Class Archetypes and the Sub-Games

Very quickly- I have mentioned last week that D&D is divided into a number of sub-games. And thinking further I would wager that the most famous and effective classes are those that dominate one of these sub-games.

Obviously the Fighting-ManPerson or some variation of it dominates the combat sub-game. Magic-User (or variation thereof dominates the Magic sub-game. The Thief and variations dominate the dungeon exploration sub-game. The ranger would be the logical next for the wilderness exploration sub-game with a possibility of the Druid.

Though there are sub-games for air or sea travel and combat these seem to be rare edge cases that would be filled by very specialized Ranger or Fighter offshoots that few would play unless the campaign centered on it. The Cleric is binary here- depending on edition and build the Cleric is a master or all or none with a default to magical healing. Which highlights the problems of the class in my opinion. But also stands him up as a counterpoint to the Magic-User and the Fighter.

It seems that this would lead t the idea that what classes you have in your game are dependent on if you want an adventuring archetype to dominate a particular sub-game, or do you want that shared? Classes that share archetypes would be interesting. Again a Ranger with a more limited combat ability compared to the Fighter seems like it would be the poster boy for this approach. Also there is the idea of building out the base archetypes to share in the sub-games the other classes dominate.

It seems the Thief was an interesting design accident that could be used as an example for the future game development. What seems to have happened in a subconscious collective sort of way was that players understood that there was a sub-game of dungeon exploration that The Cleric, Fighter, and Magic-User while dominating their own parts of the game were not masters of. Ergo the Thief develops. It seems it would come back to essential spotlight time. Is it shared or not?

Discrete Worlds II or The Tipping 'Scales' of the Game

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Tessellated Point Crawl...

When you look at the primordial history of the game Dungeons & Dragons you see that there is a clear trend to build on it with games that already exist. The obvious example here is "Outdoor Survival" as the rules for overland travel. But when you look at it there were many more - "Braunstein" and "Chainmail," "Don't Give Up the Ship," just to name a few. This makes sense when you think about it - if you need a system to model something, it is more expedient to find one that models that something than spend time crunching the numbers and building a system from whole cloth. And so what you get as time and printing runs distill the systems is really a game of games.

When you study the Hebrew/Christian scriptures in Comparative Religions 101 you quickly discover what the western world calls "The Bible" is really not a book, but rather a library of separate books just printed in one volume. It contains poetry, history, law, letters of instruction, letters of prophecy, history of law, etc. It is a book of books. And I use this to belabor the point above - When you ask someone to read "The Bible" you are really asking them to read many different books. And when you ask someone to play D&D, you are asking them to really play many different games.

While using multiple games tears down barriers in design it may build up barriers to entry. As the modern game stands in the "OSR" or in the "managed properties" you often have a "game" for creating characters, a separate "game" for exploring dungeons, a "game" for wilderness travel -which may include other "games," and a "game" for combat. What I am doing here is taking the "_______ system" of any role playing game and identifying it as a separate "game." Because really it is. The d20 grappling process is a prime example. And each "game" is complicated by the fact that some things in one "game" have to seamlessly work with the other "games" if they affect things in the other "games."

Where do we go from here? Let's talk about scale next. Each "game" operates on some sense of space/time scale which defines its granularity. In modern "managed properties" the space/time scale for combat is 5ft/6s. The OSR seems to hang around the 10ft/10sec paradigm. Combat is easy to keep discrete. Travel on the other hand, to name an example, quickly stops being discrete in some sort of geometric progression related to how far you travel. That's because you might not take the same route back and more "Cartesian" space needs definition the further you go afield.

Multiple games indicate the possibility of multiple scales which introduces complexity as the abilities of the characters have to be able to operate at all scales. A lot of this complexity is part of the assumption of RPGs and because it exists as the way things have always been done, it does not get noticed as a stumbling block to play and entry into the game.

Some might not see this as a problem. Which is fine - the Game - big 'G' - gets along in this way pretty well, and I don't want to discount that. And the first reaction I have is to try to see if there is a way to set up a resolution framework that is "retargetable." That is a framework that can be applied to anything to provide for procedural or dramatic resolution. And what this would do is reduce the number of games you need to learn to one which can be applied to different tasks and time scales and moving around point crawls. At first it sounds like a good idea.

The genesis for this comes from two places- first there was a post from 2010 on a stack exchange board that made the suggestion of 3 round combats using intent for each side and resolving those intents. Each round the sides that were successful in their intents scored points and the ultimate resolution was in favor of the side that scored the most over the three rounds. Then there was part 3, 4 and 5 of Justin Alexander's The Art of Rulings found here, here, and here. and this bit by The Angry DM.

All combined it gave me the idea of a "number of rounds" framework that would allow you to resolve any action with scale and time being applied as needed, but only requiring the players to use one set of steps to resolve their intents. This would be another step, along with the point crawl on making the world more discrete.

The issue with something like this is that it can threaten to make the game bland. You keep moving through the same seven steps, no matter what. Essentially you are taking a suggestion about the procedure for combat and mapping it to the rest of the game. This leads to issues. And its really not what Justin Alexander was talking about in the first place- no matter what madness I am inspired to when I read his posts. He is talking about presentation and response when a game has a particular arbitrator "resolution conventions which GMs habitually fall into."

The real solution is actually hiding in the set design and point crawls mentioned earlier.

