/osrg/ – Old School Renaissance General

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What is a good houserule for thief skills?

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I need pictures of old school orcs.

Reposting:

Last thread there was a discussion about the nature of a threat determining saving throws, which is a lie (or just incorrect information). Save vs. poison covers instant death situations, but so does save vs. spells (sometimes). Paralyzation is touched alongside save vs. poison even though being paralyzed isn't necessarily more of a death sentence than save vs. petrification. Your character is just out of the game for a little bit.

What if saving throws were ACTUALLY grouped by effect of a failed save?

There could be...

>save vs. death
Obvious.

>save vs. incapacitation
For things that take you out of the game: paralyze, petrify, mind control.

>save vs. damage
For "it does damage but doesn't necessarily kill you outright."

>save vs. impairment
For status effects like blind and penalties to attack rolls.

You'd want to give them better names than that, but there you go.

Assuming a classic game of D&D, how often do you give out spells to your wizards? Or do you just rely on the treasure tables to do that for you?

I actually like this

Thieving skills: the thief adds five times his level to his base chance to determine success. The final chance cannot be higher than 99.
•Tinker: this skill is used to open locks and disable devices such as traps. Rolling doubles on a failed roll means catastrophic failure. Base chance 25%.
•Move Silently: Thieves can move quietly, without making a sound. Base chance 30%.
•Hide in Shadows: Thieves can make themselves very hard to see when lurking in the shadows. Anyone can hide, of course, but thieves are virtually invisible and can move around while hiding. Base chance 20%
•Pick Pockets: This is the skill used to pick pockets and other tasks requiring a deft and fast hand. Rolling doubles on a failed roll means catastrophic failure. Base chance 30%

Backstab: When attacking with surprise or from behind, the Thief gains a +4 bonus to hit and multiply their damage by two. The bonus and multiplier each go up every fifth level.

Search: the thief increases his chance to find hidden features per turn by 1. This chance increases again every fifth level.

Climb Walls: Thieves are adept at scaling sheer surfaces, including walls or steep cliffs, with a chance of 85% + their level (maximum of 99). They require a skill roll for each 100 feet they intend to climb. If the roll fails, they fall a distance equal to half the attempted distance, taking 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet

Use Arcane Device: A thief can read and cast magic from magic-user scrolls, and use magic items he could not normally use, with [(Level-1)*10%], up to a maximum of 90% accuracy. A failed roll means the spell does not function as expected and can create a horrible effect at the Labyrinth Lord’s discretion. This skill may be used in conjunction with Tinker to interact with magical traps.


How do you like my thief houserule, /osrg/?

this is pretty good

It's a little weird to me that paralysis from a carrion crawler and mind control would amount to the same thing. It does seem like the *form* of something is at least as important as the mechanics of its harm. That's why the F/R/W system is strong in concept, though I do kind of want to pair it with some kind of bonus vs. things that cause death (or as good as death). Still, it does seem like your system takes the ad hoc conglomerations of saves and moves it towards a cleaner categorization.

You need to split "transformation" (stuff that takes your character away indefinitely) out from "incapacitation." (stuff that prevents you doing anything for a short while)
Polymorph and Charm Person are significantly worse than being paralyzed or knocked out for a short time.

>What is a good houserule for thief skills?
Here's this thing I've posted at least a few times before (in your choice of flavors: roll-under or d20 mechanic).

There are a host of ways to do this. Simplest is that straight-up death effects give a bonus on the saving throw. Poison is a Fortitude save, but instant-death poison is Fortitude + 2.

Otherwise, instant death effects might have you be brought to 1 HP on a failed save, unless you roll an odd number on the d20, in which case you're instantly dead anyway.

At first glance this looked pretty good with the forte/weakness thing, but then you brought in "task difficulty". I'm not saying task difficulty is inherently bad, but having 12 different degrees of difficulty seems overkill, and thief skills particularly are sufficiently specialized by themselves (Hide in Shadows allows you to be nearly invisible where a normal person couldn't even try to hide, Remove Traps allows for delicate disabling of mechanisms like an EOD tech disarms a mine, Open Locks allows for the silent forcing of doors.... - all things that you cannot normally roleplay doing, and that make sense for the thief to be the only one to do)

>What is a good houserule for thief skills?
Deleting thieves

1. don't read ahead
2. use reactions and morale
3. if you've accidentally read the solution to a trap/encounter, punish yourself with an encounter check
4. When you need to make a ruling, go with whatever hampers your PC
I wrote a log of my solo adventure so I could throw that up if you guys want.

