I run D&D 5e games but I've been looking at Basic and Old School Essentials and other such games because I'm going to be running a 5e game that's hacked to run like an old school gold-for-xp game. So I've been looking at some old rules.
Some of them don't make sense to me though, so I was hoping you guys could give me context or explain how they're supposed to work.
1) For instance, I see you can't level up more than once per session for the amount of gold you bring in. So if you bring in enough gold that could level you up 3 times, you only level up once and the rest is wasted. I don't understand why this limit is in place. If the players take all the risk to get a big reward, shouldn't they be able to benefit from it? What is this here for?
2) If you do "XP for gold spending", how do you stop the game from just becoming a farming simulator where you pay OTHER people to get gold for you? Or by being a businessman? My first thought is that only gold YOU get from the dungeon personally counts... but then you have to start tracking different piles of gold which sounds like it would be hard to keep straight.
3) There's the 10 minute dungeon turn. If you're trying to sneak around and be stealthy, how far are you supposed to be able to move? (In other words, if you're trying to stealth behind enemy lines.)
I have more but I'll add them as the thread goes.
1. I don't know what prompted that rule in the first place, but the only time it came up for us was when the party made a giant haul, got ambushed trying to get out, and thus only half or less of the party made it out alive. By rule, XP made was split among the survivors. In one memorable case, the party got extremely lucky to barely beat a young dragon, got lucky on the haul they got, but then one of the party members took advantage of their weakened state to take the rest of the party out. He went from barely 5th to 1 XP shy of 7th with that trick, and would have been pushing 9th level without the rule. (He also became an NPC villain that the next party went after, but I digress. :) )
2. A good way to think about it is that only one character gets XP for any given bit of gold. If someone else got it out of the dungeon for you, that someone else gets the XP.
3. The movement rates are very slow in the dungeon in 10 minute turns, assuming (if memory serves), something like 90 to 120 feet per turn for most unencumbered characters. However, that's also taking into account mapping, caution, the poor lighting, etc. Moving at that speed is what lets, for example, the elf notice secret doors for free. When you are running away from something, you get no mapping and the GM can even see that you get lost. I used to physically take the party's map away from them while running and only hand it back when they stopped.
Regarding question #1, I've always been under the impression that the purpose was to ensure that the player experienced each and every level of play, as part of their journey. In those days, levels were more difficult to attain, so as Steven says, it rarely came up. The only time I've seen it happen is in adventuring parties of widely varying levels (another old-schoolism) where a low-level character managed to survive a high level adventure.
Quote from: Zalman;1145019Regarding question #1, I've always been under the impression that the purpose was to ensure that the player experienced each and every level of play, as part of their journey. In those days, levels were more difficult to attain, so as Steven says, it rarely came up. The only time I've seen it happen is in adventuring parties of widely varying levels (another old-schoolism) where a low-level character managed to survive a high level adventure.
Yeah I was thinking of how like, in online games you might have your higher level friends "rush" you through an area to level up faster. In that way, the party could give most of the gold to a level 1 character to level them up faster... if there wasn't a limit.
Something to also consider was that Old School games had not been around long when they were out, so the long level up times also helped new players to learn the game. Now there is a huge decades long body of lore about RPGs that players can refer to, but back then actually playing the game was the only way to learn the game.
Oh I noticed this happens with spending limits too. Like you can carouse, but only to a maximum of 1000 XP. But what if you have 5000 gold? Etc. Is there a purpose to that? Maybe if different activities have different limits...
Regarding #3: The 10 minutes (as noted above) accounts for exploration. It also cuts down on rolls: one per turn. I run BX a lot and it is one of the little things that make dungeon exploration in that system better--it can be drudgery in 5e. Of course, there is no reason you can't run 5e like BX, but I find I have to fight less against player expectation when I use BX. Of course, I am biased.
#1) The reason that the level limit was in place initially was that in the very early day there wasn't the assumption that every player would show up to every session. So when newer players showed up, their characters were often much lower level the other players. What the players tried to do was to award the lower level characters a much higher share of the treasure so they'd catch up faster. Gygax squashed this by putting in a one level per session limit. Feel free to ignore it.
#2) The "get XP by spending gold" rule is primarily used to keep the players from accumulating too much cash. However, if you just award characters XP based on the full price of the magic items they find, as the rules for OD&D state, you won't need to award as much cash and the problem will never arise in the first place.
#3) The slow movement per 10 minute turn already assumes the party is sneaking around. They will move faster if not sneaking.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic1) For instance, I see you can't level up more than once per session for the amount of gold you bring in. So if you bring in enough gold that could level you up 3 times, you only level up once and the rest is wasted. I don't understand why this limit is in place. If the players take all the risk to get a big reward, shouldn't they be able to benefit from it? What is this here for?
It isn't wasted, the extra gold becomes an asset and all due x.p. are recorded and retained. No more x.p. are accumulated until the character gains the appropriate level. Some DMs only award enough x.p. to gain the next level. Or continue to accumulate x.p. but limit advancement to one level per adventure. Use whichever method makes more sense.
X.p. are just a useful guideline for the DM to use to determine when the PC is eligible for the next level. Also, 1 g.p. does not always equal 1 x.p., as this must be adjusted by the DM. Realistically, if a 1st level fighter acquires 10,000 g.p., it is likely that much less than 10,000 x.p. will be recorded -- for example, if most of the party members are of a much higher level, then the risk to the 1st level fighter is much less; it makes sense in this situation to simply reward the fighter 2,000 x.p. and grant him second level (after training, or whatever method the DM uses).
Quote"Experience points are merely an indicator of the character's progress towards greater proficiency in his or her chosen profession. UPWARD PROGRESS IS NEVER AUTOMATIC. Just because Nell Nimblefingers, Rogue of the Thieves' guild has managed to acquire 1,251 experience points does NOT mean that she suddenly becomes Nell Nimblefingers the Footpad. The gaining of sufficient experience points is necessary to indicate that a character is eligible to gain a level of experience, but the actual award is a matter for you, the DM, to decide."
-- DMG 1e, p. 86
If you get an A+ in high school algebra, that does not mean you are ready for differential geometry and can skip 8 years of school. It means you are ready for high school geometry.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic2) If you do "XP for gold spending", how do you stop the game from just becoming a farming simulator where you pay OTHER people to get gold for you? Or by being a businessman? My first thought is that only gold YOU get from the dungeon personally counts... but then you have to start tracking different piles of gold which sounds like it would be hard to keep straight.
In the accrual method of accounting in the real world, that is exactly what must be done -- expenses must be matched with revenues, and deferrals and accruals must be identified and recorded appropriately. This is a necessary skill and should not be considered as onerous.
Quote"If the relative value of the monster(s) or guardian device fought equals or exceeds that of the party which took the treasure, experience is awarded on a 1 for 1 basis. If the guardian(s) was relatively weaker, award experience on a 5 g.p. to 4 x.P., 3 to 2,2 to 1,3 to 1, or even 4 or more to 1 basis according to the relative strengths. For example, if a 10th level magic-user takes 1,OOO g.p. from 10 kobolds, the relative strengths are about 20 to 1 in favor of the magic-user. (Such strength comparisons are subjective and must be based upon the degree of challenge the Dungeon Master had the monster(s) pose the treasure taker.)
Treasure must be physically taken out of the dungeon or lair and turned into a transportable medium or stored in the player's stronghold to be counted for experience points."
-- DMG, 1e, p. 85
Emphasis added. The PCs are adventurers, so they only get x.p. for actual adventuring. Note that the logistics of transporting treasure might very well limit how much x.p. can actually be gained per adventure.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic3) There's the 10 minute dungeon turn. If you're trying to sneak around and be stealthy, how far are you supposed to be able to move? (In other words, if you're trying to stealth behind enemy lines.)
In tactical situations, switch to rounds, which are 60 seconds. A 12" movement rate is 120' per round, or 12' per segment (6 seconds).
1) you can keep basically all the experience necessary to go up another level after the level just gained.
1A) if you think about it, it's not really good for the DM, or the players, to tempt the players to spend 110% of their gold on training for leveling with no money left over for "other stuff". A campaign needs cash flow to be as rich and vibrant as possible.
1B) This is really only happens between levels 1-3, maybe 4 if a good haul.
3) Default movement is mapping movement. If someone's just walking around they can go faster than this. But then they're not getting a decent map, just approximate descriptions - they're not taking time to pace off room dimensions and such.
I will refer to AD&D1e because some of the later games have tried to copy ideas from it, but the writers don't necessarily get how things go.
(1) in AD&D1e, having sufficient XP qualifies you for the next level, but until you are the next level you cannot receive any more XP. You can think of it less as total XP, and more as "I have earned this many XP at my current level." It's like how it doesn't matter how well you performed in Calculus 101, you still have to do Calculus 201 before they'll let you do 300-level maths. Likewise, you can't skip from 1st to 3rd level without spending some time adventuring at 2nd. That's why AD&D1e has training to level up.
The DM rates the players' roleplaying (did the fighter fight, did the thief grab extra opportunities for loot, did people follow their alignments, etc) 1-4. The cost of levelling up is 1,500gp x the current level x rating, and takes as many weeks. For example, a fighter fought boldly in the front line and is rated 1 by the DM. The are currently 2nd level, and the various monsters and treasure found accumulate to enough to more than pass into 3rd level. They will take (current level) 2 x (rating) 1 x 1 weeks = 2 weeks for them to level up, and cost 3,000gp.
If this same fighter had lurked around at the back, not coming forward even when the magic-user was stuck in melee, and waiting until the monster had 1 hit point left before striking, then they would be a poor fighter. Because they've not acted like a fighter they have more to learn than the other guy did. So the DM rates them as 3 in performance. Now it takes them 6 weeks to level up, and costs 9,000gp. It may be that the character has the XP to level up, but not the gold. Time to keep adventuring! Or it may be that the rest of the party who played well finished their training a month ago and have gone and had another adventure sufficient to qualify them for 3rd level - while you're still training.
In either case, now being 2nd level, they are now in a position to learn the things required to get them to 3rd level.
(2) in AD&D1e there are some rules of gp for XP being modified by relative level - a 1st level magic-user dealing with 10 kobolds is one thing, a 10th level magic-user dealing with 10 kobolds is another. Which is to say, you learn from struggle, less struggle, less learning. Thus, paying other people to go adventuring for you, or buying and selling things as a businessperson, will get you ZERO XP. You'll still have the gold, but no XP from it.
(3) in AD&D1e there'll be movement rates for various characters based on their size (a man walks further than a hobbit) and encumbrance (someone in leather moves faster than someone in plate). For my part, I rarely keep track of it except to say that if they faff about too long then I'll do a wandering monster check.
XP for gold was built to encourage stealth / exploration / planning instead of just grinding fights. The idea was PCs weren't big damn heroes, they were tomb raiders.
XP for gold was also based on risk. If your PC invested in a business and earned gold there, that didn't count toward XP, but it was a great method to increase one's gold. Back in the day, we allowed 1 XP / 10 gold earned this way to explain how NPCs earned levels over many years without going into dungeons.
Also, back in AD&D, PCs had to pay for training to level up and their PC would be off training often for weeks, even months. Thus, the concept of players having multiple PCs. Part of the concept that you can't gain more XP than you raising you one level is based on the idea you need to train to learn your new level's mad skillz.
