/osr/ - Old School Renaissance General

File: anim_roscoe.gif (14KB, 152x170px) Image search: [Google]

14KB, 152x170px

>>50936373
Old school, you say?

File: anim_guild3.gif (13KB, 156x172px) Image search: [Google]

13KB, 156x172px

>>50936434

File: anim_forest giant.gif (12KB, 152x170px) Image search: [Google]

12KB, 152x170px

>>50936447

File: anim_ogre.gif (25KB, 190x180px) Image search: [Google]

25KB, 190x180px

>>50936453

Is it wrong to make fighters really fucking good?

Anyone have any experience with Torchbearer?

File: 1477408189944.jpg (551KB, 704x1082px) Image search: [Google]

551KB, 704x1082px

>>50936544
Nah.

>>50936447
MEN OF OLD, FOR BLOOD AND GOLD

File: anim_wizard.gif (17KB, 148x172px) Image search: [Google]

17KB, 148x172px

>>50936616
HAD RESCUED SKARA BRAE!

File: alternate-reality-the-city_5.png (3KB, 320x200px) Image search: [Google]

3KB, 320x200px

>>50936725
I see your Bard's Tale and raise you an Alternate Reality

>Let me tell you of Thoreandan
>the man who bit off the dragon's hand
>no blows from his sword ever did land
>so he bit off the dragon's hand!

>paws and claws could be the cause of anyone here's demise!

File: ult2.png (4KB, 560x384px) Image search: [Google]

4KB, 560x384px

>>50937173
>Alternate Reality: The City

Never played that one, but I did play Ultima II! 2 and THHGTTG.

>>50937249
I always liked how Ultima had the Shrines of Virtue and corresponding Dungeons of Sin, like Dungeon Covetous and Dungeon Destard.

Those were some pretty good dungeons.

>>50936544
Nah. Here's my proposal for a kickass Fighter that's not another wizard (as is often the complainant on /tg/).

Armor doesn't have weight.
Damage on a miss. 2x damage on a hit. (Both from the Nightmare's Underneath)

Save or suck effects. +Strength score on hit special attack. Multiple Attacks. Enemies check morale when Fighter fights so damn good. (RC or Dark Dungeons)

Parry (Delving Deeper)

This all makes Fighters a fucking heavily armored weapon master. Hits like a truck, attacks like a blender of steel. Consistent as fuck too. Still, they're the best at fighting but not that versatile. That's the Wizard's role and time to shine.

It all highlights a problem though. It's trivially easy to mix and match retroclones and create heroically badass Wizards and Fighters. How about Thieves and Clerics?

>>50936544
>>50936609
As long as you don't make dwarves useless in the process. So if you buff the fighter, bring the dwarf along!

Has anyone tried stealing ideas from 13th Age for their more heroic OSR games? There are a lot of interesting things to steal there. The Escalation Die reduces whiffing, for instance. But I'm most interested in the monsters there. 13th Age monsters trigger attacks based on their d20 roll. The trigger condition can be something like a natural odd hit, a 16+, a natural even miss etc. Seems like a good way to spice up monsters without having to create a whole tactics table for them.

>>50938037
I'd just take it for granted that anything that applies to the Fighter applies to all the demihumans.

File: pirates_of_dark_water_by_mystic_oracle-d32rvm8.jpg (196KB, 1009x792px) Image search: [Google]

196KB, 1009x792px

>>50937936
Just let Fighters save vs any spell, in various ways, just like novel warriors usually do.

>Fireball? He dodges it.
>Mind Control? His iron will resists it while he thinks of his quest.
>Magic Missile? His sturdy shield absorbs it.
>Web? His sword cuts through it like butter.
>Stinking Cloud? He holds his breath.
>Monster Summoning? A thrown dagger kills the wizard before he invokes the last syllable. :)

>>50938721
>saving vs. magic missile

>>50938787
>That sacred cow steak sure is delicious!

>>50938721
>>50938820
most spells already ask for a "save vs spells" tho. I guess you can buff his save vs spell or something.
Besides, you want to buff the fighters ability to deal with monsters and other dungeon-crawling related problems, not buff his ability to kill his fellow party members.

I don't know why OSR is obsessed with trying to fix what ain't broke. The fighter is already one of the best class of b/x for 90% of games. When's the last time you played a game where the wizard guy survived until level 5 and got fireball? Have you ever leveled up from level 1 to level 10?

Classes from b/x that need a buff:
>Thief (a lot of retroclones already solve this problem)
>Halfling (everybody seems to hate halflings. They're shitty fighters with low max level, and can't do anything that the thieves can do besides a half-assed version of stealth)

Classes that are good enough as it is
>fighter
>dwarf
>cleric
>wizard

Slightly Overpowered classes
>elf (the level limit of 10 rarely comes to play, but the huge amount of XP needed to level up does balance things up)

If I were to make my own OSR game I'd flatten the power curve of the wizard (fuck suffering at level 1-4 in the hopes of getting OP at level 7), give the figher and the dwarf "Mighty deed of arms" from DCC (because it's fucking awesome), buff the thief (change his % to something sensible) and buff halfling somehow (make him good at fighting at least), and just give the cleric a level 1 spell at level 1 because I think it's silly that he needs to be level 2 to cast healing spells.

>>50938876
>I don't know why OSR is obsessed with trying to fix what ain't broke.
>"Mighty deed of arms" from DCC (because it's fucking awesome)

You answered your own question. Not everyone is playing the same game, and some people just want different power levels for the perceived weakness of Fighters.

Additionally, just because Fighters are good doesn't mean they are fun. Some people want to give them more interesting combat moves or special mechanics just to spice them up.

>>50939033
giving them abilities is one thing, just straight up giving them "better numbers" is what bothers me. They don't need better numbers. You don't need to make them the only ones that can learn to fighter better like in LotFP. The b/x numbers are already good enough.

>>50937936
>Armor doesn't have weight.

Breaks the balance of crawling. The protection vs move rate is a major consideration you have to weigh when doing a dungeon run.

>>50938876
>buff the thief (change his % to something sensible)
% chance is awful because it's supposed to be insurance.

File: wizardry skeletons.jpg (89KB, 557x379px) Image search: [Google]

89KB, 557x379px

>>50936434
>>50936447
>>50936453
>>50936458
What is this new-school hipster shit?

File: orthanc (1975).png (16KB, 522x479px) Image search: [Google]

16KB, 522x479px

>>50940303
>7 years younger than whitebox
Try 1 year, faggot.

>>50938876
>Halfling
Dude, B/X Halflings are awesome. Being limited to level 8 doesn't matter that much when you're the B/X equivalent of a fuckin' Ranger.

-2AC vs. large creatures, +1 ranged attacks, +1 initiative, 90%/33% hide chance? That's all pretty damn good.

And then they also don't get beaten save-wise by the Fighter until level 13, and their ranged to-hit ends up at just one point behind a 14th-level Cleric.

Who cares if you can't use longbows or zweihanders, just rock that plate & shield and becomes an invulnerable juggernaut.

Every level, Fighters get another 'thing' they can add to their special attack. They can also make a new special attack instead. They can use each special attack once per battle, day, or adventure depending on which your GM likes most.

>Special Attacks
Roll d20 vs enemy AC. Add +1 for each Fighter level above enemy HD. On a miss deal 1d4 damage anyway, on a hit deal 1d6+fighter level, counts as a magic attack.

This is only the base power though. Every time you level, add one of these powers. You can pick different powers or the same ones multiple times
>Hits +1d4 more enemies (monster HD of highest monster as leader determines monster group Hd)
>Knocks enemies prone, silenced, blinded, or unable to move for 1 round per time taken
>deals +1d6 more to enemies weak to a specific element
>Fighter heals 1 point if attack huts per tike this is taken
>Fighter gets +2 AC the round he uses this attack each time this is taken

The Fighter gets +1 to hit if the player screams the name of his special attack at the table

>>50940683
>Auto-mapping.
Revisionist trash.

File: XP Demihuman Alt (Basic D&D).png (60KB, 616x995px) Image search: [Google]

60KB, 616x995px

>>50938876
>Slightly Overpowered classes
>elf
"Slightly"? They're only a bit more than half a level behind magic-users for most of their run. They have the same spell progression. They have d6 rather than d4 hit points. They have better saves. They can wear plate armor and use any weapon. They have infravision, can detect secret door, and have the minor bonus of being immune to ghoul paralysis.

I support playing around with XP progressions.

>>50938876
>I don't know why OSR is obsessed with trying to fix what ain't broke
This really. So many people in these generals are trying to come up with all kinds of new rules for the games but I bet most of them haven't even first tried out the games as designed.

Homebrewing is fine but much of the stuff suggested here deviate from old school gaming in a pretty radical way.

>>50938876
>I don't know why OSR is obsessed with trying to fix what ain't broke.
It's PTSD from 3E, their adrenaline response is fried from overstimulus and now their nervous system is convinced that fighters are nerfed no matter what they think rationally. It's the same with people who want to "make the saves logical" as if it somehow inherently made more sense to tie saves to ability scores and many other things.

I mean, you yourself seem to believe the M-U is weak on low levels and then becomes OP in mid-high. You probably need to check your own blood enzyme levels.

>>50941773
Automapping was a thing in early D&D computer games, though not all of them admittedly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgoonTyjKoc

new to BFRPG

does it say how many spells you get per day?

>>50942464
>make the saves logical
but "make x logical it's only common sense" is what CAUSED so many of 3e's problems!

>>50942555
Yes, in the class descriptions. At level 1 a wizard gets 1 first level spell per day and a cleric gets 0, at level 2 a wizard gets 2 first level spells and a cleric gets 1 first level spell, etc etc. Pages 7 & 8 show the listing.

