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Tag: retroclone (Page 7 of 8)

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.

More Thoughts of 2e Inspired Clone

March 13, 2011 /

I know I know. 2e? Really? Even Myth & Magic went 3e on everything.

Yet, here I am still thinking about it. I realized that the math from a previous post about my 2e ideas is more complicated than I think is fun. When my friends and I are playing at 4am, I am not thrilled about the commutative property of addition or its effects on making a roll. I want something simpler.

In re-reading my 2e Player's Handbook, I realize that I had proficiencies wrong. Proficiencies do not provide bonuses - they create penalties for using non-proficient weapons.

Weapon specialization, however, provides +1 to hit, +2 to damage and multiple attacks sooner than non-specialized fighters. For bows and crossbows, specialists can fire at point-blank range.

Proceeding forward, I'm basically going to assume the use of weapons proficiencies and specialization for fighters. Secondary skills and non-weapon proficiencies can be tacked on later.

Having said that, let's start with the example in the Player's Handbook and work around it.

Seventh level Fighter with 18/80 Strength and longsword + 1 attacking creature in chainmail AC 6. THAC0 is 14, the final target number is 14 - (2 + 1 + 6) or 5. So I need to roll a five or better to successful hit the creature. You could also think of this as an 80% chance of success.

I'm not afraid of subtraction by any means. What I am thinking about is explaining the math in a sentence. Right now, the successfully hit something you have to roll a d20 greater than the difference between your THAC0 and the sum of all your modifiers. Sounds bad, but it is easily mastered once you do it four or five times.

I'd rather have something easier to explain in English. For example, to successfully hit something you have to roll a d20 under the sum of your Base Attack Bonus and all your modifiers.

In fact, I'd like to go a step further and say that any success comes from rolling a d20 equal to or under the sum of your base ability and all your modifiers. That's where I started with the thieves' skills in the previous post. Here's what it looks like:

Our seventh level fighter with 18/80 Strength and longsword + 1 attacking creature in chainmail AC 6. With a Base Attack Score of 6, we add all of our modifiers to 6, including the opponent's Armor Class. This gives us 6 (Base) + 2 (Str) + 1 (Magic) + 6 (AC) to total 15. Rolling 15 or under on a d20 has an 80% chance of being successful.

Let's take our thief trying to pick pockets:

Our first level thief lives in an urban area where picking pockets is a way to earn a living. When determining his thief's skill, he starts with 3 in Pick Pockets and adds the maximum of 6 to it. So, he has a Pick Pockets score of 9. To determine if he is successful, roll a s20 and get 9 or less.

This even applies to Non-Weapon Proficiencies. They are determined by primary attribute +/- and adjustment. Roll 1d20 under to determine success.

For example, anyone with the brewing proficiency would roll based on their Intelligence score. Our thief, will an INT of 14 and a brewing non-weapon proficiency would roll equal to or under 14 to brew a good beer.

That is just a look at having a universal mechanic. Next up, how to avoid the explosion of awful kits...

The Ill-Fated OSR Project

September 28, 2010 /

With the OSR Project, I ran into a snag trying to develop a magic building system. I wanted something that could re-create the spell list from B/X (or BECMI) without being overly complicated.

One idea was to use the OpenD6 system. The downside of it was that this seemed to lessen the number of spells. In other words, fireball and lightning bolt become essentially the same spell.

Then, I remembered some ideas I had for Shayakand based on Anaxagorian philosophy. For the system, we could use Seeds and Essences. Seeds are what you might call elements in either the modern or classical sense. This would include air, fire, water, etc. You can even throw in oriental elements like wood and metal. Get alchemical and add in mercury and sulphur and aqua regia. Get modern and include gold, silver, helium, sodium, etc. To make it more like Anaxagorian, though, you'd have to include what we in the modern world call compounds (including alloys). With this we have salt, baking powder, diamond, pewter, concrete, etc. Seeds could even include metaphysical concepts like thought and newtonian concepts like force, gravity, and the like.

Essences are easier to describe. They are the fundamental qualities that make a thing distinct from every other thing. For example, human-ness would be an essence. Orcish is another one, elven would be a third example. It doesn't necessarily apply to sentient creatures (all lumped under kith), it could be specific types of animals, plants or protozoan. In a world with magic, you have to have unlife, but you could have something as weird as chair-ness. (The essential qualities of a chair that make it a chair and not something else.)

Anyway, seeds and essences would make the NOUN part of the magic system.

For the verb, I'll like to stick with common categories for now. This would be things like Protect, Curse, Charm, Create, Summon, Change, Heal, Imbue, Move, and something for Illusion spells.

So the basis of creating a simple spell is to link a verb to a noun. Create Gold, Move Thing, Charm Dragon, Curse Weeds, Summon Fire, etc. Imbue and Change are similar, but the difference is this: Change transforms one object into another. Change Frog would transform the target of a spell into a frog. Imbue Frog would impart froglike characteristics to the target. This could be anything from a long tongue to the ability to breath through the skin, to an ability to sit in water for long periods of time without becoming dehydrated.

After that, we'd need a point system of some kind to measure the effects of these spells. For example, a simple spell could pertain to a 1hd creature, 1 molar of a substance, 1d6 damage, or +1 effect. These spells would cost no points and could be treated like cantrips.

To enhance the effect, though, would require spending points to increase the area of effect, the range of the spell, increase damage, increase number of targets or modify the casting time. Not sure about the specifics of this one yet, but I'd hope that a point system would only be used to generate leveled spells. In other words, a 2 point spell could be first level, a 4 point spell could be second level and so on.

The effect of this system is that spells and magic items are incredibly specific. Here's what I mean. You can have a spell that temporarily protects you from attacks by a type of creature. Even if you broaden it out and say Protect Animal, you can be harmed by plants. If you say Protect Living Creature, you can be attacked by undead and constructs. There is no "protect everything" spell. "Everything" is not a seed or an essence.

Thinking about the spells needed to create magic weapons, there is not a generic spell to grant +2 against everything. So magic armor could be +2 against kith (all sentient creatures) because it was created for a soldier to wear in a war. Maybe a +3 against dragons for a local hero out to rid the area of a pesky dragon. In other words, it give the magic item a story because it's effects are pretty specific.

But I still would like to have generic +2 armor against everything. To do that, I'm going to be flexible with the Imbue school of magic. Let's say that folks with the Imbue school can decide, with proper study, to really get into materials fabrication. In other words, to get +1 armor, you have to magically infuse iron to make it slightly better than steel. You can describe it in any kind of way you want - event an element to fit the bill. Better yet, give it a characteristic color. This makes it easy to spot.

Say, that fellow has chartreuse plate mail.
Egads, he could brush off a cannon shot to the chest!

As always, the devil is in the details. I'll like to start off with a spell having a casting time of a round, a duration of three or four rounds, range about 5 feet, one target, one molar of material, and maybe a five foot radius of effect and 1d6 damage. Let's see where that gets us, shall we?

BTW spells like wish and limited wish may be special cases. I could go the Hitchhiker's Guide route and say that wish spells are IMBUE PROBABILITY, but figuring out 1d6 effect for probability can get tricky. Maybe you could say that a wish is an essence, but that still leaves you with figuring out 1d6 effect.

I think Illusion spells are limited forms of create. In other words, Illusion Badger creates the illusion that the target has been transformed into a badger.

Anyway, let's see how this idea goes.

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