Design Study - The Crawler from Ways and Means

Part two of four in my project to break down the design of the classes in Ways and Means! Today's is the Crawler, the ultimate dungeon delver as shaped by the Heart. The goal is to see if I can isolate the mechanical design from the thematic elements and analyze how the two inform each other, to see what works for me and what doesn't.

Intro

The introductory text for the Crawler is that they're dungeon sickos. The thing that they want more than anything is to keep exploring the dungeon of the Heart forever, and since the Heart gives you what you want, the Crawler is caught in kind of an endless feedback loop, their body constantly being remolded into a sharper and more versatile tool to open doors and explore and steal loot. The pitch is really strong, and there's some lovely and evocative writing that hits for me. 

The piece that does seem just a little out of joint for me at the outset is, like, isn't that describing a calling? It seems mostly that the work happening there is about explaining why you're down here, and has the knock-on effect of sort of gesturing at what you actually do. I'm not disinterested, but it does make my first impression of the Crawler a little suspicious. What it seemed like could be the answer at the outset "I'm in the Heart because I'm great at delving dungeons" is actually kind of reversed - "I'm great at delving dungeons because I came to the Heart." It has an effect on my imagination of the class, and what the character might be good at, or want to do, etc.

Since I went so long on this idea in the Blightborn, I won't repeat it all here again, but the other piece I'm worried about is that the Crawler doesn't quite have the kind of identity that really sells a Heart class to me. The core concept is fairly generic, and it doesn't really touch or lean into anything that other classes don't get. If the Crawler's whole thing is about being touched by the Heart, well, there are already Heartsong characters, and Cleavers, and, like, that's kind of the whole point of the game. Crawler seems like it could kind of be the OSR "villager" class - this is what happens to you if you're a delver without anything special. 

Core Abilities

The Crawler gets two that are a little in conversation with each other, but function more distinctly than the Blightborn's, so let's separate them.

Every Tool a Hammer: consume a resource or piece of equipment to inflict stress on a delve equal to the die value. I imagine that means roll the die, not "eat a D6 and inflict 6 stress." On the other hand, maybe it is that, because the "roll the die" interpretation is just one of four options that the Vermissian Knight gets with their core ability, which would make this ability maybe a little underwhelming. You do, at least, get to eat pieces of equipment in addition to resources.

Inexplicable Loot: On a critical success (high roll of 10) to a delve or discern check, you also are awarded a piece of treasure, commensurate to the difficulty of the roll. With no difficulty and two dice, that will happen ~19% of the time; with three, ~27%. The odds drop dramatically at higher difficulties, so I wouldn't count on getting the D6 or D8 from this anytime soon. It's a little funny to abstract this ability out to any roll involving delve or discern; rules as written, that sounds like it includes "spells" (or etc), which could be fairly relevant, as the Crawler does get a lot of those, and they're ways to guarantee a skill and domain for a roll.

The abilities are not super inspiring. The little loop of finding small treasures and burning them to move through delves quickly is fun, but it seems so unlikely to generate meaningful treasures, and I'm actually a fan of long delves, so I'm not super bought in at this point. 

The core traits are the delve skill and the warren domain. Slightly pattern breaking is that the resource you start with is of the religion domain! The equipment has a few gems - you get a debilitating envenomed dagger and an unreliable map, and can choose a shortbow with conduit or a dark souls style elixir, or just some simple armor (with +1 blood protection! that was quite rare in the core book).

Minor Abilities

Bottomless Inventory: +1 Supplies protection, and a free resource once per session. The random resource generation procedure will mostly generate D4 resources but sometimes will shoot out a big one. If I had to keep both abilities unchanged, I would probably make this the core ability instead of Inexplicable Loot.

Denizen's Desires: grants the compel skill and the ability to, while on a delve, give treasure to a creature in an effort to befriend it. If you match the resource's domain to the creature's domain, you get mastery to compel it for the session. This is cute.  At the risk of overdesigning it, though, I would say that the resource size should probably be involved - giving a nasty creature a measly D4 probably shouldn't work as well as giving them a D8. Probably fine for that to live in the fiction.

Evolution: gain +1 protection in blood, echo, mind, or supplies - no fortune protection, same as the Blightborn! Kind of interestingly different vibe here - for the Crawler, I think of this as signposting kind of an OSR dirtfarmer kind of doomed energy, whereas the Blightborn's lack of fortune pointed me more towards a long suffering, chronically ill vibe.

Friends in Low Places: grants the wild domain and lets you talk to rats. I think this is a perfect kind of ability - high potential utility, obvious constraints on its use, a fun thing that you can look forward to using as often as you want. I should disclose that I have a bias towards thief-y characters with an affinity for rats.

