Interception

3 Replies

To throw yourself in the path of an attack directed toward another character, make an attack roll. If this intercept roll hits an armor class as good as the attack roll being intercepted, the interceptor becomes the new target of the attack and moves between the attacker and the original target. The decision to intercept must be made prior to the attack roll.

Fighters may perform one intercept reaction per combat turn. Characters of other classes may only perform an intercept if they hold their action. Retainers directed to intercept attacks may be required to pass a morale check.

I want to add a sentence about how intercepts can only be attempted if they make sense logically, or are supported by the fiction (or whatever), but don’t have quite the proper language down yet.

Coming full circle

6 Replies

My old AD&D PHB

When I left for university in 1999, I sold almost all of my RPG books. My memory of exactly why and to whom is hazy, but somehow and for some reason I did.

I had written my name on the interior of some books, though, and somehow my AD&D Player’s Handbook made it into the possession of Guy F. (of Unvisible Citadel and Chaotic Henchmen Productions). He sent it back my way.

The world is small.

Welcome home, book.

The arcane sigil that brought the book back

Inscribed, an arcane sigil of return

Sui generia

5 Replies

In myth, monsters and treasures are often unique. For example, not a medusa, but the medusa. Not a sword +1, but Excalibur. The advice to give items or creatures a backstory to increase interest is sort of obvious, but what if this principle is taken further so that most things are not only named and distinct, but also unique? Taking this approach also serves as a self-discipline mechanism for controlling the supply of power within the game, by making magic items essentially take the place of artifacts.

I had originally wanted to sketch out an entire setting using this method, but that proved too ambitious, so instead I am presenting a suggestive miscellany. The basic model was to take each example element from the rule book (Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox), interpret it through the lens of the setting (often as a unique element), and then place it on the hex map. This also serves, procedurally, as a checklist for campaign creation. Since you are placing game elements on the map, it guarantees that you are focusing your preparation on things that will show up directly in play.

Based on this principle, there were two other seeds from which the setting grew: each magical staff became the symbol of office for one arch-mage (leading to 10 arch-mages) and the most powerful monsters became the gods of the setting. This was also partially inspired by the original Deities & Demigods (which is in essence a high-level bestiary) and the way Carcosa presented the great old ones.

The divinities, thus, are immanent. For example, Xelior is the efreeti. Hegombol is the dragon. Though they may be challenged and slain, if killed within their domain they will not be truly destroyed and will rise, full of vengeance, on the next day. The gods are not divine aspects of mundane monsters; there are no dragons other than Hegombol.

Arudin, genie of the air, ruler of the open skies and patron of all who would remain unchained. Stats as djinni.
Baalroch, ruler of HELL. Stats as baalroch demon.
Garviagad, ruler of VALHALLA, the land in the sky above the southern seas. Honorable warriors are reborn in VALHALLA. Stats as storm giant.
Gezarvalu Catastrophon, the many-headed, incarnation of chaos and destruction, worshipped only by the insane. Rises from the sea without warning and lays waste to all nearby. Stats as hydra.
Hegombol the Volcano, terror of the northeast, the dragon. Demands, and is paid, monthly tribute from the town at the base of his mountain. Stats as red dragon.
Xelior, genie of fire, slave to the arch-mage Azafont of the Brass Tower. Stats as efreeti.
Yex the Colossus. Said to once have been the mightiest of the gods, until tricked by the arch-mage Luder Dreamwalker. It is said that Yex first taught humans the mastery of stone-craft and building. Luder destroyed part of the fabulous temple of Zumen, and while Yex was distracted stole his capstone, which was also his soul. Now Yex stands frozen, supporting the remains of the temple. Stats as stone golem if the capstone is returned. The realm of Yex is all lands above the sea.

There are 10 arch-mages, each of which possess one of the 10 staves of legend. The staff is not only a source of power, but also a symbol of office. Anyone who can claim one of the staves becomes a new arch-mage. The staves no longer have charges, but instead may be used any number of times. After each use, 1d6 is rolled and on a 1 the staff will not work again until the next moonset.

