OSR General: Jesus, is the board dead today or something? Edition

Marching Order, how important is it?

So what skills can you give a specialist besides the normal theif stuff?

>>44882506
Very. Otherwise you don't know who's triggering the traps and who's getting at the back getting eaten.

Hello /osrg/, I come from /gdg/ and have heard rumors of 'spend gold to get xp'. It sounds like an interesting of way avoiding gold being a separate power scale to balance after - wbl shit. But how does it work? Tell me your awesome secrets, what other gems are you hiding?

>>44883006

Classic BCEMI isn't spending gold to gain xp, but you gain xp for gathering/finding/stealing treasure. You can still spend it. You gain more xp for finding gold than for killing stuff.

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>>44882732
I had an idea of dealing players regular playing cards and having them arrange the marching order using them. You could easily rearrange different ranks and files on the fly.

>>44883270
>>44883006
the End Game™ could be to spend all that money on stuff like ships, trading companies, forts. Makes it feel worthwhile to keep gathering treasures. The reason the characters don't settle down and just run a business is because they're adventuring idiots who come up with any excuse to endanger their lives.

>>44882529
Anything you like. Swap out lockpicking and pickpocketing for wilderness survival for a ranger, Add performance and seduction instead of climbing and move silently for a bard, all sorts of cool shit.

The board is always dead.

How do yall deal with triggering traps? I usually roll a d6 when someone walks by a trap and assign some arbitrary value that will trigger that trap (like a pressure okate may deploy on a 1 to 3 but a tripwire on just a 6).

Yo what LotFP adventure should I start out with? Death Frost Doom?

So, how the fuck are you supposed to use those "roll this or under on a d6" skill systems? It seems to me you're either so fucking good at what you do that there's no point in rolling, or you're so fucking incompetent that you may as well not bother rolling.

>>44885347
Death Frost Doom or Tower of the Stargazer.

I think Death Frost Doom is more fun (plus it's simpler to map and get the gist of), but Tower of the Stargazer has some great designer notes aimed at the beginner.

Read both, but I'd say DFD wins. Make sure you get v2. Zak S. revised the text a bit, and frankly it has one of the clearest layouts of any module I've ever read.

Do you guys name and give personalities to hirelings, henchmen, and men-at-arms?

Or is "you now have three hirelings" enough?

Especially since I see promoting a hireling to a level 1 adventurer as a common way to get a dead character's player back into the game. Seems odd if Waycroft the Porter is suddenly a level 1 magic-user.

>>44885402
1-in-6 isn't that terrible, and succeeding on one is the stuff of legends; and a lot of the time, a character that rolls a 6 on a 6-in-6 has to roll again and roll 1 through 5. A second 6 is a failure.

>>44885567
I would say 16.6 repeated chance of success is bloody terrible, and a 2.7 repeated chance of failure is pretty close to non-existent.

>>44883006 Personally I use the Gold spent as Xp instead of just gold earned because it does two things; Firstly it makes players want to spend gold as quickly as possible and secondly makes thieves or anyone who wants to steal their gold even worse of a threat and more hated. The first is really important though because when players get a hold of money or useful items in fantasy worlds they hoard them, where as in real life money or special items are used as rapidly as possible and more is always needed. By making XP money spent then players will quickly and rapidly spend their money on anything and everything useful, before soon they will need to dive again and it helps justify why they don't just invest and keep on living off that money for years and retire. I also give players a bonus for the more ridiculous or decadent things they spend their money on. So putting gold leaf on your spell book and buying gemstone jewelry is worth like 5% bonus experience, but buying enough wine to get all the goats in a village drunk and then unleashing them into the woman's bathhouse? That's 20% bonus experience easy.

>>44885624
Or you can just not care so much.

>>44885624
Both of those numbers should be percentages.

>>44885681
Look man, I don't begrudge you if you're fine with that kind of situation, but I just can't see a point to those sorts of skill systems.

>>44885347
DFD. Once your players get familiar with how LotFP works they'll probably pick up on the fact that they don't actually have to enter the dungeon to get a decent amount of loot.

>>44885512
>Do you guys name and give personalities to hirelings, henchmen, and men-at-arms?
I as the referee do this with most goons, but if they hire a bona-fide leveled henchman the player gets to determine that since it's effectively a spare character.

>>44885901
Explain?

Read DFD, skimmed LotFP Rules & Magic.

Seems like there isn't that much outside the dungeon.

Of course, entering the dungeon is a terrible idea, but chances are you wouldn't know that until it's too late...

>>44885624
>I would say 16.6 repeated chance of success is bloody terrible
It depends what you're doing. If it's a roll every PC gets to notice a secret door? Fuck, the cumulative effect of five rolls is 59.7% chance of success. If it were 2-in-6 there'd be no point to even making doors secret. Yes, I know an all-Elf party can get this, but that's alright since you'd have to opt for it and an all-Elf party has weaknesses of various types to make up for it. On the other hand, it's pretty terrible if it's a Thief's highest skill -- but then, that's neither something a sensible referee does, *or* really any different from level 1 Thief percentile skills. I mean, in practice, it's much less of a problem with the LotFP Specialist, simply because any skill you only have 1 in is something you, the player, deliberately chose not to focus on.

>and a 2.7 repeated chance of failure is pretty close to non-existent.
I can certainly see the merits of capping skills are 5-in-6, sure. At the same time, I don't know why 97% should be a *forbidden* skill level, if you really want to focus that hard.

I mean, all else aside, what's nice about d6 skills is that each increase is really meaty and significant, a notable boost. That's good by me.

>>44886086
Not him, but I'd guess he means the part of the dungeon which lies behind the giant amorphous blob trapping all the horrorterrors and preventing them from coming to dread unlife and escaping. The other parts do contain some good stuff.

>>44886235
Oh yeah, fuck that. But you're already fucked anyway.

>>44886086
>entering the dungeon is a terrible idea
Welcome to LotFP.

>>44886086
In the revised version of DFD, IIRC, there is a house outside the dungeon that contains items that can be sold for quite a bit of money but are difficult to move.

My players (Labyrinth Lord, Barrowmaze) are losing characters left and right. Can anyone suggest a henchmen generator to lessen the character creation time?

I would use Meatshields!, which is what I used formerly, but the links to it all seem to be down.

>>44886251
An experience group of PCs with some carts and a few hirelings could probably clean out the pre-blob section of DFD before the timer pops.

>>44886251
>But you're already fucked anyway.
Wait, remind me why. Does some shit go down right at the door?

>>44886351
Just have your players build characters in batches.

>>44886382
It's the plant.

>>44886382
Once you reach a certain point it starts a magical timer that will unleash a horde of zombies.

>>44886451
>>44886498
I thought that from >>44886235 on we were specifically discussing the part of the dungeon *before* that.

>>44886575
The timer starts before you reach the blob, it's triggered in one of the early rooms. The undead horrorterrors are a completely separate deal from the regular zombies.

>>44886575
Nah, it's the first part of the dungeon. You open the door, there's twelve ice skulls, they crash to the ground one by one, then the dead rise.

>>44886351
How are you finding Labyrinth Lord + Barrowmaze?

Thinking about running the same. Even ordered the dead tree books but they haven't arrived yet.

>>44886669
Oh yeeeah, the skulls
I somehow totally forgot them.

>>44886656
>>44886669
>>44886762
But wait, do the zombies have any chance of escape if you don't fuck with the blob?

>>44886782
Of course, since they're in the graveyard too.

>>44886782
Most of the regular zombies do, as the entrance to the dungeon is surrounded by a cemetery. The blob only blocks the powerful undead.

>>44886831
>>44886842
Shit, I really need to reread it, that much is clear. Thanks, guys!

Does anyone know anybody who'd actually enjoy DFD? It seems to me like it's just an excuse for the DM to say 'Ha ha! By being stupid enough to bite the hook, you've caused the undead apocalypse!'

Fastest way to convince the PCs to just become farmers ever.

>>44886952
I thought the inevitability of it was bullshit, but it turns out it's pretty fun in practice.

Yeah, sometimes you should just be a farmer. Turns out not all adventures or dungeons end pleasantly, with a pile of gold and a giant "turn off evil" button.

>>44886952
Since the zombies are magically risen, I think as long as you don't unleash the greater undead it's not a particularly large zombie apocalypse. Hell, with enough shovels, firewood, and time your party could avert the zombie apocalypse just by taking logical precautions one would assume exist in the LotFP world.

>>44886952
Honestly, I think my players would like it, and I know I would love it. We'd probably get killed, obviously, but on the off chance we escaped, we'd go "oh shit," cut our losses, and just jump shit. Pick up with the next adventure in another country.

If my character managed to retire, rich and the cause of several terrible, world threatening disasters, I'd call it a success.

>>44886952

I used it to introduce my group to osr stuff as a one-shot basically expecting them to eat it and fuck things up. They did. We made the setting for the main campaign together in a world 50 years after the first party unleashed the undead hordes. Good times.

>>44888269
>We made the setting for the main campaign together in a world 50 years after the first party unleashed the undead hordes. Good times.
This seems pretty common t b h. Both Zak's game and the original Dwimmermount game were started based on the immediate aftermath, I think?

So do you guys mainly use modules or homebrew your OSR campaigns?

>>44889385
I do my own adventures. I have yet to run any modern modules other than When Black Roses Bloom.

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>The pain of having to settle on a single system

This feel is why I had to quit 2e.

>>44889884
What are you even talking about

>>44886952
There's only about ten thousand undead, and they don't replenish. Hardly a zombie "apocalypse", but certainly a disastrous problem for the surrounding area if they aren't stopped quickly.

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>>44886698
I think Labyrinth Lord is a good presentation of the rules, plus the art is nice. But I'm not super picky with the retroclones.

Barrowmaze is well written, easy to read, and the art is also good. It's pretty imaginative while staying in the confines of "this is a tomb and there's chaotic shit going on" instead of going full gonzo, which is fine for me because my players are (mostly) new to the old-school. I want them to get used to dying a lot, fighting less, etc. before I bring in weird stuff.

The only things that bugs me about Barrowmaze are (1) a lot of rooms and corridors are hard to describe and (2) a lot of room descriptions just say "this is empty." I'd rather that rooms have at least one feature that stands out a little bit.

I can fix the latter problem without much work. But the former would be meticulous to say the least.

And as an example of the former, take room 28. I don't know how to describe that cleanly.

Also here's a full map of the dungeons. I put this together myself when I couldn't find one online, so it's not perfect.

So, what's different between OSRIC and first edition proper?

>>44890435
The issue is the greater undead deeper within the dungeon; if the party kills the blob monster then they unleash what is basically a bunch of liches on the world. All of which belong to an evil cult that thinks "Hell yeah, 10,000 zombie horde eating the countryside," and one that is expressly mentioned to make a beeline for the nearest big city and using magic to set himself up and revive the cult.

That being said, it's a really great adventure to set up later campaigns.

>>44890599
Hm, does OSRIC have the stuff about being able to use the right weapon to crack armor or to get the first hit in, inits boosts for using low level spells, etc?

I think OSRIC also has a lot fewer classes etcetera.

>>44890557
>And as an example of the former, take room 28. I don't know how to describe that cleanly.

You enter a triangle shaped room.

>>44889927

I understand where hes coming from, almost every retroclone has something going for it, but attempting to combine the highlights of each one never works out.

Is Labyrinth Lord any better than Basic Fantasy?

>>44890700

One isnt better than the other (objectively), try both and report back.

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>>44881616
>mfw still no download link for Troll Gods
Did that 'zine's first issue ever get finished, or is it still 'work in progress'?

