/OSR/ Old School Roleplaying General

I'll say what everyone is thinking. How much until the zine?

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Was out with the GF and found these in an antique store.
The Lost City is complete but a little raggedy

Adventure Log has some stuff written in it, and involved a group with only two players with like four PCs each.
Benjy Sawin and John seem to have had a crazy fun time.

How'd I do?

>>44021477
Not bad, but tell us more about Benjy Sawin and John.

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>>44021537
No specific info on their adventures, but They played some craaaaazy powerful dudes. All of Benjy's PCs were are over level 30, and he seems to be a big Tolkien fan.
John is less eloquent with names, but seems to be a big fan of Thieves and Cleric/Druid types.

>>44021639
I like that all but one character on that list is CN.

>>44021639
How does anything get done when you're using a +4 mace against enemies who, I assume, also have a thousand hit points?

>>44021477
Do you have the maps for the underground levels r did someone remove that insert? Floor 6-10 and the city, that is.

Actually, come think of it, weren't some of the maps on the box?

I was out traveling for a while, if the Zine out yet?

>>44021362
>>44024426
I talked to troveguy over the weekend. He had some kind of family craziness that put him behind schedule. Hospitals and stuff.

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Bumping for reasons

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Posting this again, my homebrew classes and mechanics.

These are the basic classes, probably going to work on the formatting and make an actual rolebook later. Also 4 more classes too.

I had the idea to make shields add your strength mod to AC, but I feel it might make strength OP, what do you guys think?

Where is the zine?
Where is EVERYONE?

>>44029683
>Where is the zine?
Troveguy got sidetracked with family emergencies.
>Where is EVERYONE?
No new news=no new conversation

I'm betting things will be kinda slow until the holidays are over.

>>44030531

>no new news
I did want people to discuss my garbage classes, but I can't really force it.

Any if you guys play 100 level 1 wizards vs an old school adventure? It's usually pretty fun as a one shot, especially vs a gygax adventure.

So many bodies

Christmas is coming.

Any anon in the spirit of gifting the trove the castle zagyg or the last psyonics supplement?

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looking for the Thieves' World collection. Thanks.

How do you guys run Whitebox OD&D games?
I'm gonna run one for some family over the holidays and I'm really hyped. It seems like it's pretty easy to DM, and should be fun for everyone involved (most of the players tend towards storygames/freeform stuff).

>>44020805
What system should I try and run with friends?

I have Castles & Crusades, AD&D 1e, and AD&D 2e

>>44035101
AD&D 1e!
It's easily my favorite old-school RPG, even though it can be a bit of a pain due to the sheer amount of math involved.
Still got a special place in my heart, though.

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>>44035101
My vote would be for C&C (with the math fix for saving throws, of course) unless you're going for an "authentic" old school experience, in which case 1e (with secondary skills pulled from 2e).

>>44031616
Might be more likely to survive than the usual party, honestly...

Anyone have the latest (deluxe) edition of Tunnels & Trolls?

>>44033950
why dont you?

Would anyone like to give me some tips and tricks for playing the TSR 1052 Ravenloft boxed set? My loving wife got me one in pretty great condition for christmas and we are going to get a group together and play.

She also got me a module for Ravenloft as well, TSR 9352 RQ1 Night of the Walking Dead. What are your thoughts on this module?

Any mechanics I should dump, add in, or modify? What are some good hooks from your own RL games? I haven't had time to read them yet, but I'm going to read through it while waiting for some responses.

>>44036883

We'll be playing AD&D 2E by the way. My group is fairly novice, so I am going to be pretty rules light on them most of the time, but I'll emphasize the mechanics that need due to Ravenloft's genre.

So I wanted to design a mini dungeon for later, possibly next months zine if the first one ever comes out but I have to ask;

What sort of features do people MOST care about in dungeons? Is it balanced encounters? Interesting traps or puzzles? Really cool magic items/loot? Logical design, interesting characters or lore? Chances for characters of any basic class to shine? What?

