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gradenko_2000 posted:This is a rough draft of some ideas I'd been bouncing around in my head for giving OSR Magic-Users some 4E-style at-will and encounter powers. Is this in addition to dailies, or replacing dailies?
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Dec 19, 2014 03:18
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gradenko_2000 posted:The problem I'm seeing is that of scaling: if a spell targets AC, a Magic-User is going to be +2 attack behind a Fighter by Name level, and +6 attack behind a Fighter by level 20. Granted, 10% less chance to hit by the point where most campaigns peter out maybe isn't that bad a deal. gradenko_2000 posted:Also, if the distance or targeting definition in the spells seems rather vague, I did intentionally write it that way with a mind towards an abstract [Ranged > Melee Scrum < Ranged] behavior.
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Dec 19, 2014 03:20
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FRINGE posted:If youre going to do this make sure their "never runs out" ability is worse than a thrown dagger, which they also have but have to actually carry as a limited resource. I don't know that I would make it worse than a dagger as long as it was still worse than the average 'at-will' move of every other class. Of course, by better than a thrown dagger I mean exactly like a thrown dagger except you don't have to stuff a pile of pointy things into your pack. Definitely the mage should make attack rolls for at-wills because if they are getting bored tossing rocks every turn they'll get bored even faster just telling you how much damage they do and to who each turn.
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Dec 19, 2014 03:38
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I'm thinking about a hexcrawl game on the seas (similar to like, Etrian Odyssey 3). Are there any retroclones out there that have a nautical focus, or should I just freewheel it and estimate based on various source material like GURPS Swashbucklers and the like?
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Dec 19, 2014 05:47
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gradenko_2000 posted:This is a rough draft of some ideas I'd been bouncing around in my head for giving OSR Magic-Users some 4E-style at-will and encounter powers. It came about because as I was rolling up a random dungeon using the B/X tables, it occurred to me that a level 1 MU might find this place deeply unsatisfying because he'd just be hurling rocks after his one spell (not exactly a huge revelation, I know). As well, it steers the MU away from being able to handle all sorts of utility. I'm firmly in the camp of believing that magic users shouldn't have at will spells. Combat isn't the solution to everything, and giving them unlimited combat ability changes the group dynamic. In the b/x|LBB 0e game I run, the fighting-men and thieves start trouble the most and usually look to start a fight, while my clerics and magic-users think things out and try to parley or make the best use of strategy and caution. Giving magic users unlimited or even more combat ability to start out with just encourages people to play them as just another dps class. People have different preferred play styles and if you want to be a Magic-User you need to have patience and ingenuity. If they're bored as a magic user they should be a different class.
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Dec 19, 2014 06:32
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DalaranJ posted:Is this in addition to dailies, or replacing dailies? FRINGE posted:One 2e option is to let the mage use [missile] of whatever as an alternate weapon (throwing daggers were popular with our groups) and let spells be memorized based on level vs time. I used 15 game minutes to memorize one spell level. That lets the player(s) have to prioritize what they save and what they rememorize, without ever completely running them dry. Theres always an excuse for a 30-60 min rest/bandage/eat break in-character. When they get the higher-level spells then those become much more of a limited commodity. FRINGE posted:If youre going to do this make sure their "never runs out" ability is worse than a thrown dagger, which they also have but have to actually carry as a limited resource. And I would definitley make it a to-hit roll. It will get tedious for you to roll saves every time the mage sneezes. DalaranJ posted:I don't know that I would make it worse than a dagger as long as it was still worse than the average 'at-will' move of every other class. Of course, by better than a thrown dagger I mean exactly like a thrown dagger except you don't have to stuff a pile of pointy things into your pack.
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Dec 19, 2014 07:29
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Personally I'm in favor of At-Will spells for magical classes(the other solution being increasing the amount of normal spells they start out with), although most of them should deal 1d4 damage or less, and shouldn't do more than 1d6 damage at least at early levels(by Domain levels they could probably be given more of a bump)
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Dec 19, 2014 08:12
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Most of the games I've been running recently have been for people who have never played a RPG before in their lives, and it's definitely biasing me towards streamlining things and giving people way more liberties when it comes to little cool flourishes that don't really change game mechanics. Letting people who want to play wizards the ability to throw little darts of magic instead of daggers really does up certain types of new players' fun, while not really having much of a downside. Pretty much the only thing I can think of is that you can't disarm someone of a memorized spell, but even with that you could just say they need a physical focus to use the ability. I think D&D in general could use wizards having a bit more to do at level one and way way less to do at level ten.
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Dec 19, 2014 09:25
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Yes, Macris and Tito may be a couple of shitlords. However, you should just skip ACKS because of its other problems. People want to play OSR games because they are fun and lighter than later D&D iterations. ACKS instead bolts on an overly complex skill and proficiency system, with no delineation between non-combat and combat proficiencies, and grants each class its own highly variable rate of proficiency acquisition. The flip side of this problem is that the combat proficiencies have incredibly minor effects for the most part. Stuff like, +1 to hit, or you now crit on a natural 20. You pretty much get lovely 3e feats, rather than something cool, like BECMI style weapon mastery. Basically, you get an end product that is only slightly less groggy than 3e. That's more than enough to skip it.
