sorry for the lack of updates lately...things here have been busy.
first off, my friends and i pooled our resources and actually bought a gaming store here on long island. one of the local game stores out here was going to close its doors as the (former) owner is planning a move to texas. so, yeah - we took it over. it's been an interesting 2 months to say the least. i'll post more about the store in the days (or weeks) to come.
anyway - minotaurs. a few months ago i worked up a minotaur class and posted it on the LABYRINTH LORD boards...i did a layout for it last month and included an illustration that kelvin greene did for DUNGEON STRIKE.
my take on them was a bit more from the 4E/WOW side of things. i figured minotaurs that were PCs wouldn't be so darn evil, you know? their spell-like abilities are pulled from the LABYRINTH LORD cleric and druid list...so you'll need those to use this class.
hey dudes. a year or two ago i was perusing the internet and i stumbled across a blog that used the old DUNGEONS & DRAGONS coloring book border for something. i can't remember which blog it was or what they made with it...so that sucks. i did manage to track down this here blog which has scans of the coloring book (my original one has been lost to time) and i made a character sheet for B/X D&D. as you can see, it's mostly just a reconfiguring of the sheet that shipped with the game. it's usable for LABYRINTH LORD also if that's your thing.
this is the sheet that we use for our B/X (supplemented by LL) game on sundays. download here and enjoy! here's a preview...
ever since we started playing B/X (supplemented by LABYRINTH LORD) a few years ago, i've been instituting a pretty hardline stance on using 3d6 in order for character generation. at first, mostly everyone complained - but when they learned they could fiddle around with the prime requisite stats the grumbling sort of came to an end...except for one player.
now, before i go on - why do i like 3d6 in order? well, flat out - i think it makes more interesting characters. no one WANTS low stats, but when you have a character with a 5 DEX or 6 CON - it forces you to create an interesting reason as to WHY their stats are so low. where they sick as a kid? are they missing an eye? are they crippled? it helps flavor the character. i'd rather take a chance when making a character and perhaps play a tyrion lannister or a raistlin majere - it's more interesting. to me, at least.
one you move away from 3d6 in order you are running the risk of the players having some generic and/or min/maxed characters. awesome, it's another dumb and uncharismatic fighter with a high STR/CON score. hey, it's a physically weak but genius magic user. oh, it's a fast yet fragile thief. there's no variety. most of the older editions of DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS allow you to succeed with low stats. your abilities are actually built into your classes. sure, it's still a deadly game at low levels - but it's rewarding to get a character up to 2nd level who is less than optimal.
just to prove the point to myself that 3d6 in order was viable, i generated a ton of characters for use at cons with that method. players chose from that pool of characters for about a year (and the players of later editions openly wondered how they would survive the adventure with such low stats and HP). guess what? at every single con game we ran the PC's won the day. sure, some of them died...but the adventure was completed - every single time.
now, i do like the 3.X rule of improving stats every so often - i'm about to institute a house rule in our B/X games of stat improvement every few levels. the characters that survive adventures should be getting stronger as they gain power.
anyway, one of our players has railed against 3d6 in order since we implemented it, and made it a point to show me the 1st edition DMG rules where there are alternate methods for rolling stats: 4d6 in order while dropping the lowest die, 3d6 and roll 12 times (picking the best 6 and assigning them), roll 3d6 6 times per ability (!!!) and take the highest roll, and finally, roll 12 characters and choose the best one.
obviously, characters generated in those ways will be light years better than the ones made according to the OD&D or B/X rules. but the fact that those rules are even in the DMG got me thinking - have people been complaining about weak characters since OD&D?!?! is that why those alternate methods are in the DMG? my first few characters were created with the 3d6 in order method. what got us off that track?
when i was a kid playing D&D in the very early '80's (i was in
elementary school from '80-'86)...well, of course i wanted high stats.
my friends and i NEVER created characters in front of each other, as
that would expose the fraudulent way we actually "rolled" stats. but why
were high stats impressed upon us? why do many players and game
designers feel that high stats are necessary? what happened that somewhere along the line players decided that their characters were too weak?