Dedardima the Collector. She possesses the Staff of Absorption, and has peppered the known lands with bunkers and underground compounds, many of which she has forgotten about, in preparation for the final battle which she perpetually fears is about to occur. She is also known as the Doomsayer.
Azafont of the Brass Tower. He possesses the Staff of Beguiling, and also ring of Xelior, the Efreet. The pleasure gardens of his estate are infamous.
Gorbex. She possesses the Staff of Command. She dreams of killing all the gods and being queen of the world. She has a huge army.
Sambasmyr the wanderer. She possesses the Staff of Healing. She was driven out of her tower by the betrayal of an apprentice, Cassadior, who also tried, and failed, to steal her staff.
Aznix. He possesses the Staff of Power and delights in the struggles of kings and warlords. He will sell his loyalty to the highest bidder.
Kokal the Undying. She possesses the Staff of Lordly Might and is ageless. She allows few mortals into her presence.
Sathifor the Corruptor. She possesses the Staff of the Snake and is worshipped by the lizard-men of Neshistathelex.
Luder Dreamwalker. Possesses the Staff of Striking. It is said that he lost his first body long ago, and survives by claiming new hosts through their dreams.
Magaitand, the Liche. He possesses the Staff of Withering and rules from the drowned palace of DAI-PALAN in the Swamp of Beltikur.
Chalasu. He possesses the Staff of Wizardry. Nominally the highest ranking of all wizards, but nobody pays attention to him. He is said to have forgotten more spells than most magic-users have ever cast. His eye was taken by Baalroch, and he would like to get it back. His tower in the hills is where the council of arch-mages meets, once per year.

Though this setting is directly compatible with the unmodified Swords & Wizardry rules, several house rules developed naturally during the process of creation. First, clerics do not in general exist. Any clerics played will be of the singular, prophet variety. The cleric spells that do show up in the setting can be prepared by magic-users.

Further, I see magic working slightly differently. Spells are prepared as normal by magic-users, but require components to cast. This came from the idea of distributing components around the hex map explicitly. Rather than fire and forget, each time a spell is cast, a component is consumed. A spell cannot be cast without components, even if it has been prepared. Magic-users begin with 1d6 components for each spell known. Components beyond this beginning allotment must be acquired during play.

Components are specific things, not abstract GP values; a list of components by spell can be found below, along with hexes where the components can be found. Occasionally, components may be available for sale, but this is neither consistent nor reliable (especially considering that the sale of many spell components would be considered morally reprehensible by most upstanding persons). If you are playing with my strength-based encumbrance system, each type of component consumes one encumbrance slot.

For an example of another sui generis magical item, consider Mendo’s Magnificent Flying Machine, last of its kind, as a stand-in for the flying carpet. 1 in 6 chance to learn how to operate, but then it also need fuel. The flying machine can transport up to 10 persons. This item also shows how this procedure is not just re-skinning. No existing mechanics are necessarily privileged, but instead are used suggestively. For example, this version has an added benefit (can carry more people) but also some downsides (you can’t roll it up, and you need to secure fuel). So it’s not exactly the same. I like doing this much more than just giving existing stats a new face.

The images below were done by Gus L. from Dungeon of Signs. Thanks Gus!

Azafont of the Brass Tower (Staff of Beguiling)

Queen Gorbex (Staff of Command)

Sathifor the Corruptor (Staff of the Snake)

Magaitand, the Liche (Staff of Withering)

Sambasmyr the Wanderer (Staff of Healing)

Mendo, master of the ancient flying machine

Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day

Last Gasp

Feat creep

7 Replies

In the recent Legends & Lore article, Mike suggests that ability score improvements could be a simple alternative for feats. This is not something I would use, because I don’t think it’s a well-crafted trade-off: a bland bonus that is likely to affect the thing you do most often versus something specific that might add some texture. It also encourages numerical inflation.

The suggestion that it will be common for characters to “raise their key ability to 20” seems particularly unfortunate. Players often use ability scores as a form of personality profile. How boring is it that all melee fighters will ultimately have 20 strength? Isn’t class level (with attack bonus and so forth) supposed to capture the idea of progression in class competency?

Having a prestige class be essentially a preselected feat chain is not a bad idea though (sort of the high level equivalent of the lower level “specialties”) and is easy to tie into the setting diegetically, which I like. It also allows people who enjoy complex character builds the opportunity to mix and match feats but means that players who are not interested in that minutiae can just go by high level flavor, like Warhammer careers.

I don’t think there should be any mechanical prerequisites for feats though, except maybe level. Needing to consider the dependency graph for feats in earlier editions is a big contributor to the overwhelming complexity of the feat system. The model for magic-user spells is a good one, from a game design perspective. Distributing the spells over multiple levels keeps the initial complexity down, but allows for significant individualization of characters over the course of play.