>>50942583

Oh ok I see it, thanks anon.

How are your adventures going so far /osr/?

>>50942565
Yes, it certainly was. There's quite a lot of "repeating the mistakes that make you come here in the first place" in /osrg/ for some reason.

>>50942891
It's a constant slippery slope, from LBB to supplements to AD&D to AD&D2 to 3e to Natural Spell. Every step of the way, it just makes sense to make a few changes, a few tweaks, surely it's common sense how things should work, it's realistic, it's verisimilitudinous, it's reasonable.

And then you pack it all in and go back to the OSR, and add a few things here, tweak a bit there, and before you know it you're rating Two-Weapon Fighting as an 11/10 feat again.

So you go back again, this time to Moldvay, but you just want tweak this one thing to make it more realistic...

There's nothing wrong with tweaking, house-ruling, and adding stuff. Sure, add a teleporting eladrin swordmage class to your basic and duct-tape on an advantage system and have a spellcasting system that makes a mage's character sheet look like an SFB SSD. Cool. Just... if you ever feel that you're changing things just to make them more realistic, or because it's how it should be, or it just makes sense, then take a step back and consider it, and think about how the original rules worked. Sometimes you need to add some bullshit rules to play as baby balrogs who grow up and have a whole balrog social class system with relationship modifiers and balrog valets like balrog jeeves, but make sure you're doing it because it's good and cool and fun, and not because "but of course it should work that way."

Hell, see what you can do with refluffing existing material, first.

>>50942679
We're 4 adventures in, but I can't seem to fit in the time for our group to do another one. It sucks, because I had to call the last session mid-way through on a cliffhanger ending- and at this rate we won't be doing another game until NFL playoffs are finally over :(

>>50942679
They're sadly non-existent. I tried to get my group to try BFRPG once but they didn't quite jive with the playstyle.

>>50942679
I had to quit running my campaign due to failing my save vs real life. Just as my players were finally getting the hang of it, too.

>>50942679
Tried to run a repainted version of A Stranger Storm with Ruinations of the Dust Princess rules.

Couldn't get my players together. It's like I'm cursed or something.

Anyone else think that /pol/ would make for cool, pulpy old-school antagonist?

The idea of cultists of a frog god using numerology and ouijia to influence current events is one that I think is flavorful and appealing

>>50943031
>if you ever feel that you're changing things just to make them more realistic, or because it's how it should be, or it just makes sense, then take a step back and consider it, and think about how the original rules worked
In other words, apply Chesterton's Fence, a principle that our entire modern world needs a stronger dose of
>In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

>>50945706
it worked for indiana jones

>>50945706
In the summer, there was a large thread on 8tg discussing just that concept. There might be some screen caps floating around.

Does anyone have any articles on Japanese reception of D&D? Hearing about the way 3LBB were misread compared to Gygax & Arneson's play, I wonder what character D&D took on there. If it did at all, maybe it was just the cRPG's coming in from the west.

>>50945729
I like this post a lot.

>>50945794
Check out this page:
>http://mystara.thorf.co.uk/jrc.php

Also, of course, it's probably worth pondering upon Record of Lodoss War and various other "replays" out there. (i.e. actual play sessions rewritten into a light novel of sorts and later adapted to other stuff.)

I remember seeing another good article on the history of D&D in Japan, but don't remember enough to google it up. IIRC it only really exploded with 3E and then now with 5E it's a bit rougher since they didn't allow translations or something? Fuck, I don't keep up with this shit.

File: ThereGoMySocks.gif (5MB, 355x200px) Image search: [Google]

5MB, 355x200px

>>50945729

>Chesterton's Fence

Thank you, that is brilliant. I'm afraid I may annoy other people with bringing that up all the time now.

>>50945729
Hear, hear.

There's far too many people who remove something just because they don't like the look of it and then don't consider the ramifications of doing so. The prime examples here being, what, GP=XP, morale, and hirelings? Everything that makes Charisma a dump stat, really.

Removing those things work just fine, it's just that you need to know why they're there in the first place so you can get an idea for what other stuff needs to be changed to compensate. If you remove GP=XP, quadruple monster XP or introduce other XP sources that equal it. If you remove morale, don't use large groups of trash mobs. If you remove hirelings, take into consideration the lowered group encumbrance, number of torchbearing hands, and lost fighting capability.

While D&D has a ton of subsystems, they're often more interconnected than they may first seem and need to be handled with care.

>>50945982
This might sound stupid, but I wonder if anyone has made a mindmap or something of all the OD&D subsystems. I guess I know most of them pretty well but it might be helpful to have just one image to check whenever I think about changing something, and what that would mean to the system as a whole.

>>50946712
I don't know if I've seen that, sadly, but it probably wouldn't take too much effort to make one - I've been interested in it myself, but I know fuck-all about making flowcharts so I never really got started.

Here's a neat complete RAW 1E combat flowchart, though:
>http://www.mediafire.com/file/0i6e652sjvk0mcn/ADnD+BtB+Combat+Flowchart.pdf
It's fucking insane and kind of amazing?

>>50946781
I'm thinking of trying to make a draft of one, then come back here and ask everyone what I got wrong or forgot.

>>50947096
Off the top of my head, remember to point out how the inheritance rule interacts with henchmen and castles.

Are there any OSR modules that doesn't feature any supernatural stuff? And if not, are there any that feature magic in a mostly subverted and subtle way? I think my group needs a bit of a break from meeting weird monsters.

>>50947521
>OSR modules that doesn't feature any supernatural stuff
You do realize what you're asking for, right?

The best you'll get is probably something that exchanges magic for sci-fi tech, I suspect, although I think I've seen a few one-page-adventures that were mostly mundane.

>>50941311
>magic attack
>deals +1d6 more to enemies weak to a specific element
>Fighter heals
so they're just weeb magic knights from your average underage panty quest XVIII now?
no thanks

>>50947521
Orc And Pie.

>>50941842
I agree, but I feel like making the first few levels take even longer is no good. Perhaps the extra XP should trigger from level 4 onwards?

>>50942464
>I mean, you yourself seem to believe the M-U is weak on low levels and then becomes OP in mid-high.
I have never survived to get to levels mid-high, so I'm just going from hear-say.

I KNOW they're weak at low levels tho. I experienced it personally. 1 spell and nothing else is too painful. That one time you get to solve an encounter by yourself is great, but the rest of the time you're just a level 0 human with delusions of grandeur.

File: 1465143470708.jpg (1006KB, 785x1252px) Image search: [Google]

1006KB, 785x1252px

>>50947586
>You do realize what you're asking for, right?
I do, but I'm doing it because the players are traveling halfway across the map and I find it to be a bit silly that every place they find on their way has some amazing supernatural thing going on with it.
So yeah, I'm favoring narrative over game right now, but I also want to know how well D&D tackles a perfectly mundane adventure.
Also, I guess any adventure that has supernatural stuff that can be exchanged to more mundane things is useful too. Like, a cave full of goblins can be exchanged by a cave full of raiders. Dungeon structures and weird (but mechanical) traps are fine too. Just as long as there isn't some magical thing that the adventure depends on to be interesting.

>>50947606
Thanks, I'll check it out.

>>50947725
>Thanks, I'll check it out.
...I checked it out. Will use it with some modification.

>>50947634
Dwarves take a bit longer (2300 instead of 2200 to get to 2nd, 5000 instead of 4400 to get to 3rd), but the cost of Elves is actually reduced at low levels (2600 instead of 4000 to get to 2nd, 6000 rather than 8000 to ge to 3rd). Granted, elves are also depowered a bit (lagging behind in spell progression), but elves still being 1st until fighters reached 3rd was one of the things I wanted to remedy. Essentially, elves start off really powerful at 1st level, lacking only a fighter's d8 hit dice, but otherwise having all their advantages plus a spell, slightly better saves, infravision and so forth. But when an elf is only 1/2 way to 2nd level, fighters reach 2nd, and then have 2d8 hit points compared to an elf's d6. I'd rather smooth that out a bit and not have an elf overshadow a fighter so much at 1st, but not lag so far behind that they get overshadowed after the fighter reaches 2nd.

File: Art10.jpg (2MB, 2560x1440px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 2560x1440px

>>50942679
I got two groups.
group 1, running a campaign loosely based on BG1 (some dude wants to become the new god of murder) 8 adventures in, suffered a TPK 2 adventures ago at the climax of the campaign. So now there's a new god of murder who murdered the god of justice, baldurs gate has been destroyed, and neverwinter is under siege.

The new characters are a group of wannabe super-heroes themed around birds (called themselves the Carrion Brids) who are gathering allies to save the sword coast.

The other group is running a modified X1 - isle of dread. Rather than going to the place to loot it, the players are mercenaries hired to help the kingdom of karameikos colonize it. We're two adventures in. Just finished cleaning up a secure safe bay for the pioneers, now exploring an ancient temple in the jungle (that I added to the adventure)

Also the players got 3 owlbear eggs and are going to try to tame them.

>>50947725
What exactly do you mean by "magical thing"?
Would a murderous masked cult that tries to summon a dead god/demon/faerie with lengthy rituals count as "magical thing"? I mean, it's just some people with weird beliefs...

>>50947725
>I do, but I'm doing it because the players are traveling halfway across the map and I find it to be a bit silly that every place they find on their way has some amazing supernatural thing going on with it.
I think it's less that there's crazy magical shit every two feet, and more that you skip over all the parts where there's no adventure.
If the players want to fight some regular brigands that's fine, but if they're like the players I know they'll probably be asking "Why doesn't the town guard just handle this?"

>>50947770
Oh yeah, that makes sense. I'm gonna steal it.

