/osr/ - Old School Renaissance

> magic-user spell with healing effect, would you allow it
yes

...

What about a wilderness encounter table where the monsters get more difficult the further you get away from the city.

So maybe something like...

False Life
2nd Level Magic-User/Elf
Range Touch
Duration: 24 turns
The caster drains the energies of a creature within range that died within the last 10 minutes and imposes this onto a friendly target that is also in range. This spell can be used on any human, or human-like creature, it has no effect when using undead, constructs, or creatures larger than an ogre. The target gains 1d6+1 temporary HP, that vanishes at the end of the duration.

If you arrange random encounter tables so the more dangerous/rare entries are only on higher numbers. Then, you make it so the roll gets incremental modifiers the further you get from town (+1 for three days from town +10 for two weeks out of town, etc.) or that traveling further means you roll larger dice (making it a nested table).

Nah, I wouldn't allow that either, just because it can be used on friends. Letting the M-U use black magic to heal himself is one thing, letting him take over the party-healer role is right out for me.

To give an example of what I *would* allow:

Xakhan's Hateful Conduit
Magic-User 2
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 round (see below)
The caster grasps a helpless but living victim, inflicting 1d10 damage on him; the caster regains 1d6+1 HP. The process takes one round, and the caster must retain his hold on the victim during this time; if his grip is broken for any reason, the damage inflicted is halved, and the caster regains no health.

Mutant Future, or Gamma World 4th Edition (not the one with the cards)?

Does it change your mind at all reminding you that Magic-Users can make healing potions? If they're capable of imbuing that property into a potion, why not a proper spell?

Lot of good stuff just uses D&D or DCC: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Anomalous Subsurface Environment, Unamerica Survival Guide

>Magic-Users can make healing potions?
I'm not at all sure that's how it's meant to work, and in any case I don't allow it in my game; only clerics can make the healing and neutralize-poison potions.

Why would it? Potions usually require ingredients that aren't commonly available.

Daily reminder if you don't keep magic-users and clerics distinct, you're playing RuneQuest.

Even if you accept this, MUs can make healing potions starting from level 9 (level 11 in OD&D), and they cost a mint. That's hardly the same as the Cleric's daily spell from level 2.

By the time a Magic-User attains level 9, a Cleric with the same XP total will have been raising the dead for some time already. Depending on the edition he may also be able to cast Heal, I think.

>the Blackmoor campaign ran RuneQuest for a while
>the Greyhawk campaign ran RuneQuest for a while
Don't be deliberately thick, user. While Clerics were created as a class during the Blackmoor campaign, there's no indication that Wizards (as they were called in Blackmoor) ever had any of those powers now associated with Clerics before that point; they were kept distinct from the moment both classes existed.

As for Greyhawk, of course, the Cleric had already been created by the time Arneson taught Gygax to play, so there the Cleric was kept distinct from the very first and I don't even understand what you think you're referring to.

How to make Fighters interesting?

Fighters are supposed to be boring

Fighting-Men are already interesting by virtue of their wide array of magical abilities derived from weapons and items, as well as their unrivalled access to the plethora of mundane arms and armor!

But if that's not enough for you, BECMI Weapon Mastery and OD&D-style Hero status are both pretty cool.

Honestly, I think it only takes two things: make sure they're better than the other classes at fighting (the easy part) and allow them to perform combat maneuvers (the hard-ish part; nobody will agree on how you should do this).

If you're generous with what you'll allow, then I think any creative player can have a good time playing a fighter, and even an uncreative player will still get to be the best at hitting things.

>How to make Fighters interesting?
How were nobles, priests, commoners, and witches treated in the middle ages? Suppose hat's how fighters, clerics, thieves, and magic-users are treated.

If you want fighters to be interesting you are missing the point of the game. The game is the dungeon, not the combats.

