Some Combat House Rules for The Hero's Journey

After messing around with The Hero's Journey, in thinking about how combat is handled with a mixture of deflective (AC) and reductive (reduction value). The book includes some optional rules for GMs who find reduction value gets in the way of conflict resolution, but I felt you could do this with a bit more nuance. Here's three rules I would suggest to improve the combat experience in THJ:

Critical Hits

If a PC or foe roll a natural 20 on their attack roll, they get a critical hit. They may do one of the following with a critical hit:

Deal damage directly, bypassing armor
Deal 1 point of damage directly to the armor (permanently reducing it; armor with a RV reaching 0 is useless)
Automatically deal maximum damage with their roll

This option lets foes damage armor, bypass armor and also choose maximum damage against unarmored opponents. Just remember that they only get one option!

Parrying

If you can absorb damage with armor in THJ, then why not also parry attacks? If you are wielding a weapon and you want to parry, then make an attack roll against the target number your foe rolled. If you roll higher than the final attack roll (with modifiers) then you may roll the damage value of your weapon, convert it to reduction value, and reduce the total by that amount.

Under this system, while using the crit rule above, you can damage weapons used to block you or bypass them on the crit. If you deal damage to a weapon, it loses 1 point of RV, which is equal to the average of it's damage roll, rounded up. So a two-handed sword, with 2D6 damage, has a RV of 7 for purposes of damage dealt to the weapon. You record this as a "-1" and each time you try parrying again with the weapon you roll the parry value and subtract this total. If the damage on the weapon increases, note it as -2, -3, etc. until it reaches the maximum RV based on the average roll, at which time the weapon breaks.

Daggers under this system have a special deflection property: they roll 1D6+1 for determining RV rather than the actual damage roll of 1D6-1.

You could also treat shields like this. Give bucklers a RV 1, regular small shields an RV 3 and larger shields an RV 5. You have to choose to parry with the shield if you so choose, and like weapons they can be targeted and damaged.

Sundering

Sundering becomes a specific option under these rules. You can elect to bypass attacking your opponent and aim for his shield, armor or weapon. In these cases the attack roll is aimed at sundering the protection of the defender. Sundering attacks are always at a -2 penalty. A normal success that is not parried will result in the attacker rolling damage against the armor, shield or weapon.If the total damage is higher than the RV of the targeted piece of gear, it's RV is reduced by 1.  So an orc with a 2D6 two-handed sword decided to sunder the paladin in plate, targets the armor, and deals 12 damage. The paladin fails to parry and is hit....7 points are aimed at the armor, and the plate armor goes from RV 5 to RV 4.

Sundering is a declared attack, and because it targets gear it does not deal HP damage to the target.

Fumbles

On a natural "1" on the roll, a critical failure, the GM can rule that one possibility of the fumble is that the RV of a parrying or attacking weapon is reduced by 1.

Repairing Armor

It costs 10 GP per RV and 1D6 hours for a blacksmith to hammer out and repair armor, weapons and shields to reduce damage. Bows, wooden shields and leather armor may require different specialists to repair, and may not be worth the cost.

Damaging Magical Armor and Weapons

GMs can rule that magical arms and armor cannot be damaged, but a more realistic method is to declare that they get a saving throw. Anytime a piece of armor, shield or weapon would take damage, and it is magical, it adds its magical modifier to a saving throw, with a target number of 10. If the magical gear rolls 10 or better then it is undamaged. Repairing magical armor requires special skills and typically is 100 GP per RV fixed, and takes 2D6 hours.

Creatures with Natural or Magical Armor 

If the GM rules that the natural armor is the source of the RV, then the RV cannot be reduced. Alternatively, RV can be reduced but all extra damage rolled is delivered to the target. Magically granted RV should not be possible to reduce (due to spell or nature of supernatural entity) in most cases. A lycanthrope, for example, is naturally resistant to damage but also does not take any damage from unsilvered weapons. In this case, I would rule that the RV of the werewolf can't be reduced.....unless a silvered weapon is used to sunder.