Anyone here attempt to balance the BECMI weapon mastery tables, or has some other OSR project strived to do so? They're very exciting, but it irritates me that, say, bastard swords are outright inferior to normal swords.

>>44890777
Troveguy has been AWOL for a while.

>>44890700
I like Basic Fantasy better, partly because it's like $5 so you can cheaply get a book for everybody at the table, and partly because it doesn't have the needless changes of LL. But I don't like that BFRPG messes with the spell progressions and the turning table. So both are fine.

>>44885512

The Roll20 OSR campaign on Twitch/Youtube names all its henchmen thanks to a random table. This has led to creation of some memorable NPCs, like Smirking Carlos, who refused to go with the PCs on their suicidal venture after a failed recruitment roll. Now he just hangs out at the keep, smirking at the players when they come back missing a lot of people and beat to hell.
The jerk.

He might get murderhobo'ed one of these days.

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Why can't I open the Planescape Campaign Setting.pdf?

>>44890777
>>44891084
Somebody posted that Troveguy was dealing with a family emergency, but that the 'zine was mostly done. I'm guessing that he wants to finish it, but doesn't have either the time or energy required any more.

>>44891396
Roll20 OSR campaign?

Smirking Carlos sounds fucking awesome though.

>>44891573

"Old School Adventures" up on Youtube. It's pretty good. The DM's hair might be silly, but he's a kickass DM all the same.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTj75n3v9eTmoXmgjFS8hP0cFXAd5MR_f

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In LotFP, what is the material advantage in using a rapier as opposed to a medium melee weapon?
The only difference I can see is that a rapier can't hit anything with a base armor class of 16 or greater.
It's as if medium melee weapons are functionally superior. They don't even have different encumbrance values.

>>44892034

Costs less, and halflings can wield them one-handed.
The cost difference is especially useful if you want a silver weapon to stab werewolves or something, as it gets you a d8 weapon for 50 sp less than a silver medium weapon.

>>44891509
Ah. Thanks for the update. Here's hoping everything works OK for Troveguy.

>>44892177

So a rapier is basically useless to anyone who can afford a medium melee weapon? Sucks I guess if your concept was a fencer.

>>44891648
I dont know why but it drives me crazy to listen at other people playing. Stumbling for words, being slow and akward. Play at lightning speed please.

>>44893186
You can just house rule it as a straight medium weapon I guess. Maybe add something like able to both attack and parry if you have a shield?

>>44893186
LotFP also sucks if your concept is "knife fighter," "unarmed brawler," "staff guy," or "whip dude" but that's just how the system works.

I'm doing a rules summary for my players in LotFP. Poke holes in my character archetypes:

Cleric - Van Helsing
Fighter - Conan the Barbarian
Magic-User - Willow from Buffy
Specialist - Indiana Jones
Dwarf - Gimli
Elf - Legolas if he knew Magic Missile
Halfling - Bilbo Baggins

>>44893186
>>44893504
Speaking of this, what's the point of the blowgun? To shoot little wet pieces of paper at people? Why does it deal zero damage.

>>44893547
The "Elf" class isn't very Legolas related, he's much more of a weird looking fighter. The Elf class is more Elric. But yeah, in the deranged way the fighter is Conan the Barbarian, sure.

>>44893611
Put poisons on your darts lad. Like what actual tribes what use the blowgun as a weapon do.

>>44893611
The blowgun is for shooting poison darts. The darts themselves do no damage, but the poison does.

>>44890599
There is no difference, it is rules as written 1e with some rules that appear different because they were written confusingly in the original but people asked Gary over the years what the correct version was meant to be

>>44893547
Inspiration for cleric or not, Van Helsing doesn't seem like the best example of the class. As far as I can remember, Van Helsing doesn't perform miracles, and seems more of a scholar, scientist and hunter than a proper spell-casting holyman, even if he is devote in his belief. From what I remember, anyway. Somebody like Moses seems a better fit for cleric, though not typically with the same sort of contact with his deity.

Conan? I don't know. Conan has some roguish and barbarian qualities, and fighters feel a lot more medieval to me, being a bit closer to knights (without the largely manufactured chivalry to go along with it) or feudal men-at-arms than somebody from the ancient world. Not sure what I'd replace him with though.

Willow from Buffy seems a bit too witchy and not quite scholarly enough for me. If Giles were more magically inclined, I'd say he's a better fit. Merlin is the archetypal spell caster, but his magic tends to be depicted as more innate than studied. Assuming Vance characters are too obscure, what about Sparrowhawk from A Wizard of Earthsea?

Indiana Jones excellently captures some of the traits of a specialist, but maybe isn't sneaky and backstabby enough. Like, you need some ninja in there too. You could maybe qualify things and say "Indiana Jones with more of a focus on... [something]." Not to bad overall though

Gimli. I guess this works.

As far as elves being Legolas with Magic Missile, that seems to be understating the magic they have access to. They really only lag about a level behind magic-users, so it's more like a wizard if he wore armor and fought with a sword... and was an elf. *Shrug*

Halfling? A non-reluctant, more martially-inclined Bilbo Baggins, maybe. Honestly, Tuck, the hero from the LotR rip--uh--"tribute" series, The Iron Tower Trilogy, is a much better fit. But nobody knows who that is.

>>44893862
Its not a perfect fit, but I want it as an aid when just skimming through the classes. Its still 7 options to pick from, so having recognizible characters seemed like a good way to help against selection paralyzis

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Posting my ultra simple, rules lite homebrew.

I'm really not a fan of the Bastard (Fighter) right now though. I need reliable but not too good way to gain bonus damage. Maybe just a flat increase to dice size? (d4 to d6, etc?)

>>44890557
>(1) a lot of rooms and corridors are hard to describe
This is a problem. What I'd do with your example, #28, is describe it as "a large triangular room, a right triangle; the diagonal cuts from your right to your left" (assuming they entered from the orthogonal corridor). Then I'd describe the real shape in detail when they'd taken care of any challenges in there and could be assumed to have time for examination and mapping.

Or I'd just say "you enter a large, oddly shaped room" and draw it for them.

>(2) a lot of room descriptions just say "this is empty."
I'd retain this if I were you. It's an important pacing/tension element that some rooms can just be empty, as well as a tactical resource (places to flee to and barricade, to regroup and take a breather, to expand a fight into etc.). If you put in a lot of quibbly details, the players risk getting frustrated from "interacting" with inert stuff. Also, your game will play much slower since the players have to consider each room carefully.

>>44894400
>I'd retain this if I were you.
I, personally, would break out the dungeon dressing tables that start on p217 (Appendix I) of the 1e DMG.

>>44894436
>>44894400
Arent empty rooms a good place to tell the "story" of the dungeoon too? Signs of what it originally was and whats happened to it over the years.

>>44892034
Yes, this is weird. It's odd that he bothered to pick it out expressly, just to make it worse. Particularly since it's just a memerapier that's light and quick; you'd think a guy who was all about an early modern setting would know better than that.

If you want a house rule suggestion, I'd have a rapier grant +2 to hit and +1 AC against lightly armored opponents, because of its superior range. Honestly, fighting a rapier with a shorter weapon is a huge pisser; if anything I've underestimated the bonuses so it doesn't become unbalanced.

>tfw sabre guy
>always lose to rapier even when the guys are noobs
>not just me either, practically everyone I know

>>44894456
Definitely so. Empty rooms are ripe opportunities for flavor.

Is there a really straight forward vanilla dungeon module (a trapped underground maze full of wandering monsters and loot) or should I copy and paste stuff I like from other modules?

>>44894536
>(a trapped underground maze full of wandering monsters and loot)
Pretty sure Tomb of Horrors qualifies for that. As do large swathes of the TSR module catalog, especially early 1e ones.

>>44894552
Tomb of Horrors has, like, three monsters. It's A Thinking Man's Dungeon.

>>44890599
I haven't seen any complete list, since the devs seem extremely unwilling to make one, but there's certainly differences.

The XP tables are different (for legal reasons), Weapons vs. AC isn't a thing, Psionics isn't a thing, Monks aren't a thing, the non-OGL monsters are gone (Mind Flayers, Beholders etc.), there's an extremely dumb thing in the random dungeon section where they just go with the sample rooms instead of going straight to a random room like Appendix A recommended, and that's all that I can remember off the top of my head.

A lot of that is because "nobody played with those anyway", but, well, that's kind of a shitty reason.

Also, of course, they're going with their translation of the High Gygaxian so you might expect some small mistranslations here and there.

And they put everything into one book, rather than hiding most of the rules from the players.

Small things.

>>44894640
I though it had random monster tables, but I must have been mistaken.

Still, there are a shitload of vanilla modules for (A)D&D (B3, for example), and there's always Appendix A.

>>44894536
The most straightforward vanilla module is unsurprisingly B1, i.e., Basic module 1, in Search of the Unknown.

You do kinda have to finish it yourself, but it's practically the ISO-standard dungeon.

>>44894664
The random monster tables in the Tomb of Horror are for anyone dumb enough to pop into the Astral Plane.

Otherwise it's just a shitload of traps, a four-armed gargoyle, a Demilich, and... I think there's another monster somewhere. A poisonous snake, perhaps?

IIRC the introduction says that hack-'n-slash players will find it extremely boring.


If you do use Appendix A, make sure to follow the recommendation to reroll rolls that would be outside the limits of your dungeon - an A4 paper, for example. If you don't then it's ridiculously sprawling.

>>44894776
There's a Juggernaut, which I believe is technically a form of golem.

So what's the best modifier to attribute bonus spread?

Max +3, Max +4? Just +1?

Is Keep on the Borderlands in the trove?

>>44895599
it is. Module B2

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>>44890557
>>44894436

Barrowmaze has its own dungeon dressing table. Page 56 of the original, page 242 of Barrowmaze Complate.

Question: Why are the world maps in OSR stuff always hexes while the low level play are squares? It seems like it would be difficult to map them to each other properly

>>44895733
>merely a single d100 table
No. I need more tables. Tables for air currents. Tables for strange noises. Tables for the shapes of dust bunnies.

>>44895753
Because it's harder to map straight lines to hex grids.

>>44895395
>So what's the best modifier to attribute bonus spread?
I've been trying for like five minutes and I can't make sense of this sentence.

>>44895785
I think he means to ask what you think the maximum bonus/malus that attributes should apply to anything (saves, etc.) is.

>>44895753
Dungeon squares are generally ten or five feet a side.

Wilderness hexes are generally MILES in diameter.


Also, it's because it's easier to map out relatively square rooms on a square grid but running wilderness games on a hex grid gives you more freedom of movement.

There's multiple reasons, basically.

>>44895785
I'm going to guess that the question is "how much do stats matter", with the suggested spreads being 3E's +-4, B/X's +-3, and OD&D's +-1.
Except, of course, that it's one of those questions that has so many different factors as to make any answer useless.

For example, the answer to "how much do you WANT stats to matter?" would greatly change which of the three spreads is "best".

>>44894311
>I'm really not a fan of the Bastard (Fighter) right now though. I need reliable but not too good way to gain bonus damage. Maybe just a flat increase to dice size? (d4 to d6, etc?)
Just give Bastards a flat improvement to damage maybe?

>>44896384
I'd agree with that. 1d4+1 is roughly equal to 1d6, after all - just a bit more consistent, with less burst damage.

>>44895842
How does one solve movement on hexes and the cardinals? Either you have only up and down or diagonal, or left right and diagonal. Do you let people move on the lines?

