Older D&D and Retroclone Thread: From OD&D To 4E

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Older D&D and Retroclone Thread: From OD&D To 4E

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Our group playing There's Always a Chance has now done 3 sessions and hit level 2. We've so far raided and burned a goblin camp, negotiated a treaty with some orcs, and cleaned out a mausoleum and its cultist housekeeper. I really like the simplicity of the system.

The only house-rule I've thrown in so far is making the Wizard use INT rolls for throwing stones with his sling.

# ? Oct 3, 2014 20:29

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 5, 2024 13:32

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Silhouette posted:

This is just a reminder that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition is still King poo poo of fantasy RPG mountain and you should all be playing it.

http://www.purpleworm.org/rules/

The best DnD.

# ? Oct 3, 2014 21:01

Rulebook Heavily: Sep 18, 2010; by FactsAreUseless

FRINGE posted:

The best DnD.

quote:

Special Benefits: Male warriors in a civilization where female warriors are rare tend to underestimate the Amazon. Therefore, in any fight where the Amazon confronts a male who is not familiar with her personally or female warriors in general, she gets a +3 to attack rolls and +3 damage on her first blow only. This is because her opponent's guard is down.

This doesn't work on player-characters unless the player is role-playing honestly enough to declare that he, too, would underestimate her.

This ability doesn't work on some other types of characters:

An NPC who is wary enough not to underestimate the Amazon might, with a successful Intelligence check, see the attack coming and deny her the bonus;

A seasoned veteran (any Warrior of 5th level or higher, or any other character of 8th level or higher), in spite of his prejudice, will realize that she is moving like a trained warrior and keep his guard up, denying her the bonus.

If the Amazon hits an NPC with this attack, he'll never again be prey to it; if an NPC even sees an Amazon hit someone with it, he'll never fall for it himself. But if she misses that first strike, then the target will continue to underestimate her and she can use those bonuses again on her next strike.

quote:

Parliament of Fishes: When a Sea Ranger reaches 12th level, he may attempt to call a parliament of fishes. He may use this ability once per week. If successful, the Sea Ranger can demand a service of the school. Typical services include the location or recovery of small items, the provision of edible water plants, information about local monsters or conditions, and perhaps transport across a small body of water if the parliament members are large enough. Once a month this can be the equivalent of a commune with nature spell.

To call a parliament of fishes, the Sea Ranger locates a pond, lake, or any other body of water containing aquatic life. Sometime between sunset and dawn, he kneels beside the body of water and concentrates for a full turn. An attack or interruption in any other way during this time will break his concentration, and he can't attempt to call a parliament of fishes until the following week.

Otherwise, at the end of 10 rounds, 10-100 (10d10) fish or other aquatic creatures (as appropriate to the body of water) surface and stare expectantly at the Sea Ranger. The Sea Ranger must then toss an offering into the water; the gift may be food, a coin, or any other object of the ranger's choice.

The DM then rolls 1d10 and consults Table 50. If the offer was reasonably generous, increase the result by +1. If the offering was exceptionally valuable, increase the result by +2. If the offering was meager (a copper piece or a chunk of bread), decrease the result by -1. If the offering was essentially worthless (a bone or a chunk of rock), decrease the result by -2. The result can't be decreased below 1 or raised above 10.

Table 50: Parliament of Fishes Results
D10 Roll
Results
1-2 The fish immediately submerge; the offer is rejected. From dawn to sunrise the following day, the ranger suffers a -1 penalty to all attack rolls and ability checks.
3-7 The fish swim listlessly in circles for a few moments, then submerge; the offer is neither rejected nor accepted. The ranger is unaffected.
8-10 The fish dive and splash excitedly for a few moments, then submerge; the offer is accepted. The parliament grants the ranger a boon within their power.

quote:

Ghetto Fighter

Ghetto Fighters live in the ghettos of nondwarven towns or cities. Generally from poor families, they have had to look after themselves from an early age. The typical Ghetto Fighter has a hardbitten, self-centered attitude, developed in order to survive the rigors of the ghetto.

