Ostensibly, Nightwatch is a game about seasoned monster hunters sworn to chase down and ultimately rid the world of some terrible evil. And between these grim hunters and their quarry are wave upon wave of relentless minions. Cool, but not necessarily what I'm looking for in a miniatures game. Rather, I want a miniatures game that emulates the feel of classic D&D adventuring without a dedicated DM player. Nightwatch seemed promising, in that it's a solo/co-op game where the players control a small group of adventurers defined by their classes.
But I had one major concern: designer Patrick Todoroff writes, "you'll need need several dozen monster types of various kinds." First off, I just don't want to have to buy, assemble, and paint up that many miniatures for what, for my purposes, should be an "ultra skirmish" game (i.e., very low figure count). But more importantly, squaring off against dozens of monsters just doesn't feel like D&D to me. YMMV. So could I get the results I wanted from Nightwatch without the "several dozen" enemy miniatures? I set out to find out armed with a paltry nine plastic Skeleton figures from Wargames Atlantic. Against them stood four brave plastic Halfling figures, made by the same company.
The other concern was more broad: Is Nightwatch flexible enough to handle my particular vision of D&D? This boils down to an approach where "calls" matter more than rules. That is, where the game supplies tools to support adjudicating whatever crazy things might come up during the course of play rather than forcing play into predetermined categories of interactions. Would my brave Halflings be able to do anything beyond move, ranged attack, melee attack, rinse, repeat? What if they wanted to try to swim in a river, for example? Again, Nightwatch seemed promising because Todoroff clarifies straightaway that "Nightwatch is a toolbox, not an extensive, pre-packaged, comprehensive system."
OK so challenge accepted! Where to begin? If it was a "theatre of the mind RPG," I'd need a story hook. But for a miniatures game, at least in my approach, story begins with terrain. And this seemed like a wonderful excuse to dig deep into my collection of ready-to-play terrain items from Gale Force 9, Wizkids, and Monster Fight Club. So, prior to game night, I fiddled around with a couple of 2x2-foot neoprene mats from Battle Systems and a wealth of scenery.
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| A Perilous Quest |
A story began to emerge as I tinkered away. Wishing to seize control of a strategic bridge, a necromancer attacked the surrounding community and devised a typically macabre means of garrisoning the ruins: by way of corrupting energies, symbolized by fell crystals growing out of toxic pools, sorcerous standing stones erected nearby in the forest would continuously reanimate undead warriors to hold the bridge. Consulting an erudite scholar of magic, our heroes learn that shards of these crystals must be sheared off and used at the standing stones in a ritual to exorcise their horrid power, thus liberating the bridge.
In game terms, the objectives were to (a) get to the green stars (the crystals) and use an Interact action to collect a shard from each and then (b) carry the shards to the blue stars (the standing stones) and perform the ritual with another successful Interact action. Skeletons would be defending the ruins of the town and any that were slain in the process of exploring the ruins would be redeployed at one of the two standing stones, returning to further harry our heroes. The Halflings started at the red circle at the river ford.
Here is what the Halflings ended up facing on game night, on the ruined town side of the play area:
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| Oh man look at those bonemen go! |
Note that there are "investigate tokens" placed on various elements of scatter terrain, indicating that these are searchable. In base contact with the crates and barrels, a player character ("PC" - I'm using the standard RPG term rather than Todoroff's theme-specific term "Hunter") could make an Interact action to search them for useful common items: roll 1d10 and on a 1-9 it would be one of the common single-use scrolls, potions, or "grenadoes" a character can start the session with and on a 10 it would be a single-use Token, a kind of magical curio. Common items take up a "belt slot" of which a PC only has two, whereas Tokens do not take up a belt slot.
Also of importance: to get to a crystal for the purpose of breaking off a shard, the PCs would have to wade through toxic sludge. In addition to being difficult terrain (halving movement), any character who ended their turn in the sludge gained a Poison Counter. Three of these translated into a Wound, of which PCs only have four. And for each wound taken, a PC loses one of three potential activations during his turn.
Meanwhile, here is the comparatively desolate forest portion of the play area, where the necromancers vile servants erected the magical standing stones:
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| Spooky Times Ahead |
We randomly determined that the river flowed slowly from the town side toward the forest side. Apart from the ford, it counted as difficult terrain plus any figure that failed a movement check when attempting to cross it would be carried two inches down river. None of this is from Todoroff's rulebook; it's just the sort of "D&Desque" call that I like to flavor a scenario. It would become pretty important later on ...
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| Reolus the Ranger Found 1SP. |
Getting into the action of our session requires a little bit of description of Nightwatch's mechanics. All PCs have a dice pool consisting of 1d6, 1d8, and 1d10. Any action, apart from a free move, requires selecting one of these dice and rolling a 4+, which is obviously easier on a d10 than a d6. So if you want to move in addition to your free move, you need to roll one a 4+ on one of the PC's dice. If you don't, that PC doesn't move. If you want to hit an enemy in melee combat, you need to roll a 4+ on one of the PC's dice. If you don't, that PC's attack fails to hit. And so forth. If it's something you really need to work, use a die with more faces.