>>50947784
>The other group is running a modified X1 - isle of dread. Rather than going to the place to loot it, the players are mercenaries hired to help the kingdom of karameikos colonize it. We're two adventures in. Just finished cleaning up a secure safe bay for the pioneers, now exploring an ancient temple in the jungle (that I added to the adventure)
This sounds really cool. Do players get any say in how the colony is run?

>>50947725
>Like, a cave full of goblins can be exchanged by a cave full of raiders.
What's supernatural about goblins? They're fictional, but they're not fantastic.

>>50947897
Yes. I stole a bit from One ring: adventures on the edge of the wilds, where at the end of the adventure, I relate "the tale of the years" where a year pass and I say everything that will happen during the year. And each player can interrupt one event, and explain how his character being in the event would alter it.

Like say, the lizardmen attack the village. The figher says "I was there and I helped the militia defend the place", and so on. If it makes sense, they help make the colony more prosperous.

>>50947809
That's fine as long as they aren't practicing real magic. They might think they are, but they're doing it wrong. The problem with that though is that it probably removes a lot of the danger from the situation, but I guess the players don't have to find out.

>>50947862
My players haven't really thought that far, they generally just do what they're told.
But you're right that I can make them aware of the non-adventure parts. Any advice on how to do that without boring the players?

>>50947914
My campaign is set in "the real world, but there are hidden mythical beings". I blame James Raggi and my friend who wanted history rather than fantasy. Basically every instance of supernatural and mythical stuff just makes it more and more odd that it just happens to be the PCs who run into these things and not anyone else.

>>50947969
>But you're right that I can make them aware of the non-adventure parts. Any advice on how to do that without boring the players?
If they have a set destination they are traveling to then I would just tell them a few interesting things they would have encountered in between adventures. Try to keep it short, just a few sentences unless the players want to interrupt. It doesn't have to be much, just what they would've seen or heard along the way.

What would be a nice class feature for the Ranger class in BFRPG that isn't Favored Enemy ?

>>50948576
Favored Terrain? With the ability to track things, gather resources, etc. while in their Favored Terrain.

Just heads up, there's a Traveller general up now. >>50947342

(I'd be interested in OSR folks' take on the Rule 68A thing I just posted, which is a set of guidelines for making on-the-fly rulings within the Classic Traveller system.)

File: Bloodborne silver trickweapon.jpg (82KB, 1024x640px) Image search: [Google]

82KB, 1024x640px

>>50947598

>He doesn't want animu fighters with awesome cool special attacks
>He doesn't want his players chucking a handful of dice and screaming "ONE MILLION SLASHES OF THE DIVINE TEMPEST!"

I pity you. I really do.

>>50948896
yeah but to be fair a good player can do that by rolling a regular fighting man, dwarf, elf, or even hobbit. or cleric except for the slashing thing. hell even a wizard, they can shank people and you can get pretty big knives, just save the spells for boring stuff and go crazy on stabbing people. no-one expects the wizard to stab people, hang out at the back and throw stones and complain loudly about having cast your one spell for the day until the goblins focus on the rest of the party, then KNIVES FOR DAYS

just remember to wear a red robe

Is Chainmail and Wilderness survival the only things I need to read and learn before OD&D to understand it, or are there other games that I should take a look at that has important things that aren't clearly laid out in the OD&D rules?

You know, in Runequest 6, this was this type of magic called Mysticism, which was basically all kinds of martial arts well mysticism, mind-over-body, mastery of yourself kind of stuff. Basically, you could focus yourself in different ways and activate effects that either boosted your capabilities in some way, or gave you supernatural capabilities like being able to stick to climb on any surface, hold your breath nearly indefinitely, see in the dark, sense things and suchlike fairly low key, nonflashy powers that only affect the user.

I really liked the idea, and it jived well with the kind of aesthetic I like in my fantasy. I always liked the older, original trilogy -style of depiction of the jedi, for example, where they're more like dudes who have useful abilities if you apply them correctly, and less like all-powerful superheroes. I want more of that in my stuff.

Sadly, RQ6 as a system just didn't work for me. But I've been thinking that something like that would work pretty well for OSR. A class with tools that can be very powerful if used correctly, but that can't just be used to bruteforce every situation feels pretty much straight at home here. Maybe I need to homebrew something like that in, unless someone has already done it.

File: netheril.map.two.png (7MB, 2271x1526px) Image search: [Google]

7MB, 2271x1526px

Netheril map #2. The Realms from on high, 1491 NY. Fixed a dark area.

>>50949401
>>50949472
Is there a version without the notes?

>>50949443
Literally psionics.

>>50949490
Heh, I guess, at least if you cut off the more telekinetic-y stuff and focus on the personal side of things.

Are there any good psionic rules in any OSR system or just OD&D rules? I haven't seen too much of that stuff in anywhere.

Is there a wuxia OSR system?

>>50949551
Flying Swordsmen is as close as it gets, I think. Though since it's a retroclone of Dragonfist it's not strictly OSR.

http://lordgwydion.blogspot.cl/p/flying-swordsmen-rpg.html

>>50949304
You don't need anything else but the three booklets. Chainmail is useful to read through, I give you that, but it's not needed at all.

>>50949598
neat

>>50949598
just dl'd it.
>it's not strictly OSR.
it does say "OSR compatible" on the cover.

>>50949663
I was thinking about the source. Dragonfist was this weird 2E/3E hybrid that came right before 3E.

>>50949663
>it does say "OSR compatible" on the cover.
Whatever that means.

>>50949723
I always take that to mean that you can grab a monster from b/x and it works with little to no conversion (max amount of conversion needed for OSR compatibility in my mind is changing AC from going down to going up).

But that's just me. Who knows what the authors mean.

>>50949477
On some old ZIP Disc at WotC's TSR storage unit maybe

>>50949756
Shame
I wish more campaign settings provided noteless world maps alongside their regular world maps. One Ring: Adventures over the edge of the wilds does that.

>>50949540
The Eldritch Wizardry psionics are workable, but you'll want to reread it a few times to get through the godawful editing.

You may or may not actually want to keep the psionic combat - I'm personally not too fond of that way of handling it, but I've seen some arguments vis á vis the demons using it as a psuedo-sanity system that warmed me up to it a bit.

Feel free to ask questions if it confuses you - god knows it confused me.

>>50949540
The AD&D 1e system is a shitty unplaytested port of the Eldritch Wizardry stuff.
The AD&D 2e system is a shitty graft of the NWPs system, but it's worth a look.
The Player's Options system is a shitty unplaytested remake of the 2e stuff.

Eldritch Wizardry is absolutely worth a look though.
The ~2% chance to be psionic (and constant rolls on the insta-rape psionic monster tables) were because Gygax didn't want to run the system.
Incidentally, none of it is playtested. The combat (and matrices) are especially bad, but everything else about the system is an (unpolished) gem.

On that topic,
>>50949551
don't know any good systems, but Psionicist Fighting-Men from OD&D are the closest D&D (any edition) has ever gotten to a Wuxia vibe.

Is there any OSR podcast of people actually playing old school style?
I have no group and want to feel the atmosphere.
Preferable a serious RP group, minimal out of character jokes.

>>50949540
>any good psionic rules in any OSR system or just OD&D rules?
No, just take inspiration on D&D 3.5 psionics, the best take ever done

Since we're talking about wuxia and psionics, any giant robot OSR?

I'm just curious at what kinds of exotic OSR games are there.

>>50949864
Yeah i would like this too

>>50949885
Doesn't SWN have mecha rules in the paid version?

>>50949842
Has anyone ever tried to fix or playtest the psionics system and managed to make it better?

>>50949864
>Preferable a serious RP group, minimal out of character jokes.
I don't think you'll find many old school D&D groups like that.

>>50949885
Godbound has mechs.

>>50949992
I know that PX1 Basic Psionics was supposed to be an attempt at that, but I never got around to reading the damn thing.

IIRC they asked around, figured out that the EW psionics was literally three separate subsystems cobbled together, and tried to separate them into classes and stuff?


Personally if I were to try to fix psionic combat it would just end up being me nicking the Power Combat from Mentzer's Immortal set. Why bother with complicated rock-paper-scissors matrices when you could go for literal rock-paper-scissors?

>>50950066
Does SWN have mechs? I think I remember hearing something about that, but it might just have been a comment on how it didn't.

>>50949304
Grab a PDF of the old judges guild first fantasy campaign book for post-od&d reading - it describes a bit of the blackmoor games that were turned into d&d. Iirc it has the investment/development rules that are hinted at but not provided in od&d. Plus, cool gaming history.

>>50949885

We could make one up.

>KAJIU KILLERS OSR
>Everyone pilots a giant robot
>Classes include different robot chasis; rocketeers, sword fighters, punch-bots, elemental spewers (the 'wizard' class; giant flame/ice/electric throwers as weapons), maybe support bots that can heal/power other robots
>Monsters have special attacks and abilities as well, some can fly, some fire energy blasts, some have tiny minions that try to climb up into the giant robot and kill the pilots
>Raid the ruins of NuTokoyo for secret mech technology and valuable monster eggs in their nests, selling them back to science teams so they can figure out the monsters and how to stop them once and for all

>>50950117
>Iirc it has the investment/development rules that are hinted at but not provided in od&d.
Ayup. Somewhat lackluster, I suppose, but there.

Those hex populating rules are bonkers, though. What the hell was Arneson thinking when he drafted those?

>>50950132
Id play it.

>>50950098
>PX1 Basic Psionics

It's by the wankers at New Big Dragon Games Unlimited, who are responsible for Trove takedowns.

I like Courtney Campbell's Psionics: A New Old-School Supplement, though I haven't gotten to test it out yet.

