Tag: D&D

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Simple Combination Classes

Here are some rules for adding simple combination classes to old-style D&D and retro clones. (This is what I do in my D&D inspired house campaign with the kids.)  Basically the idea is that players are free to choose to be dual classed, and each combination has its own name and role, and one or more minor special abilities.  Some of the specifics relate to other rules I’ve added like Talents (swiped from Tunnels and Trolls, a Talent is a bonus you get to rolls involving areas that Talent covers).
First off, I’ve added two classes so that there’s a class that uses each Primary attribute.  Obviously you can ignore those and all the combos that involve them if you like.  I also strip Clerics of their fighting and armor-wearing abilities; in my campaign Priests fight like Mages… if you want an armor-wearing, mace-swinging caster of clerical spells you take a Monk or a Paladin, depending on which aspect is more important.

Ranger

  • Primary Stat is Constitution
  • d8 Hit Die
  • Cannot wear armor heavier than Medium Armor
  • Can wield swords, knives, bows, slings, and spears, and thrown weapons
  • Can use shields
  • Save as Fighter
  • Special Talent: Survival at first level (better of two d6)
  • Bonus equal to level on Ability Rolls using Survival Talent.
  • Combat as Cleric
  • Move Silently and Hide in Shadows as a Thief, but only in the wilderness
  • Climb as Thief
  • Animal Companion: have a loyal, trained domestic animal as a companion.

Actor

  • Primary Stat is Charisma, Charisma Bonuses are doubled
  • d4 Hit Die
  • Cannot wear Armor heavier than Light Armor
  • Can wield only Light Weapons
  • Cannot use Shields
  • Special Talent of Acting at 1st level (better of two d6)
  • Save/Ability Bonuses +1/Level Cha
  • Get a bonus equal to Level to Acting Ability Rolls
  • Actors get one additional Talent at 1st level

Combination Classes

Primary/

Secondary

 Fighter Mage Priest Thief Ranger Actor
Fighter – Magic Knight Paladin Brigand Barbarian Swashbuckler
Mage Wizard – Seer Rogue Hermit Witch
Priest Monk Thaumaturge – Charlatan Druid Oracle
Thief Assassin Mountebank Cultist – Outlaw Spy
Ranger Scout Explorer Shaman Hunter – Emissary
Actor Bard Conjurer Evangelist Jester Minstrel –

In order to qualify for a Combination Class you must have a minimum score of 9 in each Primary Stat. E.g. a Magic Knight must have at least STR 9 and INT 9.
Combination Classes get:

  • The better of the hit-dice between the two classes
  • The armor restrictions of the Primary
  • The better of the weapon Restrictions
  • At first level, they are treated as being 1st level in both classes at once (e.g. spells/level, special abilities and saving throws).
  • They advance in their Primary class on even levels and their Secondary class on odd levels; they get the better of the Saving rolls.  E.g. A 4th Level Paladin is treated as the better of a 3rd level Fighter and a 2nd Level Priest for saves.  A 6th Level Thaumaturge casts Priestly spells as a 4th level Priest and Mage spells as a 3rd level Mage. Upate: When I first posted this I had the write-up reversed… if you start at 1/1 and advance in the primary faster, the sequence goes: 1/1; 2/1; 2/2; 3/2; 3/3…
  • Some Combinations have special abilities of their own

Fighter Primary

Magic Knight (Fighter/Mage)

Magic Knights are fighters who employ magic to aid them in war.

  • Magic Knights may cast spells even with weapons in their hands
  • Magic Knights have the ability to enchant their arms and armor. Starting at 1st level, whatever weapons and armor they have count as enchanted. Every third level (rounded down) they get a bonus of +1/+1 to their arms and armor. This bonus doesn’t stack with other pluses on the weapons.

Paladin (Fighter/Priest)

Paladins are holy champions of their God.

  • Save as the better of a Fighter or a Priest of their full level
  • May choose one first level spell that they can cast as a permanent ability: once per day per Priest level, requires no preparation (i.e. does not occupy a “slot”).

Brigand (Fighter/Thief)

Brigands are highwayman, ambushing travelers and using their skills to elude pursuit (or to open such locked strongboxes that the travelers might have).

  • Hide in Shadows as a Thief of their full level

Barbarian (Fighter/Ranger)

Barbarians are warriors from uncivilized lands, where the ability to survive in the wilderness is almost as important as the ability to swing a sword.