Ghetto Fighters may come from dwarf strongholds. In such cases they would be from poor clans with bad reputations. Such characters are always suspect to other dwarves, and they find it difficult to make a living by honest means.

Role: The Ghetto Fighter never forgets his lowly origins and may harbor resentments against dwarves who are better off. However, he stays true to his roots, and will try to better the lives of ghetto children.

Sure, why not.

# ? Oct 4, 2014 03:19

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Ghetto Fighter is Short Shaft?

# ? Oct 4, 2014 03:41

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

Ghetto Fighter is Short Shaft?

2e never stops giving!

# ? Oct 4, 2014 03:50

Rulebook Heavily: Sep 18, 2010; by FactsAreUseless

He gets a class ability where The Man hates him. It's weird and very AD&D second edition. I'd play him.

It's amazing to hear play reports from There Is Always a Chance, by the way. It's a neat project and it's gotten attention!

# ? Oct 4, 2014 03:57

Small Strange Bird: Sep 22, 2006; Merci, chaton!

Glad TAAC is working well. Only one house-rule in a couple of sessions is probably way better than any edition of D&D has managed!

# ? Oct 4, 2014 10:18

CarrKnight: May 24, 2013

Is there any link for TAAC that doesn't go through rpgnet? For some reason my Taiwanese IP is banned there.

# ? Oct 4, 2014 11:06

Small Strange Bird: Sep 22, 2006; Merci, chaton!

CarrKnight posted:

Is there any link for TAAC that doesn't go through rpgnet? For some reason my Taiwanese IP is banned there.

This should work: TAAC Alpha 4

# ? Oct 4, 2014 14:55

hectorgrey: Oct 14, 2011

Incidentally, for those of you (probably two or three at most but if more yay!) who speak Welsh, there's apparently someone working on a translation for OSRIC in that language (last I heard was a forum post in April on the dragonfoot forum, but they could be working on it somewhere else). Just thought there might be some interest from someone.

# ? Oct 4, 2014 18:00

Silhouette: Nov 16, 2002; SONIC BOOM!!!

Rulebook Heavily posted:

Sure, why not.

Not seeing the bad parts of any of that

# ? Oct 4, 2014 19:00

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

1. So I finally stumble across a way to calculate descending AC/THAC0 that makes it easy to understand: [d20 + to-hit bonus + AC >= 20] in order to land a hit, only to find that BECMI and its retroclones don't have the concept of a "to-hit bonus" or "Base Attack Bonus" yet and I have to backsolve it from the attack roll tables.

2. Saving throws - anyone know how Swords and Wizardry merged them into a single value?

3. A goon linked to his Planet Eris OD&D campaign and it has a set of pretty cool houserules such as fleshed out hirelings/henchmen, Magic-Users able to store extra level 1 spells in their staves and simplifying most rolls to d6's.

4. Are there any guidelines to encounter creation? In my latest TAAC session this morning I threw 7 zombies, then another 5 zombies, then 5 ghouls against a level 2 Fighter and a level 2 Wizard and they hardly broke a sweat. So far I've just been using the "No. Appearing" guidelines in the monster statblocks.

gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Oct 6, 2014

# ? Oct 6, 2014 15:51

CountingWizard: Jul 6, 2004

gradenko_2000 posted:

4. Are there any guidelines to encounter creation? In my latest TAAC session this morning I threw 7 zombies, then another 5 zombies, then 5 ghouls against a level 2 Fighter and a level 2 Wizard and they hardly broke a sweat. So far I've just been using the "No. Appearing" guidelines in the monster statblocks.

That amount and creature type should have wiped the floor with them. The ghouls alone should have overwhelmed the fighter, and the wizard would have been fairly useless against undead unless he was using magic missile or web; phantasmal force is often ruled ineffective against undead because they lack a mind. Was the fighter literally just fighting them one on one the whole time?

I usually use the monsters and treasure tables for number appearing in outdoor adventures, in combination with the outdoor encounter tables from underworld and wilderness. For dungeons I use static encounters and random encounters with a custom table for that floor. The random encounter table uses approximately 1d6 per group of humanoids, 1d4 for large animals, etc. depending upon the creature and how many I imagine travel as a group. Then I adjust the amount encountered as suggested in one of those two books, and double the number encountered if more than 6 or 8 people are in the group. If it is too difficult the group will flee.

