Yearly Archives: 2011

Necromancer Draft

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A while back, I posted a classes overview for a B/X-style game. That was missing the necromancer and the thief. This is my work so far on a necromancer class. I’m going to do this one a little differently than the others. I realized that I was writing more rules than flavor, because no existing class really represented the necromancer I wanted. I want a necromancer that focuses on raising and commanding the dead, like the necromancers in the fiction of Clark Ashton Smith or the necromancer in Diablo II.

I thought about using the BRW Necromancer (which I like), but the BRW Necromancer is very much a spell-casting specialist wizard. Another option is The City of Iron Labyrinth Lord Necromancer (free PDF here). That is another great class, and includes more than 50 new spells; by all means, you should go take a look at it. But it is not solving the problem that I am trying to solve. The Undead Master from The Complete Book of Necromancers has some good qualities, but like most D&D necromancer classes it suffers from being designed only for NPC use.

This necromancer that I have designed is not a magic-user with a different spell list. In fact, this necromancer can’t even memorize spells (at least, I’m leaning in that direction). Instead, from the very beginning, this necromancer is engaged in raising the dead to do his bidding. In Talysman’s formulation, this necromancer gets undead minions to solve problems for him. In some sense, from a game perspective, this class takes the idea of retainers and builds a class around that.

The main objection to this kind of class is that it can result in an army-of-one. Even if that does not end in a more “powerful” character, it can still slow the game down by requiring lots of rolls during one player’s turn. Fourth edition takes the most extreme position on this problem: you need to spend your own actions to control animal companions, familiars, or summoned creatures. This army-of-one problem does not really bother me though, for the following reasons.

  1. I’ve played characters with several animal companions, and it never seemed to bog down.
  2. Any character can have hirelings, which can result in the same problem.
  3. Necromancer minions are not under the control of the player in the same way a PC is; the player gives commands, but the referee interprets how the minions carry out their actions.
  4. Based on these rules, the number of minions the necromancer can control is based on level, so it will be a long time before there are many of them.
  5. Time-saving rules: one attack roll for all undead of the same type (see below).
  6. Minions could be used as pit-trap detectors (this problem does not hold for mortal hirelings, as they would not consent to being so used). However, is this really any worse than probing with a 10 foot pole before every step? (Actually, yes, it is, at least a little, because probing ahead with a 10 foot pole slows down exploration.) In the end, I don’t think this is a big problem though, for one simple reason: creating minions costs money and finding minions is risky and requires adventuring. Thus, minions are not a resource to be thrown lightly into a pit trap. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Necromancer summary:

  • Hit die: d4
  • Control undead as cleric of equivalent level
  • Cast “command” incantations on controlled minions
  • Create undead
  • Worst attack bonus (primarily uses minions to attack)
  • Uses the magic-user advancement table
  • Cast necromancy spells from scrolls as thief

(Use your favorite retro-clone or version of D&D for advancement tables and other details.)

The quantity and potency of undead that can be controlled by a necromancer is as a magic-user’s spell memorization table, with hit die substituted for level. For example, if a magic-user of equivalent level could cast 2 first level spells and 1 second level spell, then the necromancer could control two 1 hit die minions and one 2 hit die minion. A higher-level slot may be filled by a lower-level minion. Following the above example, that could mean either two skeletons and a zombie or three skeletons.

Once an undead minion is under the influence of a necromancer, the necromancer must issue commands. Such commands are minor incantations, and require that the necromancer have use of voice and hands (a weapon or implement may be held, but may not be used during the command). Such a command requires one combat round and functions in the same way as casting a spell. Once so commanded, an undead minion will forever attempt to fulfill their charge, with various degrees of creativity and cleverness, to be determined by the referee in line with the nature of the type of undead in question. For example, a ghoul’s overwhelming desire is to feed, and all actions will be biased toward that end. Skeletons and zombies are virtually mindless, and will exhibit no creativity with regard to fulfilling commands. No minion will knowingly cause harm to their master or their master’s close associates. Though the necromancer can only issue one command per round, all minions will continue to pursue their last command.

