Welcome to TODD! This thread is for OPEN discussion of TSR-era Dungeons & Dragons (OD&D, Basic D&D, and AD&D including 2e) and related games, such as retroclones and OSR-adjacent games (OSE, BFRPG, S&W, LotFP, DCC, C&C, etc.). Free discussion of house rules and modifications is encouraged. For the sake of clarity, B/X is the assumed default system for any conversation unless otherwise indicated (but please do feel free to indicate otherwise).previous thread: >>93322976 >What do you think of the silver standard?>What ability generation method do you use/prefer?>Is there any way to buy magic items in your game?>Are demihuman–human relations in your game troubled?>How big do you like your dragons?>Do you prefer more bestial dragons or more intelligent, scheming ones?>What special rules do you use for mounted combat, if any?
>>93339775
I'd prefer to keep dragons limited in size, unless you want to invalidate normal melee combat. I mean, it could be fun to have to engage dragons with pikes, but unless you want to make it a whole thing, anything too far past 30' long means you really shouldn't be able to get at the dragon very well.
Rereading Skills & Power, the 1995 2E that basically tried to turn 2E into GURPS or Role aster and in a lot of ways is the precursor to 3E.Hackmaster copies it.The idea that you buy class abilities with a pool of points feels like it could be an alter to feats in a theoretical 3E that never was. You spend accumulated Character Points each level, with multiclassed features costing more.
>>93339818The current method of stat generation I'm playing around with forgoes the raw ability scores entirely, and just deals with the modifiers.1 Constitution2 Strength3 Dexterity4 Intelligence5 Wisdom6 Charisma7-8 same as previous [3 down when switching]9 attribute before previous [2 down when switching]10 attribute after previous [4 down when switching]For your first roll, roll a d6. After that roll a d10.>Roll 4 times, adding +1 each time to the resulting attribute.>Roll 2 times, giving a -1 each time to the resulting attribute.You can switch the order of those if you want, rolling the minuses before the pluses. Either way, when switching from one to the other, use the bracketed entries when if roll a 7-10.Note that the list of attributes wraps around, so Constitution is after Charisma and Charisma is before Constitution.The attributes have a max of +3, so in the rare instance that you end up with a +4 in a stat after all is said and done, reroll to randomly replace that last point.
>>93339916I just don't think that old school D&D is carefully balanced enough for something like point buys.
>>93339924One thing this does is to make it more likely that related attributes go up or down together. If you have a high Strength, there's a greater chance that your Constitution is also high.
Have you guys ever used makeshift miniatures? I'm mostly a theater of the mind kind of guy, but I'll admit to using Dragonrider figures a time or two back in the day.
Have you guys ever done a primarily vertical dungeon? (Pic semi-related.) It seems like that could be fun. Maybe fighting it out with wall-crawling or flying monsters while suspended on ropes.
>>93339916>>93339930Mind you, I'm not opposed the concept. I'm just not sure it works well with D&D.
Magic-Users and Thieves have their armor choices restricted, but all the other classes in B/X can wear plate mail. There is no class where chain mail is optimal, which seems kind of weird to me. I prefer to restrict plate mail to fighters alone, setting them apart. Aside from this, however, I like the idea of there being a more lightly armored class that's reasonably fighty... a barbarian or scout maybe. I guess you could slot a ranger in there too.
Since the B/X spell lists are relatively short, it seems like it could be both cool and doable to give elves a separate list, without too much overlap with magic-users. I suppose that some woodsy magic would be something to give them, but other than that, is there any particular flavor or style of magic that you think would fit elves vs. magic-users? You could either leave the magic-user list basically as-is, or divvy the spells up between them and elves, and flesh them out separately with stuff from AD&D and whatnot.
>>93340011Chain is lighter than plate and leather is even lighter. Less encumburance means more movement. Just play a fighter and use lighter armor. No need for needless class bloat.
>>93339977It didn’t work at all in Skills & Powers, but the bones of something was there.
>>93340099I like barbarians and rangers anyway, and I think there's a reason you don't see a lot of fighters opting for lighter armor. Getting +2 AC can make a big difference in terms of your durability, especially if you're also using as shield, so that two point difference is eating away at a smaller range of what would otherwise hit.
>>93340206Yeah you are tankier but less mobile. Makes it harder to run away. Moving around the dungeon is slower. That's the trade-off. If you play by the rules there's a lot of choise. And on higher levels having high ac doesnt matter that much since monters have bigger modifiers. Having plate is good of course but there's also reasons not to wear it all the time.
>>93340206>>93340225But if you like pointless class bloat that's fine. If you really feel like you NEED a seperate class for wearing light armor go for it.
>>93340225>And on higher levels having high ac doesnt matter that much since monters have bigger modifiers.Not according to numbers I've run in the past. Because magic pluses accrue for both armor and shields, a heavily armored man remains hard to hit even into high levels. Like in the 1/3 to 1/4 of the time range.You're right that there's a tradeoff though.
>>93339775Silver standard seems neat>PicrelHow does Advanced Fantasy hold up? Do the contents feel like BX/Advanced mixed, but better sorted and more logical? Or more like Advanced stuff converted to B/X?
>>93340237I don't really need it, but I do like the idea of a full array of armor restrictions. Restricting clerics and demihumans to chain mail or less would accomplish that though. But quite separately of this issue, I do think Rangers and Barbarians make for interesting additions. While I think AD&D goes overboard on some things, I don't mind the number of classes it has (which is not to say that I'm a big fan of all of the particular classes).
>>93340547Just from glancing over it, it seemed mostly like Advanced options sitting on more streamlined Basic core system.
Simplified B/X treasure tables for a copper standard (just multiply by 100 to use it for the standard... uh... gold standard).
>What do you think of the silver standard?Seems mostly unnecessary to me.>What ability generation method do you use/prefer?4d6 down the line, jf you don't have two stats 15+, reroll, per Gygax's recommendation. I've got a python script for it that does it on the fly and checks it against race and class minimums and maximums to see what you qualify for.>Is there any way to buy magic items in your game?Nope.>Are demihuman–human relations in your game troubled?Not really, but I do like Elves that are more standoffish at best and Unseelie Court fuckers at worst.>How big do you like your dragons?Big enough to ride with ease should you subdue one.>Do you prefer more bestial dragons or more intelligent, scheming ones?Bestial for the chaotic ones, intelligent for the lawful ones.>What special rules do you use for mounted combat, if anyNone
What's the appeal of the silver standard? Is it aesthetic? Is it a realism thing?I've never seen it in actual play so I'm curious if I should look into it
>>93340548I actually like rangers and assasins because they can use 1:1 downtime to scout wilderdess/dungeons and be effective at it and other things. In play I don't realy like them as I feel they don't really bring anything to the table. Barbarians I have never cared for as a seperate class.
>>93340799For me, the main appeal is having coin denominations that are actually useful. Going by the book, anything below a gold piece is so piddly, it's almost obnoxious to deal with. With a silver standard, silver pieces are worthwhile, gold pieces are actually valuable and copper pieces are 10x less obnoxious. Also, it does make sense historically speaking.
Looking for recommendations for a small to middle-sized Evil Temple Ruin module for low level characters, or something that could be reskinned to serve as such with minimal effort.
>>93339818honestly this card draw is based and i will use it in all my games from now oni have always been a huge advocate of "rolled stats but to the same total", but the card draw is way less tedious for the same idea.
>>93339818Very nice but too complicated. I just use method VII, 75 points point buy from 2e.
>>93339930This is simply not true. It's very balanced.
True balance is when you understand that there is no such thing as balance.
>>93339941Just make them the same attribute.Might = Strength + ConstitutionSkill = Dexterity + CharismaWill = Intelligence + WisdomSix attributes is too many anyway.
>>93341160based beyond belief
>>93339818Can't remember where I read this attribute gen method but has anyone tried 2d6+6. Gives you a range between 8-18. It just works. No more -3 CON modifiers. You could do 2d6+4 too, point is to limit influence of negative modifiers on starting PCs.
>>93341242Before anyone tries to be a smartass>"just change min and max modifiers to -1 and +1 lol"That doesn't work if you're using anything AD&D-based. AD&D is "balanced" around the assumption that attributes can be affected magically and that different races have meaningfully different strengths and weaknesses.
>>93339924Very elegant. It's also faster than the original method, which is a plus in my book because it took too long.
>>93341160Nice. Harkens back to the Fortitute / Reflex / WIll, you could unify the system with those as well. WotC took a step in the right direction with 3e, but then chickened out of it, unfortunately.
>>93341160I'd lump Dex with Int under Skill, and put Wis and Cha together under "Spirit"
>>933411602simple4me. I think either Maze Rats or Knave went with a 'modifier-only' approach (or maybe a 'score-only' approach?). Too lazy to check and they've both been expanded/revised, but I remember it being a straightforward, compatible alternative if that's your cup of tea.>>93341286>Fortitute / Reflex / WIll>WotC took a step in the right direction Can't deny this even though I'm one of those guys who loves the silly saving throw categories. You could always just throw in class abilities like 'dwarves get +2 on Fortitude saves against non-magical poisons'.
>>93341160>>93341468Now someone do the opposite and try to create the most awkward three-save combos imaginable, still giving them suitable names.
>>93341468It's also good. A different feel for sure.
Strength + Charisma = ForceIntelligence + Dexterity = DeftnessWisdom + Constitution = Withstandery
>>93341514>most awkward three-save combosWe are doing three ability score systems to replace the original six, not just saves.>>93341607Strength + Charisma = CHADNESS
Does anyone know any generic or Dragonlance first edition AD&D magic user spells that are:a) Conjuration only or Summoning onlyb) InvocationWas there anything in 1e that revised spell types so that the difference been access only to Conj and access only to Summ became meaningful? Were spells transferred in 1e from Evoc to Invoc so that access to Invoc became useful in DL? Or is the DL access to spheres by robe as ham fisted as it looks?The reason to ask is orders/robes in DL. DL Wizards of High Sorcery were given access to different spell spheres. If a DL wizard changed order his spell book might contain unuseable spells due to them them being of a type not useable by his new order, for instance, it's hardwired that only Black Robes can use necromantic spells.Mechanically I can't see sense in how the orders were limited for two main the reasons.The first is that only Red can cast both Conj and Summ, White can cast Conj, Black can cast Summ. As every Conj spell in PHB is also a Summ spell all three orders can access every spell in that grouping.The second is that only Red Robes can cast Invoc. There are Invoc only spells in the PHB and in other settings predating Dragonlance Adventures. This means that Invoc is not synonymous with Evoc but due to a lack of MU Invoc spells the Red Robes have access to practically nothing.Examples of spells belonging to only one of the four magic types:Spiritual Hammer, Cleric 2, PHB, InvocFire Seeds, Druid 6, PHB, ConjDream Vision, Shukenja 3/Wu Jen 4, Oriental Adventures, InvocAid, Cleric 1, Unearthed Arcana, ConjThe only meaningful generic MU examples I have found have been in UA. There are Conj and Summ cantrips but no Invoc. There is one actual MU spell, Armor, which is Conj and not Summ.Please note that some spells changed type between 1e and 2e. and that the 2e version of eight oppositional schools of magic hadn't, afaik, developed in 1e. 1e uses twelve "types of magic" and DL calls them Spheres of Magic.