>>44896800
Don't turn overland movement into a minigame. Don't move from hex to hex, just travel in a reasonable and logical manner. They're there as a guideline for measurement, not as spaces on a board.

>>44896955
This is one answer. The other answer would be, "turn overland movement into a minigame". OD&D was a wargame by intention, written for wargamers. There's no indication as far as I know that the lacking realism of only being able to move hex-by-hex bothered hardened grognards used to hex-and-chit wargames (the most common sort back then, going by sales). Just accept that you can only move directly into an adjacent hex and don't sweat it too badly. (If this creates annoying effects on travel that are actually noticeable at the table, you're probably using too big a hex size for a given journey: hex movement approaches straight movement asymptotically as the number of hexes increase.)

>>44895753
This guy >>44895842 basically already said it, but: squares fit better to man-made structures, hexes come closer to the shape of natural formations. The right tool for the right job.

>>44896800
In OD&D with its wilderness hexes, there's no such thing as being on the lines- you're either in a hex or you aren't. Where exactly you are in the hex isn't too important.

Movement costs are for moving INTO tiles - if you don't have enough movement to move into a mountain tile, you just don't move into it at all rather than moving a fraction.

Of course, that's something you only get by going to Outdoor Survival and checking how they handled it there.


If you want to move in a straight line in a direction that doesn't have hexes aligned in a straight line, you move in a bit of a zig-zaggy pattern. It's pretty much unavoidable unless you're using an entirely gridless map, in which case mapping is really damn hard and you might as well just be running a pointcrawl.

>>44897793
>mapping is really damn hard
Some of the TSR box sets came with a clear plastic overlay with hexes on it that you could use to measure hex distances on the gridless poster maps.

>>44886311
>>44886698
>>44886351
>>44890557
Where can one download the Barrowmaze pdf?

>>44890914
Balancing Weapon Mastery by nerfing things sounds like a bad idea, so if someone wants a crack at balancing it, adding more weapon abilities is the better route.

>>44897823
Well, yes, but then you're not exactly adventuring on a gridless map are you?

>>44897832
Check the Trove.
>Labyrinth Lords/Barrowmaze.pdf

>>44897882
The rest of it is gridless, because the overlay is less than A4 size, and the posters are very large.

You can also spin the overlay about so you always have a straight line of hexes to your target, which is something you can't do with a permanent grid. It's like you're taking your own grid with you wherever you go.

>>44897832
Barrowmaze I is in the Trove.

I think Barrowmaze complete is missing, you can get it here:

https://mega.nz/#!BJFCgazT
Decryption key is !OA5qYWSpQJTlJV69ej3teqm-foCSnB93Gc6mHxs9Uok

Is Troveguy still missing?

>>44897910
Note that when I said that it was very difficult to map I meant from the players' perspective. The DM doesn't have too many problems with that, after all, since he's the guy who actually has the map.

In that case, flipping the hexes every which way just leads to it becoming even harder for the players to map.

>>44890914
Do note that bastard swords are outright inferior to normal swords anyway - well, individual ones might not be, but the way the treasure tables are weighted means that one-handed swords have more plusses. Also, they're way more common (normal sword is a 65% chance, bastard sword 8%) which kind of shows the problems with having weapon proficiency in a system with random treasure.

>>44897793
The zaggy movement bothers me though, it makes certain directions more expensive to travel in than others in a really weird "artificial" way, although I understand geometry sort of constricting what you make the map out of (can't go octagonal).

>>44898178
>which kind of shows the problems with having weapon proficiency in a system with random treasure.
I never much cared for the heavily-weighted magical weapons. If you want to build (normal) sword predominance into the system by making them occur twice as often, that's fine. To a certain extent, things will balance out in most large parties, as more folks will go for longswords than for any other weapon, yielding greater competition for them, which negates their greater prevalence. Ideally, you might split the category into two separate parts--arming swords and scimitars, for instance--with a note that the two can be lumped together into a single category (normal sword) if you want them to be the preferred weapon type. In any case, the comparatively small chance of finding two-handed swords or other weapons makes them a sort of trap option that either penalizes you for making the wrong choice (with specialization) or merely disappoints you when you never find the type of magical weapon you want your character to use.

>>44898426
Old maps were notoriously inaccurate and travel times on ancient roads could vary much more than you'd expect on modern ones (and all bets are off when you're in the wilderness), so I really think the problem is a more aesthetic than practical one.

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How do you deal with race imbalance in your games? For most games if you go by RAW demi-humans are superior at lower levels and inferior in higher levels when they hit their cap. How do you get around this?

>>44898941
It seems to me that the obvious solution is to have them cost more XP. I'm honestly not sure why they didn't just balance them by XP in the first place, at least in Basic, where they're each their own classes.

>>44898105
Awesome, thanks!

>>44899146

They did. Demihumans take forever and a day to level up.

>>44899407
Elves take forever to level up; dwarves and halflings cost barely more than fighters (and less than magic-users). And while the XP cost of elves is brutal for the first few levels, it's inadequate once you're into the mids, where they trail magic-users by maybe a level and a third, while having access to much better weapons and armor, better saving throws, slightly better hit points, and some racial powers to boot.

>>44898705
This has only to do with geometric constrictions though!

>>44899671
That XP curve is really the problem with balancing at higher levels because it stops making a meaningful difference. Even if you do something like give humans +10% experience it will only be significant at the low levels.

The only solution I can think of would be to actually give humans something unique, but since OSR systems are so simple mechanically there are few ways to do this. No skill bonuses, no extra feats. What is it about humans that is superior compared to other races?

The best I can think of is a "diplomacy bonus" so generally NPCs should react better to humans to reflect dwarves and elves coming from more insular societies and usually being depicted as kind of dicks to those not of their kind. Maybe make acquiring hirelings a little easier or giving a bonus to loyalty rolls. I think something along those lines is different enough and flavourful enough to balance out resistance to magic, detecting secret doors, darkvision, and so on.

http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?page_id=844

More sites like this please. Reviews/rankings of modules. Ideally a blog or something, not a community site like RPG.net.

>>44899954
>What is it about humans that is superior compared to other races?
An alternate way of thinking about it: what is it about the other races that is superior compared to humans?

Do you really need Elves, Dwarves and Halflings to be a bundle of bonuses without significant penalties?

Hell, do you even need them to give bonuses at all?

>>44899146
I do like the way Basic Fantasy gets rid of the 10% xp bonus for prime requisites and instead just makes it a racial bonus for humans.

>>44900959
That only works when you arent using racial classes right?

>>44898631
>>44897834
>>44898178
Bastard swords are just an example. A more relevant example is how there's invariably a lot of weapons that just don't compete with the no brainer choices on any level.

Heavy crossbows start out more promising than is usual for D&D, compared to the longbow, (2.5 DPR vs 3.5 DPR in exchange for a little better range), then peter out -- a GM longbow vs GM heavy crossbow is 12 DPR vs 7 DPR.

Similarly, normal sword vs battle axe -- same damage at basic and GM levels (thank God) but the axe is two handed. Normal vs two handed sword -- at least the two handed sword keeps its 1 more point of damage, I guess. The two handed sword at least combines stun and deflect, so I suppose it has a point to it.

It'd be nice to have other fighter weapons be bumped to the level of longbow and normal sword, anyway, is my point.

>>44901342
That's true.

>>44898941
Demihumans are NOT superior at lower levels. They absolutely don't need a level cap. Dwarves, halflings, and gnomes have super serious problems; they've got restricted weaponry and sluggish movement, this makes them on par with humans.

What does need, or can deal with, a level cap is the elven gish, or some other limiting factor. BECMI handles it elegantly with them having to advance fighting and magic independently at level 11+. They must learn from a high level human fighter to gain attack ranks (they don't get better hp/saves either) and Elves of Alfheim presents a way for them to get magic of up to 9th level by studying with the elves. It also presents a spell list that is light on killing and destructive magic, though they may be able to learn it from humans. In exchange, they have what most people could agree elves should have; more healing and nature oriented magic.

If anyone's interested in a bit I'm going to compile a list comparing the spells of elves, magic users, clerics, witch doctors, and shamans.

>>44900821
>>44899954
The short races are fine without XP penalties, elf combat casters typically have some sort of limitation for the same reason paladins don't progress all the way up the cleric spell list -- though honestly I think dropping clerics, replacing them with paladins, and giving them full cleric progression would be better (as bizarro elfs), but I'm not super gung ho about it. They have more flavor and would remind people of that, oh yeah, these spells belong to holy knights.

>>44901675
Nah, Bastard Swords are a great example.

Because you need to take individual Weapon Mastery for the one-handed and two-handed versions, y'see.


Also, what the fuck are you on to think that the GM longbow is superior to the GM heavy crossbow? Did you miss that both of them do the same damage, except the Xbow does +4 rather than +2?
The Longbow also has longer range, but the crossbow also has Stun rather than Delay which is a pretty damn scary debuff - I'd rather lose initiative than lose my attacks, to be honest! Also, the crossbow has -3AC/3 vs. the longbow's -2AC/2.

The big thing that makes the longbow more attractive, though, is the bit where unless you have 18 Strength you can only fire the heavy crossbow every other round. But that's not the fault of Weapon Mastery.


Also, battle axe vs. normal sword is really a question of -4AC/4 vs. -4AC/3 and Delay+stun vs. Deflect+disarm. That's a trickier question. Deflect is pretty crazy, since it pretty much makes you unkillable unless you get enough attacks pointed at you, but stun is also really crazy since it's a really strong multi-round debuff. Delay also makes being a two-handed weapon somewhat irrelevant, since suddenly you might win initiative - but disarm also means that if you're facing a weapon-using foe then all of a sudden you're facing an unarmed opponent.

The big issue in Swords vs. Axes, though, is that magical swords are generally just plain better. They've got their own category for a reason, after all. A battle axe is just as likely to have plusses, but less likely to have (worse!) additional modifiers, less likely to have talents, and aren't ever intelligent so you lose out on that entire thing as well. Which might be good, depending on alignment, but generally isn't since that's a whole 'nother bunch of special abilities you miss out on.

>>44902414
Basically, what I'm saying is that a lot of the inherent weapon superiority is built into other non-Weapon Mastery bits of the system.

Although Weapon Mastery has its own share of problems as well.

>>44902414
>But that's not the fault of Weapon Mastery.

Reread my post. I pointed out that before WM shows up, they're decently balanced -- the heavy crossbow loses 1 DPR in exchange for some extra range. They start off well balanced, then the heavy crossbow sort of falls into oblivion. The heavy crossbow suddenly loses its range advantage as well.

>since suddenly you might win initiative

Ah yeah, I forgot that using a two handed weapon fucks your inits in BECMI.

>That's a trickier question.

Its really not. The two handed sword is 'battle axe but better', presumably because they thought dwarves needed to be punished. The loss of inits, shield, or (more relevant in an edition where you can totally get x4 haste+potion of speed attack rate, and without worrying about aging/debatably system shock) an extra weapon turns it from an easy choice into a no brainer.

The sword thing is its own problem, yeah.

>>44902581
>The two handed sword is 'battle axe but better', presumably because they thought dwarves needed to be punished.
...You noticed how the battle axe can A) be thrown, and B) gives an AC bonus, right?

The Two-Handed Sword IS better, yeah, but I'm not convinced that Weapon Mastery is the reason for that. They're two rather different approaches, really - the sword gets more damage, stun and Deflect 'cause Deflect is a sword thing; the battle axe gets an AC bonus (negating the loss of shield), Delay (negating the loss of initiative), and stun ('cause it's a two-handed thing). And can be thrown, 'cause Chainmail let Vikings throw their axes and OD&D kept that so it carried over into BECMI.

