/osrg/ - Old School Renaissance General

Wandered off to get snacks, sorry, but has the whole of it. Bonus points if you use two or more threats per arena.

Yeah...in B/X, the saves against Death or Poison are better than those against Dragon Breath. But the saves against Petrification are barely better than Dragon Breath, which is odd, considering it's practically a death sentence.

Have you made custom powers or abilities for your characters?

>inb4 FOEGYG

It looks like crazy autist guy has gone to bed for the night, so we can return to normal posting for a few hours before that kind of thing starts up again in earnest.

That having been said, what do you mean by "two stages"? What does the royally screwed part of being turned to stone but not dead look like, for example?

Basically, I have a death and dismemberment chart with body locations weighted for which ones are more likely to be hit in melee combat. If you fail your first save, I roll on that chart and that part of you turns to stone. If you fail your second save, the petrification rapidly overtakes the rest of your body and you're dead unless the party can extract the stone-to-flesh elixir from the cockatrice. And even then, there's only one to go around. If your torso or head get hit (50% chance of happening) you're just insta-dead. Though I have been toying with the idea of surviving with a stone head.

discord.gg/RbUzmD

Hah, if you let them survive with a stone head you know some guy is going to use that shit to his advantage. Could be pretty funny though.

What's your favorite way of doing saving throws?
What do you think of my system for them?
I like the 5-save system for its "old school-ness" but I don't like how specific it is. I understand that they are really more conceptual ("save v.s. breath" is really a save versus any kind of "area attack" or direct damage attack, whereas "save versus poison" is against a more deadly consequence (automatic death) and thus is an easier save to make).
I've heard of systems using a single save. What do you think of those?
Also what do you think of 5e's "one save for each ability score" system? (Which ironically I found was lauded for being more "old-school" despite the fact that I couldn't find a single OSR system that had it).

Yeah, I'm thinking of reducing mental stats by 1d6 and having them be surprised on a 3-in-6. As for the torso, I think having them be stuck in one position and being unable to swim would be enough.

>F/R/W

Saves should be based on the threat, not how you evade it.

...

Huh? But F/R/W saves _are_ about the nature of the effect. If it's something that's affecting your physical body, like petrification or poison, you make a Fort save. If it's unavoidable damage like falling or breath weapons, it's a Ref save. Any magic sort of thing that's affecting your mind is a Wil save. There is a weird edge case with mind-altering substances, but by the basis of science, those should be Fort saves.

Done on its own, separate from all the awful 3rd baggage surrounding it (such as escalating DCs and saves worsening vs. magic as players get to higher level), the Fort/Will/Ref structure is pleasantly intuitive, especially if coming in from a 3rd ed/Pathfinder background. Its main problem is that it so tightly overlaps with existing stats already that it's hard to justify making them separate. Why not just build a system using Con/Wis/Dex, rather than making three new largely redundant stats?

There's been a hundred suggested attempts at this in an OSR framework, so I have no doubt you'll be able to find a lot of discussion about it.

>FRW saves
Don't make me say it.

I like making Fortitude be based off of Strength and Constitution, Reflex saves are based off of Wisdom and Dexterity (you have to notice the threat coming), and Wil saves are based off of Intelligence and Charisma as I've always flavored Charisma as having a hint of fate and luck about it. That said, Con/Dex/Int works well too because those stats are usually barely used in most systems.

Oi, they're fine when you pull them out of the hideous mess that is 3.PF

Well the way I was figuring, it would be unmodified by stat. So it would just be looking at that table depending on what class you are.
There wouldn't be any need for it even on the character sheet necessarily.
At least not any different from the five-save-system.
And monsters would just save as fighter of level equal to their hit dice, or something like that. Although when I only have fighter going up to level 10, currently, that may be an issue.
Whereas, with one save I could put "save: 15+" at the end of the monster stat-line (and I want it to be a line, not a block) and not take up much more space, while also being able to differentiate between monsters being good or bad at saving throws (like a zombie might be tough, with a lot of hp, but not be very good at dodging fireballs or recognizing illusions, so hit dice would not be a good metric for its saves).

Another thing I was thinking was, one save, each class gets a save threshold that levels up, and when you make a save the DM picks the ability most relevant (I always hated wisdom for will saves here but I guess it works) and you add the modifier for that ability score to 1d20 and compare that to your class' save number for your current level.