The round / turn time abstraction exists to create tension. Time is ticking. The longer you're in the dungeon, the more likely a wandering monster will arrive. Keep in mind that in old school, monster encounters are NOT balanced so you could run into a really bad problem if you dilly dally too long.
I don't know if 5e can do old school because of so many of the assumptions baked into 5e that are contrary to TSR editions. They really are different games, not just editions.
One of the reasons I've had success with my OD&D games is because they're such a different beast than modern RPGs. The creativity at the table has been a real joy.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1145051I don't know if 5e can do old school because of so many of the assumptions baked into 5e that are contrary to TSR editions. They really are different games, not just editions.
It is pretty easy actually, at least for me -- most of the difference is on the DM side. The players can have their class features and subclasses and whatnot. What makes it have an old school feeling is the various rules about how to play: the "dungeon turns", the "gold for XP" for advancement, the fact the game isn't scaled to the PCs, etc. I've already informally incorporated the dungeon turns into my 5e games because it gives some actual structure to exploration based play. Without it, it's a lot more unclear what's supposed to happen and things break down with tracking of time relative to actions being harder to make sense of. (ie, all the players keep trying to inspect the same thing because there's no real cost to do so).
The replies bring me to a new question:
4) Training to level up takes weeks. I like the idea of training, but doesn't this mean the PC is basically out of play for god knows how long? Many of my campaigns will take months IRL to finish a single game day because the game is so packed with action. How does pacing of sessions relating to the in-game calendar go? Does every session take place after a week has passed or something?
5) Is "XP for gold brought home" considered better or "XP for spending gold"?
Also, as a followup to the training question: if I'm to understand the replies correctly, if you get more XP than your normal limit, you don't level up from it, but you still have the extra XP on hand to gain later when you've completed training?
So if I'm a level 1 Fighter, and it takes 300 XP for me to get to level 2, and 900 XP to be level 3... and I get 1,000 gold... I get enough experience to get right up to leveling twice -- so my XP stops at 899, right? What happens to the remaining 101 XP. Is that just gone forever, or does that get "banked" for after I get to level 2 and I can use it then?
Answers are again for AD&D1e.
(4) Yes, they are out of play for that time. And yes, the rest of the party may go adventuring without them. And yes, that means they may end up different levels. One of the assumptions of this kind of play is: you can't have everything, you have to make choices.
The pacing of stuff in-game goes however the DM and players want it to. In practice lower level parties will only be able to go through a few dungeon rooms before running out of hit points, spells, potions, torches and iron spikes, and will have to withdraw to rest for the day to rest and resupply.
(5) rules-as-written, you get XP for whatever treasure you bring out of the dungeon and into a place of safety. Whether you spend it is up to you.
Followup: you never get more XP than your level limit. Any excess is simply lost.
No, you can't do this in 5e. It's a different game. It has the same name, but it's a different game. In play, RuneQuest 1e is closer to AD&D1e than D&D5e is.
If you want to play AD&D1e, play AD&D1e. If you want to play D&D5e, play D&D5e. But they are different games.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;11450584) Training to level up takes weeks. I like the idea of training, but doesn't this mean the PC is basically out of play for god knows how long? Many of my campaigns will take months IRL to finish a single game day because the game is so packed with action. How does pacing of sessions relating to the in-game calendar go? Does every session take place after a week has passed or something?
It's very common for players to just take a break from adventuring while people train. But as Kyle noted, it's not unknown to just rotate out that character and take a backup out for that time instead. Get your backup character bumped up a bit if your main character dies.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145058Also, as a followup to the training question: if I'm to understand the replies correctly, if you get more XP than your normal limit, you don't level up from it, but you still have the extra XP on hand to gain later when you've completed training?
So if I'm a level 1 Fighter, and it takes 300 XP for me to get to level 2, and 900 XP to be level 3... and I get 1,000 gold... I get enough experience to get right up to leveling twice -- so my XP stops at 899, right? What happens to the remaining 101 XP. Is that just gone forever, or does that get "banked" for after I get to level 2 and I can use it then?
It's "gone forever". But who gives a shit? If someone came back with enough treasure to go up a level and most of another, but what stuck in their mind was 100 XP they "lost" - I'm already losing my enthusiasm for DMing that player. They're probably going to be really butthurt when the giant spider surprises them, gets 4 free attacks, and kills them via poison before they get a chance to roll.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;11450584) Training to level up takes weeks. I like the idea of training, but doesn't this mean the PC is basically out of play for god knows how long? Many of my campaigns will take months IRL to finish a single game day because the game is so packed with action. How does pacing of sessions relating to the in-game calendar go? Does every session take place after a week has passed or something?
It's very common for players to just take a break from adventuring while people train. But as Kyle noted, it's not unknown to just rotate out that character and take a backup out for that time instead. Get your backup character bumped up a bit if your main character dies.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145058Also, as a followup to the training question: if I'm to understand the replies correctly, if you get more XP than your normal limit, you don't level up from it, but you still have the extra XP on hand to gain later when you've completed training?
So if I'm a level 1 Fighter, and it takes 300 XP for me to get to level 2, and 900 XP to be level 3... and I get 1,000 gold... I get enough experience to get right up to leveling twice -- so my XP stops at 899, right? What happens to the remaining 101 XP. Is that just gone forever, or does that get "banked" for after I get to level 2 and I can use it then?
It's "gone forever". But who gives a shit? If someone came back with enough treasure to go up a level and most of another, but what stuck in their mind was 100 XP they "lost" - I'm already losing my enthusiasm for DMing that player. They're probably going to be really butthurt when the giant spider surprises them, gets 4 free attacks, and kills them via poison before they get a chance to roll.
On #1, players are supposed to play every level and not skip levels due to Monty Haul XP allocation. If you are giving out so much XP the PCs can advance multiple levels at once, you are probably giving too much XP. It should typically be several sessions per level. Getting even one full level's worth of XP in a single session should be very rare.
Quote from: hedgehobbit;1145031#1) The reason that the level limit was in place initially was that in the very early day there wasn't the assumption that every player would show up to every session. So when newer players showed up, their characters were often much lower level the other players. What the players tried to do was to award the lower level characters a much higher share of the treasure so they'd catch up faster. Gygax squashed this by putting in a one level per session limit. Feel free to ignore it.
This is perplexing. Never in my 40+ years of gaming have I seen a game where XP was awarded per party and distributed by the players. In my experience, the DM invariably awards per-player XP. Parties were allowed to split the retrieved treasure any way they like, but XP was awarded based on the total amount retrieved by the party, and divided by the DM appropriately -- often including individual awards for exceptional play.
The traditional way to divide XP from both monsters and treasure is 2 shares for each PC, and 1 share for each henchman. However XP is not granted for particular magical items until assigned to a particular character; they get until the next session to decide, otherwise that XP is lost (so no, they can't just keep that +3 sword in a chest until they're however many xp short of the next level...).
If a player is absent, their character is absent if it's convenient (eg they've not yet left the inn since their last adventure) and can catch up later, otherwise they're played extremely conservatively and unimaginatively by the DM - and they receive no XP for that session.
How the actual treasure is divided up is up to the players in every case, though it's customary to divide monetary treasure as XP is divided, and assign magical items to whoever can make best use of them.
Quote from: Zalman;1145088This is perplexing. Never in my 40+ years of gaming have I seen a game where XP was awarded per party and distributed by the players.
The players aren't distributing XP, just treasure. It's similar to how if the thief steals some extra treasure, he'll get a few extra XP based on the GP value of what he stole.
However, I only relay this story (as original told by Mike Mornard who was there when it happened) to explain why this rule can be easily ignore if you aren't running your game in that older style (which I've seen referred to as "open table"). Since most games of D&D, even by people in the OSR, use the modern party-based setups (where the characters are all of a similar level), then this rule serves no real purpose.
To anyone afraid that enforced "training" creates pacing problems, I can say that has never been my experience. Back when AD&D was rolled out, I and other players felt it was a terrible new imposition and resented it, but we all quickly became fans. I believe it is not only not a problem, but on the contrary, it can be a huge asset to the game. Especially if your players are somewhat passive and rely on the gm to present them with goals and opportunities. Forced training gives you a chance to get the party out of that mind-set, if only temporarily, and force them to pursue personal goals.
Obviously it doesn't have to be that way all the time, training can be just down time that draws cash out of the party but is otherwise hand-waved.
Or it can be a time for players who aren't training to come up with activities of their own.
Or best of all, it can be a time when players have to drive the agenda. Because, who are you going to train under? Sure at the early levels, it can be assumed that everyone has a mentor: somebody had to train you up to 1st level in the first place. But at later levels, you have to start looking further afield and trying to track down a high level npc to train under. That may often mean some exploration and travel, off to the far-off city of whatever to train under some legendary whoever. Maybe (often) the whole party will go along for the ride. You know what foreign travel is like, mayhem will surely ensue. In my experience, the MUs quest for rare, arcane training, knowledge, and exotic materials will often drive the gameplan for the whole party.
Before you know it, voila. A sandbox driven by player ambitions, even when your players find it hard to define ambitions on their own.
It's funny you guys bring up "open table" play. That was the kind of game I want to run: a 5e game where it's an open table, with different players able to show up each session, where the players mostly are responsible for driving when we play (aside from me making available when I'm free), and that's gold-for-xp based. The thing is, to make this kind of game work you need the full gamut of rules that support it, which is why I'm looking at Basic/1e/2e type games. For instance, I don't care if people have level differences here -- and every new PC will be level 1, rolled 4d6d1, with there being class prerequisites before being able to take it. (Though I'm not sure on the last part.)
I don't have a problem with the players giving more XP/gold to a lower level PC -- that sounds like a feature to me.
Hmm, I had another question that I came up with in the shower but it's slipped away from me now...
Ah, how about this: 6) Since we're talking about characters taking off during training, how would the sessions be paced in terms of in-game time normally? I was thinking of making each session be a week advanced in the game world, but that means a character taking 5 weeks to train is out for 5 sessions... was this normal, or did you do stuff like skip entire months of play? It is harder to figure out when it's open table play since that entire group might not be around, and a new group might still want to play in the meantime in the intervening time skip... which means the first group still has to wait.
If you guys ever heard of the adventure Tomb of the Serpent Kings, I want to run that in 5e since it's supposed to be "an intro to OSR."
Also it's interesting everyone says leveling is still supposed to be slow because the way I've always seen "gold for xp" advertised is that it lets you skip the drudgery of leveling the normal way by getting a huge mountain of gold. I like the idea of having one level per session minimum though.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145111It's funny you guys bring up "open table" play. That was the kind of game I want to run: a 5e game where it's an open table, with different players able to show up each session, where the players mostly are responsible for driving when we play (aside from me making available when I'm free), and that's gold-for-xp based. The thing is, to make this kind of game work you need the full gamut of rules that support it, which is why I'm looking at Basic/1e/2e type games. For instance, I don't care if people have level differences here -- and every new PC will be level 1, rolled 4d6d1, with there being class prerequisites before being able to take it. (Though I'm not sure on the last part.)
I don't have a problem with the players giving more XP/gold to a lower level PC -- that sounds like a feature to me.