  • May choose one of the following abilities:
    • Hardihood: add Con bonus to HP at first level. Each new Hit Die roll twice and take the better.
    • Rage: once per day per level gain +Con bonus damage for the duration of a fight, then take Con bonus in fatigue damage when the fight ends.
    • Animal Companion: may choose an exotic, but non-magical, animal companion such as a wolf or an eagle.

Swashbuckler (Fighter/Actor)

Swashbucklers are flamboyant fighters who use their Charisma and sense of drama to aid them in fighting and leading troops.

  • May use the better of their Charisma bonus or Dex bonus in hand-to-hand combat
  • Use their Acting bonus on Leadership and Morale rolls

Mage Primary

Wizards (Mage/Fighter)

Wizards are adventuring Mages that specialize in combat-oriented magic, and learn to use arms to supplement their magical power.

  • Wizards may cast spells while holding weapons.

Seer (Mage/Priest)

Seers are Mages who probe the secrets of the universe in the furtherance of the cause of their God.

  • Cast Divination or Information spells as a Mage or Priest of their full level.

Rogue (Mage/Thief)

Rogues are Rogue Mages who will stoop to theft, deception, and perhaps even assassination in their quest for magical power.

  • Can cast spells they are at least 1 level higher than the minimum required to cast with their hands full. (So a Rogue can start casting 1st level spells without gesturing at 2nd level, but needs to be 5th level to cast 2nd level spells hands-free.)
  • Can cast spells they are at least 3 levels higher than the minimum without speaking.

Hermit (Mage/Ranger)

Hermits are Mages who live in the wilderness so as not to be distracted by civilization in the pursuit of their magical research. Hermits are much more concerned with the why of magic than the how.

  • Research all their own spells: do not have to pay Wizard’s Guild for new spells, instead spend one quarter the normal cost of research in gold to acquire ingredients and books (often by hiring adventurers).
  • Animal Companion: can have a magical animal companion, as the Familiar spell without taking that spell, or an ordinary domestic animal companion as per Ranger.

Witch (Mage/Actor)

Witches are Mages who employ the skills of Acting to help accomplish their goals, it’s all part of Headology, you see.

  • Witches may add their Acting Talent to the difficulty of any Saving Rolls targets have to make to spells involving Headology (roughly illusion, mind control, charm).

Priest Primary

Monks (Priest/Fighter)

Monks are holy men who have trained in the arts of war.

  • Monks may wear Light Armor (despite their Primary class being restricted to Cloth Armor).
  • Monks may choose one weapon (subject to restrictions that their god might impose) with which they fight as if Fighter was their Primary class (i.e. bonuses to combat one level early).

Thaumaturge (Priest/Mage)

Thaumaturges (literally miracle-workers) use their Magic and Prayer to the greater glory of their Gods.

  • Save as the better of a Priest or Mage of their full level

Charlatan (Priest/Thief)

Charlatans are priests, who steal by preying upon people’s religious sensibilities. They are actually genuine priests, but not of the God they profess to serve. Their real God is a secret God, who approves of their duplicity (whether for evil purposes or just as a trickster). So as to avoid retribution, the god they pretend to worship is one who is either forgotten or better yet, doesn’t actually exist. Since there are a myriad of Gods, they are seldom caught out just for this.

  • Resist attempts to detect lies, even magical ones, as the better of a Thief or a Priest of their full level.

Druid (Priest/Ranger)

Druids are priests of the forest and wild lands.

  • Cast spells related to nature as a Priest of their full level.
  • Can speak the languages of the animals native to the region.
  • Animal Companion: can have an exotic or magical animal as an animal companion (as the Familiar spell).

Oracle (Priest/Actor)

Oracles are Priests who use the talents of Acting to impress their followers and give weight and import to the dictates of their gods. Unlike Evangelists they are not concerned with spreading the faith (“putting butts in the seats”) as much as they are in making sure that their God’s will is carried out, which means making certain specific people (not necessarily even followers) believe that it’s important to carry it out.

  • Bonus equal to their Wisdom Bonus to Ability Rolls to persuade or impress someone with a pronouncement by the god (this is in addition to the bonus for Acting)
  • Cast spells of Divination as a Priest of their full level.