>>50949885
The NOD zine had mecha osr in a few issues

>>50949864
I can't talk for everyone, but in my experience, that's really not the usual style of OSR play. Character lethality is high, especially on lower levels, so OSR systems tend to really not be too conducive to serious RP all the time.

I mean, sure, our group does have character play, but humor is a big part of it. If you go all serious about trying to portray the hopes, wishes and woes of Random Shitkicker Number 16, who might die in the opening salvoes of the first combat he gets into, or in a random trap, you're going to be frustrated really quickly.

In our group, what happens for the first couple of levels basically *is* the character's backstory. Usually, they're just random hapless fools who've gotten into this because they're outcasts, criminals or just out of luck and options in general. Go big or go dead, and all that. Until they've a couple of levels and some certainty that they won't die right away, then we start coming up with actual characterizations.

Most of them die anyway, but at least it usually takes longer and they can get something actually done.

File: 1382478383093.jpg (751KB, 3022x2143px) Image search: [Google]

751KB, 3022x2143px

>>50949885
SWN and Godbound have been mentioned already, and Colonial Troopers has Power Armor(as it's basically OSR Starship Troopers), been contemplating creating a dedicated Mecha OSR system though

>>50950098
>Does SWN have mechs? I think I remember hearing something about that, but it might just have been a comment on how it didn't.
it has both Mechs and Power Armor, it's an okay implementation, but like most things in SWN it's both underpowered and feels incomplete

>>50950132
somewhat lines up with some of my ideas for a Mecha OSR game, which I'll outline a couple of below;

>Pilots only have the three classic Mental stats(INT, WIS, CHR) and one new stat, PSY which measures psychic ability(what good is Mecha without Newtype shenanigans after all), as the default assumption is that any adventuring and combat will happen while piloting

>Physical stats(STR, CON, DEX) are determined purely by the mech or other vehicle you pilot

>replacing Race is Chassis Type, which reflects the size class of your Mecha(or other vehicle), the size classes are Light, Medium, Heavy, and Super-Heavy(what these sizes represent in terms of range I'm not entirely sure, but I'm thinking Medium would be something like 15 to 25 Meters in height, basically the standard Gundam height range)

>instead of class we have have Combat Role, exactly what roles and how many there'd be is still up in the air, but I'm thinking it'd be something like how Team Fortress 2 or Killing Floor divvy up their classes/roles, with a couple extra ones to handle some of the weirder more Mecha specific concepts(like Funnel users, or Combiners, or Transforming units)

>weapons are often handled like weapons usually are in OSR systems, but some are handled more like how spells and other powers are


I'd go into this more(including my ideas for setting), but I'm out of room

File: north.the.jpg (3MB, 3019x1688px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 3019x1688px

>>50949472
The notes are good. Waterdeep is the port inhabited by idiots.

>>50950796
>OSR Starship Troopers
that sounds awesome

On mecha OSR, I'm thinking of making my own too, using 3 classes
>Super Robot (fucking huge, lots of hp, flashy nonsensical weapons)
>Real Robot (smaller, fast, relies on dodging due to lower hp, mostly "normal" weapons)
>Support Robot

Heavily stealing from the super robot wars games.

File: illustrated book of bad arguemnets.png (324KB, 664x600px) Image search: [Google]

324KB, 664x600px

>>50950350
Bad people can do good things, mein friendo.

Reporting on the flying swordsmen game

It's not too interesting, martial arts maneuvers are pretty much treated as feats (increase unarmed damage, learn to use weapons, get more AC) with very few giving you new options (make an attack that can stun).

The one interesting mechanic is the "stunt die". Basically, instead of getting +1, +2, or +3 from your stats, you get 1d2, 1d3, 1d4, and 1d6. You add those dice to the relevant rolls (str die adds to melee, dex to ranged, and so on, with the special Int die which can add to anything for some reason), but you can also declare a "stunt" which is pretty much any "cool" action description (examples used are "knock over a table" and "cut rope to drop barre of fish on enemy"). To resolve a stunt you roll 1d20+relevant stunt die vs gm determined target number.

The stunt die is cool, could be stolen for some other games.

>>50950956

Nobody said otherwise, but they still deserve to have their shameful behavior put on display.

How do you guys go about making your OSR homebrews?

Do you start with classes, and then move from there or what?

>>50951048
Yeah, sounds about right. One thing about Dragonfist IIRC is that you couldn't play a "pure" class, you had to take a 2E style kit that defined your maneuvers. So not just a fighter, but a shaolin-style monk or a Taoist swordsman and so on.

>>50951290
flying swordsmen strongly advises the player to pick a kit or as they say a "profile" but they do have rules for kit-less standard classes.

>>50951279
Start with a central resolution mechanic (if you plan on having one).
Then tack on subsystems as applicable.

You should decide on classes early on, but wait til you've done all that before actually making them.
And start working on monsters before you do class advancement.

>>50951323
Makes sense, having that sort of direction helps a bit, thanks.

File: Dragonfist01.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50951318
Figures.

I'm gonna post Dragonfist. It used to be a free download, I think, so it should be cool. I'm not even sure who has the license for it now: it went from WotC to Green Ronin last I heard.

File: Dragonfist02.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50951410
Please forgive the multiple files, it's how it came to me.

>>50951428
eh, it's not a big deal, thanks for uploading it.

File: Dragonfist03.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50951428
Note the 3E-style layout but references to 2E. A little piece of RPG history if nothing else.

File: Dragonfist04.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50951446

File: DragonFist05.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50951458

File: DragonFist06.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50951471

>>50951496

File: DragonFist07.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50951512
er, file.

File: Nonhuman warriors.jpg (195KB, 1280x724px) Image search: [Google]

195KB, 1280x724px

>>50951279

I'm a pretentious twat. That's a good starting point.

To be more specific; I read lots of roleplaying blogs, see lots of posts on /tg/, read game manuals in my spare time. I like a lot of what I find, but it's scattered everywhere, each in a different rulebook each in a different game. So I start to compile and combine mechanics together, creating something new and frankenstien up a rulebook that I think is interesting before throwing it back into the dusty shelf and doing it again because surely this 'new' collection of rules and ideas will work well together!

But you know how it is. The best part is whenever I find a ruleset that just isn't working together I know that there is a final piece to the puzzle, and when I find that piece it feels so good.

File: dragonfist09.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50951540
Don't ask me about file no.8, it's how these are numbered.

File: DragonFistAppendix.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50951560

File: DragonFistTOC.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50951575
Done.

>>50951594
Thanks.

>>50951594
thanks anon

>>50951605
>>50951614
No probs.

Another thing I kinda liked was how focused the game was. There's no plot point campaign or anything like that, but it seems the expectation is that PCs grow in power, collect allies and magic weapons, hit the level cap of 10 and then go face the evil Emperor and let the dice fall where they may, whether that's victory or TPK. You could play other stuff with it, of course.

File: 035qfd5e0pmx.jpg (1MB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1920x1080px

Does anyone have any opinions on or experience with Yoon-Suin?

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144820/YoonSuin

I picked it up today after reading the preview because it reminded me of that first moment of frisson I got reading Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books.

Exotic locales, strange cultures, odd monsters, slug-men, opium...

>>50951898
I haven't run a game using it in toto, but I have used tons of stuff from it, particularly the drugs, teas and poisons. It's really awesome, one of my favorite OSR books.

>>50951898
Haven't run a game set in it, but I've used many of the tables to generate city politics, bandits and decaying ruins.

I've got a city beyond the far north on the map that's probably going to be largely based on/in it, but no one's gotten there yet. Too busy fighting centaurs (half-man half-motorcycle variety)

File: 1477503678446.jpg (197KB, 646x900px) Image search: [Google]

197KB, 646x900px

Apparently James Raggi is looking for new writers or something on Google+, and Patrick Stuart mentioned Cavegirl.

>>50952660
When was the last time Raggi actually did something himself? Other than Slügs, which is a pretty small something. I don't even remember what his last thing was. Some other Free RPG Day thing a couple of years back?

>>50952780
He's working on next year's Free RPG Day thing, and he's also working on his referee guide which is apparently going to be massive. I think he mostly wants to give other authors a chance to get their ideas published right now.

File: TSR9234_Dungeon_Master's_Design_Kit.jpg (75KB, 421x547px) Image search: [Google]

75KB, 421x547px

Is this worth checking out or is it a waste of time?

File: Gary Gygax - Master of the Game.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50953073
Near as I can tell, that's garbage. But it's under a hundred pages. Just read it, if you're curious.
Pic related is a must read, if you haven't already.

What's a good name for an OSR blog?

>>50954453
Fragmentations of the Venerean Marchioness.
OR
Skeleton Butts, LOL

File: Dragon Fist.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50951410
Here Is Dragon Fist, merged.

>>50950388
This is how old school is supposed to be played.

>>50951279
Rule number one: Don't change something just for the sake of change. You'll probably make it worse in the process.

But I guess before you even want to make your own game you should really have a strong concept in mind. Something that's different from all the other games in a concrete way. There's literally no reason to make Just Another Clone for the umpteenth time.

>>50952780
>When was the last time Raggi actually did something himself?
He runs a company himself.

>>50949864
Piggybacking off of this, what are some good actual play OSR podcasts in general, regardless of tone?

I've been listening to that G1-3 podcast that True AD&D anon posted a thread or few ago, but I'd like to know of any more just to create a backlog.
For convenience in case anyone asks for it
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46445073/giants/giants.xml

>>50955728
ggnorecast.com

They used to playtest WotC 5e campaigns, got sick of them and now they run Deep Carbon Observatory using Into the Odd. Also they discuss what's been great about the adventure and what hasn't.

>>50950132
>KAJIU KILLERS OSR
OD&D LBB.

You have two character sheets, you and your mech.

Mechs are tall.