How do necromancers acquire minions? One way is to find previously created undead and exert control over them. This works exactly as a cleric’s turning ability, except that the end result is servitude rather than fleeing. The other way is to create or summon minions. As the necromancer advances, each time a new strength of undead can be controlled, the necromancer gains access to rituals for creating or summoning one iconic type of undead. For example, at fifth level, a necromancer gains the ability to maintain control over one 3 hit die undead, and one ritual to create a 3 hit die undead. Each ritual also has a components cost, which is consumed in the ritual. The necromancer starts with the 1 hit die ritual for skeleton. Other rituals can be found through the course of adventuring. Costs are just guesses for now. These minions are consumable in a way that something like a magic sword is not, but in the end if these costs are appropriate or not depends on how wealthy PCs are likely to get through adventuring in any given campaign (I need to look at XP advancement values and compare to treasure hoards). An appropriate body must also be procured for the corporeal undead. Perhaps more specific components will be required also, but from the point of view of basic game-play, the cost is the most important thing (though I love the idea in Carcosa of binding particular components to hexes on the wilderness map).

Undead minions by HD:

  1. Skeleton (cost: 10 gp, requires a cleaned skeleton)
  2. Zombie (cost: 100 gp, requires a somewhat whole corpse)
  3. Ghoul (cost: 500 gp, requires a living subject)
  4. Wight (cost: 1000 gp)
  5. Wraith (cost: 5000 gp)
  6. Mummy (cost: 10000 gp, requires a prepared corpse)

Rituals to create necromantic golems are also possible, following the same rules. The necromancer binds a spirit into the inert prepared golem body, thereby rendering it animate. Golems so created should remain within the 1 to 6 hit die range; these are not quasi-artifacts like iron golems.

Necromancers may restore HP to minions by performing particular rituals. A necromancer that spends one day so engaged will restore 1 HP to each minion controlled. This must be a full day of work, and cannot involve travel. Treat it as natural healing for game purposes.

When the necromancer controls more than one undead of a particular hit die value during combat, one attack roll can be made per type of undead to speed up play. Generally, one attack roll will be made for each type of undead under the necromancer’s control to expedite combat.

The spawn of undead controlled by a necromancer (for example, those slain by wights or wraiths) are not automatically under the control of the necromancer. Control must be asserted as normal.

If a necromancer is slain, all his undead minions are immediately freed. In the case of mindless undead, they will continue to attempt their last task until destroyed or controlled by another necromancer. In the case of sentient undead, such as wraiths, the undead will immediately become hostile to the necromancer and any of his allies, and attempt to take revenge for the enforced servitude.

Spells that have an obvious connection to necromancy can be cast without chance of failure from scrolls. All other spells require a successful intelligence check.

When a necromancer reaches name level and builds a stronghold, 1d4 apprentices of level 1d4 + 1 will seek to learn from him. In addition, a necromancer’s stronghold is enchanted with powerful magic that extends the necromancer’s control over undead within his own domain. Within the bounds of the stronghold, the necromancer may control four times the normal number of undead.

Some questions:

  1. Can minions use equipment such as armor or weapons? I’m leaning towards no.
  2. I thought about including some anatomist or doctor skills (embalming, tending wounds) due to the knowledge of life and death (a doctor is just a kind of necromancer, right?). I think this necromancer is more mystical and fantastic though, so probably not. I’m not looking to model Dr. Frankenstein.
  3. Do I really want to completely avoid spell memorization? Maybe, in addition, have a limited spell list, like the AD&D illusionist? But with fewer spell slots, like the second edition bard?
  4. Magic item creation by binding spirits?
  5. Are the advancement tables in any of the major retro-clones Open Game Content?
  6. Should dispel magic be able to break the link between a minion and a necromancer?
  7. Necromantic cantrips for free? Examples: wilt a rose, cause a corpse open its eyes, make a mouse skeleton dance.
  8. Should necromancers acquire the ability to issue commands telepathically at higher levels (as in, without the requirement of the incantation)?
  9. What should the range of the command incantation be? I’m thinking that it should be based on level.

This class clearly needs play testing, but I’m really excited about it. It seems to have all the qualities I am looking for, and is not just a skin-job on another class. More details about particular rituals will be included in later posts.