>>93341160cringe.If you are going to reduce abilities, reduce them to 4 instead of 3.One for each major engagement type AND classstr- fighter-combatdex-thief-explorationint-m-u-knowledgrcha-cleric-socialjust cause some’s dexy doesnt mean they are social.then you got 2 kinds of physical stats and 2 kinds of mental stats. its more balanced. overt physical sudtle physical overt mental subtle mental.
>>93341946Was it autism?
>>93341610>>933416075etards figured this out better years ago on twitter.
>>93342344>just cause some’s dexy doesnt mean they are social.yeah and just because someone has a high amount of dexterity doesn't mean they are skilled in survivalism. also why would a cleric be more socially inclined than any other class? if anything i imagine it would be the oppositegod i hate d&d
>>93342344Go even more minimalist and just combine scores and classes."I ask around for retainers to accompany us to the dungeon. Drinks are on me.""Okay, roll cleric+1."
>>93342382>doesn't mean they are skilled in survivalismit doesnt. just that its in the wheelhouse. Being strong doesnt mean you are good at combat either. In DnD exploration also includes stuff like sneaking and lockpicking more dexterous instead of overt physical tasks. Its just the general catagory of action.>why would a cleric be more socially inclined than any other classtheir whole schtick is to preach and conduct rights. More specifically you could say they are graceful (pleasing a god) which is a subset of knowing how to propitiate.
>>93342382If Charisma is persuasiveness (which most of the rules using it effectively boil down to) and clerics are the 'religion' class, I'd say that makes sense.
>>93342471Go even more minimalist and abolish rolls.>I kill the orc>okay
>>93342354You can't perscrute the reasons for a deletion.
>>93342498>Being strong doesnt mean you are good at combat either.i agree. to-hit should be decided by dexterity and also your skill with the weapon, while damage should be decided by either strength or your skill with the weapon (strength for heavy weapons, and skill for stuff like rapiers). you could also use both of those for heavy weapons to make it more symmetricalbut this is nothing like d&d anymore because it becomes skill-based rather than attribute-based>In DnD exploration also includes stuff like sneaking and lockpicking more dexterous instead of overt physical tasks. Its just the general catagory of action.fair enough. you said "exploration," so i took that as "exploration of any environment," but if you're strictly talking about dungeon diving, it makes sense. surivalism could also be made into skillsi'm seeing a pattern here. d&d really should have used more skill-based stuffand no, by "skills" i don't mean the way thief skills work, i mean things that you get better at the more you do them, and level up independently of your attributes. this idea is used in a lot of games>their whole schtick is to preach and conduct rights. More specifically you could say they are graceful (pleasing a god) which is a subset of knowing how to propitiate.i wouldn't say a priest's ability to preach is a social thing, but maybe that's just me. a bard in a lot of games is a real social class, and it makes sense, because they are dashing and charismatic. a priest is just a weirdo and would only have influence on people who both trust them and are also a member of the same faithjust my 2 cents though. that's just how i imagine a cleric would actually work if the game world was real>>93342503read above in this post. the other guy said basically the same thing and i share my opinion on it there
>>93342515One step short of this is my go-to argument when people have edition wars and ''''bookkeeping'''' comes up. No reason Combat (Str) couldn't be an opposed skill check in the d20 System.
>>93342544>to-hit should be decided by dexterityEh, no, cause each ability score is talking about an OVERALL aptitude in a certain feild. If that was the case, Spell accuracy would also be dex based.>BardBard is a conceptual offspring of the cleric class (Somewhere between martial and magical with a focus on buffs and restoration)And Priests actually tended to be diplomates and in social positions more then bards (Pontifix maximus, Missions to china, forign diplomats, etc) They are in a similar wheelhouse though.
>>93342630>Eh, no, cause each ability score is talking about an OVERALL aptitude in a certain feild.then what would you say to-hit should be decided by?>If that was the case, Spell accuracy would also be dex based.depends on how you imagine your magic-users. this is like saying a jedi would need to be very dexterous to use the force for telekinesis. you can just say "his ability in magic allows him to manipulate it well" or something and it makes sense. throwing a fireball doesn't have to be a dexterity thing like throwing a dagger would be>Bard is a conceptual offspring of the cleric class (Somewhere between martial and magical with a focus on buffs and restoration)i know. but paladin is a conceptual offspring of fighter, and it still has different strengths. paladin typically uses CHA as its main attribute. fighter doesn't care about CHA>And Priests actually tended to be diplomates and in social positions more then bards (Pontifix maximus, Missions to china, forign diplomats, etc) They are in a similar wheelhouse though.being a diplomat in times of war is a pretty specific situation. bards are charismatic in everyday situations, which makes them a better CHA class. if you imagine clerics as diplomats, that's fine, but is that niche case really enough to have the class focus on CHA?
>>93342630even hermit inawood religious types tend to be scene as go too councilers. Both by Arthurian Knights and IRL real knights or when someone goes to the oracle of Delphe.Being actually convincing is usually the realm of clerics, while bards are more typically post-facto making art.
>>93342665>then what would you say to-hit should be decided by?by the nature of whatever you are trying to do. melee? str. ranged? dex. Magic? Int.to-hit is influenced by your aptitude in the relevant field.
>>93342674"bard" is a weird name for the class because the definition of the word is tied to a specific skill, but the bard class doesn't even always care about music. iirc, the earliest versions of the bard didn't have any music mechanics whatsoever. it's just flavor >>93342686why would STR determine your likelihood to hit? STR makes more sense for determining how much damage you can do. are /fit/ roidtroons automatically good at tagging people with a rapier? i don't think so. STR doesn't do shit for swordplay. it just means your strikes hit harder when they do tag somebodyto-hit should be decided either by DEX (if you want to stay as close to D&D as possible) or an actual weapon skill that levels up the more you use it (if you aren't afraid to venture outside of D&D)
>>93342544>to-hit should be decided by dexterity and also your skill with the weapon, while damage should be decided by either strength or your skill with the weapon (strength for heavy weapons, and skill for stuff like rapiers).I know this is the route other editions took but I'm pleased with B/X as-is. For most melee weapons brute strength affects whether you can hit - getting through any defences: armour, scales, even nimbleness (AC adjustment due to dexterity). AND it affects how hard you hit, damage.Dexterity meanwhile affects your missile fire adjustment but not how much it hurts. Getting hit by an arrow is getting hit by an arrow. If you can aim better therefore target more sensitive areas to kill something quicker, that's getting into 'called shots' territory which is too granular for me. The power of the weapon is in the weapon itself.>your skill with the weaponI reckon this is covered well-enough with the binary 'you know how to use it, or you don't' that each class gets. The individual qualities of the weapon handle the rest (variable weapon damage, whether you can throw a weapon and its ranges, does it take ammunition? two hands?).It's not perfect and I absolutely get why you feel differently, I've just come around to basically RAW. Except for 'attacking from behind', fuck that noise.
>>93342697>I know this is the route other editions took but I'm pleased with B/X as-is. For most melee weapons brute strength affects whether you can hit - getting through any defences: armour, scales, even nimbleness (AC adjustment due to dexterity). AND it affects how hard you hit, damage.STR affecting armor penetration makes sense, yeah. but STR affecting your to-hit as much as it does just doesn't make sense, for reasons i mentioned here >>93342696 >Dexterity meanwhile affects your missile fire adjustment but not how much it hurts. Getting hit by an arrow is getting hit by an arrow. If you can aim better therefore target more sensitive areas to kill something quicker, that's getting into 'called shots' territory which is too granular for me. The power of the weapon is in the weapon itself.yeah, this makes sense. i'd still use a weapon skill for ranged weapons instead of just DEX, but that's just me>It's not perfect and I absolutely get why you feel differently, I've just come around to basically RAW. Except for 'attacking from behind', fuck that noise.yeah, for sure. i am not trying to convince anyone here to stray away from any edition of D&D. i'm actually looking to be convinced, myself, that D&D makes more sense than i've given it credit for. you've made some good points, but i still think D&D would have more verisimilitude if it had skills for weapons and stuff, but not everyone even cares about faux-realism, so again, i am not trying to convince anyone of anything. it's just up to personal tastes
>>93341144I've been saying this for awhile now and this attitude bettered my game by a country mile
>>93341144>>93342745pseudisms.True balance is when you recognize when things are WARRENTED TO BE balanced or not.fighting kobolds shouldnt be the same overall as fighting a dragon. while too armies that have been at a stalemate SHOULD show their relitive equity that makes this dynamic so. Balance exists when the context deems it so.
>>93342774nobody balances encounter difficulty lmao. why would anyone make fighting a goblin as hard as fighting a dragon? we're talking about mechanical balance like between classes
>>93342630>Priests actually tended to be diplomates and in social positions>bards are charismatic in everyday situations, which makes them a better CHA class.This is where I stick by >>93342503As for your earlier post I would say a priest's ability to preach is a social thing, certainly tied to Charisma.We're looking at this on a macro level and a micro level. Macro level, you have the cult of personality or being a persuasive leader. You could be physically weak or unattractive, but everything from oddball cults to mass religious conversions can come down to this (other factors too like force and material circumstances, but still).On a micro level it's the individual priest who convinces someone actually this Jesus/Herne/Yog-Sothoth fella has some good ideas, worth changing your life over. They train for that. They're like salespeople. For the kind of lasting impact Charisma rules have, I think that takes more than attractiveness or a quick charm. That cool guy at the party who you later realized was actually a dick. That one-night stand you regretted the next day. There was an appeal at the time, but it was superficial.
>>93342696>>93342720>STR affecting your to-hit as much as it does just doesn't make senseIt's definitely another case where I think for the sake of abstraction, realism takes a hit. I gave the example of nimbleness, represented by Dexterity's effect on AC. You could flip it around maybe: a Dexterity bonus actually gives the attacker a penalty on their to-hit roll. But mechanically that's usually going to work out the same.As for the attacker's side of things, sure there are weapons where Strength as the to-hit modifier doesn't make sense. I completely agree and I think again, this could be a quality of the weapon in its description: Rapiers just use Dexterity for their to-hit roll at least, possibly damage? I'm coming at this from a B/X perspective though. Basically every hand-to-hand weapon in the list is a "I whack it" type weapon. Swords are just normal, short, or two-handed.
>>93342859>Rapiers just use Dexterity for their to-hit roll at least, possibly damage?this makes sense to me, and actually is very similar to my own system's way of handling attribute modifiers with different weapon types
>>93342874I was trying to think of some other weapons that would use other attributes. Dexterity for magic attacks was mentioned, not sure how I feel about that one. Attacking someone with a military drone, Intelligence for both to-hit and damage? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
>>93342924>I was trying to think of some other weapons that would use other attributes.i think only STR and DEX should affect weapon usage, because yeah, i can't think of anything CHA or whatever would buff, but just off of the top of my head:>STRanything heavy, including both one-handed weapons (like maces, axes, etc.) and two-handed weapons (like two-handed swords)>DEXanything that relies more on speed and technique, including one-handed weapons (like rapiers, daggers, etc.) and some two-handed weapons (like spears and staffs)>INT (this one is a stretch)INT could affect ranged attacks somehow, if you really want them to. knowledge of placing shots could potentially be just as important as dexterity when firing a crossbow, for instance, but again, this one's a stretch and i wouldn't do it myself
>>93339775>>What do you think of the silver standard?No point to it>>What ability generation method do you use/prefer?4d6, drop lowest, arrange to suit>>Is there any way to buy magic items in your game?>>Are demihuman–human relations in your game troubled?only on a nation-by-nation basis>>How big do you like your dragons?>>Do you prefer more bestial dragons or more intelligent, scheming ones?smarter is better>>What special rules do you use for mounted combat, if any?I have jousting rules for lance v lance fights
>>93339967Yes - my largest dungeon is primarily verticalWorks very well
>>93343008dammit>>Is there any way to buy magic items in your game?no
>>93342960Since 'short sword' is vague I always took it as a gladius or similar. Are rapiers physically short?Really I'd have gone with halflings ONLY being able to use short swords instead of just not being able to use two-handed swords, but they can use normal swords that have been 'cut down' (?).Daggers, sure. As a rule, Strength adjustments only affect damage in hand-to-hand combat. But you can throw them and get the Dexterity adjustment to-hit. So definitely the weapon in the game where 'how hard you stab' makes the least sense. Although I'd fancy my chances against a puny wizard with a dagger more than a burly fighter.