DEITIES AND DEMIGODS and its predecessor GODS, GODDESSES and HEROES. they're the reason. now, before you spit out your drink and go "no wonder - you were comparing your characters to GODS and GODDESSES"...no, we weren't. look at the stats in those books for the heroes of literature and myths.
in the early '80's i was too young to have read things like CONAN, LotR, jack vance or whatever...but i had read PLENTY of greek mythology. i was also pretty familiar with king arthur and robin hood. i had always envisioned our PC's as the main characters in the myths and legends that i read - y'know, heroes. when we got our hands on DEITIES AND DEMIGODS and we saw the stats in that book for guys like perseus, odysseus, theseus, and the knights of the round table we thought we were doing something wrong in having such "poor" characters - and our characters began to emulate the stats we were seeing in that book. i mean, look at these stats:
PERSEUS (STR 18/89, INT 14 WIS 12, DEX 18, CON 18, CHA 18),
ODYSSEUS (STR 18/00 INT 18, WIS 10, DEX 16, CON 17, CHA 18),
THESEUS (STR 18/76, INT 18, WIS 17, DEX 18, CON 18, CHA 18)
SIR GALAHAD (STR 18/00, INT 15, WIS 18, DEX 18, CON 18, CHA 18)
SIR LAUNCELOT: STR 19, INT 14, WIS 13, DEX 18, CON 18, CHA 18)
even your average arthurian knight of renown had no stat less than a 10 while "averaging 15" in all 6 attributes. knights of quality? nothing less than 13 and an average of 16.
after we all saw the conan movie in 1982 we wondered what he would be like as a D&D character - i mean, if odysseus had an 18/00 STR, conan must have had like a 22! in a pile of old DRAGON magazines we found an article that statted out CONAN (from the novels) and we sure weren't disappointed!
CONAN (at age 25): STR: 18/00, INT 15 (18), WIS 10, DEX 20, CON 18, CHA 15 (18)
conan was originally statted out in GODS, GODDESSES and HEROES and his stats were very similar to the ones presented in DRAGON (Strength: 18; Exceptional Strength: 100%; Intelligence: 16; Wisdom: 10; Constitution: 17; Dexterity:18; Charisma: 15). in OD&D terms this was a pretty amazing character...so i can imagine what people felt like in 1977 when they compared their PC's to CONAN.
as originally written, the rules of the game COULD NOT create characters like this...unless you used the last couple of methods from the DMG (or the sugesstions in UNEARTHED ARCANA, which we'll ignore for now). these books set the standard (in D&D terms) for the heroes the PC's were supposed to be emulating, so OF COURSE people started to want more powerful characters. the game becomes less challenging when 18 is your average stat, obviously...but i feel like it was too late - the standard had been set: any stat that didn't deliver a bonus sucked and a stat that penalized you was grounds for not playing the character.
i imagine that some groups (like us) eventually got bored with boring, superhuman characters (who had at least 4 18's and possibly some higher stats) and went back to a more sensible way of generating characters. oddly, what snapped us back into that mode was the DRAGONLANCE source book. i was convinced that raistlin was going to have a 25 INT or something - and to see that it was "only" a 17 at first was a let-down. RASITLIN (STR 10, INT 17, WIS 14, DEX 16, CON 10, CHA 15) had challenged a goddess and had her on the ropes...how could he have done so with such "regular" stats? that got us thinking. by this point, my friends and i were in 7th grade...and we finally realized that maybe the people who had statted out all these characters had just done it wrong and (weirdly) DRAGONLANCE had done it right.
obviously, though - not everyone thought the way we did, as high stats have become the norm in D&D. i can't speak for 2nd edition since i hardly played it (though all the generation methods from the 1e DMG are in the 2e PHB). the 3E PHB flat out tells you to scrap characters whose highest stat is a 13. that's wise, since unless you have a 17 or 18 in your primary stats, early level skill checks, attacks and saving throws will be impossible*. great game design. i'd tell you what was in 4E but i threw the books out a while back.
*funny aside - a few players who ran through my sessions last year made this one fighter character talk like GRIMLOCK from the TRANSFORMERS. when i asked why they were doing that they all responded "dude, he has a 10 INT". all of them were regular 3.5/pathfinder players. when i pointed out that a 10 INT was normal they more often than not said that anything lower than a 14 was crap. thanks, 3.5.
some people like playing with superhuman hero characters ala DEITIES & DEMIGODS. i think it's boring, but obviously i'm in the minority. i'm still enforcing 3d6 in order, though.
ok...i wrote this adventure last year to run at cons. it was written to show off the terrain that we make and sell and as such may be a little too hack/slashy. oh well. rich also kept making the map LONGER and as such the plot of the adventure kept "evolving". still, everyone who played it seemed to like it. we've run it at ICON, GENCON, DEXCON, METATOPIA, RETCON and DREAMATION...and now that we're done running it i figured i'd post it here so that other people can use it as they will. enjoy...and BEWARE HIS EYES.
so you'll have to forgive me for neglecting the COMPLETE B/X ADVENTURER for so long. it's been kind of hectic around here with all the vacation, gaming, and con-going that's been happening (i'm a teacher, so i have the summer off...and since i'm not married and i don't have any kids i can kind of live it up a bit).