Once you roll a die, it is spent for this turn regardless of whether you roll 4+ on it or not. And when a PC has no more dice to roll, their turn is over. So each unwounded PC ends up with a free move and potentially three more actions per turn. Of course, if you roll really poorly you might only get the free move, but in my view something is better than nothing. The entire dice pool is ready to use again on the next player phase, called the Pact Phase.
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| Noble Scudamor Surrounded! |
But before the PCs go again, the monsters get to act in the Darkness Phase. The most basic monsters are called Vermin and they have a free move just like the player characters but they only have a single d6 for their dice pool. I decided the Skeletons would be represented by the next most powerful category of monsters: Horde figures with a free move and a 2d8 dice pool. Just like PCs, monsters need to roll 4+ on dice to attack successfully or do anything else. If they successfully hit a PC, or if a PC successfully hits them, they get to make a Dodge/Defense (DD) save: roll a 4+ and you don't take a wound.
Almost all monsters in Nightwatch are vanquished upon taking a single wound. They roll their DD check on their usual die type (d6 for Vermin, d8 for Horde, etc.). PC's check DD on a d6 but the result can be modified by the type of armor they are wearing. Heavier armor can give you a +1 to your DD check but also cost you 1" of movement, and vice versa for lighter armor. When the attacker outnumbers the target, as in the picture above, the target tests DD at -1 for each opponent beyond the first. So PCs definitely do NOT want to get swarmed!
As mentioned above, PCs only have four wounds. But the bigger problem is a PC loses a die from his pool for every wound he has taken, starting with the d10, then the d8, and finally the d6, until a PC who has taken three wounds only has his free move left. Mercifully, you can spend your free move to Imbibe a potion in your possession ... like a, um, Health Potion.
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| What's in the boxxxx? |
Having retrieved two of three crystals shards necessary to perform the ritual, our Halfling Heroes were making good progress into the ruined town. They suffered a few wounds which they shrugged off by way of imbibing Healing Potions they had wisely brought along, freeing up belt slots. So should they hurry on to the final toxic pool or search the ruins for other helpful items to fill those empty slots? After defeating this Skeleton spearman, plucky Priamus tried his luck and found a Smoke Grenade.
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| They went thattaway! |
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| Bumbling Bonebois |
Priamus used his recently-looted Smoke Grenade to confuse the skeletal advance. Per the published rules, a Smoke Grenade can be thrown 12 inches and will not scatter on a successful ranged attack check. Targets, whether friend or foe, caught in the resulting large blast template (failing to find a definition in the rules, we decided on 6 inches) blindly wander around until they are out of the smoke, using a d10 to randomize the direction of movement and distance traveled (result halved). Here, we made our own call: if a Skeleton stumbled into scenery, it would fall prone and have to use a free move or movement check to stand back up before moving farther.
It just made sense that barely sentient undead would be clumsy. Whether Skeletons with empty eye sockets could really be confused by vision impairing smoke is, of course, metaphysically debatable. Similarly, would Skeletons be effected by a Stun Grenade? How do they draw LOS? The point is, these are all opportunities to make calls during the course of play just as a DM would when running a session of old school D&D. Whatever you decide will probably not "break" Nightwatch because of its inherent flexibility. The system is sound enough to let the players choose whatever seems most exciting or interesting.
And boy would things get interesting soon enough!
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| Check out the index card "character sheets." |
Eventually, the Halflings made it to the second toxic pool and found it guarded by a more capable servant of the necromancer. The next highest level of monster is called a Terror and has a free move plus a 3d10 dice pool. Our heroes decided discretion was the better part of valour and retreated from it after retrieving the shard, but the Terror easily caught up with fleeing Priamus.
Rather than face down the Terror, he jumped into the river and attempted to swim downstream. But failed his check and bumped his head on the stone bridge. He made a check to resist being knocked out ... and failed again! He made a third check to see if he started to drown (i.e., took a wound) as he bobbed unconsciously downstream. Whew, a lucky success. His heavy pack must have weighted him to float face-up.
Here again, there was nothing in Todoroff's rules to indicate whether a PC could do this much less what should happen if the attempt went poorly. We just used our best judgment and found that Nightwatch's fundamental structure easily allowed us to adjudicate the results on the fly. As to what happened to poor Priamus? On the other side of the bridge, a Skeleton fished him out of the river and he had to use dice from his pool to recover consciousness. Again, not in the rules but the rules are so open and sturdy that it was a cinch to seamlessly carry on the adventure even when faced with such unexpected circumstances.
Once Priamus so quixotically escaped the Terror's icy grasp, Adelgrim the Ranger (just barely seen in the top right corner of the picture above) decided to sing an arrow into the imposing skeletal serjant. A hit! And to the player controlling Adelgrim, an unwelcome surprise. He did not know that the Terror, like Horde figures, only had one wound. And where did the fiend reanimate?