Hard Lessons: the generic skill advance. Notably, the Crawler can choose from among every skill! The Hound also had that distinction, in the core book.

Kick in the Door: grants the kill skill, and gives mastery to entering combat situations loudly or destructively. This cuts against the vibe I was getting of an OSR style sneaky asshole, and leans more into grognard trad memery. A little bit of a letdown, but mostly just not a very exciting ability.

Knowledge Thief: grants the occult domain  (typo'd in the text as skill), and the ability to read any text or written symbolic communication within the Heart. Pretty cool! I wish it were a little more dynamic, but definitely a neat little thing to have. The risk with these kinds of abilities is that it can make the act of translation actually less interesting - without special attention, it just doesn't really need to happen anymore, so it's fairly natural to stop thinking about languages. Solvable with intention and attention, but it's why I tend to make things like this have a little cost or restriction - it can make it feel cooler and more powerful.

Redundant Eye: grants the discern skill and a roving eyeball that can see in the dark and gets mastery to interface with traps. I like the trap sense ability and I'm happy to get a little body horror in here, which seemed like a big part of the flavor in the intro!

Secret Sense: grants the discern skill again, and the ability to sense secret doors & compartments, etc, by meditating for a few minutes. That's very fun! It does seem to me to have a high degree of overlap with Redundant Eye, which I prefer for body horror reasons. I'm interested that doubling up on skills seems to be a pattern in Ways and Means' design philosophy - I probably wouldn't have had two skills, but collapsed them into one.

Self Actualized: grants +2 echo protection. That's it!

Shadow's Gifts: grants the sneak skill and alters Inexplicable Loot to trigger the treasure on sneak and evade crits as well. I like this style of advance, which modifies your core to be a little more useful, or applicable in different ways. 

Skeleton Keys: grants +1 fortune protection and the ability to take fortune stress to open any locked door or container, D4 stress to do it over the course of ten minutes, or D6 to do it immediately. This makes the Crawler the only class who can get protection in every resistance! I like the evocation of something like the "take 10/take 20" rule for skill checks in old D&D, where you could forgo the roll by just taking the time to do it properly. And I think this ability makes a lot of sense for the Crawler. I would probably have made it something like extruding a fingerbone in the shape of the key.

Tattered Maps: the generic domain advance, which can get every domain except for haven. Seems pretty logical, and the Crawler is in good company - haven is the most commonly missed domain of the core classes.

Those are the minor abilities! I like nearly all of them. I still think it's a little weird to double up on skills. The Crawler really does like discerning, though, and getting mastery to discern is relevant for its core ability. The other thing that extra skill advances means is that there are fewer advances that grant domains. The Crawler walks away with only two, compared to the core classes who all get four. It does make the class feel less universal, or less like it belongs in the whole of the Heart. And I think it's pretty surprising that the Crawler doesn't get a special ability associated with the cursed domain!

Major Abilities

Carnal Solutions: you can make tools out of your body by taking D6 or D8 stress to echo. This creates a tool of the same die size, and they're so yucky that anyone else who uses them takes D4 mind stress. You can upgrade this ability to create weapons which come with the bloodbound tag and one other relevant tag, or grant the delve equipment trusty, or absorb created equipment to "remove blood stress equal to the equipment's die size."

Here's the body horror tool making ability I was looking for. It probably is better suited to major than minor. The effect does seem a little... not totally worth it? You can load up on echo protection I suppose. And you can kind of launder stress this way once you start being able to eat equipment to heal. That strategy could really take off if you get a resistance to echo. I'm still not sure if the text is trying to make a distinction with the new-to-me phrase of "equal to the dice size" - is removing stress equal to the dice size really and truly just healing 6 stress from a D6 item? That seems strong, although the effect is maybe a little underwhelming otherwise. 

Delve equipment is certainly useful, and getting fictional positioning from items is definitely the part that seems most fun to me, but ultimately I think even a D8 delve item on command is not incredible, especially at a high stress cost, especially when you can sacrifice resources to make delve progress already. For that reason, I think it's pretty likely that the most impactful piece for the dice rolling part of the game is the ability to generate weapons. Making bloodbound weapons with your choice of another tag seems like it could start to be pretty relevant - getting a smoke item on command, or a piercing one, etc, can be quite handy. It does make me wish that delving equipment had a similar variety of tags to make delving a little more interesting. Anyway, very cool thematic ability that I wish seemed a little better to use.

