Hexcrawl Review: Judges Guild Ready Reference Sheets

Next up: The Judges Guild Ready Reference Sheets. The system, or rather systems, are actually geared towards modifying terrain at a subhex level (0.20 miles.) It assumes that a large-scale map (like the JG Wilderlands map) is being used. The intention is not to generate new terrain, but to generate obstacles to movement through pre-defined hexes.

This means I needed a tweak to generate a 5-hex diameter sample map. Since the obstacle tables are sorted into General, Hills, Mountains, and Sea, I assumed those as four elevations and rolled a d6 for the relative elevation of each hex: 1= lower, 6= higher.

The ref sheets have a wider variety of features that can be placed in a hex, but when used on the two-league hex scale, they don't produce a high enough density. For example, items added to the sample map were an islet off the coast, a mound in the central hex, a dip or depression in the hills to the southeast of the mound, ruins in the hills next to the sea, stakes set in the ground three hexes to the south, and a brook in the southwest of the map. A couple features couldn't be easily pictured, and I did not try out the hydrographic features table to plot out the course of the brook.

I did not use every table available; there are very detailed tables to describe the ruins, for example.

Pros: Very detailed, and details are logically linked to hex type. Includes open sea as a terrain type.

Cons: Perhaps too complicated for improv exploration. Won't generate basic terrain without tweaking. Generates very few forests, swamps, etc. Relies on GM input for many things, which may be a problem if the GM is turning to the tools for ideas. Slow.

Animal Intelligence

The Judges Guild Ready Reference Sheets are, as far as I know, the first D&D product to talk about monster intelligence in a systematic way. That is, books like Monsters & Treasure or Greyhawk may mention how intelligent a monster is in the description, but there is no attempt to do this for most monsters, and there is no translation of this into actual game rules; it's just in the description to enable the GM to role-play the creature.

The reference sheets have an actual table that sorts monsters into Unintelligent, Semi-Intelligent, and Intelligent, with a numeric range for each and a note on a few Intelligent monsters to indicate they are actually very intelligent. I'm of two mind about the Int scores: I'm OK with giving numeric equivalents for the purpose of judging some situations, but I emphasize in the games I run that Int scores are an abstract comparison. An Int 3 character is not a moron, incapable of speech or reason, unless a player chooses to play the character that way. So, I prefer using the same 3-18 scale for all creatures, but with Unintelligent, Semi-Intelligent, or Intelligent as a descriptive modifier.

However, on the good side, the JG rules only seem to apply to two situations: disbelieving illusions, and determining monster behavior. For all intents and purposes, an unintelligent creature is just a creature that always attacks when threatened or hungry, while other creatures will try to capture inferior opponents and intelligent creatures will try to avoid superior forces. This may explain some oddities in the table: bugbears are listed as Unintelligent, like a purple worm, and a large grey ooze is listed as Semi-Intelligent, like all the other humanoids. Hydras are listed as Intelligent; is that because they are capable of speech and rational thought, or only because they can judge the threat level of opponents and avoid the fights they are likely to lose? Do grey oozes occasionally capture opponents, to store in a larder?

Judges Guild Ready Reference Sheets

As I mentioned a while back, I recently bought the Judges Guild Ready Reference Sheets. And I've spent the last couple week reading the sheets for the first time ever.

Some people have called the Ready Reference Sheets "the DMG for OD&D," and in one very literal sense, it is. Judges Guild had official permission to reprint some items from TSR books, so the sheets include combat and saving throw tables from Men & Magic, the weapon vs. armor class tables from Greyhawk, and pretty much every D&D monster to date, including some from the Strategic Review. The monster listings are in an unusually small font, which is one complaint I have about the product: they change the font size in several places solely for the purpose of fitting them on one page, without any regard for usability. I can't read the monster listings without a magnifying glass. And these aren't the worst: the treasure type table, which takes up a 6" x 9" page in Monsters & Treasure, takes up only 1" x 3" here.

