/osrg/ - OSR General

Belted gunpowder vials.

>46. Servant
>+1 Open Doors

>1d6 bricks.
That's not even a wall!
Ought to be ((1d6)d6)d6 bricks.
Or maybe just give them a wall.

I was inspired last couple of days and made a little meme OSR game.

I might fill out some DM guide, beastiary or something if need be. Hope at least one person enjoys it.

Are OSR games strictly restricted to Heroic-Fantasy games or do we find other genres as well ? (Cyberpunk, Space Opera, Horror, Post-Apo)

If so could you give me names of good OSR non-Heroic-Fantasy games ?

as said, its a pretty open Genre

I'm currently writing/playtesting my OSR hack 'Ruinations'. It's post-apocalyptic (LotFP meets Mutant Future).
>docdroid.net/FrxCKOl/ruinations.pdf.html
Got some mechanical bit's I've adjusted but haven't written down yet.

Mechanations of the Space Princess is a well done Sci-Fi OSR.
Carcosa is weirdo gonzo Science-Fantasy stuff.
Mutant Crawl Classics (post-apoc) looks like it's gonna be a blast.
Silent Legions is a rad little Call of Cthuhlu-esque system from Sine Nomine.
Currently there is no cyberpunk OSR that really scratches my itch for it, but Purple Mowhawk is cool.

c

Thanks. It seems to have worked reasonably well. I'll post the 2nd part of the writeup sometime tomorrow.

>How much randomness do you like in your games?
A fair bit. I like random monster rolls, rolling for character generation and crazy, kooky rolls for things like "what's in this 6-mile hex?"

Session 1, Part 2 writeup is on the blog.

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/

Find out how Tito the Toadling Assassin lost his shirt, his dignity, and his toe.

How important is dungeon ecology to you?

Depends.

It's neat, but unnecessary.
Dungeon politics are essential tho.

What's everyone's opinion on Grey Matter and Gray Six? They both seem interesting but fuck all there is a lot to each...

Here's a first version of B&X, a unified reference doc for B/X.

They are a straight copy-paste of both rulesets, except keeping the modifications of Expert.Except ascending AC.

There's still lots of typos and monsters and spells need proofing. Let me know if you find anything strange.

Decent attempt at making a fuckton-of-classes OSR game, if that's your thing. There's also a fuckton of races, monsters, etc.

I remember Grey Matter mostly just having that and mass combat rules, while Grey Six is geared at low-level play, up until level - you guessed it, six. It also introduces proficiences (skills), talents (feats), themes (archetypes), backgrounds and status effects. And everything out of this list is enough to make a good portion of this general scream in agony.

But that's not my thing either. If you absolutely need some inspiration for modern classes in an OSR setting, check it out.

Has anyone actually ran or played in an ACKS game from adventurer play up to domain level play? How was it?

also curious. My group started a game with that intent but it fizzled when we got to ~lvl4 and lost a couple of levels to wraiths. It was demoralising to the group.

The domain level stuff was the only part of ACKS that interested me and I'd like to know how it turns out at the table.

This is a really cool idea.

>-ascending AC! Sue me.
You should really have all the original stuff in there. There's no point in going 99.9% of the way there and then screwing up the authenticity in the last .1%. It's not that I'm that much of a purist, but if you want "essentially B/X with tweaks" there are already plenty of games out there. The unique thing about this is that it's literally B/X, only consolidated. And if, for instance, we're discussing B/X on Veeky Forums, if the rules in your system are identical, then I can just use it. Otherwise, I might have to jump back and forth between the systems (AC and to-hit are rather important, and bound to come up a decent bit), and if that's the case, I'm gonna just use the original stuff.

You couldn't include the stuff side-by-side? Attack bonuses for classes could easily go on the class tables (beside hit dice and such) and be marked as "variant" or some such thing. Shit, you could even put THAC0 there as well, and relegate attack tables to an appendix (you honestly wouldn't *need* attack tables at all, but they'd be nice for that extra bit of authenticity). You'd still need a separate monster table, but it's not like that would take up much space. Armor would just need two columns (ascending and descending), and then there's just the matter of monsters, which could simply have both AC values (the only important thing there is to separate them by enough space so that they don't visually run together and remain easy to reference--see pic, for instance).

