OSR General

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Anyone interested in a 1e AD&D game sometime around this weekendish?

>>44732466
>All those games in the trove

Jesus man. Where do I start?

>>44732528
The greeks

>>44732466
So I'm from the europe and so I've never actually looked up how much 10 foot is but jesus that's like almost 3 meters. That's GOT to be cumbersum to lug around in underground mazes though right? I mean that's way taller than a normal person! How do you even make a turn?

>>44732726

I always ask a craftsman for two five-foot poles on a hinge. Costs a bit more, but you can fold it in half.
Plus old school dungeons usually had 10'x10' hallways, so it wasn't that hard.

Okay some magic medieval fantasy economics. Let's assume that a regular laborer makes 1 silver coin a day, and that we're using the silver standard for economy.

A fighting man dings to level 2 at 2000xp. Using 1 sp = 1 xp (remembering that silver is now what you're going to find most of the time in a dungeon since 1 sp is what 1 gp usually is).

This means that, assuming we're not taking any days off, it would take about four and a half year to get to level two as a regular laborer.

The reason I bring it up is that it feels much more real to me if I know how much it's a piece of treasure is actually meant to translate in terms of luxury as well as regular expenses.

How much would one silver coin cover? It's maybe a carpenters day's pay, so it should be able to get you some food, and some left over to save up for eventual rents and other expenses.

>>44732815
Oh yeah. I just went and checked how much just a 10' wide corridor would feel like by measuring in my house and man. Old school dungeons are pretty fucking spacy!

I dunno if its in the Trove already but Lusus Naturae is PWYW on Drivethrurpg

>>44732917
Remember, it's more accurate to compare 1 sp a day to what a chinese laborer would make rather than someone in the west. In addition, food is probably taken care off by whatever lord the laborer works for, or the guild they're affiliated with.

>>44732917

The income is 5-11 sp or so a month due to "trade, tariffs, and taxes." The amount of purchasing power is obviously going to vary, but in a town that PCs and henchmen are going to haunt (ie something that uses PHB style pricing -- which isn't a statement of the global economy) 1 sp/day will not remotely cover it.

I also must severely question the point of having generic NPCs gain levels and linking leveling up to time. It raises uncomfortable questions of why demihumans aren't all superpowered and why armies and followers are comprised of people who will die to housecats when they could just recruit the ogre-tier badass who's been a fisherman for 10-20 years, means old people are going to be super powered compared to the young, and so forth.

>>44733256
Nah, I didn't mean people _actually_ level up. Just that it's the same amount of money. Rewarding xp for money outside of dungeons seems not right.

It's just bugging me that you end up with this fucking, "you have a shit ton of treasure. now what?"

>>44733388
Lamentations of the flame princess already has some stuff on this if you wanna check it out. I'd wager Torchbearer mentions it to some extent as well.

>>44732509
>tfw I'm interested but I'm going to my college campus on the weekend

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Hey /osr/, I've been further developing this magic concept I had. Unlimited but weak spells Wizards can cast, requiring things like magic items or scrolls prepared in advance and taken into dungeons as consumable tools into of using traditional spell slots.

Here's an example of a bunch of spells using it; the spells used in combat of course being more useful, but the charms being weaker and more flexible. What do you think? Would you be interested in playing a Wizard under this system?

>>44733388
Oh, okay.

It could be argued that the XP gained from treasure is to a great extent due to you having to grab stuff and bring it to a safe spot. Campaigns that don't leave the dungeon may have to be adjusted, but you could have it be context appropriate (ie. getting the treasure out of the dragon's lair).

I'm mostly an overworld fan, so I would just rate it in terms of getting it back to camp or what not.

One could also rate whether you're getting the treasure with help from companions/yourself, or from hordes of NPCs. If you're in a safe town someone else maintains, you probably shouldn't get much XP from menial tasks. If you're a lumberjack in the Forest of Dread, by all means you deserve your XP trickle.

>>44733552
Well I'm open to after the weekend as well, just throwing out a general time.

>>44733579
Its *interesting* but I would be unlikely to find it satisfying in OSR due to the lack of progression and how much low level parties depend on a magic user for survival. it does sound suitable for, in particular, a solo adventurer game in the vein of Gygax's friends ultracautiously poking everything with 10' poles and narrating their trap searching and such.

It is relevant to the merely OSR inspired RPG I'm working on in which the arcane power source is very humble, like the martial power source, and mostly about eking out more juice from magic items. Such is the perfect power level for what people do without it although I will not plan on plagiarizing.

>>44733787
>Gygax's friends ultracautiously poking everything with 10' poles

Fun fact: Gygax hated when players did that. His advice in the AD&D DMG is instead of including less traps or just telling the players to speed up is to passive-aggressively pump up random encounter tables until they get the message.

>>44733871
Jesus. Isn't the one thing roleplayers and DMs can learn is to get shit done fucking faster. Don't take 10 minutes for some menial shit detail, just either roll and make something move forward or just say "yeah that's a good idea that happens".

>>44733871
Mostly I was thinking about the super exploity shit he allowed like orcs being sent in 1 by 1 to disarm traps with their face.

Is there any use to crossbows in most OSR systems that you guys have noticed?

So I'm learning the rules. I rolled up a simple fighter with AC 5 and 8 HP. I pitted him against an orc in a room with a pie just to practice the fight rules and thaco and what not.

What? The orc keeps fucking killing the fighter, as a result I guess of me rolling like a turd. The orc has AC 6 and 1d6 damage.

I get that it should be letal, but isn't 1d6 high? It kills a fighter in pretty much two hits. Its pretty much what I expected I suppose but still. I get it's "high letality". This is fucking brutal though!

>>44734740

Its not really about 1v1ing your way through the dungeon, other than at high levels. Some people will say that you're supposed to avoid all fights, which I strenuously disagree with -- but if you're a solo level 1 adventurer, you want to be stupidly cautious and gimmicky.

In 1e, my favorite edition, and to a lesser degree 2e, there are tricks you can do to ensure your side gets the first strike. I'm not 100% clear on how to do it for other editions or if its possible.

In 1e, weapon specialization in a ranged weapon lets you do a really nasty first strike, and reach weapons give you a first hit. A two handed sword is really good there -- it gets a +2 or +3 against almost all foes and lets you get the first hit in almost every time.

In 2e, daggers, darts, Sleep, etc. can let you get first strikes really nicely as well.

Anyway, again, not to be pretentious, but OSR isn't about playing fair with monsters.

>>44734989
I guess that makes it a good exercise then? Like, you pit a solo adventurer with the orc and his pie. If you try to fight the orc for it fair and square probably you won't walk away with the pie. So you'd have to figure out something else, like maybe luring the orc out into the corridor outside and getting a first strike that way.

Fits the idea with fantasy Vietnam I suppose.

>>44734435
Robilar had, like, six orc henchmen for Tomb of Horrors. He sent one into the starting hallway with the pit traps, killed another that tried to run away, and sent the other four into the pits as well (which they did because, y'know, it's not like they'd survive running away.). He was also Lawful Evil. Obviously.

Now, as far as I know he didn't actually have any minions to clear out the rest of the tomb with - which he managed to do, IIRC, although I don't think he found the demilich.

>>44734717
OD&D's LBB+Greyhawk has them shoot only once per round (as opposed to the bows' twice), but also has them be strictly more accurate than longbows - which is pretty big, in some cases, since the difference between hitting AC2 on a 18 vs. a 20 is quite significant. Half the attacks but thrice as likely to hit at level 1-3, twice as likely to hit at level 4-7 (or 1-3 if you have high Dexterity.)