Talysman has also posted a great cleric-based necromancer.

Points of darkness

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If the traditional D&D wilderness is made up of small bastions of law floating in a sea of chaos (the points of light trope), then maybe games like Call of Cthulhu and World of Darkness are points of darkness in an otherwise mundane reality. Since present reality is manifestly mundane, it makes sense that fantastic games that use the present as their setting often use some variation of this pattern. The super hero genre is the only exception I can think of, and that works primarily because the bar for suspension of disbelief is so low for supers.

Perhaps points of darkness, rather than points of light, are needed for a weird horror game. This would be another reason for LotFP to move away from fantasy settings and into the historical world and away from the D&D level system (with all the power inflation it entails). This is often how horror movies work: some aspect of expected reality is upset, and then (usually) restored by the end of the story, providing an experience of catharsis.

Countdown to Carcosa

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I have been trying to avoid posting more than once per day, but I have already broken my rule once today for the recent Oubliette 7 announcement. So I might as well break it again, right?

Also sprach JimLotFP:

…the Carcosa book is going to be right almost as thick as the Grindhouse box…

That sounds fantastic. This is by far the OSR product I am most looking forward to right now.

And:

More than that, Eero (design/layout guy for the project) linked every hex on the maps (and the room numbers of the Fungoid Gardens map) so clicking on it goes straight to the entry in the body of the book.


I’m particularly excited because I missed the original release (being blissfully unaware of the OSR at that time).

Oubliette 7

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Free from RPGNow “for a limited time” (original announcement here).

I haven’t read the whole thing cover to cover yet, but it served nicely as my breakfast reading. Some highlights:

  • The Pareto Principle applied to RPGs.
  • Black Blade advertisement about Monsters of Myth. I thought physical copies were no longer available (Lulu no longer sells them). I sit happily corrected.
  • Extensive set of replacement dungeon random encounter tables (with precalculated hit points).
  • Short adventure in the sword & sorcery mode (for Labyrinth Lord characters of level 3 to 5): Tomb of the Snake King. This looks really nice.
  • The 10-foot pole: variations on a theme.
As always, the art is really the differentiator. Worth checking out for the visuals alone.

Some Gygax

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Some treasures arrived from Ebay yesterday. Which should I read first? The Giants-Drow series, or The Temple of Elemental Evil? (D1-2 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth is coming in a separate Noble Knight order which should be here soon.)

Charm Person as Limitation

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I’ve always been hesitant to use charm spells or effects against my players. First, players don’t like to lose control of their characters. And second, I don’t like players to lose control of their characters. As a referee, I have enough other entities to manage, without needing to run the PCs too.

I’ve been reading Demonspore recently though, and every shroom has charm person memorized. Shrooms are also supposed to be evil geniuses, so they should fight deviously and use all their powers to maximum advantage. If I want to run this module honestly, I need to decide how to consistently manage monsters that charm.

Here is my first idea. If a PC becomes charmed, I will give them a short brief regarding their new priorities. No more than a few sentences. Maybe I’ll write this down beforehand, or maybe I’ll just vocalize it. Then, the player will be responsible for taking actions in line with the brief. My only power as a referee will be to disallow actions that seem to contravene the brief. Attempting to twist the words of the brief, within reason, is permitted (and even encouraged) as that provides space for player skill and also models the idea that the PC’s nature is rebelling against the control. XP for particularly good adherence to the brief may be in order, but if I go that route I would like to find a way to do it that is not too subjective. Maybe something like 100 XP, with -10 XP for each time an action is disallowed by the referee? With negative XP possible?

I wonder how other people handle charm person, or other similar effects (geas, quest, etc).

The Paris Catacombs

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Image from Wikipedia.

The Catacombs of Paris are another example of a real-world labyrinth (I first came across them here). Many levels deep, and (supposedly) millions of dead interred. Maps derived from real structures, in my opinion, have a sense of verisimilitude that is hard to get from purely invented maps (though maybe that is at least partially a placebo effect). See also this post at Aaron Steele’s blog on St. Paul’s Catacombs.