Anyway, you're gonna do what you wanna do, but I think your document will see wider use if it includes the original AC. (I'd honestly rather see ascending AC left out entirely, but I'm not the one going through the trouble of making the thing.)

Following up on this, have you considered affixing saving throws and to-hit/attack bonus to the class tables? You'd probably have to make them full-page, instead of doing two-columns, and maybe shade every third line or something so that people could easily tell what row everything was on, but it seems like it'd be handy to have everything in one place. That's if you're not trying to be a purist about format (which I could respect), but given your conversion to attack bonuses, I'm guessing that's not an issue.

>Ascending AC
>Ctrl+f "plate mail"
AC 17
>Hit's enter 5 times (6 of 7)
normal AC: 3 magical AC: 6

Witch is it?

Oh, and one last thing: a good bit of your text seems to be running together (the monster entry for "men" is pretty much incomprehensible, for instance, and many of the multiple-sub-entry monsters are similarly troubled), if you shrank your font size by one step and/or shrank your margins (there's a fair bit of white there--you could easily shrink them by well over half), that might do a world of good.

It's 1d6 x 2 half-bricks, just need to find some socks.

I'd just like to say, this would be nice to have, in many respects, for my group. Looking forward to the completed text.

Ty, I'll consider making a version with descending AC, but honestly who cares? Grogs already know each value like a prayer, or wing it. Conversion on the fly it's super easy too.
I'll probably release a pdf with the monsters and another with the spells, so I might do a descending alt version.

As for the tables, yeah I could. But I'm trying to keep it close to the original in term of presentation - tables stay as they are; new stuff goes into a new table. I'm not a purist, but I think a lot of people will appreciate to see familiar tables.
If you need a super-cheatsheet, your approach is perfect (and my original intention) but out of the scope of this doc. Not a bad thing to have on the last page, tho. We'll see.

THAC0 is a no-no.

Ty, will take a look at that asap.
If you can point me to what specific entries are messed up that would help a lot.

>As for the tables, yeah I could. But I'm trying to keep it close to the original in term of presentation - tables stay as they are; new stuff goes into a new table. I'm not a purist, but I think a lot of people will appreciate to see familiar tables.
>If you need a super-cheatsheet, your approach is perfect (and my original intention) but out of the scope of this doc. Not a bad thing to have on the last page, tho. We'll see.
dig

That one guy who keeps making OD&D variants released Freebooters: originaleditionfantasy.blogspot.co.nz/2017/03/freebooters-is-now-available.html

Anybody check it out? Is it worth getting, or does it do weird shit like give pirates an AC based on the armor they wear?

Damn, you beat me to it.

Fix: PC to hit advancement should be +1/+3/+6/+8/+10

You aren't using the original page numbering scheme, so you shouldn't direct people to the original pages.

>1d1 wall(s)

>I'll consider making a version with descending AC
That would be awesome.

>but honestly who cares?
Me?

>Grogs already know each value like a prayer, or wing it.
That's an argument not to have a rule book at all.

>Conversion on the fly it's super easy too.
I guess. People specifically play retroclone X over retroclone Y because it either does or doesn't have ascending AC.

Thanks, are you 100% sure? You mean for the PCs "Class and Level Attack Bonus" table, right?
I've copied the values from somewhere else, but they looked correct to me when I proofed that part.

Btw, post what you have if you want, i'd love to take a peek. You were using markdown, right?

>-original page references stay, temporally
Updating all the references will be a pain in the ass, and I'd rather do it as a last step when all pieces are fixed, to reduce the chance of end up with hundreds of broken links/refs.

>played AD&D 1e for the first time last weekend
>DM is an old grognard who allows for pretty much any supplementary material ever published, even stuff from 30-year-old Dragon magazines
>only one player is on the same base as the DM as far as familiarity with the ins and outs of this edition
>so the party consists of normal fighters, thieves, and clerics, except for one totally broken half-elf psionicist who can clear the room at least twice per day with psionic blasts
>at the end of the last session, the DM threw 24 gnolls at us

Will our broken friend be enough to see us through?

>You aren't using the original page numbering scheme, so you shouldn't direct people to the original pages
He covers that at the beginning of the pdf. I think he just hasn't gotten around to renumbering everything.