The Battle Axe shores up its shortcomings while the Two-Handed Sword magnifies its strengths. Guess which works better in D&D.

The two-handed sword is still better since it does extra damage and Deflect is ridiculous, though, much like the base non-Weapon Mastery "normal sword" is better than the Battle Axe on account of doing the same damage while being one-handed.

Also, fuck Deflect. It scales way better than it has any right to do, especially when it makes a complete and utter joke out of AC-X/Y.

Now, the REAL weird thing about the Weapon Mastery table is why the fuck torches are better weapons than maces. I know that magic maces turn it back in the favor of the Cleric, but still. What the actual fuck?

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>>44899954
Agreed. You really need the XP gap to increase as they level. Something like this, for instance.

Some stuff weird me out a bit over the Rules & Magics book for Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

Certain core concepts are explained in really weird places, some times only as a single sentence stuck away somewhere.

What happens when a character reacher 0 hp? I'd assume it's death like in all the other games but the Healing section implies you are only knocked out at even NEGATIVE hp.

Armor Class is never really given it's own section, its only mentioned in the equipment section.

These rules are great but I just can't help feeling like the Rules & Magic book is sort of incomplete. I wouldn't lend this to a friend and expect them to get the rules without already knowing what these concepts mean.

>>44903782
Why would you do that to halflings? I know it's only a tiny bit more experience, but being a hobbit is hard enough already.

>>44903236
The battle axe can be thrown at high levels of mastery, but a) not very well, and b) why would you bother?

>>44903782
>Elves eventually five levels behind fighters
Look, I get that you're not happy with the level progression as written, but you've really gone overboard in the opposite direction here. The Elf advancement ought to be keyed to Magic-User advancement on mid/high levels, as in RC, and if lagging one level behind isn't enough for you, then two quite ought to do it -- that puts the Elf an entire spell level behind the Magic-User.

>>44904315
I'm honestly not sure where to value halflings. They have kickass saving throws, can hide, and get bonuses to missile weapons and initiative, and +2 AC vs large creatures, but have smaller weapons and hit dice. I erred on the side of making them the little guy, which seems at least somewhat fitting, but you might be right (especially since I was forgetting they had d6 hit dice when making my evaluation).

I also rather think that elves should have their XP requirements lowered by a bit, but lag a level behind magic-users in spells gained (getting nothing at 1st level, like clerics). But once I start changing things other than just XP, it can be hard to stop. And at that point, even if I do a good job, nobody can relate to it anymore.

Because my current game has multiple methods of generating obnoxiously high basic stats I thought of a way to just reduce it.

>9-12 +/- 0
>13-15 +1
>16-18 +2
>19-21 +3
>22-24 +4

I'd imagine 24 as being a pretty strong soft cap for characters normally unless they grow stats through alternate means. Does making the spreads 3 stats each instead of 2 stats fuck anything up that I'm not seeing?

>>44903236
>but I'm not convinced that Weapon Mastery is the reason for that.

Well, -1 is kind of bad, but not much compared to the loss of deflect.

But ultimately I just wanna even things out with normal swords.

Would have never looked at torches twice. I sort of like that, even Tolkien knew (unless PJ came up with that scene) that wraiths could be hit by torches... at least, I assume +x to hit works on them.

>>44904674
Dwarves and halflings really don't need to be put behind fighters. Better defenses only barely compensate for worse weapons and worse speed.

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Doesn't leaving and entering the same megadungeon over and over get boring?

Sure, maybe this time there's 1d6 goblins in room #3, or perhaps room #7 has ran out of skeletons, but isn't going forward-forward-forward-left-forward-forward-right-forward... until you get back where you were each and every time a little dull? And it's only going to get slower the more of the dungeon you get into, since there'll be more wandering monsters checks.

>>44904683
>Does making the spreads 3 stats each instead of 2 stats fuck anything up that I'm not seeing?
Not if you've also got stat inflation, I imagine.

Remember, in OD&D the best you ever got from a stat was a +1 bonus -- equivalent, Gygax seems to have figured, to a whole level's worth of boost in that area (at least). And that works fine.

>>44904474
Keep in mind that the RAW has elves stop progressing at 10th level. Still, trying to balance elves is very, very tricky, in no small part because magic-users and fighters can, at any particular level, be pretty far removed from one another.

>f lagging one level behind isn't enough for you, then two quite ought to do it
A flat two levels seem inadequate to me at high levels. You get much better armor and weapons, better hit dice, better to-hit, better saves, and a few racial advantages up on a magic-user. Once the two of you both have a significant number of high level spells, it seems like those advantages are worth only gaining new spells at 3/5 or maybe 2/3 the rate of magic-users.

If we're using Moldvay Basic, the difference in spells between elves and magic-users with 1,050,000 XP would be:

4/4/4/4/3/3 vs.
3/3/3/3/2

Unless we dismiss the advantages of fighters as practically worthless compared to those of magic-users, that seems reasonable to me. However, this XP progression is pretty much something I just threw together for the sake of discussion, and may well have significant oversights (I'll admit that the other guy's criticism of Halfling XP costs seems valid).

>>44904904
>Doesn't leaving and entering the same megadungeon over and over get boring?
Not if it's sufficiently mega. Let's fall back once again on looking at the Greyhawk game as a model: Castle Greyhawk had tons of entrances, leading to different parts of different levels, and since the levels are so big, you may end up in a completely new area. Or maybe gnolls have infested the region you previously cleared of goblins! Or again, maybe you eventually get strong enough to clear the first level and refortify the ruins above (the Greyhawk players supposedly did just this) -- in that case, why would your referee not just let you point to which passage onto level 2 you want to use, on the map? Of course in the end you do need to be flexible. At such a point it's clear that the players have far transcended the challenges of the level in question, so why waste time on it?

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For those unsure of how to balance or differentiate elves from magic users, I found this an interesting comparison.

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>>44892034
>In LotFP, what is the material advantage in using a rapier as opposed to a medium melee weapon?
It's legal, and indeed expected, for an adventurer or Gentleman to carry a rapier in town. In addition, wearing armor and carrying most ranged weapons is >also< illegal in town. Half of Europe had banned pistols by that point (as an anti-assassination measure), not that it stopped literally anyone at all. Most of those laws dissipated as flintlocks came on the scene and made most other forms of self-defense (and armor) obsolete.

The short answer is, there's little >mechanical< advantage, but a hefty role-playing one.

I personally give players a +1 bonus to AC with the "Parry" action if they're using rapiers and light or no armor, which means a trained Fighter with a rapier gets -2 to-hit and +5 AC in melee. At that point it's usually easier to just shoot the fucker.


>>44893547
>I'm doing a rules summary for my players in LotFP. Poke holes in my character archetypes:
>Cleric - Paladins who don't fall (Van Helsing is a Specialist with a couple ranks in Occultism)
>Fighter - Sam Vimes in a warzone
>Magic-User - Tom Baker in 7th Voyage of Sinbad meets a Gypsy witch.
>Specialist - Indiana Jones
>Dwarf - Gimli
>Elf - Elric of Melnibone
>Halfling - Bilbo Baggins' shithead cousins.

Also, remind your characters that there are >no< weapon restrictions in LotFP. You can get your Gandalf/Orcrist slashfich on.

>>44905191
Sheeit I cut out the 9th level spells, oh well

>>44905191
But this is specifically the Alfheim variant class who's a full-progression Magic-User, right? So it's not exactly the same as the core Elf.

>>44904769
It has been pointed out to me that, in Moldvay Basic at least, there seems to be no differentiation of movement rates for actual characters. That may be an oversight, but unless there's something I couldn't find, the RAW has all characters moving at 120'. (Dwarves and halflings in the monster stats are given slower movement rates, but monsters play by somewhat different rules, and that could be influenced by things like encumbrance in any case.)

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>>44898941
God I miss Sandwich. That was some good threading right there.

I just use XP balancing, when people take 'em. I also don't use level caps because fuck that.
>>44899954
>The only solution I can think of would be to actually give humans something unique
Well, since I'm using LotFP I let Fighters, Clerics, and Mages each start off with a skill that advances as a Dwarf's Architecture skill. Savages (my interim "dwarf" replacement) get lower stat boosts, but a choice of a couple different skills that level with them - in this case Bushcraft and Stealth, or Physic and Occultism , but start with no points in Tinker and Architecture.

>>44899954
>The only solution I can think of would be to actually give humans something unique, but since OSR systems are so simple mechanically there are few ways to do this.
Maybe you could give demihumans a penalty to effective CHA for human henchmen? Melf the Elf is a bit alien and maybe not totally trustworthy, right.

>>44905310
Its absolutely not a variant class -- its only a variant class in the sense that an elf or dwarf with attack rank progression is a variant class

I am, however, presenting this in the context of elf and human casters having different spell lists -- as is, the elf rightly has a slower and more capped progression, due to combining fighter survivability with magic user encounter ending spells, whereas if you trimmed out the "enemy team instantly obliterated" spells (mostly around 4 or 5) the elf looks more cleric than magic user.

>>44905331
Yes, its very ambiguous, to say the least, at what point people solidified derfs and such as being slower. I think that short folk having more sluggish movement and limited weapon choice is the ideal balancing factor for them, not XP or level caps.

If one has dwarfs be full speed dudes using longbows and pikes as standard, then that's A) really bizarre to envision and B) a good situation for some manner of level cap penalty, XP penalty or something else weird.

>>44905601
>Its absolutely not a variant class -- its only a variant class in the sense that an elf or dwarf with attack rank progression is a variant class
Look, what I'm saying here is, it's non-standard Gazetteer content that's not included in the basic rulebooks, an optional Mystara-related rule that conflicts with the standard Elf spell list, so it's hard to call it "the way it works". I'm not saying it's badwrong or anything.

>>44905925
Nobody said its not additional content. It isn't, however, remotely like a variant class. Giving it to elves in substitution to their normal spell list, however, would be a variant class.

>>44905661
It specifically says that dwarves are not allowed longbows or two-handed weapons, though the latter isn't much of a restriction, as they can still use a (normal) sword paired with a shield.

I'll admit that it makes sense that dwarves move slower, though I'm less convinced with halflings. If you do reduce their speed though, this obviously affects their power and should therefore be compensated for in any XP progression.

>>44905331
I think that's one of Moldvay's simplifications for Basic. It's sort of like how Fighters, even in BECMI, don't improve their to-hit until level 4 because 4 is where the Expert box starts. Basic really meant basic.

>>44906018
Mostly I am forced to turn to BECMI for weapon restrictions (dmag has a more in depth system that can use height as well) and speed restrictions (though derfs certainly need the now-ubiquitous thing of encumbrance resistance so their speed isn't further crippled), and 2e for monster speed factors.

Halflings losing the BECMI/2e (???) speed penalty and keeping the more-punitive-than-dwarves weapon restrictions, but having equal XP as a human fighter is probably reasonable, as is slow ass, weapon restricted dwarves, if dwarves don't get longswords.

Either way, though, I kind of see them fitting a whole different niche than elves.

Halflings usually have even worse weapon penalties, s

What does "gonzo" mean?

I know the dictionary definition, but what does it mean in OSR?

>>44906436
I'd vaguely guess the Conan and Red Sonja modules, crashed spaceships, and Blackrazor, off the top of my head.

>>44906217
In any case, the XP progression I bashed out was based on full-movement rate dwarves and halflings, and dwarves that can use (normal) swords with a shield. With that in mind, I feel like the XP requirements for dwarves still seem about right, though those of halflings should probably be reduced.

