AD&D Combat - House Rules

Here are some house rules changes to the AD&D (1st edition) combat system intended to tune it a bit to suit my sensibilities. I think shields should be more important, helmets meaningful, and a few smaller tweaks.

•  There is no free attack or attack routine against a combatant breaking off from melee. Chase them down. (See The Princess Bride for an example of why, when Inigo first confronts Count Rugen in the hallway.)
• During surprise segments, missile weapons get their normal rate of fire per segment, not triple rate of fire. (This seems to have been a mistake in the original text.)
• Only spears held in two hands get ×2 damage when set to receive a charge. (This seems obvious, but as written is not mentioned.)
• Multiple attacks due to weapon speed factor (DMG, p. 66) occur on tied initiative as usual, but also when the attacker has won initiative. (I dislike the possibility that having better initiative may mean fighting less effectively.)
• When a character reaches 0 or fewer HP from injury, they are unconscious and mortally wounded. If they reach -4 or fewer HP from injuries, they are immediately dead. A mortally wounded character loses an additional 1 HP per round until their wounds are tended to and stabilized. If the total reaches -6 HP or fewer, the character gains a permanent injury, such as a scar, missing limb or extremity, or the like. If the total reaches -10 HP, the character is dead. HP loss from poisons or other non-injury sources will kill at 0 HP or fewer. (Mainly, this attempts to clarify one interpretation of the rules as written.)
• Shield Block: Members of any classes that are permitted shields who have a shield and are struck by a damaging attack (except gaseous ones) can attempt a Shield Block by making a save vs. Breath Weapon, with Fighter-types, except Witch Hunters, getting a +1 bonus to this save (and Paladins being able to use their additional +2 as normal). Bucklers may not Block actual Breath Weapons. Monsters with shields save as Fighters always, but do not get the bonus +1. On a success, the attack does no damage but the shield must save (as thin wood, usually, but with the normal +5 against a normal or crushing blow—but not other types of attack—for being "in its own mode" and the normal bonus for a magical item with a plus). On a successful save, the shield is battered and takes a permanent -1 against future saving throws (only). On a failed save, the shield is shattered, unless it has magic bonuses in which case it takes a -1 until repaired for 100% the cost of a shield per -1. Repairing battered shields costs 5% the cost of a shield per -1 to saves removed. (While this may look complex at first glance, the intent is simple in principle. Characters trained to use shields may use them to get a saving throw to avoid attacks, with the possibility of losing the shield.)
• Critical Hits: On an attack that rolls a natural 20, if the attack hits and the target is not wearing a helmet then the attack does maximum damage. If the target is wearing a helmet and the attack otherwise hits, then the helmet makes a save against the appropriate type (normal blow, crushing blow, or whatever attack type) with the normal bonuses (and an additional +5 for a great helm; note that great helms have penalties outside of their normal combat function, such as reduced vision and hearing). Success means that the helmet is battered and takes a permanent -1 to future saving throws and the attack inflicts normal damage. Failure means that the helmet is destroyed and the attack inflicts maximum damage. Also do not use the normal 1E helmet rule. (I agree that a "good" roll should give some benefit, but most systems that do so are even more cumbersome than my shield block rule. This also gives value to wearing a helmet without requiring "hit location" rolls or whatever.)
• Critical Failures: If an attack rolls a natural 1, then the attacker, if using a weapon only, must make a save vs. Breath Weapon, at +1 for Fighter-types, except Witch Hunters, -1 for Magic-User-types, and add or subtract any Dexterity Reaction/Attacking Adjustment. Success means no effect. Failure means the weapon is dropped (if necessary to know how far away, use 1d30 (or 1d20) feet in a random direction). If not using a weapon, then make the same save or fall down. (Another case of wanting to make extreme rolls have an effect on play, without cluttering things up too much.)