with that being said, however - i will now FINISH my review of this very fine gaming product.
ok, so last time i gushed about the random charts at the beginning of the book. if you want to check that out, head here.
the rest of the book is made up of the things you're probably most interested in: new classes and new spells. there are 17 new classes...most of which are human classes. don't worry - for everyone that likes to play demihumans (like myself) there are a few cool options like the centaur, the gnome, and the ogre-kin. some of the stand-out human classes (as far as i'm concerned) are the acrobat, the barbarian, the summoner, and the mystic.
now, don't get me wrong here...all the classes are very well done. i'm just going to focus on the ones that really grabbed my eye as i read through. things are kept very simple (in the B/X tradition) while also offering cool options that don't exist in the standard rules. several of the classes are spellcasting classes, and they mercifully DO NOT use the vancian/fire & forget method. i'll detail two of those classes below.
here's a brief overview of the classes that struck my fancy:
ACROBAT: acrobats can't can't wear armor or use shields, which makes sense. they're limited to just the staff. they do gain a bonus to AC based on their level (+2 AC at 2nd level, etc). they can climb walls like thieves and can't really be knocked off their feet. they have a percentile based skill called PROWESS which allows them to perform crazy stunts (with the DM being the final judge on just what is feasible in any given situation), and another skill called EVASION which allows them to disengage from combat without being attacked. very interesting.
BARBARIAN: this is a simplified version of the barbarian class from UNEARTHED ARCANA. barbarians have a ton of HP (d10) and are pretty good trackers. due to their ferocity they gain a +1 to all melee attacks, though they have limited gold at first level to reflect their uncivilized ways. they can HEAR NOISE and CLIMB WALLS like thieves and can also pull the "halfling vanishing act" while outdoors. at higher levels they can SUMMON a HORDE of other barbarians.
CENTAUR: the centaur gains 2 hit dice at first level but they are capped at 7th level. they can use any weapon but are limited to horse barding for armor (though they gain a bonus to their natural AC). they also have 2 hoof attacks that they can use in place of a weapon - until they gain some levels and then they can attack with both hooves and weapon in the same turn. centaurs can flat out MOVE - they have a 60' combat movement rate...which makes sense since they're half horse. they can also carry a ton, so if you're playing the centaur prepare to be coat-racked. they can also track much like the barbarian...um, or the ranger. which doesn't exist in BX D&D. anyway.
MYSTIC: these guys are loners who have given up on society and turned their focus inward to attune their connection with the physical world. they don't wear armor and they don't really carry weapons. heck, they don't even really EAT. they can heal minor wounds though, so that's cool. they can also detect evil and magic AT WILL (don't have a heart attack, grognards...the game won't break). and guess what? they are a spellcasting class and they don't use the vancian magic system. thank goodness. here's how it works: you can cast an amount of spells per day equal to your level OR your CON score - whichever is lower. you don't need to memorize anything, either...spells are known innately. every time you gain a level you choose a new spell off of the mystic spell list (it's a new list with new spells). they have spells like CURE WOUNDS, INNER STRENGTH (which raises their STR to 18), OMEN (allows a yes/no question for the DM), WATER WALK, and ENLIGHTENMENT (which allows the mystic to choose an object like a sword or a house and know EVERYTHING about it). overall, a very awesome class and i think i'll be rolling one of these guys up in the near future.
SUMMONER: obviously, these guys summon allies from "elsewhere". when you create the character you choose 1 of 6 possible specilaizations of summoning - there are demonologists, elementalists, spiritualists, naturalists, necromancers and faerie. basically, your character makes a pact or bargain with these entities in exchange for power. as they gain levels they can strike new bargains and gain access to other specialty areas, provided they are willing to spend the gold and time required to do so. summoners can wear any armor and wield any weapons...though they only have d4 hit points. summoners are also a spellcasting class...and here's how it works: they have a number of FAVOR POINTS per day equal to their level. to cast a spell they must expend the spell's level in points. so, a 1st level summoner would have 1 favor point...and since their spell list only has 1 spell per level, they could cast that spell once. at 2nd level, they'd have 2 FP and could cast a 2nd level spell once or the 1st level spell twice. see how that works? pretty cool. the spells are also pretty rad - they have stuff like DEMON ARMAMENTS (summon random magic weapons or armor rolled on the treasure chart; summoners of levels 1-3 use the basic book; 4-14 use the expert book; 15+ uses the B/X COMPANION...the weapons radiate evil and magic and to keep them longer than a day you have to spend 2 FP and bathe the weapons in blood). that's a 2nd level spell. pretty good stuff, eh?