Hmm, I had another question that I came up with in the shower but it's slipped away from me now...
Ah, how about this: 6) Since we're talking about characters taking off during training, how would the sessions be paced in terms of in-game time normally? I was thinking of making each session be a week advanced in the game world, but that means a character taking 5 weeks to train is out for 5 sessions... was this normal, or did you do stuff like skip entire months of play? It is harder to figure out when it's open table play since that entire group might not be around, and a new group might still want to play in the meantime in the intervening time skip... which means the first group still has to wait.
If you guys ever heard of the adventure Tomb of the Serpent Kings, I want to run that in 5e since it's supposed to be "an intro to OSR."
Also it's interesting everyone says leveling is still supposed to be slow because the way I've always seen "gold for xp" advertised is that it lets you skip the drudgery of leveling the normal way by getting a huge mountain of gold. I like the idea of having one level per session minimum though.
WAIT, you mean players play without a GM? Not sure D&D any edition is for you then.
No I mean that instead of just 4 steady players that are the party and always show up, I'll have a pool of say 30 players, who can show up if they want to go into the dungeon that night. It won't have to be the same players every time. Of course the limit of people for each particular night would be around 5.
See in the last 5 years I’ve been DMing I’ve inducted about 130 players into the game, and I have been trying to think of a way to play with all of them instead of only selecting a few for a game now and then. This is my answer. 1 DM, open group of players.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1145060If you want to play AD&D1e, play AD&D1e. If you want to play D&D5e, play D&D5e. But they are different games.
I suspect that depends heftily on how one defines "old school".
This idea probably should be it's own thread.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145111It's funny you guys bring up "open table" play. That was the kind of game I want to run [...] and every new PC will be level 1, rolled 4d6d1, with there being class prerequisites before being able to take it.
You're almost there, you have another step or two before you fully get it.
Roll 3d6 down the line, choose between magic-user, cleric, fighter and thief. Now choose gear. That's it. With an open game table, you want as few options as possible, because every choice slows things down, and as a newbie you don't know what the important choices are, so it's slower still - that's why in more complex systems GMs end up giving out pre-gens. If everything is chance then there are no choices and complete newbies can get into play in under twenty minutes.
[quoe]6) Since we're talking about characters taking off during training, how would the sessions be paced in terms of in-game time normally? [/quote]
You try to end each session outside the dungeon or equivalent, preferably in a nearby town where you can sell stuff you don't want to keep, restock on supplies and train to level up. If the trip to that town involves a lengthy journey, then the party as a whole has to decide to go - because you never split the party. This may mean travelling along so that so-and-so can level up, even though nobody else can. It may also mean so-and-so has to wait for the rest of the party, he can adventure and get treasure but not xp. Either is fine.
QuoteI like the idea of having one level per session minimum though.
You seem to think that levelling up is the main reason people play. If all I want is to watch the numbers on my character sheet change I don't even need to play, I can just sit there at home rubbing them out and writing new ones. People play for the people, the snacks, the setting and the system - in that order. The experience of play has little to do with levelling up.
I saw some people using Death and Dismemberment tables, and some having gear randomized too. ie, you roll on a table, and it gives you your starting gear.
Has anyone used either of those?
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1145181You seem to think that levelling up is the main reason people play. If all I want is to watch the numbers on my character sheet change I don't even need to play, I can just sit there at home rubbing them out and writing new ones. People play for the people, the snacks, the setting and the system - in that order. The experience of play has little to do with levelling up.
Well, you'd be surprised how many people live to optimize their sheets and see those numbers go up... It's kind of like candy. Even if it's not the true, long lasting satisfaction of the campaign, people get excited over it in the moment.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron....Followup: you never get more XP than your level limit. Any excess is simply lost....
There is no such rule. No upper limit is specified, it says "equal to or greater than", not "equal to".
QuoteThus, a character who successfully adventures and gains experience points which not only equal a new level but are almost sufficient to gain yet a second such level, cannot opt to-forego the period of training and study necessary to go up a level in favor of gaining a few more points and training and studying for two levels at once. ONCE A CHARACTER HAS POINTS WHICH ARE EQUAL TO OR GREATER THAN THE MINIMUM NUMBER NECESSARY TO MOVE UPWARDS IN EXPERIENCE LEVEL, NO FURTHER EXPERIENCE POINTS CAN BE GAINED UNTIL THE CHARACTER ACTUALLY GAINS THE NEW LEVEL.
-- Dungeon Masters Guide [1e], p. 86
Nevertheless, if a 1st level fighter receives 10,000 g.p. but only 2,000 x.p. (the minimum necessary for level 2), then he is getting 1 x.p. per 5 g.p. at the DM's discretion. No x.p. have been lost.
Rather than saying that x.p. are "lost", which infers that there is something wrong due to slavishly following rules, it is more correct to say that the character has received the correct amount of x.p. as judged by the DM.
Still, if a 1st level party were to take a wrong turn and find themselves on the 4th dungeon level, and they were to somehow make it back to the surface alive with an overabundance of loot due to superior play, I would not begrudge excessive x.p. being "banked" so as to quicken the gaining of the next level. This is an appropriate bonus which is much less arbitrary than story awards.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145188you'd be surprised how many people live to optimize their sheets and see those numbers go up...
Yes. Because most modern rpgs offer nothing else. You as DM and the players are responsible for doing better than that.
You're still focused on the rules.
1. people
2. snacks
3. setting
4. system
in that order.
Get yourself this, and play in an online game with someone like Bill here. And in time you'll begin to understand.
https://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/quick-primer-for-old-school-gaming/3019374
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;11451116) Since we're talking about characters taking off during training, how would the sessions be paced in terms of in-game time normally? I was thinking of making each session be a week advanced in the game world, but that means a character taking 5 weeks to train is out for 5 sessions... was this normal, or did you do stuff like skip entire months of play?
Personally, I would never tell a player that they can't play for 5 sessions. If you are going to use training, and I wouldn't recommend it, then you should just advance the game clock by the amount of time that the training takes. Advancing the clock will also allow you at introduce some background "plot" elements to make your game world seem more alive. Things like a new adventuring group moving to town, a change in town leadership, or rumors of monsters attacking a distant village. That sort of thing.
Quote from: hedgehobbit;1145244Personally, I would never tell a player that they can't play for 5 sessions. If you are going to use training, and I wouldn't recommend it, then you should just advance the game clock by the amount of time that the training takes.
In my experience, this old-school approach never required that
player was to be excluded for a number of sessions, only that a
character would be. The player would just bring one of their many other characters along in the meantime.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145130No I mean that instead of just 4 steady players that are the party and always show up, I'll have a pool of say 30 players, who can show up if they want to go into the dungeon that night. It won't have to be the same players every time. Of course the limit of people for each particular night would be around 5.
See in the last 5 years I've been DMing I've inducted about 130 players into the game, and I have been trying to think of a way to play with all of them instead of only selecting a few for a game now and then. This is my answer. 1 DM, open group of players.
That quality
is old-school. I am not sure 5e is the best system to use but it is the way to attract the most players. Tell us how it works out in practical terms.
Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1145275That quality is old-school. I am not sure 5e is the best system to use but it is the way to attract the most players. Tell us how it works out in practical terms.
It works for the 5e organized play, but whether that's a desirable outcome is very subjective.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145111It's funny you guys bring up "open table" play. That was the kind of game I want to run: a 5e game where it's an open table, with different players able to show up each session, where the players mostly are responsible for driving when we play (aside from me making available when I'm free), and that's gold-for-xp based. The thing is, to make this kind of game work you need the full gamut of rules that support it.
I wonder what you mean by "a full gamut" here, and why you think that is a necessary component of having rotating players. Don't all games need rules? Don't all games
have rules? (Except TEGWAR of course!). How does player rotation require an increased volume of rules?
In my experience, one of the things that facilitates easy player swap on a weekly basis is specifically a
lack of complex rules. Players that show up
irregularly seem to do best with the simplest rule systems, since they're not necessarily as immersed in those rulesets as weekly players (and certainly not as much as the DM).
More to the point -- the way Old School games were actually played back in my day -- players rarely knew the rules at all, at least at first. They played their
character, in the
story, and the DM laid out what rolls were needed along the way. Eventually, if you played enough, you started to get the rules, but that knowledge grew organically through play.
Another question:
I heard wizard gets their spell via RNG. Offensive, defensive, utility lists?
Do other magic users get it that way too, like cleric?
Quote from: Zalman;1145358I wonder what you mean by "a full gamut" here, and why you think that is a necessary component of having rotating players. Don't all games need rules? Don't all games have rules? (Except TEGWAR of course!). How does player rotation require an increased volume of rules?
In my experience, one of the things that facilitates easy player swap on a weekly basis is specifically a lack of complex rules. Players that show up irregularly seem to do best with the simplest rule systems, since they're not necessarily as immersed in those rulesets as weekly players (and certainly not as much as the DM).
More to the point -- the way Old School games were actually played back in my day -- players rarely knew the rules at all, at least at first. They played their character, in the story, and the DM laid out what rolls were needed along the way. Eventually, if you played enough, you started to get the rules, but that knowledge grew organically through play.
Not more rules on the player side -- but more rules on the DM side. For instance, 5e (and 3e/4e) drop all the support for "dungeon turns" or how to explore things. Everything is just left up in the air to DM fiat, and these are players and DMs with no previous experience how to do it. So a lot of time and effort goes into reinventing the wheel, and that's if you're lucky. In reality everyone just skips the old dungeon exploration parts of the game because they don't even know it exists because the game has nothing about it.
In dungeons the absence of these rules creates lots of problems for DMs. If you check reddit you'll see tons of threads about how players try to spam checks, or inspect every square foot of the dungeon and basically trivialize traps, and how to deal with it all -- well, this is all fixed by having dungeon turns and wandering monsters and so forth. DMs can import these rules, and I do so myself from reading up on how it used to be done, but it's even better to add even more in. This way there's a REASON not to just take forever and try to take every single item that's not nailed down (a lot of games don't use encumbrance either, or it's downplayed by the system) and spend 4 hours IRL nitpicking over whether a trap is in a 10 x 10 square area.
Here's a perfect example I just found while reading Old School Essentials: even though I use marching order, dungeon turns, encumbrance, and so forth, there are still parts of the game that become too game-y and weird, such as when the players just put their toughest character in the front and almost deliberately march them over the traps because they know they can just heal them.
Well, reading over Old School Essentials, I see they had already thought of this so long ago. If the trap doesn't trigger EVERY TIME it's stepped on but only randomly, then it's possible someone besides the frontliner gets hit, and therefore you should still be cautious. Problem solved! I can port this into 5e and fix my problem.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145391Another question:
I heard wizard gets their spell via RNG. Offensive, defensive, utility lists?
Do other magic users get it that way too, like cleric?
In 1E (where the MU rule referenced is from) clerics and druids don't keep spellbooks and have access to every spell on the lists of a level they can cast. It's just deciding which to memorize. There's also some bits that if their god is taking an active hand for some reason they can change the spells from those requested that day, but I don't see DMs do that. Mainly a theoretical footnote.
