OSR General

Any OSR systems out there that don't have clerics? Or rather consolidate them into Magic User?

>>44787002
I hear LOTFP might do that in the next edition of the Core rules

>>44787002
>>44787010

Can't you just let magic users cast cleric spells? Things like Turn Undead could be spells instead of abilities.

So basically I'm a first time DM here and I'd really like to run a LoTFP game; though with custom setting and stuff.

Any advice or ways to go about it?

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>>44786907
that fucking picture

Anyone have the implied OD&D setting pdf handy?

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>>44787703

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>>44787054

Actually, to expand upon this, let's consider the following;

Why not just make Clerics essentially a template put over a normal class? It's the 'religious' type character.
>Religious Fighters are Paladins
>Religious Magic Users are Priests

The only issue I have thus far is what should a religious specialist/thief be? I like the concept but I'd appreciate a little clarification.

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So I found this equipment table insanely useful for quickly rolling up characters.

>>44787054
Turn Undead is a spell in LotFP but thats maybe besides the point since clerics have their own spell list.

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>>44787793
But I found the lack of sort of fun items lacking so I tried to compile some stuff into this table.

If someone wants to look at it and see if it does what I want it to do that would be great. The idea is that rolling up yet another fighter with some alright weapon and armor is fun, but also starting the same fighter out with a bag of flour should help you get some creative juices running and give you ideas of what you want to do with the character. (Do I use the flour during a battle? Do I keep it as food? What if we encounter some invisible magic user?)

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Just dumping another one now that I'm in the folder

>>44787774
Thanks.

Hm, anyone here have a thought on balrogs (10 hd beasties, no spells, show up nearly everywhere, sometimes as servants to wizards) vs balors (8+8 or so HD beasties with spell likes, only 6 in existence and never in the wilderness)?

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Here's my homebrew, slowly nearing completion. I would appreciate any comments or feedback of it.

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Does it bother anyone else how Constitution works in scaling?

At level one, someone gets an easy +1 to hit with their strength score being decent. That's a permanent +5% chance to hit, its decent but not huge.
At level one, someone gets an easy +1 AC with their dexterity. That's a permanent -5% chance TO be hit. It's decent but not huge.

Then we have constitution bonuses to HP. It starts out weak (just +1 HP at level 1) but it spirals very quickly because it KEEPS scaling; at level 4 a magic user with +1 con will have a whole extra hit dice of health points. Even for tankier classes this still means a whole extra dagger's worth of an attack, or the average sword attack that keeps getting better and better.

Therefore, I purpose a change to Constitution modifiers that make them both more useful at level one and make sure they do not scale massively out of control;
>Toughness equal to Con modifier
When you first take damage in each fight, that damage goes to toughness first. Therefore with a +1 con mod, you'll absorb the first point of damage you take in a fight. It's decent, could potentially save your characters life, but its not game changing. Same as the strength and dexterity modifier now.

This even works for negative mods to, to make low con characters wimpier without it being as much of a huge issue as negative scaling on HP with bad con is. You just take bonus damage from the first attack equal to your con negative; so at -2 and taking 2 damage you take -4 damage instead. This makes even more sense when you consider that, in the same way someone who doesn't use close ranged weapons wouldn't be getting hurt by their strength negative, someone with a Constitution negative won't be getting hurt by it constantly as long as they avoid hits in combat, which is what Wizards often focus on doing anyway.

Does anybody else think this is a good system?

Are you a bad enough dude to convert RIFTS to old school D&D /OSR/?

>>44789742
Your constitution bonus increases your hit points by a flat percentage across all levels it applies to. It is of consistent importance. It operates differently from strength and dexterity bonuses, because damage and AC don't scale lit hit points do.

If you apply your Con modifier as a flat reduction of damage per battle, it'll be important at early levels, but almost insignificant at higher ones. If you've got 5 hit points, absorbing one really helps. If you've got 50 hit points, so fucking what if you can absorb one more?

>>44789742
I think this is a perfectly acceptable houserule, and I'd play in a group using it, but I'm with >>44789831. I also think you overestimate how much of a difference this makes, in that absorbing one HP in the beginning of each of five battles in a dungeon is pretty much the same as having +5 HP on level 5.

Honestly, the main difference is that it's potentially a much bigger bonus on low levels. Get into two fights on one expedition and boom, now your Con bonus is twice as good as before.

>>44790122
Maybe add some rest bit in. You regenerate toughness after a good rest, like HP

>>44789742
It applies precisely once per adventure unless you have RARE healing effects in great supply. Strength applies once per attack roll. IN GENERAL, a combat PC will roll more attacks than he will take hits in OSR

>>44789742
why make it more complex? How much does it actually add to the game to change things in this way?

>>44787818
Nice list, looks like pretty much what you would expect to find. A little plain maybe?

>>44789742
>just 5%

each +1 to AC is stronger than the last, AC 18 is three times as strong as AC 20

especially when you remember most people will be killed by THAC0

>>44793034
er sorry, will be killed by THAC0 20/BAB +0 enemies, or THAC0 19/BAB+1 ones, including mercenaries, goblins, centipedes, level 1-2 fighters and rogues in the first category, and up to orcs in the second

>>44793034
>>44793164

>most people will be killed by low-level enemies

While this is true, isn't this a little like saying "most accidents will occur in the home," which is just because people spend more time at home than elsewhere?
Low level characters are at their most vulnerable, and are facing low level enemies. It's only natural that most characters would die to low level enemies, since most games start off facing tons of them, and a lot of games don't last long enough for high level enemies to even show up.

>>44787790
>what should a religious specialist/thief be?

Witch Hunter?

>>44789811

Siembeda hit D&D with a sledgehammer multiple times. and re-set the bones badly to make the Palladium/RIFTS system.

Fix the things he broke, keep the stuff that actually added to the game. Easy.

I wish I had a group that'd try new OSR systems with me.

>>44796240

It's like my subconscious posted that.

>>44796240
Online gaming, baby. Let's roll.

>>44793245
No, because OSR doesn't have even remotely the same sense of scaling that 3e or 4e has -- low level enemies don't kill more people due to that being what low level types fight, low level enemies kill more people because they come in disproportionate numbers.

As far as dungeon levels are concerned, the game is generally pretty sensible about scaling threats to fit depth, except shit like centipedes, which cause instant death at level 1 and they come in large groups, while, say, a vampire is nasty but less so than an instant death monster, especially because they come in small groups. Or the 1e MM gives an example, iirc, of a level 5 PC party facing off against a maxed out (by core standards), 88 hp red dragon. They take heavy casualties but they still win. Demons are nasty, but they generally aren't covered in centipedes nasty, and they aren't 200 orcs nasty.

Yeah, a high level fighter will mow through some of them (though amusingly, not orcs, gnolls, etc., apparently). Magic users and thieves are still probably going to be slaughtered by orcs even at higher levels, barring certain spells, if caught.

Low level monsters have a lethality that doesn't translate into later editions.

>>44795169
Or inquisitor.
Either way, I like this idea.

I really like the rules for LotFP, but I'm having some trouble trying to marry it to the dungeon-crawl experience that I like from other OSR games.

Does anyone have any experience of running the game with adventures of their own design?

Gib me some stories.

>>44798398
Could you please explain what about the rules makes it an imperfect fit for dungeon crawling? They seem more or less same as any other OSR, just mildly jazzed up encumbrance etc.

>>44799042
>>44798398
Yeah honestly. I just bought the book and havent had a chance to run anything with it yet but it looks to be pretty much a modernized Moldvay with edgy art. (It's brilliant)

>>44798263
Witch hunter and inquisitor honestly seem to be the same concept, to me. Typical case of different level titles for the same class.

>>44798398
Is the problem the edgelordism and lack of monsters? Because the first one's just a surface layer and can easily be mentally scraped off, and the second's just a question of grabbing Labyrinth Lord or something out of the Trove. Same with spells and magic items and such, of course; I agree that the absence of anything of the sort in LotFP is a huge problem for it as a complete dungeoneering ruleset, but fortunately there's a wealth of stuff to fill in those gaps, even free ones.

Still, I'd love to see The Joy of the Rescue Damsel or something -- a de-edgelorded LotFP with all the goblins and fireballs added back in.

>>44787002
Seven Voyages of Zylarthen lacks Clerics, and clerical magic is just consolidated into the Magic-User

>>44800447
That's why everybody should own a copy of the 2e monster manual (the book, not the binder). All the monsters you could ever want (except thules) and compatible with any osr product.

>>44787793
It's weird that the thief chart never bothers to buy any thieves tools.

>>44801159
I dunno, maybe it's assumed they always start with thief tools?

>>44800447
It really is hard to sort of remove it from the OSR context I think, it really just presents what it wants to add to what is already out there.

In LotFP isn't Magic Missile a pretty garbage ass first level spell? Is this done purposely?

>>44801575
LotFP actually has a pretty souped up version of magic missile. It's d4 per level, instead of d4+1 every other level. But I think it's also the only direct damage spell in the game?

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>>44787790
>>44798263
>>44800311

So could all the classes get backgrounds to determine some of their qualities?

>Savages - All of them get 1 in 6 bushcraft, +1 HP
>Fighters = Barbarians
>Thief= Survivalist
>Magic User= Shaman

>Religious- Can turn undead(?)
>Fighter= Paladin
>Thief= Inquisitor
>Magic User= Priest

>Urban Background- Connections to various entities. Normal classes.
>Fighter is Fighter
>Thief is Thief
>Magic User is Magic User or just Wizard

>Nobleman= More starting gold, enemy of the lower classes
>Fighter is Knight
>Thief is Expert/Jester
>Magic User is Court Magus

Each could have some kind of bonus and social negative or affiliation.

>>44802830
>Behold my tits
>Holy shiiii-ii--

>Buy a few copies of BFRPG for friends
>Give them the books and some extra dice sets I had lying around
>All of them are legitimately interested, especially one forever DM friend tired of the massive tomes 3.5/4e were
>One friend who wasn't into TTRPGs before wants to give it a shot
Next time we hang out I'm definitely going to run them a session. Anyone else manage to get their friends interested in OSR stuff?