>What is this?
>-D&D Basic unified with Expert, edited where they overlap
>-X has priority since it overrides some rules. Where it advises using Basic rules, they are included.
>-Simplified where possible without altering it. “1-6 (1d6)” is now simply “d6”
>-ascending AC! Sue me.
>-(maybe) typos and wonky tables.
>-original page references stay, temporally

Hunter//Seeker for reworked Cyberpunk 2020.

Machinations of the Space Princess.
Mutant Future.
Under a Broken Moon (sp?) for Thundarr.

>Under a Broken Moon (sp?) for Thundarr.
Yes. It's spelled "moon".

Ha, it's nowhere near done, I'm still cleaning up the individual B and X files.

Now that yours is available, I might go for a stripped down reference version.

I would also support descending AC.

Has anyone ever run the Bard's Tale games using OSR? Seems like a good fit for grognards.

...

...

...

Speaking of Under a Broken Moon, anyone have those files? Can't find them in the treasure trove and I don't have the shekels.

Ditto. I think it's a stupid mechanic, but as the first user widely pointed out, the only niche you have is pure B/X final destination, which is one people would actually appreciate. There's already a zillion B/X hacks that change one or more things; with even one small change you'll get lost in the crowd.

Nonetheless, thanks for the effort and good luck with the final product.

damn, just say your lazy and be done with it. No need to comment on 4 different points just to say "I can't be bothered"

I'm curious as to just how much of innovation you want/can accept in an OSR? Maybe "what kind" of innovation might be a better way of phrasing it.

The reason I'm asking is that OSR to me is "rules-light but not story gaming" rather than "D&D simulator". Along those lines, I'm writing a retroclone that heavily alters character creation, because I think old-school D&D sucks at emulating a lot of classic fantasy it draws its inspiration from, and is often cumbersome where it doesn't need to be (violating that rules-light spirit). At the same time, I love how it is happy winging so much of adventuring, without getting bogged down in adjudicating every last aspect of it. But I wonder if it would be accepted as OSR; to me it is, but then maybe someone sees a simple feat or skill system or what have you and hisses like a vampire in front of a cross.

Thoughts?

>and hisses like a vampire in front of a cross.
Grognards are turned as Vampires? I would have guessed Ghoul at best.

Properly I should have classified them as greater and lesser grogs; my apologies.

>I love how it is happy winging so much of adventuring, without getting bogged down in adjudicating every last aspect of it [...] but then maybe someone sees a simple feat or skill system

Well see, the latter opposes the former. Adding skills and feats and whatnot bogs down the game in adjudication and number-crunching, which goes against the spirit of OSR adventuring (if not designing).

To me OSR still has most of the DNA (at least 50%) of old school D&D, with some changes, tweaks and revisions to achieve different effects. It's not just "rules-light", because there are hundreds of those kind of games out there with no connection to the history of D&D.

I'm not sure there's enough space between your paragraphs. Everything kind of runs together.

The intelligence table would be much better if it didn't wrap, or at least wrapped less. See pic. Is that the only difference between the tables, because the original is much easier to read. I guess the font of the original is more basic and bolder too.

The adjustment text on several of your ability tables are askew since there's a space between the pluses and the numbers and there isn't a space between the minuses and the numbers.

You can probably just put "no adjustment" rather than "no adjustment to hit points", "no adjustment due to strength", etc. I keeps things simpler and less junky.

I think there are a number of things that would look better being left-justified rather than centered. See the cleric entries in the pic, for instance. Also, whenever you can possibly avoid a row on a table taking up two lines, it would be much better (I realize even B/X does this with cleric, but it's still less than desirable). The spell charts are much more readable when there's no so much space between the levels (and the saving throws being all spaced out across the entire page is even worse). It's also better when they're on the same chart as hit dice and so forth.

The heading for weapons and equipment is on page 18, while the actual weapons and equipment begin on pg 19. Equipment and weapon table is easier to read when it's left-justified.

On page 24 and probably some other places, There is no space between any of the paragraphs / sections. Not sure if this was to try to fit things on the page better, but it makes it look like there's a wall of text.

Left-justify Monster Reactions.

Mercenary table on pg 34 needs hyphens where there is no entry so that you don't have numbers floating in outer space. Also, it would be much better if fewer of the entries took up multiple lines (or maybe if they all took two lines, even if that meant leaving blank spaces???).