every spellcasting class has a different way of using magic. i'm not going to detail all of them - but these two classes are a good barometer for the other ones.
the interior art is pretty good - with the stuff by kelvin green really standing out. the pics of the witch hunter, the summoner and the acrobat are all great. the other art is good also, but i just really dig his style. my only complaint about the book is the binding - it's perfect-bound, unlike the original B/X books and the B/X COMPANION. keeping this bad boy open while i reviewed was a pain in the buttocks...but that's really nitpicking.
overall...well, this is a great product. you really need to pick it up if you play any amount of B/X D&D, LABYRINTH LORD, SWORDS & WIZARDRY or any of the other 78 clones out there. here's hoping JB puts out his B/X based cyberpunk/shadowrun game...i know i'd grab it (hint hint).
so, i'm functioning on 2 hours of sleep. i'm going to start this review tonight and finish it up over the next day or two...i just wanted to get started and i figured it would be easier to break the review into 2 parts - since the NEW CLASSES and SPELLS chapters will require a bit more reading on my part.
ok, so the COMPLETE B/X ADVENTURER is an rpg book designed to be used (obviously) with the Basic/eXpert D&D rules from 1981 (and also the core LABYRINTH LORD book). with some minor tweeks it would work with most other games from/inspired by that era of gaming. it was written by jonathan becker, whose excellent blog can be found here.
the book has 5 main parts which i'll talk about individually: random tables, exceptional traits, firearms, new classes, and new spells. all of the new spellcasting classes shy away from vancian casting...which is a good thing, in my opinion. i HATE vancian casting and we've pretty much dumped it out of our game and it hasn't been missed.
tonight i'm just going to focus on the random tables and the exceptional traits. i'll touch on the firearms rules and then call it a night.
RANDOM TABLES:
the book starts off with a nifty chart where you can roll for the type of headgear/helmet your character has. this may seem silly and unnecessary - but i think it's a pretty awesome way to add some depth to both your character and the game. i had the chance to be a part of the "friends and family playtest" for 5E (or whatever it's called) and there was a cool little table in that playtest that allowed you to randomly roll the appearance of magic items. i kept that table (and tossed the rest of the playtest) and started using it in the games i was running. i discovered that simple equipment descriptions open all kinds of roleplaying avenues. instead of saying "yeah, it's a sword and it looks well crafted" because you can't think of anything else...a simple roll on that table led to "you see a sword...it's small, elegant, and seems to have a motif of spiderwebs along the blade. the hilt looks vaguely demonic"...now i had players not wanting to touch it, others who wanted it badly, others who wanted to name it, and still some others who wanted to keep it so that they could trade it back to its makers in a pinch. anyway, enough about 5E - my point is that tables like this are cool. watch, i'll give the table a random spin and see what i get. my halfling WORTHINGTON needs a new hat, anyway. let's see what he winds up with: helm; masked and adorned; skull face and tusks. damn, that's badass!
the other table is titled 100 FINE REASONS CHARACTERS TRAVEL TOGETHER. i had downloaded this a while back and we've been using it whenever we generate new characters. everyone in our group loves it and we've broken it out and used it during other games as well. it's a way to give new characters life and the randomness of the chart allows for some awesomely unexpected twists that have really added quite a bit of depth to our sessions. quite simply - you roll percentile dice and consult the chart. we usually roll to see how we know the person sitting to our right. a few sample results: "met on a ship - shanghied from the same bar while drunk"; "are lovers"; "met in school, hate each other and are plotting each other's demise"; "are from the same small town". you get the idea. very fun and very useful.
i'll give you an example of this chart and what it can add to a game from one of our sessions: the last time we made new characters, i decided to make a VAT-SPAWN (a class from the SECRET SANTICORE). one of his abilities was PLEASURE SLAVE (basically, his sweat is an aphrodisiac). we rolled on the chart to see how my character (named ARCHIBALD) knew rich's character. i got "met in prison - busted out by a mutual friend who died in the escape attempt". we decided that a local official's wife had been, um...using my "services". he found out and had me thrown in jail. rich's character knew the woman as well, and had been jailed for trying to help her get me out. eventually, she was able to bribe some of the guards to smuggle us out together, but the husband found out and had her "eliminated". as we were coming up with this story, i could see that our DM (chris) had developed an evil look in his eye...as if this cool origin we had just concocted was going to come back to haunt us...