It's friday and exams are done so I made a map. Really like the color coding someone did on the caves of chaos. Would you run it?

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>>44803447
Its also really late, here's the picture. Now all I gotta do is stock it

>>44801777
Probably that. I guess you'd pick up magic missile later on and start off with like, sleep or charm?

>>44800447
>a de-edgelorded LotFP with all the goblins and fireballs added back in

So you DON'T want to play lotfp

>>44801103
I think you can find some interesting critters that could fit the style but it's better to make your own monsters.

>>44803447
Would I run your map, or would I run Caves of Chaos, you mean?

I prefer high quality battlemaps... which may not be conventionally OSR, but tell that to Zanzer Tem

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Reposting from last thread. Also taking more requests, if there is interest.

>>44803849
>>44803474
Either or I suppose. I forgot to post the picture first.

>>44804160
These are great dude. Are you the one who did the ape merchant under the banana tree as well?

Why do zombies in general take so many hits? They're 2HD, where as I suppose zombies usually are seen as pretty frail?

>>44804160
Want to make some general encounter tables for the implied od&d setting?

>>44804194

Yes.

>>44804590

Sorry man, as I said before I'm really not familiar with that. Doesn't that game already have encounter tables? Like the oldschool basic D&D? I don't do to well with published settings in general. I prefer going ham on my own material with a prompt.

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How is Barrowmaze versus Barrowmaze Complete?

I noticed the page count goes up quite a bit. Is it the same material reformatted, or is there new stuff? How do the two versions compare?

>>44804224
They don't feel pain or exhaustion and don't bleed.

Question:
Does anyone have the iconic character sheets for LotFP, as in the character sheet for the titular character?
I have a question that needs answering, AKA what are her stats?

>>44804590

That's silly. The implied setting is in large part derived from the OD&D encounter tables, so you're asking for encounter tables based on a setting based on encounter tables.

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>>44805999
...Then he should just use the encounter tables, they obviously come from whatever setting they generate.

>>44806035
>>44805999
There's something to be said for not having to roll and consult 3 different charts each time.

Erm, is there a relevant difference between mammoths and mastadons that deserves them both being included?

>>44806450
Mammoths are more thickly set, likely having a higher STR, CON score and more hit points as a result.

>>44806064
Obviously not an Old-School Grognard!

Nah, you have a point. But condesning the lists down looses some of it's random charm. it's a difficult balance

>>44806678
I roll all the time, I don't think the PC cares whether a series of d6s and d12s vs a d100 determines yonder sabre t. tigs.

>>44806738
S'truth time, folks. I can never get smooth with my random roll tables. They feel clunky and I can never get the monster stats out fast enough to give it a good feel. I would love to use them more often, but I just don't seem to have the nack. Hopefully in 20 more years of gaming I'll figure it out

So I here a lot about how Fighters are supposed to not only be really tanky, have good saves and armor, but also deal a lot of damage.

However I can't seem to see where they get this bonus damage at higher levels in a lot of these retroclones. It seems like they just get bigger to hit ratios, not really bigger damage dice. Can anyone explain?

>>44809362
Don't they get the biggest hit dice and are the only class allowed to use magic armor and magic swords?

>>44787002
Stars Without Number has psychics.

>>44809362
It varies with the game, some OSR options include options for fighters dealing extra damage (Rules Cyclopedia's smash option comes to mind, though I can't think of a retroclone that includes that) or extra attacks (basically any game based on AD&D, such as OSRIC) or weapon mastery (BECMI had this),

There are some retroclones that don't grant fighters any sort of scaling bonus to damage (or extra atacks) that isn't dependent on magic gear, but I personally think this is a poor idea simply due to the way HP scales.

>>44809362

Why not make the bonus damage go along with the extra to-hit they get anyway?
>Fighter has +1 to hit, attacks enemy
>Gets at least 1 over the enemy AC, deals +1 bonus damage
>This bonus has a maximum bonus to damage equal to Fighter's level.

So a level 3 Fighter with +3 to hit could roll up to 3 over the required AC of the enemy and get up to that much in bonus damage. Rolls of 20 grant ALL you to hit bonus to damage, similar to a critical hit (but only available to warriors)

This way Warriors who have high strength are automatically improving their damage in a way that easily scales with level. It does require a little more mental math on part of the GM, but not much. (Just count up how much over the Fighter hit the enemy, and give that many points of bonus damage as long as the Fighter's level and bonus to hit permit it)

Of course you don't have to tell the player how much damage they are dealing, since I know a lot of GMs don't do that.

>>44805624
But skellimen are frail and easy to break I suppose?

>>44809940
Well, they have no padding, so yes.

Fantastic Heroes and Witchery any good? joining a group

>>44809966
got a copy of it for Christmas, I'd say it's pretty good, what options is the DM allowing, also since FH&W doesn't include monsters in the core book(author plans on doing a separate monster book some day) you should inquire as to where he's going to be getting his monsters from

What is the best OSR monster manual, with the biggest number of monsters?
Bonus points for having evocative descriptions or illustrations.

>>44810022
ive yet to find out honestly, its through an online group I think the host is asleep

I noticed there were a bunch of different types of races and classes, seems cool that they have different groups.. ive always wanted to play a reptilian

>>44810087
Why would you only use one?

>>44810105
not him but probably to get the books irl

>>44810087
Bookbof Monstrities has pictures and evocative descriptions and adventure ideas.

>>44810691
Sounds rad. Who's the publisher? I'm not getting any hits searching for it.

>>44810740
Swords & Wizardry - Monstrosities

Frog God Games.

I think it's in the trove if you want a preview.

>>44810780
Alright, found it.
Thanks for the recommendation.

Do you think anyone here could direct me to a PDF that contains the OD&D warlock, as listed in this thread?
http://odd74.proboards.com/thread/3260

I have tried digging for Dungeoneer Magazine, but I have no idea where it could be found in electronic format.

>>44811025
Weird that they would mention the Warlock and not the other Dungeoneer classes.

I'm afraid I can't help you out, though. I only have the first six issues.

>>44803474
Id run your goofy map. It looks like a 5-room dubgeon is that intensional?

I need them
alternate
magic
systems.

I keep memeing on and on about it but I am too much of a hipster to like traditional Vancian style of oldschool DnD and DnD in general. Please help!

>>44811660
You can cast any known spell whenever you want, but each time you get a cumulative penalty to rolls based on the spell's level (until you have a nap).

Barrel of worms here, but what are some computer games with an OSR feel?

Ultima Underworld springs to mind.

>>44811660
You should check out Carcosa. That has the most fiction-appropriate magic system I've ever seen.

>>44811730
Nethack. DCSS. ADOM. You get the idea.

>>44811705

Wait, to spell casting rolls of that spell or ALL rolls? Seems like more powerful then regular Vancian, because you get multiple chances.

>>44811738

Isn't that the edgy one where you rape children in rituals or some shit? I might be totally wrong here but I could have sworn that was a thing.

>>44811787
>Isn't that the edgy one where you rape children in rituals or some shit? I might be totally wrong here but I could have sworn that was a thing.
That's carcosa, unfortunately. If they published a 'carcosa without the rape' I'd buy it in a flash, but it just seems in poor taste as-is, you know?

Are these anywhere to be found?

https://rpggeek.com/rpgseries/1112/complete-warlock

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>>44811660
Go to lastgaspgrimoire.com and look at how the Maleficar and Mystic are handled. These classes are, respectively;
>I know these spells, and have them written in my spellbook/etched into the skulls of my enemies/tattooed on my skin. I can cast /some/ spells per day safely, but I don't know how many and once I've gone past that limit I can keep casting but hilarious bad shit happens every time I do Further weirdness with attempting to read spellbooks and chop of other maleficar's heads to read the spells written on the insides of their skills. A friend of mine did the maths and confidently informs me that every time you cast unsafely, there's a 14.5% chance of getting killed (assuming you have 4 hp)
and
>I can pray to my deity (the samples given being fabulously weird and evocative) and depending on how much favour I have with it I might get the miracle that I want! Or I might get a miracle that I don't particularly want, because my deity can't properly understand mortals anyway, or my deity might decide I've not been behaving myself properly and demand some show of faith before I can get any miracles anymore. Or possibly I (or somebody I'm trying to heal) will have something weird as hell happen and end up permanently transformed to be more pleasing to my deity.

PDF related, it's the playbook I made for my mystic in the last game I was in.

found warlock, thanks

>>44811787
>Wait, to spell casting rolls of that spell or ALL rolls? Seems like more powerful then regular Vancian, because you get multiple chances.

I was thinking things like attack rolls and initiative (if you're using individual initiative), maybe some other stuff like saving throws.

Basically to represent that spells fatigue you, rather than cost Vancian slots. It needs more work but I'm sure someone will have come up with a system like this somewhere?

>>44811787
>>44811911
>Isn't that the edgy one where you rape children in rituals or some shit? I might be totally wrong here but I could have sworn that was a thing.
It's like that for a legitimate aesthetic reason. It's Lovecraftian horror, and the guy who wrote it realized that just saying "unspeakable evil" doesn't cut it any more, that just leads to Cthulhu plushes and a million HURR DURR jokes, so he was going to have to speak the evil. Now the magic's as gnarly and fucked up as it was always meant to be. It's just a natural consequence of people getting more jaded since Lovecraft wrote his stories.

>>44812601
This pretty much. One of the only things that is genuinely disturbing, discomforting and off limits these days is raping children. Almost everything else will be met with laughs.

>>44786907
Does /OSR/ like Nerdarchy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfOHsghhnUQ

>>44806789
Write each possible random encounter on an index card, and then instead of rolling on a table draw a card.

/osrg/ please explain Wandering Monsters to me.

