Combat Actions & Dice Pooling

One of the main and earliest settled on adjustments for Pulp City SE was to replace the Opposed Roll which mostly produced either results based on difference - Damage; or binary results - success or fail achievements.

What we wanted and what we have created is a mechanic that allows Actions to have multiple results, and that the spread of results is not limited to Damage alone.

Consequently most Actions have a menu of extra Effects (EFX) that can be chosen from and added when you have an especially successful roll. Success is measured by winning the basic roll (your best die plus Trait vs. opponent best die plus Trait or target Number), and additional success is through each result of 5 or 6 (Trump Traits) or 6 (no-Trump), or for Powerhouses each 4, 5, or 6. Enemies cancel those successes with their own dice achieving the same values (except for Powerhouses Defending don't achieve cancels on a 4+).

One of the keys to success is to maximise the number of dice you roll. This is done through Combat Bonuses, spending Power Up dice, Effects (bonuses to Attack or Defend) and any situational benefits such as from Powers.

Example: Six Feet Under Activates. He Moves in to engage Night Fright & Leech in Base to Base (BtB), and uses his Ashes to Ashes Action before Attacking with his Power Smash Action.

Normally you can you one Exclusive Action (the Actions on cards) per Activation, but because Ashes to Ashes is Combinable you can use it as well as Power Smash.
Six Feet Under succeeds with his Ashes to Ashes Action, but does not get any EFX.

For the Power Smash Each player rolls a basic 1d6 plus dice for appropriate modifiers:
Six Feet Under: Strength Trait + 1d6 +

• Momentum (from Moving) 1d6

• Size Matters (Six Feet Under has a bigger base) 1d6

• Strong/NonLiving (from his Undertaker Power) 1d6

• Attack 1 (from Ashes to Ashes) 1d6

• Power Up dice (Six Feet Under gets 3 new Power Up dice per round in addition to any unused dice) 3d6

For a whopping 8 dice; if he wins, any dice results of 4+ yield EFX.
Night Fright & Leech: Defense Trait  + 1d6+

• High Ground (because they are Flying) 1d6

For a less spectacular 2 dice. This will probably hurt. A lot.

So it is a good idea to learn how to maximise your modifiers to get the best advantage you can.

Character Cards - Pulp City SE

Figure 1

With Pulp City SE, we decided to revamp the game cards used for the different Supremes and Minions.

We set out with the design principle that as much information as needed as possible to play the model was on the card. That in turn affected how we re-engineered characters, folding Skills (we had around 60-70 or so in the old game) into the Powers, Actions, Traits and Movement Values/Types of each character, while still retaining the flavour of the character in question.

That also meant making a change in how the card was used to Recruit your Team as well as play the game. Previously, both sides of the card had the game information, meaning you had to flip the card during a game. Now one side is the Recruitment Side (top image) while the reverse side is the Action side used for gaming.

So the Recruitment Side lets you know the key information to build your broader strategy: the model's Role (what it is best at); its Level; its Origin; its Alignment; its Faction if any; how much it contributes to the AP Pool; how many Minion Levels (Minion+) it contributes; and also its base size which we included as a couple of minis have changed official base size.

Figure 2

Figure 1: Nuclear Jones is Level 2 and can be used in a Hero or Heavy Metal Team. He is a Support Supreme which means he contributes a lot of AP (Action Points) to the Pool. He adds 1 Minion Level to the Team (Minion+).

The Action Side is of course a run down of how the character can be used in an Encounter.

Changing all of this meant we had more information to cram into less space. Thankfully Melvin helped us achieve this minor miracle and we are very proud with the game cards we have.



Images copyright © Pulp Monsters 2014. 

Seabolt - Mini Painting Exchange

Hendybadger's Seabolt

Ah, yet another delay in regular blogging for the Pulp Citizen - sorry guys! But that said, I can defend myself by saying we have been working hard on delivery of the Pulp City KS, and I hope backers (and even non-backers!) have been watching for the weekly updates with all the new minis.

So apology done, onto the reason for this post!In the past couple of years I have participated in 3 'mini exchanges' based around Pulp City, and admittedly it took a while to get mine done, and also for those sending to me to do theirs. Here is Seabolt painted by my friend and Pulp City fan Hendybadger. So a big thank you goes out to Hendybadger for doing this! I now have two Seabolts for gaming purposes, which is more than good - you can never have too much of anything you like! Now if only we could get HB to paint more of his own minis... :)

You can never have too many Seabolts!

Regarding the blog, this week I hope to get a few posts written about Pulp City ahead of the KS delivery, and a few new aspects of the game when compared to the original version. They won't all appear this week, but should come out over the next few weeks.