The relation effort and hearts - rules question

hearts
effort
question
#1

In the rulebook on page 15 it says:

If I’m trying to climb a rocky cliff of 1 HEART, I need 10 EFFORT to overcome it. If I’m wearing Magic Climbing Boots, the EFFORT would be Magical! Making 10 EFFORT with a D8 is far faster and easier than just normal shoes, which would be BASIC EFFORT, D4, and so on!

I really don’t understand the last statement: How can it be faster and easier to make 10 effort with af D8 - with 8 as the highest result?
…and because I’m confused about this statement I can’t comprehend how a PC ever can fight a monster with 4 hearts using any dice. Even not a D12?!
Of course I have misunderstood something - ex the meaning of “rounds”. Am I supposed to fight for several rounds in a battle and may I sum up my rolled dices? Ex “2” with a D6 in first round, then “3” in the next and so on until reaching 4 hearts = 40 HP (If I suvive that very very long?)

#2

My understanding is that EFFORT is worked through incrementally, like a monster’s HP would be in many other games. So, climbing the 1 HEART cliff face means, in your regular shoes, you roll a d4 this round and make, say, 3 points of effort against the 10 in that 1 heart. Next round you roll a 2 and now you’re half way up with 5 total effort done against the cliff. And so on until you’ve reached the top of the cliff. With a d4 it’ll take three or more rounds to reach the top, but with magic climbing boots that roll a d8, you could get up in just two turns if you roll better than average. Of course, your dice could still betray you and you’ll take as long with the fancy boots than you might have without.

Does that help? Do I have it right, myself?

#3

So, just imagine a one heart (10 HP) challenge. Let’s say the task is chopping down a door before the fire burns you alive. If the Tin Man has an axe, he rolls D6 Weapon or Tool effort against the door. On the first round, he rolls a four on the D6. So, you subtract that four Effort (or damage) from the 10 HPs the door has. Now the door has 6 HPs left (10 - 4 = 6), but the fire burns closer. On the next round, the Tin Man rolls a 2 on the D6 (not a great swing), and the door now has 4 HPs left (6 - 2 = 4). The fire is now licking at his boots, but on the third round, he rolls 6 on the D6 (maximum effort!), and he obliterates the door because it only has 4 HPs left. Yay! Our Tin Man escapes in three rounds and saves Dorothy.

But, suppose he has a magic axe. Now, against a one heart (10 HP) challenge, he has the potential to chew through the door much faster. Suppose in the first round, he rolls a 7 on the D8! Now the door only has 3 HPs left, and if he rolls well next round, he’s free in two rounds.

But now suppose he only has his bare hands. He is only rolling Basic Effort (a D4), and now the most effort (or damage) he can do in a single turn is 4. It will take him three rounds minimum to break down a door with his bare hands. Yikes! He might just burn up.

I hope this example clears up the confusion. Just think of Effort like damage, and then subtract the rolls from the hit points like you would in any game. Hearts just group hit points into easy-to-remember categories and explain the difference between challenge difficulty. So, a one heart door (10 HPs) is way less of a challenge than a two-heart door (20 HPs). But either way, just subtract the effort rolls from the total left.

#4

Thank you, both of you:-) Yeah, I think I do understand now because explanations and examples really make sense in the mountain case.
I guess it’s accurately the same proces when I’m dealing with monsters?

#5

Correct. So, instead of the Tin Man chopping down a door, imagine him hacking at a one-heart (10 HP) Troll. Just roll your damage category die each round (bare-handed D4, Weapon D6, or Magic D8), and subtract the roll each round from the total HPs left until dead/destroyed.

#6

What I like about this is if you want a Hulk like character you put a ton of points in basic effort. So “HULK SMASH”!

#7

@DMChef, that’s our Stubborn on Roll For Effort with a massive +7 Basic Effort. That Dwarf is a beast, haha.

#8

As everyone has said, Effort is applied towards Hearts just as you would apply damage to a monster’s health (because that is, in fact, a form of effort --> Heart completion).

#9

If you want you can just ignore the whole ‘hearts’ thing. The idea of it is just to give a simple language to describe 10hp and disuade from setting one monster to 13hp and another at 14hp.

Just set your monsters or tasks that take a bit of effort with 10, 20, 30, 40, 50… etc hp.

Then takeaway damage or effort as usual.

#10

In my home brew, things like this mountain or even a door for that matter… I give it a TN as is expected… say… a really tough and well built door so I give it a TN of 14. You roll your strength which is +2 and you are wearing gauntlets of ogre strength +2 so you are now at +4 strength. You need to roll a 14 or better. You roll an 8 +4 = 12. “Not quite enough but the door buckles and is hanging off its hinges. A good push will send it flying if you like. The noise you made however echo’s throughout the tunnels and a moment later you hear voices from far off past the door you just caved in.” That’s more or less how I handle it. A big roll… something happens to the door. Small roll… not much happens to it, hell… if a 1 is rolled… “you break your toe trying”. If a small roll and not much… then the next roll would be at EASY so TN is -3 now so an 11 or better is needed on this next attempt.

You can apply that same logic to climbing a wall with a rope. Or another way to deal with a rope type scenario might be… maybe the rope is 15 feet in length and you apply 1 TN per foot just to see how long it takes to climb it? Roll a 18… boom… climbed right up like it wasn’t even an issue. Roll a 4… well, struggling a bit. Roll again… 7… total of 11 feet so far, another roll… 9. "Finally, you made it up. You are tired and need to rest a second or two. Your hands are a bit raw from the effort. Okay, who is climbing up next?"

Basically… I let the dice tell the story alongside with me. We share the results and I verbally explain it to the players.