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Tag: 2e clone (Page 11 of 12)

Example Kits

March 18, 2011 /

One of the issues with kits was the special ability and hindrance that went with each one. The base class had no explicitly stated hindrances, yet the "flavor" version of the base class had a boon and a bane that somehow balanced out.

One example of this was the swashbuckler kit. The three special bonus were an AC bonus (because he's so hard to hit!), Rogue non-weapon proficiencies at half price, and a +2 adjustment to the reaction roll in some situations. To balance this out was a hindrance that stated that the swashbuckler was a trouble magnet.

The purpose behind the first two bonuses was to force a swashbuckler PC to take unpopular, but genre-correct weapons and non-weapon proficiencies. I understand the rationale, but forcing a character to take weapons feels like the wrong way to go about it.

I would recommend simply that a swashbuckler keeps the weapon specialization (just like any other warrior) but is required to take the tumbling non-weapon proficiency. Then I'd recommend the seafaring, blind fighting and tightrope walking non-weapon proficiencies.

Disguise, forgery and the like sound more like a thief. Instead of creating a kit with a fighter that wants to be a thief-acrobat, I'd create a buccaneer kit for Rogues that provide the appropriate weapons (black powder pistol, sabre, rapier, etc) and the non-weapon proficiencies for being a rope-walking cheat. Specifically, include the gaming, disguise, and forgery non-weapon proficiencies for the buccaneer while including pick pockets, read languages, etc. With the extra non-weapon proficiencies that Rogues get in my retroclone, the buccaneer will have everything he/she needs to sail the seven seas and charm his/her way through settled lands and territories.

The point is that both the swashbuckler kit and the buccaneer kits do not provide special abilities and can be created using the rules of the base class.

Let's take another example, the priest-monk kit.

Making the monk a subset of the priest is interesting. However, I would think that a wizard kit that featured a weapon proficiency in martial arts would be more interesting. Make the somatic components of spells a type of maneuver and there's a lot of interesting stuff you can do without bending the rules.

Honestly, though, I'd make the monk a different class - they would have the martial arts weapon proficiency, but I'd also give them a special ability that provides level-based bonuses to AC. Having a new special ability necessitates the creation of another class, otherwise the balance issues come back with a vengeance.

So what will kits look like? There will be five or six kits of each of the four main classes. The kits may provide a bonus non-wepaon proficiency, but otherwise must follow the rules of creating a character in the man dlass.

Warrior:

cavalier
swashbuckler
wilderness warrior (for all types of terrain, including urban)

More later as time warrants.

Skills and Non-Weapon Proficiencies

March 16, 2011 /

Just to get one thing out of the way. Anyone can attempt any non-weapon proficiency. In my old games, I had a rule that rolling a one on a d6 meant success in anything, usually with detecting secret doors or finding a trap. For my 2e clone, the GM can adopt the same rule, or make it a roll equal to or under 4 on a d20. The latter choice is for folks that must have complete consistency.

I made a minor edit in my previous post. Two of the thieves skills had Intelligence as the attribute instead of Wisdom. Rogues need to have dexterity to be certain, but a wise rogues know when to press his/her luck and when to wait for another day. I wanted more traditional thief skills to reflect Wisdom as a second important attribute for a Rogue.

Before discussing kits, it is important to mention how many proficiencies characters start with, especially in light of the Thief changes. Basically, it's the same as listed in the 2e PHB except that Rogues start with 6 non-weapon proficiencies and gain a new one every three levels. Not only does this put all characters gaining more non-weapon proficiencies at the same time (every three levels) it also emphasizes the idea that a Rogue lives by his skill, not by his sword or by overwhelming magic.

When it comes to rogues, this would appear to make them very powerful at low levels. Really though it allows them to be good at two or three of the eight traditional skills. It will still take until 19th level to be good at all of them.

As far as kits are concerned, I only want them to offer choices as variation of one of the main archetypes. If you are a thief, you can take the traditional package or one of these others based on description. If you want a swashbuckling pirate, he/she can do a couple of the traditional thief skills, boating, tightrope walking, etc. If you want an urban thief, here are the skills for that.

What I do not want is a player looking at the list of all the non-weapon proficiencies and taking four hours to figure out what his character is going to be. More importantly, I don't want the players to have to memorize a bunch of options and rules to be able to play. Presenting them as choices to the player, I leave it to the GM to create his/her own kits.

Next time, I'll list some of the kits for all the classes. After that, it will be time to talk about the two systems of psionics available in 2e.

More on Thieves Skills

March 15, 2011 /

One thing that has always bothered me about 2e thieves was a breakdown between the iconic D&D THIEF SKILLS and certain non-weapon proficiencies. I still think of ventriloquism and disguise as alternate thief skills, yet they have a different mechanic to determine success from climb walls or read languages. Odd.

I could, as a 1st level thief, have a 60% chance of creating a good disguise (assuming a 13 charisma), but less then 35% in doing most of the canonical thief skills, except climb walls.

One way to resolve it is to make several non-weapon proficiencies into thief skills. I like this approach in part because some of the non-weapon proficiencies had been used a theives' skills in previous editions. I also like it because it gives a thief more options. I can see an urban thief as quite different than and adventuring, dungeon-crawling thief. I could see both as quite different from a yazuka and assassin. You could start with a list of twelve skills starting with 1 point and 16 points to build with no more than 6 points going  to one skill.

However, once you make the thief skills and non-weapon proficiencies the same mechanic, it makes more sense for all the thief skills to become non-weapon proficiencies. This allows characters to have a narrow band of skills with better than a one in three chance of doing anything. This also ties into the kits idea, but that will come later in another post.

To preview a bit where all of this is going: Warriors will be differentiated by weapon proficiencies and specializations. Rogues will be differentiated by non-weapon proficiencies. Wizards will be differentiated by schools of magic. Priests will be differentiated by domains. Psionicists will be differentiated by disciplines. Certain non-weapon proficiencies can add flavor to any character, but I want to get rid of certain silliness in the various Handbooks. (An amazon kit for every class. Ugh.)

Back to the topic. To re-skin the thief skills into non-weapon proficiencies:

Pick Pockets: DEX +0
Open Locks: DEX -1
Find/Remove Traps: WIS -2
Move Silently: DEX -1
Hide in Shadows: WIS -2
Detect Noise: WIS
Climb Walls: DEX +2
Read Languages: INT - 3

Next up, more on the kits.

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