Category: GM-less

A PVP Dungeon Crawl Classics Battle Royale using Magic the Gathering Creatures and Spells!

It’s been a while so let’s cut right to the chase. I wanted to do something new for our typical PVP sessions we do when too many players are out. I’ve explored the concept of spatial MTG before and thought I’d give it a try again with a new context, the “players” in MTG are instead the player characters in DCC. So its like being a Planewalker in D&D, with real MTG spells!

I’ll explain the cards I used and how I converted things, you’ll see it’s straightforward and works well. There are some critical differences between this and strict MTG. People had a blast drawing cards and collecting mana and summoning creatures.

The Rules So Far…

Players run around the map collecting any mana they touch from the mana spawn points for that color on the map, just like a video game character. The mana token on the map is exhausted and players draw a land card of that color. Players all draw spell cards from a single infinite of the same 11 cards (in this session). Unlike Magic, mana is spent from the hand and discarded when used.

Scoring: Each Kill, of a PC, performed by your or your summoned creatures is worth 2 points, each time you die is -1; the tiebreaker will be a PC’s proximity to the center of the board. Optionally the board can close in Battle Royale style.

Start of round: Initiative is rolled each round and all players draw 1 card.
End of round: clear corpses (in other words graveyards don’t last, so you can’t resurrect a creature at sorcery speed if you’ve already gone that round).

Hand-size limit: Intelligence.
Casting limit: The total number of creatures you control converted mana cost cannot exceed personality.

Each round players draw one card, and the monsters and PCs move and act (creatures that tap do so as an action). Monsters can only be controlled if they are within line of sight of your PC. At the end of their turn, the PC may cast any number of cards (then execute any upkeep effects). Also at the end of a PC’s turn, any creatures they control which are outside of their line of sight will move toward and attack the nearest* enemy, unless they have a 0 power, in which case they will attempt to move toward the controlling PC as directly without provoking attacks if possible.

Hands: start the game with 1 card and draw one card per turn. (You can sacrifice a spell card for a colorless mana.)

You must have and expend the required mana to play a card from your hand (it does not last like in MTG). Casting a 0-cost creature requires that you have mana of their color in your hand.

Creatures are summoned adjacent to the caster or up to 1 square (x5′) away per converted mana cost.

Direct damage listed is in the form of d6s, so 3 damage in MTG terms is 3d6 in this game.

There is no range limit on “targets” they must only be in line of sight. A creature’s attack and damage bonus is equal to its power and dictates its attack die on the die-chain starting from d3. Explained further below.

A creature’s HD is based on its toughness. its die type on the die chain up from d3 and the number equal to toughness. Its AC is 10+toughness.

A creature’s size is based on average power and toughness. <=2 medium, 2-4 = large, 5-6 = Huge (3×3), 7+ = Massive (4×4) 11+ beyond that figurte it out yourself but for each size increase reduce the AC by 1.

So a 2/3 creature would be as follows. Large; AC 10 ( 8+3 -1 from size); Attack d20+2 d4+2 dmg; 3d6 hp.

A 0/1 Creature would have AC 9; No Attack; 1d3 hp.

Keyword Abilities I have accounted for

Lifelink: temp HP, beyond max!

Vigilance: creatures with vigilance move before all other creatures without.
First Strike: creatures with first strike attack before all others without. 
Double Strike: two attacks.
Reach: can attack anything in line-of-sight (just go with it).
Death-touch causes max (damage rather than outright killing).
Trample: a cleave, roll damage, if you kill a creature you may specify another creature in reach whose AC would be beaten by the initial attack roll, apply remaining damage to them and continue as long as there is damage and legal targets.
Islandwalk: the attack roll automatically succeeds against a PC if the controlling player has islands in their hand.
Flying: flying creatures ignore attacks-of-op and terrain but are always within reach of a creature that is not prone and could otherwise attack a non-flying creature in the same space.

Graveyards only exist temporarily until the end of the round but keep in mind that targets (corpses) must be within line of sight.

Creatures share the caster’s initiative. Again all casting (except “instants”) is done after all PC and creature movement on your turn.

If you die you must make an intelligence check, if you fail you must unsummon a creature. You can burn luck adjust this.

Mana Respawn. Use DM/Judge’s discretion but here are a couple of ways. Initially, I wrote: each round there’s a chance some mana of each color refreshes, starting with those fonts furthest from PCs. I used Fate dice rolling one for each color (tip: “/r 5df” in Roll20) [blank] = no refresh of that color, [ – ] = refresh mana equal to 1/2 of PC’s in match, [ + ] = refresh equal to number of PCs. This was too fast and let players farm mana so I switched to the following alternative [ + ] = 1 mana of the color (as long as nobody is adjacent), everything else is no refresh. Really mana could be done in many ways and if you don’t like mine you should just make your own. Hell, have players draw it and use it by tapping just like in Magic the Gathering, and give them their own decks even.

9 d20
10 d24
11 d30
12-21 + 2nd action die
22-31 + 3rd action die, and so on….

Use the most appropriate crit table (usually Monster).

Some helpful constraints

Your maximum hand size is equal to your intelligence. You must discard cards at the end of the round if you exceed it.

Optional (if creatures get out of hand) you may only have a number of creatures under your control equal to your personality score. At the end of the round choose and unsummon creatures until you reach this limit.

On your turn you may control a number of creatures each turn equal to your personality in converted mana cost; you may always control at least one of your summoned creatures despite this limitation (for example: if your personality is reduced or the creature has an exceptionally high cost).

(AC Caps out at 22 for now so that creatures with a massive number of buffs are still hittable.)

All DCC spells and Deeds work as they would with/against any normal monsters!

The bottom line is there’s still some work to be done with mana but the spell casting/monster summoning and power levels/conversion worked great and players loved it!

I would almost just replace the Magic system in 5e with this if I go back to running that. Tired of Vancian…