Of course, magic weapons change everything as well - in which case magic bows, magic arrows and magic crossbows are quite different.

Also, fuck if I know how the round system in Eldritch Wizardry interacts with crossbows.


Meanwhile, in Moldvay Basic, crossbows have the best range out of all the ranged weapons, are cheaper than longbows, take more encumbrance than longbows, and you won't be able to find magic quarrels but you will maybe find magic arrows.
In Moldvay Expert magic bolts are more common than arrows, although there's also a Magic Bow and no Magic Crossbow.

In Mentzer's Master set I think weapon mastery makes heavy crossbows just strictly better than longbows? Longer range, more damage, better special abilities. The only drawback is the high cost and weight, I think.
Then again, I haven't looked at the magic item tables there and I suspect that they might push it back a bit in favor of the bow.

What makes a dungeon interesting?

A lot of the modules I read (especially the newer ones) have some gimmick or special room or unusual monster combination that's funny or clever or scary, but most dungeons I create still feel like nothing more than interconnected rooms with stuff in them.

>>44735356
That's fair then, didn't know they were henchmen, that he only had 6, or that some tried to flee.

Out of curiosity, were they all just plain vanilla 1 HD orcs?

>>44735356

Interesting bits about crossbows through the ages.

Re: magic items, I definitely like the C out of BECMI's (iirc, may have been C or M) far more universal magic item tables. Been thinking about revamped treasure tables in general. It could be cool to see various OSRians take on custom treasure charts...

>>44734989
Alright, I tried it again. I decided that it seemed reasonable that if the orc heard someone shouting "I am going to eat your pie, orc!" the orc would be dumb and angry enough to just rush out into the corridor and defend his pie.

I figured this should allow the fighter to get a first strike, and borrowed the rule from lamentations of the flame princess to Press to get +2 to hit -4 AC. This with a house rule by some guy called Justin form thealexandrian that two handed weapons use 2d6-drop-lowest for damage, I got a pretty satisfying moment of luckying out with the die and piercing the orc with a spear. I ate the pie!

I can sort of see the attraction to doing combat this way. You really have to play bellow the belt.

Hey, /OSRG/, would anyone here be interested in me running a "quest" of sorts here on /tg/ by using the solo dungeon exploration rules in The Strategic Review #1?
The rules would be OD&D's three little brown booklets with Chainmail for combat and almost entirely run on my side, if you wonder.

I'll try running it this weekend, maybe, if anyone's interested.

>>44735401
I think so. Actually, I think they might have just been some of the retainers from his castle that he threatened until they followed him to the Tomb? They might have also done the digging to get the entrance open, I dunno.

It's been a long time since I read the story, I might be getting it wrong. Google it, I suppose.

It's worth noting how the 1E DMG spends like half a page in the introduction to the "Artifacts and Relics" section of the treasure chapter talking about how to screw with players who force their minions to experiment with the artifacts.

Actually, come think of it, OD&D has something similar in the section on magic swords (which do 1d6 to 2d6 damage to people of the wrong alignment that pick them up, as well as control checks and whatnot) - there's a whole bit on how the sword might secretly change the alignment of the henchman and stuff like that.

>>44735455
It's C - if you want a table with the ridiculous plate armor from M you need to get the Rules Cyclopedia. If you want a table that also includes the artifacts then you're out of luck.

And yeah, that might be interesting. One thing that to ponder upon: people make custom wandering monster tables, but how often do they make custom treasure tables? You could customize them for specific (mega-)dungeons and everything.

>>44735390
Do you have something thematically and/or mechanically that ties the rooms together somehow? I guess that helps a player getting familiar with a particular "feeling" of a dungeon, because it has its gimmick that ties everything together.

Like lets just brain storm something offhand, in a wizards tower all the rooms have at least one detail from the wizards previous research. There's bottles and flasks and paper and weird metal instruments everywhere, and you won't know if some residue in a bottle is going to explode or come alive or be worth a 100 gp.

Or a owlbear cave where there's hay and clawmarks, old bones littered everywhere.

Things that masks really well if its an empty room or a treasure, trick etc.

And then the special rooms like where the owlbear sleeps, the wizard trapped in a magic circle, or the big green devil face statue who's open mouth will _actually_ fucking eat your hand

>>44735390

You've got to tie it all together. Strong themes and formatting. Like you are running a dungeon about crazy people? They should be in the puzzles, room descriptions and random encounters. Puzzle all about changing gravity to use certain walls to progress? Enemies can manipulate it too.

Honestly I would just stop worrying. People find connections and themes in the least artsy movie and trashy novels, your dungeon will come together on its own.

>>44735617

http://odd74.proboards.com/thread/4920

This treasure chart is kind of cute.

But yeah I could see different treasure charts for different dungeons, different tech levels, etc.

>>44732466
Why not the nice blue image?

>>44735851
Because I saw something I thought funny.

>>44733787

Thanks for feedback. The idea is to male Wizards more useful at all times by reducing power. The idea is that you could combination Charms or use magic items to get powerful effects. Or at the start of your adventuring day writing a scroll of fireball or whatever but that's what limits you.

I just hope none of the charms are especially weak or strong, though I am intending them to be rolled randomly anyway.

Hey cavegirl, I see you gave the hunter animalism, but you were previously talking about giving them charm. What made you change your mind? Just interested in your design thinking.

>>44735589
Eh, you'll get the hang of it. Don't overload yourself on house rules before actually playing though if you haven't yet.

>>44732509
sure. hendyadyoin at gmail dot com

>>44735617
>Hey, /OSRG/, would anyone here be interested in me running a "quest" of sorts here on /tg/ by using the solo dungeon exploration rules in The Strategic Review #1?

How would this work PC wise? Remember that there's a shitload of empty rooms by that method, just by the by.

>>44737012
60% empty rooms, yes. Slightly more than OD&D's method, but then again hidden map. I figured that it might be interesting to try out.

As for PCs, I'd imagine just letting the players vote on the number and then rolling up a big pool would work out fine. I'll be using the Dalluhn dungeon numbers appearing - 1d6 for "normals", 1 for fantastic, multiplied by the difference in level and groups of three in the party.

Let /tg/ as a whole act as the Caller, really.

>>44737138
That could be a fun quest thread.

>>44737252
>>44737138
Also, I seem to recall donjon.com having a function for OSR dungeons that seemed rather similar.

>>44737294
>donjon.com
donjon.bin.sh, actually. Donjon.com is a marine salvage company.

It has a function for generating dungeons using the AD&D Appendix A, from the looks of it? There's some big differences from the tables, though, from what I can see - no diagonal passages or weird-shaped rooms. Which makes sense given the program limitations.

Also, of course, the original OD&D monster list is a lot more greek than the stuff that cooks up. D&D minus Greyhawk lacks a lot of the weirder stuffits.

More importantly, though, that program seems hard to use if you have multiple interconnected dungeon levels - which you will, if you're actually playing with it. You can't hand-place stairs.

>>44737665
Ah ok. Well if you want to put forth the effort go ahead.

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To the Anon that requested it last thread; Village and Farm encounters. Honestly I'm not totally pleased with this one, I tried to play up a cult aspect to make it interesting, which might have been a mistake, sorry. You can pillage the other stuff if you don't like it, at least.

>>44739369
Not that Anon but this is my jam. Nice mix of simple and weird with a fantasy Wicker Man vibe, I'll definitely be using some of these.

What's everyone's favorite spell level table?

>>44739560
5 easily

>>44739560
B/X. Wizards start out rubbish but git gud over time.

Clerics can hit things, then they learn spells.

I don't like the idea of strict balance at every level.