I don't need another D&D clone when I have several good ones already, plus real D&D. A game that's as simple as OD&D but doing something different might actually provide something of value to me that I don't already have.

I think I only ever saw a webpage of it.

I meant the Crawling Under a Broken Moon Zine, sorry.

Lol there's always one. I've still never messed with the Psionics in the back of the PHB. Just glancing at them frightens me.

>"rules-light but not story gaming"

This is also what drew me to it, but the problem is that your next point directly contradicts this desire.

Adding in a little feat or skill system here or there is not a problem, but the more bulky your game gets the less it is about 'rules-lite story gaming'. Basically every rule should emphaize the asthetic you are going for. OSR is really great because it's one of those things that is almost completely boiled down to the most core and basic gameplay, aesthetic, lore and mechanic focused things.

To give you another example; if you wanted to make a really rules lite awesome game about gumshoe detective work and pulp noir stories; would you need an encumbrance system? No. It's not important to that type of game. However OSR encumbrance rules, simple or not, are VERY important to the feel and function of the game because the whole game, literally the entire crux of what your characters are using their abilities on AND how they advance as characters is entirely based around dragging things back out of the hole they went in.

If you wanted to make a lite game about fast pace kung fu fights you wouldn't need detailed rules about recovering from injury because, just like in a kung-fu fighting movie, characters enter every challenge (usually) at full strength. That's kind of the point. Implementing a similar system in OSR would be pretty much opposite of what you want, but for another game it might work great.

Anyone, long game-design shitposting aside, I don't have a problem with weirdo OSR. I think it's fun to at least consider them, or steal mechanics and setting ideas. I've noticed pretty much every weird or different OSR clone has at least one or two really cool mechanics you can just flat out steal.

Except for roll under ability scores. Those can go straight to hell.

Hey this is a perfect segway into my fucking wall of text! Sorry but maybe it will continue this convo or give you anons something else to talk about (if it hasn't already been discussed ten thousand times.)

Basically I'm trying to come up with ways to improve the AD&D combat system, not anything too complex or different because my group and I like the quicker combat, but just some things to make it more realistic, balanced, and give it some tactical options while keeping it fast-paced.

>Movement
A lot of the things I've been tinkering with have to do with movement and position/facing. I realized that I've always felt turn-based movement systems are weird and unrealistic as hell. How do you charge 60 feet up to an archer and not get shot at at least once? How do you circle completely around someone mid-fight for a flank or rear attack bonus?

I know the later editions fixed some of this with threat zones, attacks of opportunity (which are in AD&D but limited,) and the 5-foot-step-in-combat rule, but I think a further fix would be something like simultaneous movement. For example, whoever has initiative moves "first," but as they move, the enemies have a chance to react to their movement (as long as they aren't surprised ofc.) So if the player decides to move directly into a group of enemies, they get a reaction move and use their move speed to meet him halfway, or possibly retreat before he gets there. To me this feels much more realistic and I'm baffled as to why it's never been a thing in D&D. I'm not sure if it's in other systems. Is this some old shit that I've just now stumbled on?

As for flanking, it's ridiculous in AD&D. From what I can tell, you can quite literally move completely behind an enemy you are in melee with on your turn and get a rear attack bonus to hit them. the 5-foot-step rule fixes this, but I still have some questions like do you get an AoO if an enemy moves through your threat zone you while you're in melee with another?

tbc

Spell lists (pg 36) nneed a space between the levels. The different bears run together (and the last two actually have their damage dice broken up so that "'d10" and "2d6" are each divided between two rows). Cat, great is just a mess. The Dragons run together. I'm not sure what's up with the movement entries under Elemental. The Fish run together a bit, and the Giant sublistings are awfully cramped too. Etc. Etc.

Watch your spaces when using parentheses and slashes. Under Halfling, for instance, the number appearing is "3d6(5d4)", when there should obviously be a space between them. With the slashes, I think it would *probably* look better with a space before and after the slash (Damage: d4 / d4 / d6), but regardless, you should apply spacing consistently (not "d4/ d4/ d6" in one place and "2d6/2d6/2d10" in another).

Left-justify your treasure tables.

