Block, Dodge, Parry - A Levelless, Classless Expansion of Cairn
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Block, Dodge, Parry is an 'Advanced Edition' to Yochai Gal's Cairn. It is playable as an entirely standalone game, or as an 'expansion pack' to Cairn, Into The Odd, Electric Bastionland, or any other Mark of the Odd-type games.
Since its release in December 2022, it has received numerous updates, feedback, and great reviews.
Now the time has come for a BIG update: Version 2.0. Block, Dodge, Parry has been completely revised, updated, and expanded (and now has more than twice as much content!).
Version 2.0 is currently available as Lightweight PDF. The full version, with illustrations and layout, will be available soon!
It still acts as a toolbox, providing tons of house rules and ideas to inspire, alter, tweak, and expand. However, with version 2.0, it also acts as a complete game.
The main concepts behind its contents are
- To integrate 'fiction' into OSR-style play. If you are a wizard, it should be fun and easy to do wizard stuff, without causing major balancing issues.
- To make any fantasy character concept a player might have, easy to 'build' and play. The backstory is the character building.
- To provide players and Wardens with meaningful, impactful choices that emerge naturally during play.
- To organically create 'prompts' for new adventures from play itself. Do you want to master a new weapon? Use it! Do you want to learn how to master a particular skill? Find someone who can teach you!
Block, Dodge, Parry has 42 pages 81 pages, and contains the following:
- Time, Gear & Skill; a system for ‘skill checks’ without requiring a whole list of skills, that rewards the character’s background and preparation.
- Fantasy Species; a simple framework to play as non-humans with unique properties.
- Extended rest rules, rewarding more comfortable places of rest with more rejuvenation, as well as rules for Food & Meals.
- A variety of Wounds, Injuries & Diseases that are sure to leave a mark on player characters.
- Social Conflict; an alternative to physical combat, allowing for tense negotiations. It straddles the line between “complete abstraction” and “having the players argue with the Warden” by using dice rolls as prompts.
- Blocking, Dodging & Parrying, the system's namesake, giving players more tactical options during combat while maintaining its overall flow and simplicity.
- Location-based critical damage; Add a bit of impact to your blows!
- 31 Weapons; wherein each weapon can deal one of three types of damage, combined with fast, balanced, and heavy attacks and different special properties, which characters master by using.
- 6 categories of Armor and 19 pieces of Adventuring Equipment.
- Horses! Horse armor!
- Careers: 16 careers, each with a description, related skills, and "common knowledge" (things any person of that career would know)
- Skills: 90 skills, which give you tangible new options during play. These skills can be picked at character creation, or learned along your travels. Skills are now divided into categories for easy reference: Allies & Morale, Combat, Esoteric & Arcane, Exploration, Knowledge, Socializing and Tricks & Subterfuge.
- Training: A system to learn new skills by studying, doing, or finding the right trainer.
- Magic; a free-form magic system inspired by GLOG, allowing you to freely sculpt energy, hinder opponents, or alter reality. Equip magical gear to further enhance your abilities!
- Miracles; divine magic allowing you to banish your foes or aid allies. Compose your own Higher Power and dedicate your actions to your Higher Power to receive healing and bonuses.
- Entirely new chapters on running Settlements, Wilderness Exploration and Dungeoneering, building upon the framework of Cairn 2e, tying these systems into Block, Dodge, Parry.
- Roll up interesting terrain parameters for every wilderness encounter to shake up combat!
- Design your fearsome monsters and opponents with 18 Monster Features and random tables for rival adventurers!
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $15 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Download demo
Development log
- Now Live: Block, Dodge, Parry Skill Selector9 days ago
- Coin Price List12 days ago
- Update: Version 2.0172 days ago
- New Goodies: Career/Skill Reference Sheet, Rival Adventurer Generator95 days ago
- Version 2.0 is OUT NOW!95 days ago
- Coming very soon: Block, Dodge, Parry V2!Aug 02, 2024
- Digital Character SheetDec 30, 2023
- 1-year Anniversary - What's Next?Nov 29, 2023
Comments
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This is one of the best RPG purchases I've ever made (I bought it back at 5$!).