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>>44739618

You mean this?

I guess I like how it doesn't spiral out of control with 7+ first level spells but at the same time they growth feels a little weak.

>>44727704
Bit of a late reply here, but whoever this was, I think you misread my post with a staggering thoroughness.

>>44734740
>This is fucking brutal though!
That's the plan! Don't get into any stand-up, knock-down fights any time soon!

Fair fights are a D&D player's worst enemy.

>>44735356
>Robilar had, like, six orc henchmen for Tomb of Horrors.
Wasn't Robilar the one who drove a herd of sheep through the entire dungeon?

>>44732528
DCC

>>44739618
>>44739718
Oh, I misunderstood, thought this was about people's favorite spell level. 5e's relatively weak spell progression is still probably best in my book, and there's a few things I like about 5e, despite it leaving out what I view as the good stuff.

Which version of Sword & Wizardry in the trove is the latest? Shit's so unorganized.

>>44733579

Would it be too crazy to maybe try this combined with regular spell-slot based Vancian casting?

You could even combine some of the features; for example you can use up a spell slot to cast multiple combined charm spells together. Like Spell Level + 1?

>>44732528
>Jesus man. Where do I start?
You tell people what you want and ask questions? One useful thing is that you can usually tell a lot about a retroclone or OSR game by the edition of D&D it's based on (and the ones you can't are usually noteworthy enough that their peculiarities are commonly known).

>>44740141
>DCC
Start at the bottom? (No, wait... that would be Hackmaster... Start *near* the bottom?) Actually, DCC has some pretty cool ideas, but as a complete system, it's on overly-complicated, fiddly mess that doesn't work well built on top of the ad hoc approach of old school D&D.

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>>44741177
I never saw it as overly complicated. the dice chain is about the only offputting thing about it, and even that isn't really an issue.

desu tho, i'm biased. when I play/run tabletops, they're always gonzo-as-fuck dungeon crawls and that sort of thing, so DCC is just super apt to my tastes.

>>44740614
I believe White Box's most current is 3rd print, while Core is 4th. Not sure about Complete.

>>44741258
The dice chains are a bit ridiculous, but the game is just too crunchy to work well with old school rules, in my opinion. And there's also the fact that anytime you do magic, you have to roll on a table for that particular spell.

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>>44739626
Sure, but what the fuck is this shit?

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>>44741401
that, to me, made the magic in the game dangerous. you're toying with the arcane, not a master of it.

i thought it was cool a spell could either fizzle out, put the enemy to sleep, or backfire and send the realm into a 1000 year slumber. i liked that some of them require a personal sacrifice, or that a crit failure could turn your mouth into a beak or some shit.

no other OSR has given me that sort of absurdist insanity I love.

>>44741490
I like the effect fine. It's actually pretty damn cool. I just find the actual process of implementing it (having to look up and roll on a table each time you cast a spell) to be intolerable. Then again, I like to keep my games hurtling along at 300 mph, and think that even little pauses hurt the momentum and sense of immersion of the game.

Am I the only one who dislikes the general tone of paranoia that seems to be encouraged in OSR games? I don't want to go around poking shit with a ten foot pole to make sure it doesn't murder me; that's tedious.

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>>44741803
that's a fair enough reason to have a bad taste about it. they put out an app called the Crawlers Companion. if you can tolerate using it instead of physical dice & a book, it speeds up the rolls and table references like a thousand fold.

>>44733871
That seems kind of dickish. The game makes character death a very constant threat, and then it's creator complains about people responding appropriately?

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FEARSOME GODSSSS

I'm really enjoying how this is coming together. The classes, especially the Poacher (Ranger) and the magic system for the Wizard has gone through a million different changes so far, but I feel like its getting closer every day I work on it.

I also have added a page of new races; Beast men, to advance my setting further.

Anything here I am really missing, beyond spells and such? I'd really like to get this thing finished some time soon, then I can be proud. Feedback always appreciated.

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>>44741490
>>44741401
>>44741258
I like DCC in general, and I don't agree with the idea that the essence of OSR is lowered complexity (more like lowered complexity *of character building*), and I even like the way they made each spell extremely fancy -- but DCC doesn't do a good job at making me want to play it, due to the fact that if I get a character to actually survive, he's just going to wind up as a hideous subhuman. We have Realms of Chaos for that, thank you very much.

>>44741830
Not every OSR is Lamentations of the Flame Princess...

>>44741830
>>44741872

Personally I see this a lot and I think the reason as to why is because the DM does not set out an explanation or set up good rapport between them and the players.

Simply put, the players shouldn't have to deal with a fair GM in the same way a GM shouldn't have to deal with players doing annoying things. (Poking at every tile and sleeping after every fight is very unrealistic and irritating for the GM)

Basically here's what I'd do- you always give clues to traps and monsters. That's how the players know when its serious time. There's a skeleton in a hallway with a arrow shot in its skull from the side, where there are holes in the side of the wall. Now the party is going to be careful and examine everything, but you don't want them to be doing that the next hallway over, that's slow and irritating!

>>44742523
>Basically here's what I'd do- you always give clues to traps and monsters. That's how the players know when its serious time. There's a skeleton in a hallway with a arrow shot in its skull from the side, where there are holes in the side of the wall. Now the party is going to be careful and examine everything, but you don't want them to be doing that the next hallway over, that's slow and irritating!

That sounds fair. I think it just boils down to trust. You should have a DM that you trust is there to provide an entertaining session, and likewise being willing give him the benefit of the doubt to not grind it to a halt.

The problem with trust is of course that once it's lost, it's very difficult to get back and even a good DM can be tempted by the prospect of a surprise mimic.

>>44741830
>>44742523
Yeah really. If the DM goes LotFP/ToH on you and the players didn't sign up for LotFP/ToH, he shouldn't be surprised if the players unleash an equal amount of suffering to him by poking everything with 10' poles and generally being as annoying as possible.

Can anyone point to the thing about how the Thief's percentile table is basically a second chance after failing a regular attribute check

>>44739519

Thanks man, and as always still open for new requests.

>>44742862
How about encounters in sewers.

>>44742879

Sure, I'll get to work. It won't quite be the same thing as a dungeon but you could kind of make a dungeon with the parts.

>>44742597

That's the thing about classic D&D. you have to weigh the "I poke it with a 10' pole" against wandering monster checks. Spend too long searching for traps, and monsters come ambling on down the corridor and eat you.
You have to be smart about what you check and where, or you'll die. It's a balancing act between various risky things, and there's never a way to be 100% safe, because dungeon crawling is inherently dangerous. Otherwise everybody would do it.

>>44743070

>le everything about original D&D is perfect and here's why mene

>>44743070

Eh, I'm not really worried about wandering monsters by comparison and its typically pretty vague at how much out of combat time such things take. How long does the typical wandering monster check take? iirc, some LotFP modules (the only ones that commonly merit that sort of behavior) don't seem to have wandering encounters at all.

>>44743662
He's not saying that at all, and wandering encounters and 10' pole poking aren't even an indispensable part of D&D, he's saying that wandering monsters can be used to move the game forward. And that's fine, but my point was that players moving forward sluggishly in OSR are as likely to be the fault of a DM springing deathtraps on them as player indecision.

How do people feel about spell systems where casters have various levels of skill with a spell?

I'd really like to work out a system like this- something where casters at low levels of mastery with a spell have to memorize it like normal, but at higher levels can cast it at will instead (though it still takes that spell slot for the day)?

>>44744004
>Eh, I'm not really worried about wandering monsters by comparison and its typically pretty vague at how much out of combat time such things take.

