SFR, Inc.

[Darth Macho]

I was wondering if there would ever be an updated Dice Comander's Manual including the new rules, and breakdowns of all the races including Frostwings, Scalders, and Treefolk.

The original DCM is great.

I have to admit that I've been known to sit suspiciously in the corner of the office cafeteria like I'm plotting to blow up the place, but the sad and geeky truth is that I'm a 34 year old man trying to hide the fact that I'm studying as hard as I can to defeat my 11 year old nephew at this Dragon Dice game!

[deputyfife]

I wanted to second this motion, and I think I have a cheap idea of how to do it(cheap for SFR, that is.)
The original DCM came with spell lists including spells for Treefolk, Scalders, and Frostwings, so that part is already covered. The book also came with two sets of spell cards, intended to be removed. Although some might be hesitant to remove these, if they were removed, or even just one set, that would make enough space in the binding for an insert. SFR could print up inserts of equal size that would have the information for the missing races, laid out essentially in the same manner as the rest of the DCM. These inserts would have a sticky surface on the area that would come into contact with the binding, and a waxy strip that could be removed to attach the insert to the binding.
Or, you could just print a whole new book, forcing me to buy another.

[cliffwiggs]

There were plans once upon a time to do a 3ring binder type of book and then you could just replace pages as rules updates and new dice came out.

Its up to the new BoD if they still want to pursue that.

[riolis]

I used the rules from the site printed out all of the rules and race pages for a 3 ring ref. It uses clear page inserts so i can swap pages as needed and has space left over to add in a strategy section. The 3ring binder idea is good and could be used not only for new players but also for local reps. I have used both the DCM and the 3 ring in game demos to friends and have found that the 3 ring while dry gives the player the bare bones rules needed to play the game but can give the more advanced rules toward the back. I found that once my player started playing (in the breakroom at work) we got a nice little crowd wanting to know more, showed them the 3 ring of rules told them the break down of the basic rule and they called next game and considering that they wanted to play DD on break and not the Video games is saying something.
_________________
Got to love wolves, overwelming numbers, act as a team, Nature ready made army.
We walk a fine line between dream and reality. The border we dance upon is known as insanity!
It is through the beans of java that my hands aquire the shakes to roll Dragon Dice.
Fan Club Member
http://dragondice.ryanssaunders.com/

[laubackerj]

If there is a new version of the DCM, can some of the most recent rule changes be reconsidered? I often find myself going back to the DCM as the 'best' complete set of rules. I was a proponent of changing swamp stalkers and death doubling, but other things just seemed like change for the sake of change.
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Jim (not John)

[ddicerc]

Which rules would you want to have reconsidered? I would assume charging isn't going back in, unless as an optional non-tournament rule. Most of the SAI and spell changes I think are changes for the better, since they are a little clearer and more consistent. I'd still like to see dragons made a little tougher, so I like the damage changes there. The SS and death magic rules are better, Undead are more playable, and we finally have Amazon racial spells, albeit not all are terribly useful. I'm not trying to be an apologist for the new rules, but I think they are an improvement in general over the DCM rules, so I'd just like to see people discuss what they'd change.
_________________
Steve "DDice" Braun
The Diceman's Gaming Pages: http://ddicerc.weebly.com
2014-2015 U.S. National Champion
(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)

[arcbat]

Here's some of what I still don't like about the rules:

1) I think rout has really bad game mechanics, and I don't see why so many people like it. It's one of those effects that takes the game out of the normal turn sequence, and I think that's confusing. Though I've played many times with rout, I've almost never actually seen a rout action get resolved without checking on some detail in the rules. Can the pursuing army turn the terrain down to a magic face? Too confusing. It's also a timewaster, to have to step aside and resolve a rout. I don't mind having it as an optional rule (which I guess it is), but I don't think it belongs in official tournament play.