 

In addition to these, I've adjusted the Monk (d6 instead of d4 hit dice, other changes), clarified 0-level Fighter hit points, reworked the Weapon Proficiency categories so that, for example, a Long Sword and a Broad Sword aren't two entirely separate proficiencies. I've also added Combat Maneuvers, on the model of Martial Arts in Oriental Adventures, to give Fighters and most Fighter subclasses (and Monks) some other things to expend Weapon Proficiency slots on in exchange for various combat bonuses, without resorting to clumsy and overpowered "Weapon Specialization". Among other things unrelated to combat. All told, not including new class level limits or minor changes to Experience Points, I have four pages of house rules or so, including character creation options like various methods of rolling attributes, lists of available subclasses, and so on.

Rule Systems Matter - Glass Goblins

Here's a monster that only works properly using the 1st edition AD&D rules. In that set of rules, anyone can hit this creature on a "natural" roll of 20, with only 5th+ level Fighter-types, 7th+ level Cleric-types, 9th+ level Thief-types, 11th+ level Magic-User-types, or 2HD or greater monsters able to make use of any "to hit" bonuses, due to its unusually high Armor Class. Now, if it is hit, then it immediately dies, thanks to its fixed 1 hit point (treated otherwise as per any creature of less than 1HD). Based on an entry in All the World's Monsters, Volume 1 from Chaosium. The concept could easily be transplanted into another edition, but a harried converter might miss the subtleties involved, especially when translating into 2nd edition rules.

 

GLASS GOBLIN

FREQUENCY: Very Rare

NO. APPEARING: 4-40

ARMOR CLASS: -4

MOVE: 6”

HIT DICE: 1 hit point (but as 1-1 for to hit and saving throw purposes)

% IN LAIR: 40%

TREASURE TYPE: Individuals K; Lair C

NO. OF ATTACKS: 1

DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6 or by weapon

SPECIAL ATTACKS: nil

SPECIAL DEFENSES: nil

MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard

INTELLIGENCE: Average

ALIGNMENT: Lawful evil

SIZE: S (4’ tall)

PSIONIC ABILITY: nil

Attack/Defense Modes: nil

LEVEL/XP VALUE: II/31

Another goblin affliction similar to nilbogism (see ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS FIEND FOLIO – Nilbog), the strange disorder resulting in glass goblins causes most strikes to bounce off of their rigid flesh, but a perfectly-angled attack will cause the glass goblin to shatter into tiny fragments, as if it were truly made of glass. Otherwise, glass goblins live among their normal kin and cannot be told apart from them without touching the glass goblin’s skin (see ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS MONSTER MANUAL – Goblin). They live in perpetual fear of bugbears (see ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS MONSTER MANUAL – Bugbear), who are the members of goblin society most able to shatter them.

 

Some Random Worldbuilding

 So many game settings draw heavily on Tolkien. Even when they try to move away from him, like Dark Sun, the tendency is toward the human-dwarf-elf-hobbit combination being the core, with only minor deviations like the cannibal halflings of Dark Sun the tinker gnomes and kender of Dragonlance.

I want to try something different. My initial tendency is to avoid non-human species entirely, but I understand the motivations of some players to get away from the baseline human, or at least to provide some variety like Pendragon does by highlighting the different culture groups such as Britons and Saxons. What I want, then, is to create a situation where I can sort of mythologize the varieties of humans that once coexisted, with a couple of curve balls for spice. So, I'll start by having the three - four! or more! - species of genus Homo that were around a mere few tens of thousands of years ago. Obviously, H. sapiens represents the human baseline. The other three major lines are H. neanderthalensis and Denisovans, which for simplicity I'll just say are H. longi even if the final science might not be in yet, plus the surprising H. floresiensis and its close cousin, H. luzonensis. Rather than using the cumbersome taxonomy, I'll rename them all from the human point of view. Neanderthals will become ogres or trolls, drawing on the fairy-tale magical, cannibal ogre. Not that they will necessarily be cannibals! It's the perception of humans about their different neighbors. The Denisovans will be called elves, or perhaps oni, and they will be differentiated in this setting by having a noticeably longer lifespan - perhaps 150 years in comparison to the human 70-ish, or perhaps more than that. Floresiensis and luzonensis will be woodwoses, little, furry, hidden folk. In the setting, ogres, elves, and humans will interbreed, and so there will be half-elves (human-Denisovan), half-ogres or sometimes "orcs" (human-Neanderthal), and dark elves (Neanderthal-Denisovan).