Godbound, Kevin Crawford's OSR game about Exalted level demigod PCs has had a significant update. It's in a very playable state right now. You have the setting, a nice bestiary, and guidance on how to handle super high powered play.

I remember some anons expressing interest a while back. I'm sending Kevin some feedback after I run a game.

https://drive.google.com/a/surefiresocial.com/file/d/0B4qCWY8UnLrcczEwSXRRUjVXZHc/view

>>44037544
Thanks!

>>44036883
>>44036901
I'm familiar with the 1e Ravenloft module, but most of the 2e stuff is after my time, as I moved on to other games, dissatisfied with 2e's rather paltry changes. So I'd like to help, but don't actually have much to say.

>>44038049

Most of the beginning of the book just looks like mechanics changes. How about tips for running a d&d game in general in the Ravenloft setting? I'm sure 1e wanted you to make saves similar to will/fear/sanity checks right? how do you handle those? How about hooks for a first level party getting sucked into Ravenloft?

I was considering the cliche` of walking down a road before the Mists of Ravenloft appear and swoop them off to their doom.

How do people here feel about non-D&D type games that still focus on simpler mechanics and playstyles that lean more toward GM rulings and player creativity?

Stuff like Into the Odd, Searchers of the Unknown and games like that?

>>44039124
Don't know about those, but Barbarians of Lemuria is pretty cool.

>>44038574
>I'm sure 1e wanted you to make saves similar to will/fear/sanity checks right?
Not that I specifically remember, but it's been decades, so that doesn't necessarily mean much. I'm not sure the concept was completely fleshed out in that 1st module. I mean, it was a module with a particular setting, but I don't know how much it envisioned continued play within the wider world and the mechanics that would facilitate immersion in it, etc.

Sadly, the only actual Raveloft gaming I did was kind of dry and matter-of-fact. Truth be told, I find horror to be a genre that's more than a bit tricky to role-play. For instance, I love H.P. Lovecraft, but don't really understand how to successfully play CoC with a real horror tone (as opposed to monster fighters). The mood of dread and fright doesn't really come across, and acting scared or anguished gets old after a while.

So I guess I'm not really the person you want to be talking to.

>I was considering the cliche` of walking down a road before the Mists of Ravenloft appear and swoop them off to their doom.
I think this is what happened to us. You could maybe lead into it with a mission that slowly gets more disturbing. The party is hired to find and retrieve a young noble woman who fell in with a Bohemian-type crowd that led her astray and then disappeared, presumably leaving her old life behind. At first there are indications that the group is into some silly, apparently harmless new-agey-y mystical beliefs, but then the party starts uncovering evidence of a capital "C" Cult. The house at which she was staying has evidence of human sacrifice. The party sees strange lights in the woods at night and hears voices, but can't find anything when they go towards them. The house where they found lodging in town (since there is no proper inn) is ransacked while they sleep (yet somehow they don't awake), and a strange symbol is drawn in blood on their door. After that all of the townsfolk are afraid to talk to them.

>>44039478
...One of the PCs starts having disturbing dreams, while another feels like he's being followed. When the party tries to leave town, they somehow end up at the abandoned cult house, even though it's in the opposite direction. And bit by bit, they are drawn further in, with the outside world becoming less and less accessible.

>>44027942

I do it. Works fine.

>>44020805
Can someone please answer this:
Why does a pin cost 6 gp in AD&D 2E? Check chapter 6 under clothing to see what I mean

>>44025911
That is a pain in the ass to read.

>>44039603

I think it might be because it's supposed to be made from metal. Metal pins and needles would have been difficult to create with manufacturing techniques of the time.

A pin made from bone or wood would be much less expensive, but also less useful (brittle, larger, etc).

>>44027942
>>44039568

So instead of having a fixed AC bonus, they just give you your strength mod? I like that. If it gives you an AC bonus plus your strength mod though I would be against that.

>>44039689
>I think it might be because it's supposed to be made from metal.
You know what's also metal? Six gold pieces.