Discrete Worlds or Why the 6-Mile Hex Can't Save You

Wow, Feb 2013. It has been a while. I hope people are still listening. What have I been up to? Largely revising my gaming Magnum Opus, ad infinitum it seems. Life stuff. I am a very very busy person. But enough of that. This blog has never been about whats going on in my life and keeping it “professional” is how it is going to stay.

I have been thinking about a lot of things gamey and mathematical. Like I usually do. One of the big things I have been doing with the math is putting thought into why time, distance and light are concepts that are difficult to track in the context of even the most basic form of the game and grow to near impossible when presented with “the rest of the world.” Or, to be more sussinct: why am I playing this game if its always going to get caught up in minutia?

The best way I can describe this is with the dungeon corridor. Imagine a corridor in an anomalous subsurface environment aka a dungeon. The corridor is 50 feet long and ten feet wide with a door at each end. Now either one of two things is true- either there is something special about the hall, like a trap, a clue in the dungeon dressing on the walls - something that makes the hallway important; or the hallway can be represented as a line on the paper. Its a conduit from “area 1” to “area 2.” If it is important the hallway is really just a 10ft by 50ft room.

And there lies the rub - characters are discrete. Whereas much of the made up world they inhabit is not.

What is discrete? In math discrete numbers whose values have a clear demarcation from one another. Integers. Character stats are probably the best example here. You have a strength of 17 or 18. There is no 17.234534 strength characters. And most things about a character are described in discrete terms. Probably the one thing that approaches being continuous (the opposite of discrete) is the character’s wealth, but only when the currency is decimalized.

The “world” has discrete elements but more often is interacted with and operates in a continuous way. Lets go back to our corridor - often when it just needs to be a line on a sheet of paper it is still handled  in a continuous “object” that is it is given space on the map, but not given a description, and thus becomes dead space that must be “exercised” through - it has to be explored without payoff - it is simply a passage that only matches the description of the default dungeon features at best.

And that is the ultimate conclusion: The world must be rendered in a discrete format.
And its corollary is also true: The hex (6-mile or otherwise) is simply the DM’s survey grid used to measure distance when setting up a point crawl.

Got ahead of myself here. Because see, Chris at Hill Cantons and C at Hack and Slash have done a lot of legwork on how to bring adventure worlds into the discrete. Point crawls and set design go a long way here. Read up on what these gents have to say.

And that leads us to the design part here- people don’t think of the world in a continuous way. Its all discrete. Think about how you move around your town or travel to other places. You think in lines and destinations and landmarks. Think about how you keep track of where things are - your mind is built for chunking - In your room is a dresser, and in the dresser are drawers, and in each drawer is some set of clothes or other thing.

Almost all travel is along some predefined line, be it a road, trail, path, ridge, river, hallway, etc. The added benefit of the point crawl, the set design and random tables is things become easier to handle. They are written out the way that you think about them, and you can make the world just big enough to build illusion that there is stuff over the horizon.

The byproduct of all this is that it opens up player agency which leads to easier play: You already know what lies down that road the players just took without warning and as a result adventures happen without heavy handed "design" but as a byproduct of action and interaction.

Clerical Issues

Real quick: JB over at B/X Blackrazor has been talking a bit about clerics. Mainly its about how they really don't work given the source material that D&D draws on, and how the game might work better if they were removed. Delta figured this out way back in 2008. And his reasoning was my main inspiration for banning the cleric in my own OD&D house rules.

Its odd that we both were thinking about cleric banning at the same time. I was revisiting my decision to answer the question of "what 5 things would you change in D&D if you could only change 5?" I have said before that we live close enough to each other that we are drinking the same water.

The really interesting thing here is that JB is coming very close to the same line of conclusions as Delta but I am pretty sure he is completely unaware of Delta's work and reasoning. Maybe not. But including this blogger, that makes three guys in the OSR that have outright removed clerics from the game. Which makes me think we are on to something here. Both these guys make the points for me so I won't put them up here. Check out the posts linked above and draw your own conclusion. For me, I think the Thief has more right to be in the game than the Cleric. So I think we should kill the cleric. And take his stuff. Delta chose to just nix the cleric spells all together. I chose to give them to the magic-user since he was now going to be pulling insane priest duty for the foreseeable future.

What I realized reading JB and rereading Delta was that my solution for what to do with turning made sense but was inelegant. I gave everyone the ability to turn. It made sense, if you thought about it. Turning is based on vampire lore and more specifically Van Helsing's use of a cross in Dracula. Note however that Van Helsing is not a priest. He is not ordained. He has a sum total of 0 supernatural power. So in my book that means that everyone can turn. The mistake I made was that I gave everyone access to the chart. What a mess.

First off the turning mechanic is really clunky and a little fiddly to apply. This obviously varies with edition, but you catch my drift. Secondly applying it to everyone made it even more clunky in that you had to figure out how to determine at what power level the characters turned undead. Work. Work. Work.

Here it is: If you must be rid of that meddlesome priest, make vampires superstitious.

Holy symbols of any faith keep Vampires (and only Vampires) at bay. Anyone can hold up (or wear while facing) any symbol of a god and the vampire won't touch them. However the symbols are directional. So while Count Dracula in front of you is held at bay his minion vampire behind you is not.