I actually want to move away from that core of different human species, too. The easy one to include might be Gigantopithecus as a species of giant ape, but more like giant orangutans than something gorilla-like or sasquatch/yetis. And I'll make them into wise forest hermits, as the humans of the setting stereotype them. And because they're something of a personal obsession, there will be a bipedal rabbit-folk I call the koni. Perhaps oddly, the koni are the closest this setting will have to hobbits, living mildly sybaritic lives in holes in the ground. Koni are inspired by both medieval marginalia and Watership Down, so imagine a people with both warriors and seers, and with an inventive streak too.

And as I sat with these, thinking in particular about the forest giants, I decided that I wanted sapient, speaking, tool-using tribes of gorillas, which will be called the mountain-folk. It's the pulp-fantasy feel that I don't want to ignore. No doubt there are also other, more monstrous and animalistic apes in the setting, or in parts of it.

Speaking of animals, there will be Megalania, Varanus priscus, as dragons. Venomous monitor lizards up to 7 meters long certainly fit that description! And because they match the theme, there will be predatory flightless birds modeled on Phorusrhacidae, as well as a more domesticable flightless bird species of Gastornis, not unlike the horseclaws of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

[Old-School Game] Getting Started With Characters - Character Classes

 

Classes from the MCDM game.

Mine are somewhat different 

I didn't hit the ground running, I guess, when I made my plans, but maybe that's okay since I've added one more thing: I want to make my own OSR-style game. That is, I want to use straightforward mechanics—no elaborate skill system, embellished personality system, detailed combat system, and so on, though I could use rules that do those things in an obvious and direct manner (though they don't need to be as rudimentary as, say, the alignment system for personality rules or weapon proficiencies and secondary skills for skills). The art will be in finding what level of "obvious" as opposed to "detailed" I am willing to accept. To an extent, I'll be returning to something like the WRG game exercise from early days on this blog, though I don't know if I'll be specifically using the WRG Ancients/Medieval 6th edition rules I was focusing on back then.

As good a place to start as any might be characters. Other than the decisions made in play, how should characters be distinguished from one another? I like to think that there are a few characteristics that distinguish individuals in an adventure-fiction context. There are inborn traits, which can be thought of as a character's ancestry and innate talents. In games to date, those are mostly represented by the character's "race" (or, more recently, in an attempt to move away from the "blood will tell" eugenics assumptions found among some early fantasy authors, "ancestry" or "species") and "attributes" (sometimes called "characteristics", such as Strength, Intelligence, or the like). Then there is the character's profession, represented traditionally by a character's "class" or "skills", or a lot of times both of these. In some game designs, these things get muddled up, with innate talents and ancestry being represented by whatever the game calls its profession, such as games where "elf" is a character class or whatever. While that is a defensible position, I prefer to clearly distinguish matters that are inborn from ones that come from training, that is, nature from nurture, as the usual formulation has it.

I want to focus on character classes now, though. First of all, what is a "character class"? My understanding of classes in D&D is that they represent a statement of how the player intends to approach the game, with the most fundamental decision being whether the character will use magic or not. After the original division of characters into "Fighting-man" or "Magic-user", people came up with other approaches, so that very early on someone wanted to focus on fighting "undead" monsters like Professor Van Helsing in the Hammer Films Dracula movies, resulting in the "Cleric" class, whose association with religion implied some sort of Saint-like powers, to make them useful in scenarios where the undead aren't present. Most early character classes were simple extrapolations like that, so that a "Thief" was a character intended to be like the Grey Mouser or Cugel the Clever, which is why they include a means to dabble in magic without being a fully-fledged magic-user. The "Monk" was for players who liked Shaw Brothers films. The "Ranger" was Aragorn or maybe Robin Hood, perhaps with a touch of Jack the Giant-Killer?* And so on.