>>44039752

Very well. It's expensive because it's made from steel. Happy?

Things that are hard to make and in high demand are expensive anon.

>>44039752
I think it implies that it's like a decorative, brooch-type pin to put on your cloak or whatever, not just like a sewing pin.

>>44040075
That makes more sense to me. I don't think even at the height of their expensiveness a steel dressing pin cost more than a handful of pigs or a barn full of chickens.

>>44039752
Status

[ ]Not Told
[X]Told
[X]Toldstone Creamery
[X]No Country For Told Men
[X]The Vengeance Trilogy Part II: Toldboy

>>44037460
>balanced encounters
naw, au contraire
>Interesting traps or puzzles
that's good stuff
>Really cool magic items/loot
would probably replace with my own to be honest
>Logical design
Really useful, I can't into "level design"
>interesting characters or lore
always welcome, but less interesting for much of the osr crowd
>Chances for characters of any basic class to shine
Okay, as long as it doesn't feel forced.

>>44037460

What appears to be a logical or at least consistent design with what is encountered (fuck balance tho), the themes of the puzzles and the loot makes it for me. Semi submerged lizard people temple with secret doors opened by filling different rooms with water, temple golems, gold coated sacrificial eggs. As long as most of the things hang together it makes the whole experience better.

Are there any OSR clones with Sanity mechanics, or does it make that from a Retroclone into something else?

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>>44035060
>How do you guys run Whitebox OD&D games?
What, like... in terms of content, or procedurally?
Either way, have some Philotomy to start you off.

>>44040677
Just in general, honestly. Like, how do yours usually go?
Philotomy is great stuff, and I sent a copy along with the Greyharp .pdf to my sister to get her started with OD&D philosphy.

>>44039124
Superfluous, given that OD&D exists (and has existed for literally the entire history of roleplaying).

>>44040075
This is clearly the correct answer. A cloak pin that costs 6 gp presumably contains about 4 gp gold weight, which, given that gold pieces are ten to the pound in AD&D, is a pretty sizable pin.

Or it's one of those huge Celtic silver ones, that works too.

>>44040710
Well, content-wise, I don't think there's a meaningful difference between OD&D and Basic or any other OSR game; it's just a lighter ruleset that expects/requires more input from you. Some prefer that. You could do this whole OD&D implied setting thing, of course, if you wanted to go maximally characteristic.

Procedurally I personally think the main thing is to stay loose and permit the players' shit. That doesn't mean letting it *work* by any means, but like... anything from tricking a giant like in a fairytale to playing a balrog on unicorn, just roll with it. (And set the level advancement table accordingly.) Philotomy takes a slightly different route, as I'm sure you know.

I'd skip the Greyhawk book if I were you, to be honest; at the time it was probably a great product, but now if you want that you should just go with AD&D IMO.

>>44040917
Do you have a reference sheet or anything you use with THAC tables on it? I've been looking for one for OD&D, and although I do have the Ready Ref Sheets, something to print out and stick on a cardboard screen would be invaluable.

>>44036303

I uploaded that in a big pack of OSR stuff I got off IRC, and posted it to the thread about a week back. I think TroveGuy grabbed it, but he probably hasn't had time to upload it.
You could probably find it about two OSR threads back.

>>44040495

I have sanity mechanics in my homebrew, based on my threefold saving throw system. Something threatens you, you make a Refusal save (tied to the average mod of WIS and CHA) and if you fail you take say, 1d6 points of temporary damage. On a 6 it's five temp, one permanent.
WIS is straight sanity, and handles things that drive you mad. If you drop too far you'll wind up gibbering until the temp damage wears off.
CHA is force of personality, and handles mental domination magic. If you drop too low here, your mind gets hollowed out and ridden around by something else for a while.

Failing saves increases the chances you can bump up your resistance to it on next level up, as you mark each save when you fail (or pass by a slim amount) and you can roll under those marks to gain an extra +1.

>>44041403
still got that link?