Thief Primary

Assassins (Thief/Fighter)

Assassins are Thieves who specialize in killing people quickly and silently.

  • Sneak Attack as a Thief of their full level

Mountebank (Thief/Mage)

Mountebanks are Thieves who use magic to aid in their quest for riches. Most times, that entails using deception to appear to be more powerful Mages than they are, so that they can secure funds from the gullible for further magical research. Mountebanks often pose as Alchemists, and trick rulers into thinking they can change lead into gold or some such, and are merely in need of funds to scale up the process, or as Healers selling elixirs to the crowds.

  • Mountebanks can cast spells while their hands are full, and without speaking.

Cultist (Thief/Priest)

Cultists worship forbidden gods. While their primary class is Priest, they use the stealth and deceptive abilities of their secondary class to conceal the nature of their worship and carry out the forbidden designs of their gods. Unlike Charlatans they may not appear to be Priests at all, though if they are openly Priests then they too will pretend to serve a non-existent God. Cultists aren’t necessarily Evil: in Evil lands, a Cultist may be a secret worshiper of a Good deity.

  • Resist attempts to detect lies, even magical ones, as the better of a Thief or a Priest of their full level.

Outlaw (Thief/Ranger)

Robin Hood.

  • Hide in Shadows as a Thief of their full level.
  • Sneak Attack as a Thief of their full level when using a missile weapon.

Spy (Thief/Actor)

Spies gather information and carry out espionage for their patrons, employing Acting to deceive and disguise.

  • Bonus to lie or deceive (but not perform) as an Actor of their full level.
  • Hide in Shadows, Move Silently and Pick Locks as a Thief of their full level.

Ranger Primary

Scout (Ranger/Fighter)

Scouts are woodsmen who are trained in combat and serve as lookouts and advance forces for the military, penetrating deep into hostile territory, or keeping watch for trouble in the wilderness.

  • Sneak attack as a Thief equivalent to Ranger level (e.g. 5th Level  Scout Sneak attacks as a 3rd level Thief), only in the wilderness.
  • Hide in Shadows as a Thief of their full level, only in wilderness.

Explorer (Ranger/Mage)

Explorers seek to explore and understand the world, and use magic to further their explorations. They have a strong preference for spells of transportation and clearing the way forward, though they’re not above using combat spells to get themselves out of a tight pinch.

  • Can cast spells related to travel (e.g. Spider Climb, Expeditious Retreat) as a Mage of their full level.

Shaman (Ranger/Priest)

Shaman are woodsman who serve the gods and spirits of the forest, and who often serve as witch-doctors to primitive tribes.

  • Cast spells related to nature as a Priest of their full level

Relic Hunter (Ranger/Thief)

Relic Hunters travel the world seeking out and recovering lost treasures.

  • Relic Hunters Detect and Remove Traps and Pick Locks as Thieves of their full level.

Emissary (Ranger/Actor)

Emissaries are sent on behalf of rulers (and others) on missions of good-will, where the goal is to communicate and persuade. They are hardy travelers, since getting there is often half the battle, and persuasive speakers.

  • Can demand Right of Safe Passage in civilized (and many uncivilized) lands.
  • Bonuses to Diplomacy as an Actor of their full level.

Actor Primary

Bard (Actor/Fighter)

Bards are performers who are trained in combat, and to aid in combat, inspiring troops and signaling on the battlefield with their horns and pipes.

  • Charisma bonuses for morale are applicable within earshot of their instruments on the battlefield.
  • Loyalty and henchmen/hireling rules apply as a Fighter of their full level, but based on their Actor Charisma bonuses.

Conjurer (Actor/Mage)

Conjurers are performers who use magic to entertain the crowds.

  • Cast spells of Illusion as a Mage of their full level.

Evangelist (Actor/Priest)

Evangelists are interesting in getting the good word out there, reaching out to the masses, and attracting followers to their religion (or increasing the devotion of the existing followers if there aren’t competing religions). They’re not above putting on a good show for a good cause.

  • Add half their level (rounded up) to Loyalty rolls.
  • Cast “mass” form of spells as a Priest of their full level.

Jester (Actor/Thief)

Jesters are performers, courtiers and sometimes spies. They enjoy a privileged position of being able to tell the uncomfortable truth, as long as it’s cloaked in a jest. All Jesters employ sleight of hand, subterfuge, and snooping in order to ascertain what is the truth. Most Jesters are simply performers; adventuring Jesters go further and actually serve as collectors of information for their patrons (often, but not always, the person ostensibly employing them).