So say you are level 1 rogue and your save is 12 instead of 14 for a fighter or 16 for a magic-user. You are trying to dodge a trap and have a 15 Dexterity so you roll 1d20 and add 1, you get an 11 + 1 = 12 so you pass your save.

Thoughts on that compared to a straight class/level-based FRW system?

WTF does FOEGYG stand for, by the way?

"false OSR enthusiast, get ye gone."

False OSR Enthusiast, Get Ye Gone. Like most things, what could have been amusing in moderation became a shit-tier forced meme in about a week after it was introduced a few months back.

Hey OSRG

You got a copy of zweihander?

Oh you scamp.

>FRW saves

Fighter Rogue Wizard saves?

Alright thanks. Sorry, I was searching the archives and couldn't find anything on it.

Fighter Cleric MU saves, all the time.

I wonder what you would make Cleric saves against, though.

I almost never fudge rolls.

Instead I opt for including metacurrency.

user...you might want to get your vision checked. Either that or you're dyslexic or retarded.

MU or Wizard?

Rogue or Thief?

Fighting Man, Fighter or Warrior?

Wizard, Thief, Fighter.

honestly, I've been really warming to single-number saves. Maybe add a modifier for things the class is particularly good at (MU's get a bonus vs magic, for example).

Mage, Thief, Fighter.

The trouble with this is that it generally allows spellcasters to "target" weaker saves. A phantasmal killer and a finger of death both result in death, but target different saves under a FRW system. Your fighter and MU both have a greater chance of dying against one save-or-die than the other, which is kinda bullshit.
There's other major problems with 3.x's magic and saving throw systems, but this is a major one to me.
I know that it's totally intuitive, but does an intuitive system always make for a better/more fun game?

>metacurrency
Speaking of, did anyone ever put a "oh shit, it's Occultum" table? Like, you see a petty godling in the street denouncing his followers and demanding prayers, but the moment he sees occultum he's all smiles and fixed intent.
Wizard, Thief, Fighter
Knight
Cannoneer
Goliard

I mean, you're not wrong, but maybe you should start at a different level.
>A phantasmal killer and a finger of death both result in death
Do casters really need more than one save or die spell?

A potential solution is to do away with casters possessed of more powers than a silver-age superhero.

Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric

And this is why I use single category saves and themed casters.

No. I'm pretty sure you and Patrick are the only people who actually have tried to make Occultum gameable.

Do casters need to exist at all?

Does anything?

Okay, so I was the user in the previous thread asking about reincarnation. After some thought on what initially appeared to be a meme answer, I figured that it wasn't that half bad of an idea. A rundown of what I'm trying to do: I want to blend race-as-class with reincarnation by creating lots of racial classes.

I've divided human classes into fighting (fighter, knight, barbarian), skilled (thief, ranger, monk) and magical (bard, cleric, wizard). The obvious choices for dwarves and elves are fighter/cleric and wizard+fighter/wizard+thief. I split halflings into burglars and champions. One is a semi-magical thief with the ability to go unnoticed (like that sentence in The Hobbit) and the other is a fighter focused around climbing on shit and stabbing it to death. The thing is, I'd like each race to have something that maps to each class category and I'm having trouble coming up with good archetypes beyond the ones I've listed.

I'm also going to create a generic monster and animal class with subtables.

I was thinking of boiling classes down to Warrior and Sorcerer, meant to more closely model pulp fantasy charcters. The warrior being a blend of fighter with some thief options, and the sorcerer being a partial warrior with options to pick up magical secrets that in addition to granting to powers that can be used at cost and difficulty, also grant various passive effects to represent essential changes to the character (for instance, a power to call earth elementals would be exhausting to use, and would grant a bonus on reaction rolls when interacting with elemental creatures, maybe an option to reroll if you use the power, as an example).

The idea is that the characters would represent various forms of outcast or pariah. More stalwart and upright warriors exist, but they're found earning military honors or standing in courts or what have you, and more academic wizards are to be found, but they're busy communing the metaphysical realms beyond.

I was searching it without a space in the middle. Hence the source of my retardation.

Sounds pretty good d e s u, if you're going to boil down class archetypes, you might as well crib bits from the ones you like.

>I was thinking of boiling classes down to Warrior and Sorcerer, meant to more closely model pulp fantasy charcters.

I've literally made a homebrew with this, and mostly for exactly that reason. I'd like to see what you come up with, what you've worked out to date.

Nothing much yet, it was a half-baked idea I came up with last night, so I'll get back to you in the future.