One thing that I think would be helpful is a combat reference sheet (or better yet, have that info on the Character sheet!). Remembering the specific conditions/Procedure necessary for Block/Dodge/parry to work took a session or two.
hi there
Just wondering if any more community copies will be available?
Kind regards
Is it possible to get a pdf with bigger fonts? seems that you use a 9 font and it's too small to print a copy to read without screen+zoom.
Sure, I can do that! I'll upload it soon.
Thank u! I feel old requesting bigger fonts LOL
The larger typeface version is uploaded. It's pretty bare (no cover, page numbers probably don't refer to the right pages but the links do work), but should make it easier to read!
Thank u!
hi, i play Cairn with 4 heroes, is the content of BDP compatible with (in particular the combat) ?
Definitely! The new options can potentially add some slowdown (as in, 4x making a choice what to do), but in my experience, once players get used to it, it can go quite fast still :)
ok thank you.
Hi! Is there any group or place where I can make suggestions or ask questions about the game?
There's a discord! https://discord.gg/zB9PhT3chT
one question btw, does a career give you ALL the skills listed under it or some at start?
Picking a career allows you to pick one skill of that career. A career can be picked multiple times.
how many times can you pick a career?
EDIT: Found it. it says 4
Yes, dependent on age! I'm starting work on a players guide soon, that will further expand on this.
man this is great work. but it reeeeaaally needs and index page. and a bit bigger font for A5 printing as booklet. that aside, I love it's contents. really good work! but pleaaaase add an index page for reals
I'll add that when I'm back at my home computer, which will be within a few days!
that's great to hear! I loved the contents of the book and the rules! Lots of meat on this expansion. Hopefully you keep it print friendly and keep the page count limited :D I love having it as booklet. Anyways it's your game so do what you will. Great job so far!
I've added a ToC, I will look into an A5 version next!
A5 version with double column would be a total blast!
awesome!
Any plans for this to be available in print?
For print, I want a version done with professional layout. I'm currently on vacation - upon my return, that process will be started!
It would be immensely useful to have a table of contents that links to the corresponding pages, as the content is large and modular.
The pdf has been formatted in such a way that a pdf viewer can display table of contents in the sidebar 😊
I use it directly from the cloud, via Google Drive, so this option doesn't appear.
ToC added!
Excellent update of the rules. However, I still really miss a version with text in two columns that is easy to view on a cell phone screen.
I think I can output that quite easily now! Besides that, a pdf reader such as Adobe Acrobat comes with a "fluid" reading mode, that will always beat any set pdf layout on phone ☺
These rules are amazing. My players always wanted to have some kind of "reaction" to being hit, and Block, Dodge, Parry gives me that. Not only that, but a bunch of other awesome stuff.
My other favourite part is fantasy species . Always wanted to have a little difference among them other than the looks, and now I have them.
I haven't looked at the magic system yet, but I imagine it's good and will definitely be used in my games from now on.
The skills system on the other hand gives me some questions. It just looks too complicated and I think my players wouldn't want to engage in such complicated rules. Still, there are some things that I can implement. Can't do EVERYTHING by the book, eh?
Thank you so much for creating this tool-book, Dice Goblin. You are amazing
I noticed there's a french version of your rules. Have you thought of making more translations? I would be happy to help you with Russian or Ukrainian
Thank you so much! The Skill list is not something players interact with a lot. They simply come up with a character, and you think of cool skills that would match that fantasy - and then check the list if something like that is maybe available already :)
Hi Dice Goblin,
Is there any chance that you will make this available as a print on demand product on Drive Thru (or even better Lulu).
PDF's are great, but I really have an easier time learning games from physical books. I love Cairn and have three books for it (the core rules, the core rules spiral bound, and the bestiary) printed from Lulu (the quality is great).
These rules look amazing by the way.
I definitely encourage you to build out, a hopefully illustrated in your style, bestiary as well. That, and some of the other suggestions in this thread would make for a really nice full featured game.
Thank you for your kind words! I'm working on a big update, and I would love for a print-on-demand version to actually have proper layout, which I will get done once the big update is out :)
Hey, will you update the files on DriveThru as well? I think it's still on 1.23 over there... :-)
Good point, will do it right away!