Damage dice rolled from a person to a mech or kaiju are at -5 and only do a point of damage on a 6, damage dice rolled from a mech or kaiju to a person are doubled.

It takes the entire party to carry one piece of mech-scale treasure or equipment, if they don't have a mech or friendly kaiju available.

Kaiju do not have a human-scale form, unless they do.

>>50956268
oh right I forgot: you and your mech don't have to be the same class, and xp you gain from treasure as a human can be spent on your mech.

if your mech dies or gets trashed you just steal a new one or something idk, maybe rig up a system of pulleys and buttons in a raised kaiju skeleton and slap some armour on that bad boy.

>>50954604
Yo, thanks for this.

>>50953544
>must read
What are some other must reads, btw? I'm pretty garbage at running games.

>>50956844
Skimming through the 1E DMG is always a neat thing to do. You don't need to actually follow all the advice given there - I'm personally against Gygax' opinions on monster PCs in the DMG, for instance - but it gets your mind going and makes the possibilities more obvious.

>>50956844
My favorites in no particular order:

hackslashmaster blogsp0t com/2012/11/on-guide-for-new-dungeon-masters.html - for new DMs. Also check out his Quantum Ogre series.

goblinpunch blogsp0t com/2016/01/dungeon-checklist.html - useful dungeon design advice

dndwithpornstars blogsp0t com/2011/05/method-for-making-d-sandbox.html - the simplest way you can start your sandbox

I also love Angry GM. He isn't OSR, his articles are incredibly wordy but they're also pretty great. You can try and tackle sometimes.

Also check out OSR Links to Wisdom wiki for literally anything related to OSR gaming you want to learn more about.

Still, the most important thing is just running more games. You'll get better. You can't possibly use every advice there is consistently, so run your game and read something once in a while. You'll introduce good practices to your style over the course of play.

>>50956951
you can just change the blogspot url to blogspot.co.nz and post the full link - it's easier that way. For instance,

goblinpunch.blogspot.co.nz/2016/01/dungeon-checklist.html

>>50956960
Oh, neat. Thanks.

>>50949477
This is a scan of the original - what you see is what you get im afraid

Does anyone have Hubris, for DCC? Can't see it anywhere.

File: Untitled.png (30KB, 400x561px) Image search: [Google]

30KB, 400x561px

>>50956960
Not that Anon, but it's also convenient to preface with http:// or https://
The setting that turns URLs to Links won't work without those.

What's a good place to find cool things to populate your hexes/dungeon rooms?

be it monster fights, role playing opportunities or just interesting locales. I'm populating my overworld map and feel like too many of the hexes are just monster lairs.

>>50957663
Turns out asking here is the magic action that makes my next search successful. Send space, /file/dzu8bt if anyone else wants it.

File: Wilderness_Hexplore_revised.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50959811

>>50959871
Oh that's pretty awesome, thanks!

>>50945729
tl;dr - Don't change shit until you understand that shit and know how it fits with all the other shit.

>>50960077
That's not brief. Get better at paraphrasing:
>Don't change things if you know why they're there.

>>50960221
>don't undo, unless you know what the do does

File: 1284796632528.gif (176KB, 480x360px) Image search: [Google]

176KB, 480x360px

>>50954604
helpful as always - keep being you!

>>50960221
>Don't change things if you don't know why they're there
ftfy

File: Demon Tainted Waters.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50959811
folks from /osrg/ made a bunch of cool tables

File: Within_a_Dark_Forest.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50959811
>>50960674

File: Fantasy Vienam Jungle.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50960976
I have no idea who made them, but they're pretty dope

>>50960674
>>50960976
>>50961006
thanks m8

>>50960221
Not brief. Paraphrase better:
>Don't.

>>50961177
Briefn't. Paraphraser.

>>50961484
>>50961177
>.

File: Peasant_Village&Farmland_Encounters.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50961015

REAL FUCKIN' HEMINGWAYS, RIGHT HERE.

Incidentally, that's a good OSR blog name. I'd use it if I had anything worth writing about.

File: The Nine Hells by Ed Greenwood.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

Here's good reading.

>>50960674

Those are all made by one folk'.

Me

File: 1450319944316.jpg (1MB, 2000x2996px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 2000x2996px

>>50962552
I've always thought that the Nine Hells were one of the more interesting planes in the D&D cosmology.

>>50963350
They're dope. I've used them in my games a few times, thanks!

Somewhat a shitty/pedantic edge case but I'd like to know.

How would people feel about giving each class's primary abilities a different method of recharging them?

Fighters build them in combat rounds, and release them in the same combat encounter.

Rogues gain back their luck when they press their luck and grab idols and shit, like a rogue would.

Wizards recharge their spells by studying them again, as a studious Wizard should do.

Clerics restore their faith/powers by doing things their God approves of, like getting new followers or destroying hated monsters.

I'm really enjoying the concept of this.

>>50947725
You can make the raiders supernatural. Like the soldiers of a fallen empire cursed to wage eternal war, their weapons worn, armor battered, and eyes made with battle-lust

>>50964562
except that's exactly the opposite of what old mate is asking for

>>50964135
I keep looking for pizza symbology hidden in layer 6 since that's where Moloch lives

>>50964420
>Rogues gain back their luck when they press their luck and grab idols and shit, like a rogue would.

Ehhhhh. Sounds pretty rife for a abuse, and I'd personally find it annoying if the only way I'd be able to do thief-y shit is to go out and randomly take undue risks. Doesn't make much sense for a narrative sense either imo.

File: LOTFP-grindhouse-cover.jpg (74KB, 495x640px) Image search: [Google]

74KB, 495x640px

>>50947725
>I also want to know how well D&D tackles a perfectly mundane adventure.
Well enough. Especially if you pull those darn magic-using characters out of your party and take away their supernatural toys.
Sarcasm mode off for a moment - the "encounters" people run into are usually >noteworthy< things, not literally everything in the hex. A one-league hex has something like enough space for six or seven small commots, an old abandoned roman fort, the entrance to a Lair (probably just a bear or some wild dogs), a highwayman or three, a bunch of leftover ruins/barrow-graves/a sacked monastery and a small town. But adventurers aren't really going to give a shit about those. Unless they can get swag from them or someone jumps them, anyway.

>Also, I guess any adventure that has supernatural stuff that can be exchanged to more mundane things is useful too.
the Encounter list in Better than Any Man is a good place to start.
>Pull Insect Creature, Glass Tiger, Giant Ant, Possession, Invisible Insects, and The Skinned Man
>Replace with Bear, escaped actual tiger, wolves, good old botflies, Ague exposure, and some kind of wandering human murderer respectively.
There you go. Keep the 5% chance for the wandering goodwife to be a witch. Can't have it be >reliably< non-magical, after all.

Another good source for encounters is the DragonQuest adventure "Magebird Quest", which is pretty damned low-fantasy. There are several small towns and a large area of countryside that's been cleared of the Weird. I'll be back with more later, but for now I got to head out to a party.

Help me /osr/, I can't decide between Labyrinth Lord and Basic Fantasy and it's causing me real stress.

>>50965310
Basic Fantasy is cheaper, has race-and-class and ascending AC.

File: Labyrinth Lord vs Basic Fantasy.png (567KB, 1156x2560px) Image search: [Google]

567KB, 1156x2560px

>>50965310

>>50965562
>Basic Fantasy is cheaper, has race-and-class and ascending AC.
So it's a mixed bag?

File: kirk smirk.gif (797KB, 320x240px) Image search: [Google]

797KB, 320x240px

>>50966294

Heh, that's what I was thinking.

File: 1478558575478.jpg (612KB, 1024x1536px) Image search: [Google]

612KB, 1024x1536px

>>50965310
Depends on what you're looking for. Both are almost the same game with the major differences being ascending vs descending ACs as well as race-as-class vs race & class. However, they are both built from Basic at their cores and conversion between the two (as well as between them and Basic) are very easy. Personally I prefer Basic.

>>50966532
>Poor sod found the wrong skull
Bummer.

>>50966580
It's obviously a police sketch.

"Okay ma'am, and what did the forth symbol on the forehead of the skull look like?"

"I don't know. I think it was an X with a sort of zigzag descending from it--maybe something in between a L and less-than sign."

"Like this?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Alright, we'll put this out there. We'll let you know if we find anything, but in the meantime, it might be a good idea if you brought a friend the next time you went to the market. If he sees you with company, the demon skull might think twice about accosting you again."

>>50965310
Go with ACKS
Everybody should be playing ACKS

failing that, Labyrinth lord because race as class is the coolest thing and I won't hear anyone say otherwise.

Is there any book or blog or something I can check to gain an understanding of why saving throw numbers are the way they are? With armor class I can understand the basis of wanting to have something like a 50% chance to hit an unarmored person, but when I look at saving throws I just see a bunch of arbitrary numbers that sometimes changes by one or two.

>>50969983
From what I've heard, they were mostly balanced by gutfeel. At least to begin with.

Using the Fighter as the default option, though, you start with...
>45% chance to avoid death rays/poison
>40% chance to avoid wands
>35% chance to avoid petrification
>30% chance to avoid dragonbreath
>25% chance to avoid spells

The other classes are mostly just +-5% to that base value, and then some squiggles in how they advance (the magic-user gets +3 vs. spells in some tiers, for instance, while the fighter gets +3 vs. dragon breath.)

If I'd have to guess, the basic idea was to start with a 25% chance of avoiding a spell and then just making other more dangerous/weak stuff easier to defend against, roughly in order.
Dragon breath can kill you, but can be resisted through pure hit point bloat; petrification is the most non-permanent of save-or-dies; wands are weak-ass shit (or, alternatively, extremely dangerous at low levels since they don't scale); death rays and poison just straight-up kill you.

>>50968001
What if I don't like proficiencies?