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Dec 19, 2014 14:18
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CountingWizard posted:I'm firmly in the camp of believing that magic users shouldn't have at will spells. Combat isn't the solution to everything, and giving them unlimited combat ability changes the group dynamic.
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Dec 19, 2014 14:20
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Again, thanks for the input - what I ended up doing was to create an "attack roll + INT adjustment" magic attack on a 1d4 as a baseline, then scaled up from there. A 1d6 needs the MU to get up close and personal, an AOE is encounter-only, and so on. More ideas to come, but maybe if I get players past the B book to begin with.CountingWizard posted:I'm firmly in the camp of believing that magic users shouldn't have at will spells. Combat isn't the solution to everything, and giving them unlimited combat ability changes the group dynamic. I'm just going to say that it depends on the kind of game you're playing. B/X D&D as written isn't really anything more than combat, except if the DM includes the reaction rules, but even then it's all up to the roll of the dice and a Fighter could be the one negotiating with the Ogres to prevent an encounter if his 3d6-down-the-line attributes blessed him with sufficient Charisma. I mean, I'm not disagreeing with you that giving casters at-wills is going to encourage players to play as "I attack, I hit, killed the monster, next", but that's specifically the kind of game I was looking to run in the first place.
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Dec 19, 2014 14:29
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ascendance posted:People want to play OSR games because they are fun and lighter than later D&D iterations. ACKS instead bolts on an overly complex skill and proficiency system, with no delineation between non-combat and combat proficiencies, and grants each class its own highly variable rate of proficiency acquisition.
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Dec 19, 2014 15:50
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The RC is probably the best D&D thing ever. For one, it's one book for all your needs, even the ones you don't have because let's face it, no one ever even tried out that Immortals garbage.
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Dec 19, 2014 16:13
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Was there an Immortals module where the party ends up at a modern day (1980s) gas station? I clearly remember looking at that from when I was a kid, but that was so long ago now.
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Dec 19, 2014 18:40
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Yup. That was when your merry band of immortals goes looking for the essence of the five senses.
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Dec 19, 2014 23:13
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CountingWizard posted:I'm firmly in the camp of believing that magic users shouldn't have at will spells. Combat isn't the solution to everything, and giving them unlimited combat ability changes the group dynamic. Of course they try to avoid combat - once combat starts, there's nothing for them to do but throw harsh language.
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Dec 19, 2014 23:22
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Thief is bad. Just redistribute thief skills with the normal skill system. I currently run 2e with both general skills and special abilities, where being a thief means you always get an additional unopposed thief % roll for what would normally be an opposed task. It works pretty well. Anybody can sneak, climb, etc, but thieves always have that advantage.
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Dec 19, 2014 23:45
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OtspIII posted:giving people way more liberties when it comes to little cool flourishes that don't really change game mechanics. Letting people who want to play wizards the ability to throw little darts of magic instead of daggers really does up certain types of new players' fun, while not really having much of a downside.
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Dec 19, 2014 23:51
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Kemper Boyd posted:The RC is probably the best D&D thing ever. For one, it's one book for all your needs, even the ones you don't have because let's face it, no one ever even tried out that Immortals garbage.
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Dec 19, 2014 23:57
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I really need to revisit the RC. I lost my copy years ago before I got super familiar with it. My BECMI games were all run with the basic and expert sets, which honestly have more than enough rules to play a really fun game with when you're 11
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Dec 20, 2014 00:42
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I picked up the RC a couple of months ago and I can confirm that it's rad as hell.
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Dec 20, 2014 00:45
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Kemper Boyd posted:The RC is probably the best D&D thing ever. For one, it's one book for all your needs, even the ones you don't have because let's face it, no one ever even tried out that Immortals garbage.
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Dec 20, 2014 02:02
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ascendance posted:I just don't like racial classes. I don't. It annoys me on some level.
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Dec 20, 2014 02:11
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FRINGE posted:Same. 2e gave me all the fake-eco/econ/zoo/socio/myth/etc stuff I like too. (Mainly the FR and PS piles.) RC has rules to convert all your AD&D stuff.
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Dec 20, 2014 02:17
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PeterWeller posted:RC has rules to convert all your AD&D stuff.
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Dec 20, 2014 02:25
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ascendance posted:I just don't like racial classes. I don't. It annoys me on some level. Racial classes make tons of sense when you remember that it all came out of Basic, which was initially intended to be Your First D&D. Racial classes basically take everything "core" about the race and boil it down to a single class. Like, elves: what's their schtick? They fight and cast spells. Halflings are sneaky and good with slings. Dwarves are tough against magic and good with stone and are stout fighters. If the goal is to make a "simpler" D&D, then removing the whole race and multiclass part of it slims it down a fair amount.
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Dec 20, 2014 02:44
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I like racial classes. Picking a race based on synergy with your class sucks, wanting to play a race that sucks at your class sucks, and you can still call yourself whatever you want.