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>>44906436
>What does "gonzo" mean?
>I know the dictionary definition, but what does it mean in OSR?
It means using any and everything in a game, not just generic eruodisney fantasy. Robots, wrecked cities, rayguns, David Bowie, magic items what do Wierd Shit (tm), Magitech, dinosaurs, White Apes, all that fun stuff.

More generally it means "lacking a consistent or expected tone, with a focus on the bizzare"

>>44906671
then yeah, halflings and dwarves seem about right in that paradigm.

It is pretty bizarre for elves going from about 2 levels behind to 5 levels behind, though.

>>44894311

Do you think it's a good idea to give everyone the ability to roll a full 8 times on the race tables?
Doing so seems like it erases the point, everyone of the same race will get the same powers. Let people only roll 4 times instead, they'll get a nice spread of both normal and likely enhanced powers, but will still be a little different to another character of the same class and race.

It never struck right with me that "basic" levels are typically dungeon crawls and "expert" elvels are typically outdoors, seems easier to justify dungeons as what you trek across the wilderness towards.

>>44898105
Yeah, Troveguy is still out.

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>>44907279
A somewhat revised version. Still tinkering with things, but I've brought halfling XP back down to equal a fighter's. Dwarf XP is the same as before. Elf XP has been reduced a bit, but they now gain spells as if a level lower, which means they can stay more competitive with fighters at fighting without being too competitive with magic-users at magic.

>>44908645
Out of curiosity, how do clerics match up with elves in this on an XP basis in terms of hp, combat and spells?

Anyone have a checklist or guide for making dungeons? I'm making my first one for my first OSR game coming up here. Any other advice?

>>44909945
Other than the "five room dungeon" concept?

>>44898941
depends on the game really, ACKS and DCC both balance Racial Classes fairly well I'd say(helps that ACKS only goes up to level 14, so a Demi-Human character only going up to say level 9 isn't such a big deal, and with DCC all characters are pretty strong once they hit level 1 if you play with any intelligence at all)

>>44900821
if you do that though, then it becomes pointless to actually have non-human races be playable at all

>>44899954
ACKS handles this the best I'd say, since not only do Humans get the most Class variety, they all get to go the full 14 levels, while the highest any Demi-Human Racial Class goes is level 12 I believe, also Humans tend to get the best stuff when it comes to Domain shenanigans

>>44909945
Appendix A is AD&D's random dungeon generator. Make a few with that and see what kind of dungeon comes out.

Probably a long shot, but does anybody have Neoclassical Geek Revival 5th Edition?

>>44909945
>Anyone have a checklist or guide for making dungeons? I'm making my first one for my first OSR game coming up here. Any other advice?
www.thealexandrian.net/archive/archive2010-07c.html#20100723
It's a fantastic explanation of how to make exploring a dungeon involve more choices. I'd also recommend looking up "The Caverns of Thracia" itself from the Judges' Guild section of hte Trove.

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>>44909945

my dad gave me this advice:

First establish a theme; is it a tower? Dungeon? Who originally founded it (elves, goblins, etc.)? This will help you get the overall "mood" of the dungeon. If you have an elven watchtower, what kind of rooms might it have (like an armory, bunkroom, sparring room).

Secondly, how old is it? If your dungeon was founded by say, elves, 500 hundred years ago, is it still inhabited by elves or has it been taken over by orcs in the mean time? Right there you have the basis: elven architecture with orc-imposed traps, maybe a few elven relics left behind. How might orcs re-purpose an elven bunkroom or armory? Maybe theyve converted one into a shrine or something.

With only that to go on, you already have a basis for what kind of loot, monsters, and traps the party can encounter.

>pic is one of my dad's homebrewed classes

>>44912751
>pic
So it's a cleric with the ranger's favoured enemy thing in place of spells?

>>44912824

I like to think of it as a 'samurai jack' class, but yeah pretty much. He also had his own system for movement, encumbrance, exp, and initiative which can get pretty convoluted.

>>44913187
If he prays to his patron saint, how does he get the techniques from the other saints?

Also, what does 'Driving Lucifer from Heaven' work against? Pit Fiends and the like?

>>44913307

You have be a certain level before Saint Michael will grant your request I think. Also, even though its called a "Michaeline Cleric" you arent technically serving St. Michael until the end, sort of like a 'thief' isnt a thief until level 9 (this is AD&D 1ed btw).

Youll notice it says "against specified creature if the cleric recognizes it as such" which Im pretty sure means all creatures related to the specified ones. So at spell leve 7, you can get a bonus vs all greater demons and devils.

If yall have more questions let me know and ill ask him tomorrow to clarify.

>>44910958
Appendix A? In the trove or a book?

>>44913678
AD&D 1e DMG Appendix A.

>>44913483
So which is the patron? Perrin, Rinace, Marcus, Stritan, or Michael?

>>44913778

Im not 100% sure but I think theyre all part of the same sect with different ranks, i will confirm tomorrow.

So I was checking out the BECMI weapon mastery tables, very interesting stuff!

One element I've NEVER seen anywhere else is primary/secondary targets -- that some weapons are stronger vs type H (hand to hand/humanoid) or type M (missile or monster). Interesting stuff, although I could envision it having a stronger impact.

...what's weird, though, is that some type A(ll) weapons still have primary and secondary ratings, despite that all targets should be primary. What igves?

>>44914513
What gives is it was poorly edited.

>>44904063
Damage is under the Adventure Rules section

Anyone know where more BECMI weapon mastery tables might be? I believe I saw charts for cannons and stuff in an issue of dragon magazine, for example.

>>44908164
Sure, but isn't the idea that you start travelling from dungeon to dungeon in the expert rules?

>>44914513
>One element I've NEVER seen anywhere else is primary/secondary targets -- that some weapons are stronger vs type H (hand to hand/humanoid) or type M (missile or monster). Interesting stuff, although I could envision it having a stronger impact.
It feels like it's an implementation of Greyhawk/AD&D's varying damage against man-sized and large opponents - IIRC two-handed swords did 1d10 against men but 3d6 against, say, Ogres. (Maces are 1d6 vs. men, 1d4 vs. larger opponents.)

>>44906082
>I think that's one of Moldvay's simplifications for Basic. It's sort of like how Fighters, even in BECMI, don't improve their to-hit until level 4 because 4 is where the Expert box starts. Basic really meant basic.
No, they don't improve their to-hit until level 4 because that's how OD&D did the splits. They didn't get +2/2 levels until AD&D.

OD&D dwarves and halflings also didn't have a movement penalty.

>>44910548
>if you do that though, then it becomes pointless to actually have non-human races be playable at all
Why? In what way do races become pointless just because they don't have mechanical weight?

I mean, imagine a system where "Axe" and "Sword" are both in the category of "1d8 damage one-handed weapon". Does the lack of mechanical difference make pointing out what kind of weapon you're actually using, well, pointless?
If there's no mechanical difference between your character being a 5' manlet or an 8' slightly larger manlet, does that mean that saying how small your Fighter is is useless?

Do you really think that you need Dwarves to be special snowflakes with mechanical benefits to get people to play Dwarven characters?

>>44915242
Yeah, the basic assumption is that you just start outside the dungeon or, in the case of OD&D (where "wilderness is name-level play" comes from), that the local megadungeon is just outside of the town that you're located in and that wilderness adventures are for when you're the leader of an army and want to fight 3d10x10 bandits.

>>44908164
You're thinking about this from a narrative point of view. Which is wrong. Dungeons are "basic" because they're easier to *run* and get a fun game out of. Wilderness sandboxes are harder.

>>44915159
Here's something
http://pandius.com/tsubmach.html

Weapon Mastery for a Thompson Sub Machine Gun

Mystara fans are crazy man. Do a search at the Vaults of Pandius, fun stuff can be found there.

Bonus Gnome Mecha
http://pandius.com/klaug.html

>>44915159
Stolen from a Mystara forum:

Weapon Mastery for Cestus is described in DotE, Thyatis booklet p 32

Dragon #175 : Rapier Mastery Table
Dragon #176 : Cimarron Six-shooter
Dragon #182: Firearms in the Known World (Several), Nithian Weapons & Armor, Ethengar Weapon Mastery Suggestions

I've done some searching in my attic and I have found a gem of an article written in Dragon Magazine #199 by Bruce Heard. It details weapon mastery for siege engines and firearms. It covers the following:

Ballista (a very large crossbow)
Heavy Ballista (a.k.a as a Springal)
Light Catapult
Heavy Catapult
Trebuchet (a very large Catapult)
Hand Gun (arquebus)
Iron Pot (a small wide cannon)
Small Bombard (small cannon)
Bombard (standard cannon)
Great Bombard (very large cannon)


I think there might also be some more stuff in the HWR series and the Voyage of the Princess Ark articles, maybe?

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>>44915331
>Gnome Mecha
The best thing? Those are canon.

>>44915447
One of the reasons I will always love Mystara is because of the Magitech. It's an extension of how common magical items are and the magical item creation rules.

Well that and advanced technology from earlier civilizations and people from other dimensions.

>>44915242
Well I mean, the wilderness is generally intended for level 4 and up, and the basic rules cover dungeons of levels 1-3, generally encounters in semi tolerable bite sized chunks. So I could see room for... something else... in the levels 1-3 region, not exactly sure what. Dealing with criminals and spoopy shit in town or something, not sure.

>>44915303
I'm also thinking of it in terms of intuitive terms, players seem to go "oh, a DUNGEON, that's scary!" and wander off into the intuitively safer wilderness.

Spose I could start the PCs off in a dwarf fortress and have the levels 1-3 dungeons instead be the path to the overworld, that'd be a decent way to justify the PCs going into the dungeon first, etc.

>>44915402
>>44915331
Great, thanks!

>>44915295

>8' slightly larger manlet

/fit/ please go

So, what was the first retroclone game that took advantage of the OGL to recreate an older game?

>>44915511
>people from other dimensions
I think I preferred it when the Alphatians were aliens from another planet, to be honest.

>>44915555
>I'm also thinking of it in terms of intuitive terms, players seem to go "oh, a DUNGEON, that's scary!" and wander off into the intuitively safer wilderness.
City kids, I take it?

I mean, dungeons are scary, sure, but they're not you're average horror movie/medieval Scary Forests.

You'd figure that with how popular console RPGs and MMOs are that people would be used to the idea of starting in a dungeon and maybe later popping out into the wilderness like the underleveled chicks that they are.

Of course, it's easy enough to make a low-level hexcrawl if you just tone down the wilderness encounters a bit. I think B10 did that? It's a Basic module with wilderness exploration, at least.

I think in OD&D the idea might have been that the wilderness was for name-level characters?

>>44915579
OSRIC, I think? Maybe? It beats out Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry by a year, at least.

Although maybe HackMaster counts, in which case that's a good candidate.

>>44915618
>City kids, I take it?

I don't know, probably? I would assume they're used to the idea of the wilderness being a place you fuck around in until you pursue the plot.

>thinking of running House of Strahd
>'I know, I'll get the Red box and RM4 in physical form.'
>$277 NZD
Fuck.

>>44916210
your best bet is to find somewhere where you can print up a copy yourself

>>44916483
The poster maps and Tarokka deck might be tricky, seeing as the maps are scanned in parts.

>>44901950
The cleric IS the holy knight, dingus. Paladins were always tacked on and superfluous.

>>44917394
>knight
>no edged magical weapons
I don't think so, Tim.

>>44917394
>The cleric IS the holy knight, dingus

Hence why I said they were, genius. Low on reading comprehension tonight?