This way you get the ability exhibited in the source material but you don't have to worry about clunky mechanics. What about the other undead? There is no pre-D&D precedent of priests holding other undead at bay, and undead are meant to be feared. Turning is really powerful and thus it is like healing: it is something a party can't go without if it is available in the game. Take out turning and the fear of undead returns.

The Ultimate Dread

Legendary. That's the word. Not only in the numerous gaming worlds it inhabits, but also in our own real world the Isle of Dread is a thing of legend. It sits beside the Caves of Chaos and The Tomb of Horrors in the shared experience of D&D players of every edition.

The island is a strange eclectic mix. Start with one part homage to King Kong and the lost world literature that inspired it. Add stories of magic, pirates, castaways, mysteries, dungeons and of course dragons. Sprinkle with a bit of Sword and Planet and you are all set. Going to "The Island" is supposed to be a game changer. Arrival is easier than departure, and survival is always in question. As a location based module the adventure contained within the pages is perennial not just as an adventure but also as part of the lost world genre.

In recent years "The Isle of Dread" has reentered the field of vision of players and publishers alike. with expansions, retcons, retoolings and such found in Dungeon to ideas in the OSR, I wanted to try to tie it all together in this post so as to create a resource for information and ideas about the "The Isle of Dread" and to further develop notions about what the island is and what it could be.

First off I think the mistake that many writers and Dungeon Masters make when they try to use the "The Isle of Dread" is that they don't see it or populate it as a campaign setting. This mistake is an easy one to make, especially if you are not aware of geographic scales.  When we look at the map we think we are looking at something along the lines of a smaller Hawaiian island - or some small island  in the Carribian. We think Treasure Island, Skull Island, Jamaica and Gilligan's Island. We just don't see it as the the size of Ireland.

Yes, Ireland.

When you look at the map and count out the length and width of the outlying islands and reefs surrounding the main island, you get an area pretty much on par with Ireland. The actual Isle is about the size of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, or twice the size of Vancouver Island (which is longer than the western coast of the state of washington by the way). In truth, to really use the Isle of Dread is a major commitment. It's a very specialised campaign setting so given its size it might be best to treat it like one.

When it was left on its own in 1983 the Isle of Dread was just an island in the known world. 21 years after we see an update in Dungeon #114 that brings the Isle to Greyhawk. This creates the first new notion about the island - it moves from plane to plane.

This propagates the idea that we actually don't have to use it as an insular setting (with all the puns intended). We can make it far more interesting as a plane hopping island that touches other worlds and the planes themselves. In essence you have an island that can be the best of pulp adventure in one place. If skull island from King Kong is the conceptual father of the Isle of Dread, a strong argument can be made that it is the grandson of Neverland- native tribes, pirates, skull shaped rocks, and everything else that comes with the island that can only be found if you go straight on till morning and follow the second star to the right. 

So the isle of dread is in essence an amalgamation of all the mysterious islands from pulp and lost world literature and fantasy. But I would wager that the ideas about this island have not stopped, but that it continues to develop.  For me the most recent inspiration for an addition to the Isle of Dread is the television series LOST. In LOST you have an island not unlike the isle of dread and its adventure fiction cousins. Mystery and magical realism abound. Most of the concepts in LOST we have seen before and can easily move to the Isle of Dread. But the one real innovation was an island that moves in time and space.

So I like to imagine the Isle of Dread as this plane walking, time and space traveling island. It manifests from prime material to outer plane and back again fluctuating through time and all existence, picking up horrors, and strange things. A sort of mobile Carcosa. When it manifests it is surrounded by storms that draw in ships that get too close, like a hurricane that forces everything it touches into its eye. It stays for a time, often long enough to get on the charts, then it disappears to a different time and world, taking the sea of dread with it.

Given what we have learned about the 6 mile hex and how big the Isle of Dread really is, it turns out that we can put A LOT more on the island. Thus it becomes tempting to add in WG6 The Isle of the Ape. Since the natives come from the isle of dread, and both are inspired on some level by Kong's Island, why not just make them the one and the same. Imagine Castle Greyhawk not leading to the Isle of the Ape as a part of its dungeons but in those places it connects to the Isle of Dread itself. Imagine that combined with the Isle of Dread as a demi-plane that wanders around and is connected to Castle Greyhawk and numerous other dungeons like the Cavens of Tharcia. If you think about it, there are some planer doors in Thracia- a couple are not functional.  Why not make one of the broken ones lead to the island?

Using the Isle of read this way, you have a dungeon nexus. A way to plane hop, a way to get your retro stupid on. Here are some resources to help you with makeing your "Ultimate Dread:"

Official Sources:
Isle of Dread 1981
Isle of Dread 1983
Dungeon #114 Torrents of Dread
Dungeon #142
Dungeon #143
Dungeon #144
Dungeon #145

Adjunct Sources and connections: (possibly take these and put them on the island. Really, why not?)
Isle of the Ape
Drums on Fire Mountain
Savage Coast(?)

Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan (Dungeon magazine played with this in the savage tide. They didn't put it on the island but it does bring up the question again - why not?)
Dwellers in the Forbidden City - could easily work as a location on the Island.

Caverns of Thracia (like I said before, one of the planar doors could connect well to the island)

Inspirational Viewing:

LOST - esp the first two seasons
King Kong 2005
King Kong 1935
Peter Pan original play

Inspirational Reading:
Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne
The Land that Time Forgot - Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Lost World - Arthur Conan Doyle
Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Robinson Crusoe - William Defoe
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne
The Island of Doctor Moreau - H.G. Wells

Mountains and Mole-Hills

I am going to try to get this one out really fast. Limited time here. Rob over at Bat in the Attic posted some long distance sighting rules. They are a great set of rules. The real genius behind them is the kind of linear rock paper scissors thing he has going on with the mountains, hills and plains with an assumed height for generic mountains and hills.