>>44027942
it should be strength mod AND an AC bonus. Otherwise an average human gains nothing from carrying a shield, which is kinda daft when you consider how prevailantl 'infantry with shields' have been instrumentally.

>>44042179
*historically, not instrumentally. I'm an idiot.

That said, I'm in favour of this in theory. Maybe a shield gives an AC modifier and strength mod if used to parry, whilst just using an off-hand weapon (like a dagger or gauntlet or whatever) to parry only adds strength mod. Parrying being something you *choose* to do.

I'm kind of in favour of alternate methods of getting high AC. Stuff like the 'Frazetta Bonus' for unarmoured scantilly clad characters with high charisma.
A thought. Does a chainmail bikini/loincloth protect like chainmail in that sort of pulp setting?

I wanna give a shout out to whoever here brought up the idea of letting clerics choose what kind of creatures they should be able to Turn (ie turn undead, turn greenskins, turn demons etc)

Makes the Cleric class much more interesting.

>>44041830

Okay, I followed the links back, and it was here where I listed the big load of stuff:
http://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/43737531/#q43790090

And the link from that thread was:
anonfiles com /file/b5cae07c521f3ea7ff6fc9e6a095a41b

But it looks like I got Deluxe T&T after that, because it's not actually in that stuff like I thought.

So, one upload later, here's Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls, and the DT&T Adventure Compendium:

anonfiles com /file/e991fb6ae18af6ab310bb93a28cf8a01

>>44043668
thanks anon!

>>44042728

Thanks bro, I outlined it mechanically a bit more here.
>>44026319

>>44039716
>>44042179
>>44042252

It could be that it just adds a flat AC bonus +1 for use by people. Therefore infantry get a bonus to AC, even if it is just +1, strong people get a bigger and bigger bonus, and people too weak to effectively use it would get either nothing or even a negative.

Personally though I don't think an average soldier has an average strength score; they've been training and raising their score up for their military service, so they would get positive. Static ability scores from birth are pretty fucking stupid in my opinion, but that's also a pretty commonly argued thing.

>>44042179
>>44044732
Strength bonus +1 to AC? To balance it out, two-handed weapons could add twice strength bonus to damage.

>>44044378
You didn't invent that though. If nothing else DCC did it years ago.

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>>44045643

I never heard of it before.

I only ended up making the concept because I read in some old school manuals that Lawful (or Good) Clerics can turn undead, but evil clerics couldn't. Then I read in DnD's stuff that evil clerics could instead take control of the undead, which I thought was pretty cool, but then I thought hey, why shouldn't choatic clerics be able to turn constructs instead since it makes sense?

So then it just built into turn whatever is against your religion. War clerics turn cowards and weaklings, Fire clerics turn away things afraid of fire like wild animals, Life clerics turn undead, and so on.

I've always like turning and thought it was one of the coolest and most interesting abilites most clerics have, but obviously it has lost a lot of what made it useful in later editions of DnD and in general.

>>44045643
Does that matter? Whether he came up with it independently or nabbed the basic idea from DCC, they were talking about this guy's house rules and about "who brought up the idea here".

>>44040495
LotFP has sanity mechanics from what I can remember. Might be in the GMs guide.

>>44046360
It specifically does not, on the basis that PCs will inevitably end up acting like murderous paranoid nutjobs by dint of being PCs, without needing mechanics behind it.

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I know old school gaming is supposed to involve a lot of player skill, I get that. You're supposed to make the players afraid and learn from every mistake and consequence, death is common and interesting and makes victory more sweet.

But how can you seriously explain how new characters understand the threats the old characters have learned? Unless at least some of the party remains, you'd have to just make up entirely new threats because there is no reason why these level 1 guys wouldn't fall into the same trap as the old ones did, as nobody told them about the experience.

>>44046488
Because it's a game and my players aren't autistic.

>>44046799

What are you even trying to say?

So you don't care if your players, all playing level 1 characters, already know about what half the traps in the dungeon do or monster weaknesses without any knowledge of it beforehand?