Illusionists' three starting spells are just rolled randomly. I think there ended up a similar optional breakdown of offensive, defensive, utility, published in dragon or UA, but I don't use it
I highly recommend reading the 1E DMG if you want to run "old school"
Quote from: Cloyer Bulse;1145206There is no such rule. No upper limit is specified, it says "equal to or greater than", not "equal to".
Nevertheless, if a 1st level fighter receives 10,000 g.p. but only 2,000 x.p. (the minimum necessary for level 2), then he is getting 1 x.p. per 5 g.p. at the DM's discretion. No x.p. have been lost.
Rather than saying that x.p. are "lost", which infers that there is something wrong due to slavishly following rules, it is more correct to say that the character has received the correct amount of x.p. as judged by the DM.
Still, if a 1st level party were to take a wrong turn and find themselves on the 4th dungeon level, and they were to somehow make it back to the surface alive with an overabundance of loot due to superior play, I would not begrudge excessive x.p. being "banked" so as to quicken the gaining of the next level. This is an appropriate bonus which is much less arbitrary than story awards.
I seem to remember the character only keeping Experience Points equal to 1 point shy of the next level; so a 1st level fighter who earned 10,000 XP would only keep 3,999, as 4,000 was 3rd level.
Jeff
Quote from: Shardenzar;1145399I seem to remember the character only keeping Experience Points equal to 1 point shy of the next level; so a 1st level fighter who earned 10,000 XP would only keep 3,999, as 4,000 was 3rd level.
The few times it ever came up, that's exactly what how we handled it. When it came up it was always in the context of very low level characters in a mixed level party with fairly high level characters.
From the man at Twenty-Sided Tale, The gameplay is the story (https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=49468)
Quote from: Shamus YoungWhat usually ends up happening is that the writer will come up with a standard Hollywood style script, and then cut it up into fixed cutscenes so the game designer can stick gameplay bits between them. The result is basically what you'd expect from that description: A bifurcated experience where the two halves feel like they're at odds with each other. I've heard people coming from gamedev schools describe this design style as "a book with the pages glued together". Gameplay becomes a tool to advance the story without being a part of it. Yes, getting the next page un-stuck is a challenge, but that challenge isn't acknowledged by the writer as part of the story.
Relevant to this thread,
QuoteThe problem is that gameplay doesn't typically allow for setbacks. If the player screws up and dies, a story-based game will generally retcon the mistake away. Time is reset to some checkpoint and the player gets to try again. The story proceeds as if the player's mistake never happened.
This means that – canonically – the player character never loses in gameplay. Without some way to provide setbacks via cutscenes, you'd wind up with a story where the protagonist is infallible. Yes, the Gameplay is The Story, but the corollary to that is that the Audience is the Protagonist, and how the hell is the author supposed to write a story where they can't control the main character?
and this is why in an old school game, the player-characters must be able to die, irrevocably die, kaput. Because if you won't let them die, you won't let them fail substantially in any
other way, either. And if they can never fail, then they're not really playing the game, they're just rolling some dice between cutscenes.
It's not a game unless the outcome is in doubt. The purpose of all those dice and rules is to put the outcome in doubt. If you take away nothing else from these discussions:
if you want to play old school, you must let them die.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1145978From the man at Twenty-Sided Tale, if you want to play old school, you must let them die. (https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=49468)
I agree.
QuoteBecause if you won't let them die, you won't let them fail substantially in any other way, either.
But this is just flat out wrong.
I am all for letting players die. I wonder about "half steps" though, like, instead of dying, you lose an arm or a leg or something.
It leaves a lasting consequence but you get to keep the character and try again. But I also see a lot of players act like the character is basically useless at that point and better off dead. So maybe just a clean death is better after all?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146014I am all for letting players die. I wonder about "half steps" though, like, instead of dying, you lose an arm or a leg or something.
Damn, you guys are frickin' harsh!!
...all I do is kill or maim a character every now and then.
Nobody is safe!!!
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146014I am all for letting players die. I wonder about "half steps" though, like, instead of dying, you lose an arm or a leg or something.
It leaves a lasting consequence but you get to keep the character and try again. But I also see a lot of players act like the character is basically useless at that point and better off dead. So maybe just a clean death is better after all?
It's really more about whatever the consequences for the game are supposed to be, you'd better follow through.
If you are playing Toon, then characters can't die. They can get "boggled" and lose a turn, which could cause them to lose the game. If you start feeling sorry for Sally because her cartoon Sammy the Snail lost a race again, got hit by an ACME hammer, fell off a cliff, and got boggled, so you decide as GM that she doesn't have to be boggled this time--you are playing it wrong.
It would be difficult to wimp out on Toon but given the extremes that some of the players will go to now, I think a few could somehow manage that questionable feat.
If you are playing a version of D&D that is supposed to be per the straight old school rules, about relatively weak characters going into very dangerous holes in the ground with their lives on the line, then when things go bad enough, they'd better die. If you are doing a somewhat different game about those same characters coming out of the holes in the ground, usually, but scarred for life (physically and mentally), then damn it, when they fail, they'd better lose digits and develop interesting twitches.
Whatever game we say we are playing, that's the game I'm playing. We aren't playing Toon mortality with D&D characters and all pretending that death was a possibility when it wasn't, like sitting under an old sheet with a flashlight and saying "ooooooh" and pretending that everyone is scared.
I'm doing normal D&D where you go into the hole and die, but I've seen lots of OSR blogs pushing "death and dismemberment" tables that disfigure you, while at the same time indirectly giving you extra chances to live because you don't die immediately because you lose an arm instead.
Another question about spending gold to gain XP:
Are there limits for how much you can spend? For instance, let's say you somehow luck into 10,000 gp while you are level 1 and return to town to spend it on carousing. Can you just spend all 10,000 gp and get 10,000 experience? Or does it cap out? If it caps out, can you spend that money later to gain the experience?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146082I'm doing normal D&D where you go into the hole and die, but I've seen lots of OSR blogs pushing "death and dismemberment" tables that disfigure you, while at the same time indirectly giving you extra chances to live because you don't die immediately because you lose an arm instead.
Did you know about the "Lingering Injuries" optional rule in the DMG 5e, p.259? There are a bunch of optional rules prese ted in chapter 9, including: slow healing, level trainers, no skills, and a whole bunch of other things you can incorporate i to your game to make it more "Old School".
Also, you described running a campaign where players come in and out of each session. A game that is player driven where they would tell you what they want to do based on what their characters need (if I understand correctly). You might want to consoder a "West Marches" style of game. Matt Coleville explains exactly what that is in this video:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-BZAjzUBYmU
Yup, I love West Marches. This one is more in the megadungeon vein.
Another question:
In Old School Essentials, it lists that traps only go off 2 out of 6 times if they get triggered. If someone is tapping it with a ten foot pole or something to trigger it, do you TELL the player they found a trap if they trigger it but it doesn't go off? I am wondering what happens when they find out there's a trap that didn't go off with their 10 foot pole and just keep tapping it until it goes off.
mAcular, it's funny you mention 'open table' D&D, because that's kind of how the few D&D/Pathfinder MUX games are set up. People roll up PCs, login and catch scenes/plots/dungeons as they can, with GMs handling experience, treasure rolls, etc.
As far as character death goes: while I don't see myself as being outright inclined to kill PCs, I don't see any reason to step on Darwin's toes. I also am VERY willing to punish a party that goes out of their way to do something stupid (especially if they foul it up).
If the thief wants to pocket a spoon from the royal dinner as a memento, I personally wouldn't care. If the thief attempts to engineer a heist of the royal treasury during said dinner, and blows it? Oh, my sweet summer child, I hope you weren't too attached to that character...
There was a rather entertaining tale I recall from the /tg/ archives about a player who foolishly arranged for the kidnapping of a paladin's infant child and the murder of said paladin's wife -- except one of his assassins got caught. My reaction would've been, 'So, uh... guess this is gonna be your blaze of glory, huh? That paladin's like 8 levels higher than you and has five times more friends...'
MUX? Like those old text based rpg games?
Haha, I love situations like that Paladin one. Would you make the player play out them getting caught and killed or just say it happens?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146086Are there limits for how much you can spend? For instance, let's say you somehow luck into 10,000 gp while you are level 1 and return to town to spend it on carousing. Can you just spend all 10,000 gp and get 10,000 experience? Or does it cap out? If it caps out, can you spend that money later to gain the experience?
I'm sure that the rulebook specifies only one level maximum gained per adventure, but that's something that you could house rule if it bothers you. I guess a good DM would be careful not to leave 10,000 GP around unless he had a plan for how it would impact the players. (Maybe you want your players to level up in a hurry to prep them for a particular module, but you don't want to just start them there because it would kill their "grown through adventure" backstory.)
One more question! (Man I am burying this thread in them.)
Magic Users could research their own spells. Was there a level requirement to this or could you start making your own spells all the way back at level 1? Is it only stuff you get on level up?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146189One more question! (Man I am burying this thread in them.)
Magic Users could research their own spells. Was there a level requirement to this or could you start making your own spells all the way back at level 1? Is it only stuff you get on level up?
No level restriction in the 1e DMG AIR but it costs thousands of gold to even attempt.
What do you need to do? Just tell the DM "hey I want to make a spell, here's some gold," and you're off to the races?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146203What do you need to do? Just tell the DM "hey I want to make a spell, here's some gold," and you're off to the races?
QuoteThe cost of research: The basic cost for spell research is only 200 gold pieces per spell level per week. Note, however, that this assumes that the researcher has a laboratory (or shrine in the case of a cleric) and library at hand (built up in gaining levels of experience and whatever other reasons are applicable). To the base cost must be added a weekly variable of 100 to 400 gold pieces per level of the spell, the variable accounting for additional materials needed. If no library of materials is owned by the researcher, the base cost increases by a factor of 10 (2,000 gold pieces per spell level per week), the researcher being assumed to be acquiring arcane texts and scrolls, thus creating a library. The player must establish the amount to be spent, based on his or her appraisal of the level, without assistance from the DM!...
Research Materials: Acquisition of materials includes not only texts and scrolls, but also various components for the material needs of the spell. Written works cover the whole spectrum of knowledge, as the researcher must be aware of any and all aspects of the magic he or she wishes to use. Thus, works on history, geography, astrology, alchemy, etc. must be obtained. [DMG 1e, pp. 115-116]
Adventuring is not possible during research. The player must present a typed copy of the proposed spell to the DM. Impossibility of success is not communicated to the player. Note that clerics can also research their own spells, and this is a useful way to differentiate one cleric from another. New spells are confidential and belong to that character only.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146160MUX? Like those old text based rpg games?
Yup. It does lend itself well to 'stunting' and describing awesomeness.
QuoteHaha, I love situations like that Paladin one. Would you make the player play out them getting caught and killed or just say it happens?
I'd make that dumb SOB suffer. :) This guy was supposed to be a cleric of Asmodeus and while the Lord of Darkness likes ambition, he hates failure and stupidity.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146189One more question! (Man I am burying this thread in them.)
Magic Users could research their own spells. Was there a level requirement to this or could you start making your own spells all the way back at level 1? Is it only stuff you get on level up?
Cloyer Bulse has it pretty much on target, although I'd be willing to cut some deals if it's a modification of an existing (and known) spell.