No, actually though

>Warrior and Sorcerer

Already done in Carcosa, and that one hack that user posted like 3 days ago

Here it is btw

The author shuts down places that share it ASAP, so no, we don't.

Ah, so you must be new or took a long hiatus from the site. I'll give you the rundown. The Z-game is written by one of the biggest spergs in the universe (colloquial terminology, not medical, though, who knows). Basically, he shilled it a bunch on Veeky Forums until people shitposted it into oblivion, kinda like Dungeon World and that Kill Six Billion Demons game. It's kinda recovered I guess? It's not good, but it's not absolute shit either. No one has it because any trove or thread that possesses the file, or requests the file in some cases, is nuked in quick and brutal fashion.

Carcosa's Warrior/Sorcerer distinction might as well not exist, though.

The user's hack is vastly superior, though.

Loads of people have it, it's sitting on my drive right now. It's just you can't expect it to be shared on the PDF share thread or anywhere here, because Daniel monitors them and sends takedown notices if he even thinks you're sharing his shitty game. (For real, he sent DMCAs to a number of troves that didn't even have it.)
You can still get it, but it won't be easy.

Isn't it just a WFRP2E retroclone?

Yes, and with none of the characteristic charm.

Hey, thanks.

I have a third draft, but I don't want to spam things. I think I'll wait until I get farther on the GM's Manual.

Well, shit. I see it's got a PWYW version on DrivethruRPG but it looks like a "why bother" case. Already got Dragon Warriors, anyway.

Meanwhile, you lot haven't even pirated KtA. For shame.
Sounds sensible, trips agree.
Hrm. Rather than archetypes, think of dungeon/wilderness/city problems that could be solved by the class.

>Perception, Willpower, and Arcana instead of Int, Wis, Cha
>Feats
>Skills

Cant you just put it on a vola? It'll be down in a day anyways

user, do not become that which you hate.

Not bad overall. I like that the good and the bad fighter and thief saves are just 2 points apart. That keeps the system from being to exploitable (by casters targeting people's weak saves). The magic-user gap of 4 points is maybe a bit big for my taste. As an aside, will saves are a bit wonky in my opinion, at least insofar as they represent can represent actual willpower, which recommends itself more for the fighter trope than the magic-user. If anything, sorcerers are depicted more often as craftily craven than having indomitable wills. Compare that to Conan, Lancelot, Achilles, etc. As a "shrug off magic effect" stat, it could make sense for magic-users, though it could also make sense for fighters and thieves too.

One more thing that's a bit weird is that each class advances in level blocks. Every 3 levels, fighters improve their attacks and saves. It's every 4 levels for clerics, and every 5 levels for magic-users. I have nothing against moving to a steadier progression (where your chance to-hit increases by 1 point twice as often rather than in rarer 2 point jumps), but it's a bit wonky if you're having clerics and magic-user to-hits progress every 4 or 5 levels, but using the fighter's 3 level progression for saves.

>Also what do you think of 5e's "one save for each ability score" system?
You could always just have a single category save that's modified by whatever ability is appropriate (and if you want to differentiate the classes, they could give you a bonus to the ability they should be good at: fighters get +2 constitution, magic-users get -2 con, and everybody uses the same d6 hit dice, etc.). But really, it seems like Fort/Ref/Will covers most cases, and would only leave scraps for Str, Int and Cha-based saves.

Is Dragon warriors a WHFRP clone.

No, but it satisfies my "oldschool non-D&D based dungeon crawler" itch pretty well.

...

is supposed to link to

The worst thing about Raggi is his terrible taste in metal.

I haven't gone over it in depth, but one user recently described it as "WFRP 2e" but with "all kinds of houserules piled on, good and bad"
Of course, anonymous dude on Veeky Forums, grain of salt, and all that.

>The trouble with this is that it generally allows spellcasters to "target" weaker saves. A phantasmal killer and a finger of death both result in death, but target different saves under a FRW system. Your fighter and MU both have a greater chance of dying against one save-or-die than the other, which is kinda bullshit.
This should be fine as long as you keep the gap between saves relatively small and gauge things more by people's weak saves than their strong ones when determining stats.

>Hrm. Rather than archetypes, think of dungeon/wilderness/city problems that could be solved by the class.
What do you mean by that?

I can vouch for said user.

Vola pre-emptively blocks files that have had a DMCA, and will ban you and shut your room.

Warrior and Mage only? No thx. Good work tho, honestly.