>>44046826
Why are you throwing the same old shit at them again and again then?

>>44046360
>LotFP has sanity mechanics from what I can remember. Might be in the GMs guide.
It doesn't, Death Frost Doom uses WIS damage as a hack for it.
>>44041556
That is pretty cool.

>>44046826
They'll know all of that anyway, though. So you get around that by encouraging them to go to new dungeon levels, spicing up what monsters you use (e.g. how the Thoul looks like a Hobgoblin but is basically half Wight and half Troll), and perhaps even changing the layout of dungeon level that they've cleared.

OD&D actually had an entire little section on it:
>Maintaining Freshness: As monsters inhabiting the rooms, spaces and corridors of a level are killed or captured, the level will become drab and dull. Coupled with this problem, players will have made fairly accurate maps of the level, so it will be challengeless this way also. Remembering that egress to lower levels is desirable, one must nevertheless revamp worn levels by one or more of the several methods suggested below:

>Make minor alterations with eraser and pencil, blocking passages, making new ones, dividing rooms, and filling in others.
>Extend the boundaries of the map, if not already filled to the edges of the paper, adding corridors and rooms.
>Replace monsters in new areas as well as those less-frequented old areas where monsters were located and removed sometime previously.
>Reverse directions on the map, carefully relocating ways down to lower levels so as they still correspond to markings below, and do the same for passages upwards.
>Add a passage which continues past the established boundary of the level, creating a split or sub-level which it leads to, complete with new treasure and monsters.

>Using these suggestions, and whatever else you dream up, there is no reason why participants in the campaign should not continue to find mystification, enjoyment, excitement, and amusement in the challenge of the myriad passages of the dungeons.

And, of course, it's not like all of the monsters - or even most monsters - actually HAVE weaknesses. Beyond the norm, that is. It's a hidden map heist game at low levels that turns into a wargame at the higher, not a more modern Hack & Slash.

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Has anyone here ever run the Blackmoor dungeons found in the First Fantasy Campaign? I'm running a Whitebox OD&D game for some family (same guy from earlier!) and I'm thinking of just using them, for the fun of it, and since I'm still getting used to running OSR games.

>>44046488
>But how can you seriously explain how new characters understand the threats the old characters have learned?
"How can you seriously explain the player's ability to make new decisions after he's loaded a saved game?!" This is what you sound like. It's a GAME, fagballs! Faithfulness to the character's perspective or whatever doesn't matter any more than it does in chess or Warhams or literally any other game ever invented. Why on Earth would it?

TL;DR the old school is not for you, special ed might be more your speed.

>>44047761
No, but have wanted to. They're so weird, though, they're designed nothing like the classic D&D gridmap. One of God's own prototypes, never even considered for mass production.

That's part of the draw, of course. Just like the strange, half-comprehensible spell system.

>>44047940
The good news is that First Fantasy Campaign makes things vaaaaaaguely OD&D compatible, so I think it'll be a breeze to adapt.

>>44047874

Kill yourself.

>>44043668
You're a legend, senpai.

>>44048139
Oh, yeah, in purely mechanical terms no doubt playing through them with OD&D'll be a cinch. It's just that weird style, the long diagonal passages that end in cul-de-sacs instead of rooms... And they seem weirdly sparse to someone used to the Moldvay stocking tables.

I dunno. Daunting, like I said. Daunting, but tempting.

>>44048209
Sorry, I've got shit to do all week and I never fill my calendar farther ahead than that, on principle.

>>44049013
The sparseness creates tension, and there's a lot of loot in the occupied rooms. The empty rooms are also meant to be used as safe spaces that can be barricaded, or to facilitate combat encounters.

There's a weird sort of logic to early dungeons, and it's really fucking fascinating.

OKAY

In AD&D 2e, what do Nonweapon Proficiencies actually give you?

Basically I just need someone to explain the "Check Modifier".

I assume that to roll using a Proficiency, you roll a Skill check based on that Relevant Ability.

