Orc, Hobgoblin, Wilderness

There are a couple of pending things to do ... secret societies, equipment lists ... but for now I thought I'd share a couple of silhouettes I came up with on the weekend ...

Samurai-based hobgoblin

Legionary/boar-based orc

Not unrelatedly, I also bought the pro version of Hexographer. Remember my wilderness icons and encounters system? I'm finally getting around to assembling enough of a collection, from Telecanter's and other sources, to be able to share a Hexographer icon set. Being able to add numbers with the "decorations" feature helps enormously.

Here's an initial look.

The numbers and letters on the side are plainer (and I've given up on dice icons), but each one tells you at a glance its activity times (day, night or any), range in hexes, number encountered and total numbers (where it's not one or infinite).

Level Titles as Money Sink

Level titles are cool. They give the same sense of achievement and specialness as the level titles of real-world secret societies: the Mithraic cult, the Freemasons, the Golden Dawn.

Advancement training costs suck. Why do you gain experience points from adventuring but then need some poncey sword instructor to validate your hit points? And wouldn't you rather come by 50 gold pieces while keep them, than 5000 gold pieces while knowing that in your GM's warped economy, most of that is going towards training costs?

But what if you paid money, not to level up your character, but to give him or her the cool level title?

Granted by a secret or not so secret hierarchical organization, level titles represent your social advancement by dint of your donation of loot to their worthy cause. As an adventuring member, not tied to any place but useful to the society, you can only have a level title equal to or less than your actual level.

Benefits from societies vary. One way to model this simply: having henchmen requires membership of one society or another. Other ideas: they can be approached for interest-free loans proportionate to the title, are a source of equipment and adventure opportunities, provide "death insurance" in the form of raise dead spells, are necessary to the ultimate endgame by giving land or political capital for the characters' stronghold.

At this point there are two ways to go:

1. Separate society choices for different character types and classes. One character rises in the Thieves' Guild, another in the Wizards' Academy, yet another in an order of knighthood.

2. The same society for all, an adventurers' freemasonry - perhaps with different titles for different professions, but without the party-dividing drawback.

I think the first option is more "realistic" but the second option has more game advantages. It binds the party together, removes the worry that one guild or cabal might be more advantageous than the other.

If I get enough response I'll whip up a sample adventurers' society that gives out level titles - the Order of St. Hermas.

Demonicpedia!

Need a demon quick?

Think I've seen you somewhere before

Sure, you could head to Appendix D and get something like a purple bison with moth antennae.

Or ....  head over to the Demonicpedia, which catalogues all demons from historical grimoires, claviculi, and folklore. Then your evil cultists can be invoking...

Lord of Swords and Eyeliner

Yeena-who?

... but peaceably

OK, they can't all be scary

One Page Settlements

This starts a series of pages on equipment and urban opportunities. The present page is a kind of master key that categorizes settlemenst and introduces the mechanics of availability; I've gone back to my weapon,armor and follower pages and worked up availability modifiers for those. Coming up are a couple of pages of equipment.

The one thing I'm happiest about is the repurposing of the urban encounter in terms of what is happening to the players, rather than "You have an encounter with a perfumed dandy and three linkboys" and so on. Reaction rolls can still make a difference, but this will be in terms of the conditions of what's proposed or offered. The modifiers mean that small fish in big ponds will mostly be dealing with peasants and lowlife, while any decent level party of adventurers will immediately start getting invitations (friendly or otherwise) from the authorities if they roll into a little village. I may also provide, later, an optional chart for determining exactly what kind of high or low citizen is involved in the encounter.

Undead Mussel Shells

A short note. These clacking monstrosities are the result of the persistent victimization of my nascent Dwarf Fortresses by a nearby dwarven necromancer and his gang, the Crewed Rags.

Emblematic of the procedural insanity in that game (as is, indeed, the very name "The Crewed Rags"), the logic is very simple. If a necromancer can raise the hard remains of any being into a living skeleton, then the remains of your shellfish feast are not safe ... and neither are you!