Wandering monsters are a serious threat to a party, and searching for traps takes a turn, like everything else.
Try doing Basic D&D by the rules some time, it all fits together really well for a solid dungeon crawling experience.

Fiddling around with ideas for a megadungeon campaign that should take PCs from level 1 to level 10, albeit probably with a few rerolls and a lot of dead henchmen and hirelings in a pseudo-Middle Ages. Wanted to know what you people thought.

It would start off with a Heart of Darkness style river hexcrawl to the dungeon site, filled with disease, dinosaurs, and cannibal tribes. The dungeon site is a series of ruins piled on top of each other over the years in the midst of a swamp. The reason why these caves can exist is a fantastic earthquake that buried a previous civilization.

The thing on top of the site is a lizardfolk temple. Below that are catacombs and then caves filled with monsters who can ingress and egress from different places throughout the area. Some of the caves are entirely or completely filled with water.

The first civilization was a iron age civilization, inspired by Babylon. It was a decadent society and tore itself apart in hedonism until the gods buried it deep into the earth so that it might never again see the light of day. There are encounters with strange, emaciated, mutated humans and their demonic masters.

Below that lies the ruins of what was once the Golden Age of this lost civilization. It was a Bronze age, Greek-inspired civilization. However, in accordance with the misfortune of this location; it was wiped out by a plague. All that remain are their beautiful frescoes, clever mechanical traps, and the restless dead.

Below even this is a sunken city. In a time before written history, all that remains of this society are its sunken ruins. Antediluvian monsters make a home in this sunless sea.

Further is a meteorite in the center of what was once a stone age civilization. It contains a great evil that will corrupt the weak willed into unleashing it upon the world.

>>44744465
That sounds pretty cool.

>>44744431
Eh, the benefits of Basic vs AD&D, BECMI and the others are a bit marginal.

>>44744583

Sure, as long as you don't use AD&D 2E, where they altered the dungeon movement rates to be way faster so that you wind up with plenty more time to spend on trap searches and stuff. It throws the balance all out of whack, but then, nobody uses 2E for strict dungeon crawls, anyway.

>>44744583
>>44744431
Also I can't even begin to guess at the threat level of traps in basic.

>>44740515

>Weak level progression.

I guess I can see this as positive but I'm a little miffed about 1st level spells being stuck at 4 from level 3 to 20; 17 levels of no advancement.

My personal favorite is LoTFP, if only because there at the end level one spells finally get 8 a day, making them the most you get, bigger then level 2 spells. Personally that tickles my autism the right way.

>>44744650
The reason I rate it as a positive is that in a number of ways 5e is informed by 4e (see the warlock, which is a 4e class in disguise) and its a lot clearer at what they're trying to do with the spell levels, while still having the whole package look OSR-ish for a versimilitudinous milieu.

Also they serve different functions: in OSR a high level caster's 1e slots seem to be very useful for magic missiles, while a 5e caster's at wills are already settled upon.

>>44736440
I ran a few test games, and the people playing hunters kept wanting to do stuff that needed animalism, whilst only having +0 or +1 charisma at best. It felt weird to me that hunters wouldn't have an advantage on (say) taming dogs to help them. Giving them an advantage at Animalism still encourages charisma-builds, which is what I was shooting for.
(this ties in with the 'set up a sneak attack' action in combat now. By using your turn to make a successful Charm or Animalism roll, when your allies next attack the thing you baited, damage goes straight to flesh. It adds a little more tactics to things, and I figured it made sense for hunters to be better at teaming up and fighting animals than doing the same to people.)

>>44741430
a typo, surely? I figured they were using the numbers from the previous table (where you got spells at level 1) by mistake after level 6

If I wanted a slightly lighter AD&D which OSR game should I look into?

>>44745503
probably either Swords & Wizardry Complete(as OD&D with all the supplements is very close to AD&D), or Labyrinth Lord with the 1st edition supplement

Let's say I want to improvise a ruling for someone who wants to do the insane and pour lamp oil in their mouth and spit that on a lit torch.

I'd say, that is cool enough to let them do it, but unlike eventual circus people who'd do it, there's a very real risk that an idiot adventurer in the midst of battle accidentally swallows a bit of oil and/or lits his mouth on fire.

I guess I could let the player roll a save vs death ray, and then perform something equal to the fireball spell? With the added risk there should be some benefit over just throwing oil (its a breath weapon to start). You also get to make an ad hoc pyromancer who will most likely end up lighting himself on fire.

so has anyone bought/read this yet; http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/170607/Skyscrapers--Sorcery-White-Box-Rules?manufacturers_id=6598

cause it looks pretty interesting

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>>44741430
OD&D is what it is.

Compare and contrast with this table.

Some things to take note of:
>Zero spells at level one - you're pretty much a Fighter with a mace and one less hit point
>From level 2 to 5 you get one extra spell per level
>From level 6-8 you get two spells per level
>From level 9 on you alternate between two and three spells per level

Some specifics hidden in the spell list (remember, no putting 1st-level spells in 4th-level slots in base OD&D):
>3rd level has Cure Disease/Remove Curse
>4th level has Cure Serious Wounds (the only non-CLW healing spell!) and Neutralize Poison
>5th has Raise Dead

In other words, the double spell level progression means that you get more healing spells - the level after that, then, rushes you into Raise Dead.

It worked in play, I guess. Not everything needs to follow a neat mathematical model, y'know.

For example, look at how OD&D handled monster THAC0. 1HD and 1+1 are separate categories, but 2-3, 3-4, and 9-10 have to share with another.
Meanwhile, 4-6 and 6-8 have three hit dice sharing the same group! What's up with that? (6 and 3 also appear twice, but let's ignore that for the moment.)
My personal suspicion is that it's because it puts the specific monsters into groups that Gary and Dave felt comfortable with. No more and no less.

Or look at how the Fighting-Man gets -2 saves every three levels, but the Magic-User gets -3 to Spells at certain intervals. What's up with that? Well, it helps put the exceedingly slowly-progressing Magic-User into an area where they actually fulfill their role of being good against spells targeting them rather than being the weakest.

>>44744465
Sounds cool man

>>44744635
Really, why?

Anyone have any ideas or rules for OSR compatible giant anime robots. I'm talking real awesome super robot shit here, Mazinger, Getter, and Gurren Lagann?

Hell anime inspired shit in general would be welcome.

>>44743662
>le didn't bother to read the books to figure out how things were meant to work before dismissing them as garbage meme

>>44745620
>I guess I could let the player roll a save vs death ray
Yes
>and then perform something equal to the fireball spell?
Jesus, no. Burning oil doesn't do that in the first place. It should be more like save vs. death ray and then do 1d6 damage within 5'. Maybe you could just play it as a substitute to throwing the bottle and maybe having it not break, but instead the risk is that you do damage to yourself as well as the enemy.

A fireball would be way off the hook, anyway.

>>44746866
Granted I haven't read the rules for fireball when making the suggestion. I think the rules for a direct hit is 1d8? So you get the benefit of not missing and not using up a flask but also you might just straight up die.

>>44747019
Fireballs do 1d6 damage per level in a huge area.

>I think the rules for a direct hit is 1d8? So you get the benefit of not missing and not using up a flask but also you might just straight up die.
Yeah, that's more or less what I was thinking.

Can someone suggest me a good wilderness encounter/event table that has both fitting monsters and interesting non-combat encounter?

>>44748142
Can you maybe mash up existing ones? Can't suggest anything but I know I've seen both good combat and non-combat ones separately

Is there a guide to all the OSR/retroclone games, highlighting what they focus on, their mechanical strengths and weaknesses? I suppose this is highly subjective, so general highlights would be better.
For example, I already know DCC has that funnel method of character creation and is more 'gonzo' than other retroclones, with rules that support such.