>>93343080>Since 'short sword' is vague I always took it as a gladius or similar. "short swords" could have a keyword that lets you choose whether to use STR or DEX with them, kind of like the "versatile" keyword that lets you one-hand or two-hand a weapon>Are rapiers physically short?not really. they're pretty long. i've used one myself during fencing years ago, and i've also fenced with a longsword (feder). the rapier is faster, but not as much as you'd think, which is why i think the longsword (not greatsword) should also have that STR/DEX keyword i mentioned above
If you're fighting someone with your bare fists, should THAT be Strength-based?Well suppose you put on some knuckle-dusters, shouldn't that be Strength-based too?Now let's say you equip a spiked gauntlet, wouldn't that still be a Strength-based weapon?And what if you don't want to stick on a glove, so you carry a single spike called a dagger? Would that really be Dexterity-based, anon?
I love this general. So many great game design discussions. Thanks to the Anon who created it.
>>93343284And to all the Anons contributing as well. To think that there are some who would try and keep us from having this OPEN exchange of ideas.
>>93343284Yeah, this is my favourite general by far at the moment. The current discussion on Strength, Dexterity, and weapons is eye opening and it is giving me great ideas for house rules.
>>93343269>If you're fighting someone with your bare fists, should THAT be Strength-based?i'd make it so you get both STR and DEX bonuses for unarmed, but nerf the base damage of unarmed, so unarmed is weak still, but gets a bonus from both related stats>Well suppose you put on some knuckle-dusters, shouldn't that be Strength-based too?i'd have knuckle-dusters be stronger than unarmed, but be STR-based, since DEX doesn't really matter in fights when they are used (as far as i know, seeing as it's basically a bludgeoning weapon on your fists instead of an entire fighting style that includes kicks and everything)>Now let's say you equip a spiked gauntlet, wouldn't that still be a Strength-based weapon?i'd just use the knuckle-duster rules i described above>And what if you don't want to stick on a glove, so you carry a single spike called a dagger? Would that really be Dexterity-based, anon?a dagger isn't a bludgeoning weapon, so no. daggers (not modern knives used by thugs) are DEX-based weapons
>>93342665>>93342804> being a diplomat in times of war is a pretty specific situationthey arent just that though. Go to any villiage anywhere prior to like the mid 1600’s and their prime social leader is probably a religious figure of some sort, not a singer. This doubly applies if you are talking about leveling up also increasing your social level and political power in an adnd way.Robin hood didnt have a dedicated bard, he had Fryer Tuck.Not against bards, but they are pretty cleary a progression on the cleric subtype from the oldest editions. The one who buffs and heals and maintains moral. They are part of a larger “upkeep focused” archytype. like how thief blooms into the larger “light infantry” archetype.
>>93343495makes more sense to me now that you put it like that. i guess i just think cleric is the weirdest hodgepodge of mechanics in early D&D. he's obviously a mix between a fighter and a M-U, mechanically, but for a class like that to be one of the core 4 seems odd to me. i think they just wanted to have two different schools of spells, and making a class was their best ideaif i'm being honest, i've never liked the cleric class anyway. if i had to cut a class entirely out of the core 4, it would definitely be cleric, and then i'd give M-U different schools of magic as skills they can level up to either increase their ability with spells of that school or even just to unlock more spells of that school. i'd have clerical spells be one of the schools, and druid spells be another, M-U spells be another, and then maybe one or two more, like necromancer spells from that one OSE supplement. in this way, M-Us would be very different from character to character, as they'd all have different allocations of skill points across different schools, if not just going all in on one of themi never liked the idea of the cleric wearing armor and using shields. i think the "holy warrior" thing should be for paladins if somebody chooses to include them at all. the existence of clerics also makes big assumptions about the setting the DM is using, which really limits things if they are used RAW
>>93343556>i just think cleric is the weirdest hodgepodge of mechanics in early D&Dim pretty sure it comes from gygax and arnisons amateur historian/wargaming background with chainmail.The 4 og classes very much seem to progress from the 4 general types of human units:heavy infantry/cav -fighterlight infantry/cav -thiefmoral leaders -clericenginers/artilery -muFlag bearers, generals, battle bishops, etc arent meant to be front line, but to maintain army cohesion and moral. thus they are lighter then heavy inf but heavier then light inf and artillery.I always liked cleric because it adresses the fundemental need for a more introspective figure. The old man who gives advice or the advisor chaplain to the baron or the greek seer who tells if the auspices are roght for battle.Not the big explosion guy, but the maintenance guy. And as historians, they probably knew that role tends to be religious one in a pre-modern context. Not that it has to be in fantasy, but thats its ysual real world base.
>>93343556I always felt completely the opposite. I loved the cleric because it felt like a middle ground between a fighter and a caster. Weapon and armor restriction made it so it wasn't quite as strong as a fighter but it's casting utility made it useful. A paladin just made fighter feel totally useless.
>>93343671that's interesting. i appreciate the info as i've never actually read chainmail.>I always liked cleric because it adresses the fundemental need for a more introspective figure. The old man who gives advice or the advisor chaplain to the baron or the greek seer who tells if the auspices are roght for battle.i also like the *flavor* of the cleric. a moralfag holyman in a group of (sometimes murderhobo) adventurers who delve into dungeons for money and the thrill of adventuring just makes for a very good motley crew of weirdos, because he sticks out like a sore thumb. it's almost like a fish out of water thing, though i don't know if that's the best phrase for this. a cleric in your average adventuring party is great for inspiring interesting inter-character role-play due to how different they are from the other classes in terms of alignment (both rules-wise and role-play-wise) i just don't like what the cleric is in a mechanical sense. i would have preferred a priest (like in WoW) or a white mage (like in FF) where they don't use armor, but then they'd be too close to a M-U, which is why i think the two classes should just be merged, with more than one school of magic available to themalso, if you include the paladin in your games, they kind of overlap with clerics in a weird way (flavor-wise and somewhat mechanically as well), despite the paladin being a fighter offshoot/subclass >>93343731>I always felt completely the opposite. I loved the cleric because it felt like a middle ground between a fighter and a caster.i would have preferred a sort of "spellsword" class over cleric for this role. instead of being tied to gods, divinity, faith, etc. (which are all assumptions about your setting)if paladin is ever outshining a fighter in a big way that makes the fighter seem useless, you could always nerf the paladin in some way, though i don't know what would feel right in terms of what exactly to nerf from their kit
>>93343671this is where the conflation between wis and cha came in I believe. as the earliest editions had cha as mostly a “refill” stat you mostly used between delves rather than a main one. while wis was more properly useful in dungeon. So anyone could go Cha and basicly be the party’s merchantile broker.I always found the relationship between cha and wis to be the most weird one developmentally as Cha eventually ate away at wis, and wis became more “another int stat that has conditional social uses in having insight into a character”
Charisma gives a gp (but not XP) % bonus or penalty on treasure sold, using the same percentages as the Prime Requisite XP table.
Strength -- damage, strength checksFortitude -- hit points, fortitude savesDexterity -- melee attacks, dexterity checksReflexes -- dodge, reflex savesAwareness -- missile attacks, awareness checksSpirit -- mettle, spirit savesMettle points can be spent to boost rolls. There is no Charisma score, with any modifications being determined on the basis of the situation, but Spirit may sometimes fill in.
>>93344359If you're handsome your share of the treasure grows by 10%
>>93342544>i wouldn't say a priest's ability to preach is a social thingdumbest shit I've ever heard
>>93345041not an argument doe
I've been enjoying B/X but only as a small to mid-sized dungeon crawler. What are games more suited to a campaign-style approach? B/X handles reasonably-sized dungeons really well but I don't care for the bigger ones/megadungeons and I don't find it works too well outside its specialty. Any tips?
>>93345047>not an argument doeokay let me flip this and see if you can understand. preaching is a social thing
>>93343893>this is where the conflation between wis and cha came in I believe. as the earliest editions had cha as mostly a “refill” stat you mostly used between delves rather than a main one. while wis was more properly useful in dungeon.Cha was used pretty heavily in dungeons as it influenced if encounters went to combat or maybe even could recruit those that you encountered while Wis came out only when mind influencing magic came into play. It was only after the shift in play away from parties including secondary henchmen/hireling characters that Cha became a dump stat.
>>93345174restating an opinion is not an argument doe
>>93345182>there are no fish in the oceanThat's stupid, you're wrong>not an argument doeThere are fish in the ocean>restating an opinion is not an argument
>>93345213still no argument 3 posts later doe
>>93345149Knave, Cairn, and Into the Odd work great, you just need to be comfortable with rulings over rules and have a party of players that are fun, creative, and open-minded. The art is also very inspiring, which helps a lot with DM'ing in my experience.
I pursue a theory of 'four-ism' in my shitbrew. The number 4 pervades all.At the apex, four Attributes:MightAgilityCunning Willpower To each Attribute, an Archetype:Might - Fighting-MenAgility - KnavesCunning - Magic-UsersWillpower - Zealots There are four Saves:Might - Endurance (paralysis)Agility - Evasion (breath/wand)Cunning - Resistance (magic)Willpower - Guts (death)Each Attribute also affects one of 4 scores and one of 4 abilities of some kind (To hit, encumbrance that sort of thing) and governs 4 skills.In conclusion 4 is superior to 6 and 3.
>>93342960not OSR, but GURPS does dexterity bonus to hit, and strength bonus to damage for all melee weapons, thrown weapons, bows, and slings. a good fighter actually needs to have both their strength and dexterity decently high.they also have intelligence-based precision aiming rules for ranged weapons (intelligence roll at every 2x time spent aiming, +1 accuracy on each success), and indirect weapons (like artillery) use intelligence-based attack rolls
>>93345149Come home, white man.