The Hero's Journey: A Look at Character Creation and Rules Differences

Last year James Spahn produced his own OSR fantasy game, "The Hero's Journey." It was a really nice looking book with an evocative cover designed to remind older gamers of those classic Tolkien novel covers, with a simple, stylized depiction of a pastoral fantasy realm, each layer of the image suggesting more mystery and adventure just over the horizon.

Since then I have been waiting for more of "The Hero's Journey" content but James is only one man, and he's got lots on his plate. I thought I'd take some time to explore this game, which has some very interesting twists to it. I figured exploring character generation might be one good way to talk about this system, so here goes....

I decided to roll up a random PC and ended up with a half-elven wizard. I’ll talk system after the stat block…

Name: Cahrain Desmedre

Race: Half-Elf male

Class: Wizard; Level 1; XP 0

Profession: forester; Alignment: neutral

Strength 14

Dexterity 15 (+1)(improves AAC)

Constitution 9

Intelligence 15 (+1) (5 bonus languages; extra 1st level spell slot)

Willpower 16 (+1)

Charisma 13

Appearance 9

Luck 10

HP: 6, HD 1; BHB +0; ST 15; AAC 11

Half-Elven Traits: martial amateur (long sword), Arcane Dabbler (charm person 3/day), fast learner (+5% XP), star sight

Wizard Abilities: magical awareness (detect magic at will); spell casting (2 1^st level slots/day), +2 save vs. magic

Languages: common (Middle Tongue), elvish, orcish, Southron Tongue, Old Tongue, deep speech

Spell Book: read magic, arcane dart

Gear: simple clothes, backpack, 60 GP, long sword (1D6 dmg),

Notes on Character Generation:

Stats: THJ has eight stats, renames wisdom as willpower, then adds appearance and luck. The luck stat has some interesting extra mechanics….if you are lucky, that is! Stat generation is not based on D&D conventions and in fact each race has a different range of dice to roll. In our half elf example, above, each stat was 3D6 except for charisma and appearance which were 2D6+6. (Yes, I rolled poorly.)

Professions: THJ adds in professions, which are not unlike a more detailed version of the background trade from AD&D 1E. You roll, get a short list of things you can do with it, and your starting gear. This is a nice touch and something I’d be tempted to port over for use in any OSR game.

Classes:  I went for a conventional class, but THJ has a dozen interesting options including some weird ones like jester, duelist, cavalier and acrobat. These are all reminiscent of older AD&D classes from the early eighties, introduced in Dragon Magazine, but their versions here cleanly reskin them for the more basic conceptual turf of S&W.

Tweaks in Hit Die and AC Mechanics: THJ does interesting things with hit dice, hit point caps and armor. Armor now has a reduction value, which does not improve your AC (or AAC if you prefer ascending AC), but instead is a damage reduction value….so plate mail, for example, reduces attacks by 5 points. Armor class is still improved by shields, though, which grant an AC bonus (as a deflection bonus). This is an impressive -2 for a buckler and a whopping -8 for a large shield. By simply virtue of mechanical integrity it strongly enforces the idea that all fighters in THJ will be sword-and-board guys hiding behind large shields.

Hit points now only roll for the first three levels and starting at level 4 all advancement is a small static number (typically +1 or +2). For our sample young wizard above, that means he could at most hope for 17 hit points by level 7 (the cap for half elves)….as wizards only get +1 HP at level 2 and +1D6 at level 3, then it’s +1 per level after that. A fighter’s top bonus, assuming a CON of 18, could be a max of 39, however, so the wizard doesn’t seem too poorly off here.

The hit point thing seems interesting because it doesn’t look like the monsters took much of a hit on their hit dice, with most having plenty of dice to roll. This is S&W White Box inspired however, so monster hit dice are rolled on D6s, but a hill giant with 8 hit dice is still going to average 28 hit points.