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Dec 20, 2014 03:30
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I'm looking over Scarlet Heroes, and I like it lots. I think it should be pretty simple to adapt for group play.
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Dec 20, 2014 03:57
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Babylon Astronaut posted:I like racial classes. Picking a race based on synergy with your class sucks, wanting to play a race that sucks at your class sucks, and you can still call yourself whatever you want. 
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Dec 20, 2014 03:58
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I have simple tastes. Dwarven priest to me is a priest. Scarlet Heroes is the bomb. It adapts to Labyrinth Lord, Dark Dungeons, B/x, Becmi, and probably OD&D.
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Dec 20, 2014 04:15
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Babylon Astronaut posted:I have simple tastes. Dwarven priest to me is a priest.
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Dec 20, 2014 04:18
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Confirming that Scarlet Heroes owns. Modifying it for multiple players should be as simple as either shifting back to hit points and/or dropping the Fray Die system. EDIT: And a DM section has a truckton of "make up a campaign on the fly" tables and guidelines.
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Dec 20, 2014 05:00
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Babylon Astronaut posted:I have simple tastes. Dwarven priest to me is a priest. Agree. I also allow crossover in the other direction. I admit it maybe a little confusing on the surface that your character can be a human 'elf', but I assure you that they studied very hard in order to learn infravision.
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Dec 20, 2014 07:23
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DalaranJ posted:your character can be a human 'elf', but I assure you that they studied very hard in order to learn infravision. 
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Dec 20, 2014 12:53
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Babylon Astronaut posted:I like racial classes. Picking a race based on synergy with your class sucks, wanting to play a race that sucks at your class sucks, and you can still call yourself whatever you want. If I was going to make a BD&D retroclone, I'd keep the base four classes, but change them for each race. So humans would be the "standard" fighter/cleric/magic-user/thief, but for the dwarf the classes would become something like tunnel fighter/stonespeaker/runecarver/mechanist, and they'd be different from the "standard" class. Does anyone have a link to a hexcrawl game in action? I understand how they work in theory and design, but I don't get how they're supposed to work in actual play.
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Dec 20, 2014 19:23
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Evil Mastermind posted:If I was going to make a BD&D retroclone, I'd keep the base four classes, but change them for each race. So humans would be the "standard" fighter/cleric/magic-user/thief, but for the dwarf the classes would become something like tunnel fighter/stonespeaker/runecarver/mechanist, and they'd be different from the "standard" class. I saw someone on rpg.net trying to do something like this. Three races, and three classes for each, so it basically comes down to: here is the caster/fighter/rogue for each race. It's called Tower of Adamant or something like that. He's been doing it on the design forum but occasionally threads about it pop into the TRO section. It seems like an interesting idea to me. Races are human, elf, dwarf, I think. Maybe he has plans to do more, I dunno. If you Google the title, maybe adding "rpg" on to your search terms, you will probably find a draft or two out there. He's been shifting between a d20 variant and dice pools and other things. Since I already started talking about this game I should add something interesting I saw in one or more of his drafts: resolution for tasks and such has a different roll depending on the circumstances. When there's no stress, it's like 2d10 or something, but in a stressful or high-drama situation, it becomes d20. I've seen a few other games try this out and the idea intrigues me because it mechanically represents some of the differences in certain scenes. It's the basis for why you roll things differently depending on context in all the Sine Nomine games (skills are 2d6, unless you are dealing with 2d8 for Scarlet Heroes traits; combat rolls and saving throws are d20, because those things are supposed to be more about chance and chaos and stuff).
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Dec 20, 2014 20:50
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Evil Mastermind posted:If I was going to make a BD&D retroclone, I'd keep the base four classes, but change them for each race. So humans would be the "standard" fighter/cleric/magic-user/thief, but for the dwarf the classes would become something like tunnel fighter/stonespeaker/runecarver/mechanist, and they'd be different from the "standard" class. I like having easy-picks available, but would still want to let players branch out on the ideas if they wanted to.
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Dec 20, 2014 21:14
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FRINGE posted:NOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Hey the Germans pulled it off in 1940, they just had their pilots eat lots of carrots.
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Dec 20, 2014 21:18
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gradenko_2000 posted:Hey the Germans pulled it off in 1940, they just had their pilots eat lots of carrots. I'm nearly sure you're being sarcastic here, but: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-...8812484/?no-ist
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Dec 20, 2014 21:52
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ProfessorCirno posted:Racial classes make tons of sense when you remember that it all came out of Basic, which was initially intended to be Your First D&D. Racial classes basically take everything "core" about the race and boil it down to a single class. Like, elves: what's their schtick? They fight and cast spells. Halflings are sneaky and good with slings. Dwarves are tough against magic and good with stone and are stout fighters. If the goal is to make a "simpler" D&D, then removing the whole race and multiclass part of it slims it down a fair amount. Don't forget that Basic also introduced new classes in books when it made sense - so the book about the country of the dwarves had Dwarven Priests, etc. This allows it to be an optional rule if you really want to have dwarves have their own special clerics.
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Dec 21, 2014 12:41
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