Mindburn

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Duchess512
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Mindburn

Post by Duchess512 »

I am trying to build the warrior/dwarf equivalent of Spellburn. If elves and wizards can sacrifice physical stats to increase the likelihood of successful spell outcome, then warriors/dwarves should be able to sacrifice their mental stats to bolster their physical attacks. I think this would be a really fun addition and Im looking to playtest it with some friends from a campaign but I wanted to get some feedback before going live with it. Thus far I've reworked the text but Im still working on the actual Mindburn Actions table (similar to the spellburn table 5-1 in the core rulebook). I would love some feedback, especially one whether this would break other components of the game. Thanks!

Mindburn

“No one said you had to be smart to swing a sword and your jokes weren’t that charming to begin with,” quoth the mummy, and he was right. A warrior or dwarf can achieve more fearsome acts of physical combat if he is unencumbered from deeper thought or willing to make a deep mental sacrifice: forgetting his first love or the years he spent learning from his parents, or even sacrificing the confidence and charisma that makes him a hit with the ladies at the pub. Before rolling any attack, a melee user may declare that he will attempt Mindburn. In attempting Mindburn, the warrior or dwarf may temporarily expend points of his intelligence or personality score to enhance his attack roll. For every ability point he expends, the melee user adds +1 to his attack roll.

For example, a dwarf is surrounded by his friends bleeding out and the only way to ensure their survival is for his next attack to land. The dwarf must five up a small part of his mind. The dwarf thinks back to the parents that raised him in a loving and caring home, the sweet mountain fortress that defined his childhood, the charming school teacher who taught him how to read and chooses to forget it all, burning 7 points of personality to give himself a +7 bonus on his next attack roll. Ability scores lost in this way return as the dwarf heals. Each day he does not attempt mindburn, he recovers 1 point of ability score.



Automatic criticals: There is one additional option for mindburn. A warrior or dwarf who sacrifices a full 20 points of ability scores in one fell swoop automatically treats his next attack roll as a natural 20. It is likely they will need to be told their own name and no one will be buying them drinks or laughing at a their witty jests for quite some time.



Rerolling mighty deeds via mindburn: A warrior or dwarf may use mindburn to re-roll his Mighty Deeds die to turn failure into success. Example: A warrior steps up to a mighty dragon and attempts to blind him by spearing it through the eye. Though the attack lands, the mighty deed does not. The warrior thinks of that one time he made an entire theatre of gnomes laugh at his joke…and forgets this fond memory. He burns one point of intelligence to take his D2 and turns it into a successful D3. Warriors and dwarves must make this decision before the final outcome of the roll is decided.



Failed mindburn: Any warrior or dwarf who rolls a natural 1 on an attack roll while using mindburn suffers the loss of ability points and the associated corruption (see below), and also loses 1 point of ability score permanently. ß Would need to come up with a similar table but I think it would be fairly straightforward
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GnomeBoy
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Re: Mindburn

Post by GnomeBoy »

An interesting idea, but not one I personally would make a 'blanket rule' for all Warriors and Dwarfs. Part of the appeal of DCC for me is that the Classes work differently to reflect their strengths, rather than a universal set of mechanics with overlaid flavor for each Class's interpretation of those mechanics.

It could be a really cool way to represent berserkers, though... They can burn up to their level in mental stats and gain that as an advantage to all combat rolls. At the end of the combat, those bonuses go away, but they could burn for more in the next battle if they want to do so... On a day where they do this, they can't heal from previous days.
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Ozerulz
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Re: Mindburn

Post by Ozerulz »

Spellburn as written in the book is too much IMO. There’s lots of examples of people talking about players using it to get near automatic results. I wouldn’t expand it to other classes.
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catseye yellow
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Re: Mindburn

Post by catseye yellow »

check out kith class from the purple planet boxed set
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