Say you're in a one-way chamber and then there are 1d6 goblins behind you. Where did they come from? How come they weren't spotted on the way in? Do they deplete from the overall number of goblins in the dungeon? Or do they just "spawn" then die?

>>44815392
Different systems handle it slightly differently, but I always handled it like this:
Wandering monsters are basically the same as the PCs in that they're wandering about the dungeon rather than staying in their lair. Once you've encountered a given set of wandering monsters, next time it's rolled, it will be the same ones. So if you roll 4 goblins, and kill 1 before running away, next time you meet them there'll only be 3 and they're pissed at you for killing their mate.
You can assume that wandering monsters have heard the party and come to investigate/mug them. If the dungeon is strictly linear, then they will either have come in behind the party or be moving towards the exit. On the other hand, most dungeons have enough branches and closed loops that, when you're not observing them, the monsters could have buggered off anywhere. Unless the PCs specifically go hunting them, we just abstract the monsters away to 'somewhere in the dungeon', and they turn up again when they're rolled again; it's lazy but it works fine and is much easier than tracking every monster on a little map.

From a design point of view, the /purpose/ of wandering monsters is to punish the players for hanging about too long or making loud noises. You get the dilemma of 'if you're to reckless, traps will get you' vs 'if you're too cautious, you're a sitting duck for wandering monsters'.

>>44815392
Well, the most important thing to understand is the reason for them existing in the first place - it's partly because it makes the dungeon seem more alive, yes, but it's mostly because it puts a timer on your activities that stops you from dicking around too much and poking at every single 10' square with a pole.

As for where they came from, probably the same direction you came from in that case? I'm not entirely sure I understand your scenario. They might also walk in from in front of you or whatever - it's up to the DM to decide.
What exactly do you mean with "one-way chamber"?

If you're on a level that's been "cleared", there probably shouldn't be any random encounters - however, wandering monsters generally don't come from a "pool", they just are. If you clear out a level without getting any wandering goblins, there never were any goblins there - with the corollary that if you met hundreds of goblins then there were clearly hundreds of goblins stalking the halls.

"Spawning" is certainly one way you could implement it, I suppose, and one that I'd imagine would work quite well with something like OD&D's "mythic underworld".

Was Gygax an autist or something? Looking at the description of Repel Insects in 1st edition AD&D, he specifies that it doesn't affect arachids or myriapods, only insects. That seems kind of... anal.

>>44815607
Could be a game balance thing. IIRC AD&D centipedes have save-or-die poison?

Also, if he had autism then he clearly wouldn't fumble the bit where he put mammals and marsupials in two different categories wherever it was he did that. Some spell or psionic power, I think, that scaled through categories as you leveled up.

>>44815575
>As for where they came from, probably the same direction you came from in that case? I'm not entirely sure I understand your scenario. They might also walk in from in front of you or whatever - it's up to the DM to decide.
>What exactly do you mean with "one-way chamber"?

Well I was thinking cleared areas, yes. Some kind of situation where the PCs have a full picture of the dungeon, there wasn't anywhere for goblins to come from, yet now there's goblins? I guess just not roll there, no matter how much sound and time the party wastes?

It is a great idea as a game mechanic though, thanks to you and >>44815527 for the explanation and advice.

>>44815607

Not gonna lie, I twitch a little whenever some edition of D&D describes a fungus or fungus monster as a "plant".

>>44805052
>>

"In brief, my plan with the new crowfund is to combine the two Barrowmaze books into a definitive single volume entitled Barrowmaze Complete with new material, art, professional design and layout. Ex-TSR artist Erol Otus has agreed to provide the cover art!"

http://barrowmaze.com/2013/11/18/barrowmaze-crowdfund-coming-in-january/

Does this answer your question?

>>44805052

"In brief, my plan with the new crowfund is to combine the two Barrowmaze books into a definitive single volume entitled Barrowmaze Complete with new material, art, professional design and layout. Ex-TSR artist Erol Otus has agreed to provide the cover art! Woot! Woot!"

http://barrowmaze.com/2013/11/18/barrowmaze-crowdfund-coming-in-january/

>>44815719
How would they get the "full picture" of the dungeon, anyway? Generally they're moving rather slowly through a large labyrinthine area with a small light source - even ignoring how it's entirely possible to miss small cracks and secret doors and whatnot, it could just be that the goblins were just on the opposite side of the dungeon while the PCs were finishing up mapping it with their paths only now intersecting.

Or they might have been outside the dungeon and just gotten inside.

There's a lot of ways for two groups to be in the same dungeon and yet miss each other, is what I'm saying.


Another thing to remember is that the dungeons that the rules were originally written for were fairly vast - OD&D recommends starting with at least three levels, for instance, and notes that Castle Greyhawk has a dozen levels downwards and many more branching out! Castle Blackmoor is similarly huge in The First Fantasy Campaign.
I'm fairly certain that they never succeeded in "clearing" those dungeons - they might have succeeded in clearing individual levels, but even then OD&D has suggestions for how to change them if that happens. Each dungeon was originally meant as kind of an "eternal game", so to speak.

>>44815764
>>44815853

Yes, sorry about that. I didn't realize it had a sequel, so I was a bit confused.

It also seems to have lots of very nice interior art.

I might buy it, but £45 is pretty steep.

>>44809362
>>44809639

In 1e they can get specialization and double specialization (+3/+3) which became the basis for 2e's specialization and weapon mastery. 2e's high and grand weapon mastery offer more tasteful bonuses than just cranking up the damage bonuses higher.

BECMI has a very fancy and marvelously unbalanced system for weapon mastery that is still worth it due to the level of interest it adds.

its not particularly desirable to have damage scale indefinitely

>>44809940
And they are about 20-30 pounds!

>>44815527
>You get the dilemma of 'if you're to reckless, traps will get you' vs 'if you're too cautious, you're a sitting duck for wandering monsters'.

That breaks down entirely if your players prepare for it. Hell, your players being able to afford a hireling or two gimps it pretty hard.

>>44815934
Here's what OD&D has on cleared levels, by the way - it wouldn't surprise me if later editions have similar things.

>Maintaining Freshness: As monsters inhabiting the rooms, spaces and corridors of a level are killed or captured, the level will become drab and dull. Coupled with this problem, players will have made fairly accurate maps of the level, so it will be challengeless this way also. Remembering that egress to lower levels is desirable, one must nevertheless revamp worn levels by one or more of the several methods suggested below:
>1. Make minor alterations with eraser and pencil, blocking passages, making new ones, dividing rooms, and filling in others.
>2. Extend the boundaries of the map, if not already filled to the edges of the paper, adding corridors and rooms.
>3. Replace monsters in new areas as well as those less-frequented old areas where monsters were located and removed sometime previously.
>4. Reverse directions on the map, carefully relocating ways down to lower levels so as they still correspond to markings below, and do the same for passages upwards.
>5. Add a passage which continues past the established boundary of the level, creating a split or sub-level which it leads to, complete with new treasure and monsters.
>Using these suggestions, and whatever else you dream up, there is no reason why participants in the campaign should not continue to find mystification, enjoyment, excitement, and amusement in the challenge of the myriad passages of the dungeons.

Shit like this is why I really think someone should write up something on OD&D's Implied Setting's dungeons - Philotomy's "Mythic Underworld" except including the encounter tables and whatnot.
Because this shit is downright ELDRITCH.

>>44816018
If the DM is such a cuddly soft pleb that he lets you use hirelings to disarm traps there's no need to worry about difficulty anyway.

>>44816058
If your DM is not allowing a hireling to push on a floor tile with a ten foot pole, you should probably find another DM.

>>44816018
How on earth does that gimp it? You can get more things done in a turn on account of having more hands to do things with, but it's not that big an increase for the loss in experience.

Not to mention the more exotic countermeasures like morale checks for being forced into hazardous situations or even shit like OD&D's scaling encounters on party size (multiply number of wandering monsters by the number of groups of three in the party, basically.)

>>44805052
I'm pretty sure Barrowmaze Complete is just the whole dungeon of the Barrowmaze, whereas the non-complete version(s) are just parts of the Barrowmaze.

Which is to say I'm pretty sure Barrowmaze Complete is objectively better if you think more dungeon = more better.

>>44816102
Nah, allowing PCs to hire NPCs for peanuts that will sacrifice their life for the cause (of money that they will never spend) and presenting the idea that NPCs aren't aware that dungeons are dangerous is the sign of an incompetent DM.

Just having free floating mercenaries waiting to sacrifice themselves for PCs is iffy, I have PCs have to cut deals with mercenary *companies* and trying to cheat and backstab the hired help results in conflict with a large, established organization, similar to pissing off a noble house or a wizard's guild.

I'm not even a particularly 'hardmode' DM but this sort of thing pisses me off. Both DMGs issue warnings about letting PCs walk over NPCs.

>>44816149
>You can get more things done in a turn on account of having more hands to do things with

That's exactly how it gimps the timer function. Lets say it takes two seconds to check a floor tile. In a room with 400 floor tiles it'd take 13.3 minutes to check them all with a single person. If I have three hirelings I can have them check the room in 4.4 minutes while the rest of the party is free to do other things. I can even kill the hirelings at the end and blame the traps.

>>44816357
>I can even kill the hirelings at the end and blame the traps.
If you don't see why this is a stupid idea, your GM is unusually soft on you (or possibly you're just not very clever).

>>44816357
>Lets say it takes two seconds to check a floor tile.
One turn per 10ft square, IIRC.

Also, of course, if your hirelings keep dying during your expeditions then I imagine that you'll have a hard time finding new hirelings to employ later.

>>44816256
>allowing PCs to hire NPCs for peanuts that will sacrifice their life for the cause (of money that they will never spend) and presenting the idea that NPCs aren't aware that dungeons are dangerous is the sign of an incompetent DM.

Yeah, it's totally unrealistic for people to do dangerous jobs for pay.

>>44816357

So have larger party groups -> larger encounters and don't make NPCs into automatons, have the mercenaries' superiors investigate as to what happened and give the PCs a little surprise when they find out their guys were murdered, easy as cake.