Some resources:

Also mentioned on Dragonsfoot. Map here (very atmospheric, but not really ready for RPG prime-time). (Thank you, user Grim, for that link.) Perhaps usable as a player handout, if one were to create a separate referee map (though the French might take players out of the game if this were used in a fantasy setting).

Bone Hill & Saving Throws

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One thing that struck me when reading Bone Hill was how Lakofka writes about saves. For example, in the description for room BA:

Any person on the ladder below the falling individual will also be knocked off unless a save is made (rolling one’s dexterity or less on a d20).

And then again:

8c: The trapdoor from above is iron reinforced and barred 50% of the time. The trapdoor down to level b is made of iron and is wizard locked. If it is opened for more than 10 seconds it will cause a trap to activate. One person moving rapidly can easily get through before the trap is sprung. A second person must roll Dexterity or lower on a d20 with -2 on the roll, a third save vs. Dexterity with no penalties or modifiers, a fourth save vs. Dexterity at +3, on the roll, and a fifth person will not succeed at all.

What is this save vs. dexterity? Clearly, in the older games, a save is something broader than the mechanic associated with the per-class saving throw table. A save is any kind of check used for a last chance escape. And it has something to do with abilities, at least in this example, but it also has something to do with experience (for saves that use the level-based table in the core rulebooks). Saving throws are explained narratively in many different ways, and this changes based on the ruleset in question. Some samples:

Basic (Moldvay) B26:

A saving throw represents the chance that a special attack may be avoided or will have less than the normal effect.

Expert (Cook/Marsh) X24:

As characters advance in levels of experience, saving throws become easier to make.

2E PHB (page 89):

Saving throws are measures of a character’s resistance to special types of attacks–poisons, magic, and attacks that affect the whole body or mind of the character. The ability to make successful saving throws improves as the character increases in level; Dexterity and general mental fortitude aid in honing combat senses. Experience makes saving throws easier.

Ibid. (page 100):

More often than not, the saving throw represents an instinctive act on the part of the character–diving to the ground just as a fireball scorches the group, blanking the mind just as a mental battle begins; blocking the worst of an acid spray with a shield.

The d20 system uses three saving throws, all based on the capabilities of the character rather than the threat to be avoided; fortitude (modified by constitution), reflex (modified by dexterity), and will (modified by wisdom). From the SRD:

Generally, when you are subject to an unusual or magical attack, you get a saving throw to avoid or reduce the effect. Like an attack roll, a saving throw is a d20 roll plus a bonus based on your class, level, and an ability score.

Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox (page 32):

From time to time, a spell or some other kind of hazard requires you to make a “saving throw.” A successful saving throw means that the character avoids a threat or lessens its effect. Each character class has a saving throw target number which gets lower and lower as the character gains levels.

Labyrinth Lord revised edition (page 54):

All characters and monsters can make”saving throws” to avoid the full effects of spells or certain attacks. Characters and monsters will have a number for a saving throw category, and when affected by a type of spell or attack which requires a saving throw, the player or Labyrinth Lord will roll 1d20.

LotFP uses saves by class and level (the save numbers are included on the experience progression charts), but saves are also adjusted by ability score bonuses and penalties. I couldn’t find a simple description of the idea behind saving throws in the Grindhouse rules, but they seem to be B/X-based with a little d20 SRD flavoring (the ability adjustments).

So: by level, by ability, or by level with ability modifiers? That is the question. And as for most things related to D&D, there is already an extensive conversation about this on Dragonsfoot. After reading Bone Hill, my initial inclination was to do away with the saving throw tables, on the basis that the numbers are a major portion of a character record, and a more minimal character sheet (all other things being equal) is better. One less set of numbers to keep track of. However, one of the posts in that Dragonsfoot thread makes an important point:

This seems like it would create too much of a focus on ability scores, making those with low stats much worse than before and those with high stats better.