The ship table is a mess and really needs to be a full-page sort of thing, like in B/X.

>to make it more realistic

Ohmyfuckinggodnoplease.gif

Find the Song of Swords thread instead.

I would modify this and use as a d100 chart. The last 50 results are farmer. The rest is the same.

Out of curiosity, I really liked the 9 page cantrip info that someone posted before. Is there anything more like this?

Anyway, don't take this as me bitching or criticizing or anything. You asked if we spotted any typos or anything strange, and this is me doing that.

>I think old-school D&D sucks at emulating a lot of classic fantasy it draws its inspiration from

This. For a the memes that people like and spew, D&D isn't a swords & sorcery game.

You aren't Conan, you're either Mr Secondary Character Who Dies or Nameless Henchman #32. Magic is weird but not terrifying like in true sword & sorcery (cf. People of the Black Circle, Demon in the Mirror). And this "OSR isn't high fantasy!" is total bullshit as shown by Gods, Demigods, and Heroes, Forgotten Realms, Oriental Adventures, and the fact that demons are random monster encounters just like bandits.

Excuse me, Commissar, but what is the woman in the bottom panel doing to the crawling man?

Is she consuming him whole or merely licking the lice off his buttocks?

People usually pay for an editor's time. He should be thanking you.

Cool!
It would be amazing if you took all the crunch and condense it.

Not sure who are replying to, but that's not a nice way to ask.

Come back with some bug fixes and I'll consider whatever you ask.

Thank you.
>I'm not sure there's enough space between your paragraphs.
Yep, it needs more air.

The original font (Souvenir) is fairly unreadable on the long run, and it's too cramped imho so I decided to use Caslon/Garamond with decent margins.

Yep, you're right about readability of tables, but my pc crashes with tons of tables, so I'll adjust those later on.
As for double-lines in tables, they are unavoidable. The original does it a lot, and it uses a smeller font size, so...

The saving throw tables are temporary; ideally it'll be a single table, or something more compact, or idk.

>equipment is on page 18
That doesn't happen on my original, it could be a pdf export error.
>Equipment and weapon table is easier to read when it's left-justified.
But it is? Unless you mean the prices.

>page 24
>Monster Reactions
ty, will fix

>Mercenary table on pg 34
Let's simply not talk about that table. At all. Props to the original typesetter, he did an amazing job.

I agree, at least to a measure. I mean, more rules = more complexity = less rules-light is a given. At the same time, D&D applies rules when it feels that the matter justifies it, and feats and skills are already scattered throughout early D&D in various forms, just in different names (feats are really just a codename for "something neat I can do", i.e. class abilities).

I was thinking "how can we expand this while keeping to the very strict threshold of utility that old-scholl D&D gives us?" I thought of this as a sniff test for skills, for example:

• The skill must be either something that could reasonably envisioned as a contest with others, or something that circumstantial modifiers could easily be applied to if not a contest.
• The skill must be something that could be reasonably expected to occur on a fairly regular basis *during* a typical adventure (not in the lead-up or aftermath, i.e. during downtime).
• The skill must not take the place of social interactions or roleplaying (Bribery, Conversation).
• The skill must not be something we should assume your average adventurer should be perfectly capable of doing (Survival, Rope Use), unless it meets criteria 1. Err on the side of fewer skills.

Tracking or Lockpicking would work as skills, IMO. Of course, then there's the matter of implementation. It has to be simple; no Palladium skill systems need apply.

>Basically every rule should emphaize the asthetic you are going for.

I think this is an excellent guideline. If it's not tied to a general feel you're trying to go for or genre-element you're trying to emulate, a rules option should be superb or very simple to make the cut.

Skill systems aren't bad, but I find they lead to a lot of people treating the game like a point and click adventure. Heck, my 5e game can devolve into this if I don't explicitly tell my players to just describe what they're doing. Otherwise they enter a room and once it's described they just declare the skill they're using and what they're using it on.
>I use Perception on the room! What do I see?
>I roll Investigation on the statue!
>I'm gonna roll Arcana on these spellbooks.
>One player rolls for History, no declaration of what he's rolling it for.

Some of that is rules, and some of that is worldbuilding. I'm hoping to be able to at least address the rules part, within the limits imposed by an OSR framework.