For example, let's say your magic-user knows
fireball, and wants to develop a better effect (something like
Fallion's fabulous fireball, from Dragon #123). I could be convinced to reduce the costs in that case since you're only adding some options to the spell (for this example, allowing the launched fireball to turn corners and being able to modify the area of effect).
It seems strange that Clerics can also research. The Wizards can't choose their spells that they gain, right? But Clerics can. They already have an advantage. But they can research their own spells too? On top of that lore-wise they're getting the spells granted as miracles from gods so it's strange to just make their own...
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146203What do you need to do? Just tell the DM "hey I want to make a spell, here's some gold," and you're off to the races?
The player has to come up with the first draft of the spell they want to create, and submit it to the DM for discussion, revision, and approval. Only then does the research time for the
character start.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146228It seems strange that Clerics can also research. The Wizards can't choose their spells that they gain, right? But Clerics can. They already have an advantage. But they can research their own spells too? On top of that lore-wise they're getting the spells granted as miracles from gods so it's strange to just make their own...
Clerics don't "make" spells so much as beseech their patrons for a particular ability to do something new. As for Clerics having the advantages you mention in general -- yes, Clerics are a very powerful class. Part of the "balance" between classes takes into account the relative popularity of the classes among players, in order to achieve a better party mix. Since fewer people chose to play Clerics based on archetype alone, a bit of power-imbalance helped to create party-balance.
If you can research your own spells... can't you just research the spell you want to find instead of actually finding it? Or is that the point?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146235If you can research your own spells... can't you just research the spell you want to find instead of actually finding it? Or is that the point?
Yes, that's part of the point. The other part would be to invent new spells.
One of the major flaws in the old system, IMO, was there really wasn't any mechanism for determining if a spell was 'commonly known' or not.
It's one thing to be able to walk into a magicians' guildhall or library and pay a fee to copy Rary's mneumonic enhancer into your spell book, but quite another to have to track down banish type XIII demon in a book of bad poetry in a festhall in Waterdeep.
Quote from: Zalman;1146237Yes, that's part of the point. The other part would be to invent new spells.
I seem to recall some old text warning against players researching existing spells... but it may have been my imagination.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146246I seem to recall some old text warning against players researching existing spells... but it may have been my imagination.
Well, you don't want your magic-user researching a 'new' spell which just duplicates an existing one (especially if it's unbalancing).
Magic-users circa 1E/2E have to be managed a bit. You don't want to cripple them by excessively limiting their ability to add spells to their books, but at the same time it's nice to get some (dare I say it?) diversity in spellcasting and spells known :)
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145012I run D&D 5e games but I've been looking at Basic and Old School Essentials and other such games because I'm going to be running a 5e game that's hacked to run like an old school gold-for-xp game. So I've been looking at some old rules.
Some of them don't make sense to me though, so I was hoping you guys could give me context or explain how they're supposed to work.
1) For instance, I see you can't level up more than once per session for the amount of gold you bring in. So if you bring in enough gold that could level you up 3 times, you only level up once and the rest is wasted. I don't understand why this limit is in place. If the players take all the risk to get a big reward, shouldn't they be able to benefit from it? What is this here for?
2) If you do "XP for gold spending", how do you stop the game from just becoming a farming simulator where you pay OTHER people to get gold for you? Or by being a businessman? My first thought is that only gold YOU get from the dungeon personally counts... but then you have to start tracking different piles of gold which sounds like it would be hard to keep straight.
3) There's the 10 minute dungeon turn. If you're trying to sneak around and be stealthy, how far are you supposed to be able to move? (In other words, if you're trying to stealth behind enemy lines.)
I have more but I'll add them as the thread goes.
1) I always ignored this. Let's say you have a group of six third level players, and three of them died while slaying a Dragon. You have three third level characters, the Dragon was 11HD and had a treasure hoard with 47,500 gp. Experience points earned for slaying the Dragon was 1100+800 or 1,900 which is split three ways. Each player receives 633 exp, which is not enough for them to even level. Now they have the treasure. First thing is, they have to get the treasure safely back to their stronghold and secure it. Outside of the cavern, they have a wagon, and can transport the entire haul back to their home in the city where the secure it in a locked room in their basement, and place traps on it to protect it. Now they start spending money, divided three ways they each have 15,833 Gp. The fighter decides he wants to recruit hirelings and wants to hire a company of 50 men-at-arms. Base pay is 3 Gp per month and it costs him 2 Gp a month for upkeep (Food). So spending that money earns him 250 exp... each month. He also has to house the troops and must spend 10,000 Gp to have a barracks constructed, As part of the contract with the masons and carpenters Guildmaster, the Fighter agrees pay half up front, and will pay the remainder after the barracks has been constructed, and is available to move in. So that's 5,000. Two weeks back from the expedition, and the fighter gets 5,250 additional experience points for spending 5,250 Gp to house his new mercenary company. Let's say he had just achieved third level and started with 4,000 exp. He needs 8,000 to reach 4th level and 16,000 to reach fifth level.
He has earned 5,883 exp from spending part of the dragon hoard to hire and house his new mercenary company. Now he has 9,883 exp and will achieve 4th level, so after the negotiations are done and the money is spent, the fighter levels and becomes a 4th level Hero. He still needs 6,127 exp to level to achieve 5th level, and still has 5,587 Gp to spend from the Dragon hoard, before he can actually earn those exp. Except for 1st and 2nd and 3rd level, it's pretty difficult for a player to level their character more than once in one adventure ...so I never adopted this rule, even for the 1st level characters since progression slowed down significantly after 3rd level. And if it is progressing more, it's on the GM, ...not the players.
I'll answer your other questions later today.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145012I run D&D 5e games but I've been looking at Basic and Old School Essentials and other such games because I'm going to be running a 5e game that's hacked to run like an old school gold-for-xp game. So I've been looking at some old rules.
Some of them don't make sense to me though, so I was hoping you guys could give me context or explain how they're supposed to work.
1) For instance, I see you can't level up more than once per session for the amount of gold you bring in. So if you bring in enough gold that could level you up 3 times, you only level up once and the rest is wasted. I don't understand why this limit is in place. If the players take all the risk to get a big reward, shouldn't they be able to benefit from it? What is this here for?
2) If you do "XP for gold spending", how do you stop the game from just becoming a farming simulator where you pay OTHER people to get gold for you? Or by being a businessman? My first thought is that only gold YOU get from the dungeon personally counts... but then you have to start tracking different piles of gold which sounds like it would be hard to keep straight.
3) There's the 10 minute dungeon turn. If you're trying to sneak around and be stealthy, how far are you supposed to be able to move? (In other words, if you're trying to stealth behind enemy lines.)
2) When others get gold, it counts as exp for "them". The only Xp you get is for Gold that you earn while adventuring as part of a party. if you have hirelings the xp for gold earned in a large group is split evenly among all of the adventurers (including the hirelings) the more people in the adventure part, the less total xp you receive from the gold (house rule).
3) Movement is very clear(unambiguous) in Basic D&D, and I like the Holmes rule for that, out of the Bluebook. Goes like this:
"
A fully armoured man can move 120 feet per turn at a cautious walk. Each turn takes ten minutes (scale time, not actual) in the characters' magical universe. In
the players' universe arguments sometimes develop and a turn may take considerably longer! Each turn is ten minutes except during combat where there are ten
melee rounds per turn, each round lasting ten seconds.
Let us say a party has come to a blank wall and decides to search it for secret doors. The Dungeon Master says it will take one turn for one character to
search a 10 foot section of wall. Unbeknownst to the adventurers, a monstrous purple worm is coming toward them down a side corridor. The Dungeon Master
consults his table of monsters and sees that the worm travels 60 feet per turn, so it will be 60 feet closer when the search is completed. Let us hope the party remembered to have somebody watch the rear!
Time must be taken to rest, so one turn every hour should be spent motionless -- i.e., one turn out of every six. If the party has been running (triple normal speed) they will need two turns to rest. An unarmoured and unencumbered man can move 240 feet per turn, an armored man 120 feet, and carrying a heavy load only half that. Faster speeds can be allowed for charging or a short sprint. If a character is being pursued, however, he may have to throw away
heavy treasure or armor in order to escape."
MOVEMENT TABLE Feet/turnMovement, Exploring/Mapping, Moving Normally, Run x3 =====================================================================
unarmored, unencumbered 240, 480, 720
man,
fully armored man, or
carrying heavy load, 120, 240, 360
fully armored AND heavily
loaded, 60, 120, 180
running, unarmored ( X 3), -, - , 720
running, armored (X 3), -, - , 360
=====================================================================
A character can only run a number of rounds equal to their constitution, after which they must rest for one turn
walking slow.
So, Stealthing would be 120' per turn or 12' per round for a fully armored man carrying a heavy load...
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145058The replies bring me to a new question:
4) Training to level up takes weeks. I like the idea of training, but doesn't this mean the PC is basically out of play for god knows how long? Many of my campaigns will take months IRL to finish a single game day because the game is so packed with action. How does pacing of sessions relating to the in-game calendar go? Does every session take place after a week has passed or something?
5) Is "XP for gold brought home" considered better or "XP for spending gold"?
Also, as a followup to the training question: if I'm to understand the replies correctly, if you get more XP than your normal limit, you don't level up from it, but you still have the extra XP on hand to gain later when you've completed training?
So if I'm a level 1 Fighter, and it takes 300 XP for me to get to level 2, and 900 XP to be level 3... and I get 1,000 gold... I get enough experience to get right up to leveling twice -- so my XP stops at 899, right? What happens to the remaining 101 XP. Is that just gone forever, or does that get "banked" for after I get to level 2 and I can use it then?
4) Yes, the character is out of action and cannot adventure while training. This is why we used to roll up a bunch of characters.
5) Never used Xp for gold brought home. The characters have to spend the gold to get the xp. It was very unfortunate when their gold was stolen, or looted while they were off adventuring.
Yes, if you don't find a scroll of fireball you can pay money to try and research the fireball spell.
The player can pick one spell for free when leveling up (and passing your roll to know). So if a MU picked dispel magic as their freebie at level 5 but wanted to use spare cash to also research fireball, that would be fine.
This is 1E AD&D. I have no idea how B/X or OSE handles it
Clerics are just like MUs in that not every possible cleric-y spell was conceived before the game was published. It’s perfectly fine (and good!) for a player to research new cleric spells
Quote from: mAcular ChaoticIf you can research your own spells... can't you just research the spell you want to find instead of actually finding it? Or is that the point?....
In fact that is precisely how magic-users are supposed to replace lost spell books, as inferred by Sage Advice in Dragon #43 (the books themselves do not have a cost prior to the release of the useless cash grab known as Unearthed Arcana in 1985). If a spell-caster knows that a spell exists, then it makes perfect sense that he could be able to find it through research.
However, while research is being done, the spell-caster is not gaining x.p., he is losing valuable time, and he is draining his coffers, so in general it is a poor way of gaining new spells unless there is one particular spell that the caster absolutely has to have.
Quote from: mAcular ChaoticIt seems strange that Clerics can also research. The Wizards can't choose their spells that they gain, right? But Clerics can. They already have an advantage. But they can research their own spells too? On top of that lore-wise they're getting the spells granted as miracles from gods so it's strange to just make their own...