I wanted to offer a correction. The heights and distances presented are off by an order of magnitude for the mountains and in my opinion a little short for hills. If you go on the idea that the average height of a notable mountain peak is around 10,000ft (great peaks like Mt Ranier, and others land between 10k and 20k with legendary peaks like Everest and Denali topping out in the upper 20k's), and the United States and England both draw the "official" this is now a mountain line at 990ft and 2000ft respectively you see what I mean. You can see mountains from quite a distance on a clear day - getting into the 100's of miles.

So lets turn this into game stuff:

I have been thinking about mountains a bit in my game design efforts when it comes to travel and sighting. So this info is stored in my trivia banks an easily ready.  Humans start to experience altitude sickness at about 8000ft. Tree-line fluctuates around this depending on latitude an atmospheric conditions generally we could say that 7500ft is a good round ball park number. So I would assume that given navigating mountainous terrain is essentially a matter of finding your way through spurs, around mountains, along rivers and over saddles (the low arts between peaks) casual travelers will be at about 5000ft if they are in a mountain hex. 

Hills are a crazy beast. No one really knows when a hill starts being a mountain. There are all sorts of ways that use height to slope and distance around base. I like hills ending at 1000ft for game purposes. It allows us to say that most mountains are an order of magnitude higher than most hills. Just like when traveling through mountains, in hills you aim for the low areas rather than follow the ridge lines and go from peak to peak. So we can ballpark the height for casual travelers in hills at about 500ft. If you decide that hills go to 2000ft then you will obviously use 1000ft as the casual height.

I work on the 6mi per hex scale. So the hexes here are going to reflect that in my calculations.

Rob's note of about an hour to find a good sighting place is pretty accurate with my own hiking experience in hill like areas, but I would stretch this to 2 hours in mountains. On open area I would reduce it to 30 minutes and for swamps I would say you can only ever see into the next hex. If they want to strike out to tree line throw in an additional hour.  Breaking tree line is handy and generally offers wide unobstructed views. The same is true for peaks and I would say that gaining a summit allows you to see over the next 2 mountain hexes in mountains or hills.

Another point of note: Broken or overcast clouds are totally going to ruin your view from a mountain, but generally not hills.

If the mission of the party is to map large amounts of area they very well might want to climb the highest mountain. At this point they are climbing a specific mountain and are out of the scope and intent of this rules exercise.

Time Needed: Mountains: 2 hours (3 hours for tree line; 4 hours for peak)
Hills: 1 hour (2 hours for peak)
All other: 30 Minutes

Distance Sighted Over Lower Terrains: (counting for refraction: d~= 1.32 * Sqrt(h) where d is in miles and h in ft.)
Random Peak (10000ft): 22 hexes
Tree Line (often 7500ft): 19 hexes (may be high enough for altitude sickness, referees call)
Mountains (5000ft): 15 hexes
Hilltop(2000ft): 10 hexes
Hills/Hilltop(1000ft): 7 hexes
Hills(500ft): 5 hexes

Distance Sighted to Equal or Higher Terrain:
Mountains to Mountains: 1 hex
Mountain Peak to Mountains: 2 hexes
Hills to Mountains: 1 hex
Hills to Hills: 1 hex
Hilltop to Hills: 2 hexes

Notes:
Broken or overcast clouds block mountain views to 1 hex, and may do the same for hill views.
The distance sighted over lower terrains is also the maximum distance that such a particular elevation can be seen. So a mountain can be seen fairly certainly 15 hexes away- but the foothills 10 hexes away won't be discerable (or only just so)  but any foot hills 5 hexes away would be visible but would block the view of those between 5 hexes and 15 hexes away.

A Book of Wands

Recently there has been some talk about wands.

Timrod over at Unfrozen Caveman Die-Chucker fired the first salvo sometime going into the holiday season with Degrading Wands. Its a good idea that follows one of my game simplification axioms (reduce book keeping) to go against one of my others (reduce die rolling). The comments are good as Brendan and 1d30 offer up some cool alternatives that work if you are alright with adding more rolls to your game.

Speaking of Brendan the keeper of Untimately- He entered the mix with his post entitled Basic Wands just a bit ago. His post is full of pretty cool ideas. Initially I didn't think I would go with the elemental thing- then he cites a darn good post by Delta, but the target rolls a save to avoid 1d6 damage is complete gold. It gives MU's some kick in a fight. Somewhere the complexity gets out of hand but that's okay as you can pick and choose what you like here.

Next up was the first "unification post" by C over at Hack & Slash. Lots of good ideas there. Some decent stuff in the comments. The fact that he missed Timrod's post is pretty much the reason this post exists.

Now class, turn in your copy of Playing at the World to pages 198 and 199 for a description of the source material for wands and staffs from sources in Appendix N. The most interesting thing here is how Sword and Sorcery literature in specific and Fantasy literature in general does not really distinguish between a wand and a staff. They are simply sticks; with sticks being a requirement for working any magic.

This is something I would use as part of the argument that magic items should not be classed by form, but rather by function (a.k.a. the hat/cloak of invisibility problem from 3e). That is a history and argument for another time. 