I won't meme you about trying to make it 'realistic, more balanced, and give it some tactical options'. I agree with your idea but just letting you know that phrasing your comment in this way is going to be a bit of a red flag.

I don't know much about the ruleset for how actual AD&D works, but I can share my shitty homebrew and what I think constitutes a good combat system.

>Armor vs Movement
"Realistic" shouldn't be used here, because "Realistic" armor is always superior to nonarmored. Or basically somebody wearing full plate has very little to no disadvantage moving, running, or fighting then someone without armor. The actual disadvantages of armor, like taking that shit off or how it limits your vision, hearing, and very precise (like lockpicking percise), tend not to be covered in games due to complexity.

BUT in order to keep the heavy, slow armored guy vs fast light unarmored guy interesting without being too annoying is to do either something with initiative or do something with non-attack actions. Which is what I did.

>Armor gives -combat maneuver saving roll negative equal to bonus AC
This rule basically means that whenever somebody tries to trip you, push you off a cliff, disarm you or throw sand in your eyes or whatever having heavier armor makes you more open to it. I really like this rule because it makes faster guys more defensive in another area but doesn't do some bullshit like make heavily armored characters attack half as often or some lame shit like that.

Secondly I like this because, at least in my game, it works well with how the classes advance. Fighters get a bonus to saving throws from combat maneuvers as they level up. This means a high level Fighter basically doesn't get a penalty from wearing heavy armor- which further pushes home the idea that these guys are good at fighting!

Anyone, this developed somewhat into a tangent but I hope you find it useful.

Exactly what I hate about skill systems and am hoping to avoid.

There's a lock. Okay, try to pick it. There's a trail. Okay, I try to follow it, knowing the guy is trying to lose me; good contest of skill vs. skill. But "I roll Conversation"? Fuck that.

>>Equipment and weapon table is easier to read when it's left-justified.
>But it is? Unless you mean the prices.
See pic. The text in each column is centered and not left justified.

Why be a smart ass? I'm not talking about turning it into some medieval weapon and wound simulator, just adding a few more options/tweaks to a basic system that's been used in almost every fucking game ever made and will continue to be.

The devil is in things like movement, position, weapon balance, etc... Even hit points and wounds are kind of a bleh area because if people are used to pools of HP and you suddenly have them start rolling on wound tables and taking negative effects or bleeding, they're gonna get pissed off.

>Spell lists
fixed, ty

>Monster tables
Will fix those when monsters are proofed. The dragons are also missing a illo.

>Monster stats
Cool I'll give those another pass asap.

Oh that's for Encumbrance. Ty, fixed.

On the other hand, you aint doing shit...

>Not sure who are replying to, but that's not a nice way to ask.
I'm pretty sure he was talking to me regarding my responses to your comments. But to me, it seems like the main thrust of your endeavor is making things easier to reference (and not needing two different books), and shit *should* be designed to accommodate laziness. So even if somebody disagrees with what I was saying, criticizing it as the product of laziness doesn't seem particularly valid to me.

>Oh that's for Encumbrance.
And so it is. I just saw the armor and weapon names and reacted to the shape of things...

Yeah, if I have to use skills I may just force players to write down a background profession and allow an ability check based off of that. Something like PDF related.

AD&D is fairly simple on the surface but has quite a few additional rules (some of which aren't even properly explained in 1ed) and things to make it crunchier.

I like your homebrew system and find the combat saving throws to be interesting and realistic while also fostering more creative combat instead of "roll to hit, you miss, roll to hit, you hit, etc.." It's exactly the sort of small changes I'm looking for. AD&D excels at keeping combat simple and leaves much open to the DM, but some of my players want a bit more of a tactical, numbers-oriented approach and I don't blame them.

For example, another area that could use some big improvements are Gygax's now-legendary weapon lists and tables with their hilariously freakish encylopedias of exotic polearms and strangely unbalanced weapon statistics.

Even Wikipedia gets a bit confused about defining a fucking "Bill-Guisarme" or "Bec de Corbin" and some of these weapons are overpowered when compared to their similar counterparts for no discernible reason. If I'm reading things correctly, a spear is just a terrible weapon compared to about anything else you could use unless you get to impale fuckers charging you on horseback. You'd be better off with something like a Billhook in every other situation, and with low-leveled characters and lots of damage flying around, it makes a big difference and can get you killed fast.