[Spoiler] I love the multiple classes tho [/spoiler]

>>50970257
I see, I think I get it a bit more now. Thanks for the help anon.

>>50955992
I've been watching that and I have a question about Into the Odd. Are arcanums supposed to be that powerful? Like one of them started the game with an item that insta-kills anything with a skeleton as long as they make a save, and their is no consequences for a failed save.

>>50971571
>*I've been listening to that

>A choice between two identical dungeon corridors isn't a choice
This is really tough to process to me. How do you make a fork in the road (especially when there's a lot of them like in a megadungeon) a meaningful choice?

>>50972510
Who are you quoting? Anyway, if you have no clue about the dungeon at all then yes, that seems like it would lead to a random choice. However, the players could potentially ask the DM for things like sounds, smells, light etc. or the DM can just straight up tell the players that. Also, maybe the players have an idea that they want to go eastward or westward in the dungeon, or maybe the dwarf notices a slope or something.

>>50972510
>especially when there's a lot of them
Don't make a lot of them. The first room should have several straight away, but after that there should be very few. Mostly looping parts together.
Also, why are the dungeon corridors identical? Differentiating them is probably a good place to start.

File: BF-Thief-Options-Supplement-r2.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50965310
I love BFRPG. With all the free supplements on their website, you're open to tons of additional races and classes, optional skill supplements, weapons and armor, cantrips etc. as well. And the physical book is $5.

>>50972510
A choice between two identical dungeon corridors isn't much of a choice... but once you've gone down one of them have have information about what's beyond, it IS a meaningful choice.

Basically, megadungeons as a concept are optimized for repeat playthroughs. The "choice" while in your first exploratory probes is less "which corridor do I go down?" and more "do I continue on into the unknown, or turn back?"

In a megadungeon there's also two other notable choices that can actually have some manner of informed decision - stairs and doors. corridors are a bit of a crapshoot, though.

File: ruinationscs.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50945685
>https://www.docdroid.net/FrxCKOl/ruinations.pdf.html

Make sure you got the updated version, Anon. I've made some slight changes throughout.

(Changed the chance of Sullied mutating per level, fixed the wrestle/grapple rules, clarified firearm initiative is for dueling etc.)

File: Dead North.png (503KB, 1506x750px) Image search: [Google]

503KB, 1506x750px

>>50972700
PS, could the guy who handles the Trove actually remove Ruinations from the LotFP folder? I'd rather have people getting the current version from here (it gets sporadic updates) than on the MEGA.

>>50972700
Thanks!

Just in case I'm missing it, did the Raging Swan pieces appear on the trove already?

>>50972833
Just FYI, you've got the nuclear symbol in the legend on the right, but the actual contaminated area on the map uses the biohazard symbol.

Also, the colors for the contaminated regions and the volcanic areas are pretty similar - maybe consider getting some more contrast in there?

Also, what's the terrain like in those yellow hexes with the sites of interest in them? That should probably be either the same color as the actual terrain there or else have something in the legend explaining it.

The one that really sticks out is the primitive temple in the top-middle.

You probably also want to include those domed cities (top right, one with flat bottom and one more Jetsons-esque), tanks (left-centre island), cities(?) (bottom-centre) and Space Marine helmets (northwest coast) in the legend, or else replace them with stuff that's actually in the legend.

Oh, and those upright spaceships. They don't actually seem to be in the legend either. I'm assuming they're either missile silos or space rocket launch platforms or something?

I haven't actually read your system, but those things stuck out on me on the map.

important wizard facts: https://jrients.blogspot.co.nz/2016/11/ard-times-for-mus.html

wizards are assholes

>>50973125
>wizards are assholes
Newsflash.

So how do you introduce aliens and spaceships and things into your campaign without it feeling like a one-off gimmick?

>>50973368
Use them more than once and reasonably consistently?

>>50973030
I just generated a random map here:
http://wizardawn.and-mag.com/tool_world.php

>>50973423
Playing around with that a bit, it looks like you happened to cut off some bits of the legend.

Looks like spess mehreen helmets are military bases, spaceships are space stations, the city's a "ruined city", the biohazard symbol is a biohazard area...

>>50973368
Think Carcosa.

Or

Space aliens who came to do research, steal resources, and bang exotic babes. Like rival adventurers or something.

>>50973368
By not having it be a one-time thing? At the very least, make sure to have some hints leading up to it - that way even if it's just a crashed Barrier Peaks-esque spaceship it's not entirely out-of-place.

Barrier Peaks in and of itself is interesting since it has ramifications beyond the adventure - those laser rifles the party looted aren't just going to disappear, y'know. They might need to return later to scavenge for power cells, but even when they're outside the sci-fi they're bringing bits of it with them into other adventures.

Just make sure not to put in an actual functioning spaceship unless you're prepared for the eventuality of your players deciding to go on interplanetary adventures.


It might also help to tie things into the world a bit more than just, say, "here's a crashed spaceship with a bunch of weird shit in it!"
For example, how about "here's a crashed spaceship with a bunch of weird shit in it, and some of that weird shit is stuff we've seen elsewhere like Illithids and Mimics!"

>>50973409
>>50973820

Yeah Barrier Peaks and co. is why it really seems like this one-off thing. Like there's this world of humans and dwarves and elves, then suddenly aliens. Then what happens? You move onto the next module and ... the aliens are just gone? This isn't a huge discovery in the world? Does everyone know there are aliens?

>>50938845
>>50938820
>>50938787

I think the point is to allow fighters to save versus EVERY spell.

So there might be save or die spells, but you save on a 4. And there's no save for half damage, no -1 to hit no save, no nothing.

If a high level fighter can completely avoid all the wizards trickery without too much luck (as in, 1 save/round) and the wizard isn't flying and invulnerable, the fight is fair.

Heros are often fighters who must slay an evil sorcerer. The rivalry exists for a reason.

>>50938787
and one more thing, mr "I don't save versus magic missile."

Have you heard of magic resistance?

That's right, demons, drow and golems DO save versus magic missile. And they use percentile dice, no less.

How's your 70% magic resistance vs magic missile any different from my 14 out of 20 chance to save versus web?

>>50973850
> Like there's this world of humans and dwarves and elves, then suddenly aliens.
Aliens aren't that much stranger then all the other weird shit in a regular d&d world.
>Then what happens? You move onto the next module and ... the aliens are just gone?
If that was the only crash landed ship then sure. It could have just been a lone scout or research ship.
>This isn't a huge discovery in the world?
Once again, not more then any other weird shit in a d&d world.
>Does everyone know there are aliens?
Most peasants probably don't know more then what is immediately around where they live. Even if they heard rumors of some smoking metal meteor with strange monsters, they probably wouldn't really understand what "sliens" are.

File: 1481817706904.jpg (93KB, 599x584px) Image search: [Google]

93KB, 599x584px

>>50947598
Well, I already have fighters, and they're a perfectly good class, but weeb night sounds cool.

Hey thread, what's a good name for the weeb night class? What makes them different from an ordinary fighter? What are there strengths and weaknesses?

>>50949304
I don't think you even need wilderness survival. That was just needed for the hex map.

>>50973850
>This isn't a huge discovery in the world?
From an in-character perspective, what's different between the crashed spaceship in the Barrier Peaks and the various lost dungeons of lost high fantasy empires that are littered across the wilderness?

It's only from out-of-character perspective that you think "oh shit, aliens" - in-character it's just yet another ruin of the before-times, filled with weird-ass ancient magical artifacts and golems.

Reading the Dragon article on that one time that Gygax' group got teleported into the Starship Warden might be a good idea - I don't remember the article name, but someone else probably does. It's a kickass story.

File: hn7v9.jpg (74KB, 600x392px) Image search: [Google]

74KB, 600x392px

>>50973368
I did this in a DCC campaign I ran last year. Did the whole alien crash site in a remote area thing. The players kicked in the door, took all the shit. The thing that kept the theme going was not only did the players regularly employ alien weaponry in combat, they also took things from the ship that didn't have an apparent use. A few sessions later the bigger aliens who were chasing the smaller (crash site) aliens shows up looking for the apparently useless objects.

>>50972624
agreed

>>50973820
>Just make sure not to put in an actual functioning spaceship unless you're prepared for the eventuality of your players deciding to go on interplanetary adventures.
stuff like this is why I tend to think out at least a little about how the surrounding Solar System my settings are in, at least for the ones that are actual planets floating in space

I'll admit I'm kinda lazy about it thought and just tend to borrow from Burroughs, Lovecraft, and Wells(and a couple other writers with public domain works) when designing worlds besides the Earth equivalent

actually this kinda makes me want to design a OSR setting that does the whole Destiny sort of thing where traveling to other planets is done regularly and relatively easily

>>50975230
Personally I like the approach Mentzer's Immortal set did, which was that it's literally Earth circa the Jurrassic period except the asteroid belt is a single planet and IIRC Pluto isn't a thing yet?

It's a weird-ass thing, but just taking the real-life solar system and dumping in a bunch of weird fantasy/science-fiction shit is surprisingly alright.

>>50974074

If you're doing a high fantasy/weeaboo game just replace them with Fighters.

Otherwise you can make them swordsages, witchblades, disciples maybe. The entire point of that special attack mechanic is for them to potential charge up and use a powerful signature move attack and do some flashy gonzo shit, like wave their sword through the air and deflect its light in such a way that it cuts and blinds people, or eviscerate someone and drink some of the blood restoring health and so forth.

File: 0a.png (478KB, 847x477px) Image search: [Google]

478KB, 847x477px

>>50975230
Thats pretty much all you have to do to make a good setting.

>>50975908
But what if I want a game where I have fighters who are like pic related, but also fighters who are more swordsage/eldritch night anime girls.