2) Lightning is too cheap against monsters. Chuck has run the numbers, and mathematically, it really is too cheap against monsters. Against Rares, it's pretty balanced. But the cost of lightning makes it cheaper to kill monsters than to bring them back. Considering all the other problems monsters have (esp. the ones with strange icon distributions) it renders them nearly unplayable against blue magic. I really really liked the proposal to charge a higher spell point cost for a version of lightning that would be effective against monsters. Despite the fact that monsters are melee machines, melee is not that significant in most games, and even without lightning, they are easy enough to kill. Lightning makes them far too easy to kill. Given the (perhaps remote) possibility of introducing new Hero and Champion dice as 4-health units, you leave them just as vulnerable to lightning as monsters currently are (unless you make some special exception to protect the new Champions). You shouldn't have to make an exception to make them playable.

3) I feel that uncommon and rare Magic Items should be made playable.

4) The various Dragon Breath attacks are still confusing. We have to look that up almost every time a Dragon breathes. I don't mind the variation in breath, but perhaps a reference card would be useful.

5) The Drake is hardly worth summoning. One step in making Dragons more useful/dangerous would be to do something constructive with the Wing icon. Having the Wing send the Drake back to the Summoning Pool, makes it a very weak Dragon. Perhaps the Wing could send it to another terrain. Perhaps the Wing would deny the army it's chance to slay the Dragon that turn, but the Dragon remains at the same terrain. Perhaps the Wing could count as extra saves (much like the Wing on other units), instead of needing 5 hits on a belly, or 10 in most other cases, the Wing icon could provide 5 extra saves, requiring the army to have 15 hits to slay the Dragon in that particular attack.

6) One other thing that I would suggest is simplifying the terminology of the various states: Alive/in play, Dead, in the Summoning Pool, Buried, Out of the game. Having a state like 'Banished' is just confusing. 'Banished' Dragons are 'Out of the game'. Seems like there's also a special term for what happens to Dragonkin under 'Degenerate Dragonkin'. I forget. I'd have to look that up.

On the other hand, I like nearly all of the changes that have been made. I think Swampstalkers are more balanced than ever. And black magic is not quite as overpowered as it once was (though I still think it has the edge over non-black magic).

And I think it's a good thing that charging was removed. For all the mathematical reasons behind that decision, I have to agree.

[Majiken]

[arcbat]

Well, the Drake has two Wings vs. only one Treasure on the Wyrm. And while the Treasure kind of sucks, it doesn't send the Wyrm back to the summoning pool.

And maybe the Mammoth Riders needed a little neutering. I don't think any other effect in the game allows for a 4X damage multiplier (4X maneuver damage on Highland 8th face). Even now, Dwarven cav is still pretty tough in Highlands without charge.

[ddicerc]

[riolis]

"3) I feel that uncommon and rare Magic Items should be made playable"

They are are they or is the cost to high for inclution in an army?
_________________
Got to love wolves, overwelming numbers, act as a team, Nature ready made army.
We walk a fine line between dream and reality. The border we dance upon is known as insanity!
It is through the beans of java that my hands aquire the shakes to roll Dragon Dice.
Fan Club Member
http://dragondice.ryanssaunders.com/

[ddicerc]

The problem with the magic items is the effect per health. A common item averages 1.5 points per roll; an uncommon 2; and a rare 2 plus an SAI every 4 rolls. So breaking it down by points of effect per health, a common has 1.5, an uncommon 1, and a rare .67 (not counting the SAI). The fact that an uncommon can be carried by a single units, compared to 2 for a pair of commons, may offset this. The same thing can be said for the rare, along with the power of an SAI. In practice, however, you almost never see anything but commons in play in tournaments. And, to be honest, I can't remember ever using an uncommon magic item in any game. I don't even use rares, and the only artifacts I've used are the Blade Golem and Dragonstaff.

The main culprit in my opinion is the "ID" face. The single icon on the uncommon and rare should probably be worth 2 and 3 points, respectively. The "Power Magic Item" rule in the DCM tries to offset this, but some feel it's a little too much. In any case, MIs definitely need a fix.
_________________
Steve "DDice" Braun
The Diceman's Gaming Pages: http://ddicerc.weebly.com
2014-2015 U.S. National Champion
(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)

[chuckpint]

I had an idea this morning that would make all the non-common magic items more useful. Create a magic item summoning (creation?) pool, but with a twist.