>>44816486
>Yeah, it's totally unrealistic for people to do dangerous jobs for pay.

Its totally unrealistic for people to do truly suicidal jobs they could do better on their own for thousands of times greater pay, you are correct.

>>44816449
Delving into unknown and dangerous dungeons full of traps and monsters for riches that may or may not exist is a pretty stupid idea to begin with.

>>44816455
I'd imagine that there shouldn't be enough dungeons within a particular area that for that to matter.

>>44816493
Why aren't the mercenaries sending their own people into the dungeon? They're obviously willing. Why aren't the mercenaries killing your PCs themselves?

>>44816533
How is it truly suicidal unless you're actively making it so for the hirelings? They're there to haul shit, poke things with long sticks, and keep watch. Unless your party is making them fight or your DM is having the monsters prioritize them, that is.

>>44815392
>Say you're in a one-way chamber and then there are 1d6 goblins behind you.
I'm not sure what a one-way chamber is, but okay.

>Where did they come from?
Same way you came in, I guess?

>How come they weren't spotted on the way in?
Well, the first thing you do when you've rolled a wandering monster encounter is to roll for surprise and encounter distance. So it's totally possible that they came in and were stunned to see you there (that is, they're surprised and you spotted them on the way in), that they snuck in to ambush you (the reverse), or that you both see each other at 60' distance. These rules should be in the "encounters" section of whatever game you've got.

>Do they deplete from the overall number of goblins in the dungeon? Or do they just "spawn" then die?
This is a matter of taste. My impression is most of the OSR likes to go for the "these are goblins from the lair at (41)" style of having them clearly tied to a location or group of monsters, and deplete if slain. I like that myself. Over time, though (i.e. between adventures) the dungeon will probably gradually refill, allowing you to reexpand the encounter roster.

>>44815527
>From a design point of view, the /purpose/ of wandering monsters is to punish the players for hanging about too long or making loud noises. You get the dilemma of 'if you're to reckless, traps will get you' vs 'if you're too cautious, you're a sitting duck for wandering monsters'.
>>44815575
>Well, the most important thing to understand is the reason for them existing in the first place - it's partly because it makes the dungeon seem more alive, yes, but it's mostly because it puts a timer on your activities that stops you from dicking around too much and poking at every single 10' square with a pole.
This is a super important point, so I'm just going to highlight it by repetition.

I imagine if hirelings start dropping like flies, the party is going to get a reputation. And then folks will ask for higher amounts of pay. Or it might get hard to find hirelings.
If everyone hired by a group of dudes keeps dying in the dungeon, then they're going to be viewed as a cursed group.
If hirelings survive, then the group will get a reputation as reliable and safe employers, driving costs down.

Hell, captains on ships which wrecked were viewed as cursed and would never get hired again in the industry usually.

>>44816610
>Delving into unknown and dangerous dungeons full of traps and monsters for riches that may or may not exist is a pretty stupid idea to begin with.
This. I know I'm not alone in liking to play up that exploring dungeons is hilariously dangerous and the PCs are basically suicidal whackjobs and/or at the end of their rope. It fits well with a number of little system details, like how everybody in the game's subject to morale checks except the PCs, who are subject only to the whim of their players.

>>44803474
neat, I'm stealing it and including it in my own dungeon. Thanks for posting!

>>44816719
>Why aren't the mercenaries sending their own people into the dungeon?

In the case of the guy I was responding to, because he views NPCs as mindless automatons with no sense of self preservation nor the most basic of logic (ie. that they could do it themselves and split the rewards).

>Why aren't the mercenaries killing your PCs themselves?

They would be, if the PCs ruthlessly betray them like in that guy's scenarios. Course, nothing's wrong with hiring assassins to do it either.

>How is it truly suicidal unless you're actively making it so for the hirelings?

They're taking the most dangerous job, that of discharging traps, for 1% or less that of a PC or henchman. I'm not opposed to occasionally evil PCs finding a homeless drug addict, getting him high, and shoving him ahead (probably a half orc or something that can see in the darkness naturally, so he won't get spooked).

>They're there to haul shit, poke things with long sticks, and keep watch.

One of these things is not like the other. Taking up the most absolutely dangerous party role for 1% of the share of the treasure, tops, is completely retarded.

For an NPC who merely SHARES the most dangerous tasks, your typical henchman, you should go with the pricing of henchmen -- ergo equal share, plus a monthly wage of 100/gp/level a month (in this case, I'd go with the dungeon level for 0 level types). Paid not to the henchmen (since the traitor PCs would just loot his corpse after they murder him), but to their next of kin or to the mercenary company.

They'd probably also want a basic investigation -- say, Speak with Dead on the henchman's corpse cast by the City Watch (given the typical NPC distribution -- I don't begrudge DMs who save clerics as rare, nearly one of a kind, Jesus types) and have a look at how badly scuffed up the PCs were. If they say "sorry, we couldn't recover the corpse," they get a new quest, pro bono, to find it, or else.

In a setting there it's logical to sacrifice hirelings to traps, it's also logical the hirelings would never go into his employ... since I doubt his character would be the first person to do that.

I love Orcs of Thar, a classically OSR TSR era supplement:

"Humanoids (meaning kobolds through trolls) are the epitome of macho behavior -- not in the sexual sense of the term but rather in a racial sense. Everything that seems refined, elegant or subtle is an aberration: the louder, the cruder, and the brasher, the better! Physical ugliness can be viewed as a way of being impressive, as long as the character displays a raw, primitive strength and an ability to intimidate his peers. The elves and their culture are the prime example of what humanoids hate the most. For the latter, beauty and grace are weaknesses to be laughed at and taken advantage of. Humans would perceive an 18 Charisma gnoll as incredibly rude, brutal and gross -- definitely admirable qualities among humanoids!"

>>44818449
my main issue with Orcs of Thar is how even by BX/BECMI/RC D&D standards is that book has terrible balance regarding it's classes

>>44818317
I mean fucking seriously, just have the play group agree on treating hirelings as though theyre actual people. Theyre not mindless drones.

>>44818887
oh yeah? In what way?

My main issue is that recruiting kobolds/goblins is dumb, since they "cost" the same amount as orcs. So I'm going to avoid their topic, especially since you can recruit goblins as mercenaries for dirt cheap anyway.

That being said, orcs vs, say, ogres and trolls seem to be decently balanced, you get good privileges for leveling up (besides stats and casting issues, there's also NPC flunkies, which are after a certain point a flat 10 HD/level) and orcs level up WAY faster than ogres/trolls.

>>44819479
if you do a OoT only campaign it's fine, but if you use them with other BX/BECMI/RC classes you'll quickly realize that they are fairly uniformly underpowered in comparison

>>44811660

Maybe you could try something a bit more modular?

Like you use the same 1st through 9th spell level per level table that your game uses, but these spell slots can be used on any type of magical working that a caster knows.

So;
>Enchanter can enchant an object for X rounds in combat or X hours if passive where X is spell level
>Alchemist can gather and prepare ingredients equal to X, then create X potions. So you'd either spend you first level spell slot in gathering and preparing ingredients then creating a 1st level potion the next.
>Tricky Wizard can combine X + 1 Cantrips by expending spell slots, etc.

>>44819565
Really? I'd rather have a troll than a BECMI fighter, I'll tell you what (the section on weapon mastery says monsters can get weapon mastery at least, YMMV), and the way they can recruit craploads of, say, trolls is rather nice. Did I mention trolls? At level 9, you can get 13 goddamn trolls. And an orc only gets a -1 to command checks with trolls, and hits level 9 before the fighter does.

I'm not sure about caster humanoids, but it looks to me like they're roughly comparable to elves -- on average, busting the level cap will cost you about 1 hp a level, putting you around on par with an elf. The troll casters take double hits on the sacrifice table, have way more hp so it balances a bit, and they can just eat people to recharge all their spell slots! (I think)

I cite trolls because they look like easy bang for their buck, but shamans, witch doctors, and chiefs are all great command targets as well. In the Battlesystem rules for BECMI/1e, though, regular 1 HD orcs are fine minions.

Also I like the idea of troll/ogre 'dominions.'

>>44819806
I also cite trolls because its a hell of a lot cozier (even if you're an orc) to keep NPC count small, and because honestly Elf and Troll are what people should think of when they think of functional tank guys, not the Fighting Man -- the Elf can engage energy drainers and poison fuckers as well as being a great scout, while the Troll can go all day (I honestly can't tell if poison permanently kills trolls, but I assume so) for general combat.

>>44819806
>>44820049
admittedly I had forgotten that Trolls are playable in OoT, although I wasn't taking into account the spellcaster variants when I was taking into account class balance, if I recall properly(I'll admit it's been a couple years since I last read OoT) the other racial-classes are kinda wimpy when compared to the non-Wizard core classes(both Human and Demi-Human)

>>44820253
They strike me as VERY generously competitive with fighter, dwarf, halfling, and thief, and are very competitive with elf, cleric, and magic users, maybe better.

can rub it in to elves that they can use magic spells, some of up to 6th level, while also being able to use some cleric and all druid spells "See I'm better with nature bullshit than you, pointy ears"

>>44811911
Also, there is only actually one rape-y ritual in the book, and frankly that doesn't bug me. What bugs me is that everyone completely overlooks that and instead just drops it because it has rape at all. It's a sorcerers ritual to screw around with Old Gods, of course its bad news. If it wasn't going to be rape, it would be ritualistic drowning, impalement, or immolation, any of the rituals are pretty awful.

If the rituals weren't awful or dealt with terrifying beings beyond the stars, everyone would do them. However, most people are SANE and wouldn't want to do them at all or ever see them carried out for any but the most noble of purposes eg. Save the village from certain doom, imprison an old one, provide a cure for a plague etc.

>>44820670

>If the rituals weren't awful or dealt with terrifying beings beyond the stars, everyone would do them. However, most people are SANE

I find it really insulting and juvenile that people think the Old Gods are human enough to even consider notions of earthly age of consent and giving of consent during copulation a worthwhile issue.

