Item Rules Beta

For 2011, items will continue to develop into an important part of the DDM skirmish game, just as they are staples of the RPG. The current rules constrain how we can design and distribute items, and I’ve long felt that, at least for organized play, we need to look at alternative implementations of the item rules. To this end, I’d like to preview, and beta test, this new item rule that could be used for the upcoming constructed season. Here is a snippet from one version under consideration.

The inherent flexibility in this approach is that you could now assign two items to your warband, even if, for example, only 1 key creature in your warband can actually use either of those two items. Then, during set-up, you decide which item is assigned to that key creature, and you can then assign the other item to a different creature. The second creature can carry the item, even if it can’t actually use it because it is the wrong level, faction or keyword. Of course, carrying an item still increases the creature’s point value, but its probably preferable to the current rule, which causes immediate surrender of victory points for unassignable items right at set up. As many of you realize, starting a game down on points is not a particularly enviable position.

This new rule not only favors more item use, it creates a richer metagame for warband construction while also offering minor OP perks – ie. – when a player accidentally assigns an item to a creature that it could not be assigned to – what to do halfway through a game? This also gives designers a ‘freer’ hand to generate interesting items, while not worrying that an item might end up in the hands of a creature that was not meant to have it. With this rule, it doesn’t matter, because the creature could alsays carry the item, even if it could not use it. In fact, the most common time to catch a mistake is when a creature first tries to use an item.

Its also pretty easy to also use ‘carrying items’ as a way to handicap some of the most competitive players in your group. Their 200 point warband may consist of 10-20 points of carried items that are not useable by the creatures (if they are willing), or an additional 10-20 points of unuseable items over and above their 200 point warband.

So, give it a whirl, and let me know how your games go. Its been working for my tests, but you are the real test cohort. Let me know what you think.