  • Privileged position: people who openly take any action against a Jester for something said “in jest” become laughingstocks.
  • Jesters can use anything that comes to hand as a weapon with no penalty, from long hours practice with comic props.  Count blunt instruments as a club, edged as a dagger.

Minstrel (Actor/Ranger)

Minstrels are traveling performers.

  • Safe Passage: Minstrels can demand safe passage for themselves, and as long as they take no hostile action they are free to travel where they will.
  • Hospitality: Minstrels are almost always welcome where ever they go, and outside major cities will be put up for free at least for a short while unless the hosts have a very good reason not to, for news and entertainment are hard to come by.
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Stonehell: the Joys of Megadungeons

We had a very good session with the kids exploring Stonehell last night, and it was gratifying to see that one of the primary features of a megadungeon that you return to again and again has started to pay off, namely that they are remembering and taking advantage of their knowledge of the places and creatures they’ve run into before. When they killed a wandering giant ferret that attacked them on level one, they headed over to the Kobold marketplace to sell it, figuring the hide must be worth something (and it was). Later on, on the way out of the dungeon, they used their knowledge of the layout to duck out of the way of a group of hunting Neanderthals… the Neanderthals had come close kicking their asses several times before and now they give them a wide berth when they can.

During the session they almost lost a party member to the haunted straight jacket, and unwisely sat down to party with the Piskes whom they mistook for their benevolent relatives the Pixies; they survived that encounter, thanks to a lucky roll by the party cleric in smiting the Piske shaman, but it was a near thing. They also got some interesting magical loot that I threw in, a potion that granted 10 minutes of unkillability (damage taken while the potion is in effect regenerates) and some random magic lollipops (these were licorice, cure poison).

A good time was had by all, and three of the party leveled up (which reminds me I should make a cheat sheet to make that easier next time).

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Introducing New Players to D&D via Stonehell

Last night we brought my wife’s college roommate and her two kids, ages 14 and 9, to our Sunday night Bumblers gathering, and introduced them to D&D.  None of them had ever played RPGs before, so I decided that a straight-on dungeon delve was the ticket.  The kids were enthusiastic to try, the mom was at least willing.   We rolled up characters, using my D&Desque homebrew rules, before the game started and they created Hippolyta the Fighter (mom), Dorian the Fighter (14 year-old daughter), and Little Father Muffler (9 year-old son).  My wife Elyssa also rolled a new character, Ranger Joe-Bob.  Yeah, I don’t bother trying to encourage campaign-world compatible names, not for this sort of thing anyway.  Doug and Dan were the only other regulars, what with it being Valentine’s day, and they brought Tomato the Fairy Witch and Hurlon the Dwarven Thief.

For a dungeon, I used Michael Curtis’ Stonehell, the same one I’ve been using with the other set of kids.  (I’m using the free version, though the link it to the more polished and complete version you can purchase from Lulu.) It’s a good beginner’s dungeon with a variety of things to encounter, architectural features, and old-fashioned traps.   I’ve found that I like to beef it up a bit, adding stuff so that almost every room has something interesting to investigate or fight; a lot of the rooms are empty, particularly right around the entrance, presumably so you can more easily tailor it to your taste this way.  There are probably arguments to be made along the lines of naturalism and discouraging too much caution (by making it boring to search exhaustively)  for having a fair bit of empty space, but since it violates the King Kong principle (get to the f*ing monkey), the heck with it… players go into the dungeon to encounter stuff, so let’s have them encounter stuff.