They're Old Gods, they certainly don't care about mortal levels of edginess. They have as much interest in pushing humans over various grades of immorality as you do for social disruption in an ant colony. That's more something for the unbelievably petty and very human fiends of other settings, a la The Screwtape Letters, where they genuinely care enough to monitor levels of good and evil in people.

Not to mention that rape is something humans do for free, and is hardly "insane." If normal people could get kewl powerz for rape, they would.

Rape isn't exactly "wrong" to put in an RPG but when its a rule mechanic put there for shock value I have to question its inclusion.

Do you guys buy OS/OSR books and modules in dead tree format or as PDFs? Do you print the PDFs?

>>44821067
PDF most of the time, but I've got a good amount in print as well

>>44821067
pdf, rulebooks are an utter pain

>>44821662
>>44821538
Enjoy your empty bookshelves

>>44822724
>Bookshelves
I can put it next to my smithing anvil and whale oil lantern!

>>44821067
if im going to actually play it ill buy it

>>44821067

If I'll use it and it'll need a fair bit of looking stuff up in it, I'll print out a pdf copy. If there's too much to print and then bind (Something like 100~ sheets of paper) then I'll consider buying a physical copy.

>>44822814
Touché!

>>44822724
uh? I have two closets crammed full of D&D books from when I was younger

>player rolls for starting spells
>gets Identify (very nice!), Burning Hands (1 fucking point of damage), and Dancing Lights

his master hated him

>>44824709

You're joking right? Dancing Lights is my favorite spell. The other two are just gravy.

>>44821067
Dead tree. I've never printed a PDF of a full-size product, though, that seems like a pain in the ass and the quality of a regular print's terrible. Printing is good for stuff like character sheets and /osrg/ anon's sweet encounter tables.

>>44822814
Whale oil is the best to burn in my favorite lantern! It's smokeless, odorless, long-lasting and gives a strong light.

>>44824709
>Burning Hands (1 fucking point of damage)
It's not the best starting spell, sure, but unavoidable, set area damage is incredible once you get up a few levels. Much like Magic Missile, it's a zap spell for higher-level M-Us to carry in their level-1 spell slots to keep them from going obsolete. And how! By level 5 it reliably kills hordes of goblins or kobolds; it's almost a little /too/ good compared to Magic Missile.

Even on level 1 it's a great swarm wiper, though.

>>44824709
>>44825529

This. Also;
>Get party to gather lots of wood or flammable stuff
>Spread it around a room
>Trick orcs/goblins/whatever into chasing you into this room
>They won't run yet because there is no fire
>Burning Hands
>Suddenly everything is fire
>Orcs dealing with taking fire damage every moment while getting pelted with rocks and arrows

This is how you Wizard.

>>44825322
>Whale oil is the best to burn in my favorite lantern! It's smokeless, odorless, long-lasting and gives a strong light.
It also helps my tobacco enemist know what he's doing. The smoke annoys my bloodletting leeches if he isn't doing it right.

>>44825529
It is 3' in reach. I don't see it killing 'hordes' of enemies under any circumstance. I will rule that most people, if their hair and clothes are being incinerated, will NOPE the fuck out of there though.

>>44825702
I can only find this useful if your DM, contrary to the founding fathers of D&D, doesn't view lamp oil = Greek Fire

>>44826837
well even if it doesn't act like napalm it'd still make things more flammable

>>44826957
that's true, I'd probably let it instantly set a large amount of a wooden room on fire, etc.

Vs an enemy PC type, I would let it instantly ignite all their scrolls and flasks of oil.

>>44826837
I gotta admit this is one point where I diverge from a lot of OSR players. I hate the idea that the players can just buy what amounts to hand grenades on level 1. I mean, yeah, they can set a dude on fire by dousing him in oil and whacking him with a torch or something, but they could also just hit a guy with a torch. A lot of lamp oil historically was freakin' olive oil, it's not a molotov cocktail exactly.

>>44826008
I don't have any tobacco enemies, only tobacco bros.

>>44827112
>Doesn't know what a tobacco enema is.
Step up yo' game, kouhai.

... hookah, perchance?

>>44819806
>Battlesystem rules for BECMI/1e
BECMI uses The War Machine rules from C, not Battlesystem.

>>44827112
Good point. I'd just make Oil of Fiery Burning or whatever more prevalent if I wanted to let such be commonly in use.

>>44827566
>Oil of Fiery Burning
Oil of Explosions is the real shit.

>>44827522
BECMI uses either, and the War Machine was as disappointing to me as Birthright's mass combat system.

>>44821067
Dead tree all the way, my friend.

>>44821067
PDF. I ain't got room for all that shit in my house.

I mainly use 2e, anyway, so it'd all be prohibitively expensive.

>>44827627
Why?

>>44827896
In Battlesystem you can use almost whatever you like and you can even analyze how much XP such and such people get out of a fight, make a stand led by a PC or comprised of the PCs, see how different critters affects things, while the War Machine is totally vague.

The War Machine is a mass combat system for people who just plain don't like mass combat and want it over and done with ASAP.

>>44828007
And what was wrong with Birthright's?

>>44828052
It used a gimmicky card system with even less correspondence to the D&D rules. War Machine at least makes a very token attempt to let it be about more than generic men at arms vs generic men at arms, Birthright just has a handful of different card types you can use against each other.

>>44805052
>tfw when my professor wrote this
>feelsgoodman.jpg

>>44812601
>>44812650
>>44820670
>>44820854
I dropped it because the rituals were long, dangerous and didn't actually do anything game-wise beyond a tiny bonus to a save or die spell that could of not been cast.

Does anybody have a off of Barbarians of Lemuria they could share? It doesn't seem to be in the trove.

>>44829078
>Does anybody have a off of Barbarians of Lemuria they could share?
If "off" is supposed to be "pdf", then these are the typical links 'round these here parts:

>Barbarians of Lemuria,Mythic Edition (current edition) -- https://www.mediafire.com/folder/7llc83r2xf8bg/Barbarians_of_Lemuria_-_Mythic_Edition

>Barbarians of Lemuria, Legendary Edition (earlier edition, fewer details & more minimalist presentation makes it even easier to learn, but the rules aren't as refined) -- http://www.mediafire.com/download/p5w885sa9a869ma/Barbarians+Of+Lemuria+-+Legendary+Edition.pdf

>Barbarians of Lemuria, House Rules / Patches for Legendary Edition (if you want the increased minimalism of Legendary, but with the rules tightened up a bit) -- https://mega.co.nz/#F!CtQR2bST!y_awB-GHCiL3CdK4iLCV7A

>>44830801
It is meant to be pdf, yes. Thanks for the links.

>>44815675
>Could be a game balance thing. IIRC AD&D centipedes have save-or-die poison?

That's an interesting consideration. Giant Spiders were a big deal as well if memory serves (why yes, I am too lazy to go check).

>>44821067
I'll purchase either. Typically it's PDFs these days, but I like having physical copies of things and find it easier to read a physical book. That said, a tablet is a godsend.

>>44831722

Good thinking. Centipedes are no joke, killed more 1e PCs than I've seen 1e monsters kill PCs period.

>>44815675
Just assume specific trumps general, a ruling that shows up probably thousands of times.

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1. What are the most skeltons you've been behind in OSR?
2. Do you have more evil priests be more on the side of civilization or against it in your campaigns?

>>44832877

>mfw i have skeleton themed twist planned for my OSR campaign's finale

also ~20 skeletons and and equal amount of pro-civilization/anarchist priests.

Going back to the centipede thing, how strictly do you guys enforce save vs death? I will let players have chance to receive a stat-impairing permanent injury instead of instant death (like losing a leg for -5 DEX)

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>>44833089

>>44832877
>evil priests
Personally while they may worship 'chaos' or 'evil' or whatever they are still priests.

However while it isn't exactly /osr/ I am really a fan of how evil priests are (seemingly) done in later DnD editions. They get the powers to Awe undead, control undead, and so on. Really fits the whole good v evil thing.

>>44833089
I enforced centipede save or death strictly last game, as it was just an extended test run to analyze exactly how deadly 3d6 6x OSR was. We found that elf/magic users aren't harmed by shit stats and martial chars are reduced to coin flips, leading me to think generous stats make the game more balanced.

In this one, I'm going to use the MM2 huge centipedes (15 poison damage or so, not death) plus one of the first henchmen they'll be able to get is a barbarian who can treat poison.

>>44833177
They can control undead in 1e and 2e as well. Turn results = controlled 24 hours, D result = controlled permanently, iirc.

I am leaning towards the idea of evil priesthoods (sometimes barely) behaving themselves by default at the moment, probably depending on the environment they're found in (probably ones in dungeons and the wilderness are going to be more severely deranged and Chaotic).

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So I've been revamping the usage of spell slots and spell levels and have come to the following;
>Magic users spell slots replaced with Magic Circles
>These are called 1st Circle, 2nd Circle, etc.
>Circles are used to cast spells, empower magical abilities, and for all matter of magical crafting and enchantment.
>For example Alchemists use their Circles to prepare and then create their potions. So a first level Circle can be used to create or prepare a first level ingredient, which can then be used to create a first level potion for another 1st level Circle, etc.

This system therefore simplifies all magic, including magic done in downtime, to work according to the same spell slots table and system everyone is used to. When camping, traveling or otherwise with some downtime but not fully timeskipping magic users can still divy up their magical abilities according to this.

Anyone like?

>>44833350
JUST
USE
SPELL
POINTS
NIGGERRRRRRRR

Why are you trying to reinvent the wheel, now with more corners and interlocking plates?

>>44833359

Spell points require far more bookkeeping (what, like 240+ spell points at level 20?), and lose some of the imagination. Being able to sacrifice a spell slot instead of just a number (such as a 3rd level spell slot to gain +3 to some such task) is also very evocative and fun.

