Healing in DQ

The combat system in DragonQuest can be quite deadly with even the lowliest of opponents able to severely injure or even kill the most heroic of characters by getting an [18.2] Endurance hit or a [18.3] Grievous Injury with their attack.  As Endurance damage is recovered slowly [85.1] at one point every three days the ability to get an injured comrade back on his feet in the middle of an adventure is pretty important.  In DQ you have the usual options of healing potions, healing spells and the arts of the Healer skill though there are some significant limitations and roadblocks for beginning or just poor adventurers.

PCs vs. The Average Guy

When discussing what adventurers may do the descriptive text of the rules is often at odds with the mechanics of the rules.

[83.1] "It is to be assumed in all rules concerning the amount of activity an adventurer may accomplish that adventurers are an above average lot of people and should not be compared to present day humans. Also, when compared to non-adventuring members of their respective races, adventurers have, on the average, 50% higher numerical totals in all characteristics."

While I agree with the general sentiment of the first sentence the second does not make sense when looking at the actual mechanics of DQ. I touched on this in my previous post about Stealth.

Stealth of Monsters in DQ

In DragonQuest the term monsters means any entities that an adventuring party might encounter or come into conflict with which aren't from a player-character race or species.  This description does include a variety of sentient entities such as the Fairy Folk.
A number of monsters are described within the rules as being stealthy with it typically noted as being X times that of an average human. So what is the stealth of an average human?

Investing Spells in DQ

The DQ rules include a ritual available to all adepts that allows them to store spells inside of objects for casting later.  This is under [32.3] Investment Ritual.  Because there were essentially no limits placed upon what items could be invested with spells or how many invested items one could wield a set of rules developed over time in my campaigns.  I've linked to the handout as a downloadable PDF on the Downloads page of this blog.

The costs for "investable" items were derived from the Shaping rules and also Rune Magics runestick materials.

Hope it is useful or provides food for thought for other DQ players.

My DragonQuest Campaigns

Thought I would put up a brief post about how I run DQ campaigns and a bit of my gaming background.  This may provide some insight into where I am coming from in my musings on DQ.

Vision and Light in DragonQuest

Vision and Light in DragonQuest

Vision and light are rather vaguely defined in DragonQuest (DQ). Light sources aren't discussed at all within the rules and no details are provided for the four light sources found in the rules (candle, candle lantern, oil lantern and torch) such as radius of illumination or for what period of time they last. The majority of other RPGs available during the time when DragonQuest was released included this information so, to me, it was an odd thing to leave out.

I'm going to look at the vision types described for the various races and monsters in DQ, the types of vision granted by spells, the spells that produce light, and the spells that obscure vision. I'm not going to propose any changes or fixes in this post but may do so in a later one.

Oh boy! Another Gaming Blog

Yes, Another Gaming Blog.

In part due to some recent discussion on a Yahoo! DragonQuest list I've been putting together some thoughts about the game and how it works.  I was thinking about the best way to share these and decided that maybe a blog would be the way to go.

Some, or many, of the posts to come will likely be about the flaws or shortcomings in the DQ rules as I see them. To the DQ fans who might stumble upon this blog know that DQ is still far and away my preferred system for fantasy gaming.

I'll post a few and see how this works.

What Is DragonQuest?

DragonQuest is a Fantasy Role-Playing Game first published by Simulations Publications, Incorporated (SPI) back in 1980 with a 2nd edition released in 1981 with slight update to it published by Bantam in 1982.  A 3rd edition was released by TSR in 1989 after their purchase of SPI.  A more detailed description can be found at Wikipedia.