>>93345358based system overhauler. i wish more people had the balls to do stuff like this, but maybe i am just pessimistic from seeing /osrg/ stamp out creativity for so many years>>93346159that sounds really good. that's exactly what i wantedthe only issue i have with using GURPS is pretty silly; i just don't like it as a system. i read GURPS lite, and it seemed overly complicated - especially the combat, which is the first thing i read whenever i check out a new system (i like combat a lot as a means of progressing the stories of characters and settings). i know the entire system is modular and you could just remove most of the combat options (like different dodges or whatever, i don't remember exactly what they all were) entirely with little issue, but i don't want to do that. i would rather either just take a system i already like the core of (like B/X) and modify it heavily to be more to my tastes without changing the core of it, or i could just make my own system that only has detail/crunch exactly where i want it (which is what i'm going back to when i submit this post)sure, GURPS is more of a toolbox than a game, but if we're talking about building from a big toolbox of tons of options, i honestly prefer FUDGE (not entirely sure why, but the dice system is very cool, and it feels more customizable to me due to how simple and obvious the dice system makes changing the system)
>>93346214what the fuck are you talking about
>>93346214this is true. i do everything in 36 because it's 6*6 which is cool, and i am a satanist, so 6*6 equal thirty-SIXthere are 36 classes in my hack of OD&D, and they're all necromancers with slightly different spell liststhere are 36 types of coin (some of the extras include obsidian coins, unobtainium coins and ruby coins)there are 36 saves (some of the extras include save vs. spicy food or save vs. sharting if you're trying to fart without shitting yourself)etc.
this thread just can't catch a break huh
>>93346318post content or stop whining, bitch
>>93346237Some actual schizo nonsense I try to have a sense of humor about.>>93345149ACKS?
>>93346319kill yourself retard
>>93345149just use B/X and a bunch of unofficial supplemental tables and you'll probably be good. no reason to completely change your system if you enjoy B/X already. i modified B/X pretty heavily because i have autism, but most of the supplements i use for it are just random tables in big books so i can generate stuff in the wilderness (i am not a fan of dungeons at all, heresy, i know)but yeah if you want a new system, try ACKS like >>93346355 suggested. i've heard it's good>>93346396post content or stop whining, bitch
>>93346355>>93346402Buy an ad, cuck.
>>93346414seethe. i have never played ACKS, but i'm sure you'll just cope and say i'm a paid shill or whatever schizo nonsense you believe. even /osrg/ seems to mostly like ACKS, which is why i think it could be good. i'm not reading it doe because it isn't for me. B/X with my own modifications is enough. i don't care about playing other people's houserules unless they somehow line up with my own
>>93346423Like anything derivative, ACKS got it right the first go around as a one book alternative printing to the classic version of the game.And just like the derivatives, it was watered down with the release of supplemental materials.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK9S1hfZBE4
>>93346423Buy an ad.
>>93346453i remember that show from when i was a kid. was pretty cool to me, had really weird vibes that i didn't understand back then. i remember it being very melancholic, and definitely wasn't made for children, as they wouldn't appreciate that kind of tone. i've seen lain much more recently and, at least from my memories, .hack kinda feels similar to it, but i never realized that until now that you reminded meanyway, aside from my pointless rambles, is the new edition of ACKS looking good at all? i don't even know if there's any material from it available yet. i know they had a shitstarter, but i have no idea what they're even changing or why they felt the need to make a 2nd edition >>93346455hey, you didn't call me a cuck that time. try to be consistent, or your pay might go down. just looking out for a fellow /todd/ler
ACKS is very comprehensive but not terribly elegant. I read it, I liked what I read, and I couldn't imagine anyone but the most hardened autist and a table of people at least almost as autistic as himself actually using it all.Which was only cemented by reading the supposedly streamlined alternative takes at the more troublesome subsystems in the splats and realizing it still didn't turn it into a game I'd ever see at my table, much less convince anyone to play long enough to engage with the C or K portions and not just feel like playing Basic D&D with less retarded economy.
>>93346487>>93346483Samefag.
>>93346501>I read it, I liked what I read, and I couldn't imagine anyone but the most hardened autist and a table of people at least almost as autistic as himself actually using it all.this is how i feel about a lot of games, to be fair. i feel like the amount of actual rules you use in most RPGs is dwarfed by the ones you never need, but maybe i'm just a rules-lite moron or somethingi wonder if ACKS would be good for solo play. for my style of soloing, the more structure, the better, because rules inspire challenges and push things forward when you're having trouble doing it with your imagination alone or even random tables>>93346520just tell me i edited this screencap so i can ignore the rest of your shitposts
>>93346520Other half from the other side>>93346527As someone soloing ACKS at the moment? It's fun. My advice though?Don't stick with one PC. Go all in on the full party experience, pick up NPCs like you're playing Lyrical Nanoha the RPG.It makes things a riot.
>>93346562cool, thanks for the tip. i will try to give it a read as soon as i finish my current project. cool to hear from a fellow solo player outside of /srpgg/. i have always played RPGs solo with only 1 PC, but i'll try out at least a couple if i get to soloing ACKS at some point. cheers
>>93346597>YOU ARE SAMEFAGGING>*gets proven wrong*>YOU ARE DISCORD RAIDINGpick a story and stick with it, you whiny little pussyalso post actual content for once in your life
>>93346623would it kill you to post something on-topic?
>>93346606Honestly I'm convinced he's fishing for (you)s so he can report people and get the Janny to ban them by this point.Look how fast my last post disappeared and it becomes pretty obvious what he's doing.Oh and so the Janny can't for-free this post as well - my advice for ACKS solo: go in with a Rogue-like mentality, make sure to have a good, strong unifying reason for the group to be together (My group are a cult for example) and don't be afraid if some characters are objectively worse than others.If the weak ones die, they die, but they're surprisingly resilient if you play it carefully.
>>93346644thanks again man. i appreciate the advice
lol. looks like the thread just improved a bitanyway, since we've talked (i've talked, and you've suffered through my ramblings) so much about modifying early D&D in many ways, how about you guys share some of the most major modifications you guys have tried, or even just wanted to try?i talked a lot earlier in the thread about adding a skill system (not like thief skills, but like skills in an RPG where they buff you or make certain things easier to pull off the higher the skill gets) and we also talked about different weapon types and how they could be influenced differently, whether by different attributes, or by the skill system i mentioned earlier. these two big changes are probably the most major things i have thought of for more basic versions of D&D (mainly B/X). admittedly, i haven't actually tried them yet, but i would really like to if i take the time to make them more elegant and streamlined so they fit into a system as elegant and streamlined as B/X
>>93339952I use dice for monster miniatures. I roll their HD and either use a d8 or a spindown d20 for them.
Nobody actually played like this in the 00's
Which ruleset has the best spell list? It looks like 2e has the most spells overall but I don't like the priest domain gimmick because it combines Cleric and Druid into one big category that has to be picked through to see what your PC can actually cast. 1e has a good selection for M-Us but the other spellcasters all cap out at 12 learnable spells per spell level. I'm looking at retroclones too - Dragonslayer seems like it might check most of the boxes but I'm curious if anyone's seen something better.
>>93347700Also if anyone has opinions on the functional quality of the spells themselves. I've noticed that some spells have significant differences between versions - the number of hit dice affected by Sleep, for instance. Are there editions with the consensus best or worst version of a spell?
>>93347700How do you define "best"?
>>93347253this is the 20's granpa we do play like this
>>93347737I'm getting tired of starting Editions againSomewhere new
>>93347241I, myself, resort to "dice graphics" sometimes to illustrate basic positioning when needed, in a game that's otherwise theater of the mind, but the dice don't indicate anything other than: there's an orc here.
>>93347737>How do you define "best"?Best is hard to quantify so I'm just looking for personal opinions. Although if one version of a spell seems broken or egregiously unbalanced compared to the others I'm interested to hear about it
>>93348190B/X spells tend to be simpler than AD&D spells, even when it comes to the spells they share. I prefer this and think that AD&D tends to unnecessarily complicate things. But, B/X's spell lists are admittedly limited in size. Personally, I'd rather have a short list of all good spells than a longer list full of mediocre spells (even if it contains all those same good spells). But I don't think that applies to B/X. It doesn't just have the best spells. So I couldn't tell you which edition has the best spells. I prefer B/X's style and the size of AD&D's lists. One good thing about a longer list is that you can go through and mark off spells you don't like, and still end up with a decent amount of content.
>>93348378take your meds
>>93348256Thanks, yeah that's been my impression so far too. B/X simplicity + AD&D or second edition breadth would be the gold standard I think. Somebody has probably already done the work and made an AD&D hearbreaker to that effect, I'll be keeping an eye out for that.
>>93348616Honestly, 12 spells per level is plenty, if all the spells are solid and you like all of them (and you restrict the number of spells people can learn). But maybe I'm picky, but at any given level in B/X, I'm probably only really fond of about half of the spells. Admittedly, some of this comes solely down to balance issues, something that could maybe be addressed by re-leveling some spells. I've been meaning to go through the spells, swap spells in and out, tweak spells and so forth, but it's a monumental undertaking, especially with how persnickety. I'm currently playing around with an expanded, revised list of (vancian) cantrips--I'm aiming for 30 of them--and that's taking me forever. But as for the fuller list, I'd probably be aiming for something like 30 cantrips, 20 first level spells, 20 second, 16 third, 12 fourth, 10 fifth, 8 sixth, and 6 seventh. A lot would depend on how easily the different levels fill themselves though.
>>93343284>>93343294>>93343309This is just pathetic. Go give yourselves upvotes elsewhere.
>>93342801They're both as difficult as is needed to progress the narrative arc duh. 16hp dragon, 16hp of goblins.
>>93346527>i wonder if ACKS would be good for solo play.It's definitely got a bunch of subsystems that you can use for solo play.
>>93341946Well now, I know that invoc/evoc combined into a single school in 2nd ed and conj/summ went the same way, along with ill/phant, and ench/charm making the Dragonlance Adventures division of spheres by robes meaningless for 2nd ed. That's why I asked about 1st to see if there was a gap in my knowledge, perhaps involving some sort of re-listing of the conj/summ spells into distinct types and a change of some evoc spells to invoc.>Pick one.Implying that DL is already 2nd ed might not be the best thing to write when the majority of 1st ed is already highly forward compatible with 2nd and when DL Adventures has a lot of 1st ed DNA in it. There are utterly trivial things like it listing NPC stats in 1st ed order to trivial things like monster XPs listed as "base value + per hp value" instead of flat xp value. Then there are larger differences like Knights of Solamnia being a Cavalier subclass, not Fighter or the yet to be created Warrior superclass, Paladins are also Cavaliers, Thief-Acrobats exist, and the only specialist MU is Illusionist. Cavaliers and Thief-Acrobats are 1st ed classes that were eliminated or changed on the release of 2nd ed. The biggest concession to compatibility with 2nd ed is listing THAC0 for NPCs.>was marketed as "forward-compatible" with 2e Greyhawk Adventures prominently advertised itself as compatible with 1st and 2nd but that was from 1988. Are you sure that a product released at the start of 2nd ed's development was marketed as 2nd ed compatible? I don't remember ever seeing that once. I've seen catalogues from the time that didn't even mention it. Despite 2nd ed being announced at the start of 1987 even expensive new products released around the same time like the 1987's FR box set TSR1031 don't mention it in the TSR catalogues I've read or any of the various print ads I've seen. pic related Would love to see a pic of the DLA 2nd ed compatibility notice if you have one handy.
>>93349382>Would love to see a pic of the DLA 2nd ed compatibility notice if you have one handy.ntaYou won’t because no such thing exists. Greyhawk Adventures was the first and one of the very few books to declare forward compatibility with 2e. There was also the Forgotten Realms Avatar series which had the same claim on all three modules. Those show 2e branding now but I think the first printings were still just branded as AD&D.The other anon might simply be thinking of DLA soft launching some of the 2e’s concepts like cleric spheres and WoHS being an early template of specialist mages. There were also NW proficiencies baked into the classes in DLA but those were already present in OA, WSG, and DSG.