All of these approaches imply a particular set of skills, but it maybe doesn't need to be that way. Going back to the fundamental distinction of whether the character uses magic or not, I'll cut the number of classes back to "Adventurer" and "Adept". To handle characters who dabble in magic like the Grey Mouser and Cugel the Clever, I'll add a compromise class that I'll call the "Practitioner". because magic, historically, has included the ability to heal, I'll include healing magic, and a character's available spells will define what sort of magician they are, rather than defining it by class. Perhaps we will define a way to distinguish magicians who are better at one sort of magic or another later on, when we discuss talents and attributes.

However, I think that there are more approaches, other than magic or no magic, that are pretty fundamental. One is often covered in older games more as an afterthought, which we might call the "command" or "social" approach. Traditionally, this is usually relegated to a "Charisma" attribute, but I think that it deserves a more fundamental place. I'll call that class the "Envoy", and a dabbler who uses a bit of social but is also action-oriented to a degree, perhaps somewhat similar to the "Warlord" class of some later D&D editions, I'll call the "Commander". I think that an Adept who is also social would be just a different sort of Adept, focused on spells of enchantment and charm, so I won't need that sort of compromise class.

Finally, some players might want a character who approaches the game from a place of knowledge and skill. While I haven't yet discussed how I think training and skill could work, I'll just note for now that a character focused on that sort of play will be called an "Expert", and there won't be a need for a compromise class as the others, as I conceive them, already include elements of this category.

So, to summarize, I see the game as allowing players to select one character class to define their character fundamentally, from the choices of Adventurer, Adept, Practitioner, Envoy, Commander, or Expert. To round out characters, I'll discuss a character's species, their talents (characteristics or attributes), and their profession (which I will disconnect from their class).

*And why that particular combination? I suppose that the idea was that characters had to have more to do than just follow tracks. Since the class was given even more wilderness and survival abilities as time went on, it does seem that Gygax and others understood the abilities as being a little underwhelming in relation to other classes. 

Making Plans

 I don't know if I'm going to go anywhere with these, but it's the beginning of the year and maybe I should organize my approach to this blog a bit. So, here are some things I might do.

• Design a setting for GURPS - Starting from the same premise that led to Psi-Wars, I want to start laying out a setting that has occupied a part of my mind for a number of years. It's something of a post-apocalyptic one, inspired especially by S. M. Stirling's Emberverse series, as well as some other sources like the WarpWorld RPG (also, see my review from a while back here; I'd likely be kinder to the game were I to write that today, for a number of reasons). Actually, the setting will also be usable with other game systems, but the only other one I'd be interested in working with is basically out of print and definitely unsupported, and it'd be easy enough to convert so I probably won't bother. Alternately, I have a fantasy setting to work on that in concept goes back perhaps 40 years. I could work on that, too. In retrospect, working on it would not be unlike the Psi-Wars project, but related to the Malazan Book of the Fallen instead of Star Wars, since the world setting is convoluted and political much as Malazan is. Also has incarnate gods running around, too, which the players back then never got to see.
• Write more Obscure Games reviews - I've got some relatively recent games I want to get to, and quite a few older ones.
• Finish my overview of Domain Play in AD&D 1E - I just sort of let that one drop, but I do have more to say on the topic.
• Write some material for MegaTraveller - That's a game I've been missing.
• Write more AD&D material - I do have stuff to say. I need to sit down and type it out.

 I've also got some other design and theory articles in mind, like discussing the City as Dungeon Crawl concept and comparing it to more abstract methods - and, vice versa, the Abstract Dungeon, such as seen in Worlds Without Number (speaking of which, I need to finish my Obscure Games review of that one). I should probably also talk about the functions and merits of using or not using maps, which is closely related.

Now, let's see if I get to these.