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| SH-T! |
Right at the sorcerous standing stone where Reolus and Scudamor had hurried off to commence the ritual of exorcism! Adelgrim, carrying the third of the three shards, soon joined them and the Terror could not stop them from completing the ritual on the first standing stone. But he summoned his silent minions to march through the claustrophobic forest and punish our heroes. Scudamor fell fighting off the undead but not before throwing the shard in his possession to Adelgrim. Reolus likewise prepared to meet his doom, passing off his shard to his fellow Ranger.
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| The Fall of Reolus |
Surrounded (-3 to DD rolls), Reolus could not withstand the Terror and his minions, who carved up the unfortunate Ranger rather than breaking off immediately to pursue Adelgrim. Meanwhile, Priamus in soaking chainmail hastened from the river after defeating the undead warrior who had pulled him out, in a desperate attempt to reach the final standing stone. So much for the merry chase our Halfling Heroes had led the undead warriors on back in the ruins! It was now or never and at the second stone, Adelgrim was fumbling badly through the ritual as the Terror finally caught up with him.
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| There may come a day when the courage of Halflings fails ... |
Priamus the Sodden made it, just in time to retrieve the final shard from Adelgrim and complete the exorcism! The necromantic fires of hatred where quenched in the Skeletons and they crumbled, bones and weaponry alike clattering amid the stony forest underbrush. Our heroes had liberated the bridge from the evil sorcerer's servants but at dear cost. Scudamor and Reolus likewise lay still among the fallen autumn leaves. There would be no further adventure for those brave companions. But to stand up against those who so carelessly underestimate them, a Halfling warrior would gladly pay his life's blood!
So did Nightwatch work for what I wanted? You bet it did.
Todoroff is absolutely correct to characterize Nightwatch as a toolbox. Veteran miniatures gamers might object, "What's the big deal? Any ruleset can support scenario-specific rules." The trouble is, scenario-specific rules are still rules in the sense that you have to invent them beforehand and they need to harmonize with all the other rules at play. What I wanted, and got, out of Nightwatch was a structure that allowed me to make calls rather than apply rules.
To illustrate the difference, let me point out that I could not find any rules for stealth in the book. So what can be done about it? Well, using the approach of scenario-specific rules, I would need to invent a stealth system and playtest it to see if it broke the structure of the game. I was recently brainstorming such a mechanic with a friend where a figure would be considered to have "stealth status" until it failed some kind of push-your-luck roll, which would emulate the tension of needing to be swift but wanting to remain unseen. Maybe we could implement that in Nightwatch.
But what if it just came up during the course of play and we hadn't thought of it before hand (like willfully plunging into a river). With Nightwatch, it would be so simple to make a call, based on the particular circumstances of that moment in the game, that a PC could remain undetected by monsters that hadn't already seen him simply by taking a -1 penalty to his movement check. Or maybe instead of a penalty, his movement while trying to remain undetected would simply be halved. Or rather than either of those things, he would need to make an additional role from his dice pool after making a successful movement check: you moved the full distance but it turns out it wasn't stealthy!
With Nightwatch, I could use any or all of these simple solutions in the course of the same game. Which I picked would just depend on what was going on at that instant, what made sense for that moment rather than what would make sense prospectively for all hypothetical moments. The latter is the domain of rules instead of calls. Calls are for this instance, rules are universal. This is what I mean when I say that Nightwatch, for me, captures the old school D&D feeling I want.
And I definitely did not really need dozens of monster miniatures on hand to get the experience I wanted. Now if you want to play the specific theme Todoroff presents for Nightwatch, maybe you do need that many miniatures. I did not. Just how many Skeletons did the Halfling Heroes defeat? We stopped counting at twelve. That's right, a dozen. Just by recycling Skeleton casualties back into play, we ended up fighting at least twenty one enemies using only nine miniatures to represent them. The gradation between Vermin, Horde, and Terror really helped there.
I also considered allowing the Skeletons to use the same Weapon Skills as the PCs. I didn't go into it above but fighting with a certain weapon allows a PC to perform special tricks. For example, Scudamor was armed with a single shortsword. Therefore, he could make a melee check against a Skeleton that would push the boneman back an inch rather than possibly killing it, avoiding the Skeleton's DD check and freeing him up from having to take a free attack from the Skeleton if he had disengaged from base contact. What if monsters could also use these tricks?
We tried it with the Terror, who had a hoplon and kopis, meaning that on a successful d10 melee attack check he could also make a free d6 shield bash attack check. It made him that much more frightening, although was it necessary considering his 3d10 dice pool? And whether that's too in-the-weeds for minions at large is a question for another day. It's simply another thing to try with this toolbox called Nightwatch. Another simple experiment would be to give a minion monster multiple wounds.
I have some reservations about Nightwatch, of course. For example, what would differentiate an Orc raider from a Skeleton warrior? Even old school D&D has enough granularity to make those enemies meaningfully different. Maybe not so, with Nightwatch. But that's another challenge I'm willing to accept after this excellent first impression.
For another hobbyist's take on Nightwatch, played more "as-intended," please check out this video from Dice Tales on YouTube: