AFF Armor Soak Statistics

	Average Damage Soak of Armor Types
	In Advanced Fighting Fantasy
	This data compilation is public domain
			Odds of armor
Armor	Avg 1-6	Avg 1-7	soaking any dmg X/6
Leather Cuirass	0.33	0.57	2
Leather Hauberk	0.83	1.00	5
Chain Cuirass	0.83	1.14	3
Chain Hauberk	1.50	1.71	5
Breast Plate	1.00	1.43	3
Plate Armor	2.00	2.29	6
Monster Light	0.50	0.71	3
Monster Med	1.00	1.29	4
Monster Hvy	1.83	2.14	5
Sm Shield	Special: +1 to total soak		2
Lg Shield	Special: +1 to total soak		3
Dodge 1	0.17	0.43	1
Dodge 2	0.33	0.57	2
Dodge 3	0.67	1.00	3
Dodge 4	1.00	1.29	4
Dodge 5	1.50	1.86	5
Dodge 6	2.00	2.43	5

AFF Weapon Damage Statistics

	AFF Weapon Statistics
	This Compilation of Data is public domain
Weapon	Avg Dmg 1-6	Avg Dmg 7+	Most	Weapon Notes
			Common
Great Sword	3.50	3.86	3,4	2h
Battle Axe	3.33	3.57	3	2h
Pole Arm	3.17	3.43	3	2h
Crossbow	3.00	3.29	2,3,4	2h missile
Long Bow	3.00	3.29	3	2h missile
Javelin	3.00	3.29	3	missile
Lance	3.00	3.29	3,4
Sword	3.00	3.29	3
Spear	2.83	3.14	3
Mace	2.83	3.00	3
War Hammer	2.83	3.00	3
Morning Star	2.67	3.00	2,4	-2 Attack total
Hand Axe	2.50	2.71	2,3
Quarter Staff	2.50	2.71	3	2h
Short Bow	2.33	2.57	3	2h missile
Short Sword	2.33	2.57	3
Club	2.17	2.43	2
Sling	1.83	2.14	2	missile
Dagger	1.67	1.86	2
Throwing Dagger	1.50	1.71	1,2	missile
Improvised	1.50	1.71	1,2
Unarmed Human	1.17	1.43	1
Unarmed Large	2.50	2.86	2
Bite/Claw Small	2.67	2.86	3
Bite/Class Med	3.17	3.43	3
Bite/Claw Large	4.17	4.57	3,4

Converting Dungeon World To Advanced Fighting Fantasy

This is a conversion of Dungeon World characters to Advanced Fighting Fantasy.

I use the male pronoun throughout this document for simplicity.  I use the abbreviations DW for Dungeon World, FF for Fighting Fantasy, and AFF for Advanced Fighting Fantasy.  I use shorthand SK for SKILL, LK for LUCK, MG for MAGIC and STA for STAMINA, MP for Magic Points.

I encourage you to think for yourself and disregard anything that doesn't suit your tastes.

The purpose of this document is to convert existing DW characters to AFF.  Once that characters die or retire, build characters according to the basic AFF rules.  I created this document in case anyone else felt like changing game systems while retaining their characters.  I've never heard of anyone quitting Dungeon World for Fighting Fantasy.  I suspect I'm the only one.  In any case, I hope you find this document interesting, even if it is not useful to you.

A bit on dice probability (for the uninitiated):  Rolling 2d6 results in a bell curve of results.  7 being the most common, then 6 and 8 together, then 5 and 9 together, 4 and 10, 3 and 11, 2 and 12.  In the game Dungeon World, success is achieved on a 2d6 roll by rolling 7 or higher (58% probability).  This means most attempts by the characters to do anything tend to succeed.  I tried to emulate that as much as possible here.

In Dungeon World, there are 6 stats that affected the ability to do any task.  The pregenerated stats gave a +2, two +1's, two Zeroes, and one -1 assigned to Strength, Dexterity, Consitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.  Many (but not all) players would put the +2 in the stat that affects the character's primary function.  For example, a fighter would put +2 in Strength because it affects Melee and Bend Bars/Lift Gates.  Thus a fighter with +2 to strenth, rolling a 5, would get a 7, a success.

Keeping with the spirit of that game, I did my best to ensure that each class below has the same probability of success with that class's primary function.  so the Fighter has a SKILL of 7 and two points in Weapon and Strength.  The Wizard has MAGIC 7 and 2 points in Magic-Wizardry.  The odds of success parallel that of Dungeon World.  A dice roll of 9 occurs as often as a 5, and so the odds of success with the two point bonus are the same. The only difference is that DW is a roll-over system and Fighting Fantasy is a roll-under system.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of character building in AFF, the Wizard will have low SKILL, so playing an eccentric Wizard that likes to fight and do physical stunts is less practical.  With 2 points added to a few chosen skills, his total SKILL + special skills would be a 6, which isn't horrible.

Deviating from normal starting AFF characters, I gave each converted class multiple starting Talents to further emphasize their specialization.

On Hitpoints:  In Dungeon World, hitpoints varied based on class and the Constitution Score.  Generally speaking, the Fighter and Paladin usually had the highest; followed by Ranger; then Druid, Cleric, Bard and Thief; and lastly the Wizard.  If we translate that hierarchy to this game.  The Wizard would have 8 or 10.  Druid, Cleric, Bard and Thief 10 or 12, Ranger 12 or 14, and Fighter and Paladin 14 or 16.

The only characters I broke the special skill point cap for are the Fighter and Paladin so they can wear any armor without penality as in Dungeon World.

*Fighter*

SK 7, LK 9, MG 0, STA 16
Talents:
 Armor Training
 Weapon Master
 StrongArm

Skills:
 Primary Weapon: 2
 Armor: 4
 Strength: 2
 4 points left for any other skills

Other:
 Starts with a Magic Weapon giving +1 to Attack, Damage, or Other special effect.

Comments:
 Armor maxed out to give full flexibility in choosing armor as in DW.

*Paladin*

SK 7, LK 8, MG 2, ST 14
Talents:
 Armor Training
 Strongarm
 Holy or Blessed

Deity: Any. I Suggest Libra, Goddess of Justice and Truth

Skills:
 Armor: 4
 Primary Weapon: 2
 Magic, Priestly: 2
 Healing: 1
 Law: 1
 2 points left

Other:
 None.

Comments:
 Basically a fighter with a deity.  Very customizable.
 Armor maxed out to give full flexiblity in choosing armor as in DW.
 Suggest two points for Etiquette or Con to use the "I Am the Law" skill from Dungeon World or just role-play the moral and political influence of the Paladin.  In my game, the player character is part of a ruthless Paladin order that is either feared, or hated, and only occasionally appreciated.  So the role-play option will work well.  On a successful roll, anyone that recognizes his Order will attack, flee, or submit.

*Cleric*

SK 7 LK 8 MG 4 STA 10
Talents:
 Holy
 Blessed
 Natural Physician

Any Deity, but only Usrel has the Banish spell.

Skills:
 Magic, Priestly: 2
 10 points left

Other:
 none.

Comments:
 I suggest putting 2 points into healing special skill if you want your cleric to be a medic.  Most deities give a Heal spell, but it's usable only 2x per day with the Blessed talent or 3x if you want to burn a luck point.

 To Turn Undead, you either need to choose Usrel as this Cleric's deity to get the Banish spell, or create a new deity that has Heal, Banish, and any two other priest spells that are similar to Dungeon World cleric spells.

 The DW Cleric has cantrips, so I also suggest putting points into Minor Magic to give the priest some cantrips such as Ripen or Glimmer, and treat them as priest spells usable once per day.

*Bard*

SK 7 LK 8 MG 4 STA 10 MP 12

Talents:
 Focus (see comments)
 Silvertongued
 Natural Linguist

Skills:
 Magic, Wizardry: 2
 Magic, Minor: 1
 Etiquette: 2
 Weapon of choice: 1
 World Lore: 2
 4 points remaining
Other:
 Cantrips: Entertain, Noise, any other (perhaps Weather Protection or Pied Piper)
 Spells: Whatever you want.
Comments:

 The Focus talent is meant for his instrument.  You can just role play the fact that the Bard sings his spells.  The fact that his MAGIC score is lower than your typical Wizard means his songs can serve (in role playing terms) as Spell Prep and give +1 per round of prep per the standard spell prep rules.