>>93346159That's very nice, but shouldn't you use wisdom for aiming, since wisdom includes perception?
>>93344359Nice. I think I'd do +10% on treasure found as well, since Charisma = favour of the gods.>from χᾰ́ρῐς (kháris, “grace”)>(Christianity) An extraordinary power granted by the Holy Spirit.In fact, I use Charisma as the primary ability score for Clerics.
>>93345301I completely disagree. I find that having the only mechanical progression happen when you get hit to 0 makes my work as the referee much more difficult. Also, "your character is defined by the items he carries" only works when your players are brand new to the game or have a seriously defined role they want to play. Otherwise everyone becomes a weirdo generalist spellsword. Plus, I've found it difficult to motivate players to kill things in Cairn - typically there's no real benefit to doing so and they run away. That could be on me I suppose but it feels shitty to build every encounter as inescapable. What is the point of treasure? Buying new gear to raid more dungeons with monsters that don't matter and more treasure that.. also doesn't matter.I guess none of these are "problems," per se, but when the game has no mechanical end goal the weight is entirely shouldered by the referee to make the game a satisfying and varied experience. Is that a problem? No. But does it serve "campaign play?" Also no. At the end of the day, I would call it a narrative game.All of the experience I'm writing this with is with Cairn 1e. I hear that in 2e there's some sort of concrete progression mechanic, which I think the game sorely needs if it's to hold up for campaign play.
>>93346527>i wonder if ACKS would be good for solo play. Kevin Crawford/Sine Nomine has both Solo Heroes and optional one-player rules for Scarlet Heroes (full game, usually one-player one-GM). Ended up using the Scarlet Heroes rules with a few random hex maps and dungeons I found online. Actual adventuring didn't matter so much - my guys kept dying - but the faction rules made it fun. It basically turned into some of journaling game where The Barony of X was trying to take over the Church of Y, occasionally an elf would buy some holy water then die in a pit.I got bored of it but I did wonder what a more ACKSy version would be like, focusing on economies as well as factions, maybe omitting individual adventure characters/parties altogether. There is absolutely a solo strategy game in that somewhere, but it's not D&D/an RPG.
Did "gameplay loops" as a concept/term exist back then? It's been pointed out D&D (and B/X especially) pulls it off really well, but I don't know if that was incidental or the same way games just have players taking turns.As an intentional or academic idea I associate it with vidya but computer games LITERALLY have loops in how they operate. Not sure if arcade devs were considering this to keep quarters coming or again it was just organic.
>>93350528Gameplay loops weren't really conscientiously designed like they are now until the 80's, in regards to arcades if you consider purposefully adding in "unfairness" a loop then those were deliberate from the very beginning.
In 4-class or 3-class games (basically some combination of fighter, cleric, mage, thief), what are your thoughts on just giving the thief ranger stuff? Call it a scout. Dungeon + wilderness specialist. I feel like the traditional thief is way too specialized for dungeons, whereas the other classes feel more well-rounded to suit different kinds of adventures. Don't think it would break the thief as the thief is already considered the weakest class.
>>93350701If I'm remembering correctly that's what Mentzer did for his revised Thief.
>>93350721You are correct.
>>93350701I use:Thief: dungeon specialist, stealth, backstabs, urban hideout (gang of thieves).Outlaw: wilderness specialist, stealth, archery, woodland hideout (band of merry men).Because I wanted my rangers to have robin hood flavour. They also start with a feathered cap, which I think is pretty nifty and Robin Hood-pilled.
>>93339775I've created the uber duper class.As a fighter in all aspects, except it casts as a wizard, has a thief skill set + backstab.To reach level 2 it needs 5000 EXP, the progression is as fighter.This is the famous "super class" Gary warned you against, the best class to play solo.You can open locked doors, cast spells, have armor, you got it all, even a castle at level 1 if you got money.
>>93351563>levels up slowly but can be good at literally everything so like a runescape character?
After years I've finally established an OSR gaming group. As of now we're using White Box: FMAG. For those of you using similar systems: what are some cool house rules and/or adventures that you like?
>>93339775The number of dice depends between editions for character generation, but it's always down-the-line for me. Helps keep players from just playing the same exact thing all the time. They whinge at the start but by the end of the first adventure they're enjoying the new playstyle.
>>93351833>what are some cool house rules- Ascending AC.- Equipment slots can be used to gain skills. Basically if you have the right item, you have the skill. For example rope = climbing, black cloak = hide in shadows, and so on.- One inspiration point every time you down an opponent, have a good idea, discover something, do something heroic, roleplay your character well. This is in the hands of the players: They can propose it and vote on it themselves.- Duel wield gives advantage on attack rolls or damage (player chooses).- Milestone XP.- Three ability scores: Might, Skill, and Cunning.- No race/class level limits.- Humans can "multiclass" by gaining each new level in a class of their choice.- 3d6 down the line but men get +2 Strength and Intelligence and women get +1 Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, and Wisdom.
>>93351721Yes, used a nice book about BX for this numbers.I'll try use of it in solo, in normal play everyone would want to play this.You are at worst 2 levels behind a fighter.
>>93352053>Milestone XP.Doesn't that make the game a railroad?
>>93352737No.
>>93352737Nope. Also concerns over railroads are grossly overstated.
>>93352737No, just retarded.>>93352867lol, and furthermore, lmao
>>93352923>wrong funok grog
>>93352923>getting experience when your character accomplishes feats of strength/intelligence/courage/etc is so retarded bro>getting stronger as you collect gold coins makes so much more sense!
>>93352981Genuinely, people meme on the "story" XP rewards, but the class based XP rewards is actually really neat and I wish that had been refined more over the years rather than forgotten entirely in favor of turning the "story" rewards into milestone or monsters killed+GM fiat.
>>93352867>t. control freak failed novelist
>>93339818Nice. I was coning up with a similar method, but I may use this instead.
>>93352053>letting players vote each other metapoints jfc that's a bad idea, one of the more impressively bad for this general thus far.
>>933530602e and the Hickman Manifesto are superior to Gygaxian autism and I am tired of pretending they aren't.
>>93353305It's good, fun, and it works. Cope and seethe.
>>93342696>STR doesn't affect your ability to hit in close combatT. Someone who has never fought in close combat, simulated or otherwise.You do realize that a massive aspect of melee fighting is strength-raping your way through an opponents defenses and tiring them out? Being the bigger and more powerful fighter allows you to knock bitches around and not get tired yourself. While armor and weapons are lighter than normies believe they were, they are still heavy enough to tire you out in fierce combat.
>>93353333I am that anon, but I wouldn't go that far. Hickman modules are still kind of unplayable linear trash IMHO, that at best makes for an okay (if not terribly flexible) interactive storytime and at worst makes the player a bystander to the writer's (not even the DM's, the writer of the module's) OCs doing the important stuff.But I do feel like Gold for XP has its limits, and it's not as great of a player motivator in real practice as it sounds on paper or forums. I also feel like skilled players quickly outgrow that need, are flush with cash, and there's nothing left but not terribly interesting domain play to fill that void. That's why class based XP rewards strikes a nice chord to me, because it rewards players for explicit game behaviors and action like GfXP, but those behaviors or actions need not be limited to pursuit of money.If I'm a thief and I pick a lock, doesn't matter if I'm doing it because there's a locked door/chest in the dungeon and I think it's got goodies in it or if I'm doing it because we're planning to assassinate the evil governor in his estate and we've gotta sneak into his quarters in the dead night with lots of story impetus for doing so, I'm still getting rewarded for specific facets of play.Thief gets XP for doing thief shit.Warrior gets XP for doing warrior shit.MU gets XP for doing magic shit.Cleric gets XP for doing cleric shit.Where it could've been better refined I feel is in even more guidance for what triggers those rewards for each class and better thought out values for rewards that scale with the players level as to not become completely meaningless.BG1 & 2 actually did that in a good way that didn't steal the show for primary XP gain, but still stayed meaningful enough to count.
>>93353463i already said ITT that i used to do hema. strength never helped me tag my opponent. sure, you will probably say hema is not an accurate representation of combat, but my own experiences with using a longsword against different types of "faster" weapons, like rapiers, etc., is where i get my ideas of what combat is like obviously strength matters when your blades are locked or you are doing a sort of wrestling-esque maneuver to brute-force through their guard (i am using layman's terms here because i honestly don't remember the actual words for this stuff, just the names of some of the longsword stances like ochs and gate), but i think your dexterity and skill with a weapon is more important for inflicting wounds the majority of the time, which is why i think weapons in RPGs should have skills attached to them that increase your to-hit and your STR would increase your damage, because that makes sense to mei have no experience using armor, but do you? where are you getting your ideas from? you say i've never used a sword before like i'm such an idiot for not doing so, while i actually have, and i wonder if you have yourself, or if you're just an armchair combat "expert" from playing mount & blade all day
>>93353560>Mount and BladeYou will endure my combat where all the Orcs target you specifically and walk in a Conga line endlessly chopping at you, and you WILL like it.
>>93353599i don't like the sarranids either, but i think calling them "orcs" is a bit insensitive
>>93353560>realismoh no. that's how you end up with GURPS where DEX is the god stat.
>>93352053>men get +2 Strength and Intelligence and women get +1 Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, and Wisdom.I like the idea of human racial attribute adjustment being gender-based, but I would do it like this.>all humans get +1 CON, humans are known for their endurance and pain tolerance>men get +1 STR but -1 WIS, they tend to be stronger but more foolish>women get +1 WIS but -1 STR, they tend to be weaker but with more common senseIt also implies humans are more sexually dimorphic than the other races, a neat distinguishing trait
>>93353560>hemaNot an accurate representation. Two lightly armored friends mock fighting with dull longswords is not comparable to a fucking orc raping at you with a bearded axe. C'mon, man. I have experience with SCA armored combat although it has similar problems to hema when it comes to accurate simulation.Mount and blade is based, but it's very agility based (with the exception of crusthrough weapons) and so your accusation does not make sense.
>>93354238you dodged my question
>>93354238Basically, like many hemafags, you forget just how limited the sport is in terms of simulation. AND you forget that this is game with monsters in it who are literally just smashing you to pieces and busting through your blocks as if your weapons are made of balsa wood.
>>93354254I answered your question.
>>93354275no. i'll reiterate, and i know you read it, too, because you referenced part of itwhat experience do you have with weapon combat? you were trying to be smart earlier by saying i have no experience myself, but it seems i'm the only one between us that does
>>93354293I SAID SCA ARMORED COMBAT YOU DOOFUS. AND I GAVE THE CAVEAT THAT I DONT BELIEVE IT IS AN ACCURATE REPRESENTATION EITHER.
>>93354311you can use your caps lock all you want. i still have more experience than you, and your smugness from earlier is just embarrassing now
>>93354323I don't think you are very convincing dude. I'd love to see an ogre smash through your faggy hema maneuvers. >muh superior speed.jpg
>>93354355>it's fantasy so it doesn't have to make senseverisimilitude is very important in fantasy. there are tons of rules in D&D that are only there in an attempt to at least somewhat mimic reality. please make a better argumenti have more experience than you. try not to be so smug in the future, because you'll just reveal your idiocy again
Heavily armored knight loses to peasant with crossbow. DEX > STR
>>93354387Your experience sucks and isn't even relevant>anon does his faggy blocking ritual quite expertly>monster crushes through it because he is strong and therefore hits the target through the defenses.