>>44740093
He drove a ton of sheep AND mercenaries through the first 3 rooms, until he figured out that the traps were resetting themselves or were limitless on their kill potential. Then the crafty bastard got the whole way through the Tomb of Horrors the first time Gary ever ran it without dying and alone.

>>44744925
That makes sense. It does mean that any expert who wants a tribe can pretty easily get one, whereas the hunter (supposedly better at the tribal part of the game) needs to hope they have a good charisma score.

>>44748918
Fuckin' Robilars, man. Thank god there aren't many on the encounter table.

How do you keep combat moving quickly when everybody has a bunch of retainers?

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>>44732977
>10x10 foot everywhere

Yeah, I don't get where that comes from either. Historical dungeons, underground corridors, secret tunnels and such where much narrower and smaller than that. Digging solid rock is expensive! And natural formations were either incredibly tight or massive cathedrals, with very inconsistent sizing throughout. This 10x10 thing is just a convenience, I think.

Oooh yes baby I just found out Lamentations of the Flame Princess is available at the smaller game shop in town. I was thinking about picking up Moldvay on ebay but the price with shipping is pretty much what LotFP would cost, and the latter has the benefit of touching up and modernizing a bunch of stuff I found a bit dated in B/x. Adding to that the fact that you could just house rule back whatever stuff from B/x that felt great, this seems fucking awesome. Might have to take my thumb out of my ass and actually play some agonizing low-character crawls now and not just lurk here /osr/!

>>44751626
wow that's like, one or two meters in width at the most. I'm probably just reflavoringit as "lenghty pole" and we'll argue about the exactness of it if it ever comes up and just go with a general "its kind of in the way but probably nothing worse than a fishing pole"

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>>44748882
Not that I know of. The closest thing I can think of is Taxidermic Owlbear -- http://taxidermicowlbear.weebly.com/dd-retroclones.html -- which mainly just tells you which edition of D&D each thing was based on.

>>44741927

Any feedback for this?

>>44741803
>>44741861

I just print out some of the spells and the relevant crit tables. Got the monster table on the back of a free GM screen too.

I'd have just bought more copies of the book because it was absurdly cheap in my city but it won't fit on my shelf right now.

>>44751514

Hard to say. I've ran campaigns in, say, mid 2e Exalted, where a character that rolls 200 dice for attacks a round is merely so so. Retainer heavy campaigns have never struck me as abnormally difficult.

>>44745807
Because I don't know anything about their randomly generated traps.

>>44751626
>This 10x10 thing is just a convenience, I think.
It absolutely is. It's one of the most obvious "game" concessions in the rules. It eases play a lot (try DMing a dungeon level based on the Robber's Cave some time while attempting to allow players to get a reasonably accurate map), but it doesn't make one goddamn bit of in-game sense.

Still, that's the nature of OD&D. It's obvious that it's a very deliberate choice, and you can also see that it's something a lot of early players reacted against: the first generation of not-D&D roleplaying games almost all try to be more realistic.

>>44746509
There really isn't going to be much support for people who throw galaxies as ranged weapons, but I could certainly see a mech/anime OSR. I mean, the combat system for D&D is based off a naval combat sim, and mages are based off artillery pieces.

>>44751982
It's worth it, anon. Even with the edgelord art, it's worth it.

>>44751514
Side initiative and/or declaration phase helps. Like, a lot. Having a bunch of different colored d20 helps too.
>Okay, what do you do in this round?
>I attack, and I shout to Renard and Flaubert to rush the gnoll
>I cast Web. I assume Igastus is still cowering like I told him to?
>I shoot at the bugbear that isn't in melee
>I attack too, and order my men to set their spears
*DM rolls retainer morale*
*players roll attack rolls*

Having two retainers isn't really worse than having three attacks per round.

>>44756810
can't a bunch of similair retainers get abstracted as a single D20?

>>44756996
You could, but it would be extremely swingy. Not to mention how it gets weird if the retainers are targeting more than one creature - or creatures with different AC values, for that matter.

You're probably also better off just dealing average damage if you don't feel like throwing fistfuls of dice.

Then again, it's not like you get a lot of retainers in most editions. OD&D may have the sudden jump to 12 at 18 Charisma, yes, but B/X goes for 4+Charisma modifier so most characters will only have fourish retainers and at most seven.
Eight retainers - eight attacks - is an outlier but is STILL less than you can get in, say, 3E.
Especially if you know the AC and thus can just look at the table to see if they roll high enough rather than having to do math.

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>>44742879

It's done. I tried to do a thing with depth levels; you can use different size dice to determine it but you can just ignore that and use d20s if you so wish.

Once again I honestly don't think this one is very good in the vein of the actual encounters themsleves. It's probably because I didn't put in much cool or interesting treasure but the location is honestly pretty pedestrian. Hope you enjoy it anyway.

>>44756679
>but it doesn't make one goddamn bit of in-game sense.
>>44751626

of course it makes in game sense: the demon lords, dragons, giants, and so forth of the lower dungeon levels could just plain never leave the dungeon by walking if the higher dungeon levels corresponded to the general size and dimensions of RL caves and catacombs.

>>44757406
These are pretty great. I'm thinking of making a megadungeon of a sewer and cave system where the only living people remain. The surface world has been apocalypsed by WIZARDS. They'll eventually be strong enough to raid the surface under threat of dragons and otherworldly monsters and shit. Sorta like Metro 2033 I guess.

>>44757439
This actually makes plenty of sense. Real life dungeons have humans in mind. DnD dungeons often were design to also house all kinds of monstrousities.

>>44756702
Yeah, i think it could work if it tried to imitate the 80's gundam and macross style.

>>44757809

Thanks Anon. Personally though I'm not pleased with it too much, I think it's because this one and the farm one lacked a lot of strong supernatural items and bonuses, making them less interesting honestly. I think I should rework them with a gentler treasure curve, each encounter potentially having treasure or a supernatural bonus.

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>>44758510
>>44756702
Most of what I've seen from mecha rpgs seem to take inspiration from Macross and Gundam. There's very little that's dedicated to flashy super robots.

I'll try to think of something myself for my home game. Should be doable. I'm modeling Mazinkaiser more than TTGL.

>>44759063
The problem is the power balance if it's something like mazinger it could work, you start with chapter 1 mazinger and end up with mazinkaiser but in tengen toppa you start with mazenkaiser and end up being a mechanical god.

How do you fluff Vancian style magic? I'm not a huge fan of how it's presented currently, even if the mechanics are solid.

>>44760147
Yeah. The rule system I'm gonna use for this is Sine Nomine's Godbound. It's an OSR game about demigods. I'm aiming to have a Mazinkaiser level Super Robot match a pantheon of about 3-4 demigods.

That level seems to fit Mazinkaiser's "God or Devil" power.

Plus you know a giant fucking robot fighting a group of human sized demigods is a cool as hell mental image and totally anime.

>>44760512
Read Vance to find out. It's like magic memetic math. Equations imprinted upon the brain.

>>44760512
Complex magical mathematical formulas the wizard recites to "hack" reality. Spell preparation means that the spell is cast halfway but held at bay in the wizard's mind and just released at the right moment.

>>44760512
The 3e explanation I like: you perform a preparation ritual, and only finish the last few bits to complete it.

“The tomes which held Turjan’s sorcery lay on the long table of black steel or were thrust helter-skelter into shelves. These were volumes compiled by many wizards of the past, untidy folios collected by the Sage, leather-bound librams setting forth the syllables of a hundred powerful spells, so cogent that Turjan’s brain could know but four at a time.