I don't think anybody would argue they're the same type of character as guts.

>>50975930
Guts = Fighter
Swordsage = Elf

Can anyone recommend me a good post-apocalyptic module to run?

>>50975930
>But what if I want a game where I have fighters who are like pic related, but also fighters who are more swordsage/eldritch night anime girls.

Then name them Swordsage or 'Eldritch Knight'. If people can say that Paladin and Cleric deserve to be different classes then these guys can certainly be different classes too.

>>50976266
>If people can say that Paladin and Cleric deserve to be different classes then these guys can certainly be different classes too.
But Anon, Paladin is just an alternative choice to becoming a Lord for Lawful Fighters on name level, not a separate class. And how could a Fighter be the same class as a Cleric?

>>50973937
Sorry faggot but Drizzt Do'Urden got fucking rekt by magic missile while he was escaping Menzoberranzan. CANON.

>>50977005
Guess he failed his magic resistance roll. Happens all the time to my drow character, and she's still got it.

File: ao.jpg (23KB, 236x327px) Image search: [Google]

23KB, 236x327px

What sort of map do you use for your games, guys?

>>50977148
Do you mean worldmap or battlemap?

>>50977085
Your drow character lives and adventures entirely underground? Or are you some Mary Sue piloting false edition player who thinks drow maintain magic resistance when they depart the Underdark

>>50977148

I make one, usually. Since I make my own dungeons.

I am still torn on using traditional mapping or a sort of point-crawling. Describing things less in units of measurement and more in spatial relationships.

Instead of "10 feet down the hall you see a door" it would be "down the hall a little ways you see a door"

>>50977450
She lives aboveground. She's lawful evil, but her family have fallen out of favor in the drow court, and are thought destroyed. She and her sisters are planning to take back their ancestral home, but in game terms that just means that at base level she's disappearing into the underdark to fight her war. In the meantime, she only walks under the night sky, and loots dungeons which are closer to the surface than her birthplace.

The party consists of:

Lawful neutral fighter, looking for loot
Chaotic neutral thief, looking for loot
True neutral orc druid, seeking to restore da balance
Lawful neutral monk, seeking to improve his skills
Neutral evil wizard, in search of greater power

and me, lawful evil drow princess, cleric of lolth and rightful ruler of my family's ancestral castle.

technically there's 2 sisters ahead of me in line for the throne, but assassins should fix that.

File: wotl.png (3MB, 1292x922px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 1292x922px

>>50977148
Been running this bad boy.

File: 5869af7762d958d3.png (3MB, 4000x2000px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 4000x2000px

>>50977671
how big is it?

>>50971571
Yes and no: the arcanum should indeed be powerful, but they should remain useful tools rather than the answer to everything. In this actual play, the GM could have weakened it a bit by saying that the user get pulled to the target as well, or at least giving the Crows a way to counter it.
The arcanum should also be highly coveted by anyone with a brain: since the PCs are using the Bone Magnet openly, thieves (or at least the Crows) should be trying to steal it every now and then, making the arcanum a burden to the group.

File: alienship_by_prabhudk-d8wina3.jpg (80KB, 1280x559px) Image search: [Google]

80KB, 1280x559px

>>50977767
It's from World of the Lost.

145mi x 85mi, 200+ hex encounters.

17th century Nigeria. Dinosaurs, crashed UFOs, dinosaurs, mutated people, a space-age dungeon, zombies, horrific aberrations. It's a hugely underrated book.

File: Dungeon Grid.jpg (1MB, 2148x3338px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 2148x3338px

>>50977148
I either steal from the web, or, for dungeons, I print pic related from the jap game "make you kingdom" (typo part of the name).

It's basically what you would call a "point crawl" matrix I suppose? It makes it easier for me to quickly sketch a dungeon level by hand. The little dotted lines between each square are possible connections (doors, corridors) between each room.

(ignore the time tracker notes on the bottom, I use a fatigue house rule)

>>50977915
>pic
Yeah, I'm stealing that too.

>>50977547
Read a bit in a late-TSR rare (Adventurer's Guild) module about a lawful evil PC who would spread fantastic and coordinated lies and rumors in order to remove her rivals, of whom she took great pleasures in their successful killing.

File: MCC - The Museum at the End of Time.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>50976205
Run the Museum at the End of Time yet?

Is there a scan of the LotFP playtest rules that were handed out to members of the Gardening Society or whatever?

>>50938721

That pic turns my stomach.

>>50977880
Dinosaurs AND dinosaurs!?!

>>50978741
what did you think dnd means?

>>50978761
Kyle Shadowblade

>>50937936

I like all of these but nothing dictates how to get it.

At what levels are they available? Hopefully not level one, you don't want to make them TOO strong.

File: World Maker.png (524KB, 1000x1294px) Image search: [Google]

524KB, 1000x1294px

>>50975230
>>50975550
This seems pretty fun.

Not sure anyone in my current campaign is going to make it off world. There's a few methods around but they're mostly too busy accidentally burning down mining villages and hunting ziggurat beatles. But if they ever get their shit together I'll probably use this as a starter.

>>50980706
>pic
neat

File: Kaprosuchus.jpg (70KB, 450x294px) Image search: [Google]

70KB, 450x294px

>>50978741
You're damned right.

Anons, school me on why I can't just remove the wands/magic device saving throw and just add in a rule that magic from a magic device gives the players a +3 (or something) to their magic save roll.

>>50937936
>Damage on a miss.
Alright, stop this train. It's time for me to get off.

>>50981028
Because that's slightly more complicated. You can do whatever you want with the rules.

I personally like Swords and Wizardry's saving throws. Every class has a single saving throw number, which is rolled versus everything.

most classes start at 15, and improve to 5, where they stop. Fighter/cleric are 14-4, and paladins are 12-2.

Wizards get +2 versus magic, and that's pretty much it.

Simple as pie

>>50981100
Depends on the type of attack.

File: saving throws, single category, bx compatible.png (28KB, 638x758px) Image search: [Google]

28KB, 638x758px

>>50981028
Sure, smart guy, and while you're at it, you might as well just reduce saving throws to a single category. No, really. You might as well just reduce saving throws to a single category.

>>50977671
>>50977880
How good is it? I've been looking into getting the LotFP core rules and this (plus a few other modules) and running them for my group.

I'm running an all human campaign world that's very loosely based in real cultures right now but I like the traits and aesthetics of dwarves, elves, and halflings.

Which human cultures will work well as the stand ins for demihumans? I know the real answer is anything I want, but surely there's a culture or civilization in history that's the most "dwarf-like'

>>50981375
I'd go the Elric / Stormbringer route and create my own ethnicities of people without directly tying them to any real-life groups. That way you have more of a free hand and don't end up doing silly, offensive, or just wrong stuff.

>>50981375
that's stupid

>>50981375
Elves = Englishmen('Cause, you know, druids and fae) or Arabian('Cause genies, beautiful architecture, and Necronomicon)

But other demihumans risk going into offensive territory, like >>50981413 said.

File: f-dwarf.jpg (112KB, 900x675px) Image search: [Google]

112KB, 900x675px

>>50981375
Germans of course
>Industrious
>Know for thier craftsmanship
>Humourless
>Drink tonnes of beer

Any advice on where to find appropriate old-school themed miniatures?

>>50982169
>appropriate old-school themed miniatures
What do you mean by that?

>>50982198
not him but I bet he means ones that aren't made with giant shoulderpads, ridiculous weapons, and giant heads like the wotc booster pack miniatures that were made back in D&D 3.5 and 4e era

Though I've been out of the modern D&D loop for so long I don't even know if wotc is still selling miniature booster packs.

That said, the answer is easy enough, most miniature selling sites should be selling more classic style miniatures.

File: Untitled.png (1MB, 797x665px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 797x665px

>>50982169
http://otherworldminiatures.co.uk/

My personal favorites.

File: 800px-Bomarzo_Monster.jpg (161KB, 800x536px) Image search: [Google]

161KB, 800x536px

Dwimmermount or Stonehell, which do you think is the better megadungeon?

>>50982262
Any advice on where to get a decent number of varied ones for cheap? I'm less concerned with exact monsters and more concerned with interesting variety.

>>50982283
It's been a while since I've bought any but there's usually some sort of kickstarter for reaper miniatures, and they usually come in cheap and varied, and in real good quality.

>>50976313
There's already a game that's made for you and it's called Pathfinder.

>>50977455
How do you track time when using that more loose descriptive method?

>>50937936
This is really some 3.PF tier stuff. I don't think OSR generals should have 3.PF homebrews in them.

>>50982394
not him but
to me, a turn (10 minutes) only passes when they reach a room or a place where they stop to do stuff.
I sort of ignore the walking to places unless I want it to be significant.

>>50982428
But in a decent-sized dungeon walking through the corridors takes quite a bit of time.

>>50982276
Stonehell. The first levels of Dwimmermount are so bad you'd ve lucky if the players don't quit before reaching the fun part.

>>50982276
I like the way Stonehell is organized better, but Dwimmermount drips with flavour in all of its aspects and is a bigger work overall. I doubt I have the guts to drop it into my campaign but gotta respec.

>>50982276
Stonehell has a big market hall on the first level, run by... kobolds, I think? or goblins. It's wonderful.

>>50980937
>it's a crocodile with long legs
You have to respect evolution for being completely balls-out crazy.

>>50982485
meh, in that case add 1 turn spent every couple of rooms or something

>>50982276
barrowmaze

Fighter feats yes or no?

What about GOOD feats?

>>50984497
no

>>50984497
Nah. Paradoxically enough, including feats actually limits the stuff you can do.

The classic example is a hypothetical feat that lets you swing from chandeliers - however, if the feat wasn't there then ANYONE could swing from a chandelier! Thus including a new option limits previous unwritten options.