EDIT: I checked, and it shows 1.32 in the backend, which is the most recent version :)
Thanks, great!
Do you think there is a place for this to use for solo rpg w whitebox? This looks really interesting. Cheers!
I'm not super familiar with Whitebox, but I think it's pretty solo-friendly, given the increased survivability it grants :)
Dude, your project is amazing! But please, you urgently need a better layout! Maybe in A5 format, with two columns, or something like that, for better visualization. Reading your project on cell phone is hell.
Thank you! Lay-out is a big priority at the moment. Thing is, it's been seeing small updates over the last year, so it hasn't been in a stage where there was a 'final' version to lay out. However, I do feel that that point is rapidly approaching, and phone lay-out is the next big step. For what it's worth, I have the Adobe Reader app on my phone, which has a mode that just takes all the text from a PDF and presents it responsive :)
Hey Dice Goblin! I really love your ruleset! So Cairn uses spellbooks for Enemy NPC spellcasters. Is there a particular way you like to run NPC spellcasters within BDP's magic rules?
Good question! I tend to run npc spellcasters either as "they can just cast 1d6 arcane blast", or, in the vtt where I run games, I just give them a PC character sheet to track fatigue. I feel that often, making a note about number of md and fatigue slots would cover it. But you're right, it is a thing I should add! Maybe together with a bestiary 🤔
Hello, I see that there is a Version 1.31 here, will the Drivethru version be updated at some point or have you moved on from here? The latest version I can download is v1.3
Ah, that's an oversight. I'll replace it right away!
Hello friend! First say I love your work
1. Do you have plans to improve the layout of the book? I read the PDF mainly on my cell phone and the visualization is very impaired. The font is small and the page is large, very uncomfortable to read, especially in the parts where the text is not placed in two columns. I'm a layman, but I think the game would benefit from A5 formatting and text always in two columns. At least be inspired by Cairn 2e formatting.
2. I own the game purchased from DTRpg. Would it be possible to access it here as well? I prefer to follow the evolution of the game through itch. My email is rafamarruda@gmail.com
Many thanks for your amazing work!
Hey there, thanks for the kind words!
Hi there. I'm confused on the section relating to magical tricks. The directions state:
"The caster invests a number of Magic Dice of choice, as with casting a spell. For each 1-3, the difficulty of the Save is increased by 1. For each 4-6, the difficulty of the Save is increased by 2 – and the user gains Fatigue."
However in the example below this:
"Maltas tries to make an enemy orc stumble, and invests 2 MD. He rolls a 3 and a 5. The orc must roll under or equal his STR (14) but above 1, as the 5 raises the difficulty by 1. Maltas gains 1 Fatigue, from the 5."
Shouldn't the orc have to roll above a 3? The player rolled a 3 (+1 to difficulty) and a 5 (+2 to difficulty and the user gets fatigue)? Doesn't the +1 and +2 stack?
Yesss, you are completely correct! It used to be that a roll of 4-6 raised difficulty by 1, and 1-3 did nothing, but I 'buffed' it. I'll update the example in the next release. Thank you for your keen eye!
You're welcome. Thanks for creating this game! I've had it recommended to me when looking for "rules-medium" games for my players. It's also of great quality too, so keep it up 😊
RAW it looks like you always have to Block, Dodge, Parry, or Fight Back whenever you are attacked. Is this intended by the rules? My first impression is that this rule would make combat much more damaging than in standard Cairn.
That's a very good point! You can, in fact, "do nothing", i.e., your character uses their Hit Protection to defend themselves. I'll make sure to amend that in the text in the next version!
Came here to ask this exact question, a clarification in the document would be really useful!
I made a character sheet that tries to hint at the rules. Please tell me if I made any mistakes: https://justgage.itch.io/block-dodge-parry-character-sheets
That's amazing! There's a few small things that I'd maybe word differently. I don't know if you're on Discord, but there's a Block, Dodge, Parry group where we can look into it more :)
Finally got around to picking this up. The frequent updates and interesting content kept it at the top of my to-read list.
That's great to hear, I hope you enjoy!
Any Plans for a Physical Version?