Do you hate fun, Anon?

>>44827112
>I hate the idea that the players can just buy what amounts to hand grenades on level 1
If the equipment list includes 'spirits' under food and drink you can make pretty adequate molotovs out of vodka or similar.

>>44820854
The way I explained a similar situation was that the horrible unknowable eldritch spiky sphere cares not for WHAT edgelord shit you pull, so long as it is sufficiently debased, disgusting, or otherwise distasteful to attract, then hold its favour/attention.

>>44811991

>Somebody that was actually in one of those awesome blogger games

Seriously? That's pretty fucking cool. I'm jealous.

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I asked this in another thread but I'll ask again;

What's everyone's favorite spells per level table and why?

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>>44834332

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I made another thread about this concept the other day but its mostly for /osr/ material.

Basically I want to create a kind of advancement mechanic relating to races in the game. Obviously this is for systems that don't use Race-as-class, instead each race has a small list of rollable traits as well as a certain attribute boost you get each time you pick it.

So for example, our Gnoll friend here could demonstrate his race's traits;
>Gnoll- Each time this is raised, +1 to STR or DEX, then roll d4;
>[1] Bite attack (d4 damage)
>[2] Natural Tracker- 1 in 6 of tracking, regardless of class
>[3] Pack Fighter- gets +1 to attack for each ally attacking the same enemy
>[4] Demonic Heritage- +1 to saves vs magic

This is an example of what I'm talking about. Basically at level 1 you get the racial bonus once, then roll for your trait. The kicker comes that later on, your character can kind of embrace their racial heritage to roll again on this table and get bonus attributes, or they can focus on improving their class abilites.

The only issue I have with this so far is how much this should cost and what are the limits of it? I had the thought that maybe instead of trading a full level for one of these, it costs 1000 XP or half a level instead. This is therefore the first way a 1st level character can improve themselves, but it would slow them down from getting that all important level up. But later level characters could benefit from it. Or should the racial heritage thing be level based; so instead of leveling you focus on your own racial abilities. Should this permanently lower your level cap? I think this is rather evocotive if someone wants to play a character that either focuses on advancement or on their innate abilities, but doing so will lower their potential with their given class.

What do you think?

>>44833350
So basically the same shit with a different paint job?

Just stop being a fucking hipster and give Vancian magic a try.

You could even start your game vancian and slowly develop it into something that fits more your idea.

>>44835589

>is literally the DnD vancian magic system but putting all the other subsystems (enchanting, potions) under the same resource
>Fucking hipster
>Give Vancian magic a try

???

Is there any OSR product that arranges spells in a reasonable manner? Alphabetical order within spell level, why is that so fucking hard RPG writers. Don't just put the entire list in alphabetical order.

>>44835769
Uh, AD&D?

>>44835769
All the actual D&D products do that, but it does seem that most retroclones prefer the big list method.

>>44836834
It seems like most retroclones are taking the 3E/5E approach to it.

Which sucks, because that approach sucks.

It's much better when you have something like BECMI's lists that are divided by class, level and only then sorted by alphabetical order.

>>44837005
Yeah, found out Lamentations does this. Kinda bummer, but it's what it is.

>>44833387

Hit points and spell points are easier to keep track of than spells per level.

>Being able to sacrifice a spell slot instead of just a number (such as a 3rd level spell slot to gain +3 to some such task) is also very evocative and fun.

That doesn't sound fun

>>44834110

Generally, its pretty inane to have Old Gods require you to hold edgy grossout contests. They don't care about mortal levels of edginess, and in this case the "edgy" card is appropriate. That is what petty beings like fiends/devils/etc are into, like Screwtape, who actually find mortal debasement worthy of monitoring. The two have wildly different themes. I don't get why people don't just use Screwtape etc., because there's nothing unknowable or alien about gods that make you go DUDE GROSS LMAO since they obviously get off to that shit.

The two greatest acts of magical cruelty in HPL's stories, imo (in The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward and in The Thing At The Doorstep, sp) didn't involve any components, spells, or rituals that were inherently depraved and one was even specified as a way to avoid the criminal art of necromancy...

>>44835488
Could be interesting, but is very 3e. Why not just make it a separate class you can multiclass into, or more radically, if you want to tie stats off level instead of randomness, have race determine it?

I think putting 'builds' into OSR stuff is an automatic mistake, either way.

>>44838014
>in HPL's stories

You gotta keep in mind the era that he was writing in. There were strict limits to what you could say. (I recall Heinlein in Expanded Universe relates a tale of an editor rejecting some incredibly innocuous bit of a story as too racy.)
That said, it's strongly implied that the various cults are depraved, debased, and do weird, fucked-up stuff during their rites. Exactly what they do is left wholly up to the reader's imagination, though.

So with the main book complete, I'm sort of charging gleefully on and making a companion book with various add-ons.
Stuff like sample cave-systems, hexes and tribes written up to insert into play, some more odd monsters, more little systems for things like making magical familiars.
A couple of adventure seeds (so far I have four knocking about in my head; plague of undead, tripod-riding martian invasion, portals to other planets and remnants of the Serpent-Men empire waking up).
I'm also thinking of sticking in some extra classes, namely:
>Orphans, feral children with good survivability and a couple of skills but all the disadvantages of being kids. Based on the Halfling class, and you choose to be either a human or neanderthal kid to pick which skill you have.
>Mutants, inbred hillbilly freaks that start out with random mutations and get more of them, and backstabby ability, as they level up. Based on the Expert class, with a bonus to damage when they attack straight to flesh.
>Wendigos, humans who consume the flesh of other sentient beings to steal their power. Fragile but able to recover quickly from injuries and getting very limited 'spontaneous' spellcasting ability fromlevel 2 on (think how Bards work in 3rd ed).
>Morlocks, the surviving slaves of the extinct Serpent-folk civilization that still live in scattered tribes deep underground. They look like skinny albino humanoids, and all have innate magic in their blood; spellcast works similarly to how Magicians work, with a slower progression. Their spellcasting is similar to the Wendigo's, but a little stronger. Based on stats for Elves, with some quirks for being ex-slaves (such as being really fucking useful if you kill them as a blood sacrifice).
>Mystics, which are basically clerics with a 'worshipping the great old ones' flavour and highly unreliable magic; backlash happens with every spell!

>>44837554
I'm guilty of this, whoops
Guess it's time to go through and re-arrange a bunch of stuff all at once.

>>44838014
>>44834110 here. I didn't fully explain myself, but this was meant to be from the cultist's POV.

What it boils down to is that the Outer Beings' interest has to be piqued in some form, and some big retarded ritual full of horrible nasty gross things would, by human logic, call the attention of horrible, nasty, gross Things.

Although in my worlds, magic tends to be handled as a series of rote knowledge rituals that produce the wanted effect. Hence needing obscure items, specific syntax or some major semi-euclidean mathematics.

>>44838362
Actually a funny thing, non-euclidean mathematics isn't that particularly lovecraftian. Geometry on the other hand..

>>44838151
>You gotta keep in mind the era that he was writing in. There were strict limits to what you could say.

What? I highly suggest reading The Great God Pan, which is A) something most people would mistake for an HPL story, B) the story that certainly inspired a huge amount of HPL's writing style (therambling investigation/horror style), and C) is certainly stomach clenchingly depraved.

>That said, it's strongly implied that the various cults are depraved, debased, and do weird, fucked-up stuff during their rites.

Of course they do. Their brains are broken by the touch of their masters. They don't become wizards because of it, though; their masters give not even the faintest ghost of a fuck over such things. Power in relation to transgressions is more of a thing for very sane and humanlike beings like petty fiends like Screwtape. Its fine to perhaps have an exception (Nyarlathotep is a rare malicious outsider) but the idea of "uncaring sanity destroying beings from the beyond" and "extremely human devils that actually care about mortal transgressions" have very opposed themes.

Eldritch beings step on humans like bugs or dissect them like frogs. They're careless and we're below their contempt. If someone engages in legitimate, knowing cruelty, its almost always something done by something human or humanlike and either unnecessary or a matter of practicality; evil powered magic is a fiend thing. Mad science wizards are always going to be closer than what makes Screwtape gigglesnort the most.

Its only insane to perform depravity for power if it doesn't work.

>>44838362

Sure, and human logic shouldn't help them. Obscuring the active magical process beneath tons of deeply human smut and filth is perfectly fitting, though.

>>44838667

>The Great God Pan

>On publication it was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific

That was 1890, and publishers became more and more skittish about publishing such things. You were still all good if you were writing for literary publishers, but down in the pulp magazines you had some pretty strict constraints. I've read some horror stories from the era of trying to get an innocent story through and having to re-re-re-write it because an editor thought it was too "racy" for their publication to handle.

>>44838487
It may not be, but my pure math friend loves it.

>>44838718
I like to come up with semi-reasonable explanations for unreasonable behaviour.
It helps when Lovecraftian Horror-cults have been part of my fantasy life for at least a decade, probably more

Has anyone played/read Whitehack here?
How do you feel about the magic system?

A question about armor class in LotFP. Halflings get bonus dexterity AND armor class. Can't this effectively give a 12 dex character a bonus so that dex is 13 and AC now gets a total of TWO extra points?

Or am I not correct in adding any dex modifiers to the armor class?

>>44840432
Basically, isn't a halfling with good base dexterity and a chain armor almost unhitable?

>>44833925
>If the equipment list includes 'spirits' under food and drink you can make pretty adequate molotovs out of vodka or similar.
Same guy, and I'm afraid I'm a bit too much of a history nard for this. My assumption is that in a pre-firearms setting, distillation equipment of any notable quality is strictly alchemical gear, not something regular people have or understand. A bonus is that it lets me frame brandy as a magical product that wizard make, sort of like fireworks are in Middle-Earth.

>>44835488
I think this is an interesting rule, actually -- given that it's mostly random and minor stuff anyway, being allowed to spend 1k whenever you feel like it isn't too bad. Still, just making a Gnoll class would probably be faster.