Hit dice as attack bonus

6 Replies

Costume design for the Opera "Prince Igor" by Alexander Borodin

Ivan Bilibin, costume design (source)

When I recently played in Evan’s Uz campaign, he had hit dice do double duty as attack bonus. Uz is based on Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox, which, like OD&D, only uses the d6 for hit dice (modulating the difference between classes using bonuses as described here). The elegance of this approach impressed me. Only one number is required for both hit points and offensive ability. And it generalizes to monsters, though you might want to cap the bonus depending on the campaign power curve (max +10 seems pretty reasonable to me).

I don’t remember exactly how he did it, but this is how I might do something similar. Fighters find their attack bonus by adding their hit dice expression together. For example, a fighter with HD 5+1 has a +6 attack bonus. All other classes ignore the bonus part of the hit dice expression and just use the base HD. So, a cleric with 4+1 hit dice attacks with +4. Tougher classes always have more hit dice than weaker classes, which is also how attack bonuses should work.

This is what the attack bonuses would look like given the recently posted rationalized hit dice progression (hit dice are in parentheses):

LEVEL	HIGH	MEDIUM	LOW
1	+2 (1d6+1)	+1 (1d6)	+1 (1d6)
2	+3 (2d6+1)	+2 (2d6)	+1 (1d6+1)
3	+4 (3d6+1)	+2 (2d6+1)	+2 (2d6)
4	+5 (4d6+1)	+3 (3d6)	+2 (2d6+1)
5	+6 (5d6+1)	+4 (4d6)	+3 (3d6)
6	+7 (6d6+1)	+4 (4d6+1)	+3 (3d6+1)
7	+8 (7d6+1)	+5 (5d6)	+4 (4d6)
8	+9 (8d6+1)	+6 (6d6)	+4 (4d6+1)
9	+10 (9d6+1)	+6 (6d6+1)	+5 (5d6)
10	+11 (10d6+1)	+7 (7d6)	+5 (5d6+1)

Another way to look at this rule would be that all classes use base hit dice as attack bonus, but fighters get an additional +1. Or, one could just use the additive hit dice for all classes, which makes things simpler (no special case for the fighter) at the cost of decreasing the relative power of the fighter slightly.

Using this system necessitates running with ascending AC. I have actually been considering switching to ascending AC off and on for a while now anyways. This attack bonus system is probably simpler and easier to understand than my attack ranks system, and it does away with another table (usually a good thing).

Simulacrum strengths

2d6 casting again

13 Replies

Nicholas Roerich – Snakes facing (source)

On monday, I got to test out the petition system for cleric magic that uses a 2d6 casting roll. Here are my findings. I think they apply to other 2d6 casting systems that I have considered in the past as well.

Overall, I was pleased, but I would like to simplify the presentation somehow (the fourfold categorization did not seem immediately obvious to the players). I think there also needs to be some sort of exhaustion mechanic built in. There were no problems during the session exactly, but magic did feel a bit to accessible, especially compared to the party magic-user. Thus, I think I’m going to modify the 2 and 3-4-5 ranges to apply a cumulative penalty. So:

Spurned (further attempting this petition is at -1)

Becomes something like:

Spurned (failure, cumulative -1)

This is similar to a previous idea I had for accumulating arcane stress. It’s also related to this other recent post about another cleric magic system, which allocated “disfavor” points for successfully casting spells. I think the arcane stress post had the right of it by only causing cumulative penalties on lower rolls, as disfavor arising from success seems slightly strange.

Here is an adjusted cleric magic roll:

Petition Roll
2d6	Result
2 or less	Abandoned (specific petition unavailable, any abjuration ends, cumulative -1)
3, 4, 5	Spurned (failure, cumulative -1)
6, 7, 8	Ignored (failure, may try again next turn)
9, 10, 11	Answered (standard success)
12 or more	Rewarded (double effect, demons or undead destroyed, etc)

And a magic-user version:

Sorcery Roll
2d6	Result
2 or less	Catastrophe (chaos surge/mutation/backfire, spell lost, cumulative -1)
3, 4, 5	Miscast (failure, chaos leak, cumulative -1)
6, 7, 8	Delayed (goes off at the end of all actions, may be interrupted)
9, 10, 11	Success
12 or more	Puissant success (extended duration, full damage, or something similar)

Cumulative penalties go away and spells may be re-prepared after characters return to civilization and rest for a night, along with appropriate prayer or study.

