Fantasy Trip/HaOW: Descent V1's Journey into Darkness

Fantasy Trip(TFT) / HaOW: Descent V1's Journey into Darkness

 Im a big Descent First Edition  and Descent Second Edition fan. These days Id rather play descent than any current rpg system. Note I said current.  As for Oldies I'd play TFT/HaOW any time :)

I usually bring my TFT books to cons, hoping to spread the word. A few years ago I ran into Jim and Rachel. I remember Jim's face lighting up when he saw the In the Labyrith / ITL cover.  He use to play lots

We sat down and played a couple of combats then, I plunked down a small 8x11 dungeon I made up.
He and his wife played. It was quite fun. I got their email but never emailed them.  He helped me relearn some rules.  We started playing but told him I don't have a dungeon made up, just some critter cards.

With some fast thinking I suggested TFT descent style and he was game. The basic parameters were get to the goal of the dungeon without loosing all your conquest tokens, and you win.

Here's the skinny:

Conquest Tokens work the same way. Start with 5. For every Glyph you hit, gain 3 more. Each time you die Loose 3 tokens.  When you die, as in descent you heal up, loose half your money, and top off fatigue. Glyphs are used for quick trips back to the store.

Players started with 300 gold, to by armor etc. One of the characters I had in the deck was prefab'ed with half plate and a broad sword. I let him start with that.  Potions cost 50 gold as in Descent, and similarly potions heal 3 pts, and fatigue potions top off fatigue.

You can spend fatigue points in TFT:Descent the same way you do in the regular Descent V1 game.   Use 1 point to get an extra MA, even after combat. You can use it to power spell points, or use to power ghost armor.

Starting out in the game you cannot get ghost armor, or weapon glyphs or magic glyphs from the descent shop. You have to wait till you get your first silver treasure.

I stocked the rooms very similar to the way the 1st descent dungeon is set up: one to 2 potions per encounter area, glyphs, treasure chests, and gold piles.

Copper treasures can be sold back to the store for 125.  You can save up 500 GP for a temporary Training stat. Those who have played will understand what that means.

Copper treasures I used fine weapons.  I gave the players a choice of weapons to use or armor, and take 1 fine alteration, that being +1Dex , or +1 damage.   For Silver treasures I introduced the concept of power dice: each player got a pool of 3 dice.  On a 5 or 6, they used the dice like descent surges and translated the surges into +1 damage or range, or +1 to hit.   The ghost armor had a pool of up to 4 dice, that the player could power through fatigue.

I ran the first half of the first descent dungeon from memory, which is a pretty good trick for my old brain. 
They ran into spiders, Beast men & master Beast men, hell hounds, skeletons and master Skeletons.  They also took on an ogre pretty easily. The result of these modifications is that players managed to run thru lots of combat, taking lots of damage and using minimal fatigue.

I need to do a follow up post with the monster stats, by the way I really enjoyed the game hack.   I will stat out the monsters for you later. If you don't know descent, or haven't played it, its very good, addictive even.

Thanks for your ear time. Ill keep you updated