, etc.). The core system includes a very clean and simple set of combat mechanics, but armor is an optional rule which has to be attached with some variable damage rules; this eliminated the advantage of the core mechanic with flat 1 point hit damage.

Anyway, I thought of a very simple armor rule which you can deploy that does not negate the "1 point of damage" core mechanic and does not require introducing variable damage. It works like this:

Each class of armor (light, medium or heavy) ranks like it does under the optional rules, but the number is what you roll equal to or less on a D6 to negate damage as follows:
Light Armor: Rating of 1 in 6 (roll a D6; on a 1 you stop the damage)
Medium Armor: Rating of 2 in 6 (damage is stopped on a 1-2 on the D6)
Heavy Armor: Rating of 3 in 6 (damage is stopped on a 1-3 on the D6)

This system still requires optional armor traits to wear the suits of armor (Tiny Dungeons page 81) but otherwise lets you have some meaningful armor in the game.

Simple, right? It does require a roll, but now you can wear armor and still retain the simpler straight damage of the core rules.


5 comments:

  1. Wonderful idea! I've been agonizing over a variant approach to armor and yours is perfectly usable without changing anything. Thanks for the inspiration!

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  2. Wouldn’t light armor just replace shields then?

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    Replies
    1. A good question....as best I can tell shields affect through evade, using the shield bearer trait. Arguably just having a shield could count as light armor, but I don't think the RAW change with this optional armor rule, as shield bearer still provides an advantage.

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  3. I'd flip it a little. In keeping with 5-6s being a success, I'd say light stops on a 6, medium on 5-6 and heavy on 4-6. You could even equate that to disadvantage, standard, and focus tests.

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