*Wizard*

SK 4 LK 9 MG 7 ST 8

Talents:
 Natural Mage
 Learned
 Arcane

Skills:
 Magic, Wizardry: 2
 Magic, Minor: 1
 *Magic, Arcane: 1 or 2
 7 to 9 points left

Other:

Comments:
 I suggest putting skill points into knowledge skills as the DW Wizard would often use his superior Intelligence to "Spout Lore" on the world about him to help the party.  However there's nothing that says you can't put some points into weapons if you really want to be a fighting wizard.
 The DW Wizard has three cantrips, so I suggest picking at least three cantrips.

 *There are rules for ritual magic in AFF but they're for very high level casters.  To make rituals available to lower level characters,  I suggest allowing the character to buy the Magic-Arcane special skill at any time.

*Druid*
SK 7, LK 8, MG 4, STA 10
Talents:
 Survivor
 Animalfriend
 Blessed

Beast Lords deity, with associated priest spells

Skills:
 Magic, Priestly: 2
 Animal Lore: 2
 Wilderness Lore (choose forest, mountain, swamp, etc):2
 Secret Signs, Ranger: 1
 Awareness: 2
 3 points left

Other:
 none

 His special priest power is to talk freely to creatures of the type he serves (akin to DW Spirit Tongue).

 The DW Trait "Born of the Soil" has no equivalent in AFF.  Just roleplay that the druid has to bear a physical mark of the land he's attuned to (antlers, leopard spots, cat whiskers, leafy hair, etc)

 The only priest spell for this class affected by the MAGIC stat is Heal.  If you don't want a healing druid, reduce MAGIC to 1, and put the points into SKILL, LUCK and STAMINA.  Then reduce the special skill Magic-Priestly to 1.  So your final base build could be SK 7, LK 10, MG 1, STA 12.  Your Heal will be worth 2, but you'll have more flexibility in doing other things.  Don't overlook the possible benefits however of healing a wounded animal in distress.

 This druid is more limited in shape shifting than the Dungeon World druid: only 2x per day without burning luck.  However, there's no time limit for shifting back.

 The Survivor talent is close enough never having to eat, which I thought was a a bit ridiculous in DW anyways.

*Thief*

SK 7 LK 11 MG 0 STA 12
Talents:
 Trapmaster
 Lucky
 Light Sleeper or Ambidextrous

Skills:
 12 points remaining (see comments)

Other:
 none

Comments:
 The Ambidextrous talent would be useful for ambush/backstab attacks.  As for special skills, Put 2 points each into your favorite thief skills and go from there.
 Suggested rules for new skill "Crafting-Poison":  A poisoner can craft a dose of any poison he's familiar with, provided he has the materials and equipment.  Time depends on the nature of the poison.  Simple poisons that do not kill outright, such as sleepiness, clumsiness, minor damage, minor hallucinations, etc: One dose per one hour of work.  Instant death: 12 hours per dose.  A skill check failure ruins the dose of poison.  A critical success creates two doses, a twice potent dose, or half the creation time.

*Ranger*

SK 7 LK 9 MG 0 STA 14

Talents:
 Familiar
 Survivor
 Crack Shot

Skills:
Bows: 2
Forest Lore: 2
Animal Lore: 2
Awareness: 2
4 points remaining

Other:
 none

Comments:
 There are many ways to build this one.  I don't know whether Awareness or Hunting is the appropriate skill for tracking.
 You could also lower STAMINA and boost LUCK, if you wanted to.  What really defines the Ranger is the Tracking, Archery, and the Familiar.
 To do a Called Shot on an unaware target, test SKILL + Bows.

Review of Advanced Fighting Fantasy The Role Playing Game

Bibliography
I'll cite pages and quote passages in part of review.  This review is for the 2011 edition of the game: "Advanced Fighting Fantasy The Role Playing Game.  Copyright 2011 Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone."