Turjan found a musty portfolio, turned the heavy pages to the spell the Sage had shown him, the Call to the Violent Cloud. He stared down at the characters and they burned with an urgent power, pressing off the page as if frantic to leave the dark solitude of the book.

Turjan closed the book, forcing the spell back into oblivion. He robed himself with a short cape, tucked a blade into his belt, fitted the amulet holding Laccodel’s Rune to his wrist. Then he sat down and from a journal chose the spells he would take with him. What dangers he might meet he could not know, so he selected three spells of general application: the Excellent Prismatic Spray, Phandal’s Mantle of Stealth, and the Spell of the Slow Hour.”

-“Turjan of Miir”, Jack Vance

"In this fashion did Turjan enter his apprenticeship with Pandelume. Day and far into the opalescent Embelyon night he worked under Pandelume's unseen tutelage. He learned the secret of of renewed youth, many spells of the ancients, and a strange abstract lore that Pandelume termed "Mathematics".

"Within this instrument," said Pandelume, "resides the Universe. Passive in itself and not of sorcery, it elucidates every problem, each phase of existence, all the secrets of time and space. Your spells and runes are built upon its power and codified according to a great underlying mosaic of magic. The design of this mosaic we cannot surmise; our knowledge is didactic, empirical, arbitrary. Phandaal glimpsed the pattern and so was able to formulate many of the spells which bear his name. I have endeavored through the ages to break the clouded glass, but so far my research has failed. He who discovers the pattern will know all of sorcery and be a man powerful beyond comprehension."

So Turjan applied himself to the study and learned many of the simpler routines.

"I find herein a wonderful beauty," he told Pandelume. "This is no science, this is art, where equations fall away to elements like resolving chords, and where always prevails a symmetry either explicit or multiplex, but always of a crystalline serenity."

>>44758717
I haven't checked out the sewer one yet, but if you want to liven up the encounters, I'd suggest reading up on the Cloaca Maxima in Rome — it had a shrine of Sewer Venus at its mouth, for instance, that's pretty great.

>>44760512
Honestly I just like to fluff it as classic bookish hermeticism. I'm not exercised about representing the rules as in-game systems; your magic-user doesn't even necessarily *know* he can only cast one Sleep spell, one Read Magic and one Web, from the story perspective.

>>44760512
>How do you fluff Vancian style magic?
Interestingly enough, even though I have GM:ed these games for years this is a first. What do you even mean by "fluff" in this context? Are you looking for an explanation for why the vancian magic system "works as it does"?

>I'm not a huge fan of how it's presented currently, even if the mechanics are solid.
Currently? When did Vancian magic change? Anyhow, here is an easy solution, if I interpret your question correctly, no one knows. That is, people that use spells don't know why they are burned out of their memory.

>>44760512
>>44762230
Ignore my post. After some contemplation I think I get the meaning behind your post. How do you fluff it... To answer that question we would at least need to know what type of setting you are using.

>>44760837
>>44760891
>>44761067

Did you even read the post? It said how to fluff it BESIDES the original fluff.

>>44762360
Then it's not Vancian magic.

I like it because it's like living math. Spells can come to exist as entities themselves, and they're imprinted upon the brain, meaning you can do some weird shit with a wizard's brain.

>>44762360
>Did you even read the post? It said how to fluff it BESIDES the original fluff.
>>44762403
>Then it's not Vancian magic.
Well, as I said earlier I have never heard of this particular question before. However I think (?) he is asking for some sort of justification for the system in his particular setting. That is, after the wizard has cast "fireball", for instance, it is "burned out of his mind", why is that? In the settings I use the answer would be that no one knows. That is, there are people that can use magic. They prepare their spells in advance. They don't know though why their spells get "depleted" so to speak. Maybe I am simply misunderstanding this discussion, english is not my mother tounge after all, but I think he is looking for some kind of justification, in his particular setting, for why the (vancian magic) rules work as they do.

>>44762604
In this case, the systems works best as an abstraction. It's clearly has a more mechanical than story purpose to it's design. If wizards didn't have some manner of limit they'd be overpowered.

The best way is that when spells are prepared, it's not like checking boxes off in your spellbook. The preparation involves the spell components and ritual that occurs during that arbitrary amount of time. The casting of the spell is done by completeing it, thus releasing it's effects.

This makes magic and wizards as less scatterbrained blasters, and more mystics, philosophers, alchemists, or even scientists.

>>44762871
>In this case, the systems works best as an abstraction. It's clearly has a more mechanical than story purpose to it's design. If wizards didn't have some manner of limit they'd be overpowered.
Agreed. And it should be pointed out that mechanics always triumphs over "fluff"/""consistency"/"whatever" in my mind as we are playing a game and games are governed by their mechanics.

>The best way is that (...) This makes magic and wizards as less scatterbrained blasters, and more mystics, philosophers, alchemists, or even scientists.
And I would agree again. Even though typically in my games wizards are in a sense "scatterbrained". That is, they can "practically" use spells but they have no idea about the theoretical framework. That is, they can prepare and cast spell X, but they have no idea of why spell X becomes depleted.
I think that the person, with the questions regarding vancian magic, is looking for some kind of justification for why that is. Maybe I am simply misunderstanding or reading to much into this.

:Time to mark some images of sallad:

>>44761088
This is one of the things I love about Vance. Turjan is a powerful mage, and he can memorize four spells, and I don't think any wizard is ever described as being able to memorize more than about six.

Also: all the spells have such amazing names.

>>44760512
Wizards are robots. They prepare ammo when they wake up and then load it into their magic gun. Leveling up means upgrading their gun to hold more ammo.

>>44744633
I cannot find movement rates anywhere in my 1e books (as in, the base movement rate table).

1' per minute is retardedly slow, though.

>>44762360
>Did you even read the post? It said how to fluff it BESIDES the original fluff.

Did you even read my post before bitching at someone trying to help you?

The 3e fluff is NOT the original fluff, its rituals you perform, with the last round's worth of casting time left unfinished.

>>44744633
2e's so damn bare bones and purely disappointing with its DMG that I wouldn't use it for anything other than if I really liked its splatbooks (which I do).

>>44763199
I can't find any evidence that dwarves don't have a human movement rate anywhere.

>>44763246
>I can't find any evidence that dwarves don't have a human movement rate anywhere.
Neither can I, which is strange in and of itself.

>>44763154
>This is one of the things I love about Vance. Turjan is a powerful mage, and he can memorize four spells, and I don't think any wizard is ever described as being able to memorize more than about six.
That is indeed a consequence of the system and it is indeed one of the things that makes the vancian system awesome.

>>44763199

You're not just moving for the whole ten minute turn. You're creeping along in the dark, inspecting the walls, floors, and ceiling, checking out any points of interest, measuring things and making maps, and there's still wiggle room in there for player discussion and debates and various other things.
When running a dungeon crawl you can't go paring the time down and tracking exactly how long you spent moving from A to B and nothing else, because then you have to track all that other stuff too, and it becomes a chore. A ten minute turn has room for a ton of things to happen, which greatly reduces the bookkeeping headaches for the DM.

>>44763656
>inspecting the walls, floors, and ceiling, checking out any points of interest, measuring things and making maps,
Mapping a room & casually examining is 1 turn, thorough examination is another turn.

The 10'/1" movt./turn in corridors is just movement and drawing a crude map (a line or two).

>>44763717

That depends on which rules you're using.