>>44835769
Labyrinth Lord

>>44840458
Remember that unless you're a fighter, you need Strength higher than your armour's basic AC to get your dex bonus to AC.
So, a halfling with chainmail and a shield has a basic AC 17. If they have strength 17, then they can have their dex modifier too, so let's assume they have dexterity 17 as well. Overall this gives them +3 dex (remember that they have +1 modifier for being a halfling). On top of this, they get +1 for being small regardless of their dex modifier. SO, we end up with the halfling who rolled two 17s having an AC of 21.
Is this strong? Why, yes it is. However, since the Halfling's main schtick is 'not dying', that's fair. They don't get to use fighter combat options, they don't have much damage dealing ability (no two-handed weapons, remember?) and they don't have spells to zap people with. All in all, I'm OK with them being impossible to get a hit on, since that's basically all they have going for them.

>>44840853
I guess? One of my main tricks in oldschool games has been the many uses of strong alcohol; light things on fire, get enemies drunk, sterilize wounds, clean the grease of things... It's wonderful stuff.

>>44840853
oooo nice

>>44841514
>>>44840458
>Remember that unless you're a fighter, you need Strength higher than your armour's basic AC to get your dex bonus to AC.

Where in the rules is that? I don't see that anywhere.

>>44841551
Yeah, I'm not claiming mine as the One True Way or anything, I just how I like to run stuff. It's more or less the opposite of LotFP, I guess, I like to drift into the early end of the middle ages.

>>44838196
Why'd you drop the hunter to d6s for hit dice?

>>44842244
ohshit. fuckfuckfuck.
That's me fucking up with the layout; I started with the Expert's table as a template and altered details for different classes. Should still be a d8. Fixing it now.
(You eagle-eyed types are amazing, thank you).

>>44842381
Cool. I was confused about that. You also have Animalism listed as Animal Handling in the skills section (page 17).

I'm looking forward to seeing your companion book. I really like this system, and I'm planning on running it.

>>44842528
a significant number of these problems are the result of shit at my end with the process of getting things typed up properly and laid out.
I've got, like, four different copies of the rules (two in Word where I play around with things, a version in Publisher where I actually get the thing laid out in pdf form, and then the PDF itself). So you get a bunch of discrepancies creeping into the finished thing that, desu, I need a firm copy-editor to look out for.

>>44842975
I'd offer to help in that regard, but I don't have a working computer right now.

>>44841514
>>44841951

I cant even find anything explaining AC in the rules to begin with.

>>44843374
It's like two lines under the armour price table.

>>44841514
Wow, I like this identity for the largely ignored halfling. what is the identity for the dwarf by comparison?

What's the deal with Myth & Magic the AD&D 2nd ed clone?

http://www.newhavengames.com/

The website I bookmarked does not work.

>>44843551
In LotFP? Without question, "taking a hammering". Dwarfs get immense amounts of HP, and they can wear the best armor. They're damage sponges.

>>44843608
>>44841514
So statistically which winds up tolerating attacks better?

>>44843374
It may have been a houserule, come to think of it.
>>44843551
Dwarves always stood out as being the meatshields of the game. More encumberance means they can bear the weight of armour better, they can fight defensively like a fighter (although they don't get the to-hit bonus) and their decent (although not halfling-good) saves and frankly silly amounts of hitpoints mean they can stand there and get punished like rock-em-sock-em robots.

So If I was to start an OSR game, would this be the place to advertise it?

>>44843729

I mean to get players, not money, if that wasn't obvious.

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>>44786907

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>>44844521

>>44844550
This is missing encounter subtables. Does anyone know if a fixed version exists? I'd love having OD&D in a single volume.

>>44844267
I might be interested

Anyone have a complete map of Barrowmaze? In the PDF I have, there's three separate maps, and I'm trying to stitch them together to make a complete image but there seems to be an issue with the original PDF, so the three maps can't actually line up nicely and it's really grinding my broccoli.

>>44844759

Which subtables are missing?

>>44844521
>round two
Is there a round 1?

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>>44845534

>>44845621
Kek, did he make this one for a throwaway joke or is this how he really estimates it would go in play?

>>44845486
Flyer, Lycans, Giant, Swimmer, Undead, Dragons.

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>>44845002
Scratch that. I worked it out well enough for my tastes. If anyone has a more official copy, that'd be awesome.

>>44845836
I don't believe its real since there's no way 2 pcs would waste 10 fireballs burning a roof

>>44843242
>>44842975

Actually, while I can't properly copy edit right now, if you have an email you don't mind giving out to random people on the internet I could send you a list of all the formatting errors and such I can find.

>>44848720

This reminds me, if anyone wants a dungeon designed or another random encounter table, just request something.

>>44850028
>dungeon

How about a passage from an underground dwarf controlled area to the monstrously inclined surface, that's more dangerous towards and perhaps at the surface?

>>44850503
>>44850028
Or alternately a reverse dungeon in general.

How does The Village of Hommlet/Temple of Elemental Evil actually run for a beginning party?
Might be running an AD&D game for some friends, and I'm thinking about running a module for that classic feel.

>>44850503
>>44851021

Sounds interesting. Something like a Wizard tower could work too, since it goes up. But I like the idea of starting at a Dwarf Fortress and going up. Thanks for the idea, I'll start working on it.

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>>44787510
>I'd really like to run a LoTFP game; though with custom setting and stuff.
>Any advice or ways to go about it?
Write down some shit. "What do I want to have in this game?", "What time period do I want it to feel like?", "What are some big conflicts my PCs might get involved in?"

For my home game, the answers were
"Three Musketeers, dinosaurs, feuding wizard cabals, pirates, Lost World with Arabian influences"
"Mid-late 1600s"
"Intrigues of courts and secret societies, religious wars, Colonial wars"

Second, read the Random Esoteric Creature Generator and "Better than Any Man". Both will help you get a feel for what the basic system's adventures are supposed to feel like. I also recommend "A Red and Pleasant Land", Vornheim, and "Weird New World" to see some alternate settings people have built for it.

Third, once you get some stuff written down, roll up characters. Give your characters a sketch of the world you're thinking of and ask them how their characters fit in. They'll usually come up with some interesting hooks for you to play with.

Oh, and resist the temptation to write down too much. Your PCs >will< assfuck your plans and there's not really anything you can do about it. Enjoy the ride.

>>44798398
>I really like the rules for LotFP, but I'm having some trouble trying to marry it to the dungeon-crawl experience that I like from other OSR games.
>Does anyone have any experience of running the game with adventures of their own design?
Yes, as well as LotFP-specific adventures and some other published stuff. I put up AARs at docschottslab.word add pressdotcom here/tag/actual-play/

>>44801777
>I think it's also the only direct damage spell in the game?
Not quite, there's a couple of others - but most are hidden in adventures as rewards, in the hands of NPC magi. I like having wizards play around with curses and subtle magic, but then I base most of mine off of the wizard in the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.

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>>44844521
>>44844583
>>44845621
Heh, I've talked to this guy a few times, he's a kick in the pants.

>>44845836
>Kek, did he make this one for a throwaway joke or is this how he really estimates it would go in play?
It was a joke, but a funny one.

>>44844550
really wish someone would make something similar for the OD&D Supplements as well

So what does this general usual talk about? Anyone share stories from their games?

>>44852948

>So what does this general usual talk about?
Houserules, homebrews, related design talk, history of early D&D, various retroclones, modules, etc.

>Anyone share stories from their games?

Once in a while we get a storytime, it's infrequent though. I think we have more DMs and homebrew builders than players.

>>44851837
The 7th voyage of sinbad is such a cool movie. It really seems to be a prime example of what old dnd was a genre emulation of.

So considering skills;

Using a d20 roll under skill system instead of 1 in 6 (can be easily replicated using d20 anyway), I had the thought to allow non-specialist/thief characters to get some of these skills too.

Fun idea is making their maximum skill points distributed across all vocational skills equal to their intelligence. (So if they have Int 12, they could have 12 in one skill, 6 in two skills, 4 in one and 8 in another, etc.) This isn't the same as the specialist/thief's skills though, as though are primarily class based, but Thieves can also put in a certain number of vocational skill points too using the same system, or somehow get a bonus to their own using Int.

Do you think giving Fighters/Magic Users/Clerics their own skills to use as backups and such is encroaching too much on the thief? Or do you think its a good thing? Also when to decide how they get more vocational skill points to assign?

>>44853342
I'm pretty sure Gygax and Arneson both mentioned it as a direct inspiration in interviews. I can't provide source offhand, unfortunately.

>trying to convince my friend to play LOTFP because, eh, why not try something new?
>"Lol m8 noice joke"
>"I don't like DnD and it's complicated rules"
>"Ugh, fantasy? BRUH."
>"The magic is too limited"
I don't even know anymore.

>>44854777
*friendS
Yeah.

>>44854333
Personally I'm more of the opinion that the Thief (and skill systems in general) was a mistake, but that's hardly a helpful answer.

What skills do you have? How are Fighter skills different from Magic User skills, or (more importantly) the Thief's? What niches do the characters have, and what do you want the Thief specifically to have for niche?
What skills do you have that could really just be roleplayed out instead of rolled for?

>>44844521
I like that casting invisibility 10' radius and silence 10' radius results in the party stumbling forward unable to hear or see eachother.

are there any good reference sheets or screens for Basic? preferably 91' Cyclopedia, TSR or user-made?

looking for something my players can use and myself as DM.

>>44854777
>"Lol m8 noice joke"
Why did he say this?
>"I don't like DnD and it's complicated rules"
Did you tell him its based off of oldschool/rules lite style DnD?
>"Ugh, fantasy? BRUH."
He's a memer, ignore.
>"The magic is too limited"
This is a pretty legitimate complaint though.

>>44851611
expect a high death rate among players. Otherwise it's fine.