I acquired a copy of Advanced Fighting Fantasy last week and have been soaking up the manual as best as I can.  My purpose in buying it was hopefully to expand the Fighting Fantasy game I'm playing with my wife with a skill and magic system that's easy to handle.  Also, I'd like to convert my current Dungeon World game to Fighting Fantasy as I prefer the FF system.

This game system expands on the basic features of Fighting Fantasy by adding a skill based character build, as well as more detailed combat rules, three magic systems, a small beastiary and campaign setting, and a GM guide.

To summarize Fighting Fantasy for the uninitiated, I suggest this review here: http://rpggeek.com/thread/579545/the-3-characteristic-introductory-rpg

BUILDING CHARACTERS

There characters have the basic stats of Skill, Luck, Stamina and Magic.  Instead of rolling 6+d6 for Skill and Luck and 2d6+6 for Stamina (as in the original FF), you get a base character of 4 Skill, 8 Stamina, 8 Luck, 0 Magic.  You get 8 points to allocate to these stats.  There are limits.  For example, you can only allocate 3 to skill and luck, 7 to magic, 4 to Stamina (giving 2 times the points given in Stamina).  If you want higher powered characters you can give more points for the characters.

Characters then get points to allocate to special skills, and pick a talent.

Special skills are just specializations that add to your base Skill when you attempt that task.  So if you put a point into Lock Picking, you add 1 to your Skill before doing a Skill test.  There are special skills that cover a wide variety of adventuring skills such as weapons, armor, climbing, swimming, thief skills, magical skills, knowledge skills, etc.  So specializing in something lets you become an expert in minimal time, while increasing the base Skill score makes you better at everything, just at a slower pace.  Characters with a higher Magic than Skill can do all knowledge tests with their Magic score.

Your character gets to pick one Talent as well that helps distinguish him.  He might be able to cast low level spells with ease, befriend animals, shoot a bow with extra accuracy, heal more quickly, etc.  Elves and Dwarfs also get Dark Vision in addition to anything else picked for the character.

COMBAT

The combat system uses the same method as FF, adding your skill plus 2d6 and the highest total wins.  You also add any special skill in the weapon you're using.  So if you wield a club with club skill 2, then you add 2 to your combat total.

The weapons also do variable damage, and armor soaks damage at a variable rate as well.

The weapon damage is interesting because it's not just a die roll (d4, d6, d8, etc) for damage total, but rather each weapon has a small chart for a D6 roll that indicates the damage done and this data has a space on the character sheets.  A dagger will do 1 to 2 points of damage, and occasionally 3.  Whereas a Great Sword will do 2 to 5 points of damage, and occasionally 6.  AFF is not a high damage system.  Most weapons average 2 to 3 points of damage, so it's more important to have the highest Skill + modifiers + 2d6 than to do a lot of damage.

For armor, a Cuirass (basically a shirt of Leather, Chain or Plate) will soak damage 50% of the time.  A leather or chain hauberk will soak damage 5/6 of the time and full plate armor will always soak some damage.  The best defense is to have the higher combat total.

There's plenty of situation modifiers for battles.  Fighting in darkness, up stairs, down stairs, swimming, larger than opponent, smaller than opponent  ganging up on a single target, attacking from behind, etc.  The list was intimidating for me at first.  Then I realized that combat Skill totals are important, so it's good to give the players as many options as possible to fight tactically.

A nice part of the battle system is you can throw 3 dice, and the third die will either give you the damage done if you won the round, or the armor soak if you lost the round.  All you need to do is color the third die or otherwise indicate it as different.

The magic systems are Wizardry, Sorcery, Priest, and Minor magic.  Wizardry and Sorcery spells are cast via a 2d6 roll under check, just as with Skill or Luck.  The target number is Magic + Wizardry or Magic + Sorcery.   The Wizardry is powered by spell points derived from your Magic Skill plus your Wizardry special skill.  Magic points are restored with a night's rest.  Sorcery is very similar to the Sorcery! series of books and the "Sorcery! Spell book", and is powered by Stamina rather than magic points.  Many of the spells require components to function.  So there's a spell to listen to an unknown language, but requires that the caster wear a green wig, whereas a spell to make a target dance requires a bamboo flute.