>the hard-ish part; nobody will agree on how you should do this
I realize that this is just inviting the very disagreement you're talking about, but I really think the best way to do this is just to be generous (as the referee) in your adjudication of what the Fighting-Man players say they do in combat. (Which I guess is what you were saying yourself.) If they want to accomplish something sensible, try to let them, based on how much of a benefit it is: knockdown is a fair replacement for damage, disarmament is a good way to describe taking someone down to 0 HP with subdual instead of killing damage and so on.

Use the DCC Warrior.

Hell just use DCC.

Why would anyone choose to play a class that's bad at the game?

>Why would anyone choose to play a class that's bad at the game?
Fighters are great, are you retarded?

It's a directed graph. Write down how long it takes to get from node to node, and how long it takes to search each node.

You don't need a list of dozens of abilities to be good.

While I agree with this, I think there's a big problem with it in that Magic-Users *do* get powers that are interesting in and of themselves in the "dungeon" framework. (Arguably the same goes for Clerics and Thieves.) Since Fighting-Men don't get that, there's an expectation that they ought to get abilities that are interesting in combat instead to compensate, which is pretty natural given the name of the class.

Only fighters gets better at hitting things.

>make fighters better by making everyone else worse

>Dungeons are the point of the game, not combat
>Fighter's only point is to be good at combat
I dunno, you tell me.

Combat is a part of dungeons, therefore it's a part of the point of the game.

I'm looking for Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy.

Magic, lazer rifles, mutants, radiation, Elves and machine guns all mixed together.

Think Wizards meets Fallout meets D&D.

Whether it be an RPG, a module, a novel, a movie, etc.

Anomalous Subsurface Environment
Umerican Survival Guide

>Combat is a part of dungeons, therefore it's a part of the point of the game.
>If you want fighters to be interesting you are missing the point of the game.
>The game is the dungeon, not the combats.
>Combat is an uninteresting part of the game that isn't (is) the point of the game

AD&D + Gamma World
Labyrinth Lord + Mutant Future
Honestly, do you people ever do even the slightest bit of research or do you just expect to be spoonfed?

This class breakdown is one of those things that you never think about, but makes perfect sense in retrospect.

Question, /osr/.

Instead of having to hold a light source such as a torch or a lantern in one group member's offhand, hiring a linkboy to hold the light source, or using a shield sconce...

How feasible is it for a character to attach a lantern to his/her belt? I've seen it done in some videogames, but I'm wondering how you'd rule it if a player asked to do that.

Since /wbg/ isn't up I'll ask in my second home thread on Veeky Forums: would it be acceptable to have 1920s technology but naval ships are still built as if they were in the late 1800s?

It depends on the kind of lantern. If it's just a candle inside a translucent case, it'd probably be fine until you started running. Oil lanterns would be too sloshy and dangerous to strap to your belt. But a proper oil lantern, all sealed and anachronistic would be fine. I'd probably rule that it decreases the radius of the light, as a lantern is supposed to be held aloft, not clank around at your waist.

Sounds dope user. What would the problem be with doing this?

Is Wilderlands of High Fantasy in the trove?
I have PDF related but not the actual rules and tables for it.

Fighters ARE interesting. They are, to a one, combat veterans who have dedicated their lives to bloody conflict. They're trained to wear all types of armor, use all types of weapons, ride warhorses, can automatically become nobles at high levels by their reputation alone, have better hit dice than any monster of the same level, and at the highest levels, the very concept of MISSING an attack is foreign to them. They could literally fire a bow at the very maximum distance and reliably hit a sparrow.

Fighters are plenty interesting already.

I have an idea for my homebrew system.
Player describes themselves attempting a combat maneuver. If they roll it on the dice they do. If not, they failed. There is incentive to change what you are attempting because different results are less likely. You want to disarm all the time? Well accept that you're going to fail a lot and do nothing extra most of the time. Similar with tripping. Now just pushing and shoving enemies? That's less impactful but more common. Say you do that and you'll probably do it most of the time but you won't benefit from things like disarms and trips. This is resolved at the same time as the hit roll and damage so it won't slow the game down any more than usual combat descriptions.
Is that alright? It's kinda sucky it's basically a "guess what you're going to roll" system but on the upside there is no arbitrary use limit or cooldowns.

