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Tag: OSR (Page 18 of 19)

Armor Class and BAB

June 26, 2010 /

I'm one of those people that didn't have an issue with descending armor class. Maybe I should have, I dunno.

I also have nothing at all against the d20 mechanic and ascending armor class.

So what do you do in a retroclone? Do you follow the spirit of the old ruleset and have a To Hit table like OSRIC and Swords & Wizardry? You could use the table and manually write a "To Hit Armor Class 0" on the character sheet.

You could go the route of Dark Dungeons and use something like thac0 and a to hit table and come up with Attack Rank. Attack Rank A =  thac0: 20, Attack Rank B = thac0: 19 and so on until you reach Attack Rank S = thac0: 2. It takes until Attack Rank X to be thac0: 1 and then it descends again throughout Attack Rank Z to Attack Rank XX. Again, you can pretty much convert an Attack Rank into a thac0, cross out the Attack Rank letter on the character sheet and substitute a thac0 number.

You could go the Basic Fantasy route and just use Base Attack Bonus and ascending armor class. In this case, you take your old material, perform a 10-AC conversion and make appropriate notes throughout that penalties to target's AC are really bonuses to attackers' to hit roll.

Which one?

For now, I plan on using a Successful Attack Target Number or SATN. (considering the consternation created by thac0 discussions, I think the acronym is a perfect fit!)

The forumla will work like this:

Roll 1d20 +modifiers + target's AC >= SATN is a hit.

The beauty of this system is that when I see thac0 in my old modules, I treat it as the SATN. Thanks to the additive property of equality, the result is the same. Don't believe me? Look it up on any thac0 discussion. Also, let's follow this example:

Brad, a 2nd level Fighter has a thac0 of 19. He is attacking a goblin with an AC of 6. With a STR of 15, he receives a +1 to Hit.

Roll is 13. Add bonus to hit to increase the total to 14. Take thac0 (19) and subtract the armor class: 19-6 = 13. The roll of 14 is greater than 13, so the attack is successful.

now try this:

Brad a 2nd level Warrior has a SATN of 19. He is attacking a goblin with AC of 6. With a STR of 15, he receives a +1 to hit.

Roll is 13. 13 + 1 (STR Bonus) + 6 (Target AC) = 20. This is larger than the SATN of 19, so the attack is successful.

On the GM side of the screen, 2nd Edition monsters appears with a thac0. The GM does the same calculation as the players when rolling for the goblin.

The other thing this mechanic allows (you know essentially keeping the thac0), is that this allows fiddling with monsters. More on that later.

Netbooks and Spellcasters

June 9, 2010 /

Unearthed Arcania is one of those supplements that I found later in my gaming career that I wish I had found much earlier. For completeness, I also would have liked Rhyme of the Ancient Spelljammer and Temporum Sphaera. (I currently have all three now.) Sometime ago, I also found a netbook called Wizard's Netbook that provides all kinds of spellcaster variation. I could list a lot more of them, but if you remember them at all, you probably have all the same ones I have.

As an aside, do any of you have the Spell Markup Language?  Fun to read...

Anyway, there's something about the wealth of the house rules that inspire all kinds of creative possibilities. I plan on adapting a well playtested spell point variant to the OSR Project. Spell points available would be properly notated like this:

and add 1 to the result.

The spell level limitation will be per the Microlite 20 Core Rules - Spells can be cast with a spell level equal or below 1/2 a spellcaster's level, rounded up. The cost to cast a spell will be 2* spell level. Cantrips will cost 1 point. Owing to my OSR ways, all of this information will be presented in a chart that looks something like this:

Level Spell Points Max Spell Level
1 2 1
2 4 1
3 7 2
4 11 2
5 16 3
6 22 3
7 29 4
8 37 4
9 46 5
10 56 5
11 67 6
12 79 6
13 92 7
14 106 7
15 121 8
16 137 8
17 154 9
18 172 9
19 191 9
20 211 9

For those that wonder, this makes them weaker than standard spellcasters - the effect is that noticeable until around 10th level or so. As a result, the XP required to advance to the next level is approx 10% less than a standard spellcaster. Debate now swings around Meditation in lieu of sleep. Basically, 3 hrs meditation = 8 hours sleep.

More later.

Cryptic Note Saves Day

May 26, 2010 /

While creating the massive table of skills for the OSR project, I found a note written in my 2e Player's Handbook.

Here's the pertinent section - it is found when describing the skills a Rogue uses:

To determine the initial value of each
skill, start with the base scores listed on
Table 26. To these base scores, add (or subtract)
any appropriate modifiers for race,
Dexterity, and armor worn (given on Tables
27, 28, and 29, respectively).

The scores arrived at in the preceding paragraph
do not reflect the effort a thief has
spent honing his skills. To simulate this
extra training, all thieves at 1st level receive
60 discretionary percentage points that they
can add to their base scores. No more than
30 points can be assigned to any single skill.
Other than this restriction, the player can
distribute the points however he wants.

Each time the thief rises a level in experience,
the player receives another 30 points
to distribute. No more than 15 points per
level can be assigned to a single skill, and no
skill can be raised above 95 percent, including
all adjustments for Dexterity, race, and
armor.

In other words, there is no table in 2e because there are base skills, Dexterity and Racial modifiers and discretionary points. I saw a note written in the margin that says "Neat!" and now I remember why. It allowed us to have a 5th level Thief (we never called them rogues) with really high abilities to certain skills in order to create interesting subclasses. We had a trapmaster that was great at finding and removing traps, a ninja that could move silently and climb walls, or an urban thief that was a great pickpocket and lockbreaker.

So our skill table will look something like this:

Pick Pockets 15%
Open Locks 15 %
Find/Remove Traps 15%
Move Silently 15%
Hide in Shadows 15%
Detect Noise 15%
Climb Walls 60%
Read Languages 0%
Read Magic 0%
Catch/Batt Away Object 15%
Acrobatics 50%

For Each Skill a player chooses for their class, the player is give 7.5 discretionary points (Round up). The player may use these points to boost skill percentages in any or all skills. An individual skill cannot receive more than half the total discretionary point pool.

Remember that all character classes can attempt these skills on a 1 in 8 dice roll (12.5%). Only those that take them as a focus can increase their abilities. The balancing feature that prevents someone from taking 'every' skill is the XP cost. Each skill has an XP cost that makes in more difficult to advance in levels.

Two side notes: Fighters in the pre-built classes have one skill, catch object. At first level, a Fighter has a 23% chance of catching/batting away a thrown object - this can include certain spells. At 11th level, they can be pretty difficult to hit from a distance. Magic-Users purchase the Read Magic ability at 100% in a different part of character creation.

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