>>93355150/Todd/ is everything therefor it is nothing.It's even missing a D from it's acronym.>>93352981All you guys have managed is to rehash a decade of settled discussion while basedfacing over low effort homebrew.This will wither when summer ends.
>>93355441>All you guys have managed is to rehash a decade of settled discussion while basedfacing over low effort homebrew.Okay, and why are you here? What's this to you?
>>93355150It fails all OSR checks. For the purposes of OSR at least 1 of the following must not be contradicted (maximally flexible OSR definition)>not old-school in design (it's hyper-simulationist)>not D&D-derived (obviously)>character advancement is an afterthought rather than the main drawPathfinder is more /todd/ than GURPS unironically. And I say this as someone that hates Pathfinder. This isn't gatekeeping, this is just trying to be reasonable. GURPS's ancestor The Fantasy Trip MIGHT be /todd/ depending where we draw the line with old-school design. A GURPS retroclone/hack MIGHT be /todd/ if it gets rid of the hyper-simulationist garbage and makes character advancement (whether diegetic or power level) a core feature.
>>93355492/todd/ isn't osr grog.
>>93355510/todd/ is OSR/NSR/old-school games. GURPS is none of those.
>>93355441>says increasingly nervous man
>>93355808This is not the bait you think it is, grog. Dungeon World is a fine game and there's some interesting ideas to be taken from it. If you don't like open discussion, again, why are you here? You can just move on.
>>93350330>use wisdom for aiming, since wisdom includes perceptionActually it should be intelligence, since smarter people will "know" where to aim
>Retards arguing about realism in the elfgame based on their larping in irlListen up bitches, this is UFC former Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir. When I step into the octagon I use strength for my to-hit bonus, just like Gary intended. Discussion over.
>>93356517Correction: there was one retard arguing that.
>>93356105Actually it should be Constitution, because controlling your breath is important when aiming.
>>93356617Actually it should be butthole circumference because your chakra escapes faster if it is too wide.
>>93356105>>93356617It should actually be charisma, because it take a sick sense of humor to shot someone in cold blood.
>>93350330Does Wisdom include perception though? I mean is there precedent for that in old school D&D?The idea that Wisdom translates to sense acuity and alertness seems pretty silly to me. New school D&D makes Wisdom even more muddled by making it cover bravery and willpower as well.
>>93355604It's not osr. Your founding toddler hates osr and wants it to die. Be OPEN to GURPS.
>>93355808Dungeon World is unironically well suited to Dragonlance fags' milestone railroad game.
>>93358438FATAL is also ToDD.
>>93358474B/X>The word "Wisdom" refers to inspiration, intuition, common sense, and shrewdness. AD&D>Wisdom is a composite term for the character’s enlightenment, judgement, wile, willpower, and (to a certain extent) intuitiveness.I can see how the leap was made. Wisdom was already a bit of a hash. I don't necessarily agree with it but words like judgement, intuition, shrewdness and common sense suggest a brand of perception. I think the problem is that perception implies, and later expands to, the actual quality of your senses whereas the amalgam of wisdom alludes to an acuity that is a bit more intangible.Before 2e where perception became more codified by proficiencies that were based on Wisdom your perception was a skill defined by race or class traits, mostly in service of avoiding being surprised but also discovering specific things. Find traps for thieves and tracking for rangers. The problem is of course you end up with clerics being master detectives if you rely on Wisdom as perception and, if you're playing AD&D, thief being the only class available should your Wisdom be particularly low. So you have a stumbling buffoon being your dungeon scout.
We could have saved a lot of trouble if they just ditched Wisdom early on and said that Charisma was the prime req for Clerics. Instead we've got people trying for decades to find a niche or rationale for this dumbass stat that is barely anything and doesn't need to be in the game
>>93358679I pretty much agree with you. You can see how intuition plays into wisdom, but the problem is in the next step, where you look at intuition stripped of that context and think of the other things it could play into. It's like if you had a stat called "Speed" that covered how fast you can run, and since stamina plays into being a good runner, you look at stamina and ask yourself what else it affects, ultimately coming to the conclusion that Speed should indicate how tough your character is, determining their hit points.Ultimately, Wisdom seems a bit too abstract (mainly pertaining to judgment, which is hard to implement in a way that doesn't interfere with player agency), and so you end up trying to force it into more tangible roles it's tangential to at best. If Wisdom was going to cover alertness and sense acuity, you'd want to name it something different. But naming conventions aside, bravery, resistance to intangible magical effects (that you can't dodge or tank), alertness, sense acuity, and sagacity really don't seem like they all belong under the same attribute.
>>93358623FATAL general when?
>>93358679>Before 2e where perception became more codified by proficiencies that were based on WisdomFYI those were already in 1e, Wilderness Survival Guide, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, and Oriental Adventures.
>>93358612Oh noAnyway
>>93339851I like massive dragons with spell resistance. They become things the players want to avoid or assemble an army against.
>>93358612>You are not allowed to talk about things I dislike in /osrg/>Also you are not allowed to make a separate thread for them
>>93343021>Yes - my largest dungeon is primarily vertical>Works very wellWhat are the circumstances there? Rappelling down cave shafts?
>>93353560I think D&D's Strength defines a rather broad category, reaching into the realm of "powerful athleticism". I also think that Strength's role in melee could be seen as at least partially abstractive: strength is important in a fight, and the game might be a little less concerned about the form that takes than its overall effect.
According to the Blackmoor Foundations book, Arneson used strict 1:1 time in his Blackmoor campaign, with real calendar date and game calendar date advancing in lock step. See this video around the 6:00 mark:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfpWp7xkMcw
>>93363009Why would we care how Arneson ran his games?Wrong thread.
>>93363782Obvious grog false flag is obvious. Get a life.
>>93341117>Very nice but too complicated.Which one? Card draw or random array?>I just use method VII, 75 points point buy from 2e.That's really something entirely different. I mean, I guess it shares the "everybody gets the same thing" quality, but it lacks the randomness, and allows you to exploit the differences in power/usefulness between the attributes. It also will tend to lead to more predictable/boring characters in terms of which stats are important for which classes (though the effects are generally more limited than in 3.x).
>>93359431Yeah, I get that. Proficiencies as a character component entered core in 2e though as part of the PHB even if it was technically optional.Funnily enough the specific proficiency I was thinking of, Observation, is based on Intelligence.Also OA proficiencies weren't tied to ability scores and just had a base number that only changed by investing more slots.
>>93352053>3d6 down the line but men get +2 Strength and Intelligence and women get +1 Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, and Wisdom.Not to start a whole -4 strength debate, but I question the Constitution plus for women, since the predominant thing Constitution does is modify hit points, your ability to take physical abuse, and I don't buy that comparatively smaller, weaker women are able to shrug off more physical punishment. Maybe if we're talking about their ability to survive once they've reached death's door, but assuming they're not fighting back, who do you think is easier to beat up: a man or a woman?I generally take men as the baseline and give women +1 Dexterity and -1 Strength, figuring that their proportion of Dexterity to Strength is higher, and so at any given level of capability, their Dexterity is going to tend to be higher and their Strength lower (averaging out to the same level). And we're selecting individuals of the same level of capability, because I don't want to discourage either from being played.
>>93358474>>93358679>>93358728>>93358983The difference b/w Intelligence and Wisdom in AD&D helped me understand the difference between them in real life as I got older. Thanks, EGG.
>>93339851Huge ancient dragons, along with human arch-mages, are the most powerful creatures native to the Prime Material Plane.
>>93358612I never said you can't talk about GURPS here, I hate that /osrg/ 'off-topic' shit that just stiffles discussion. At the same time, anons here aren't the people you should be asking for advice if you're trying to run a GURPS game. You're free to ask about I don't know, monster ideas, dungeon ideas, magic item ideas, just don't expect anons here are going to know how those things work in GURPS exactly. That comment about DEX and realism is saying that realism leads to game imbalance/poor design/whatever you want to call it. GURPS is fundamentally broken without heavy GM oversight, another reason why it's unsuited for old-school gaming. You are encouraged to make a GURPS hack for old-school gaming if you are so inclined, I would be happy to be your first playtester.
>>93353528>I also feel like skilled players quickly outgrow that need, are flush with cash, and there's nothing left but not terribly interesting domain play to fill that void.I feel like that's not so much a failing of XP for gold, but of just not having a proper market for the gold you get. If you got less gold (and XP requirements were similarly lower) or prices were higher, that would keep things going for longer. Also, while I'm not a fan of the magic mart, where you can just go in and buy whatever magic items you can afford, having some ability to buy magic stuff for inflated prices would keep gold valuable. I won't pretend to have found the perfect answer, but I've played around with people being able to search for sellers of a particular item they're looking for (whether they're get it from a collector or a retired adventurer, or it's a family heirloom, or whatever), often through the thief's black market connections. I generally let PCs sell stuff at only about 1/10 of the price they could buy it for.
>>93367808Isn't the simplest fix if you want to extend the adventuring phase to just divide treasure by say 10 and say 10 gold = 1 XP?
>>93367849>Isn't the simplest fix if you want to extend the adventuring phase to just divide treasure by say 10 and say 10 gold = 1 XP?You presumably mean that 1 GP = 10 XP, so you keep the same pace of advancement, and I'm in favor of that particular take on the silver standard, but a fighter needs 60 times as many XP to go from 8th to 9th level as he needs to reach 2nd, so even cutting gold tenfold may eventually prove to be an insufficient reduction, unless you're playing around with domains or building mercenary forces... or you inflate the costs of high-end items and/or let people buy magic items under some circumstances.
Thinking about race-as-class and multiclassing for my shitbrew. What if you had a primary class and a potential secondary class. Your primary class, if human, is the classic fighter/cleric/m-u/thief. Your primary class, if not human, is your race.However, say you want to play a dwarf cleric.This is handled by secondary class. By spending XP (voluntarily energy draining yourself, basically) you can 'buy' levels in a limited (nerfed) version of the classic fighter/cleric/m-u/thief. If not human, you only get one secondary class choice and cannot change it.The benefits of being human is then as follows. 1) Humans enjoy the full versions of fighter/cleric/m-u/thief. 2) Humans can 'buy' levels in multiple secondary classes, unlike everyone else.With this system, the mysticism of race-as-class is kept, but now you can play a dwarf cleric. Multiclassing is also no longer a headache.
>>93367923It's an interesting idea, and a bit similar to something I was talking about a little while ago, where the different demihumans would give you a different primary vs. secondary class when multiclassing (halflings being thieves, elves being magic-users, dwarves being fighters), which, along with some racial abilities, make the unique (because while a different race could, say, combine fighter and magic-user, they would necessarily have their primary and secondary slots reversed).I've previously played around try to make a free-classing system (you go up a level, you pick a class to advance, in 3e fashion) that actually works, and I think I was doing a decent job of it (though I still had some details to iron out), but I essentially lost interest because I felt like the system was getting a bit boring, and not allowing for characters that were as distinct. Foremost among my problems were that demihumans, which are de facto multiclasses, lost their uniqueness. That's something you might have to consider as well.As to the particulars of your system, I guess multiclassing elves would basically be three classes? By default elves are basically fighter/magic-users, so would an elf's only multiclass options be thief or cleric, or would choosing a fighter or magic-user supercharge that class in comparison to the other?
