Combat in Trophy Gold is a mess, as written in the book. I suspect it’s just badly written, not badly designed. I’m going to decipher it, hack it if necessary.
Say how you expose yourself to injury, then roll your weak point. If, during combat, any dark die is equal to your weak point, take ruin or mark armour.
This rule makes combat less dangerous, than hunt or risk. I like this.
Weaken
If you don’t participate in the attack , you can weaken the monster!
Instead saying how you’re trying to weaken the monster, then making a Risk Roll. If you are using a ranged weapon, add a light die. On a success, reduce endurance by 1. If you are using a ritual, reduce endurance by 2 on a 6.
For each light die that comes up a 1, 2, or 3, mark a slot of ammunition. If you are using a ritual, on any result of 1, 2 or 3 you also suffer exhaustion, magical backlash, a monster attack, or something else that prevents you from engaging in the Combat Roll for the rest of the combat.
Moved to the front, because it happens before the attack, and moved the ranged and ritual rules here where they belong. I don’t love tree messiness of the rituals rules, but magic should be messier.
Attack
All remaining treasure-hunters declare together what weapons you are using, and roll a dark die for each character involved in the attack. Add a light die if you have relevant skills, equipment, or are taking advantage of the environment, or monster weaknesses. If you are using a ritual as a weapon, make a Risk Roll before using your Ritual this way, unless you can justify why it is risk free to use a ritual in combat.
If the total of the two highest dark dice is equal to or higher than the Endurance of the monster, it is defeated in the manner y’all describe.
If it is not defeated, you may now continue the attack, adding one more dark die and re-roll all the dark dice. You may keep trying again, adding a dark die and re-rolling until you defeat the monster, or until all treasure-hunters give up the fight or die.
Changed perspective on rituals here, so it’s not just GM fiat. Playing on the table, all light dice are weak points. But I play online, so that’s redundant. Add a light dice for any advantages seems more intuitive, although it’s probably on average stronger, despite it being potentially much more powerful in rules as written (as all treasure-hunters could stack three out of four advantages individually, technically, each reducing endurance once, for a potential reduction from 12 to 2 in a group of 3).
Endurance
Endurance is between 2 and 12. Increase if the monster is particularly tough, if there are multiple monsters present, or if you are at a disadvantage.
If Endurance is less than the number of dark dice, automatically win. If the Endurance is above 12 due to numbers or disadvantages tell the treasure-hunters they must retract or find an advantage.
I don’t like fiddling with endurance, but can see that it mechanises overwhelming odds and keeps light and dark dice to specific roles. I removed half the fiddling earlier, but don’t see a better solution to this half of the fiddling.
Retreat
After taking ruin, if you wants your treasure-hunter to retreat, do so by handing your Weak Point to another player. They now suffer if either their original Weak Point number or the new number comes up during a re-roll of the dark dice.
Retreating as a group from an incomplete fight may trigger Risk Rolls or other consequences.
So that’s my version of Trophy Gold combat. Pretty similar, but reorganised so it makes more sense to me. Possibilities in favour of the treasure-hunters, but away from optimisation. I’d love to hear your thoughts?
13th May, 2023
Idle Cartulary
Playful Void 