EXCEPTIONAL TRAITS:
one of the ideas i liked in 3/4E was that characters could do cool things that they weren't allowed to do in earlier editions. i never liked the implementation of feats, skills, or powers though. that's where EXCEPTIONAL TRAITS come in...they're like feats or abilities that don't suck, but also don't unhinge the game. basically, when you make a 1st level character you roll on a table to see what your trait is - each class has 12 options. elves can roll on the fighter table or the magic user table. dwarves and halflings roll on the fighter table. at the DM's option, characters can learn new traits as they gain levels. here are some examples: if you're a cleric, maybe you can wield a sword or automatically communicate with any creature. if you're a fighter, elf, dwarf or halfling, maybe you have a magic item that's a family heirloom or you have a loyal, kickass pet. if you're a thief, maybe you're a skilled musician that can earn some gold while playing (and maybe work some magic as well) or you're adept at flipping into position for a backstab attempt. if you're a magic user or an elf maybe you radiate magic or can cast silent spells. all of the options are pretty neat. what i really like is that the standard human classes have traits like "elf bastard" or "dwarf exile" that allow you to play a standard class as a demihuman race with some cool benefits - and also some drawbacks. for example, the dwarf outcast (a thief trait) is a dwarven thief...they roll d6 hp instead of d4, take a hefty minus to most of their thieving skills, gain infravision and languages but WILL BE OSTRACIZED BY OTHER DWARVES. that's just cool.
ok, i'm about to pass out on my keyboard. as you can see, i like the book quite a bit and we're not even into the classes yet! i did notice one thing, though - in the firearms section there are no damage dice listed. i guess that's not a problem if you're using the old "everything does d6" damage rule...but i think guns should generally do more damage than a d6. out of curiosity, i looked back on JB's blog and in the original entry he says that firearms should deal d8. i'm not seeing that anywhere in the book, though. maybe i'm just exhausted.
no, i haven't abandoned the blog. i was away on vacation last week with no internet - hence the lack of updates. i was itching to write a little about my last session before going away but i simply didn't have the time. anyway, here's what i'll be touching on for the next few posts:
LACUNA: right before i went away i ran some of my friends through a session of the LACUNA RPG and it was awesome. if you don't know what that is, you can check it out here. highly recommended game!
COSMIC PATROL: we JUST played a session of this game a few hours ago and it was a lot of fun! i picked up the quick start rules on free rpg day and was so impressed i ordered the book (as did my friend dan). you can check that out here. it's like a mixture of FIASCO and flash gordon/buck rogers.
the COMPLETE B/X ADVENTURER: i had ordered this book right before i went away on vaca and it was waiting for me when i got home. from what i've read so far it's great! lots of fun and useful stuff that really adds to B/X without being too complicated. all the new spellcasting classes seem great; the EXCEPTIONAL TRAITS are very similar (yet cooler and better) to some stuff we had houseruled into the game; and the 100 FINE REASONS CHARACTERS TRAVEL TOGETHER is a great character building tool (we've been using that chart for a while now). head here and buy one of these if you like B/X D&D and/or LABYRINTH LORD.
a while back i made some 1st level spell cards for LABYRINTH LORD. my friends and i run LL at a fair share of conventions here in the NY/LI area and this made it easier on us.
so, the thief. in B/X and in LL...he's a little lacking. granted, he can use any weapon - but as written, the backstab rules are kind of murky and his chances of sneaking up on someone (or, y'know...doing ANY type of thief stuff) are basically next to nil. so how do we improve this class?
in our group we've switched over the 2d6 Thievery chart suggested here and it's been working for us. but...still...ugh. i don't know. chris had said that he liked 2E's idea of giving thieves points to spend on their skill percentages...but for LL/BX that seems like too much book-keeping.
over the weekend i downloaded the free rules for LAMENTATIONS OF THE FLAME PRINCESS and i really like the way that handles thieves (or specialists, as they're known in that game). it's kind of a combination of the 2E way but based on d6's instead of percentile dice.
so i started thinking...what if i combined the 2 ideas?
how about this: in LL/BX, a thief starts with the following skills set at a difficulty of 11:
open locks
find/remove traps
pick pockets
move silently
hide in shadows
climb walls
in order to succeed, he needs to roll 2d6 and beat his difficulty. now, at 1st level the thief gets 3 or 4 points that he can spend to lower the difficulty level of whichever skills he'd like. then every level after he would get 2 more. with a 2d6 check you can still add in DEX mods and racial mods (for those people using the AEC)...i figure that a 10% bonus would be equal to +1...5% bonuses would get lost (oh well).
i wonder if hide in shadows/move silently should be combined into a STEALTH check...? or would that make it too easy for thieves to become stealth machines? maybe the climb walls skill should start off lower than 11 since it's traditionally been the ONE thing that low level thieves were good at...? hear noise i would leave as written in the books...
i don't know...we're going to play around with this idea over our next few sessions and see what happens.