The Ready Reference Sheets are also a "DMG" in the sense of being an eclectic mix of miscellaneous rules and tables for specific situations, some so specific that they may not arise very often -- but when they do, you're ready for them. A good portion of the rules are more fiddly than I personally prefer, and there's some bonus inflation creeping in: the magic item creation tables include +5 weapons and armor, for example. And the magic item tables also suffer in that they reduce the manufacture times dramatically: 4 weeks for a +1 sword seems far too short.

There are a couple abbreviations that are unclear. For example, the social level tables include two columns labeled "LVL GL" and "Carried Gold GL". The social rules also use this abbreviation, but it is never explained directly. In a completely different section of the rules, however, there is an indirect definition: the rules for limited wishes state that they cannot be applied to "starred GLs", and the accompanying table has starred items in a column labeled "General Guideline". So, "GL" probably means "guideline".

On the other hand, there are weird little items buried in a couple table entries that are intriguing. The tables of sharks, sea monsters, and fish are a little too detailed for what are, mechanically, mostly the same creature. But the kraken is listed as having six heads and 1d6 tentacles; the sunfish has "telepathic emotions" (does it project emotions, or does it sense emotions of others? Either way, that's an unusual fish.) There's a list unique trees in the tables for mapping wilderness areas, too.

I don't think I'd use much of the Ready Reference Sheets as-is, but there are many inspiring bits, and several sections I want to adapt into my own versions. For example, I may do something with social class, creating what I would consider to be a simpler, quicker approach. I've already done something similar with the posts on poison damage and poison effects. I may also investigate the random dungeon/cave generation tables to see how they compare to other random systems; The JG random dungeon table is the only one I'm aware of that distinguishes the physical construction of a level based on the creature that built it.

I'm sure I'll be returning to the topic soon.

Poison Effects

I talked a little bit about the Judges Guild poisons and how I would change them to get away from using a table. However, the JG poisons also have additional effects on a failed save, beyond mere damage. The three main effects are:

1. Illness: Unconscious most of the time, limited movement the rest of the time. There's no guideline here for determining consciousness, so I'd require a 5+ on a 1d6 roll to remain conscious for 1d6 rounds.
2. Paralyzed: Conscious and unable to act. I think I'd ruled that the character can still speak, with difficulty. Otherwise, there'd be little practical difference.
3. Coma: Unconscious and unable to act.

There are also two minor effects, Half Move and Half Action, that only occur in a couple places.

I tried to work out some kind of pattern in the table, but then I realized that, aside from the first three poisons listed, we're dealing with fantasy poisons, so we could just reassign the poison effects in a better pattern to eliminate the table completely. Divide the HD of the creature by 3 to get a quotient and remainder. Quotient 0 means the poison only affects man-sized creatures or smaller. If the quotient is 1 or higher, the remainder tells us which effect the poison has (1 = Ill, 2 = Paralyzed, 0 = Coma.) Add the quotient and the remainder and subtract 2 to find the effect on ogre-sized creatures; subtract 3 to find the effect on dragon-sized creatures.

Poison Types

I've been reading the JG Ready Reference Sheets, which I'll be reviewing eventually, but I sussed out a particular pattern in their poison table. Unlike the default old-school approach, JG poisons do not cause instant death; instead, they are arranged in a table as poison types 0 through 9 and each does a set damage per round for an equal number of rounds. There's also a bonus effect (illness, paralysis, or coma, in most cases.)

I tend to shy away from highly specific tables, preferring stuff I can memorize or easily adapt from one or two multi-purpose tables, so I had a negative reaction to this table when I first saw it. I still wasn't sold when I noticed that the poison type, damage, and # rounds were all identical, and the delay before onset was 10 minus the poison type.

But then I checked the listed monsters against their monster compendium and discovered: poison type = HD of monster (except for purple worms.) This means you really only have to worry about the bonus effect on a failed save.

I may want to address that in a future post, but the basic concept seems worth adopting: poisons are still dangerous, especially from wyverns or purple worms, but it's not a save or die roll.