I think that is absolutely the main problem with doing away with the saving throw tables. Using an ability-centric mechanic for saves makes abilities more important, and we all know where that leads (bonus inflation, min/maxing, heavier chargen, etc). Also, there is a certain feeling to Dungeons & Dragons, and the saving throws, with all their baroque categories, are part of that. Having a specific save against death rays says something about the expected tone of the game. On the other had, the downside to using level progression saves is the power curve: high level D&D play can sometimes feel like playing superheroes, and while some people might like that, I don’t think most people come to D&D looking for that kind of experience. I suspect (though I am not sure) that that is part of the reason why James Raggi recently wrote that he might do away with the level system if LotFP gets another edition.

After all that comparison and analysis, I will leave you with this: a simple “save vs. dexterity” to partially avoid dragon breath, “save vs. constitution” to survive poison, or “save vs. wisdom” to shake off a charm spell seems mighty attractive. This does, however, make ability scores more important, and I generally dislike that. (This is not an either/or proposition, obviously. The two styles of saves could be blended in various ways and with varying levels of complexity.)

See also the commentary over at Jeff’s Gameblog (the changing set of categories is also interesting, though peripheral to this discussion) and Talysman’s comparison of different approaches here.

L1 The Secret of Bone Hill

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These old modules are much more like local settings than stories. The area detailed is about 16 by 28 miles, based on the wilderness map. That’s approximately 14 six mile hexes. The module starts out talking about the Lendore (also known as Spindrift) Islands, which was slightly confusing to me, until it became clear that it was set in Greyhawk. Indeed the cover does say “This module may be incorporated into an existing campaign or used in conjunction with THE WORLD OF GREYHAWK (TM) Fantasy World Setting.” I missed that because I am used to products trumpeting their brand association with setting logos. Moving on. It contains the following locations:

  • Dweomer Forest. With a temple to a god of chance. This is an example of a cleric’s stronghold with followers, and is presented as a source of information, cleric spells, and a place to sell magic items.
  • Bald Hill. Farmland and a thieves’ lair (orcs).
  • Guardian Peak, Lark Hill, Low Point, Reddy Forest. These areas are mostly a source of potential henchmen: Tolvar (magic-user), Locinda (half-orc thief/fighter), Martin (ranger), and Volcifar (assassin). Aside: my next character is totally going to be named Volcifar; that is the coolest name I have seen in a while. I like the fact that potential henchmen are placed like treasure to be found. It reminds me of finding new party members in video games. I wish my players were more interested in hirelings and henchmen.
  • Pebble Hills, Tri-top, Kelman Woods, Spring Glade. A dire wolf pack and a small gnoll village of six stone huts.
  • Bone Hill and the Dead Forest. Ruined castle inhabited by several different factions of monsters. Lakofka explicitly calls this a symbiosis, which I find interesting, as dungeon factions are usually assumed to be competitive.
  • Restenford town & castle. Every building in the town is keyed, as is every room in the castle. This resource alone is worth the price of admission. You could rename the town and drop it into any campaign setting. The castle and dungeon of the title are an added bonus.

Interestingly, not only are most of the evil demihumans (the bugbears and gnolls) presented as having females and young, the demihumans are explicitly placed in a family setting. There are more children in the gnoll village than adults (six male adults, three female adults, and eleven children). The same is true of the bugbears in the castle ruins. Certainly an example of Gygaxian naturalism, and little care is taken to protect delicate sensibilities regarding potentially fighting demihuman young.

The module says that the town has 315 inhabitants. I’m not counting, but it looks like all the village inhabitants are placed and detailed, most with stats and alignments. Speaking of which, a surprising number of them are chaotic neutral. Lakofka must have known that this was asking for trouble so he includes this (page 17):

The garrison is provided to maintain some degree of order through the town, as you will note the town is mostly chaotic neutral in nature. Chaotic neutral does not equate with brawling, meleeing, spells in the streets, and open mayhem. Be sure you are clear on the meaning of this alignment and that your players understand it as well.

There is also this gem:

DM Note: Only the Baron knows the exact location of the family treasure, and how it is guarded.

This is particularly interesting in light of James Raggi’s true objective of the keep post. I don’t think I need to summarize that argument here other than to say that most of the same points apply (other than the one about the title).

Enough about the setting. L1 also got me thinking about a particular rules subsystem, on which the next post will be focused.