One of the "flaws" of 1e is that all clerics are more or less identical, especially since they have such a limited number of weapons that they can use. One of the stated objectives of UA is to "fix" the cleric class by adding more spells.
In reality however there was no flaw and no fix was required. Clerics can and should differentiate themselves by researching their own spells.
In my own game, clerics who use magic-users spells (discovered through research) memorize them as if they were one level higher. Success in spell research can be vetoed by the cleric's deity if it is not pertinent to the cleric's mission (as defined by the cleric's deity and alignment). Clerics must discern the will of their deity through divination if they wish to avoid wasting valuable time and gold.
As a reminder, deities in AD&D are not omniscient (DMG 1e, p. 42). In my game, deities only know what their worshipers, both past and present, know. Nevertheless, this is a considerable body of knowledge, as it extends back thousands of years.
Quote from: GhostmakerOne of the major flaws in the old system, IMO, was there really wasn't any mechanism for determining if a spell was 'commonly known' or not....
The DM is free to make certain spells in the PHB harder or easier to find if he wishes.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145391Another question:
I heard wizard gets their spell via RNG. Offensive, defensive, utility lists?
Do other magic users get it that way too, like cleric?
Here's how this works if you happen to have an Original D&D Magic-user, or Illusionist, or Ranger. This was also clarified in the Holmes Blue Book (1977) rules over the White/Brown 1974 bookset. It just so happened that I bought a Bluebox copy of D&D first, because it as less expensive than than the 1974 Bookset. What I didn't know when I bought it, was that it was gimped compared to the Brownbox 74 edition and only had progression for characters to level three.
Actually, I bought a 3rd printing Brownbox edition of D&D first, but the game store owner at Mile High comics called me at home the next day, and offered a trade, a Boxed Holmes Bluebook edition of D&D (with Dice), the Judges Guild Wizards Guide/Ready Ref sheets, and an extra set of Gamescience high impact dice. I took him up on his offer, and it would be a couple more months before I bought my first white bookset. ...Anyway back to the Magic User and starting spells.
In Holmes edition the magic user at first level has a basic 5% chance per point of intelligence of
"knowing" a spell. When beginning the game It was presumed that the magic-user went to some school or college and learned some 1st level spells. So when creating a Magic-user, Illusionist, or Ranger, the player rolled randomly to determine what starting spells they had in their spellbook. They could try for every single first level spell. Let's say I had a Wizard with an Intelligence of 16, that means he had a base 80% chance of knowing a spell and having it written in their spellbook at the beginning of the game.
Vazhaar the Medium, a 1st level magic user would start like this. First he wanted Magic Missile, so he rolled... 94. No. He didn't learn that in school. Next he tries to learn the Sleep spell... 77 ...yes. Next he tries for Charm Person... 54 yes.Next Light... 09, ...yes. Next Protection/Evil 05, yes. Next, Detect Magic 63, yes... Next Hold Portal... 100 no. Next, Read Magic... 34, yes. Finally read Languages... 48 yes.
So Vazhaar begins the game with every first level spell except for Magic Missile, and Hold Portal and can choose to have any of them prepared to cast.
When Vazhaar levels to 3rd, he can roll to see what second level spells he knows. When another Wizard gives him a new spell, he copies it into his spellbook, and has to roll to see if he learned that the spell properly when he copied it. If not, he doesn't get it, and it will not work when he attempts to cast it. Further he is never able to learn it, even if he sees it again. This is why Wizard's were not overpowering in the original edition of the game.
Now for clerics, they know all their spells automatically. As part of their service to their temple, they are taught the rituals and incantations for every single spell, so a cleric has access to the entire list of spells, and can cast the spells at will to their daily limit as listed in book one,
Men & Magic.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146086Another question about spending gold to gain XP:
Are there limits for how much you can spend? For instance, let's say you somehow luck into 10,000 gp while you are level 1 and return to town to spend it on carousing. Can you just spend all 10,000 gp and get 10,000 experience? Or does it cap out? If it caps out, can you spend that money later to gain the experience?
All of it. The Problem is spending it, ...of course. Let's say the player, a fighter named Otto... i.e.
"Otto the Drunkard" wants to carouse and spend his gold that way. In the little village he's in, there is the
Duck & Pony, a tavern, and the
Valiant Knight Inn & Tavern. Player starts at the Duck & Pony, which has twenty-two kegs of ale, and four kegs of wine, as well as maybe another 500 Gp worth of exotic spirits. Otto rolls up with his wagonload of gold and the rest of the party. He starts buying drinks for everyone. The Innkeeper charges 20 GP a Keg for Ale, and 50GP a keg for wine. Otto dumps 1,090 Gp on the counter at the Tavern, and buys the entire stock of liquor at that Tavern, and announces
"Drinks are on me!"Before dawn, the
Duck & Pony is out of Liquor, presuming there are enough people to drink it all... Then Otto stumbles over to the
Valiant Knight Inn & Tavern presuming of course, he hasn't already been mugged and robbed by the local thieves guild... wash rinse repeat. By Dawn, he's out 2,180 Gp, but both the Tavern and Inn Liquor supply is exhausted. He, of course, gets the experience points, but still has 7,820 Gp to spend. ...You see where this is heading?
Quote from: GameDaddy;1146270Here's how this works if you happen to have an Original D&D Magic-user, or Illusionist, or Ranger. This was also clarified in the Holmes Blue Book (1977) rules over the White/Brown 1974 bookset. It just so happened that I bought a Bluebox copy of D&D first, because it as less expensive than than the 1974 Bookset. What I didn't know when I bought it, was that it was gimped compared to the Brownbox 74 edition and only had progression for characters to level three.
Actually, I bought a 3rd printing Brownbox edition of D&D first, but the game store owner at Mile High comics called me at home the next day, and offered a trade, a Boxed Holmes Bluebook edition of D&D (with Dice), the Judges Guild Wizards Guide/Ready Ref sheets, and an extra set of Gamescience high impact dice. I took him up on his offer, and it would be a couple more months before I bought my first white bookset. ...Anyway back to the Magic User and starting spells.
In Holmes edition the magic user at first level has a basic 5% chance per point of intelligence of "knowing" a spell. When beginning the game It was presumed that the magic-user went to some school or college and learned some 1st level spells. So when creating a Magic-user, Illusionist, or Ranger, the player rolled randomly to determine what starting spells they had in their spellbook. They could try for every single first level spell. Let's say I had a Wizard with an Intelligence of 16, that means he had a base 80% chance of knowing a spell and having it written in their spellbook at the beginning of the game.
Vazhaar the Medium, a 1st level magic user would start like this. First he wanted Magic Missile, so he rolled... 94. No. He didn't learn that in school. Next he tries to learn the Sleep spell... 77 ...yes. Next he tries for Charm Person... 54 yes.Next Light... 09, ...yes. Next Protection/Evil 05, yes. Next, Detect Magic 63, yes... Next Hold Portal... 100 no. Next, Read Magic... 34, yes. Finally read Languages... 48 yes.
So Vazhaar begins the game with every first level spell except for Magic Missile, and Hold Portal and can choose to have any of them prepared to cast.
When Vazhaar levels to 3rd, he can roll to see what second level spells he knows. When another Wizard gives him a new spell, he copies it into his spellbook, and has to roll to see if he learned that the spell properly when he copied it. If not, he doesn't get it, and it will not work when he attempts to cast it. Further he is never able to learn it, even if he sees it again. This is why Wizard's were not overpowering in the original edition of the game.
Now for clerics, they know all their spells automatically. As part of their service to their temple, they are taught the rituals and incantations for every single spell, so a cleric has access to the entire list of spells, and can cast the spells at will to their daily limit as listed in book one, Men & Magic.
One codicil: I would definitely give magic-users read magic as a freebie, since it's practically a requirement to collect magical writings and spellbooks.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146143Yup, I love West Marches. This one is more in the megadungeon vein.
Another question:
In Old School Essentials, it lists that traps only go off 2 out of 6 times if they get triggered. If someone is tapping it with a ten foot pole or something to trigger it, do you TELL the player they found a trap if they trigger it but it doesn't go off? I am wondering what happens when they find out there's a trap that didn't go off with their 10 foot pole and just keep tapping it until it goes off.
I always ruled if they didn't trigger it, they wouldn't detect it. Except for thieves or rogues of course, if they made their roll to detect the traps the find the trigger or the trap, or both, and then they have to make a roll to disarm the trap. A successful disarm roll means the trap trigger has been neutralized. If anyone sets off the trap, it is of course, triggered, although a 10' pole might protect the player from falling into a pit trap, etc. et. al. once the trap has been triggered.
Also, my traps tend to be of a variety where even if it doesn't kill them outright, the players will be trapped, incapacitated, significantly delayed, drugged, or be exposed to disease, etc. if you are guarding your treasure hoard in a dungeon, are you going to set a lame trap that will just annoy any unwanted guests? Of course not. You are going to make a trap that maims, or kills, or creates total mayhem. That is what the NPCs do, design traps just like players would.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146189One more question! (Man I am burying this thread in them.)
Magic Users could research their own spells. Was there a level requirement to this or could you start making your own spells all the way back at level 1? Is it only stuff you get on level up?
This is one thing that took me a long time to actually find and use, ...good magic research rules. In the original books it went something like this:
"Wizard's and above (8th level) may manufacture for their own use (or for sale) such items as potions, scrolls, and just about anything else magical. Costs are commensurate with the value of the item, as is the amount of game time required to enchant it."So first, your Wizard had to make it to 8th level. I never liked that rule much, because that could easily take six months of play time, playing a once-a-week game before your Wizard even became qualified to start making magic items.
Examples of Costs are:Item - Cost
==============================
Scroll of Spells - 100GP/Spell/Spell Lvl, Level/Week. (a scroll containing a 5th level spell would cost 500 Gp and take five weeks to prepare.
Potion of Healing - 250 GP + 1 week
Potion of Giant Strength - 1,000 Gp + 4 Weeks
Enchanting 20 arrows - 1,000 Gp + 4 weeks
Enchanting Armor to +1 - 2,000 Gp + 2 months
Wand of Cold - 10,000 Gp + 6 Months
X-ray vision Ring - 50,000 Gp + 1 year.
Research by magical types can be done at any level of experience, but the level of magic involved dictates the possibility of success, as well as the amount of money necessary to invest. Assume that a Magic-user can use a 4th level spell (Explained later), therefore could develop a new spell provided it was equal to or less than 4th level. All this will be explained fully in the section dealing with SPELLS. So, here was the first contradiction in the rules... do you have to be a Wizard 8th level, ...or can you be any level to conduct magic research? Also note here spell casters could only manufacture magic items with spells that they already knew how to cast! If they didn't know it, or it was too high level for them to cast, they couldn't make a magic item including the spell. Anyway, on to the SPELLS section...
Magical ResearchBoth Magic-Users and Clerics may attempt to expand on the spells listed (as applicable by class). This is a matter of time and investment. The level of magic required to operate the spell (determination by the referee) dictates the initial investment. Investment for 1st level is 2,000 GP, 2nd lvl, 4,000 Gp, 3rd 8,000 Gp, etc. et al.