An example: in the Feast Hall I put a niche behind one of the rotting tapestries.  In the niche are a swarm of carnivorous moths; they won’t do any actual damage, but will painfully bite exposed flesh (similar to the bit of a horsefly). They are thickly gathered on a small leather bag that’s been coated with a waxy substance.   After Joe-Bob the ranger found the niche and got badly bitten for his troubles, Father Muffler (the 9-year old boy) came up with the idea of luring the moths away from the bag with the light of his lantern; this worked and they retrieved the bag with no further problems… though they did end up abandoning the lantern; fortunately they had a spare.  In the bag they found a necklace of amber beads, each containing an insect inclusion.  Tomato cast Detect Magic, and found that it was indeed magical, and after some hemming and hawing about whether they should try it out and if so, who should take the risk, Tomato draped it over her(him?)self as a kind of sash.  Nothing bad happened immediately,  and later on in a random encounter with some fire beetles they discovered that it allowed the wearer to control insects.  It also dealt Tomato a 1 HP stinging wound after Tomato had made the beetles fight until there was one left, when Father Muffler smashed the last beetle.  The party speculated that this was some kind of feedback effect.  SPOILER (Doug don’t read): [spoiler name=”Spoiler”]actually, it just deals 1HP sting damage whenever the spell wears off, after one ten-minute turn; otherwise it has no charges or limit on times it can be used[/spoiler].

The new players were a bit confused and tentative at first, but started to get the hang of it as we went along.  I did all the rolling for them (usually I let the players roll for everything except searches and the like where they’re not supposed to know whether they’ve failed or there was nothing to find) and just told them the results.  They had the fairly typical fear that they were “doing it wrong,” but the experienced players really encouraged them to go with the flow.  One thing that I do, which I think helps new players get the hang of the role-playing aspect of it, is encourage them to roll on a random table of motivations: once each for their primary drive and primary aversion.  So, for instance, Father Muffler happened to roll that his primary drive was Religion, and that his aversion was also Religion, so he decided that the was a fanatic about his faith and opposed to other faiths.  Dorian rolled that her primary drive was Knowledge, and her aversion was Danger.  This made for (imo) for a rather interesting character, though I think she was particularly concerned that she wasn’t “playing well” because she was avoiding the fighting that the others were doing (with great enthusiasm on some of their parts.  Elyssa in particular loves hacking away at things as a Fighter).  After the game we all reassured her that as long as she was having fun, playing true to the character’s personality rather than optimally for the party’s goals was playing well.  At least by my group’s standards.  Certainly Doug never lets optimum party strategy or groupthink get in the way of his characters’ outrageous personalities, and as long as he manages to be entertaining about it that’s one of the fun things about playing with Doug.

The evening ended with the poison-gas fish-fountain claiming all three of the new players (everyone had to make a save, they were the only ones who failed).  It was getting late, so we ended there, but we’re going to play again tonight, probably with just the kids and Elyssa…the mom appreciated it as a new experience, but wasn’t as taken with the whole thing.  As they were heading out the door to go visit the museums they have planned for the day, the 9 year-old was busy trying to come up with a name for his next priest…

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The Ghoul’s Shrine

The Ghoul’s Shrine is my entry in the One-Page Dungeon contest.  It didn’t win anything, a fact which I can ascribe only to blatant favoritism on the part of the judges.

Not really, but anybody who expects me to pass on an opportunity to use a perfectly apropos quote from Tom Lehrer obviously doesn’t know me very well.

It has a couple of amusing features, and I’m glad I took the trouble to enter since it forced me to figure out how to use Chgowiz’s One Page Dungeon templates and the various tools I have to make a semi-decent looking free-hand dungeon map.  But compared to some of the other entries I’ve seen (such as Michael Wolf’s astonishing Horror of Leatherbury House) it’s pretty weaksauce.

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Chgowiz Quiz

These were the answers I gave:

Blogger: Chgowiz’s Old Guy RPG Blog – Post a Comment

I play in three different groups, which meet with varying frequency, one of which has rotating referees, so my answers are somewhat complicated.

1. What are you doing with an original edition/retroclone D&D?

I’m a player in an AD&D+homebrew campaign, and I GM two retroclone-inspired homebrew campaigns, and play in a 3rd edition campaign that’s switching to a homebrew 3e variant.

2. What type of roleplaying game were you playing (or are still playing) before you became interested/involved in an original edition/retroclone?

So I’ve always played in one AD&D campaign, and one 3 campaign

3. If you were playing 3E, why did you decide to investigate/play an original edition game or retroclone?

I still play in a heavily 3e inspired campaign, though I mostly hate the mechanics.

4. If you were playing 4E, why did you decide to investigate/play an original edition game or retroclone?

Don’t play 4e

5. What attracted you to investigate/play an original edition/retroclone D&D?

Always played in one, decided to GM one in honor of Gary Gygax when he died, and decided to continue it w/more homebrew rules.