The differences between cleric petitions and sorcery are as follows. Cleric magic need not be prepared, but is limited to the powers granted by a particular order or patron. It also is more ritualistic, and with the exception of a few limited combat effects (such as turn undead or hold person) requires at least an exploration turn (and often a full day) to attempt. Sorcery, on the other hand, requires preparation, but the set of effects to choose from is limited only by spells known. Sorcery is also more directly potent and more dangerous (potentially causing chaos leaks, mutations, backfires, and all kinds of nastiness). Both kinds of magic become harder to use as failures accumulate, which is important for the resource management aspect of game play.

Solipsistic hexes

11 Replies

Landscape by Nicholas Roerich (source)

Starting from the idea of distance may not be the most productive way to approach either running or mapping the wilderness. This is counterintuitive, because measurement and mapping are so tightly linked conceptually. However, a graph of locations with adjacency (sometimes called a point-crawl recently) seems like too much abstraction. As an attempt to navigate between these two extremes, consider the following system, which I have been using in my Vaults of Pahvelorn game.

Hexes don’t have any determinate size at all. They are abstractions built around three things: sites, travel time, and landmarks. Sites are the locations (towns, dungeons, towers, ancient battlefields, etc) within a hex that can be visited. Sites are either obvious or hidden. One day of travel allows visiting any obvious site within the current hex or within an adjacent hex (this is “moving through hexes” mode). A day may also be spent to search the current hex (which provides a chance of finding a hidden site). Or, to rephrase it in more game-oriented terms, players get one “move” per wilderness turn, which can either be moving to an obvious location within one step or searching the current hex for hidden locations.

Travel time is probably the most controversial aspect of this scheme. One day per hex, irrespective of anything else. Travelling to an adjacent hex allows characters to interact with any of the obvious features of that hex (such as stopping in a town). Exploring a hex provides a 1 in 6 chance to find one of the hidden sites. Any site found is determined randomly, unless the characters are looking for something specific, in which case chance might be weighted in that direction based on if the characters know something about the location they are looking for (“the tomb is by a stream”). A hidden site is treated as obvious if a knowledgeable guide or accurate map is available. The relative locations of sites within a hex are usually not important, and are determined randomly or arbitrarily as needed.

Landmarks, in addition to large obvious features of the current hex, include large obvious features of adjacent hexes. This provides players with information so that they can make meaningful choices about where to go. Most of the time, characters should be able to tell the basic terrain type of all adjacent hexes, though occasionally local terrain will prevent this (such as wandering at the bottom of canyons, or journeying through a very dense forest). This should be clear by context, and limitations are often easy to overcome (such as by climbing a tree).

Each day spent in the wilderness necessitates a random encounter check, as does each night. This is a 1 in 6 chance, but can be adjusted per-hex (based on terrain type or general danger level). It is perfectly functional to stick with the 1 in 6 chance in general, for simplicity’s sake. If an encounter is indicated, I sometimes roll another d6 to see if more than one encounter might occur (a 6 on the second die) or if the encounter will involve more than one NPC group (a 1 on the second die). In the second case, “more than one NPC group” means that the PCs encounter two other groups that are already engaged in an encounter themselves. The exact probabilities for the rarer occurrences are not important as long as they are impartially determined and remain uncommon.

Exploring off the beaten path carries with it the risk of getting lost. There is no chance of getting lost when following a known route, such as a road, but in other cases the chance is 1 in 6 (or greater, of course, depending on the situation and terrain). In game terms, getting lost means wandering accidentally into a hex adjacent to the one intended (determine which randomly). This can happen either during movement toward a known site (if a path is not followed) or during searching for hidden sites.

By implication, the “real” size (whatever that might mean) of a predominantly mountain hex is smaller that the size of a plains hex (because you can travel much farther on plains than on mountains). What this does is pull the wilderness into a loose mesh similar to a point-crawl, but with more enforced structure (as there will always be six adjacent nodes at any given location).

Just like in the dungeon, the default rate of travel assumes caution, resting occasionally, and so forth. Journeys are purposeful but not forced marches. This mode engages all the standard rules (mounts not dying on you, standard getting lost chances, standard encounter chances, standard surprise chances, standard encounter distances). If a group wants to throw caution to the wind and make like a bat out of hell to their destination, more than one hex may be traversed in a single day of travel, but chances of mishap are be greater. Roll or pick any number of possibilities from the following list:

One encounter check (with increased chance) per hex traversed
Mounts must save or die when destination is reached
Increased chance of getting lost (if appropriate)
Guaranteed attention from bandits (haste implies value)
Guaranteed pursuit from origin location (haste attracts attention)
Force retainer morale check (“I didn’t sign up for this garbage”)
Otherwise obvious landmarks or sites go unnoticed
Increased chance of being surprised during encounters
Decreased encounter distance
Penalty to encounter reaction rolls

Alex S. uses a similar one day per hex method, and his post helped lead me to my current method, though I do not expose hexes directly to players.