First, no common items in the pool.

Second, in order to have a rare in the pool, you must have an uncommon. Likewise in order to have an artifact or medallion, you must have a rare and uncommon. In other words, you must have at least as many uncommons as you have rares. For an artifact, you have to have at least as many uncommons and rares. Amount of health available would be the same as health of dragonkin. So with a 36-health army, you could have 6 uncommons, 3 uncommons and 2 rares, 2 uncommons 1 rare 1 artifact (and give up 1 health) and so on.

Third creating a magic item is more difficult that that summoning a dragonkin. So the spell would be 4 points per health. However, you can for 6 points, upgrade a similar item by one health. So add two new spells, "Create Magic Item", and "Upgrade Magic Item".

Fourth, magic items larger than common magic items are hard to carry around. For a non-common magic item to be moved to another terrian or to reserves other than by magic, you have to have it "carried" by twice the health of the magic item. So a single common can use a Blade Golem for example. But to move that Blade Golem to reserves, it takes 8 health of units to move it. Path, Airy Acquisition, and Call of the Wild, would still allow a single unit to carry an item of any size. But remember, if you move a rare magic item to another terrain with only a single unit, that unit will be unable to carry it to reserves.

Fifth, any magic items can start in the starting armies. That is in addition to the creation pool. But they take up health same as before. And any magic item that is 'lost', does not go back into the creation pool, but goes into the Buried Unit Area (BUA), same as the current rules. A silver medallion can still bring a singe magic item from the BUA to the army if it rolls it's TSR face. I'm also thinking that it can recruit or promote 2 health from the creation pool instead if desired.

[Autpost]

Sixth, if a Wyrm rolls a treasure you can bring one item (of any health) into the defending army. In this way 'Treasure' really means finding a treasure.

[Autpost]

I've reconsidered my suggestions above and have recognized that Chucks 'Upgrade Item' spell has more potential as expected if just that spell exists. If there would be no 'Create Item', then it would be useless to include common items in the pool, so forget #1. Only those items in the starting army could be upgraded and you can't jump over uncommons if you want to get a rare. So you have to include both, at least one uncommon (just one would be risky) and any number of rares to use this spell reasonable. (Of course a casting cost of 5 to forge any item is ridiculous anyway; 6 to upgrade sounds better)
Still I think that rule #4 to carry items is too complicated except for optional rules.

To playtest it could be made as a dwarven only spell first.

[chuckpint]

The idea behind #4 was to make it difficult to move magic items from your mages to other terrains. Perhaps it's not needed.

The other main point here, is that common magic items are just fine the way they are. We want to make uncommon, rare, artifacts more useful. Or at least more used. On the other hand, we don't want to make the game unbalanced again or too complicated.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[cliffwiggs]

[chuckpint]

Yes, we did, but the new twist is to not allow commons in the creation pool. I think it's worth thinking about.

BTW, the rules other than possible typos or unclear passages, are final for this year. Any discussion would be for possible rules changes for next year. I'd like to add more optional rules to build up to a DCM II.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[Deeghter]

[Deeghter]

Regarding your discussion about magic items, I'd like to jump in with my opinion.

The only reason I still don't use magic items is the fact that they eat up total army health!!!
There-fore I agree with the idea that magic items should be "created" by the magicians of an army (and I mean magicians only! Once they are created they can be used by every unit in the army).
So they start the game in a sort of summoning pool and join the armies later by magic.

The idea of having "equipment" to carry along is fantastic but it just bothers me that I have to reduce total army health for that! If you adapt the spell costs properly it wouldn't unbalance the game (strengthen magic too much). They would just become additional useful dice which can be added by using magic, just like Dragonkin.

So if you ask me what rules I'd like to get changed the most, this is it!!
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