6. How did you learn about the original editions/retroclones?

The one GM has always had AD&D 1e books, learned about retroclones when searching the web for original edition for Gygax tribute game.

To elaborate a little more:

My friend Mac has always been running an AD&D plus houserules campaign for the past twenty-seven years or so, and I’ve been a player for the past…elevenish?  Russell was a player in the same campaign back in college, though he only gets to play now when he’s visiting.

After Gary Gygax died I wanted to GM an homage game for my other group, which I did (though I used Mentzer’s Basic, so technically not Gary’s actual rules).  I was hoping to turn that game into a “back-up” game for when we didn’t have a quorum of our regular group, something that happens a bit more frequently now that so many of the players have young children.  I wasn’t very satisfied with how it went, mostly because I wasn’t fully back in the mind-set of “rulings not rules.”

I shelved the idea of actually running some kind of retro-clone for a while, but when Mac’s kids started playing D&D we discussed my running a game for them sometimes, because she didn’t want them to develop the bad habit of thinking there was only one way to play D&D based on the way she ran it.  At that point I’d read a lot more of the old school renaissance blogs and thought more about what I liked and disliked about D&D in the old says, so I set out to create house rules that would let me run something along the lines of what Mac was doing (straight ahead dungeon bashing) but that I’d be comfortable with.  I’ve been describing what’s been going on in that game as they explore Amityville Mike’s Stonehell in this blog.

I’ve also started to use that homebrew and setting as the backup game in the regular Rambling Bumblers group.

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Refusal to mourn the death by Orc-blade of a child in a dungeon

For after the first character, there is another

Stonehell claimed its first victim in the kids’ game last night, as Charlie’s character Revenge fell to a mighty critical by an orc.  The dice weren’t particularly kind to him on his new character, either, which he promptly dubbed Expendable 1401, though really it’s pretty much average:

Expendable 1401: Human Fighter Str 8  Int 12  Wis 11 Con 7  Dex 12  Cha 11  Siz 14 Lk 9

King, Oxy-lock’s war dog also succumbed in that fight, though an impressive miracle from Horatia (Grace) brought him back (about a 1 in 1440 chance, if I calculated the odds right).  This cheesed Charlie off a bit, but it wasn’t as if Grace saved her miracle for the dog…

It was a fun session, with a lot of Orc and rat bashing thanks to a pair of random encounters right outside the orc’s watch-post in the Contested Corridors area.  Things might have gone much worse if the party hadn’t managed to break the Orc’s morale with some threats in Orcish conveniently backed by a lucky Smite from Horatia and her false god.  They retreated to the surface with a great sense of satisfaction, and then spent the last ten or so minutes of the session giving Charlie’s new character a hard time because of the suspicious and weaselly way he chose to answer their questions about why he was on the island and whether he was Good.  I’m not entirely sure what that was about; I’m not a big fan of D&D alignment but I’m using it in this game for continuity with Mac’s  game, and Charlie made his character Lawful/Good so he had no reason to be evasive.

I was a little concerned that I let the gore level rise a bit too high, but the kids really seemed to get a kick out of it, and Mac thought it was ok when I asked, since I didn’t dwell on the descriptions.  I more or less took my cue from her and her rather gruesome bluff against the Orcs (“Look! Your bowels are coming out!”).  While I’m not trying to teach any moral lessons, and in the context of the game killing Orcs is jolly good fun, my personal preference is not to make combat too sanitary.  I think I achieved a reasonable balance, but as I said I had some qualms.

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Chgowiz On Getting Your Family to Play D&D

Chicago Dungeons & Dragons Examiner: Getting your family to play Dungeons and Dragons

4. Make your games simple and fun

First impressions are always the most lasting impressions, so make your first games simple and fun. Leave the complicated plots and backgrounds for future games – make your first games simply about exploring a long lost temple or dungeon, or a simple rescue or some other common fantasy trope. Your family will feel familiar with the story and it won’t be a stretch for them to participate.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! My wife played RPGs with our group every week for six months, and never really got it until she started playing in Mac’s game where the plot was “Go into the dungeon, kill monsters, take their stuff.” Once it clicked for her, she started enjoying the more complex story-lines in the other games, but there was just too much to absorb being thrown in the deep end of the hobby. Learning the ropes one room and monster at a time was invaluable for her.