However, the Check Modifier can be either positive, negative, or nothing for a given Proficiency, and I can't make sense of it.

Whether a high or low roll is good, some proficiencies would actually make your roll worse, which leads me to believe my thinking is completely wrong. The Green Revised book doesn't seem to explain.

Does anyone know?

>>44049693
I don't think 2E is considered OSR. I think it's one of the reasons the OSR exists--to not be anything like 2E.

>>44050769
It was in your MEGA, I'm sorry you don't know the answer

>>44039124
well I got into the OSR through Mazes & Minotaurs(as I imagine is the case for a lot of non-grognards in my age group) so I've always been okay with such games being labeled OSR

>>44040495
lots of OSR games have sanity mechanics, they're usually optional and/or included in supplements though

>>44040917
>I'd skip the Greyhawk book if I were you, to be honest; at the time it was probably a great product, but now if you want that you should just go with AD&D IMO.
I disagree with this line of thought, AD&D 1e is a nigh unplayable mess compared to an All-Supplements OD&D, although I can appreciate running a core only game

>>44047940
>One of God's own prototypes, never even considered for mass production
I now want an adventure written like it was made by Hunter S Thompson

>>44050769
2E is considered OSR, it's just ignored by most people in the movement since mechanically it doesn't really do anything special, only thing really going for it is the settings that were released for it

>>44046488

PCs head back to town, right? And they spend downtime at the local taverns, telling tales, and maybe sharing their crudely drawn maps over a drink.
It's not a problem.

>>44049693

I gather that some skills are supposed to be harder than others to succeed at, so they modeled that with the check modifier to try to approach "realistic odds" of success.
Personally that's the kind of obsession over mapping dice probabilities that I hate; I prefer the more modern method of varying the type of outcome based on the character's skill, rather than carefully adjusting odds until you have a skilled PC who's almost certain to succeed but still has a tiny percentage chance to get "ha ha, you fail and suck" as an outcome.

>>44049693
The check modifier penalty/bonus is for adjusting your relevant ability stat, simply. If you have a priest with Int 12, Wis 17 with Religion and Ancient History as NWPs, your roll targets would be 11 or under (Ancient History, Int with -1 modifier), and 17 or under (Religion, Wis with 0 modifier). Success is roll under, natural 20 is always a failure.

>>44049693
>Whether a high or low roll is good, some proficiencies would actually make your roll worse
NWP aren't directly compatible with straight-out attribute checks. And that's one of the problems with them. You could make them compatible with some sort of house rule, like "the stats given under NWP are for specialized checks and when the DM thinks its appropriate that unskilled people would have a chance to perform them, they must take a sizable penalty to their attribute check--perhaps the worse of 2 rolls or -5."

Of course, another problem with the attribute checks is that bonuses and penalties don't seem to follow any logical pattern and are therefore just meaningless details you have to remember for no good reason. So I think it's better to drop them and have them all be flat checks, arbitrarily modified, as always, by what the DM feels is appropriate.

I do like the idea that NWP give you an extra die roll up on the average guy. So if it's normally an attribute check, you get the better of 2 rolls. And if it's a single check for a someone with the appropriate NWP, then somebody without gets the worse of 2 rolls.

One additional issue with NWP is simply that very high or low attributes tend to break the system, though this is also somewhat true with straight-out attribute checks. Ideally, I think things should be somewhere between an attribute check, and just adding your attribute modifier to a d20 roll. Something like a d12 check (roll under), where your target is 7 + your attribute modifier is closer to ideal, though you do lose out on every point of your attribute mattering, which is too bad.

Currently I'm debating if I should give my cultist class the ability to enter into blood pacts, manage their mutations/give themselves more beneficial mutations or perhaps either or perhaps both.

What kind of interesting abilities can you give a pure healing class (squishy; not like a traditional healer) to make them more interesting?