Do you use Lawful, neutral, chaotic alignment or the Lawful good, nchaotic neutral etc etc? Why?

General consistency. As much as I love the aesthetics of ships like the HMS Warrior and the HMS Nemesis, there'd have to be a reason why shipbuilding is so far behind in terms of emerging technologies. I even have a reason why motorcycle are more prevalent than automobiles due to a cabal of mobster centaurs pressuring the automotive industry to keep the price up so that only the rich can afford them.

The rules and tables for your PDF are literally just the original three OD&D booklets - mostly The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, for obvious reasons.
It's sometimes referred to as "the implied OD&D setting" since it's the setting implied by the wilderness rules in OD&D.

You can find The Wilderlands of High Fantasy in the Judges Guild folder.

Magic swords and domain rules, mostly.

>They are, to a one, combat veterans who have dedicated their lives to bloody conflict.
Depends on the setting, nerd.

I like Law-Neutrailty-Chaos abd Good-Law-Neutrailty-Chaos-Evil

How do you gain XP in your game and why do you like it the most? By treasure gained, by completing dungeons and quests, by exploring, by monsters slain, or a mix of any one of these?

Hawkmoon novels and visual novels by Micheal Moorcock. Fortresses made from silver iron defended by knights riding dire flamingos wielding laser lances fighting against demonic Britain who built a bridge across the English channel and invaded Europe.

I have
>Astral - not actively hostile to all life in existence - Blood
yes, the benefits of Astral and Blood are good enough to still draw people in.

>Daily reminder if you don't keep magic-users and clerics distinct, you're playing RuneQuest.
I use the same spell-lists for MUs and Clerics. The difference is HOW they cast their spells; MUs memorize a fixed amount of spells, and Clerics ask their god for the spell and it ~might~ happen.

I mean, LotFP gives fighters Defensive Fighting and Press, so they get a bit more decision making in combat.

what's wrong with playing runequest? getting murdered by ducks is fun.

No, because 1920s tech has turbines and a good deal of metallurgical knowledge. Dreadnoughts are pretty much inevitable

I'm making a thing. You play as weird occult criminals in a modern day setting. It's LotFP meets WoD meets Guy Ritchie films.
Here's the player-facing bits of it that I'm gonna be playtesting soon.

Wolfpacks will be in print when my FUCKING PROOFREADER finishes and gives me his notes its been THREE MONTHS ALREADY and at this rate I'm seriously considering not giving him his twenty quid

NAYRT but I would buy a copy and proofread for you if I could be assed to make a DriveThruRPG account.
Compared to the proofreading that would be a lot less work, but the idea of it feels like a lot more.

Blackmoor.

I do like that aspect of LotFP's mechanics, and I'm tempted to use that mechanic if I run a game of 2eD&D in the future.

>Depends on the setting, nerd.
No it does't. More than any other class, fighters are specialized at... wait for it...
FIGHTING.

Is this the real world or a fantasyland? Because in fantasyland there's no reason for physical laws to match the real world 100%. Just be sure to play out the logical consequences of say, matter not being made of molecules and atoms.

>girl
Tits or GTFO

There's a bit of a difference between
>specialized at FIGHTING
and
>They are, to a one, combat veterans who have dedicated their lives to bloody conflict.

The former doesn't necessarily mean that they're all that dedicated to the latter, after all. In fact, given how OSR tends to mechanically discourage outright combat they're probably less dedicated to bloody conflict than they are to hit-and-run robbery.
They're just less fucked than other people if push comes to shove-a-blade-in-his-guts.

Hell, they're also the one class that some editions basically assume will retire to being semi-peaceful landed nobility.