CountingWizard fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Oct 6, 2014

# ? Oct 6, 2014 20:31

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

gradenko_2000 posted:

1. So I finally stumble across a way to calculate descending AC/THAC0 that makes it easy to understand: [d20 + to-hit bonus + AC >= 20] in order to land a hit, only to find that BECMI and its retroclones don't have the concept of a "to-hit bonus" or "Base Attack Bonus" yet and I have to backsolve it from the attack roll tables.

BAB = 20-THAC0. Also, THAC0 - target's AC = number needed to hit, and for the player to know what AC they hit: Attack roll - THAC0 = AC hit. Just use a hit matrix though, it's faster. I don't agree with the folks that say adding 3 numbers and comparing it to 20 is easier than subtracting one from the other, but it's been said that subtracting numbers from 0 to 20 takes a math savant to do it fast enough to not stall out your game so I don't know.

# ? Oct 6, 2014 21:19

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Babylon Astronaut posted:

BAB = 20-THAC0. Also, THAC0 - target's AC = number needed to hit, and for the player to know what AC they hit: Attack roll - THAC0 = AC hit. Just use a hit matrix though, it's faster. I don't agree with the folks that say adding 3 numbers and comparing it to 20 is easier than subtracting one from the other, but it's been said that subtracting numbers from 0 to 20 takes a math savant to do it fast enough to not stall out your game so I don't know.

Addition is good because it's commutative. 5+3 = 3+5

Subtraction is bad because it's not. 5-3 =/= 3-5

I found it really easy to figure out characters' attack bonuses once, then just add to 20 in play.

# ? Oct 6, 2014 21:42

Esser-Z: Jun 3, 2012

Typically your attack bonuses are static numbers, so you simply need to add two numbers--the die roll and your total bonus.

# ? Oct 6, 2014 21:45

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

dwarf74 posted:

Addition is good because it's commutative. 5+3 = 3+5

Subtraction is bad because it's not. 5-3 =/= 3-5

I found it really easy to figure out characters' attack bonuses once, then just add to 20 in play.

Absolutely. I'm not adverse to converting AC to ascending and thac0 to BAB on the fly to use old material and save everyone the hassle of dealing with THAC0, I just find it hilarious how much people gripe about simple subtraction. Hit matrix is clearly the best though. No math at all.

# ? Oct 6, 2014 21:52

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

gradenko_2000 posted:

Magic-Users able to store extra level 1 spells in their staves and simplifying most rolls to d6's.

Ive used variations on that before and its worked out well for the early levels.

The one I remember best was the junior wiz was aided by his mentor in making a final gift staff (~story stuff~) and in the end it could store two spells that were fixed by type, but rechargable at the same rate as memorization. (He was a new player and chose shield and magic missile because (~obvious reasons~). I was using the "It takes 15 minutes to memorize a spell per spell level" gimmick so its easy for a low level mage to regain their juice after a fight, but a pain in the rear end for a high level one that is wasteful. (So 3 first level spells for the 2staff+1memorized = 45 mins. One 4th level spell = 60 mins. Etc..)

# ? Oct 7, 2014 01:30

Libertad!: Oct 30, 2013; You can have the last word, but I'll have the last laugh!

gradenko_2000 posted:

2. Saving throws - anyone know how Swords and Wizardry merged them into a single value?

Basically Swords & Wizardry has a single "Saving Throw" that you roll whenever something bad is about to happen to your character is threatened with something, and you have a chance to lessen or negate its effect. Magic charm spell, dragon's breath weapon, poison, all those use the single Saving Throw. Naturally, some classes gain a +2 bonus to the Saving Throw target number against certain effects (Magic-Users vs. spells, for example).

When you roll a Saving Throw, you roll a D20 and try to get under the listed value. So if your Saving Throw is 10, you must get a 10 or less on the die (or 12 or less if it's something your class is particularly resistant towards).