Since ideas are free here are some more ideas about wands from our labs here in the steam tunnels:

• Wands permit a MU to cast the last spell cast using the wand indefinitely.
• Wands permit the magic user to cast any spell memorized without burning a slot.
• Wands associated with a spell (like a wand of fireballs) can be used by any magic user that has learned that spell, and the magic user does not have to have memorized the spell.

A Sudden and Unexpected Endgame

Recently I have been reading The Hobbit.  The situation of this reading is causing me to look at each sentence, and what is really said.  I am constantly amazed at how much I forget and how much I miss.  It is a dense book.

What occurred to me is how a large hoard like the one Smaug sits on is seriously a game changer.  Most referees would rule that even after you discover one; or kill or remove the guardian of a hoard you have to get it back to home base before you collect the experience.  Now, what happens if you turn the dungeon that you are in into home base? This is pretty much what happens with the lonely mountain.  Thorin and Company don't have to transport the treasure anywhere once the battle of the five armies is over, and given the description of Thorin and the other dwarves as they join that battle, it seems like they have leveled up a bit as their eyes are glowing red!  

The thought here is that it no matter what the circumstance, the endgame can show up quite suddenly as dice are involved and players are clever.  Wise use of a hoard might be what allows a party to truly convert a dungeon into a legitimate home base.  Interestingly a megadungeon that can never be settled helps to prevent this.  And while something is statistically unlikely, it does not mean that it can't happen ever, or that it can't happen many times in a row.  A party could get lucky for example and find a +3 Sword in their possession after a lucky lucky victory.  How you handle that may determine what kind of DM you are.

Eldritch Sagery!

Never do with a class what you can do with an easily remembered house rule option. We see a lot of attempts to make a sage class. Often this is to provide a mechanic for providing information to the PCs in a game session.

Rather than having a sage class, I decided that it would be good to have an option players can take to in essence be a sage. Like my Berserker option.

This sets the bar for being a sage, and also give the character the sages curse. Basically a player can choose to do it but are not forced to, and if they forget about it, the character is not hampered in some way. The curse part is from an early supplement from Judges Guild or The strategic Review, but I can't remember. So here is my Sage option:

If you have a Magic-User with an Int of 15+ the player can opt for his character to be a sage. The character gains the "sagery" power. The sagery power allows a Magic-User to burn the highest level spell memorized for immediately relevant knowledge. Additionally, they gain the ability to cast a curse when they are close to death or dying because of assault, mayhem or murder as per the curse spell.

Here is a handy curse chart provided by (stolen from) Dyson Logos (cause its dang relevant):

(edited to take out the chart which is linked to - it made things too long and this is not its home)

Know What's Below! Call Before You Dig!

Anyone notice that a 210' x 210' square covers just about a square acre? Never mind that acres really arn't square. Being an odd number also gives the map a center square, for what its worth.

Taken with my 880ft tactical hex, you can clearly fit 16 of those 21x21 square maps in the hex. Thus you start to have a means to which you can picture what the dungeon you are mapping is actually under!

When I saw the graphic it made me think of Moria which led to the thought about how the information of a square acre gridded out might be useful to dungeon masters and mithral grubbing dwarves who delved too deep. This also might help translating out to a battlefield map.

My Love for You is Like a Truck! Berserker!

What is not fun about berzerkers? Jeff over at Jeff's Gameblog describes them as psycho-killers:

“Psychokillers” is my term for stock berserkers, by the way. When encountered in dungeons I tend to describe them as axe-wielding maniacs from slasher flicks, rather than as Vikings. “You open the door and waiting for you on the other side are two Jason Voorhees and three Leatherfaces. They attack.”

And I agree. I think the guys in the monster listing probably should be just "psycho-killers", but what about characters with a legitimate battle rage?

In the past numerous classes are have been written to allow player characters some kind of battle rage ability. White Dwarf and The Dragon both had Berserker classes back in the day; and the rage ability also appeared with various Barbarian class builds.

This house rule is based on the LBB and B/X monster entry for a Berserker. I figure that a +1 to hit points indicates that they have a Constitution bonus. The +2 to attack is clearly from the rage. And uncontrollable rage is not a trait of the the lawful, so... here's the rule:

If Chaotic or Neutral, Fighters with a Con bonus can be berserkers. They get +2 to attacks but loose the ability to separate friend from foe. The berserk character will attack the nearest entity that might pose a threat to anything. If they are attacking a friend or ally the berzerker's player rolls 1d20. If the roll is higher than the friendly target's Charisma they don't separate friend from foe and the friend is attacked. A Berserker can go berserk a number of times per day equal to their Constitution bonus.

The 880ft Hexagon Bowshot

So I have been gone again for a while, busy with other more pressing issues- like work. Anyhow, I should appear again on a more regular basis now, but I wouldn't take my word for it. I wanted to post a little more about wilderness hexagons, mainly about being in bow-shot. My next hexagon related post will be a bit about mapping on 1 mile hexes using the old traditional hex symbols.

Anyhow, I wanted to make sure readers understood about being in bow-shot in my previous hexagon post. Dan Collins (aka Delta) over at Delta's D&D Hotspot has through his research become the undisputed master of D&D ballistic knowledge. He has numerous articles about D&D ballistics. Go see for yourself. However some of the best are the ones where he crunches the numbers and determines what the penalties and ranges really should be based on how things really work: here, here, and especially here. (Yes we both know its a game, yes we should relax, but stuff like this relaxes us. And what the heck, its fun!)

