Incline The Dark Eye on Bundle of Holding

[Andhaira]

Great deal going on right now over this fantastic RPG; the core book pdfs are up for a steal and also the adventures if you splurge a bit

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DarkEye

 

[nikolokolus]

Great deal going on right now over this fantastic RPG; the core book pdfs are up for a steal and also the adventures if you splurge a bit

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DarkEye

What's the base system like? I.e. If I like things like Chaosium's BRP system, Warhammer Fantasy role-play 1st and 2nd ed., et al. am I likely to want to play/run this?

 

[udm]

IIRC roll 3d20 (skill 1 | skill 2 | skill 3) and see if each die beats its respective skill. Personally I'm not a fan of the system, but YMMV (and depends on the GM too).

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Does the player set come with Gjaskerlanders?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

And on a separate note, the site has a traveller bundle ongoing as well.

 

[Snorkack]

EDIT: Oops, didn't realize this thread is age-old.

Great deal going on right now over this fantastic RPG; the core book pdfs are up for a steal and also the adventures if you splurge a bit

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DarkEye

What's the base system like? I.e. If I like things like Chaosium's BRP system, Warhammer Fantasy role-play 1st and 2nd ed., et al. am I likely to want to play/run this?

It's way more simulationist. Every skill is based on three attributes, e.g. climbing is based on Courage, Agility and Strength. To pass a climbing check, you need to roll three D20 in succession, each roll needs to be less or equal than the character's equivalent attribute. You can use skill points to compensate overshoots, your remaining skill points denote the degree of success.
Combat works similarly, you have an attack and a defense base stat that is derived from your attributes. For each weapon type you distribute your skill points on the attack and defense stat at leisure. Successful attack is rolling lower or equal than the base attack stat + assigned attack skill points + weapon modifier and is parried when rolling lower than or equal to the defense stat + assigned skill points + weapon modifier. There are a plethora of additional maneuvers, like making your own attack roll more difficult in order to do more damage or impede your opponent's attack on success. Also there are three distance classes for melee combat that opponents can attempt to switch in between, so the outcome of a halberd vs. knive fight depends on who's better in maneuvering between distance classes.
However, DSA's not nearly as deadly as WHFRP. Joe Average sports about 30 hitpoints, while a sword deals 1d6+4 damage. One hitta quittas are very, very very rare. Also, crippling, insanity and other character gimpers are uncommon.
Ruleset and game world are very interwoven, converting it to your average D&D setting presumably requires a lot of work.

Does the player set come with Gjaskerlanders?

With Gjalskerlanders, Fjarningers and Trollzackers, all barbarian-heavy cultures in the game world get their share, however only with one page description each. If you're interested in the lore, the regional fluff books of previous editions are richer in detail - but I don't know wheter translated versions exist.

 

[Andhaira]

EDIT: Oops, didn't realize this thread is age-old.

Combat works similarly, you have an attack and a defense base stat that is derived from your attributes. For each weapon type you distribute your skill points on the attack and defense stat at leisure. Successful attack is rolling lower or equal than the base attack stat + assigned attack skill points + weapon modifier and is parried when rolling lower than or equal to the defense stat + assigned skill points + weapon modifier. There are a plethora of additional maneuvers, like making your own attack roll more difficult in order to do more damage or impede your opponent's attack on success.

However, DSA's not nearly as deadly as WHFRP. Joe Average sports about 30 hitpoints, while a sword deals 1d6+4 damage. One hitta quittas are very, very very rare. Also, crippling, insanity and other character gimpers are uncommon.

5e, the latest edition of TDE has seen many changes. You no longer divvy up points between attack and defence as in 4e; instead attack stat, and parry are static values based off of attributes and skill in each specific weapon used. The attribute in question depends on the weapon being sued (so for instance in the case of swords it is dexterity I believe)

Regarding WFRP, its not as easy to compare. Combat in TDE is quite deadly, but likely less so than WFRP 2e, but again, how much it is really depends. For instance, WFRP 2e used Fortune Points, a resource refreshed after each rest. It also has Fate Points, used to stave off certain death. TDE 5e also has fate points but they are less powerful and don't grant instant death protection, only some rerolls, and even those can fail. Furthermore WFRP uses 2d10s (or d100%), while TDE uses d20s. Totally different bell curves.

In WFRP you whiff/miss a lot during combat, and when you do hit the opponent has a chance to dodge/parry. In TDE 5e you miss much less, but then again parry/dodges are a bit easier to do as well.

 

[Eadee]

I hereby apologize to everyone who gets to know The Dark Eye by playing the 5e.

I honestly apologize.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I hereby apologize to everyone who gets to know The Dark Eye by playing the 5e.

I honestly apologize.

How so.
And to be fair I've played some of the DSA games both new and old.

 

[Snorkack]

I don't know what Wyrmlords specific problem with 5e is, but the majority of people seem to be disappointed with the ruleset, so am I. They tuned down overall complexity, but for my tastes in all the wrong places. Priests now use their spells just like mages do, also combat was dumbed down pretty hard.
I prefer the more complex and sometimes admittedly convoluted DSA 4.1 rules. If I wanted to play a lighter version of DSA, I'd rather go back to 3e, I think.

 

[Eadee]

While The Dark Eye 3rd edition was very heroic and level based, they changed to a point-buy-system for the 4th edition. The 4th edition got much more complex and sadly much more complicated too.

Now they tried to make The Dark Eye 5th edition more beginner friendly, so they made really simple rules for the core book and they made the powerlevel of the characters pretty low.Then they decided they want to make a lot of money nonetheless, so they started throwing out ressourcebooks like mad, with more and more complicated "focus-rules". But since they want to keep it beginner friendly they decided that the focus-rules shouldn't make characters more powerful than characters who use basic rules only. That means that allmost every feat, spell you find in a book isn't worth bothering with in the first place because it is so weak that you could just raise your regular skills and attributes and get better results.

One good example would be the witches "cauldron-spells" For example you can cook stuff that improves nightly regeneration of LifePoints by +1 for up to 6 people. It costs 7 Astral Energy to brew in the first place. A regular healing-spell on the other hand has at least a AE to LP ratio of 1:1, so you effectively waste AE if you use this focus-rule.

Other example is the strength-soup the witch can brew:
Brewing anything with the cauldron takes 1 hour to complete. The product has to be used within 15 minutes or it loses its power.
The strength-soup is 3 litres! and someone who drinks it complete (remember, 15 minutes to drink 3 litres!) gains +3 strength for 30 minutes... so you use an hour to brew something that will give a small bonus for just 30 minutes and you risk that the person might not even be able to drink all 3 litres in that short time.

Those are just examples, the list goes on and on and on...

So in the end The Dark Eye 5th isn't less complicated than 4th edition, it is just that you need to buy more books for the same amount of rules and that your characters don't have the powerlevel to do anything of importance anymore. Which is, in my oppinion, just frustrating.