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The Ghoul’s Shrine

Well, I finished my One-Page Dungeon Contest entry and mailed it in.  It was interesting and fun, though I’m not sure that what I produced was any great shakes.  I spent a lot more time than I had planned just wrestling with the format and trying various tools.  I ended up drawing it free-hand with GIMP, using Chgowiz’s GIMP graph-paper template, mostly because that was the easiest way to guarantee that the result fit neatly into the dungeon template itself.  GIMP is far from my favorite tool for drawing, mostly because that’s not really what it’s for, it’s designed as an image manipulation tool; next time I’ll either figure out how to do what I want in Painter, or really spend some time learning either Inkscape or AutoRealm.  I fooled around with the latter two just enough today to realize that if I tried to use either I’d never have finished in time for the contest deadline.

One of the things I found interesting was just how easy and enjoyable it was to write a systemless dungeon; freedom from having to stat up anything at all let me write it for a party of completely indeterminate size, composition, and power level.  Of course, that means that whoever picks it up and tries to use it will be faced with plugging in numbers from their favorite system, but I deliberately stuck to just a few monster types to make that a little less painful.

On the other hand, it was a bit painful and frustrating to keep trimming the text to stick to a single page.  It pretty much precluded introducing any unique monster or puzzle, and drastically cut down on the flavor text.  I think that Chgowiz’s template really comes into its own when it’s used the way Amityville Mike does in Stonehell: a single page for the map, wandering monster table and notes, and a separate page or two for the key.  That’s definitely my plan for my next project, which will probably be a sample dungeon for my RPG write-up.

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I Need A Miracle

I mentioned in my prior post that I had replaced the D&D Clerical spell lists and spells per day for the old-school D&D game I was running for the kids with a system that involved saving rolls to get miracles, and the Recursion King asked for a bit more detail, so here it is:

Basically, clerics get to pray for Boons, Blessings, Smiting and Miracles.  Boons are subtle aid to the Priest personally, Blessings are subtle aid to others, Smiting is subtle (and not-so-subtle) hindrance of enemies and Miracles are overt, even spectacular, interventions by the God.  Subtle effects are ones where the players can’t actually tell whether they worked or at least whether there was magic involved, so things like pluses to saving rolls, or a second wind (restoration of some stamina).  Overt effects are ones where there’s no doubt that it wasn’t just luck, something supernatural happened–so for instance, Cure Light Wounds would count as a miracle since the wound closes up and the character is restored to health.

The cleric announces what he’s praying for (“Grant me a boon, oh mighty one!”  or “I bless you in the name of my lord!”, etc.) and I secretly roll a saving roll.  Boons are the easiest, with other effects getting progressively harder to achieve, though since I still want low-level clerics to be able to heal even miracles aren’t that hard (I use 15, 16, 17, and 18 as the target numbers, with the roll getting bonuses for high Wisdom and for increasing level).  Clerics also have a secret stock of Faith, which starts each day equal to Wisdom.   If the saving roll is missed, then the effect still occurs, but Faith is reduced by enough to make up the difference; if there isn’t enough Faith remaining then the Prayer fails.  Every time the cleric makes the save without needing to draw on Faith, then the secret Faith score increases by 1, even if this would take it higher than the initial number.

This pretty much guarantees that the cleric will be able to do something each day, with higher level clerics being able to succeed more often.  It also makes it a bit wiser to not try for an outright miracle every time.  Because I don’t share the Faith score with them or tell them whether the Boons or Blessings had any effect (just figuring it into the subsequent rolls), they can’t calculate for sure what the odds are or even if they’ve definitely got some more divine help coming to them.

If the cleric succeeds, then I roll for the impressiveness of the effect.  This is still a little hand-wavey at the moment, but what I do is roll a d6, with high being good.  The roll is open-ended, so every time I roll a 6, I add and reroll.  The final score divided by 3 is the approximate level of power of the effect, judged against the usual D&D spell list.  That is, 1-3 is roughly equivalent to a 1st level spell, 4-6 a second level, 7-9 a third level, etc.   I try not to just pick a spell directly, but pick an effect that I feel is about right for that level of power.  This isn’t modified in any way for the level of the Cleric; I figure that the god is more likely to listen to the prayers of the High Priest multiple times a day than a rank novice, thanks to the High Priest’s long record of service but that once the god has directed his attention to the matter it’s entirely up to the god’s inscrutable assessment of how much to intervene so that first level Cleric is just as likely to get a truly astonishing intervention as the High Priest.