# ? Oct 7, 2014 03:43

CountingWizard: Jul 6, 2004

Libertad! posted:

Basically Swords & Wizardry has a single "Saving Throw" that you roll whenever something bad is about to happen to your character is threatened with something, and you have a chance to lessen or negate its effect. Magic charm spell, dragon's breath weapon, poison, all those use the single Saving Throw. Naturally, some classes gain a +2 bonus to the Saving Throw target number against certain effects (Magic-Users vs. spells, for example).

When you roll a Saving Throw, you roll a D20 and try to get under the listed value. So if your Saving Throw is 10, you must get a 10 or less on the die (or 12 or less if it's something your class is particularly resistant towards).

I think he was asking more about why and how they decided to replace the multiple saving throw numbers with a single number; the save bonuses aren't the same.

# ? Oct 7, 2014 06:51

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

CountingWizard posted:

I think he was asking more about why and how they decided to replace the multiple saving throw numbers with a single number; the save bonuses aren't the same.

Yes, that's it - what was the basis for it. Averaging them all out or just taking the save vs spells category was what came to mind intuitively, but I haven't really dug deep enough into how the saves are/were assigned in the first place to know if that'd come out the same.

# ? Oct 7, 2014 07:14

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

gradenko_2000 posted:

Yes, that's it - what was the basis for it. Averaging them all out or just taking the save vs spells category was what came to mind intuitively, but I haven't really dug deep enough into how the saves are/were assigned in the first place to know if that'd come out the same.

Its probably worth having at least two saves, so that magic and physical have different save aptitudes. Save vs poison/falling is different than charm/magic-lightning.

# ? Oct 7, 2014 07:20

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Thanks by the way for all the advice about encounters and THAC0/BAB.

I recall stumbling upon a post once about designing megadungeons using flowcharts and fractals: there were something like 4-6 different flowchart templates (one node branching out to three, four nodes in sequence, a node with a side-node, etc.) and you just rolled to create the new section/set of rooms. Does that ring any bells?

# ? Oct 7, 2014 14:26

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

It might be this in chart form as it originally appeared in the 1e DMG: http://blogofholding.com/randomdungeonmap/

# ? Oct 7, 2014 14:43

neonchameleon: Nov 14, 2012

Babylon Astronaut posted:

BAB = 20-THAC0. Also, THAC0 - target's AC = number needed to hit, and for the player to know what AC they hit: Attack roll - THAC0 = AC hit. Just use a hit matrix though, it's faster. I don't agree with the folks that say adding 3 numbers and comparing it to 20 is easier than subtracting one from the other, but it's been said that subtracting numbers from 0 to 20 takes a math savant to do it fast enough to not stall out your game so I don't know.

It all depends on how good you are at arithmetic. Some fraction of the population is good enough that they never notice the speed difference (that includes you and me). Others really do find addition much faster than subtraction.

Rule of thumb: If you can't see a difference between two methods and others are saying one's much better than the other then use the one others prefer. Because you've said you have no significant preference.

# ? Oct 7, 2014 14:52

CountingWizard: Jul 6, 2004

gradenko_2000 posted:

Thanks by the way for all the advice about encounters and THAC0/BAB.

I recall stumbling upon a post once about designing megadungeons using flowcharts and fractals: there were something like 4-6 different flowchart templates (one node branching out to three, four nodes in sequence, a node with a side-node, etc.) and you just rolled to create the new section/set of rooms. Does that ring any bells?

Oh I left out that when you are creating a dungeon in OD&D it is obligatory that there be a possibility of running into seriously overpowered poo poo. Random encounter table should have at least one entry for roll on a separate table and see how hosed the party is against giant slug/dragons/hellhounds.

# ? Oct 7, 2014 15:09

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

neonchameleon posted:

It all depends on how good you are at arithmetic. Some fraction of the population is good enough that they never notice the speed difference (that includes you and me). Others really do find addition much faster than subtraction.

Rule of thumb: If you can't see a difference between two methods and others are saying one's much better than the other then use the one others prefer. Because you've said you have no significant preference.