Dante from dantes inferno. Good example of a cleric?

>>44915555
Nice quads!
I think the deal here is we're talking about slightly different things. I've only been trying to explain why the box sets are laid out the way they are, which is about ease of use for beginners. Once you grasp all the rules, though, there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't start your game however and wherever you like. On the contrary, I think it's recommended at least in BECMI that the DM prepare as much as feasible of the setting right away -- although focusing on the first few dungeon levels, and moving outward from there, so to speak.

>>44918136
Does Dante ever cast a spell or turn an undead? It seems like Virgil's more of a cleric. I think Dante's probably an unclassed NPC. Either a poet, or if the setting's one where his cosmology is correct, a hyper-skilled sage (since he's seen it all with his own eyes and at the behest of God himself, his ability in his field must be through the roof).

Does anyone have experience with Blood and Treasure? It tickles my love of simplified, old school ruling over rules, with a dash of new school character customisation and weirdness.

I've been wanting to use it for a while, but I wanted to know how it acts in play before I get everything set up.

>>44920670
I've messed around with it a little. It's pretty rad. Probably best to cut down the number of spells though, since it uses everything in the 3e SRD including psionics.

What do you guys think of Old School Hack? Is it any good? Would you recommend it?

What does leveling up do in Labyrinth Lord?

>>44922096
Improved to-hit chance at certain levels for each class, more/higher spell levels for magic-users, and better chances to turn undead for clerics.

>>44923651
That's it? So no attribute bonuses? That's fine then. I'm DMing for some friends and I just wanna make sure

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>>44923697
That's it! Pretty much everything is as it's stated in the class descriptions.

>>44923749
More simple than I thought, but they may want to multiclass, and the other classes besides the base ones have steep qualifications, like assassin. I'm sure they'll do fine though.

>>44923847
If you want to generate higher stats, you can have them roll 4d6, drop lowest in order, but don't reroll ones.Also allowing 2-for-1 stat point trades is generally a good way to go.
It makes for tougher characters generally, so the player mortality is imbalanced and chargen takes a little longer, but if that's your thing, go for it.

>>44923651
No extra hit dice?

>>44924632
Oh, yeah. One more HD worth of HP per level for each class.

Still working on class templates.

So instead of using a 'cleric' class, I decided instead any character can choose to be religious, which gives them a turn ability and they can pray for miracles (unlikely). However there needs to be some kind of strong drawback to choosing this as to not make it automatic.

I was thinking something along the lines of a tithe and/or behavior restrictions. Maybe no healing potions? Since the 'healing is in the hands of the Gods' maybe?

Other ideas for class templates or you could even call them character alignments could be savages which get bonuses to the wilds but are shunned by civilized people, Nobility which may have more starting gold but are disliked by the lower classes and are scrutinized by the other nobles. The lower class template of adventurers could be the standard or no frills attached template, since it represents the poor people going off on an adventure to get gold as the normal adventurer would be.

TL;DR I'm looking for templates to apply to each class, such as Religious, Barbarian, Noble, Underclass, or maybe others. I'd like ideas for templates, template benefits, and template drawbacks.

>>44925638
No healing spells is pretty punishing on its own, on the group level, but if you wanted to give it a clear drawback so that being religious is a tough choice for each PC, I'd do something like make the religious PCs subject to the opposite alignment's protection circles and such. Maybe give them minuses to reactions from alignments other than their own.

Or you could just make the choice be between "religion power" and "one extra HD worth of HP at level 1" (but that doesn't count toward your HD total for other purposes, of course).

>>44925929

Sorry, I was making magic users have the function of healing spells, not another class.

But I'm not really somebody that uses alignment, I tend to also want less specific weaknesses then the 'protection circle' mechanic. It's either never going to come up or if the enemies know about it it will utterly fuck the PCs that are weak to it. Seems like too extreme a drawback.

Hello mates. Haven't posted in /osr/ in a while. My wife is in the hospital and she wants me to stay the night with her. This gives me some time to brainstorm a new BECMI campaign setting for us and our group when she gets out. We're all pretty fresh, but I'll be DM'ing and want to make something a little more unique than usual.

I'm thinking about a world where most of the humanoid and demi-human races made a mass exodus underground during some great world changing event. Haven't decided what yet, but I like fiddling with the idea of there being a cataclysmic plane meld that opened portals to the elemental plane of fire. I also like the idea of great and powerful invaders from space; something spell-jammer esque, or interdimensional invaders like gith, beholders, or good ol' mindflayers.

A few to a few dozen centuries may pass where the players, born in the earth, are told of this and are aware of the vast and diverse tunnel complexes and underground ruins that are ripe with the riches and magic of ancient settlers just waiting to be scavenged. The new underground capitals are reliant on things like magical light, bioluminescent plants and hardy underground crops to survive.

Near the underground cities and towns, common nuisance monsters like goblins and kobolds are found, but further out, and in between the evil underdark settlements, more dangerous monsters and deadly dungeons lay.

Can you fellas help me tailor this concept to be more /osr/ oriented? Specifically to BECMI?

What's a good way to start out my players? I'm thinking of just having them do some small freelance jobs to gather their sealegs, since Labyrinth Lord being based off Basic and to a lesser extent AD&D(which I used for the classes and races) is rather punishing. What are some small things they can do?

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How come AD&D doesn't get mentioned so much around here? I know it sort of starts moving away from some OSR concepts, but its original intent was as tournament-friendly OD&D, with unified rules and all the supplements included.
Is it just that it's not as pick-up-and-play or rules-light as Basic/Oe and their variants?

>>44928270

I hope she's alright, anon.

>>44928270
>Can you fellas help me tailor this concept to be more /osr/ oriented?
It sounds like it's completely fit for purpose now -- dungeons for the ruins, and hex maps of the cave and tunnel complexes. I don't know how big you want the tunnels to be, but fit your hex scale to that.

Also, my suggestion is to have no more than 3-500 years pass, and the ultimate secret the players can discover is that the elves faked the space mindflayer invasion to get the surface for themselves and not be threatened by the expansion of the short-lived races! However, when the players reach the surface, they find it's actually an unspoiled natural paradise now under the stewardship of the elves. What do they do? There's a good Name-level domain game in that, I bet.

>>44928455
>Is it just that it's not as pick-up-and-play or rules-light as Basic/Oe and their variants?
I honestly think so, yeah. The groggiest grogs, the first wave of the OSR, were definitely all about 1e, but since then I think people, especially those new to the OSR, gravitate to the ease of Basic.

The popularity of LotFP probably helps too, since that's essentially Moldvay.

>>44928455
I talk about AD&D all the time.

>>44881616
> Tons of TSR Scenarios
http://gobbi.free.fr/scenarii/ScenariiTSR.php

Links are all dead. D:

>>44928550
Some caverns could be so wide that small seas fill them, and some so small a halfling will have trouble squeezing through them. Generally speaking, there may be a nexus of large caverns and tunnels that connect most settlements. Those large areas may have dozens of smaller branching passages that serve as traps, shortcuts, secret hideouts, dungeons, and more. Not all of them are mapped and creatures use them often.

>>44928550
>what do they do?

They retreat back underground and realize the elves were right all along. That's how it SHOULD happen anyway.

Here is a nice character and encounter generator I've been using for B/X: http://basicexpert.info

>>44928270
Fantasy Armored Core?

>>44928849
I've actually never played armored core, so I'm unaware.

>>44928792
I may doing something like this. A lot of elves would be politicians and social spell casters. Due to their age, they may often 'cite' how the elves helped the others in their time of need, or claim to have roles in underground life that have extreme political leverage like creating the light needed for crops. For this many other races might see the elf nobility as sleazy and self centered

They may not have hidden the entire surface from everyone, because I genuinely want it to be end game level of encounters, but I'd like to do something like elf leaders commissioned excursions on to the surface the other races of the council aware.

>>44915295
>Do you really think that you need Dwarves to be special snowflakes with mechanical benefits to get people to play Dwarven characters?
No, but if the game rules actually care if you're a dwarf or not, it should make a very large difference, not just a couple of +1's there and there. Playing a dwarf should FEEL different to playing a human (in the same way playing a wizard feels different to playing a fighter, say) or else there's no point sticking rules in for it at all since all it is is windowdressing.

>>44928603
>The popularity of LotFP probably helps too, since that's essentially Moldvay.
this is a big one, I think. Moldvay is simple and smooth enough that a lot of the newer wave of games (that add their own stuff rather than just copying tsr with the serial numbers filed off) use it as a frame. AD&D has more bits to it, so it's more complex to work with.

>>44929378
Yeah, true. It's hard to release an "AD&D but..."; AD&D has too much character of its own built right in. In a way, it's a Moldvay spinoff game itself (no, not literally, I know).

>>44928648
Yeah, it gets mentioned here and there, but it's rarely the subject of heavy discussion, compared to, say, Flame Princess.
I really like Moldvay and its thousand young, though, and Moldvay is my go-to for pickup games.

>>44929849
We've had pretty decent discussions about weapon vs AC and how to improve it, anyway.

>>44930161
That's a fair point.

Honestly, though, the only real way to do weapon vs AC at all is to just go with the Chainmail combat tables.
My group did a couple sessions of OD&D like that, and it was pretty baller.

>>44915295
>Does the lack of mechanical difference make pointing out what kind of weapon you're actually using, well, pointless?

Is this a serious question? of course it makes it pointless.

>Do you really think that you need Dwarves to be special snowflakes with mechanical benefits to get people to play Dwarven characters?

Are different character options existing at all "special snowflakes" now? "do you really need fighters to be special snowflakes with mechanical benefits to get people to play fighter characters? just fluff your magic missile as an arrow shot, weeb"

Jesus fucking Christ.

>>44930200
I don't have any problem using weapon vs AC at all, its definitely on the bottom of the list as far as complexity is concerned. It could use a bit of simplification, though.

Currently I'm thinking that more bounded accuracy, and making something loosely based off the 1e and BECMI weapon rules, could be entertaining -- most monsters having whatever armor type is obvious (90% or so of monsters would have either Leather, Scale, Carapace, Bone or Hide armor). Under that idea, bonuses would be rarer, steep ACs would be rarer, and most of your attack progression would come from your weapon skills (which'd center around a bonus to your weapon's primary target and a second as a bonus to the armor types your weapon is good against).

Do the Chainmail combat tables have weapon vs AC types or something? I thought it was just vs AC.

>>44930328
>its definitely on the bottom of the list as far as complexity is concerned.

And specifically what I mean there is, its nothing compared to what people already have to mess around with, like tracking XP for large groups of henchmen, or handling the effects of large AoE spells with saves for half damage.

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>>44930328
In OD&D, armor is scaled so it goes from unarmored -> leather ->leather+shield and so on, so that each variation has a number.
This matches the way Chainmail scales armor class, which isn't scaled in any particular order, if I recall correctly, but has a corresponding number for armor type/shield.

AD&D has so many armor types and possible combinations that the armor class could be studded leather+ shield OR ring mail, and so on.
With Chainmail, it's as easy as cross-referencing a table for how many men are attacking vs armor class.It was actually pretty slick, and made for some fast, brutal fights when we were playing. Unfortunately, our group at the time wasn't really up for OSR-style dungeon crawls so the campaign didn't work out perfectly, but we had a lot of fun while it lasted.

Dumping a copy of Chainmail so you can take a look, if that's your thing.

>>44930213
>just fluff your magic missile as an arrow shot, weeb
next thing you know they'll be saying they want to do it more times than they can cast magic missile because 'muh trainings'.