Moldvay Basic:
>A base movement rate of 120' in ten minutes may seem slow, but it assumes that the players are mapping carefully, searching, and trying to be quiet. It also takes into account the generally "dark and dingy" conditions of the dungeon in which characters are adventuring.
>The DM may wish to allow characters to move faster when travelling through areas they are familiar with. The DM will also have to determine movement rates for special situations, such as for swimming, climbing, or crawling, and for crossing special areas, such as slippery ground, steep hills, broken rocks, and mud.

>>44763804
This is 1e, where nothing tells you what your basic movement rate is. The PHB references a 'movement' heading that doesn't exist.

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>>44760837
>>44760891
>>44761067
>>44761490
>>44762230
>>44762337
>>44762403
>>44762604
>>44762871
>>44763124
>>44763154
>>44763176

Sorry, let me try again.

I want to have a game/setting where Wizards have multiple kinds of magic; they have potions, weak cantrips, and then they have their spell slots. How could I fluff these specifically? Why do they have X uses of X level spell for these specific powerful spells? I guess that's what I'm asking.

>>44764019

Like this.

>>44762871

Magic works best when it's this nebulous arcane practise of theory, practicality, ritual, and experimentation. Exploring mostly the how, and not the why.

What do you think of then you think of a wizard's study? Alchemical things like alembics, vials, flasks. Caged critters, astrological maps and telescopes, a whole assortment of ingredients and components, and a mess of books of theory and philosophy and nature. A wizard's spellbook is like their personal research journal, comprised of their own notes of their experimentation and developments in magic.

>>44764168
>Magic works best when it's this nebulous arcane practise of theory, practicality, ritual, and experimentation. Exploring mostly the how, and not the why.
And I would agree yet again. Which is obvious since the wizards in my games, through the years, don't know the "why". Therefore I am not sure what you are trying to argue.
This whole debate in the end is how we are to understand a particular individuals troubles with vancian magic. I fail to see if you and I even have any differences in this particular question.

>>44764296
It's not an argument at all?

If you are the anon that's asking for suggestions on how this should be portrayed, that is how.

>>44764019
>How could I fluff these specifically? Why do they have X uses of X level spell for these specific powerful spells?
I guess you already know my answer, but it is: >>44762604
>In the settings I use the answer would be that no one knows. That is, there are people that can use magic. They prepare their spells in advance. They don't know though why their spells get "depleted" so to speak.

I am curious though, why would you need to answer the "why" question? A simple answer would be to simply state that:

>Why do they have X uses of X level spell
They don't know. Wizards have found that magic obeys certain rules, they don't know why that is the case though.

If you are looking for something different it depends mostly on the setting of your choice. For instance, just rambling here, by using magic you have to be in contact with the divine (through prayer for instance). Magic is treated as a form of miracle, rendering clerics obsolete in this case. Through prayer/contact with a particular god who has domain over a particular class of spells you get X uses of spell Y. That is the "why" question turns into a "why do gods only allow X number of...".

>>44764329
>It's not an argument at all?
>If you are the anon that's asking for suggestions on how this should be portrayed, that is how.
I am not. I am basically an anon that was trying to understand the anon that-... It is a long story.

Best OSR for a former threeaboo trying to be a Fighting-Man in a world filled with magic?
Preferably no rocket tag.

>>44764730
>Preferably no rocket tag.
I think 2e is the least lethal.

>>44764019

I've noticed one of your problems, wandanon, is that you ask for feedback over and over again and then lash out at people who give you feedback. Can you explain why people should help you when you just get nasty when people try? I don't get it.

>>44764766
>>44764730
1e has magic armor and shields add to saving throws against many spells, as well as cover enhancing all your saves -- even against stuff like Charm Person.

>>44764730

If you want to go it alone, try Scarlet Heroes, which uses Labyrinth Lord's Black Streams rules for lone adventurers. That will let you utterly kick ass and take names. Wade into the fray and mow down the chumps like your name was Conan the Cimmerian.

>>44765015
Only rings do that. Magic armour and shields only affect AC.

This is the same as 2e.

>>44764766
>>44765015
>>44765177
I like it, will take into account.
I've also found Warrior, Rogue, and Mage.
It seems kind of flavored like Bone (the comic), but is it any good? Has anyone ever played it?

>>44764998

How am I wand anon? Wands were not mentioned once in my posts

>>44764730
Scarlet Heroes, at least until Godbound comes along. Although that'll make you more of a demigod asshole fighting-man.

>>44760736
p. sure godbound will have giant robots. it will also have cyberware, which may be magical and/or divine.

it's basically osr exalted but with functioning rules.

>>44765224
Nopers, I'm talking about 1e. One of the many things that I felt let down about with 2e, especially because all this stuff was changed with no rationale presented. Give me a bit and I'll find it.

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Because this gets brought up so often, straight from DMG

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>>44765272
I just like 1e for such purposes because you have a lot of ways to beat casters in inits, disrupt their spells (crossbow or bow specialist, you can always shoot first if you have a weapon readied, very deadly), your magic armor and shields applies to saves, your cover applies, and barbarians and cavaliers have a lot of defenses against spells as well.

Most OSR games don't have much you can do against casters at all.

>>44765859
No, they are the same in both editions.

In 1e, rings of protection apply their bonus to both AC and saving throws, unless it's either the +4/+2 or +6/+1 type, and magic armours and shields only apply their bonus to AC. See pages 130 and 164 of the 1e DMG.

In 2e, these effects are completely unchanged. See pages 201 and 240 of the 2e DMG revised (black-cover, TSR 2160), or pp148-149 and 181 in the unrevised one (TSR 2100).

>>44765977
p81 >>44765933

>>44765994
Aha, but see TSR 2100, page 66, and TSR 2160, page 93, where the same thing is present.

It's really strange that they don't at least reference that part in the item description.

>>44765887
So it's only used against monsters in armour, so it's not used in most combats, so it's an even more pointless system than it appears at first glance.

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>>44766037
Its a factor in the variety of encounter that is most prone to killing PCs, goblins/orcs/etc.

>>44766031
So it does or doesn't say that for the 2e DMG? I only posted that because you seemed to think it didn't modify saves.

>>44766073
It does say, in the 2e DMG, that magic armour modifies saves. I thought it didn't because I forgot that passage was there, due to it not being referenced in the item description chapter.

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>>44766073
>>44766097

>>44765852
I know. I'm just impatient. Plus I don't know if Kevin can capture the "anime super robot" feel. His mech rules in SWN was thoroughly Western.

>>44765933
BECMI is also good with caster disruption.

>>44766213
>>44766097

Sweet!

I will also point out since its vaguely pertinent (on the topic of fighting men trying to survive a magical realm):

In 1e, field and full plate protect you rather heavily against spells and breath weapons, as they reduce damage per die by 1 or 2 respectively, to a max of 12 or 26 points respectively, at which point its armor worsens by 1 point and needs to be repaired. Magic armor gets another +10 or +16 of hp reserve per plus.

In 2e, helms can give magic protection. Great helms in particular give a +2 to saves vs visual spells (suggestion is counted for some reason), +2 to saves vs dragon breath, fire, and similar magic effects, +3 if used with full plate.

In BECMI, suit armor (similar to full plate in AD&D, but heavier instead of lighter than plate), gives a +2 to saves vs aoe and reduces damage by 1/die, plus another 1/die per two full (rounded down) magic plusses. Note that it can't take damage and break like 1e full plate.

Overall I think suit is the snazziest. Its not clear whether joust (suit armor for mounts) gets the same bonuses. Its not RL accurate to say it should be heavier, but I like the nice progression.

>>44766390
>BECMI is also good with caster disruption.

Please elaborate, its been like a decade since my group ran a (rather nice and successful) BEC campaign and I don't remember anything about its disruption/inits minigame.