I am contemplating a version with A5 layout, possibly through lulu, but as that process is all new to me, I need to figure that out first. Also, I want to make sure that the print version would be somewhat 'final', and I'm still working on new ideas and updates :)
I love this so much. This may be a bit too much to ask, but is it possible to eventually have an A5 version? I printed it as a booklet and the text is extremely small!
Other than that, it's truly excellent! Bought it, then bought it again for a friend :)
Good to hear that you love it! I've done layout in word so far (oof), and I would love a proper A4 and a5 layout done somewhat more properly (as I'd also like to print it). It's next on my to do list, and I'm looking for someone who can do professional layout for me!
That sounds absolutely fantastic! I know a few people who do layout, if it so happens that I find someone who's interested I'll let you know :) Keep up the fantastic work!
I’m not a professional but I have done some layout in affinity publisher. I would love to take a stab if you want.
Thanks for the offer! I'm going to tinker around with existing templates a bit first :)
How do monsters who do not use weapons fit into the expanded combat mechanics? Do you give their natural weapons, like claws, tags like regular weapons?
Yes, I would! Monsters do have damage dice for their attacks, so that translates in and of itself. Take, say, a lion:
5 HP, 12 STR, 12 DEX, 11 WIL, bite (d10), claws (d6+d6)
Now, a lion's bite isn't necessarily slow, but you could argue that it comes with more warning (I guess?). Either way, d10 attacks counting as slow is more balanced, in my opinion.
Beyond that, I find the idea of "Are the monster's teeth like daggers? Like swords? Talons like spears?" always translates quite well :)
Oh! Gotcha, yeah that cleared things up and was super helpful. Thanks! Love the supplement.
Are there a plans to add skills that allow for a playstyle similar to a druid?
That is... a very good idea! Druids are a bit of a blind spot for me - as a DM in 5e, I never really find them interesting, so that must be why I kinda... skipped them. It's going on my to-do list!
For what it's worth, you could argue that a Druid is like a Divine caster, with their Higher Power being Nature. You could merge it with Arcane casting, and flavor spells as, say, vines and thorns.
I absolutely agree, in fact I always thought that Druids in 5e would be a lot more interesting if they were combined with clerics to form an "Invoker" of sorts. You could make the less than stellar Cleric Channel Divinities be the Druid's Wild Shapes from Subclasses.
And while flavoring spells could fit with BDP the main problem I see is that it doesn't really offer the ability for a shape changer style of character. Same goes for a character that wants to let their pet do the fighting, the Animal Companion is good but I am currently allowing people to take it multiple times which will give them a more powerful pet.
Finally I noticed that unarmed attacks aren't stated to have a speed. It is most likely fast but I still wanted to mention it.
Yeah, good points!
I'll think about shapeshifting - that could be an interesting thing outside of Druids, with a variety of different interpretations (is it a mutation? Polymorphing? The Holy Spirit enhancing you?).
I'd put unarmed attacks last generally, yes, since their damage die is essentially already Impaired.
The weapon chart in the latest update states that the crossbow and greatbow are fast but have a d8 and d10 as a die. Additionally on the Tricks Magic Example shouldn't the DC for the orc be under 14 but above 3 rather than above 1. Additionally I'm not quite sure where you get armor from, there is no chart for it like weapons.
Thanks for your questions!
Wonderful, two last questions. The skill Inspiring says that allies automatically pass morale saves, but the morale portion of the pdf says that PCs don't make morale saves. Is the skill meant to work on companions and retainers only. Second question is about the poisoner skill and what specifically does "dangerous poison" mean. Sorry if I missed something obvious and thanks again.
I bought this a while ago, is it possible to get a DTRPG code? Managing the updates and downloads there is so much easier :)
If you reply with your e-mail (or DM it to me on Twitter, @DiceGoblinBlog, if you don't want it to be public), I'll get you a complimentary code!
This game seems to do everything I try to force into Cairn, but actually well implemented. Well done! I especially like your take on weapons and combat. I love that weapon lenght is taken into account without grinding the game to a halt in a weapon measuring contest.