Indeed, those who cast Animate Dead near a kitchen garbage pail or close to yesterday's clambake are at risk for unleashing this horror on the world; truly a sight to chill the ... ah ... the cockles of the heart ...

UNDEAD SHELL SWARM

HD: 2
AC: 9 [10]
MV: 9
Attacks: Swarm, no need to roll a hit, damage 1d8/round, or 1d4 if wearing any armor.
Defenses: Smashing weapons do full damage, cutting 1/2 damage, piercing none.

Each 5' square of the swarm is a separate entity with its own hit points. The swarm is turned as a ghoul.

Luxury Shopping

Who says leather armor has to be cheap?

If the standard ratio of experience from monsters and treasures in most early versions of D&D tends to oversupply the characters with treasure, what can they spend it on that's satisfying?

Let's leave out the advice of Gygax in the DMG to soak the players with taxes and training fees - which turns the game into an unsatisfying caricature of bureaucratic capitalism, denying the players the freedom of a robber-baron frontier. What remains are two economic phases. In the first phase, players complete their character's acquisition of the best equipment available for adventuring. In the second phase, they get more ambitious and spend on things that establish them in the game world, ultimately leading up to a stronghold.

The problem in many rule sets is that phase 1 is very short, with an excess of treasure and a shortage of expensive things to buy.  We saw previously that in some rulesets, the amouint of coinage amassed getting to level 2 alone can buy several suits of plate armor. In my current games I've succumbed to the temptation to have a bigger and better equipment list. Potions of healing ("vitality" because they only restore the metaphysical character hit points rather than actual physical injury) can be had, reducing the absolute need to bring a "healer" along. Armor and weapons for a steep multiplier can be had in dwarven or elven steel, which  give limited bonuses, less than the magical versions of those things. Spellcasters need to spend money to inscribe new spells in their books. Eventually mounts, camping supplies, boats and ships may be bought.

All this time the players are supposed to be saving up for their stronghold. A second problem arises - the road to settled status tends to be a dull process, with a long mid-level haul before the ultimate payoff. I'm looking to the next generation of old-school games to make this progression a little more interesting, with more subsidiary goals along the way. If anyone knows whether Adventurer Conqueror King makes good on this, I'd like to know. I have a few ideas toward this goal, and also see an inherent problem in the stronghold goal, but that's a whole separate post.

My estimate is that after 3rd or 4th level or so, adventurers should have enough cash to buy all the equipment they can reasonably buy on the market, and around then should start adventuring for items of power and increased respect in society. The game system should then be designed around this, with an intricate balancing of experience, cash, levels of equipment. I guess as people level up in my game it'll remain to be seen whether my house-rules are doing the job. Anyway, those are now getting into good shape so I'll post some of them up as One Pagers throughout this week, with commentary.

More Vance than Vancian

Regarding Jeff's comments on this, I look at the evolution of my own magic system and think it's now actually more in the spirit of Vance's Dying Earth novels than the standard so-called "Vancian" system. I still believe that magic is the one part of the D&D rules as written (any edition) that most strongly needs a revamp, in the name of creativity and crazy fun.


* No multiple copies spells memorized ("Turjan pressed into his head ... four Magic Missiles, two Webs and a Fireball in a pear tree.."? I don't think so.) This removes the conflict between pre-memorization and creative use, especially as I'm being more generous with spell slots at 1st level. Perhaps a *different version* of, say, Magic Missile is one of the most prized magical treasures ... but this is as it should be.

* "Push your luck" effects. I am now letting casters try to cast spells above their level, making a difficult Mind save modified by their level vs. the spell's level and any Wisdom modifier (basically, 15 or more on d20). If they fail, they suffer a gnomish mishap. Basically, a more streamlined version of what the DCC RPG (remember that?) was going for. I might also allow the same risky mechanic for multiple castings of the same memorized spell. Magic is danger - not spray-on, EZ-bake sorcery!

This works for me, anyway, and I think my players appreciate it too.