I actually think the main issue is what dwarf74 said, you have to remember what order the numbers belong in. That turns very basic subtraction into something you need to memorize at best, and a logic puzzle at worst. I'm not great at math, I've just adjudicated thousands of hit rolls so it's burned into my brain everything that adds to 20. I'd agree with you except for one thing: sometimes using the method you prefer is actually more confusing because you are using older material and converting everything is an extra step in the math, your communication is hosed because you have to specify if you're talking about the number as printed or as converted, and you need to be consistent while reading the "wrong" numbers twists your brain around. In situations like that where everyone has let's say, a second edition AD&D player's handbook in front of them, it will probably be easier to just use descending AC. It's not better, but it is what it is. Usually my players don't have their own materials when I'm running the golden oldies so I can convert it for them on the fly and no one is the wiser.

And every one of those problems go away if you use a hit matrix!

Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Oct 7, 2014

# ? Oct 7, 2014 15:43

Ixjuvin: Aug 8, 2009; if smug was a motorcycle, it just jumped over a fucking canyon; Nap Ghost

I'm finally adding a for-reals character to my friendly local AD&D 1e game and because I'm some sort of idiot masochist I'm rolling up a psionicist. My immediate problem seems to be keeping track of spending and gaining ~320 loving psionic strength points. Since I'm the last man on the eastern seaboard without a smartphone that is sadly not an option. Do you guys know of any really good physical counter type widgets or am I going to be forced to use a pile of tokens

# ? Oct 9, 2014 15:06

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

A row counter or tally counter would probably work. You can get one for ~5 bucks.

Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Oct 9, 2014

# ? Oct 9, 2014 15:20

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

Or, since you're a gamer, 3d10.

E: if you're worried about knocking them over then all the cool people are using an abacus.

# ? Oct 9, 2014 15:35

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

I'm 6 sessions into the TAAC campaign now and we're even picking up a 3rd player. I tried my hand at making a dungeon - I used donjon to generate the rooms and the physical lay-out, the Basic set's instructions to determine room contents (roll d6 to check if it's empty, trapped, monsters, or special, roll again to see if treasure is present), and then D&D Basic Monster and Treasure Assortment Sets One-Three to generate the actual monster packs and treasures. It seems to work decently well.

Is there anything I can refer to for random (empty) room descriptions and what to put in "Special" rooms?

# ? Oct 9, 2014 15:37

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

The ruins of undermountain box set has a good table for empty rooms. You can probably get it on the cheap, the cards are good for stuff like this. It has a table for sounds, smells, and things. The random things table rules because it lets the players pick up worthless poo poo that they think up a reason to have like a rusted spike, or a piece of chain, or straw, or broken pottery, or god knows what useless crap you randomly put on the floor. The smells is good, because smell is one of the most ignored senses in room descriptions to the point that whatever you say, they'll think is important. Sounds is instant hook that you can tie into other things you roll up. Make a list for each of sounds, smells, and things and roll. You'll get a pretty decent room description. When I do random generation, what makes my life easier is reverse justifying things. If my players think something is happening, or have a theory, surprise, they just did my work without knowing it.

Special rooms are set pieces.

Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Oct 9, 2014

# ? Oct 9, 2014 15:40

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Babylon Astronaut posted:

The ruins of undermountain box set has a good table for empty rooms. You can probably get it on the cheap, the cards are good for stuff like this. It has a table for sounds, smells, and things. Make a list for each of sounds, smells, and things and roll. You'll get a pretty decent room description. When I do random generation, what makes my life easier is reverse justifying things. If my players think something is happening, or have a theory, surprise, they just did my work without knowing it.

Thanks, I'll check that out.

And yeah, the players coming up with their own suspicions is something I use a lot. The Fighter believes Orcs took the farmer's cattle ... so they did. The Wizard feels like all the undead-themed decor is the work of a Vampire ... so it is. Only a dragon would construct such an elaborate dungeon ... campaign-end-boss right there. The room description included moss and slime and they both ask me if it's flammable. Yup, it is, so they chuck their torches in and kill the Carrion Crawler without a fight.

# ? Oct 9, 2014 15:56

ascendance: Feb 19, 2013

aldantefax posted:

Aside from OtspIII, has anybody tried their hand at making a from-scratch hexcrawl setting for ACKS using the rules in the Secrets chapter? I have some vacation time coming up and I think rather than go outside and enjoy having some time off I'm going to give that a go just to see how practical it is.