>>50981105
>>50981162
I guess the reason I don't just that one is because my players have a very hard time grokking what the different saving throws should do (and to be honest, I guess I do too). Magical device/wands just seems too much like magic/spells. Or am I misunderstanding it?

From what I gather:

Vs Breath weapon is for hitpoint attacks that can only be avoided to be point of halving the damage.

Vs Poison/Deathray are for attacks or situations that will outright kill the PC.

Vs Stone/Petrify/Paralysis is against things that won't necessarily kill the PC, but will "take them out", or have something odd happen to them.

Vs Magic Device/Wands is for magic that comes through a wand or a staff

Vs Magic/Spell is for normally cast magic

It seems like those last two are very similar in their situations, so I don't get why they're separated.
Or I just don't understand saving throws, which is a possibility.

>>50984565

You obviously don't understand why I said 'good feats'.

>>50984579
>Magical device/wands just seems too much like magic/spells. Or am I misunderstanding it?
It's to make a spell cast through a wand weaker then the same spell cast by a MU.

>>50984613
Yeah but what does "good feats" mean?
I'm sure the PF guys think they have "good feats".

>>50984617
I get that much, but to me it seems easier to just give the one doing the saving throw a bonus to the roll. Having it be two separate numbers mostly just confuses my players. Maybe it's just that we haven't really ran into magical devices in my game, but many OSR modules don't seem to have a lot of them either.

>>50984630
Who cares what they think? They obviously don't know how to make games that aren't bloated shitheaps.

Anyone can do a sneak attack, or swing from a chandelier, or use any weapon or dual wield. That's not a feat. Fighter feats include things like slamming your mace into your shield and creating a shockwave so loud it deals 1d4 sonic damage to all nearby enemies, or being able to sacrifice your combat turn to give another character an extra roll/bonus on their turn by shouting orders at them, or being able to scare enemies out of their minds just be staring at them, enough to cause a morale check.

These are only things fighters can do. These are their feats.

>>50984675
If you want to add fighter class abilities go for it but asking if people would like something if it was "GOOD" isn't really useful.

As long as it doesn't lead to shitty build making or limiting other characters it should be fine.

>>50984579
Originally, they were for exactly what it sounds like they were for. Dragonbreath was a big deal and a special case (damage equal to dragon hit points!), death rays from EHP's are a big enough deal that there's a magic item specifically to counter them, there's a whole little category of monsters that petrify, wands and spells/staves are pretty distinct (and presumably "weaker", given that staves get into the better category!), and poison goes together with death rays as the instagib category...

(Note, however, that fireballs and lightning bolts also do hit point damage but get a save for half, and that OD&D also has it so that poison does half damage on a successful save.)

The categories are very much optimized for the rather limited OD&D environment. Dragon breath is for dragon breath, wands for wands, spells for spells, poison/death rays for poison/death rays. Things break down a bit once you start cramming in other shit into those categories - the classic example being using the save vs. petrification (or "stone") to survive a cave-in, but there's also shit like using Wands to dodge or Death to parry. There's one thing to change the name of the category from Stone to Petrification/Paralysis, and another thing to jam in completely unrelated shit.

>>50936373
What's another way of doing skill checks aside from rolling under the appropriate ability score? I like the DC system in 3.5/PF (Pathfinder).

>>50984823
Aside from 1d20 under ability score there is also a number of d6 under ability score.
2d6 for easy
3d6 medium
4d6 hard
5d6 Very difficult
etc.

>>50984802
Isn't this a problem for Basic D&D and further editions? Clearly these saves have been used for other things so the OD&D saving throws really should have been redesigned, no?

Also,
>OD&D also has it so that poison does half damage on a successful save.
If failing the save was an instant death, what would the "half-damage" of that be?

>>50984823
Flat X-in-6 chances/percentiles? A 1-in-6 Listen chance, 2-in-6 Open Doors, etc.

>>50984579
>It seems like those last two are very similar in their situations, so I don't get why they're separated.
So, first, you take them in order - if it's not covered by the other four categories, it's vs Magic.

The implication of magic devices & wands is that it's a ray someone's zapping you with from a handheld device.

>>50984939
>If failing the save was an instant death, what would the "half-damage" of that be?
Half your remaining hit points.

And those saving throws were redesigned - various bits were added on here and there (wands got changed into magic devices in general, etc.), the entire thing got a drastic redesign and simplification in 3E, 5E just straight-up made them attribute checks (but the most common follow the 3E formula)...

Later TSR editions clearly strained against the constraints of the systems, yeah - those examples I gave of shoehorning weren't random! But later TSR editions had issues in general with trying to make D&D into something the system didn't want it to. (Mostly in trying to tell heroic stories in a very lethal system.)

>>50985115
That ordering is a later invention. When's it from, anyway? 1E, 2E?

>>50984939
>If failing the save was an instant death, what would the "half-damage" of that be?
Half of instant death is death, but not instant. All characters are mortal and you will eventually die, but not this day, or at least not this day to this poison.

>>50985125
>That ordering is a later invention. When's it from, anyway? 1E, 2E?
No, OD&D had the ordering be deliberate?

Death Ray/Poison, Wands, Stone, Dragon Breath, Staves/Spells was the order back then though. Staves & Spells was the fallback.

If it was an instant death effect, you saved vs that - probably with your best save. If not, and it was a wand, you saved against that to gtfo the way or block it or something - m-us were worse at this, because wizards aren't good at dodging. If you were being petrified you saved against that, then if it was a dragon breath effect or other big area thing, you saved against that, then just eh it's magic but none-of-the-above, save vs spells.

It's not accidental that your best saves are on the left.

>>50984939
>>50985125
For reference, here's the wording on the poison:
>Scoring the total indicated above (or scoring higher) means the weapon has no effect (death ray, polymorph, paralization, stone, or spell) or one-half effect (poison scoring one-half of the total possible hit damage and dragan's breath scoring one-half of its full damage). Wands of cold, fire balls, lightening, etc. and staves are treated as indicated, but saving throws being made result in one-half damage.

(Note that "wands of cold" do 6d6 damage in a cone, and are basically a wand-exclusive fireball variant.)

>>50984675
Why make them choose feats when you can just give them a "describe something cool, then do it" ability like mighty deed of arms from Dungeon Crawl Classics?

>>50985172
I mean the "use the save furthest to the left" rule.

As far as I can tell, in OD&D there's not really any ambiguous saves.

>>50985125
I feel like the saving throws could still be redesigned without ruining the lethal system of the early editions. If a DM is encouraged to create his own world, his own dungeons and his own creatures, then the classic saving throw system will be obsolete at some point.
As you said before, the dragon breath save for example seems extremely context based and might not be suitable for all "avoid thing coming at you" situations.
Maybe the 3e saving throws were on to something?

>>50985115
I know that, my point was that
>it's a ray someone's zapping you with from a handheld device
doesn't really come up that much in OSR modules or even older modules, I imagine.

>>50985265
>Maybe the 3e saving throws were on to something?
I think there's definitely an argument to be made for the single save system, at least.

3E's saves had their own issues, although that was mostly in the execution. And perhaps some inherent issues with having one save for mental fortitude, one for dodging shit, and one for toughing it out. Why do you have two separate physical saves but only one mental one?

With OSR there's also the greater issue of losing intercompatibility, though - unless you give some great guidelines, you'll have issues with making spells and abilities from other products compatible with your system. Is a lightning bolt (save for half damage) a case of dodging, or toughing it out? If it's dodging, what does that mean for positioning?

And if you're throwing the "OSR-compatible" label under the bus, well, why stop there?

>>it's a ray someone's zapping you with from a handheld device
Presumably they mean wands of lightning bolts and whatnot.


The original D&D "death ray" is Finger of Death, for those who wonder. Primarily used by Evil High Priests, hence why Clerics get a big boost to that save. And why the Scarab of Protection from Evil High Priests was a thing.

>>50985431
It does make sense in a way though. There's little one can do mentally besides resisting influences.

>>50985431
>Is a lightning bolt (save for half damage) a case of dodging, or toughing it out? If it's dodging, what does that mean for positioning?
That's still an issue with the 5 saves system though, isn't it?

>>50985431
I feel that if one wants to make a OSR retroclone that changes things like this, then it should also come with some sort of table for conversion to Labyrinth Lord or B/X or something. People in these threads always ask what the differences between all the clones are, so I think the creators themselves should help with that. It would also show which creators actually understand the old game's systems.

Anyway, I'm thinking my personal game probably needs something like a single saving throw with bonuses based on what the class should be able to do. Like a fighter is good at fighter stuff (being strong and taking hits) and a wizard is good at wizard stuff (dodging spells or whatever). By doing that, one can just write in the stats for the EHP that the cleric always has a higher resistance to the finger of death, rather than it being a cryptic number on the character sheet. But please, feel free to pick apart this idea so that I'm sure I don't do anything stupid.

>>50985621
Succeeding on a save vs. spell to avoid fireball damage is not quite the same thing as being an orc guarding a chest in a 10'x10' room and making a Reflex save against a 30'r Fireball.

This is a problem that's older than 3E, though - which TSR edition was it that had the psuedo-Evasion mechanic that let Thieves get rocketed all over the place by fireballs?

How good is Godbound?

>>50942679
The players seem to have great skill at pissing in the cereal of every criminal organisation and powerful noble they meet and have demonstrated kleptomania on a massive scale.

As open as I try to be the list of "people sending assassins after the party" just keeps on growing. I fear the characters arent long for this world

>>50985833
If you haven't read already.
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/04/d6-assassins.html
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/04/d6-more-assassins.html
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-final-d8-assassins.html

>>50985790
Better than Exalted.