>What do you mean by that?
-So Fighter solves fights. (the "fire extinguisher" analogy)
-Thief solves locks and fiddly traps and scouting.
-Wizard solves orthogonal problems and outside context problems (the "bag of specialized tools' analogy)
-Ranger solves wilderness navigation problems.
-Monk solves literacy and religious law problems (ok, maybe just my monk)
etc.
Basically, what is a thing that can happen in game, and what class is best suited to "solve" it?

I will say that I've never been particularly fond of the extreme pigeonholing of magic-users. d4 hit points. No armor. Shit weapons. Bad to-hit progression. But a bunch of crazy powerful spells by the time they reach the higher levels. I much prefer a guy who is more able in combat but whose spell progression is less crazy. For this reason, I'll take an elf-class or fighter/magic-user any day over a straight magic-user. The trouble is that they're too powerful, especially if you weren't going to have full magic-users in the game to (slightly) overshadow their magic progression.

Thanks. The idea is that the "feats" aren't 3rd ed stuff you should be already able to do like tripping and stuff, which is awful, but mostly modular bits of subclassing. So if you want to have a warrior with a bit of casting (paladin or ranger), you add the Arcanist feat and then get second-rate caster abilities, or if you want to add some ranger in-the-field stuff you add Fieldcraft and then you can have a ranger mage or ranger warrior. If you want a traditional mage--robes and combat suckage and all--that's there, but you can add increasing amounts of melee ability at the expense of your caster abilities (you trade your school access away for them); between every mage having different school access to start, and then what they do or do not choose to give up for other abilities, they all wind up playing differently.

It wasn't so much about getting rid of all the classes for the sake of hating them as much as trying to make the whole class system as modular as possible for recreating your Elric/Grey Mouser/Conan types, who tend to wander all over traditional D&D class lines.

I've attached the new draft after all, because the mistakes in the old one are irking me.

I've asked this before, but has anyone come up with a decent set of chase rules for dungeons or wilderness encounters that doesn't revolve around the heavy use of random tables. The "you're faster so you win automatically" works, but it's not exactly interesting.

I would probably add a medicarchetype which solves 'being hurt' problems.
You could use clerics, but which is more cool, a faith healer waving his hands to regrow limbs, or a mad surgeon up to her elbows in guts swearing that THIS PATIENT WILL NOT DIE ON HER?

>Do you ever fudge rolls
I do not. I try to be easygoing about most game stuff, but I'm Die Roll Hitler. I roll as much as I can openly and never change the results; otherwise, what's the point of rolling?

youtube.com/watch?v=BHdWz51LRHU&feature=youtu.be&t=22

Didn't he kill himself?

I think my only real beef with this is that eliminating the thief archetype as a foundation doesn't sit well with me. I don't think it's possible to deny the trifecta of the 3 main class types anymore, and just having roguish skills on the backburner doesn't scratch my itch.

Again tho, for what you've done its great work my dude.

>dead
Do you actually rule that they die, or are they just petrified as per the standard spell?

>What's your favorite way of doing saving throws?
The standard five saves.

>What do you think of my system for them?
Profoundly terrible. I don't know why ex-3aboos are so attached to the nonsensical and unpleasant 3e save categories that this keeps coming up so regularly, but I don't like it more this time than any of the other 50 times it was posted.

Dunno. Source on that?

Not that I know of.

...

The obvious intuitiveness of it is strongly appealing. At the same time, I think most people miss the larger knock-on effects, because they're not as in-your-face, so people don't see any flaws to it until much later. Intuitiveness is good, but it's not everything.

Why not both? A chanting priest with a crazed look in his eyes clutches the bleeding form of his fallen comrade as torrents of pus sanitize her wounds before closing before her very eyes.

They're petrified as per the standard spell, but that's basically death until your MU's up to 11th level, unless I'm missing something blatantly obvious in B/X rules.

>mad surgeon

Didn't you make an LotFP class for that?

I use a skill based system. Each round you roll athletics (base 1-in-6, modified), and if both sides succeed or fail, it takes you a turn's worth of running away from the fight, and you keep rolling. If for the round only the fleeing one wins, they escape successfully, and if only the chaser wins, then they're caught. It works surprisingly well.
You can also slow it down and use stealth and tracking for tailing somebody more slowly.

Hmmm, how do you mesh this with movement speeds?

NAYRT, I'd give a +1 for every 10 feet of movement speed over the other party. Or maybe per 5 feet, 10 might be too big -- how often do you see a 50 foot difference in move rates?