I'm actually using ACKS to generate the setting for my D&D Next campaign, and I'm going to try and run things using a ACKS style economy and see where that leads me.

Seems like there's a crazy amount of GP in the ACKS economy, though. Thinking of doing a bunch of dividing by 10 to create more manageable numbers.

Edit: but I am running a highly inflationary economy based on the late Ottoman Empire, so I'm just going to keep the big numbers and see where it leads.

# ? Oct 10, 2014 19:27

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Are there any guide(line)s on monster/encounter creation for BECMI/RC and its derivatives? Like, what the Hit Dice, AC, attack and damage of a monster of any given level should be, or ideally also including the encounter size of a party for any given level?

While I know there's more than enough material out there to just pull encounters from with the proper refluffing, I was thinking if maybe someone had come up with something like "MM3 on an index card" or the 13th Age monster creation rules.

# ? Oct 20, 2014 19:25

hectorgrey: Oct 14, 2011

Honestly, I'd suggest going with your gut, remembering that if it feels a little too powerful, it's probably about right.

# ? Oct 20, 2014 20:34

OtspIII: Sep 22, 2002

gradenko_2000 posted:

Are there any guide(line)s on monster/encounter creation for BECMI/RC and its derivatives? Like, what the Hit Dice, AC, attack and damage of a monster of any given level should be, or ideally also including the encounter size of a party for any given level?

While I know there's more than enough material out there to just pull encounters from with the proper refluffing, I was thinking if maybe someone had come up with something like "MM3 on an index card" or the 13th Age monster creation rules.

This would be a pretty cool thing to figure out. I can't really search right now, but I bet there's a blog out there somewhere that figured out the average damage of creatures of various HDs.

That said, 'party of a given level' is super hard to balance for. A party where everyone is at half HP and has used half their spells is (kind of, close enough) basically at the same power level as a party half their level. Also, it really depends on how many players you have in a session--a four-man group is going to work way different than a ten-man one, and both are kind of expected by the rules.

A guide to monster distribution by level would be super cool, but it'd also be way more complicated than in, like, 4e, and would have to be done by level/session rather than by encounter to even be as useful as "CR".

# ? Oct 21, 2014 03:36

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

You could use wandering monster tables to get a rough estimate. The asterisk system will tell you proportionally special abilities add to difficulty. And damage won't be hard to find out, because you know the level of weapon mastery a npc has at each hit die. That should give you a good start.

# ? Oct 21, 2014 03:42

Sloppy Milkshake: Nov 9, 2004; I MAKE YOU HUMBLE

OtspIII posted:

This would be a pretty cool thing to figure out. I can't really search right now, but I bet there's a blog out there somewhere that figured out the average damage of creatures of various HDs.

That said, 'party of a given level' is super hard to balance for. A party where everyone is at half HP and has used half their spells is (kind of, close enough) basically at the same power level as a party half their level. Also, it really depends on how many players you have in a session--a four-man group is going to work way different than a ten-man one, and both are kind of expected by the rules.

A guide to monster distribution by level would be super cool, but it'd also be way more complicated than in, like, 4e, and would have to be done by level/session rather than by encounter to even be as useful as "CR".

This is actually a really neat idea. Setting up a "session" budget of roughly equal level fights that you pull from semi-randomly. You'd need to have some expected DPS and such calculations and to make some considerations for various special abilities, but it seems like a plausible thing to develop. You'd just need some guidelines for going over the expected level of the group (like if the party of level 1s deliberately goes searching for an ogre den or something).

# ? Oct 21, 2014 04:27

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 5, 2024 13:32

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

OtspIII posted:

That said, 'party of a given level' is super hard to balance for. A party where everyone is at half HP and has used half their spells is (kind of, close enough) basically at the same power level as a party half their level.

You also need to know you group. If they are cautious then you can push-pull them a bit, if they are video game "forward until death" types then you have to baby them (or make new characters a lot).

# ? Oct 21, 2014 10:02

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Older D&D and Retroclone Thread: From OD&D To 4E

«‹›101 »