If you read the first one you find that the best of the best archers are only hitting a stationary, unarmored man sized target at 220 yards @ 16% of the time. Something at the edge of the hex might be a believable shot. So if you are a high level character and the target is unarmored and eating lunch on a rock, you might have a chance. Conversely, hitting an army in the next hex is 100%.

Whadaya Mean I Can't Scribe a Scroll?

Magical writings. This is one of the great under served topics in old school role playing games. Jeff has been thinking about how players know what spells they start with and what that "min" on the table really means. ChicagoWiz looks at the other end of the gun with a quest to find the time and gp costs of copying a spell. Strangely I have been thinking about spell learning and scribing also. The way I interpret Jeff's table is the following:

1. You work through the level 1 spell list until you run out of spells or the number of spells known is equal to the max number.
2. If you have not hit your max but you are over your min, you are done.
3. If you have not hit your max and are still under your min, roll again for the spells you did not get last time until you are over the min. Repeat until you are over the min. Now you are done.

After that, when you get a new spell you roll to see if you understand it. When you level all the spells you have that you don't understand you can check again for. While a caster cannot understand a spell they can still discern the complexity of the spell (i.e. the level). Additionally a caster can take a week per spell level of uninterrupted study in an attempt to understand a spell. At the end of the time the player rolls to see if the caster learned the spell. A caster can try again as often as they like. Remember there are 52 weeks in a year.

Swords and Wizardry Complete adds a spell level cap to the Intelligence score. The reason I was looking into the understanding thing was because you need to understand the spell to put it in your spell book.

Now, the big question I have for AD&D is: Why can I copy spells into my spell book, and if I so choose cast those spells out of my spell book as if they were scrolls (where they disappear off the page) but cannot create a scroll itself? If you can copy a spell from a scroll into a spell book, why not be able to copy a spell from a spell book to a scroll? Why wait for 7th (or 11th) level? Holmes makes the most sense here. If you can understand a 1st level spell, and have it in your book then you can copy it to a scroll. ChicagoWiz makes the point that Holmes does not mention the cost of copying a spell into a spell book. I think the cost unilaterally (OD&D, AD&D, Holmes, B/X, 3e etc.) is that you no longer have a scroll. But I figure that copying is copying and costs the same in all directions.

The time to create is pretty much a DMs call depending on how much he thinks the characters should be scribing. Holmes' week per level of the spell is probably based on the time that it took for a medieval monk to write a page of an illuminated manuscript working 6 hours a day for a week. But if you want the game to be run on the pursuit of treasure so you can pursue more treasure then you need things that the characters can spend their money on (like carousing). Scrolls become empty when they are used. That's a good hole in the pocket if I ever saw one. So I am tempted to say that it should be a day per level rather than a week. You still get PCs wasting a lot of time and also get them wasting money too.

Though what I might be inclined to do is this: if you want to scribe a scroll you need to gather the materials and set up a work space. This takes a week for whatever spell. Once you have set up shop you can pop them out at the day/level rate. But if you want to change spells, you have to "retool" your workspace and that takes a week. But then you hit the math-you-thought-was-small wall.

Here is my house rule on magical writing basics:

Spells can be stored in one of two ways: spell books are a kind of "permanent spell library" and a scroll is a kind of "temporary spell library." You can make copies from a permanent spell library without loss. Copying from a temporary library causes the loss of the library. Casting from both causes loss on both. Spell libraries can come in all different forms but involve writing and the above stated loss on casting or transferring.

To transfer a spell between libraries it cost 100gp/level of the spell. The time it takes is either 1day/level of the spell or 1week/level of the spell at the DMs discretion.

Research costs 1000gp/spell level and takes 1month/level to complete.

If a permanent spell library is destroyed memorized spells can be replaced in a day. Unmemorized but known spells are replaced as per the transfer rules or research rules as per the DM's discretion.

*Images from "ah-art" and "bloodmoonequinox" from deviant art respectively

I'll Swallow Your Soul!

Charisma has a lot to offer. While it often comes up as a person's charm or personality I think it should be more than the limitation on the meat-shield purchase plan. Charisma can also work well as a measure of your soul. Think about really charismatic musicians- they share a part of themselves in their art. Performers and speakers often are said to tap into their soul to convey their pain or idea. What is it that so inspires people to follow a particular leader? Why not have charisma measure how big that soul is? Getting more resistance against level draining monsters certainly will kick it out of the dump stat category.

Charisma indicates the maximum level for a character in any class. Monster powers that drain levels no longer drain levels- they drain Charisma. Charisma is now also a measure of your soul. When you run out of Charisma you die. Ignore Charisma damage when dealing with hirelings, followers and henchmen.

Addendum: I have just looked at the monsters that do level drain. Seems in LL and S&W level drain is the standard undead big bad power. Vampires drink blood and I would tie blood to Constitution rather than levels. Perhaps they also have a level drain? I would be hesitant to give them both. I am fond of stat damage as a measure of capacity for damage, but not a fan of recalculating things as the stats drop, hence the last line of the above rule. I should probably make my next post a treatise on how stat damage can be your friend.