>>44854777
Just pitch an adventurr and dont mention the system if you can. Id hope that if they like the hook theyll be fine with the system as well. Also, nice tripples

>>44854892
>are there any good reference sheets or screens for Basic? preferably 91' Cyclopedia, TSR or user-made?
TSR made a BECMI/Cyclopedia screen, yeah. "Combat Shield": https://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/miscpages/ac.html

>>44854956
Thanks bunches mate. I keep forgetting that the AC series is where the extra goodies are located

>>44854956
alright I have a second question. I've been staring at the 'character hit rolls' section, and can not decipher it for the life of me. Can someone help me out? it is AC 2 at last few pages of the PDF

>>44854873

Well the reason why I want it is because I want to distill classes down to just 3; the Fighter, Specialist, and Magic user. Having just two classes would honestly be a bit too restrictive; and having someone who is good at fighting, can use magic AND someone who is a skilled expert are all useful archetypes that are interesting and could be played a variety of ways.

As for skills; I prefer to keep things mostly write-in but skills would include a wide range of topics such as Swimming/diving, Wilderness Survival, Tracking, climbing, crafting, decoding languages, lock picking, pick pocketing, stealth, etc.

The difference though is I don't intend these skills to be listed on a character sheet. Far from it; I want characters to ONLY write in whatever skills they have if any at all.

Fighter skills and Magic user skills are the same as thief skills, but right now I'm thinking about only letting specialists get stat bonuses to skills. (When you get the climbing skill for example you can add your strength modifier to it, but only if you are a specialist).

As for the niche, I kind of want the specialist to be able to fill in many roles, but primarily the role of whatever that particular campaign requires. For many dungeon delves this would involve thief skills like stealth and trap disarming, for hexcrawls it may instead be wilderness survival skills, or in a more politics or urban game it may be disguise and intimidation.

It's a rough sort of concept but its something I think would be useful. All of these skills could of course be roleplayed for but at a certain point you need mechanics involved else it just becomes mostly freeform RP.

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>>44855090
I kind of like the "you have it or you don't" skill model (with possibly less frequent "novice" and "master" categories to provide a technical 3-level skill set-up, but with the vast majority of skills falling into the standard "skilled" range). Especially on a d20, divvying up individual points can get a bit fiddly and obnoxious. And what kind of shitty chance of success will you have if, as per your example, a 12-intelligence guy ends up with a grand total of two skills, each of which gives him a mere 30% chance to succeed?

Pic is the skill system I'm tinkering around with, so you can kind of get an idea where I'm coming from. I like the idea of using the same system for skill rolls and (many) attribute checks.

>>44855230

>And what kind of shitty chance of success will you have if, as per your example, a 12-intelligence guy ends up with a grand total of two skills, each of which gives him a mere 30% chance to succeed?
Well to be fair, that is about as good a chance as a 2 in 6 with a traditional d6 skill system, but I would motion that anyone like that would intentionally only focus on one major secondary skill. Like the Warrior is also a blacksmith and the Magic User is also a medic; they put all their skills into a single skill as to improve its usefulness. Of course the main thing is that, at least for me, many skills of a practical nature such as crafting can be used to their fullest during downtime.

I even had a cool idea for how you would measure it too. Each skill point in a craft skill is equal to the silver cost of the item you can make; or if a sword costs 5 silver then you'd have to be smithing of 5 to make it. When you get to 10 instead it counts as one gold and each point above counts as another gold now instead. (11- 2 gold, 12- 3 gold, etc) When you get to a certain point, probably 17+, then you can just make anything as long as you have the materials and time. The lower levels are just to show kind of like what you can craft yourself.

>>44855307
>Well to be fair, that is about as good a chance as a 2 in 6 with a traditional d6 skill system
Having two 2-in-6 skills is pretty awful too. Any roll you make where you have less than a 50% chance to succeed is a terrible roll. I do like your idea of tying the crafting to the expense of items though. I mean, I haven't looked over the list and done the math to see if it's the ideal way of doing it, but the idea, itself, seems solid (and the way you do it, with SP changing to GPs after 10, seems cool).

Running adventure in 5e, but seeking O/AD&D feel.
Any good adventures with devious traps? Return to the Tomb of Horrors sorta got me into running this.

>>44855050
Look on the left. Reference your class and level to see what row you're looking at.

Now look on the right. Reference with the AC you are targeting to get the column you're looking at.

Now cross-reference column and row to get the number that you need to roll to hit.


For ease of use, I would suggest just writing down the relevant row on the character sheet. You probably just need what, AC9-2, unless you're in a really high-level campaign.

Any questions?

What are some nice steretypical characters in fiction that character classes models after? Like, the cleric is van helsing and solomon kane, the fighter is conan the barbarian.

I guess the magic user is any wizard in dying earth, but that's not really something anyone at my table would know about.

The specialist in LotFP feels very indiana jones. The demihumans are pretty easy gimli, legolas and bilbo as the go-to archetypes I think.

>>44855629
I dunno about the Elf being Legolas - he's the most recognizable elf character, yes, but he's got the magical feats of a brick.

It's like proposing Gandalf as a go-to Magic User - technically correct, yes, but the character and class differ in some pretty big ways. (Although the film version is probably closer to the class in capabilities, I'd reckon. The magic in the books is pretty subtle.)

>>44855629

For myself? Wizards always should be like Gandalf if serious or high leveled, and Harry Potter if low leveled. Harry Potter in general has some great magical stuff people should consider. Personally it's kind of like a cultural thing in how I describe it; Wizards in mostly nonmagical communities are like gandalf or merlin at the best, and closer to demons if they get worse. But in communities with high amounts of magic users that shit is straight Hogwarts.

>>44855528

thanks mate. That's all I really needed, The fact that they didn't fit the whole row without doing a pagebreak through me off. It looked also looked as though the left-most data section wasn't a part of the other side. TSR is not known for having organized tables lol

the days before Excel must have been hard..

>>44846642
Email's in the option field. Does that still work?

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I'm reposting this because I think its a good method for using saving throws.

It gives a large variety to saving throws, allows characters to have specialties in what they are resistant to as well as keeping that classic feeling.

>>44856087
>the days before Excel must have been hard..
No joke, Excel is the whole reason Microsoft captured a near-monopoly on operating systems. Businesses HAD TO HAVE good spreadsheet software, and Excel was the best by a country mile.

>>44855629
>>44855834
Elves are obvious Noldor -- someone like Elrond, Fingolfin or Gil-Galad is clearly a better fit to the Elf archetype than Legolas is.

>>44856356
>>44855836
>>44855834

Would Galadriel work as well? I went with Willow from buffy as the only pop culture reference I could think of. In that sense Galadriel doesn't really feel low level, but at least its closer to the magic user fighter hybrid I think? Or Elrond.

>>44856745
>Galadriel
>Fighter

Also, of course, remember that Gygax disliked The Lord of the Rings and that Appendix N is fairly long.

I think the reason for elves being Fighter/Magic-Users is just because Tolkien's elves were good fighters and also a bit magical which means that they're also Magic Users because OD&D was not a very complicated game as far as races went.

>>44856908
Aah, whatever. I just want to be able to wave with some character in front of a new player so they can go "oh, ah yeah alright".

>>44856356
Why not Elric?

>>44856140
It does not appear to work.

>>44857028
Yeah. Elric too. True. Classic example of a Chaotic Elf. (He's even mentioned in Chainmail as a combination Hero and Wizard!)

>>44858085
[email protected]

Please don't send me too many Dragon Dildos.

>>44856908
>Also, of course, remember that Gygax disliked The Lord of the Rings and that Appendix N is fairly long.

Are you implying that someone made Gary Gygax put LotR into Appendix N against his will?

>>44859202
Not that guy, but Appendix N isn't a list of Gygax's favorite books, it's a list of works that inspired D&D. Tolkien clearly and admittedly inspired the demihumans, but just as admittedly Gygax never liked them. I'm guessing nobody actually had to force him to put LotR in the inspirations list, but I do think he inserted it for accuracy rather than preference. Plus, it would have been shooting himself in the foot commercially to disavow Tolkien, especially at the time.

>>44856140
It hasn't worked for years. Or my browser has been screwed up for years.

File: Stairs of Knossos.jpg (120KB, 540x498px) Image search: [Google]

120KB, 540x498px

>>44854333
>Do you think giving Fighters/Magic Users/Clerics their own skills to use as backups and such is encroaching too much on the thief? Or do you think its a good thing?

I give all three a skill - Fighters get Backstab, Wizards and Clerics get their choice of Occultism (new skill, basically lets you cast an additional spell if you're not under time pressure or fiddle with magical things with less chance of shit going south), or Physic (medicine, such as it is in 1650). It advances like a Dwarf's Architecture skill as they level up. Any class can burn their Int-granted Languages points for skill points as well.

Also, if you give me a decent backstory reason ("My Fighter was his unit's scout, he should have Bushcraft"), you can basically choose any skill.

>>44855629
>What are some nice steretypical characters in fiction that character classes models after?
>The demihumans are pretty easy..
>>44855834
>I dunno about the Elf being Legolas
You're right.

The Elf is Elric, or Melniboneans in general. See also: Demon-blooded, slightly insane aliens with magic powers and swords.

>>44855836
>>44855834
I draw a distinction between Magic-Users (classic Magi, seeking knowledge and using "safe" spells) and Wizards (crazy fuckers imbuing themselves with magic or trying to use orgone energy to rip open portals to the plane of eternal life). Mages "use" magic. Wizards ARE magic.

>>44858966
Cool, I'll be in touch (and I'll keep the dragon dildos to a minimum).

>>44859304
I don't know that Gygax hated LotR, but it certainly wasn't his favourite, no.

>>44859816
He loved The Hobbit but found The Lord of the Rings to be terribly boring, IIRC - it took him weeks to get through them.

Which, granted, isn't exactly an uncommon reaction to The Lord of the Rings. Or The Silmarillion, for that matter, although I'm not sure if that was published at the time.

>>44859304
I mean Halflings were called Hobbits originally till they were forced off