It’s true that under this system 1/6 of the time any priest at all will get at least the equivalent of a 3rd level spell, and 1/36th of the time even more, but at low levels they’ll likely only get one or two prayers answered per day before they’re tapped out.  A high level priest isn’t guaranteed a high level result, but stands a much better chance just from more attempts.  It would be easy enough to adjust it by including a level bonus for the effect as well, if high level priests weren’t getting their fair share of truly impressive interventions, but I figure it’ll be a while before I need to worry about that.  It would also be easy to flesh out what happens in terms of the prayer’s effect according to some kind of table, or even just picking exactly from the cleric spell lists, but for now I’m really digging the aspect that when a Mage casts a spell they get what they want, but if a Cleric tries sometimes they just might find they get what they need.

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The Kids are All Right

Friday and Saturday I ran the D&D game that I talked about earlier, using D&D (actually LL/BFRPG) with a bunch of house-rules that took it a bit closer to Mac’s house-rules.  I could have run it straight, I suppose, but where’s the fun in that?  I did keep it close enough that I could use material published for D&D and retro-clones with only such conversion as I could do in my head on the fly, which let me use Amityville Mike’s Stonehell as the dungeon.  I even kept the name, explaining it in game a corruption of “Stone Hill” (which the PCs figured out by casting Read Script on one of the tapestries in the ruined banquet hall).

Overall the sessions went extremely well.  We got off to a slow start Friday when the youngest spent a bunch of time finding a place to buy and then purchasing a war dog.  I have no idea where he came up with the idea, but since that kind of creativity is something I want to encourage, I went with it…though it cost him all his starting money plus borrowing some from the party.  It turned out to have been a good purchase, saving their bacon at least twice Saturday when they finally found some non-empty rooms in the antechamber: first against the giant rats and then the Orcs attracted to the sounds of the fighting.   The kids were a little frustrated at first, I think, with how much of the area around the entryway was empty, but since a big part of this exercise was to get them used to the idea that there was not a single right way to play D&D (coincidentally the way their GM, who’s also their mom, runs things) I stuck to the key as written and just used their encounter with the Dwarves examining the Architectural Masterpiece to tell them what general direction to go to find trouble.

The party consisted of:

  • Umbry (played by the mom), a Rogue (Mage/Thief),
  • Hermia traveling under the name Horatia (played by the eldest daughter, 12), a Charlatan (Priest/Thief).  Charlatans are genuine Priests, but not of the false god they pretend to worship in order to bilk people.
  • Revenge (played by the middle son, 9), a Fighter
  • Oxy-lock (played by the youngest son, 7), a Mage
  • King, the war dog…Oxy-lock’s pet

Two of them “died”, reduced to 0 HP, but were saved by timely miracles from Hermia/Horatia.  Basically I scrapped the whole clerical magic system and replaced it with the ability to make saving rolls asking the god for blessings and miracles–so the equivalent of Cure Light Wounds counts as a “miracle”; the intent was to make clerical magic feel more miraculous and not just an alternate spell list for a different flavor of mage.  This worked really well in play, and the two characters who were saved from death by Cure Light Wounds were sufficiently impressed that they are now converts to Hermia’s make-believe God of Good Fortune, Horatio (yes, her god is Horatio, and her nom-de-guerre is Horatia, after the god).  She managed to cast it twice because she rolled really well the second time.

Another thing that pleased me a lot was the way the Morale rules (bog-standard D&D) ended the combats without always fighting to the death, and the way they negotiated with a captured Orc to get useful intelligence about traps up ahead and then didn’t slaughter him out-of-hand.  I did decide that the critical hit rules I was using were still a bit too deadly despite the fact that I deliberately avoided creating any kind of insta-kill or damage multiplier, so I’ve toned them down a bit for the future.

Everyone had a good time, and the mom was particularly pleased at how the kids were catching on to the differences between the way we handled things, despite many cries of “You’ve got to be kidding me!” from the youngest when rulings didn’t go the way he expected–but since he sometimes said that for things such as the fact his 7 STR Mage couldn’t wield the battle axe they got from the Orc chief, which wouldn’t have flown in his mom’s game either, I didn’t let it bother me.

I’m looking forward to running this again in the near future.