Current hexcrawl procedure:

Roll for weather (2d6 reaction roll with cosmos)
Move or search?
Day encounter check
Lost?
Describe travel, note obvious sites and landmarks
Resolve any day encounters
Camp procedures? (establishing “default” procedures is reasonable)
Mark off rations (I always forget to do this — bad referee!)
Night encounter check
Resolve nocturnal encounters

Chases

4 Replies

Perseus fleeing the gorgons (source)

How do you handle pursuit? Most of the official answers are either tedious or uninteresting (such as comparing movement rates directly). It seems like situations that are both uncertain and dangerous (like combat, or running away from a giant tentacle horror) deserve to incorporate some randomness. Knowing that your “movement 6” plate armored fighter will never be able to outrun anything is boring, and also causes perverse decision-making (any kind of certainty is rarely good for maintaining tension).

Most proposals I have read on the web to address this are a bit too complicated. I like this one by Roger, and also have thought about converting the movement tiers to d6 rolls (so movement 6 would end up being 2d6, which has an expected value of 7). But then his system gets into obstacle penalties and lines of sight, and I end up feeling lost. Or this one from Talysman, which breaks the chase down into segments, and modifies the standard movement rates by situation rolls in order to introduce some variation. I like both of these systems, actually, but perhaps a compromise between multi-turn chases and just comparing static movement rates would work best at the table.

Some form of direct roll-off would probably work best. Those fleeing roll some dice based on their movement, those pursuing roll some dice based on their movement, and the higher total wins. Easy to remember, obstacles and hindrances can be handled ad-hoc. Okay, so which dice then? The spread between 1d6 for movement 3 and 4d6 for movement 12 is just too much. I like there to be some effect of armor or encumbrance on chases, but those numbers just don’t feel natural, either from the perspective of what will make for interesting tension in the game or from reasoning about how armor “should” affect movement.

Perhaps we can borrow the d6 “dice chain” from OD&D? That is, 1d6, 1d6+1, 2d6, 2d6+1, and so forth. Then reorganize the chain slightly, so that the three different armor types don’t differ by that much, but still do affect the outcome meaningfully.

Encumbrance	Traditional	Dice Chain
unarmored	12	2d6 +2
leather armored	9	2d6 +1
metal armored	6	2d6
metal armored and carrying treasure	3	1d6

Traditional encumbrance and movement numbers are taken from the Moldvay Basic rules, page B20 (though Moldvay includes equivalent coin values as well, for bean counters). When you reorganize the chain though, it starts to feel less intuitive, so while I think this would work, I’m not totally satisfied. Also, I would probably modify Moldvay’s categories so that the progression was unarmored/light, medium, heavy (rather than unarmored, light, medium/heavy).

Here is another proposal. Unencumbered movement is 3d6 (expected value: 10.5). Subtract armor type (for example, heavy armor is -3) and any other encumbrance penalties. This makes the expected values of the movement by different armor types 10.5 (unencumbered), 9.5 (light/leather), 8.5 (medium/chain), 7.5 (heavy/plate). This seems to be a more reasonable spread than 12, 9, 6. Fast monsters would roll 4d6 for pursuit, slow monsters would roll 2d6. Very easy to remember, and supports the goal of adding tension to chases without complexity.

Using an entirely new system for resolving chases does give me pause, but none of the existing systems seems to work well. 3d6 gives a good distribution, and also plugs into numbers from other parts of the game (armor levels as 1 through 3, encumbrance penalties) in a way that makes sense, so I think the new die roll is justified. And since when has D&D ever been afraid of multiple resolution systems, anyways?

This movement scheme could also be applied to dungeon exploration mode. Traditionally, exploration rates are static, and based upon encumbrance. Instead, what if players rolled to move during the exploration context as well? The random encounter check could even be incorporated into this roll. One of the movement dice could be a different color. I don’t think this would work well in a videoconference game, but it might be good for an in-person session.

Postscript: Potential scheme for the 2d6 fantasy game: 2d6 +strength -armor (strength is probably a somewhat reasonable proxy for speed).

Necropraxis

Classic fantasy roleplaying games and loosely associated thoughts