>>44930368
Chainmail guy here-
I can definitely see how it's not that bad. However, I think trying to figure it out and apply it is a huge pain.
Honestly, I think a lot of subsystems get ignored, which is probably a good thing, since they're really complicated a lot of the time, and take a lot of book searching and dead reckoning if you don't have the books memorized/didn't invent the arcane subsystems themselves.

I think the real brilliance comes from the fact that AD&D is so fucking abstract and weird and nonsensical that you can sort of just play it by dead reckoning and have a fun time.

A lot of the Basic/Expert variations are brilliant, but require a lot of precision in the running to work perfectly as they're intended to.

>>44930510
Well I'd just narrow it down to the broad armor categories, especially because some people are really REALLY aggravated by the shield thing for whatever reason, though you could just not use the overlapped armor+shield types or not figure in shields.

The Chainmail charts look kind of cute. There's something to be said for combining attack roll, armor save and damage in one roll.

>>44930699
>However, I think trying to figure it out and apply it is a huge pain.

Exactly when or how would it be hard? PCs tend to get to uniformly plate mail or leather ASAP, different types of humanoids tend to wear uniform armor types, and most groups of mercenaries will all have the same type as well.

>>44930989
I think using the broad armor categories is how it's supposed to work, but I think the time spent on that could easily be spent elsewhere.

Like I said, using the Chainmail system for OD&D combat is a blast. It's really just as lethal as the regular game, but even faster.

>>44931089
>but I think the time spent on that could easily be spent elsewhere.

It requires nearly no time, and if being aware of what armor types your weapon is good or bad against is too time consuming to contemplate, then certainly things like describing your character action, rolling for initiative, figuring out spell ranges or using henchmen must be a mind blasting eternity to you.

>>44931225
I definitely don't think it's an entirely extraneous system or anything, just that it's far from essential to the game itself.
There's a lot of systems included in the game that people tend to leave out, such as multiple attacks for fighters and their variants, that make the game more interesting. Even if you include it on on your character sheet, bonus/penalty vs AC is one more table to consult during the game.
If you can get your players on board with doing the math ahead of time, I'm sure it'd be a valuable system, but I've never actually used it in-game, so I really can't say for sure.

>>44931337
A given player need not ever consult the chart in play, just as a given player need not consult the saving throw chart in play.

>>44931337
>multiple attacks for fighters and their variants
I've never seen that left out.

The official AD&D character sheets (TSR9028) have a space for writing down the modifiers for each weapon vs AC.

>>44931337
It's in the PHB, though. If it's in the PHB, I think it's fair game for the player to have to know it, if it's being implemented.
DMG stuff is less clear-cut, though, I'll agree.
THAC tables should probably be held by the DM, and players should guess AC based on what the armor actually is, but it also makes work for the DM take THAT much longer.
I'm all for meticulous gaming, but I think that unless everyone is onboard, every second matters when it comes to maintaining the flow of the game.

>>44931407
>>44931337
exactly how do the zuber-attack rate for fighters vs goblins and mercenaries combine, if at all, with two weapon wielders?

>>44931407
I actually have some of those sheets lying around (mostly just Cleric/Druid ones, because all the others got used up), and I know exactly what you're talking about.

Like I said, I agree that it's a useful system, but I think it's not completely essential to the game, so I can see why it's often left out. I also think that unless you devote time to memorizing the system and getting it straight in your head, it takes just that much longer to add it into the game.

>>44918136
depends on whether you mean the book or the video game

>>44920670
it's pretty good, although the non-magic classes are a bit too simplistic for my tastes

>>44931482

Its fine to say "I don't like it," but its fairly ridiculous to spend 45 minutes or so talking about how a system that you will never be forced to use, that takes maybe 1 minute to jot down on your character sheet or a bit of scratch paper (unless the DM does it for you in advance, which is not remotely difficult) takes too much time...

>>44931548
But I do like it, in theory, dude.
I think it's just executed in a somewhat problematic way that makes it hard to implement out of the box.
Sorry if I've been unclear, but I thought I was pretty clear in my thoughts the first time I posted about it.

>>44931449
>fighters vs goblins and mercenaries
We're talking about AD&D, where fighters get bonus attacks vs everything.

In 2e, TWF is handled on page 96 of the PHB, and adds one attack per round. A fighter on 1/1 goes to 2/1, 3/2 goes to 5/2, and 2/1 goes to 3/1. Only warriors and rogues can do it, and only rangers are exempt from the attacks penalties for doing so.

>>44931482
Which ones? There's three different versions ('81, '84, and '86).

>>44931635
I think he just used "goblins and mercenaries" as examples. It's anything with 1 HD or less, iirc

>>44931635
>Which ones? There's three different versions ('81, '84, and '86).

I've got the '84 and '86 ones. I don't like the '86 edition that much because they're far more generic-looking, and sort of look like something 2e-era TSR would put out (I suppose they were getting there by 1986, though).

>>44931635
>We're talking about AD&D, where fighters get bonus attacks vs everything.

Oh, I thought there was about a 0% chance that someone who managed to make it to multiple attack tier on a fighter or whatever would not bring it up to the DM every chance he gets.

>>44931691
It seems vaguely implied that orcs don't give the bonus attacks as the text is usually something like "below 1 hit dice," and orcs are overall slightly tougher than I'd otherwise expect due to them saving as level 1 fighters, and having effectively +1 to hit.

>>44931691
>It's anything with 1 HD or less, iirc
No, there's no HD limit for multiple attacks in AD&D.

Creatures with less than a d8 for HP enable the fighter to make 1 attack per XP level in 1E.

There is nothing on how multiple attacks interface with TWF in the 1E DMG.

>>44931447

I run 1ed AD&D and I just convert the THAC tables to THAC0 since theyre the same thing.

>>44931922
I usually play with sheets that have the THAC tables on the sheets, and either a 1e or 2e DM's screen that has the tables on it.
While it sort of breaks immersion to have players know their THAC tables/THAC0, it's sort of a necessary evil to help the flow of the game, sometimes.

>>44931874
We're talking about two different things. The remark on people forgetting multiple attacks led people to speculate that was the 1 attack/XP level thing.

>>44931966

I have the 1ed screens and its helpful. But my groups tend to be large (6-8 people) so theres no way im going to sit there and reference yet another chart for something thats easily derived. Combat already takes long enough with a group this size anyways.

>>44931874

>Creatures with less than a d8 for HP enable the fighter to make 1 attack per XP level in 1E.

Is this in the DMG or the PHB? I cant find it.

>>44931729
The only scanned versions of the '81/'84 (I think they're basically identical) sheets I can find are usually missing most of them (my copy of '81 is cleric/druid only, '84 is fighter/ranger/paladin only).

>>44932111
PHB, in the little asterisked note directly below the multiple attack table (p25, bottom of first column).

>>44932184

omg I never noticed this, thank you

>>44932184
>>44932227
It's also in the 2E DMG, p80 in the revised/black version, p57 in the original version.

While we're talking about weapons and attacks per round, do any of you who run 1ed incorporate weapon specialization from the unearthed arcana into your campaigns?

Ive read elsewhere online that the unearthed arcana is generally viewed as a shitty expansion but I like how it can add more depth to fighters.

>>44932571

I'm personally just using a level vs HD thing.

Each level you have over your enemies HD gives one extra attack. So 3rd level fighter gets 3 attacks vs goblins.

However the only works off the HIGHEST HD enemy you are fighting. So the 3 HD orc chief will put a stop to that real quick. Killing the leader is even more helpful.

Personally though I just love the idea that a lvl 20 Fighter could kill up to 20 goblins in one round.

>>44933184

thats an interesting approach, would the hypothetical orc chief have to be slain to retain the bonus or would it be enough if he failed his morale check and ran?

>>44932571
I personally really like Unearthed Arcana, its one of the rare OSR looks at what fighter types seriously need to have a chance of surviving and Gary Gygax even pointed out that as strong as barbarians seem, only about 1 in 4 (the ones with exceptional strength) actually manage to stand a chance to survive to name level.

Bow specialization is particularly nifty.

>>44933277
Not that anon but isn't an opponent on the run for most intents defeated? Thats also a really elegant way to make leader monsters matter more.

Is there a version of the OD&D thief with the old style of hit dice advancement? I like the idea of having everybody, monsters and pcs both, using the same hit dice based to hit table but that requires a version of the thief with hit point advancement consistent with LBB.

>>44933277
>>44933864

As long as he's out of the battle, yeah.

My only issue with if so far us how to determine when that champion counts. For example if the orc chief is fighting some of the party, but on the other side of a canyon, does the Fighter keep his bonus attacks? What about other side of the field? Other side of the room? That's the only thing I'm not sure of. But otherwise it's pretty solid. It so is nice because it reinforces fluff; an experienced warrior cuts through a gang of shitty bandits because they lack experience to counter his skill, but that leader can put a stop to it, etc.

>>44934053

>For example if the orc chief is fighting some of the party, but on the other side of a canyon, does the Fighter keep his bonus attacks? What about other side of the field? Other side of the room?

If I follow your logic here, id say the fighter wouldnt retain his bonus. If anything Id say that any orcs within a certain radius of the chief would be able to coast off the chief's higher HD thus negating the bonus (accounting for the chiefs leadership/commands and such).

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>>44909885
I'm using a regularized spell progression for the cleric (Mentzer rather than Moldvay) -- possibly keeping the 5th level spell cap (of Moldvay), so 6th level spells are shown in gray.

All cleric/elf XP requirements are exact matches except for the ones in the box, which are off about half a level from each other (with the gray squares indicated that the class is well into its level while the other class has only just begun it). Magic-User and Elf XP are fairly close to exact.

I'm thinking the elf is maybe a level too low at the upper XP values represented, but just about right at the lower ones.

>>44934479

Kind of interesting. The whole "tied with magic user THAC0" bit and 2 spell levels behind bits really puts how noncompetitive elves are into perspective.

Seems you're dramatically better off just playing a cleric, especially since magic user spells have quicker expiration dates and more level scaling than cleric spells.

>>44934479
The elf seems to, forgive the 3eism, trade the Toughness feat for an entire character level and for an entire spell level each time. At L1, he gets heavy armor use in exchange for one entire spell level.

>>44934547
Clerics outstrip magic-users pretty quickly with spells (number and level, not power) despite starting a level late. This goes doubly for Moldvay Basic, where they have they gain access to 3 new spell levels in only 2 class levels. At 50k XP, a cleric has 2/2/2/1/1 to a magic-user's 2/2/2 in Moldvay RAW. Given how restricted a magic-user's spells known are in Moldvay, it's pretty easy to see why somebody would prefer a cleric.

As far as the THAC0 goes, the elf is actually better than the magic-user, it's just the levels depicted are ones where the magic-user has just jumped to a new bracket (or, at worst, is in the middle of a bracket), but ones where the elf is at the middle to top of a bracket. (At the 600k XP shown on the table there, a fighter's THAC0 is only 2 points better than a magic-user's, and exactly the same as a clerics, so the differentiation between the classes isn't huge.) The main things that make an elf superior to a magic-user in hand-to-hand combat is access to much better armor and weapons.

>>44934479
Anyway, this is what I propose for the elf's XP. Keep the XP progression in the book, but with the following modifications:

--elves cast spells as if one level lower (having no spells at 1st levels)
--to compensate for how bad a blow this is at low level, the XP cost of the first three level gains is reduced to 2.5k, 6k, and14k (from 4k, 8k, and 16k).

>>44934782
Its kind of hard to see what the point is, when they're behind a cleric in fighting and rely on mostly offensive spells that are not only lower level and less plentiful but also depend on level for effectiveness.