Tits ain't gonna prove anything in a thread like this, user. Have you SEEN the average grognard?

Explain to me how that makes all fighters "combat veterans" "dedicated ... to bloody conflict"

>The former doesn't necessarily mean that they're all that dedicated to the latter
Is your point that there are Fighters who have never drawn blood before? I suppose that's technically true, but you're just being pedantic at this point.
Because there are level-0 commoners who are CAPABLE of fighting, but not like a fighter does.
Aside from muticlassed characters, fighting is what a fighter -does-. People who specialize in one thing are categorically more adept at that one thing than people who try to be good at multiple things, which is why multiclass characters require way more XP to level up.

Could be they haven't developed iron or steel enough to start plating/making ships out of it and no one's gotten steam powered turbines together to make dreadnought sized ships. Maybe something weird about lots of brass production or no one developing incendiary shells so no one's gotten around to ironclads. But lighting things on fire is pretty intuitive so lack of stuff to make huge iron and steel ships and the engines to move them makes more sense imo.

if making sense is that much of a concern

>contribute or gtfo

Who are you quoting?

You tell 'em, cavegirl.

it's 2AM and I am powered by caffeine and photoshop
I don't know anymore

Not all fighters are psychotic veterans
Not all clerics are pious zealots
Not all thieves are backstabbing sociopaths
Not all wizards are autistic nerds
Stop acting like skillsets make every member of the same class identical RPwise.

>fragile minds, hubris, translation error, etc tables
neat

I don't use the WPatWS setting but your tables are dope in that too.

>maintaining a general with 4 posters

>

Protip: you can get high on caffeine.

All level 1 fighters have advanced beyond being level-0 Soldiers by fighting in actual battles and surviving.

If they're 4 good posters, it's all worth it.
'course that's purely theoretical, but it's a nice comforting theory.
>Protip: you can get high on caffeine.
And /really/ high on caffeine, cough syrup, and vodka.

>Protip: you can get high on caffeine.
This is a fact of which I am well aware.

I've never been sure what turns you from a level 0 normal human into a level 1 character with a class. You'd think it would be, like 'have earned their first XP point', but all the tables start you off at 0...

>All level 1 fighters have advanced beyond being level-0 Soldiers by fighting in actual battles and surviving.
Gold as XP says otherwise. In fact, it suggest that fighters actually didn't fight, feigning death then looting the corpses of their fellows after the battle.

>Chainmail
Yeah, and there are only 6 types of dragons, right? And Gnolls are Gnome/Troll hybrids, of course.

>37 unique posters
>"4 posters"

Hence why I usually start my tables at 2 XP.

ITT nobody reads.

>there are only 6 types of dragons
In a just world.
>And Gnolls are Gnome/Troll hybrids
An odd take on Dunsany's gnoles, but more dun than later interpretations.

>I've never been sure what turns you from a level 0 normal human into a level 1 character with a class.
I would say that going from level 0 to level 1 has to do with a divine spark of some kind. A moment of inspiration that pushes you past your own limits in your chosen class.
It's the only explanation I can think of, since level-0 characters (in most systems) can't earn XP.

Everyone and their uncle seems to do it as 'survive an adventure'

>Gold as XP says otherwise.
No it doesn't. You start at level-1 (in most systems). Previously being a level-0 commoner is an aspect of a character's backstory.
And you can't become a level 10 fighter by running a bank and loaning money to people with 10% interest on payback. It doesn't work that way.

Fantasyland. It's supposed to be an analogue of a 19th-20th century world with trains, steamboats, guns and cars (though both are limited to average citizens).
Nah, they've invented an equivalent of the Bessemer Process by now.

>discussion is about level 1 fighters
>YEAH UH BUT LEVEL 10 FIGHTERS
wew

You can't become a level 2 fighter just by owning a bank either, smartass.

Running one no. Obtaining one, maybe.

Depends on the circumstances, but sure.

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