Roadside Alchemy: choose a resource and cast this spell with mend+the resource's domain. On a success, you make one of two "concoctions" (which are "limited 1" - they get one use). Your options are a damage dealing concoction, either a bomb or a poison, or a healing concoction to mend blood or mind. You can upgrade it to instead create a concoction that grants use of a skill, or a concoction that grants protection if the resource used matches the domain of the area you're in, or grant your concoctions potent/brutal (the reroll and use best) tags as appropriate.

I love alchemy! I didn't used to associate it with thief-y characters, although Dungeon World's Thief gets a little alchemy skill for making poisons. Anyway, I'm inclined to like this ability, and I think it's pretty good. I think it makes sense for the Crawler, who has a big thing going on about acquiring and using resources. The bottled skill upgrade is quite useful I think, especially if you have a glut of resources that you can spend and some downtime to make several. Likewise with the protection concoction, which I think you could probably stack. Spending even a D6 on a one time healing item is a little dubious, since 1. high levels of stress are likely to turn very quickly into fallout, and 2. you could have spent that resource on removing fallout instead. For that reason, the potent tag strikes me as something of a trap option, but brutal explosives / poisons seem quite good. High utility and a cool ability to use, I think!

Shadow Communion: cast this spell with sneak+warren, and on a success, awaken a shadow for the situation. Older shadows/darknesses are "stronger and wiser." The shadows are inclined to view the Crawler favorably. The minor upgrades can use an opponent's shadow as a weapon, grant you a shadowy veil to get mastery to sneak and evade, and borrow a minor or major ability from another player character's shadow.

This single ability was the standout piece of text from my first scan of the whole Ways & Means book. I think it is excellent. Talking to shadows to learn secrets is just cool, and I think you will want to do it all the time. Normally, I'm hesitant to have too many spell shaped abilities, because the GM getting to pick the domain is a pretty powerful tool to cede to the player. But this is the kind of spell that I don't mind seeing a success on every time - this spell doesn't solve problems, it creates opportunities.

The fact that it can be used as a piercing weapon, too, is maybe a little strong - spells as easy ranged damage is probably the biggest place I worry about spell proliferation. I also missed the ability to grab an ability from another player character on my first readthrough . I'm sure there will be some busted combo potential, but flavorfully, I think it's just extremely cool. The mastery to sneak and evade is less eye-catching than the other two, but still, I think, pretty relevant (especially for the purposes of trying to get treasure from sneaking, with Shadow's Gifts).

Summon Trap: cast this spell with discern+warren to conjure a trap, once per situation. The trap inflicts D8 stress, but can be improved with a variety of tags by increasing the difficulty of the spell to risky. On a failure, the trap is still summoned, but you fall afoul of it. The minor abilities upgrade the risky version to allow for two tags or to deal D12 damage, greatly reduce the amount of stress you take for failing the spell, or summon a "living trap" - a heartsblood beast ambush predator.

I really like the gist of this spell, but I have a couple of concerns. One is that, for a nearly identical cost, you can grab Shadow Communion and one minor upgrade to accomplish the same kind of thing (ranged damage), but it's as many times as you want, and gets the piercing tag for free. And has the alternative mode of talking to shadows! This is one reason why I implemented traps differently - thinking of traps as more than just sources of damage means that it's ok if the damage dealing aspect doesn't stack up against other sources of damage - traps can do other things. That's still possible here; you can summon a stone pillar and let it topple and now the terrain is different, but the writing of the ability makes it sound as though the payoff is just the damage. I should probably put this somewhere higher up, but this is a principle I have about game design - writing evocatively can help people have fun. It can't force people to have fun, and it can't force them to be nice - it can't force them to do anything. The ability wouldn't become "good" if it had an extra paragraph about using traps narratively. But I think you might be able to help some people have more or a different kind of fun with traps if you wrote even just a little bit about it.

Ok! The other abilities. The potential downside to this ability is pretty steep - D8 blood stress is nothing to shake a stick at, and if you made it risky, the additional tags make things even worse for you. You've got nearly perfect coinflip odds on a risky 3d10 roll, which is not super encouraging. So the upgrade to only take D4 stress makes the failure much more enticing, but you still only get to do it once per situation. I think this is a sign that the ability, or at least its downside, should probably be reworked. The upgrade to instead conjure an ambush predator is the kind of delightful twist that sells the major ability / minor tweak format for me - similar kind of outcome but a very very different problem to have. All in all, this I think is a good example of an ability that I like despite my frustrations with the underlying mechanism.