The time required is one week per spell level. for every amount equal to the basic investment there is a 20% chance of success, cumulative, An investment of 10,000 GP in order to develop a new 1st-level spell, for example has a 100% chance after one game week.So you could create completely new spells in the original game. It was simply a matter of investing money and time. The caveats of course, are the GM decided what level the spell would be considered. In fact, almost everything was left up to the discretion of the GM, so the result was a set of wildly conflicting magic-item design rules that varied from GM to GM and campaign to campaign. This has never been fully resolved with any edition of D&D, however there was one really good article in Dragon Magazine #242
"The Laws of Spell Design" which offered a consistent set of guidelines for spell design that I eventually adopted for my games.
Judges Guild had some good guidelines for creating magic items that were included in the Wizard's Guide / ready ref Sheets. I adopted these for use in creating unique player magic items very early, in late 1977 early 1978... So they had to be 8th level to create magic items, but could design new spells starting right at the first level... That's how I understood the original magic design rules.
One other note I have is that Magic-users could not adventure while they were busy creating magic items, or designing new spells.
My feeling was that after AD&D 1e came out TSR wanted to exclusively design new magic items and spells, and didn't want players or GMs doing that anymore, so never focused on improving this part of the D&D rules. I ...of course, made my home games better.
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1146273One codicil: I would definitely give magic-users read magic as a freebie, since it's practically a requirement to collect magical writings and spellbooks.
Okay, only because using these rules even high level magic-users were limited in their power, by time, money, and their intelligence. After AD&D came out, I automatically let all magic-users be able to cast all of the 0-level cantrips.
Quote from: GameDaddy;1146279This is one thing that took me a long time to actually find and use, ...good magic research rules.
They're an outtake of GURPS Lensman of all things, but I always liked this set of research rules, and wanted to adapt them to fantasy:
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/Lensman/outtakes/lensgadg.html
I'm not suggesting blindly porting over the rules, but I think they provide an excellent general outline for how inventions happen, and thus can provide a framework or be robbed for ideas.
Nice, I'll check out that link.
Were Sorcerers able to make their own spells too?
I want to incorporate the spell research aspect but I want it to fit the lore of the classes. ie, if it doesn't make sense for a Sorcerer to do it (which at first glance, seems like they shouldn't) I wouldn't do it unless I see something saying otherwise.
Sorcerers, as in the spontaneous spell casting class, are an invention of third edition, and not part of old school D&D. They couldn't research spells because they had a fixed spell list, which they could freely choose.
But if you want something similar, you could think of something more along the lines of artistic creation, rather than scientific research. Each new spell they learn is a new masterpiece.
Oh, interesting. For some reason I saw people talking about Sorcerers in OSR related stuff... maybe it was some other spinoff.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146304Oh, interesting. For some reason I saw people talking about Sorcerers in OSR related stuff... maybe it was some other spinoff.
Sorcerer is a level title for magic-users in old school D&D.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146304Oh, interesting. For some reason I saw people talking about Sorcerers in OSR related stuff... maybe it was some other spinoff.
Not that I know of for D&D. There were a lot of variant classes in different magazines,
Dragon, JG Journal, JG Dungeoneer, Different Worlds, The first time I saw Sorcerers though was in
Runequest 3rd Edition, the Avalon Hill Edition. Earlier editions of
Runequest from
Chaosium featured four types of magic users,
Shamans that are like tribal witch doctors or medicine men. They use Spirit magic.
Spritualists, who summon spirits and bind them to serve, and
Battle Mages, which were Wizards that often used elemental spells and spells of destruction. They also use ritual magic. Finally there was Priests who used Divine Magic. With the
Avalon Hill Runequest I first saw Sorcerers though, and they were spontaneous spellcasters that favored urban settings, meaning that you would mostly find them in the larger cities, they used
Sorcery which included many unique spells.
Sorcerers in
Runequest use spells, enhanced by rituals and skills to create magic. They have a wide variety of spells, and can cast spells from just about every discipline, which are enhanced with skills. This is a game mechanic that 3rd edition D&D copied from
Runequest and used for both Skills and Feats for the D&D magic users. Plus I saw Sorcerers (spontaneous casters) added to D&D for the first time with the third edition.
Quote from: GameDaddy;1146319Not that I know of for D&D. There were a lot of variant classes in different magazines, Dragon, JG Journal, JG Dungeoneer, Different Worlds, The first time I saw Sorcerers though was in Runequest 3rd Edition, the Avalon Hill Edition. Earlier editions of Runequest from Chaosium featured four types of magic users, Shamans that are like tribal witch doctors or medicine men. They use Spirit magic. Spritualists, who summon spirits and bind them to serve, and Battle Mages, which were Wizards that often used elemental spells and spells of destruction. They also use ritual magic. Finally there was Priests who used Divine Magic.
That's not quite right.
In Runequest 1 and 2 there were only two kinds of spells: Battle Magic (which was renamed Spirit Magic in RQ3) and Divine Magic. All characters had access to Battle Magic. Those spells were limited in duration to 10 rounds (about 2 minutes in game) and were limited in power. Divine Magic was more powerful and lasted longer (15 minutes), but it was only available to Initiates (or higher level members) of a religion. Priests could reuse or recast Divine spells which they regained in a temple or holy site. Other cult members could only cast a Divine Spell one time. In addition to these two types of spells, Shaman's and their apprentices could summon and bind powerful spirits and then command those spirits to act for them. A bound disease spirit, for example, could infect a target with a disease. Non-shamans could bind spirits (if they new the proper Battle Magic Spirit Binding spell), but they usually eeded a Shaman to summon a spirit for binding.
Runequest 3 basically kept Battle Magic (renamed Spirit Magic) and Divine Magic, but it changed the way shamans summoned and bound spirits and it added a third type of spells called Sorcery.
What do you guys think of this house rule I see floating around OSR blogs: "Shields Will Be Splintered. When a player takes damage, they can sacrifice their shield to negate that damage."
Good? Bad? Too easy?
Quote from: Bren;1146394Runequest 3 (skip a bit) added a third type of spells called Godless Sorcery.
Fixed your quote :-)
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146523What do you guys think of this house rule I see floating around OSR blogs: "Shields Will Be Splintered. When a player takes damage, they can sacrifice their shield to negate that damage."
Good? Bad? Too easy?
How does that apply to magical shields? Are they also destroyed?
Quote from: HappyDaze;1146526How does that apply to magical shields? Are they also destroyed?
No but they lose a +1 of their magical bonus.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146523What do you guys think of this house rule I see floating around OSR blogs: "Shields Will Be Splintered. When a player takes damage, they can sacrifice their shield to negate that damage."
Good? Bad? Too easy?
If you have the appropriate info/rules, you might allow fighters to shift a damaging hit from themselves to their shield and treat it as an 'item break' attempt (the shield gets a save versus whatever to avoid being broken though).
Quote from: spon;1146525Fixed your quote :-)
:D
Not completely godless. I think they still have one.
The idea is you get another chance to live... but what if people just bring along 50 shields...
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146523What do you guys think of this house rule I see floating around OSR blogs: "Shields Will Be Splintered. When a player takes damage, they can sacrifice their shield to negate that damage."
Good? Bad? Too easy?
Not a huge fan, feels too metagamey, like a once an encounter absolute defense. I prefer to just give shields a larger bonus. One method, based on the idea that shields matter a lot more when you're not wearing any armor (the iconic savage), and a lot less if you're already wearing a full suit of armor (a knight), is to say that shields halve your armor-based AC, rounded up. Add magic and Dex after. No armor 9, leather 7, mail 5, and plate 3 becomes no armor + shield 5, leather + shield 4, mail + shield 3, and plate mail + shield 2. So no difference for plate, but a shield matters more when wearing lighter armor.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146523What do you guys think of this house rule I see floating around OSR blogs: "Shields Will Be Splintered. When a player takes damage, they can sacrifice their shield to negate that damage."
Good? Bad? Too easy?
I prefer to use such a rule only when also using critical hits. Sacrifice your shield, turn what was a critical into a regular hit. You still get hit. Otherwise, it puts more emphasis on detail at that particular point than is supported by the more abstract system. Agree with others that if it is abstract, shields are underrated, then the best option is to give them more AC bonus. The problem, of course, is facing. If you are handling facing, then shields are great from the front and worthless for attacks from the rear. So in the abstract sense, no facing rules having shields down to a simple +1 AC isn't the worst thing in the world.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146553The idea is you get another chance to live... but what if people just bring along 50 shields...
Then their opponents will cut them off from the train of 10 pack mules carrying all those shields. Seriously though, having a squire or retainer who carries an extra shield for the hero fits certain settings e.g. Arthurian Knights. Another example is the duel in "The 13th Warrior" where the duelists start out with 3 shields each and are allowed to pick up a new one when one is wrecked.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1146558I prefer to use such a rule only when also using critical hits. Sacrifice your shield, turn what was a critical into a regular hit. You still get hit.
I like that.
Negating critical hits is good except that is supposed to be the role of adamantine armor. Hmm...
In any case, this is a common houserule I've seen proposed on OSR blogs, so I thought it was interesting.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146585Negating critical hits is good except that is supposed to be the role of adamantine armor. Hmm...
Not in old school D&D. Adamantite was just required to make +5 armor and weapons (in AD&D).
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146553The idea is you get another chance to live... but what if people just bring along 50 shields...
would not be inconsistent with how things worked in our middle ages.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146553The idea is you get another chance to live... but what if people just bring along 50 shields...
That's not at all uncommon, especially when you're bringing along 50 armed & armored followers
Quote from: Pat;1146555Not a huge fan, feels too metagamey, like a once an encounter absolute defense.
A shield gets about 40 hit points, if the attacker misses you by 1, they hit your shield instead dealing damage. Axes do double damage. A loose translation of various medieval researchers found about the durability of shields in melee combat.
A shield with the rim edged with leather formed in a way so that it shrinks to hold the planks together and then faced with leather can survive about six axe blows. And considerably more blows from a sword or spear. Given the average damage of various weapons in classic DnD this works out to about 40 hit points.
Alternately you can use this from Judges Guild's Dungeon Tac Card from the 1970s.
SHIELDING (optional)
Shielding can only be performed with a shield (oddly enough). Your shield will absorb a certain number of hit points before being destroyed. After announcing that you are shielding in your round (by which you give up your chance to strike), you then roll for the following if you are hit by the opponent in his upcoming round (however, hits from behind are not affected by shielding). Roll 2 dice (dice type is based on your Dexterity rating).
GP Cost/Encum./Damage Pts.
Damage Pts. - able to absorb before being destroyed.
Large - Small
Leather 12/100/16 - 7/50/9
Iron 25/150/25 - 15/90/15
Wood 15/120/20 - 10/60/11
Wicker 8/80/12 - 5/40/7
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146523What do you guys think of this house rule I see floating around OSR blogs: "Shields Will Be Splintered. When a player takes damage, they can sacrifice their shield to negate that damage."
Good? Bad? Too easy?
Bad, not old school. It requires that the player, in the midst of gameplay, make a decision that the character cannot even know about. It could be nuanced so that the
character could decide "I interpose my shield" but that's what one does with a shield anyway.
Quote from: estar;1146619A shield with the rim edged with leather formed in a way so that it shrinks to hold the planks together and then faced with leather can survive about six axe blows. And considerably more blows from a sword or spear. Given the average damage of various weapons in classic DnD this works out to about 40 hit points.