A hybrid based off being a fighter type mixed with a fucked up cleric (like the paladin) generally works better than being a fighter type mixed in with a fucked up magic user.

>>44934841
The alt-elves are behind clerics in hit points, basically the same in THAC0, and better in weapons. So they're about even (honestly, I give elves the edge once you take into account the number of magic swords you find). But if high-XP elves were a level ahead of where I had them (like I wasjust suggesting), they start to look a bit nicer.

But clerics are a pretty sweet deal, and outshine magic-users in many ways. Still, their spells tend to be rather limited in what they can do (lacking the range they have in AD&D), and they don't tend to have much in the way of offense.

Anyone have any thoughts as to how to fold ability scores into class + race + level? Saving throw and to-hit progression being ability based, for example.

Alternatively, anyone have any thoughts as to non level derived hit points and combat modifiers? Examples given would be Lamentations of the Flame Princess as far as combat modifiers go and early Gamma World as far as HP goes.

>>44935095
These things would tend to fundamentally change the game to the point where it's kind of hard to discuss them without building a larger system around them. If nothing else, you'd have to do some serious revamping of spells and monsters.

>>44935095

So are you saying to phase out ability scores entirely?

Like an elf gets a bonus to X and Y saves and activities because they are magical and smart but there isn't an actual 'score' to show it, it's just assumed or implied based on the effect?

Having the ability scores entirely based on class, race and level to me makes them unnecessary. Phase them out as much as possible else its just a pointless relic.

Though in the meantime you might like what I had done here; basically most races get 2 ability scores they can improve up to 8 times, so either +8 to one score or +4 to both, meaning no matter which way it is done they would always be pretty exemplary in those areas.
>>44894311

>>44928828
>http://basicexpert.info

Shilling again eh Bravo?

>>44935278
Factoring ability scores into class + race + level wouldn't necessarily fundamentally change the game, it would or could just result in a game that is mathed around the assumption of everyone having straight 10s (or straight 12s, or whatever), as this would factor it into the saves as well.

Level-irrespective hit points would probably be bizarre no matter how you slice it (early gamma world's 35 hp, 1d8 damage characters lead to sluggish battles), though level-irrespective attack bonuses/armor class penalties are, as LotFP show, not a problem.

Chainmail's combat system in the back (aside from heroes, superheroes and antiheroes) would be a somewhat short lived example of level-irrespective hit points and combat.

4e seems largely based around the idea that you will always either have 2 16s or 1 18, incidentally. I wouldn't necessarily go that far, but different classes do often strike me as people of a given minimum physique.

>>44935282
The idea is that generally how strong or smart you'd be would be factored into your race and class. For example, I'm at a loss to imagine a strength 5 character that can pull a longbow and wear plate mail in the party of a str 15 character who can't. I mean, you could maybe envision the former wearing scaled down gear like that.

The thing you linked me to has a saving throw thing that actually hatched this idea, a lot of getting better to saves could be viewed as getting better overall. That's sort of what I mean.

>>44935402

As the other guy said though, it would be difficult to implement. In a lot of ways you already are supposed to do this yourself; you'd pick what you are GOOD at. The guy who can't lift a big sword or fight in plate armor because he is too weak doesn't become a fighter, he becomes a different class entirely.

The only alternate way I could conceive of such a system is to give every class and race and baked in set of staring attributes.

So maybe humans start with 8 in all stats, then at first level they get +2 in two stats based on their class; so Fighters get Strength and Con bonuses. Each level up they get a bonus to their stats based on their class and race; though humans may be the special race that gets a bonus to any stat they choose every level. Or you could break it down to specific tables for each class and race-class.

But once again the issue with this system is what exactly is the point? Adding attributes that are more of a function of class/race/level seems unnecessary because those attributes don't do very much on their own, they are specifically in the game to influence other factors with sole exception to stat damage I guess.

Now unless maybe you meant something along the lines of each class being able to be played whatever which way? Like Warriors who are strong get a bonus to axes, Warriors who are dexterous get a bonus to rapiers, Warriors who are smart get a bonus to traps or tactics?

Once again, honestly I just think that you should let the players good judgement resolve this issue. Nobody will play a 5 strength fighter because a 5 strength fighter both doesn't make sense and also is bad for them gameplay wise. And anyone who can't be a good fighter, thief, cleric, or magic user just doesn't need to be an adventurer. Just toss them and roll a new one.

>>44935478
>But once again the issue with this system is what exactly is the point?

You become, VAGUELY, 3 times as poison resistant, 10 times as damage resistant and 9 times as accurate, but only a little different in terms of damage. To me, whatever specific progressions are involved seem pretty obvious.

>Adding attributes that are more of a function of class/race/level seems unnecessary because those attributes don't do very much on their own,

I'm speaking in general, not necessarily the exact functionality of the 6 attribute system, but just in general the character's physical and mental parameters being mostly dependent on your race, class, and level.

Afterall, no matter what, you tend to get 10x damage resistant and 3x to 5x as poison resistant or however, I'm just wondering how one could envision a class and level system that evens out generally how different level 1 vs level 10 chars are, as opposed to some elements (say, damage) mostly differing between characters and other elements (poison and damage resistance) mostly differing between characters on the basis of level and class.

>>44933992
>Is there a version of the OD&D thief with the old style of hit dice advancement?
I don't think there is, but on the other hand, doesn't the Thief have d4 hit dice? You could just use the Magic-User table.

>>44934479
This makes it pretty clear to me that your alternative Elf goes way too far nerfward. Can't even outfight a Magic-User at name level? That's just crazy. I'm definitely sticking with the standard Elf and the occasional whine that it's a bit OP, then.

>>44935095
>Saving throw and to-hit progression being ability based, for example.
How many times do we have to tell you people that tying saving throws to ability scores is a terrible idea? That's been tried. It's been tried for *sixteen years*, it doesn't work, you won't get it to work.

And before you say anything, this isn't about discouraging houseruling in general, it's about this specific rule. It doesn't work. It will never work. I don't even understand why you *want* it to work so damn badly.

>>44936499
>Can't even outfight a Magic-User at name level?
Ah, but while a magic user will be using a d6 weapon (a staff) the elf will be using a d8 weapon (a sword). The elf has a huge advantage thereby.

>>44936551
I wouldn't accept that as a good enough difference for a Fighter, so I can't reasonably accept it for the Elf either. By level 9 the Elf should be obviously superior on every vector to the Magic-User of equal XP. (I'm less particular about how it stacks up to the cleric, who's just a different kind of gish, after all)

>>44936542
>How many times do we have to tell you people that tying saving throws to ability scores is a terrible idea? That's been tried.

I'm talking about the exact opposite of what you're thinking of, which although it may have been tried is something I've yet to see, saves->stats instead of stats->saves. Or to be more specific, a statless variant in which race, class and level determining stuff that'd otherwise be determined by attributes.

>>44936542
>How many times do we have to tell you people that tying saving throws to ability scores is a terrible idea? That's been tried. It's been tried for *sixteen years*, it doesn't work, you won't get it to work.

What do you mean it doesn't work? Lots of people enjoy systems like that. There's literally nothing wrong with it, if you want to take out everything that makes ability scores useful then what's the point of keeping them in?

>>44936668

>literally nothing wrong with it
>take out everything that makes ability scores useful

There's honestly too much hyperbole in that post to take it seriously but I'm sure someone will take the bait.

>>44936569
>By level 9 the Elf should be obviously superior on every vector to the Magic-User of equal XP.
Uh, that is, I meant to write every vector of melee combat.

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>>44936767
TOO LATE
THIS IS YOURS NOW

>>44936708

What? Why does increasing your survivalbility in a few areas by 5, 10, or 15% hyperbole? AC and Strength work the same way, and Constiution bonus for health is fucking nutso and just keeps scaling upwards forever. You're shitty, opinionated, and illogical. Fuck you.

>>44936803

> You're shitty, opinionated, and illogical

Says the guy who equated not liking ability based saves to "taking out everything that makes ability scores useful..."

>>44936846
Friend, I hate to have to tell you, but you are taking the bait.

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>>44936793

>>44936846

It's not taking out 'everything' that makes them useful, but you are minimizing them further and further. What's the point of even having them if you are going to push them so far to the background?

Remember you started this by saying 'tying saving throws to ability scores is a terrible idea' and you have not once said why. Until you give a reason you are blowing it out your ass.

>>44936899
>Remember you started this by saying 'tying saving throws to ability scores is a terrible idea'

I am not the guy who said that. I am the guy he responded to, the one speculating on recasting abilities as a class/race/level thing instead of a random level 1 thing, and for example, tying them to saves (ergo a class with good poison resistance and hp may be viewed as having a high constitution). In other words, I was arguing in favor of ability based saves (or save/THAC0 based abilities, if you prefer).

I was merely remarking on how its total hyperbole to say not using ability based saves is "taking out everything that makes ability scores useful."

>>44936582
>I'm talking about the exact opposite of what you're thinking of, which although it may have been tried is something I've yet to see, saves->stats instead of stats->saves. Or to be more specific, a statless variant
Oh, I get it! That's my bad, then. And yeah, I think your idea would work fine. OD&D's nearly a statless variant already.

More specifically, I think differentiation between PCs being entirely based on race and class (I assume that any given group will be roughly the same level, here) might annoy players who feel like it's "samey", but it won't screw up the system at the root level, making casters consume everything.

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>>44935328

Seems useful enough

>>44937057
Cool. Yeah, I like how OD&D is essentially +1/-1 for the most part and had it in mind. There are a lot of ways to distract players with less all consuming character modifications (just for example, something along the line of, variances in languages known, encumbrance capacity, height and weight, acrobatics performance, starting gear, social rank perhaps) to the point that they still feel random enough for the random club.

The monk and mystic also seem like they're created along this line of thinking (the monk, possibly the mystic as well, seems to not give a fuck about your str or dex as far as attacks, speed, damage, and AC are concerned).

>>44937137
>The monk and mystic also seem like they're created along this line of thinking (the monk, possibly the mystic as well, seems to not give a fuck about your str or dex as far as attacks, speed, damage, and AC are concerned).
I think that's because in Supplement I: Greyhawk Strength-to-damage/hit and Dex-to-AC are EXCLUSIVE to Fighting-Men.

And the Monk is a variant Cleric. Somehow. I wouldn't think on it too much.


I think that if you want to run OD&D without ability scores it'd be as easy as giving them a small XP bonus and maybe limit followers at four (with no adjustments for loyalty).
Seriously, there's not a whole lot that ability scores actually DO in the LBBs. XP bonuses, +-1HP/HD, +-1 to ranged attacks, and the hireling bonuses. That's pretty much it.

Oh yeah, and Intelligence gives you bonus languages. For some reason. I don't really know why; it's the only Prime Requisite that does something other than "give an XP bonus".

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>>44932117
If you're still here, here's a fillable .pdf version that has every variation on the '84 sheets.

You have to mess around with the layers a little bit, since the guy who made them used some weird tricks to make it all work, but they're pretty nice.

>>44937323
>I think that if you want to run OD&D without ability scores it'd be as easy as giving them a small XP bonus and maybe limit followers at four (with no adjustments for loyalty).
>Seriously, there's not a whole lot that ability scores actually DO in the LBBs. XP bonuses, +-1HP/HD, +-1 to ranged attacks, and the hireling bonuses. That's pretty much it.
This is pretty much the exact reason I don't see any point in playing OD&D without ability scores. They do so little anyway, that why not use them? They're just fun little extras, nothing more.