Addendum addendum: Thinking about it I would remove the vampire's level drain and replace it with the ability to drain blood on an incapacitated or charmed or willing target, and say they can drain their attack damage points of Con per turn. This fits with the Dracula image better. As for the shadows I would say they drain life force so rather than Str, Dex, or Con I would have them drain just Con. If I did this I would not require a recalculation of hit points and abilities. And replacing level drain with Cha damage helps you avoid recalculating also.

The Ultimate Tomb of Horrors

I like when stuff happens by accident. Over at Dragonsfoot there has been the discussion of false tombs of Acererak to go with the Tomb of Horrors. This has led Dragonsfoot to publish not one, but two false tombs in the last couple of months or so. They can be found here and here. But what is interesting is that as this happens, we also see Michael Curtis speculating about this. So there you go: Tomb of Horrors as a heist, but with two (or more) false tombs that you need to go through to find the real one... The idea of running as a whole campaign is pretty cool. And the false tombs make it even cooler. You don't do the heist once, you do it three times! Though the flaw in it all is that by the time you get to the real tomb, if you get there, you will be able to mop the floor with the demi-lich. Still it is one of the coolest accidental confluences of ideas I have ever seen.

A Wilderness Template and More On Hexes

Back in December of 2009 (am I really that infrequent?) I posted about the 6 mile hex being the ideal hex for wilderness adventuring hex crawls over its other frequently appearing cousins the 4 and 5 mile hex. I still think that is true. But what I wanted to revisit is the third part of the post about how to break down the 6 mile hex into subhexes. In that article I was breaking everything down based on the number 12. 12 half mile subhexes and those breaking down into 12 1/24th mile subhexes. This had the cool effect of fitting in a space of 44x44 battle mat squares. But then I noticed some problems. I was aiming to create a one page wilderness hex map that could be used no matter what subhex level you were on. When I tried to print out and use a map of a hex 12 subhexes across the hexes were too small to really draw a map in, especially when you were on a 1/2 mile scale. Sure I could use the old B/X or Mentzer wilderness symbols, but the other problem was I wanted to use hex numbers to track which subhex I was documenting and the hex numbers would not fit into the subhexes of a hex 12 accross when it was configured to fit on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. Granted I could put numbers in there but they would be too small to easily read. The change works quite well. If you have 6 one-mile subhexes across a hex you can get large enough hexes to hold hex numbers and more map detail within the hexes should you want it. One mile hexes are good also for determining how far someone can see based on the 3 miles to the horizon principle I talked about in my previous hexagon article. Each of these 1 mile hexes breaks down to 6 880ft hexes, giving a good tactical scope to the one mile hex. These 880ft hexes have some interesting stuff about them: The longer range of historical bow shot was 200 to 400 yards and the standard practice range as set down by Henry the VIII was 220yds, or 660ft. So if you are in the middle of an 880ft hex, anything else in the hex is about 150 yards away. You could even shoot well into the next hex with some accuracy. So useing this scale, a good rule of thumb is that if someone is in the same hex or the next one with you, they are within bow shot. Another benefit is that Judges Guild hex maps on the 42.24ft per subhex scale can easily be rescaled to be 35.2ft per subhex having 25 of those fit in an 880ft hex. Since the structures displayed in these maps actually would get smaller it does not stretch the imagination and may be more believable. Also, 880ft is still a number that works well with the imperial measurements of chains and furlongs and acres. Furthermore 880ft hexes divide into subhexes of ~146 feet across. That fits on a 30 x 35 battle mat. Additionally using hexes with 6 subhexes across you can go upward too. I good area for starting a sandbox campaign would be a superhex of 6mi hexes. This is about the size of a typical county in Texas. (30mi x 30mi) Apply the same again and you might be nearing the ultimate scope of a campaign. So I have given all the different hex levels a different designation. See the measurements below for these. So here I have up here for download my take on the one page wilderness template. I have included it in form filled PDF, lined PDF, unlined PDF, Word with lines, and Word without lines. The graphic of the large hex is about as big as I can make it on 8.5 x 11. The lines are a little funky so expect these to get cleaned up sometime soon (probably next year). Here are the measurements of the hexes and subhexes: HexType: Face to Face, Vertex to Vertex Scope Hex: 216mi, 252mi Campaign Hex: 36mi, 42mi Adventure Hex: 6mi, 7mi Terrain Hex: 1mi (5280ft), 1.154mi (6093.12ft) Tactical Hex: 880ft, 1016ft Combat Hex: ~146ft (30 squares), ~169ft (35 squares) Judges Guild Maps: 35.2ft, ~40ft (40.3) Remember that the center to face is half the Face to Face distance and center to vertex is half the Vertex to Vertex distance. Here are the templates in PDF. There are three formats: blank, lined and form field: HexMapTemplate.pdf HexMapTemplateLines.pdf HexMapTemplateForm.pdf Happy wilderness mapping!

Monkey Scribe

Monkey Scribe

Level: 1
Duration: Instant, until written work is completed
Range: Touch

It is known that monkey scribed scrolls are the most potent.* This spell allows a magic-user to use a monkey (specifically a non-human great ape) to scribe mundane and magical writings. For spell books, a monkey scribe will copy the spells from a spell book to another as if they were the magic-user themselves, freeing the magic user for other tasks. The monkey becomes capable of understanding and speaking to the caster (with the casters intelligence and 25% of the time the casters personality and memory) for the duration of the spell and will calmly and diligently pursue his duties until finished. For scribing scrolls the monkey counts as the caster by proxy. The caster must be able to make the scroll himself without the help of the monkey for the monkey to be able to scribe the scroll. Scribing the scroll in this way makes the scroll more powerful as they max out any variables and offer twice the volume, range, duration and area of the spell. A factor of the spell is not doubled if it is already maxed out (for example in the case of variable duration, the max duration is used, and is not doubled). Variant: A GM may decide that humans do count as great apes for this spell.