Uncanny Saferoom: once per delve, cast this spell with delve + any of the domains of the delve. On a success, you conjure a little safe room to rest, which serves as a little D6 blood and mind haunt. The minor abilities add inhabitants - a "spirit healer" who adds D6 echo and fortune healing, a handful of pilgrims who you can pay to act as a small boon, and a merchant who can sell standard items as well as the odd rare item.

I mostly think this is just cute! The little minor abilities adding specific people who you might continue to see each time (or is each new saferoom totally different, but somehow populated by doppelgangers, or eerily similar counterparts? Like a Nurses Joy kind of thing?), anyway that's all fun. It compares a little disfavorably to the Junk Mage's Sanctum of the Stone Chorus, which gives free healing, first in echo, and then in supplies and fortune, and can upgrade to give you a free resource, and which always  rolls the same skill and domain. That actually does seem a little relevant - not having the right domains will, on average, wind up inflicting more stress on the party, making the haunts more appealing - but not having the domain makes casting the spell riskier. I don't think that the tension is disinteresting, but I do think it might make this ability feel a little underwhelming compared to some of the things other folks get. In particular, I want to highlight the mechanical effect of the pilgrims, which allows you to trade D4 supplies stress for D4 progress on the delve. However, the Crawler can already trade resources for delve progress! All in all, I think the ability could probably be tuned a little more in the Crawler's favor, but the feeling of it is pretty good.

That does it for the major abilities. The hit rate on these is decently high for me, including what I'm pretty sure will remain my favorite ability in the book, Shadow Communion. The design principles are kind of all over the place, though - one spell grants dependable, piercing damage at range, and the very next spell has nearly the same effect but without piercing and at much steeper risk. Carnal Solutions and Uncanny Saferoom both have excellent fiction but kind of mediocre effects. The thematic ground being trod here is much broader than the Blightborn's, which I appreciate, but the class still feels a little identity-less, except that it is hungry for resources, and is laughing a little at D&D-isms.

Zenith Abilities

All That Glitters: decide on a true(r?) desire than to delve dungeons forever, a desire that was secret to the Heart. The Heart rewards you with it, then explodes, inflicting stress on everyone nearby but leaving you to enjoy your heart's desire in peace.

I have a hard time finding the interest in this one - it reads to me like the most perfunctory kind of ending imaginable. I think there could be something about the negation or giving up on the dungeon delving life - if this were about becoming resigned to the end of your career, renouncing your love, getting swallowed in a moment of weakness... That's just to say I could see a reading of this that's kind of tragicomic and that reinforces something of the Crawler's identity, but the text leaves me pretty empty here.

Dungeon Master: either out of some kind of revelatory frustration or perfect apotheotic vision, the Crawler seizes control of a localized region of the Heart, and twists that area into a dungeon of their own genius design. While the party is in the dungeon, the Crawler's player becomes the game master, and the Crawler's abilities and proclivities manifest in the inhabitants and other features of the dungeon (the text calls out several abilities - if you've got summoned traps, for example, your dungeon can have traps). The Crawler is reduced to a shadow, forever inhabiting the dungeon halls.

This, on the other hand, whips. I think the identity as "idiot who has too many opinions about dungeons" is a very good one. And the idea that your dungeon lives on forever, outside of the Heart's direct control, is very cool. I would love to have to take a delve through my old friend's nightmare dungeon hell of her own devising.

Till Death Do You Part: surrender to the Heart and allow it to reshape you - it turns you into a consort. For one situation, you can shape an area to your whim, changing its structure, its thematic domain alignment, dragging and dropping its inhabitants wherever you please. At the end of the situation, you are summoned to the "deepest depths," but you spend your free time working as a little Heart fairy, granting the desires of little Heart-y dreamers.

This one is much less interesting to me. I think the punchline, that the thing you desire most is the Heart, and so it turns you into its perfect creature, is kind of old news. And again, this seems like the kind of thing that could happen to anybody, particularly folks with the Heartsong calling, and it does happen nearly identically for Cleavers. 

That's the Crawler! At the outset, I was nervous about its thematic cohesion, and now at the end, I feel pretty similarly. I think there's some cool stuff happening with the Crawler, but it just doesn't have the same force as the core classes do behind the punch it's throwing. At least it does seem like it's throwing some kind of punch.

There are several things I'm excited to do as a Crawler, but there are kind of a lot of mechanical aspects of the design that are underwhelming, potentially to the point of frustration - there are a few things the Crawler does really well, but especially the major abilities compare disfavorably to similar abilities in other classes, or within its own kit. Shadow assassination is the ability that feels the most powerful, but it's somewhat ancillary to the Crawler's big thematic push. Weird! Next time: the Snail Pilgrim.