It would seem simpler to say, "Each time your shield stops a blow, roll 1d6; on a 6, it's shattered and useless."
Quote from: estar;1146619if the attacker misses you by 1, they hit your shield instead
If we're going for emulation here, wouldn't the
nearest miss be best represented as "stopped by armor", with the furthest misses being blows avoided entirely and missed-because-of-shield somewhere in between? Just sayin' :)
I like the simplicity of Kyle's idea, but then any such rule begs the question: why doesn't armor also get destroyed in play? Mixing armor class and some form of damage reduction from armor (or shields!) never seems to work out in play to my satisfaction.
(Edit: I am reminded of the old "I try to hit it in the
head for extra damage!" You're
always trying to hit it in some extra-vulnerable spot, just as much as you're always trying to block blows -- or critical hits -- with your shield.)
The more I think about 'sacrifice your shield to block a critical hit', the more I kinda like it.
If I was doing this for Pathfinder...
Shield Block: If you are subject to a critical hit, after the confirmation but before damage is rolled, you may opt to use your shield (if you have one) to absorb the brunt of the blow. A nonmagical shield immediately loses half its hit points and gains the broken condition. A magical shield can make a Fortitude saving throw (using either its bearer's Fortitude or 2+ half the caster level for the item, whichever is better) to reduce the damage by half. The DC is equal to the damage dealt.
Example: Ronald the Fighter is unlucky enough to be critical hit by an orc wielding a falchion (will deal 4d4+8 damage). Ronald is wearing a heavy steel shield (hardness 10, HP 20). Ronald opts to shield block and his heavy steel shield is now broken (with all the penalties that accrues).
Second example: Ronald the Mighty is still unlucky with orcs hitting him, but this time he is wearing a +1 adamantine heavy shield (hardness 15, HP 30). This time, Ronald opts to save against the swing, which will still damage his shield but (hopefully) not break it.
Hmmm. This might need more fine-tuning.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1146669It would seem simpler to say, "Each time your shield stops a blow, roll 1d6; on a 6, it's shattered and useless."
Doesn't seem like how it works in life it more about being worn away. I am not keen on going to the level of detail Judges Guilds does but just assigning a flat total seems to be right way to go if a shield sacrifice seems too metagamey.
Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1146663Bad, not old school. It requires that the player, in the midst of gameplay, make a decision that the character cannot even know about. It could be nuanced so that the character could decide "I interpose my shield" but that's what one does with a shield anyway.
Circa 1977, Judges Guild. Doesn't really get much more old school.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4792[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]4793[/ATTACH]
Quote from: Zalman;1146673If we're going for emulation here, wouldn't the nearest miss be best represented as "stopped by armor", with the furthest misses being blows avoided entirely and missed-because-of-shield somewhere in between? Just sayin' :)
It a wash, either way there is a 5% chance in the 1 to 20 that a miss occurs because the combatant was wielding a shield. Miss by 1 is far more playable than the alternative in the campaign I ran with Swords & Wizardry and my Majestic Fantasy rules.
Quote from: Zalman;1146673I like the simplicity of Kyle's idea, but then any such rule begs the question: why doesn't armor also get destroyed in play? Mixing armor class and some form of damage reduction from armor (or shields!) never seems to work out in play to my satisfaction.
Because accounts of shield (and weapons) are far more frequent than armor getting hacked up to the point where it falls off of the person's body. As for damage reduction, it works as a mechanic but doesn't feel very D&Dish in my opinion. In contrast The miss by 1 rule (or the reverse) flows out of how the to-hit roll interacts with armor class.
Quote from: Zalman;1146673(Edit: I am reminded of the old "I try to hit it in the head for extra damage!" You're always trying to hit it in some extra-vulnerable spot, just as much as you're always trying to block blows -- or critical hits -- with your shield.)
I allow that in my campaign, except the target gets a saving throw. The general idea is that the result of a successful attack doesn't have to be hit point damage, it can be some disadvantageous to the target. But the catch is like anything else "bad" that happens to a character (PC or NPC) the target gets a saving throw. So things like hitting a target in the back of the head, knocking a chalice out of their hand, tripping a combatant, become things to attempt when the situation is right.
Also they not as likely to work against a higher level or hit dice foe. If you look how these are handled in other system like GURPS, Runequest etc. They involve to a greater or lesser degrees use of a character's skill. A result special manuevuers don't work as often against a highly skilled combatant combat. The use of a saving throw to resolve whether a "combat stunt" works out because it gets easier to make as the character levels.
You can read how I handle it here
http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Majestic%20Fantasy%20Basic%20RPG%20Rev%2010.pdf
I also expanding and revising these rules and started a kickstarter to pay for the editing and some art.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/batintheatticgames/the-majestic-fantasy-rpg
I've finally started running the game! The players are taking to it and lots more are interested.
One of them pointed out that with the gold for XP setup that the local town they all spend their money in is going to turn into El Dorado. Is it common to run these games with silver as the XP currency instead?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1146956I've finally started running the game! The players are taking to it and lots more are interested.
One of them pointed out that with the gold for XP setup that the local town they all spend their money in is going to turn into El Dorado. Is it common to run these games with silver as the XP currency instead?
Well, that feature is actually sort of built into old-school D&D anyway. The price lists found in the books are utterly out of whack with reality and with how much a gold coin was actually worth in history. One could easily argue that the prices already factor in a boomtown inflation.
But switching over to a silver standard and replacing treasure accordingly is also a perfectly workable solution that people do.
I think I will do that. It just feels weird to level up from getting like, 30 gold pieces. And it doesn't buy much either, equipment wise, in comparison.
I think it's in the 1e DMG that Gygax says the PHB prices are Alaskan Gold Rush economics, with $5 eggs. A lot of the PHB gold piece prices are quite close to historical silver piece (eg shilling) prices, so that's one way to go. Gygax's stated preference is to assume a highly inflated economy right off. The problem with this is that (a) it only works for a Castle Greyhawk type setup and (b) his mundane NPC wages are mostly set off an historical silver based economy, though some of the expert NPCs are on the inflated gold based economy.
Over the years since 3e WoTC has kludged it by lowering the value of a gp back to 10 silvers while also reducing low level treasure hoards & increasing NPC wages, but the gap is a bit too big to be crossed IME - eg a normal sword should be more like 15 silver than 15 gold. Pathfinder 2e bit the bullet and went over to silver-based and gold worth x10.
My preference is to stick with the kludge, remember the PHB prices are an inflated near-maximum, goods may often be bought for a lot less (especially by NPCs!), and increase NPC wages somewhat. Basically the WoTC approach.
I use 1 gp = 10 sp, cheap food for a day 1 sp, poor daily wage 2 sp, good daily wage 4 sp. An sp is worth about $10 and a gp about $100. Players pay either the PHB inflated prices, or can bargain for lower prices - NPCs are probably paying 1/3 to 1/2 PHB prices on most goods.
Adapted from 5e DMG, but I use this in my 1e/OSRIC game too:
Social status Income & Expenditure
Lower Class
Subsistence 1sp/day, 3gp/month Maid, Scullion, Slave
Poor 2sp/day, 6gp/month Labourer, Cook, Infantry Soldier, Barmaid
Unassuming 3sp/day, 9gp/month Yeoman farmer, Corporal, Longbowman, Cavalry, Sailor
Decent 5sp/day 15gp/month Sergeant, Heavy cavalry,Tailor
Middle Class
Modest 1gp/day, 30gp/month Adventurer, Lieutenant, Innkeep, Reeve
Comfortable 2gp/day 60gp/month Armourer, Master Smith, wealthy Innkeep, Captain
Upper Class
Wealthy 4gp/day 120gp/month wealthy Merchant, Colonel, Lord/Lady
Aristocratic 10gp/day 300gp/month High Priest, Baron, General
Noble 20gp/day 600gp/month Duke
Royal 40gp/day 1200gp/month King
Imperial 80gp/day 2400gp/month Emperor
For XP, in my 1e/OSRIC game I keep 1 gp = 1 XP, but I reduce gem & jewelry values a lot from the 1e DMG listings, to about 1/10, and I'll reduce gp in treasure if it looks excessive. I'll also reduce some magic item sale values - and thus XP - to about 1/10 the 1e DMG list values. In compensation I give increased monster XP, and lots of XP for non-combat achievements, but I keep big piles of gold as an adventuring lure.
If you want to be more "realistic", switching all uses of gp with sp, and making coins 50 instead of 10 to the pound is closer to historical norms. That means gold is worth something, and you can carry a small fortune in a purse.
But realistically, it really doesn't matter, because economies will adjust to any valuation of the unit of exchange. The main difference is transportation and ostentatious display -- using the AD&D rules, a great kobold chieftain with 500 gp worth of cp has 5 tons of copper (100,000 coins = 10,000 pounds), and a dragon's hoard with 100,000 gp would weigh the same (5 tons). To clear either out, you'd need a small army of teamsters and a pack train -- but conversely Scrooge McDogface could dive into a pool of coins, and the dragon could sleep on a literal bed of gleaming gold.
With the silver standard, the kobold chief's treasure is now worth 500 sp, which becomes a mere 100 pounds of copper coins. The dragon's hoard is worth 100,000 sp, which is converted to 5,000 gp, which weighs a mere 100 pounds. In other words, if you retain the same metal, coins become 1,000 more valuable per unit of weight.
The real question is whether you want vast cinematic hoards, or not.
Quote from: Pat;1146983The real question is whether you want vast cinematic hoards, or not.
Who wouldn't want that? :D
The gold, silver, and copper each 1/10 of a pound are the size of a thick half dollar. While a historical silver penny is the size of a dime and why there are 250 coins to a pound. Since AD&D and D&D has the same base wage for laborer, 1 sp per day, this mean that D&D coins are worth about 16 to 20 time less then historical coins. More metal is needed in a silver piece to make it worth a day's labor.
Hoards are larger because the coins are not as valuable.
Quote from: Bren;1147029Who wouldn't want that? :D
I know I got totally turned off by the rivers of gold in
The Hobbit film. OTOH I do like my huge ancient red dragons to have a decent pile of gold in their lair. 5e handles this by increasing the size of Epic Level 17-20 monster hoards to about 500,000gp, which ought hopefully to impress any player!
Quote from: S'mon;1147038I know I got totally turned off by the rivers of gold in The Hobbit film. OTOH I do like my huge ancient red dragons to have a decent pile of gold in their lair. 5e handles this by increasing the size of Epic Level 17-20 monster hoards to about 500,000gp, which ought hopefully to impress any player!
Of course, then you have to get the gold out of the lair, which presents its own fun problems :)
Quote from: S'mon;1147038I know I got totally turned off by the rivers of gold in The Hobbit film.
It took until you saw the rivers of gold? I lost interest long before that. The movie seemed more like a World of Warcraft raid than like anything Tolkien wrote. The movie might even have been improved by adding Scrooge McDuck doing a swan dive into a pile of dragon gold.
Quote from: Bren;1147090It took until you saw the rivers of gold? I lost interest long before that. The movie seemed more like a World of Warcraft raid than like anything Tolkien wrote. The movie might even have been improved by adding Scrooge McDuck doing a swan dive into a pile of dragon gold.
In the movie version, I thought that Thorin was in that role.