>>93367923Love it Anon. Very balanced and clearly explained. Go for it.
>>93367989>As to the particulars of your system, I guess multiclassing elves would basically be three classes? By default elves are basically fighter/magic-users, so would an elf's only multiclass options be thief or cleric, or would choosing a fighter or magic-user supercharge that class in comparison to the other?Supercharge. Though B/X RAW is too simple to meaningfully offer limited versions of classes. For example a B/X M-U only gets what, proficiency with daggers, a spellbook, a level 1 slot and 1 spell? Hard to meaningfully nerf that. Wouldn't be an issue in my shitbrew but it's something one would have to consider for B/X RAW. In my shitbrew M-Us start with two level 1 slots and 4 starting spells known. So you can easily cut that to say one level 1 spell slot and 1 spell known as a secondary class.
>>93368793>For example a B/X M-U only gets what, proficiency with daggers, a spellbook, a level 1 slot and 1 spell? Hard to meaningfully nerf that>Really the only way to do it is either to gimp their one spell somehow (2-in-6 chance to fail, or reduced damage/effect/duration, etc.), or to limit which spells they have access to (since Ventriloquism is a lot weaker than Sleep). But yeah, starting magic-users start with basically nothing.
>>93369360
>>93369432I don't know who that is. That cartoon was way too gay for me.
>>93356617It should be Charisma, for the looks that kill.
>>93368416
I just got invited to play AD&D 2E, and I've never read or messed with it at all, so I ended up finding every book in one PDF in RTF format, along with a rare cd application and expansion that has a map generator, bestiary, character and NPC creation, etc, which is pretty nifty.gofile (DOT) io/d/x7hkiU
>>93371080Best official D&D version ever, only bested by what we are collectively developing here on /todd/. Congrats Anon.
>>93371192>no half-orcs>…that’s all I got, actually.I’m trying to dunk on you, but I can’t think of much.
Zoomie here reading about Dark Sun. Honestly this setting feels like it was tailor-made for ACKS, what with the slavery, wizard kings, experimental crossbreeding, and so on. The only thing missing are psionics, not sure if there's an ACKS supplement for that. But yeah, very dark and edgy compared to the typical D&D mileu.
>>93372548There is an ACKS psionic supplement. Funnily enough someone did a discussion on ACKS Dark Sun & there's some classes for it in one of the ACKS Axioms books.Fucked if I can remember which one, but it's in there somewhere.
>>93372153>no half-orcsZeb Cook built a wall and made orcs pay for it.
>>93372153>>93372711Complete book of humanoids?
Is the new C&C another printing or an actual new edition?
>>93373570Yes.
>>93371080I can't get that shit to run for the life of me.
I'm working on revising and expanding my list of Vancian Cantrips for B/X magic-users, and one thing that just occurred to me to do was to include lesser versions of mainly 1st but also a few 2nd and 3rd level spells. They'd do the same thing as the regular spells, but would typically have one aspect dialed significantly back to depower them. If you got Hedge Magic, you'd randomly determine which particular spell you got. So you'd have, say, Hedge Magic: Shield in particular. If you ever got the regular spell version of something, maybe it would be assumed that you perfected your previously makeshift casting of the spell, and thus would replace the Cantrip with another random one. Any thoughts about the idea, or particular balance issues you see with the spells on the list? Pic is my old list of Cantrips, to give you some idea of what these would fit into.Hedge Magic:1. Charm Person: target merely becomes neutral/nonhostile2. Detect Magic: lasts 2 rounds3. Floating Disc: carries only 100 pounds4. Hold Portal: lasts 1d3+1 rounds5. Light: last 2 turns, nonreversible. any saving throw against it automatically succeeds.6. Magic Missile: each missile does 1 hit point of damage7. Protection from Evil: lasts 6 rounds8. Read Languages: lasts 2 rounds9. Read Magic: lasts 1 round, does not enable you to read item later or inscribe a spell10. Shield: lasts 2 rounds11. Sleep: affects 1 creature of up to 2 HD, they get a saving throw12. Ventriloquism: lasts 2 rounds13. Detect Evil: lasts 2 rounds14. Detect Invisible: lasts 4 rounds15. Levitate: lasts 3 rounds16. Mirror Image: creates 1 image, any attack has a 50/50 chance of hitting the caster or the image, the image disappears regardless17. Haste: affects only 1 target, lasts 1 round18. Infravision: lasts 2 turns19. Lightning Bolt: all affected must save or suffer 1 damage20. Protection from Normal Missiles: lasts 2 turns but dissipates after deflecting a single missile
>>93351563>To reach level 2 it needs 5000 EXP, the progression is as fighter.How do you reconcile these things? A fighter progression is 2000 XP to reach 2nd.
>>93351563Wow how did I miss this? I think it's a great class, well thought out, and I'll be offering it to my players as an option from my next session.>>93376661Are you dumb, Anon? It's pretty clear: He needs 5000 XP to reach level two, and then he progresses as a fighter.
>>93371080Congrats anon. I still wince thinking of two missed play opportunities these past several years. One was at a LGS after wargaming where a guy watching casually mentioned he ran a 2E game still, but left for dinner before I got a chance to talk to him about it. The other was a pizza delivery man who saw my AD&D shirt when I came to the door and enthusiastically said he played 2E for years and hadn't since he moved into town and lost his old group. I was so focused on getting the pizza like a fatass I didn't have the wherewithal to invite him to my 2E table game I ran at the time (which is now very dead). And all the LGSs either outright don't allow non 5E play or will schedule you for a shit night because they think it isn't gonna draw many people.All that to say, it's brutal out there for folks looking to play any old edition, most of all a not particularly beloved one like 2E.Also purpleworm.org has all of the 2E text ripped from that CDROM you're talking about, because they for some reason just stored all the raw text for every 2E book.
>>93343284Tinkering with the rules is exactly what /osr/ has been about for the last 12+ years. I don't any of them play much and all their experience with osr is just playing with rules that don't really need fixing. Seriously go spend your lives on something worth while.
>>93371080>5976 page pdfholy fucking shit. thanks for the files and the lols anon
>>93376764>Are you dumb, Anon? It's pretty clear: He needs 5000 XP to reach level two, and then he progresses as a fighter.So he needs to earn negative 1000 XP to reach 3rd level?
>>93374419You mount the first image and install, might return a language pack error you can just dismiss.Then mount and run the ''expansion'' iso, should install no problems.Now with the ''expansion'' disc still mounted, go into Program Files (x86) > AD&D Core Rules 2.0 > Programand launch Tsrp3.It will give you an annoying tutorial on how to use it before you can use it.
>>93377692It's a PDF that has multiple books in it that are just RTF...
>>93377826yeah i get it I just had a good chuckle at the page count. Not being a dick.
>>93377305cool story bro
What size dungeons do you guys favor? Do you like big-ass megadungeons that can keep a party occupied all the way up to name level? Small dungeons a party can knock out in a single session? What's ideal to you?
>>93344359I mean, it makes sense for Charisma to give you bonus gold, but PCs are swimming in piles of gold pretty quickly anyway, so it's really not that valuable, except at the very beginning.
>>93377757Seriously:2nd level -- 5k total xp3rd level -- 4k total xp4th level -- 8k total xp5th level -- 16k total xpSo a thief is 4th level before this class hits second level, but when the class hits 3rd level, the thief is 3rd as well.
I think the next thread should be the standard TODD-designated one regardless, but should we put our naming convention up for discussion there? I'm the guy who came up with /todd/, by the way, but as I said at the time, I'm not married to it. I just don't want to be changing names willy-nilly, and if we're gonna make a change, it should be by group consensus, or at least the nearest possible we can come to that here. There have been grumblings about /todd/, but it's hard to separate the trolling from the opinions of those legitimately concerned about the thread. The debate, if there is going to be one, should not merely be about keeping or ditching /todd/, however, but about /todd/ vs. concrete alternatives, as it's quite possible that the majority of the community would be against each and every particular option. And what would be the alternatives? OSR+ has obviously been put forth (I don't like the vibe of "OSR + edge cases"). But is that too close to /osrg/? Or is that not even a bad thing? Are there any other proposals? On the basis of continuity, I think we should keep /todd/ if we're divided about everything, but if we come up with an option that clearly has more support than anything else, that's a different story. Thoughts?
>>93382299/todd/ is perfectly fine and it sounds nice and friendly./osr+/ would only invite controversy and trolling. I don't think we need it here.
>>93382299I like TODD. "Traditional" and "Open" says all that we need to say about what we're about here. I see no reason to change it, it was a good choice.I come to this general to avoid the idiotic discussions on what is or isn't OSR, *please* don't emphasise it in the OP, let alone make it part of the general's name.
I used to hate the idea of casually switching players/PCs in and out from adventure to adventure, but as I've gotten older, and it's gotten harder to get a consistent group of people together on a regular basis, I think I've come to terms with it. Having things set up so that you can play with whoever shows up and not have to worry about somebody not being there is wonderful. You've got a band of adventurers, or even a guild, and when a character isn't around, it's assumed they're occupied with other things, and you make do with the people who are available. You adventure for the session and return to base at the end (or at least set things up so that you can reasonably do so), so that everybody is available for the next adventure.
>>93382299No, keep it todd. The osRtards can remain in their containment thread and we all don't have to watch them lose their shit every time someone brings up 2e or whatever isn't considered OSR at that particular moment.
>>93382236The more I think about it, the more I want to play a class that jumps straight from level 1 to level 3 when it gets 4000 XP, only to drop back to 2nd at 5000 XP.
>>93382236How about just:5000 - level 210,000 - level 320,000 - level 440,000 - level 5 and so on? There's no reason to overthink or overcomplicate this. If you want to play a god class the penalty should be a hellacious XP curve. Although honestly you could raise it to 7 or 8k for second level and it would still be a pretty good deal - as is it means the god class will be behind regular classes by only a single level, maybe 2 levels behind the thief.
>>93383364They are right on that, though. The reason 2e is the best version of D&D is precisely because it's *not* OSR.
>>93339967>all those laddersWhat a thrill.
>>93383364I mean, the + part of OSR+ should cover that, but you could be right that it could invite more argument from folks looking for any excuse to argue. I do understand the folks who think that "traditional" implies a more conservative, narrow take on old school D&D, but /osrg/ has already claimed OSR.
>>93376764We'll have fun and tell me if they like it, I created it using a book of the B/X kind that offers you nice values for all the powers of all the classes, forgot the name.I think you can either offer this class as the Red Mage, the Adventurer or some sort of forgotten cool demiuman.And yeah I meant the exp progression is the function like that of the Fighter, with 5k as the starting value, so 10k, then 20k. Then it increases of a static value when he doesn't gain new HD.
>>93382098I know some grogs love these huge twisting insane mega dungeons but in reality no one I've ever met likes playing that shit, it's annoying, they get bored very easy, and most rooms are empty and useless and stupid anyway.I'm firmly anti-mega dungeon simply because they are not fun for the majority of normal people.
>>93387177stop playing with normies anon. it will be good for your games
>>93387177>I'm firmly anti-mega dungeon simply because they are not fun for the majority of normal people.This is a retarded way to think. Enjoy what you want, find what works for your group. Its a hobby game of make believe.