>>44766413
Can I get references on those? Not doubting you, I just want to know where they are.

>>44766424
Weapon Mastery weapon effects and individual initiative. There are plenty of weapons that can cause a caster to automatically lose initiative or stop them from casting. Bolas and Nets for instance are fun.

Of course I don't know of a way for you to automatically go for first like readying a weapon in 1e though. So you still need to be lucky.

>>44766504
Unearthed Arcana, DM's section, for the full plate, the magic plate is listed separately. The great helm is in the fighter's handbook, do ctrl+F great helm in the manybooks 2e thing. The suit armor is in rules cyclopedia and whichever (C or M) introduced suit armor.

>>44766605
Did the field/full plate protection make into 2e?

Does anyone think BECMI suit armor (stereotypical ahistorical knight armor that is super heavy and makes you a lumbering oaf but can't be broken by normal attacks or whatever) vs full plate (actually lets you be more nimble than plate mail) is a worthy distinction, or just one or the other should be in a given RPG?

>>44766614

Unfortunately not.

>>44766642
And I'm not endorsing the (rather clunky) 1e rules for armor breakage even though I'm normally a 1e fan, the two could be given different contrasting strengths -- for example, full plate could be given the stats of field, and suit the stats of full, etc.

Any cool variants of existing monsters /OSR/ has made? I was thinking of light, offensive spellcaster versions of humanoid monsters (like the elf), vampires that have fast attack rate and heal when they hit (but don't disintegrate XP), double caster ettins, mummies with curses and insect plague on hits.

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No one told me it would be thus small and cute!

What are some cool and interesting spells to start low level wizards off with/the ones they can find early on?

>>44768385
Small stuff like lighting a very small object (tobacco pipe) on fire, summoning a single bug, conjuring one gold coin, pitching down your voice for 3 sentences

>>44768326
It's like the b/X book in size yeah?

>>44768402

I was referring to DnD level 1 spell slot style spells, I don't know what you are referencing.

>>44768446
Level 0 spells

>>44768457

I'd prefer traditional 1 spell a day for 1st level style spells, thanks.

>>44768500
I think he was intentionally going for spells that are spells only in name. Like magic tricks.
Not actual magic, but human tricks that would make a peasant gasp in awe
"how did you do that?"
"Wizardry, obviously!"

>>44768500
You're welcome

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>>44768630

>>44769007
>>44768630
Stop shitposting

>>44768326
Fits right in your pocket

>>44763154
>I don't think any wizard is ever described as being able to memorize more than about six.
Yeah, six is the highest I remember too, but it's worth noting as well that the Rhialto-level magicians seem to hardly even bother, since they have their sandestins to do shit for them. That's another thing I always like,d that at a certain point the spells just become irrelevant.

>>44766060
>Assassination/treachery (18)
That they know of.

>>44770247
>Yeah, six is the highest I remember too, but it's worth noting as well that the Rhialto-level magicians seem to hardly even bother, since they have their sandestins to do shit for them. That's another thing I always like,d that at a certain point the spells just become irrelevant.
Those are the best. The style of Rhialto reminded me a little of Moorcock's underrated Dancers at the End of Time.

>>44770247
And they have so many magic items and IOUN stones, actually casting spells is pointless.

>>44770849
Now that you mention it... the Rhialto situation weirdly resembles a group of high-level magic users played by That Guys who scored way too much magic loot, but their DM's still trying to write meaningful adventures for them. LIke that thing where they compete to all cast their Time Stop at the best moment to trick the others.

So i'm a couple of pages into Rhialto the Marvellous. Seems to be essentially "Magical Old Men Who Are Afraid of Women - by Jack Vance"

>>44771822
The second story of the three is definitely the best, although I prefer Cugel to Rhialto.

Has anyone here done an underdark hex crawl before?

>>44775018
there's an article about it on the alexandrian

what's that one sandbox OSR game people kept referencing for awhile? Blackreach or something? it had a blog and it emphasized player driven actions upon a reactive world

So I sort of want to limit the problem of massive HP scaling in oldschool dnd. I'm not a fan of how high level characters even regardless of class can take so much damage and not die, but at the same time I want leveling to matter.

Maybe something like you get a new HD every 5 levels instead of every level? So at 5, 10, 15, and 20 you get to roll your hit die and add that to your new maximum health (your starting health would be increased a bit to compensate for that.)

So for averages;
>MU has +10 HP at level 20
>Thief has +14 HP at level 20
>Cleric has +18 HP at level 20
>Fighter has +22 HP at level 20

This seems far more reasonable for really high level characters.

>>44778622
High level chars have less HP than a comparable monster, what's the problem? To me, the main problem is more that low level PCs have garbage HP.

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A lot of Lamentations of the Flame Princess modules have very high amounts of gold pieces that can potentially be found when they're intended for 1st-level characters.

It's confusing because LotFP's core rules explicitly say it uses the silver standard for experience gain, and in this game at least, 1gp = 50sp.

How can I tell when the huge potential money/experience value is intended for the silver standard or the gold standard?
This is really confusing to me.

>>44779563

A lot of modules for LFP (or even settings - Carcosa for example) are meant to be compatible with B/X and/or AD&D 1e. Carcosa uses the gold standard, and strait up tells you that.

B/X and AD&D 1e use the gold standard, 1 gp = 1xp.

If something is using the gold standard, just convert all the gp to sp and it should be fine. You may have to fiddle with things like copper and platinum though.

>>44780100

>strait

Goddamn it, *straight

>>44780100
But the problem is that I don't know which ones are using the gold standard and which are using the silver standard.

>>44780100

Speaking of the X standard; does anybody else like the copper standard? I like it because it keeps costs and gains low, when adventuring starts bringing in silver and gold that is when they start bankrupting towns and villages. Anyone else agree?

>>44780478
yes, you can start off with coppers, progress up through silver, (electrum if you like), gold, platinum, and then either gems or mithral and adamantine coins

>>44780506

Yeah! But I'm not sure how much a fan of I am of platinum coins. They seem kind of silly and overly gamey, at that point wealth it's more a matter of scale and priceless things, like trading land or castles and magical artifacts. Keeps the concept if haggling or finding sellers relevant in high level play.

>>44778622
I've gone the route of devaluing hit points in my game. Your hit points = level * (4 + con mod) + 10. Weapons do approximately double normal damage (longsword does 2d10 rather than a d8). That means that an 8th level character might have 42 hit points and take maybe 4 hits to drop, rather than 28 hit points and 7 hits to drop. Mainly though, it means that the ratio of hit points between a 1st and 8th level character is 3 to 1 rather than 8 to 1. (Obviously, a change in hit points and damage like this has rather significant ramifications on the game as a whole, and requires you to rework quite a lot of other things as well.)

>>44776554
Unless you're thinking of the Grim Fist AP, I don't know. But you should check that out, anyway.

>>44780608
I don't personally find castles/land and artifacts in the same scale, unless you meant artifact in the general, non D&D sense, magic items included. While any direct equivalency is improbable and going to be subject to debate, you could attach each to a separate economic tier:

coppers: starting gear and basic consumables (up to chain or splint, food, weapons)
silver: advanced consumables (antidote, silver arrows, holy water, greek fire), advanced/nonstarting gear (warhorses, plate mail)
gold: hirelings, expert gear (full plate?), strongholds
platinum: henchmen, magic consumables (healing potions etc -- in situations where they're reasonably easy to create like 1e),
gems: magic items

That's just a loose approximation, of course, but I think mercenaries etc. should be a huge deal, and likewise henchmen are an even bigger deal.