Level Caps: THJ keeps level caps in place. Each race has a listing of what level caps and allowances are available….the system is designed to go only to tenth level however, so many of these limits aren’t so bad. The level caps did make more sense in AD&D where the non-human races at least had the option of multi-classing, something not discussed here.

Oddities: when rolling up the sample PC I opted for wizard because the minimum intelligence to be a wizard is 15, which seemed like a squandered opportunity if I didn’t go for it. That said, the wizard’s starting allotment of spells and spell slots is a little vague in detail. I assume that the spells per level on the wizard chart is how many slots he gets, since that info must be listed somewhere, right? But then that means he gains….how many spells at first level? From the text I am unable to determine this. It’s almost like adhering to tradition, as I recall in AD&D 1E and 2E both finding out how many spells your magic-user started with was never in the section (or book) you’d expect it to be.

Although I like the concept of armor which absorbs damage, I think the system doesn’t go far enough….what about parrying rules, or deflection rules? If you are going to add in this distinction, then it is worth considering what it means for other components of the game. That said, just getting plate (which absorbs 5 damage points) makes your fighter terrifying against most foes if they roll a typical 1D6 for attack damage. Sidebar rules offer some options for GMs who experience trouble here.

I’m still trying to decide if a fighter under this system would benefit more from the extra die of damage a two-handed sword does (2D6) vs. just taking a long sword and large shield (1D6 damage but you gain a whopping AAC 18).

Alignment: THJ focuses on the law/neutrality/axis order of 0E D&D/S&W. There are a few paragraphs on this which after reading over a bit I felt were saying, “most people are neutral, but a few aren’t.”

So as you can see, from looking at the character generation side of THJ there are a lot of quirks and tweaks that would strip the title of “retroclone” from THJ but keep it squarely in the “OSR camp” anyway. I like a lot of the ideas presented here, and think that the most interesting ideas include the luck stat, the damage reduction value of armor and the weird but clever way of restricting character hit points. I am not sure how it would play out yet….my gut tells me the weak HP structure for PCs coupled with the boundless changes for the monsters would make the game feel both deadlier and more difficult, but this may be a desired result.

The book is a pretty complete package, with over 120 monsters and a robust array of magic items on offer, and just enough GM advice not to feel anemic. I am not sure if I would grab it up and run it over, say, S&W White Box, but there is definitely a lot more flavor and many more options in TSJ than there is in its predecessors. It states it's S&W White Box compatible, too....and for the most part it definitely is (you could use monsters and modules with ease).

If James produces more for THJ down the road I will be intrigued to see where he takes it. I'd like to see something with rules for multi-classing options for humanoids, parrying options for weapons, and more depth of design similar to the professions option in character generation.

Silly Lulu: Print on Demand Disaster Tales of Fun -- The Hero's Journey RPG's first supplement is...a family recipe book?

This is the most amusing printing error I've ever seen. In Lulu's recent big sale I picked up (again, despite my proclamation not to) many more books, including Barrel Rider Games' The Hero's Journey, which for those of you not familiar with it is a Swords & Wizardry hack that adds some unique flavor into your 0E-inspired gaming. The tome is 196 pages....or it should be.....

....but mine not only contains the entire game itself, but another 100 pages of someone's personal family recipes!!!!

I'm inquiring with Lulu about whether they are now doing surprise "two books in one" deals or if they wouldn't mind just giving me the book--and only the book--I actually wanted. But I feel a teensy bit bad for this as I'm imagining somewhere Bryan is wondering where his family recipes are...or worse, yet, wondering what "Hero's Journey" is!

Anyway, if you haven't heard of Hero's Journey yet go over to rpgnow.com and get a free copy right here. It's pretty neat...and the print edition is full color and very nice looking! You may even get a free bonus cook book for your...ah...hero's journey.