Thanks! I tried to have it both be tactical, but also keep the spirit of "when in doubt, make a DEX Save to see who goes first, otherwise go with fiction/common sense", and I'm quite happy with the current version 😊
Was there was a change in your terms from (fast, balanced and slow) attacks vs (fast, normal, and slow) attacks? If so, I think pg 13 has old terms. Cheers!
Ah, thank you so much, I'll update that!
https://dicegoblingames.itch.io/block-dodge-parry/devlog/485985/small-update-ver... Done!
Just purchased! Game looks totally great but I can't find the character sheet. Am I missing something?
Thank you! I haven't designed a custom character sheet yet - it's on my wishlist to add soon! Until then, the base Cairn sheet should suffice (just write down careers and skills and such into the notes):
https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1x9wUazUOSzeu29Eoq43NH8_k9R5wghg-?...
In the same line, I've been playing in Foundry Vtt through the Cairn module!
Great, thanks
Great stuff, your weapon and damage proficiencies, as well as training system for character advancement won me over between this and Ruincairn. I think the dependence on gold and finding trainers is a great motivator for player buy in and agency. When developing this is their a source for gold/item values that you had in mind or drew from? I want to ensure I can balance when adapting published adventures for other systems.
Also are you intending to allow monsters to have weapon/damage proficiencies, and/or the ability to block/dodge/parry?
Thanks!
I'm not too deep into fantasy economics, as it immediately ties into a lot of other price dynamics. I find that Brave has a very strong list of goods and services, and I feel like that would be a pretty good guideline (though maybe training should be a bit more expensive than that).
I think the cost of training should not just be gold - there's a lot of fun to be had in finding and convincing trainers, before gold even enters the picture.
Appendix B goes into making NPCs (and monsters). My general usage of it comes down to:
Really like the combat and spellcasting material here. Have a creature-prep question for you:
Given the guidelines you mention for NPC creation and the considerations you offer for what sort of combat abilities different npcs might have, if we have (say) an orc who can block, how many times (or how much fatigue) would you imagine giving a monster like that access to in combat against the PCs? A certain number, and the players can wear them out? Or functionally-infinite fatigue, and the PCs then need to change-up their tactics? I can imagine both being viable, but I wonder from your own play what you found to feel good at your table.
Thanks for your time, and for your great work!
Glad to hear you enjoy it!
A couple of considerations:
Do Magic and Faith Dice ever get used up? And can you try to Dodge every attack that comes your way or only once a "round"?
Magic and Faith Dice do not get used up. They do have other resources tied to them, however; Magic incurs Fatigue (and that is a limited resource), and Miracles 'cost' Willpower.
You can technically only be in 'dodgeable' situations twice per round, as all attacks against you are 'summed up', and only the highest damage roll is used. Rounds are split in 'quick turns' and 'full turns', so there are two situations in which you can take damage that is dodge-able. There's no explicit rule forbidding multiple dodges. Dodges also incur fatigue, so I'd say dodging multiple times is allowed.
Wonderful thank you very much. Awesome stuff.
Wow, what a superb ruleset. Thanks for putting this out there!
Hello! I have a question about the 4 options when a character is under attack.
Is the chosen option intended to be a free reaction (besides the Fatigue costs, if any) or does it count as an action?
Getting attacked happens outside of the player's turn, so, without diving into 5E parlance too deep, let's call it a "reaction".
This means that Fighting Back can allow for 2 attacks in quick succession (You get attacked > Fight back, take damage, deal damage back > Your turn now, you can attack back)
Neat and quite clear now. Thank you!
Good stuff. Love the social conflict system and weapon skills.
Thank you!
Awesome awesome product, exactly what I was looking for for Cairn. The careers and skills are great as well as the training and arcane/divine magic. I'm looking to expand the practical magic effects out so they cover most spells, and then this will essentially be the exact system I wanted. Thanks for putting in the hard work!
Thank you!
Yeah, the practical magic effects can definitely be expanded quite a bit. I hope the base list gives enough fuel for your own ideas! I think, most importantly, the various bullets with each tag are there for inspiration - players should feel free to interpret 'open', 'read', 'charm' etc. however they see fit!
Love it! Where did you get the art?
The art is by the amazing https://twitter.com/Bertdrawsstuff!
How many pages is this?
33!