>>93382299Traditional is a bit weird and there's all kinds of stuff that isn't D&D that comes up. Having to emphasis how Open you are is gay especially given how narrow minded some of the posting is. Its more like Retro Style Game Design General. Which is a bit less humanized than TODD but if you say RSGDG fast enough it can sound like Reginald. Sorta.
>>93387294>>93387305When I meet someone that even remotely wants to bother with mega dungeons, I'll worry about it then.25+ years of DND and so far so good.
>>93387433>when someone is different than me I think they're mentally illvery OPEN fuck off
>>93387433>I never offered it to anyone, that means no one wants itThe position that small brains will take to try and excuse their narrow existence eh?
>>93387177Based. Good DMs carefully curate the experience at the table knowing the players and what they want. Shit DMs run megadungeons with random tables.
>>93387766In all fairness, the most common appeals of nigh endlessly progressing through a series of close combats is much more easily satisfied with video games for decades now. It's funny that he says 25+ years since that was juuuuust about when the shift happened.Probably the biggest problem with the published megaduneons is the inadequately seeded RP opportunities self contained therein. I don't really believe that WGR1 or RoU grew organically up from actual play. It's best to think of them as sandboxes but there aren't really good published guidelines anywhere for how to run a dungeon-centric campaign.
>>93387923>the most common appeals of nigh endlessly progressing through a series of close combatsDoesn't seem lik... oh fucking gross go away smugfag. Never mind. /todd/'s fucked.
>>93387961What do you mean? It seems reasonable enough. Megadungeons are better suited for DRPGs like Etrian Odyssey or Wizardry.
>>93387985He's just an ingrate that knows he doesn't have a valid counterpoint.
>>93387923this is one of the worst take i have ever seen in a long while aand then i notice it is smaugfag...makes perfect sense actually.>>93387985megadungeons are nothing more than dungeons with enough depth/layers/levels that you can repeatedly explore. They have no inherent difference besides that from regular dungeons.Any and all other problems people might have with them is either the fault of the dm and the design of the dungeon and not the concept of a megadungeon.They are not by default combat grindfest with countless empty boring rooms because your dm run out of inspiration or the 2nd floor.They are by large the product of the dm/adventure writer as much as a regular dungeon.
>>93388988>A dungeon big enough to go to twice is a megadungeonWew lad
>>93389033repeatedly means more than twice, which would be apparent to you if you weren't completely retarded
>>93387340>Retro Style Game Design GeneralThat doesn't sound D&D-centric, and the problem with not being D&D-centric is that people will essentially be speaking different languages.
>>93389156Yeah, I don't see the reason for the snark. I think a dungeon big enough for at least three delves is a reasonable threshold to qualify as "mega".
>>93389937The difference between a 5 room dungeon and a 20 room dungeon is only as much as the difference between a 20 room dungeon and an 80 room dungeon, which is barely "mega"
>>93382299"Traditional Open D&D" sounds more restrictive than "Old School Revival"And this thread isn't very "traditional" either, as demonstrated by the houserules and adventure ideas postedReally this threads feels like virtue-signalling but equally autistic /osrg/ except instead of telling people you disagree with FOE GYG you whinge about OPEN DISCUSSION
Anyone have play experience with more controversial Nu-SR house rules, or lessons they've learned from tinkering? I'll start:>Shields Shall Be SplinteredI went overboard and used a whole inventory-slot-for-cancelled-hits fatigue system. "for interesting encumbrance decisions" All it ended up doing was giving players in essence more hp and lengthened combat. The same I assumed could be said for the aforementioned rule on a smaller scale. Would not recommend.>classless, in-fiction skill trainingNot terrible, it adds to player-focused goals and small in-fiction PC customization. Still, players seeking skill/class training became a rotation of individual focused adventures or chores that needed to be taken care of instead of a cohesive party goal. This may be more to do with campaign direction and planning as players gain status and power but at least classes from the start speed the process up a bit. Not sure how I feel about it.>Knave's ability point advancementHonestly, my players love this. It adds the extra "cha-ching" to level ups and a little customization. The power scaling though adds up quick. It's also very easy to have a lot of actions turn into same-y ability checks for everything. I may add ability point advancement to back in some form though to OSE just with way slower progression. Probably wouldn't recommend.Anyone have experience with Bennies or Feats of Exploration? (I usually get annoyed with post-game "how did we do?" type stuff because starts to feel like obligatory handouts but my players sometimes get frustrated with lack of loot sometimes and this is still in-line with the same xp incentives)
>>93390681>Anyone have experience with BenniesLike luck/fate points? I'm a big fan of a spendable resource to boost your capabilities. I currently call them "mettle", which makes them feel more like a trait of your character rather than some external thing that has little to do with them. And not only does it give players a bit more control, letting them choose when to go all out, but it's honestly more realistic than having characters always perform at a set level the entire time. You can really push yourself, but you can't do it all the time or you quickly wear yourself ragged. And without a specific fatigue system (and those can be more trouble than they're worth), depleting whatever you're calling the points can kind of represent that as well... or at least you've pushed yourself as far as you can, and have no ability to do it anymore. It can be especially good for fighter-types, as it lets them attempt special maneuvers (disarming somebody, knocking them down, etc.) without making you contrive some ad hoc reason they can't do them all the time, or trying to somehow balance them directly against normal attacks.
>>93389905This thread isn't dnd centric. >>93339952>>93341160>>93344926>>93345174>>93345301>>93345358>>93346159>>93346223>>93350528>>93353560>>93353599>>93354072>>93354238>>93358620>>93358623>>93367791>>93373570>>93382299>>93387985
>>93390681>random depletion dice ammo and torches >black hackHaving no real idea of who much of a thing you have was not very interesting, the dice rolls didn't add more tension or anything they just ended up making circumstances that weren't very sensible and had to be handwaved hard. >spells as inventory slots with little chits and pieces >mausritterCute idea, ended up being a hassle at the table, everyone kept bumping their sheets and losing their stuff under the table. Could have printed them on sticky paper and put it on magnet sheets but at that point its getting a bit involved for something that was suppose to simplify gameplay. >overloaded encounter table with environmental effects as well as encounters>some blog, forget which Similar problems to randomly running out of arrows and not knowing about it, felt kind of pointless compared to just keying the damn dungeon. >spore encounter rolls >wormskin zine but I think its from before that Actually liked this one. Gave the entire dungeon an ecology and living feel to it. Let the players get to know the signs of various creatures. >xp for successful mapping>don't remember where I stole this from 25xp per room or area mapped when the map is brought back to town encouraged mapping and exploration, gave some bonus but didn't seem to undermine the core gameplay loop. Gave them something even if they had a bad run otherwise. Also do 100xp for a good idea that works. has to work though. Can't just be >we light it on fire
>>93373570I think its just a new print, but with the OGL content changed. They proudly say they've never made a new revised edition of C&C b/c they got it right the first time.
>>93382098Give me a 16-32 page module with a interesting framework with good maps and a few memorable encounters and I can DM my group in it for a year.
Guys I'm joining a 2E and I think after reading the player handbook my brain hurts.They don't go into any depth about some things, but go wayyyyyyyy too into detail about others?Should I just roll a fighter and turn off brain?
>>93382299I've thought about it, and I think /todd/ is at least as good or better than any alternative. Very glad its here. Thanks, Original OP.
>>93391086My advice (too late perhaps) is that PHB's aren't really meant to be read. Skim, see what jumps out at you, and then read what's applicable to that interest. 2e books in general are very wordy - I don't care for it myself but that's what differentiates it from all other editions of D&D.Fighter is simplest. And I've never seen a party that has too many fighters. Have fun!
>>93390973>random depletion dice ammo and torchesI feel like you've just gotta use 'em for the right things: wands and blasters and shit.>spore encounter rollsSpoor, you presumably mean. 'Cause at first I was thinking fungus creatures, then I was thinking it was some encounter that grew into something bigger (like a seed).>Also do 100xp for a good idea that works. has to work though. Can't just be>we light it on fireI feel like you're undervaluing setting things on fire.
>>93390681>Shields Shall Be SplinteredWhat you described doing definitely sounded like overkill to me, but by itself Shields Shall Be Splintered sounds more manageable. I do, however, have some issues with it.First: shields are already powerful, especially once you get into magic shields, and don't really need a boost relative to two-handers (though I guess nobody would choose to have their magic shield splinter, so the rule becomes useless at that point?). Second, I do worry that it would encourage people to haul around a ridiculous number of spare shields. Third, I don't really like the idea of the player being able to decide to automatically block a blow. Maybe it should just have a 50/50 chance of splintering (or maybe it automatically splinters, but only actually protects you 50% of the time?). Regardless, it might be worth limiting the damage the shield can absorb to something like your class's hit die roll plus your level. So a 6th level fighter's shield would absorb 1d8+6 damage. Maybe you should only add half your level? Or you shouldn't add it at all?But what about magic shields? Maybe they merely take damage, being reduced in effectiveness one plus until they are repaired? And if they're absorbing a random amount of damage, maybe you get 2 more points of absorption per +1 or something.
>>93391098Not your private thread.
>>93390893All of those are jus regular attack rolls you font need feat points to disarm or shove a bitch.
>>93391777Balancing disarming or knocking somebody down against a regular attack is damn near impossible. Either the special maneuvers are less good, in which case they hardly ever end up being used, or they're better, in which case it's to your advantage to try to trip people over and over to the point of ridiculousness. (And even if it's different enemies in different encounters, if you start every one of them by trying to trip somebody, that's lame.) By making special maneuvers contingent upon the spending of some depletable resource, they're no longer in direct competition with a normal attack and they can no longer be done over and over again.
>>93391766People's opinions were solicited and the anon you were responding to gave theirs. It's not *your* private thread.
>>93391084Sometimes I feel like my group could get bogged down in a single room for the better part of a year.
>>93390488Wrong
>>93372153No assassin, and they renamed demons and devils...
>>93392603Unfathomably based. The assassin is a useless class, and Baatezu and Tanar'ri are MUCH better names than the uber lame "demons" and "devils".
>>93392630I object, in principle, to censoring shit so as not to upset bible thumpers, but I ultimately don't care that much. I was just adding things the other anon omitted.
>>93392603"Pleasing bible thumpers" was just PR. Dig deeper.The Assassin class was removed because it inevitably lead to PvP as players went "I'm evil, it's what my character would do" and tried to knife their party... Then reintroduced with a late supplement for Greyhawk. Monks were removed because they were a bad fit for a European fantasy setting... then put in by the same supplement.Baatazu and Tanarii are unique terms, which means they can be trademarked and owned by the company. Demon and Devil are not. Supernatural evil wasn't removed to appease wowsers, nor was it's nature changed. TSR had already experienced the other end of this when they were forced to rename Hobbits as Halflings and Ents as Treants after the Tolkien Estate threatened legal action, and similarly the Lovecraft IP owners were pissed over Deities and Demigods having statblocks for the Elder Gods.You dumb cunts have to stop believing everything you're told on social media.
>>93392931Yeah, sure. It was a total coincidence that they ditch a bunch of "evil" stuff, like half-orcs and assassins, as well as demons and devils (in name, at least). Hell, I remember reading about somebody (Cook?) saying something to the effect that it wasn't the image they wanted to project.
New Thread:>>93392958>>93392958>>93392958
>>93349474>You won’t because no such thing exists.I thought such was the case and that other anon was simply confused. Thanks for the confirmation.
>>93390917Remind me, what the title of the thread is?