>>44050769
>>44051672
>I don't think 2E is considered OSR
This remains super fucking divisive in the OSR. The common cutoff for the old school is the Dragonlance modules, which made narrative play a huge boom and saw blockbuster sales, and 2E comes after that. It also definitely degrades its system away from old-style play; notably by doing away with XP for gold as an assumed element.

But on the other hand, you clearly still *can* play 2E old-school if you want to, there aren't that many rules you have to reinstate, and importantly, after 2009 or so a lot of the players coming into the style started roleplaying with 2E and get butthurt when told their nostalgia engine doesn't count.

This isn't a totally unbiased description because I'm firmly in the former camp myself, but I'm sure you get the idea anyway.

>>44051672
>well I got into the OSR through Mazes & Minotaurs(as I imagine is the case for a lot of non-grognards in my age group) so I've always been okay with such games being labeled OSR
Mazes and Minotaurs is explicitly based on a what-if scenario where Gygax and Arneson were big into Ancient Greek warfare and Harryhausen instead of medieval warfare and Fritz Leiber, and wrote OD&D accordingly. It's pretty much as OSR as anything gets outside of Philotomy Jurament's head. I don't think I've ever heard anybody say otherwise.

>>44055582
If it were me I'd give the class a huge hit die (d12 in the Basic paradigm of d8 normally being the highest, say), and then a power that lets them take on others' wounds to themselves by touch. Later level powers could give them regeneration and the ability to use their power at range; I think I'd also let them absorb poison and disease from others at the cost of forcing a roll on a table of disgusting mutations and deformities.
They'd have to have no armor or weapons and shit attack progression to discourage them from just wading in themselves, of course.

Call it the Martyr, say.

Hum, I think there's enough meat here to just buff up and make a ten-level for the Zine. Maybe I'll do that.

>>44055582
> pure healing class
Meh. Do we really need a healing class?

On one hand - having dedicated healer immensely boosts party
On the other hand - playing pure healer is boring.

So, it's basically "taking one for the team".


I'd rather have ubiquitous healing potions from CRPG or have healing magic greatly nerfed and go hardcore.

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>>44056004

Ehh, not really a fan of that. I want the healers to be useful and I actually am doing the take damage to heal allies thing, but giving them a huge health pool ruins it a bit. I prefer magical healing to be rare and precious; even these Cultists only use it when needed. Things like healing potions or magic wands of healing are very rare, priceless magical artifacts. If you want to heal you gotta sit out of adventuring for a while and let that shit heal yo.

Instead, these healers are squishy but have a whole bunch of healing/restorative abilities.

>>44056092

I guess pure healer was a poor term, but one of the reason why I like tabletop games is that the great diversity of things that can fuck you up means that there are MANY things you can heal!

In most video games; healing would boil down to;
>Healing health points
>reviving the dead

That's about it. Removing status effects usually isn't useful enough, buffs and debuffs are usually secondary and not as useful as pure damage, and thats about all healers tend to get; different variations of those abilites.

But in D&D and other games you have;
>Health point damage
>Attribute point damage
>Poison
>Disease
>Curses
>Special monsters
>Destabilized/dying characters
>etc.

All of these can now become fun mechanics to play around with for the healer class to try and get good at preventing and curing.

I'm also giving them a few other utility abilities not really covered by Clerics, though obviously Wizards are the big utility guys.

>>44055582
I dunno steal the idea of letting healers build up a power by healing that they then can use? Or giving them abilities to buff that very clearly makes the cool thing the fighter did a consequence of an action the healer did. Not just stat mods but like enabling stunts and what not.

>>44056175
give them a) the power to transfer their patient's damage to themselves and b) magical abilities that are only unlocked when they're low on HP.

>>44056139
>Ehh, not really a fan of that.
Fair enough; different shakes. I liked the idea myself, so I sat down and bashed out a class. Just gotta write the description and a random table and I'm done.

Troveguy, if you see this, will you accept a pastebin link posted in the thread as a zine submission? I'll put it on a time limit or something so it doesn't get *too* widespread before that issue comes out.