A little expansion on this, but I like things like long weapons being able to reach twice as far (or 2 squares) away instead of one, but there's no real penalty or trade-off for this ability. You don't, for example, take a -1 if enemies get close. Weapons speeds are also kind of ridiculous as you simply add them to your initiative roll, but then do this with every player and every enemy/NPC for every initiative (and don't forget about called shots and spell casting times) and you can see how fun and fluid that mechanic could end up being.

AD&D has a lot of holes I'm trying to fill without making too many changes or just switching to a new system. My group is already invested and some of them are very new roleplayers.

PHB psionics is even more insane because it's not even a class; it's a bonus you get in addition to your class as a reward for having high mental abilities. The only "balancing" factor is that psionics might kill you during character creation. Except that every character who actually gets played survived character creation, so that's not a good balance at all.

Anyone?

That's not how weapon speed factor works. For one, the method you described is much too simple and easy to implement at the table. The truth of how AD&D initiative works is infinitely more complex and horrifying.

>I really liked the 9 page cantrip info that someone posted before.
Pic related? Gygax wrote that for the Dragon.
>Is there anything more like this?
Unearthed Arcana revises and polished them, IIRC.

Did AD&D do away with the Psionic Wandering Monster table? That thing was VICIOUS.

I like the cantrips too but feel like they were a terrible acknowledgement of magic-users being almost useless and awful to play at low levels until they turn into rampaging superheroes at mid and higher levels.

Psionic wandering monster table sounds awesome.

He means that "I want to make it more realistic" is the birth cry of a thousand terrible fantasy heartbreakers.

Exactly. It's not that it can't be done, but that realism often means "poor historical training imposing ridiculous ecological/social ideas", "fighters can't have nice things", and "Phoenix Command".

>Psionic wandering monster table sounds awesome.
It's really, really not.

In Eldritch Wizardry if you had a psionic with you, then 1-in-6 monsters you encounter have a psionic with them.
A further 1-in-6 (so 1-in-36 of all your encounters) got rolled of these tables instead of their normal tables.
It's interesting to note that this puts oodles of always-hostile high level monsters on the surface floors of the Dungeon.

Oh, yeah. Not sure about Eldritch Sorcery, but in AD&D Mind Thrust and Thought Shield are ALWAYS the optimal attack and defense modes.
AD&D also mucked up monster conversions. They got the wrong PSPs and attack/defense modes. IIRC, contrary to their write-up, AD&D Mind Flayers don't even get Psionic Blast?

Few notes about pole arms in AD&D 1e:
- It was assumed GMs had some knowledge on the uses of specific pole arms and would therefore provide appropriate bonuses when using a desired pole arm the right way i.e. dismounting a knight using a bill hook or disarming someone with a guisarme or using a bec de corbin to puncture a hole in plate armour.
- Due to the length of pole arms it was assumed if you attacked someone holding a pole arm directly at you, then they could have their attack before you could have yours.
- Gygax knew certain pole arms were inferior to others he just listed them there so you could use those stats if you were running a campaign in a certain time period. Like glavies and variations of the bill hook in the early medieval ages to halberds and bardiches in the renaissance.

Personally I think the weapon list tables are balanced as it is. Sure two-handed swords could literally one-shot giants but they couldn't be used in corridors nor on horseback. It's up to the DM to equalize the game imo.

Kudos to the guy who types out all those spells and complies them into a PDF.

Here is some of the modifiers I use with my players:
- +1 to +3 for Innate Spell or/and Abilities - turn undead, lay on hands, hide in shadows, tumbling or other proficiencies.
- Small enemies get a +3, medium get a +5 and large get a +7. Depending on the weapon I may lower or raise it by a point or two. You don't need to use the exact weapon speeds :)

Don't know what you are saying mate but spears are LEGENDARY in AD&D. They can be thrown more than 30 feet without taking a sizeable penalty compared to other melee weapons. You can set your spear against a charging opponent, use it underwater or in most combat scenarios without hindrance, costs next to nothing and weights an appropriate amount compared to other weapons. Plus if your DM allows you to use the Complete Fighter's Handbook, using your spear two-handed deals 1d6+1/2d8 damage.