The priest spells come from a deity and each priest gets only 4.  There's a common pool of priest spells that many deities share, and there's a special spell for each deity.  For example, Telak the God of Courage and Combat gives a spell to let the priest boost his Skill and Damage for one encounter.  Each spell can be used once a day, and a single spell can be used twice a day for the cost of a Luck point.  While most deities give a healing spell, the limit to once or twice a day makes the Priest less of a medic than in other RPGs.  The priest also has one final spell called "Salvation" that he can cast once in his lifetime to rescue himself and his party from danger.  The nature of the rescue narrated by the GM.

The priest need not roll to cast his spells, they happen automatically.  The intensity of a spell, such as the amount of Stamina restored by Heal, or the number of meals made by Create Food, is determined by the Magic skill + Priest magic special skill.

Lastly there's Minor Magic, which are known as cantrips.  They are very basic spells that perform simple utility such as drying a soaked object, making somebody drunk, freshening food, minor illusions, causing mischief, etc.  The spells are powered by magic points, and only if the spell fails.  It's not clear to me whether priests and sorcerers are allowed to take this skill as they don't use magic points for their spells.  Perhaps the sorcerer could power cantrips with stamina and the Priest gets them as daily freebies like his other spells.

WORLD SYSTEM

The campaign setting is the world of Titan and the book gives a map of the world plus descriptions of the cultures and peoples of the various regions and cities.  There's small a bestiary of common monsters.  If you want more you can get the Out of the Pit supplement  import beasts from other game systems, or create your own.  There are even guidelines to walk you through creature creation.

GM Guide

There's a chapter devoted to creating new adventures with advice on plot hooks and adventure settings.

There's also nice random dungeon generator for creating quick adventures on the fly or even long adventures.  Toss a number of dice onto the table for the number of rooms.  The landing places of the dice give clues to where the rooms go, and the number on the die indicate how many exits.  Then you draw the map, stock it with monsters, traps and treasure, and you're ready to go.  You can theme the dungeon or just make it eclectic like The Wishing Well adventure.  The generator is not exhaustive, but you can easily modify it to suit your needs.  The same concept can be applied to above ground adventures, generating cities with different districts, rooms in a castle, etc.  I'm psyched about this because I personally love old school dungeon crawls and it's nice to have a tool to get things rolling when my creative juices aren't flowing.

PROOF READING

My one complaint is some proof reading errors that confused me.  I struggle with proof reading (my own recent Dungeon World session had a few errors), so I'm not being condescending.  Three examples:  A sample boss monster character sheet has skill of 31 in Leadership (Page 121).  Later in the text it's actually described it as 3, not 31.

The sample character Manath the Rogue (P.21) has a dagger skill and a brawling skill, but there is no dagger skill in the list of combat skills.  Rather, there is a brawling skill that is for fist fighting as well as small weapons, including daggers.  Does the rogue apply both when using the dagger?  Was there even supposed to be a dagger skill?

The last example involves the use of luck in combat.  The text mentions a first and second method, and then refers to a third but not describing it:  The first option is to reduce the damage done by the enemy with a Luck test.  If successful, the enemy does minimum damage.  "...Secondly, LUCK can also be used to increase the damage caused by a successful attack.  This option may not be chosen if LUCK was used to win the combat round." (Page 59) The rules for using Luck to win the combat round were either accidentally omitted, or maybe the author meant to delete them but failed to delete all references to that method.  I'm going to guess that the player can test Luck to win a round of combat.  Faced with a Skill 18 Earth Elemental, I'd say burning your Luck to hurt the thing is a fair trade.  If your luck runs out it'll smash you to pudding.

All in all I look forward to giving Advanced Fighting Fantasy a try.  It's a good all-in-one fantasy role playing game with simple rules, a fantasy world ready to run, and a decent GM guide to creating adventures.  If you like to create custom characters, or if you were a fan of the Fighting Fantasy game books, then this game or the original Fighting Fantasy are for you.

I shall attempt to convert the basic Dungeon World classes to this system.  I'll post a message at a later date with the results of that experiment.