*This idea came from the comments over at this linked post over at Telecanter's Receding Rules.

As I submitted this to Raggi for his spell contest this sucker is OGL so feel free to read and distribute with credit due.

I've Got Something to Say...

Its better to burn out than to fade away!

But if you must burn out or leave "the scene" or the renaissance or the revolution or whatever please just leave your blog up. Just say, I am done, see yall, and leave it there. Turn off comments for all your posts and let us at least use it as a resource.

I posted this because I just noticed something-
Welcome back to the presses ChgoWiz - your blog was missed...

Thanks.

Live After Death!

In my house rules for Labyrinth Lord I have created a new rule called "Live After Death." It was inspired by Heroes of Horror (and Iron Maiden, of course). Anyone looking at the previous post will see that I have finally found out where I saw the inspiration- in the sections called Balancing the Scales, Coming Back Wrong and the Resurrection Mishap table. I think the suggestions there are easily the best part of the book. I encourage people to track down a copy. The stipulations of extended time, the price of another life in exchange, special locations, provide great ideas for a campaign. But the one that has the best swords and sorcery feel is the idea that the magic is not perfect. The way I use it is that this can happen its a risk - always. So now when the spell is cast my players roll on the table below. I have not used the idea in balancing the scales yet, but the chance of coming back wrong just seemed, well... right. So here it is, a simple 2d6 chart that spices up those Labyrinth Lord Raise Dead spells (with a cool retro metal name to boot):

Live After Death
2 No, really, that’s not Bob: A demon possess the body- exorcism will return to dead state.
3 Better off Dead: Oops, such a fine line between raised and animated… character now undead of HD corresponding to current level.
4 Chains Attached: The character is back to achieve one thing as if under unbreakable quest or geas spell. When done the character dies, forever.
5 Alignment Change due to fear of death.
6 Normal
7 Normal
8 Normal
9 Alignment Change due to seeing and understanding the truth.
10 Strings Attached: As if under unbreakable geas/quest. Must complete.
11 Crossed Wires: DM switches 2 of INT CHA or WIS
12 Wait, that’s not Bob: wrong soul- re roll INT CHA and WIS

Scream for me Long Beach!

The Five Foundations of Flavor

Speculative adventure games (aka TTRPGs) are just that: games. When all of the world design, history writing, and character building is finished there are only really five different places where your players really feel and pay attention to the world you have created: the places they explore, the spells (cast on them and by them), the monsters and villians they fight, the kinds of treasure they find, and magic items they use. These are the places where a DM puts the description of the world because these are the places where the players pay attention and the rubber meets the road.

How the places they explore are presented and if they are memorable or not has a big effect on what your players will remember. The way the traps work, hazards, weirdnesses, and the general feel of the place all say something about the world you have created. How often do places like this show up? How deep do they go? How weird do they get? Who built it? Is there any indicator as to who lived and/or worked here? This is how you get the history and feel of your campaign setting in to the minds of the players.

The way magic works also says alot about the world. Do spells have the names of their creators attached to them? Are there unique spells or ways of casting spells that show something about the world? If it is rare to find magic and hard to cast spells, then it colors the world in a certain way. There may not be any good wizards in your world. How the magic works would be a great place to accentuate that. Changing how the system works just a little bit can say a lot about spells and the people who cast them.

China Mieville's Slake Moth really brings home the setting of Perdido Street Station. Your monsters and villians are the probably the most defining element of the flavor of your setting. Are monsters (and demi humans) rare? Perhaps the only real monsters in your world are men with the occasional tentacled horror, or giant snake. The presence, size, intelligence and behavior of dragons says a lot. What the characters encounter really impacts the flavor of the world probably more than anything else because these are the things they fight and most of the interaction of most games is the combat system. When you fight a monster in a location the chances are someone is going to cast a spell. You can begin to see how the colors start to come together.

Treasure. It all comes down to what a large haul is. Do you find that dragons hoarde thousands of coins or just hundreds? In some worlds 300 gold pieces is small reward. In worlds with a little different flavor 30 gold crowns sets you for life. How far does gold go? How much do you find? Is the treasure even stacks of gold or is it historical artifacts and information about the world? What you find burried may not just be wealth but flavor.

Frequency and function of magic items works hand in hand with the spells and treasure. These things are generally a way for characters to touch the history of the game world. How they work says somthing about magic and the metaphysics of the campaign. Do magic items only ever show up based on fire and ice? Is it really just misunderstood technology? What magic items you present and how many of them you present is one of the best ways of conveying the world to the players.

These are the things your players will really ever pay attention to. These are the sticky points. They will meet you at these places and these are the things that they will remember. So if you want them to remember all the work you put into writing out histories and whatnot, do it in these places. Designing spells, creating magic items, building castles that will someday make a new ruin to explore, learning secrets about monsters, and seeking wealth are the ways players connect with the world. Fostering this connection by alowing the player to get involved allows them to remember more of what you have made.