I should maybe explain my guiding principles. First, there's no reason to use a d% resolution mechanic. It's needlessly granular, and there are other dice systems already in play that would work at least as well. So I shifted to a d20 mechanic.

Second, the differentiation between many of the skills is small enough to not really be worth keeping track of. If you've got Open Locks 75, Remove Traps 70, Pick Pockets 75, Move Silently 75 and Hide in Shadows 65, then you're keeping track of far more stats than you really need to. And why? Does the 5 percentile difference between Remove Traps and Pick Locks really make the game better somehow? I figured that it would be far more interesting if you did away with those differences but gave each person a forte and a weakness to set them apart (and which are the equivalent of 10 or 15 percentiles different from the base score -- enough, I hope, to make them worth keeping track of).

Third, thief skills are absolutely pathetic to begin with, so I wanted to boost them to more acceptable levels. And last, I wanted a resolution mechanic that could be extended to non-thieves.

When you play AD&D, what rules do you use and don't use, seeing how the AD&D DM's guide has a lot of...well stuff.

Or should I just play OD&D

I just play Basic.

Unironically not a bad idea.
The problem with old-school saves is that they are overly-specific. Yet conceptually they make sense. I just don't see much point in the 12 13 14 15 16 when you could just say "saves against death get a +2." But then you be reductionist about any mechanic in an RPG like that. I dunno.

>but having 12 different degrees of difficulty seems overkill, and thief skills particularly are sufficiently specialized by themselves
The "moderate" difficulty in blue is the default. The rest of the values are mainly there as guidelines, to help you scale things when and if you want to (to represent, for instance, the difference between the medieval-ish fantasy equivalent of a cheap bike lock and a bank vault). But you could completely ignore everything but the blue line and always roll vs. 20 for specialized tasks or 10 for common ones.

>What is a good houserule for thief skills?
Everyone can do thief skills, thieves just do them better, faster, safer, and more reliably. Unlike some of the other posters, I don't view a rudimentary skill system to be wholly detrimental to the game. There are only so many ways a player can say

>I carefully insert the locks and twist them until I hear the tumblers click

before the DM throws up his hands and ends up creating a system for it.

There are only two ways that matter when it comes to unlocking doors
>slow and quiet
>fast and loud
This isn't /Dungeon World general/, the players don't need to narrate every attempt at lockpicking.

Question: What about this can be done better?

I kinda want to start warping into into a genre-less thing, where Spells can be replaced with Mutations, or Psionics, or Augmentations to capture wider genre options, namely Post-Apocalypse, Sci-Fi and Cyberpunk (or mash it all together to make a batshit campaign.)

It occurs to me that the intent might be a bit clearer on the roll-under table, where "moderate" is an unmodified roll, and everything else is various degrees of +X for easy stuff, or -Y for hard stuff, just like you'd modify shit in combat.

Honestly most of the AD&D stuff is superfluous... Most of everything is superfluous. I learned this the hard way. Now I've gone back to LL + AEC, occasionally grabbing good stuff like the Magic Research rules from ACKS.

>good stuff like the Magic Research rules from ACKS

Mind covering these a bit? How are they better than the standard B/X / Labyrinth Lord process?

But user, that's not a houserule, thats BtB...
>Anybody can force open a door, only the thief can pick the lock quietly.
>Anybody can hide or sneak (surprise chance), only the thief can Hide in Shadows or Move Silently.
>Anybody can climb, only the thief can Climb Sheer Surfaces
etc etc

For a "choose what you want when you level" system, casting is broken. Like in 3.x, you take a huge hit if you don't put all your levels towards it. If you put half as many levels into casting, you're *far* less than half as powerful. For instance, let's compare the spell slots of a level 8 character who put half his levels into casting and one who put them all into casting:
half -- 2/2
all -- 4/3/2/2

The second guy has almost three times as many spell slots, but that's not the worst thing. The first guy only has only comparatively weak 1st and 2nd level spells, while the second guy has an equal number of 3rd and 4th level spells. Hell, if the second guy *only* had those 3rd and 4th level spells (and none of the 7 spells from the first two levels), he'd still probably be too powerful in comparison.

>When
More like "if" based on what goes on in this general. But off the top of my head:

>AD&D 1e
PHB, 3d6 down the line attributes, OA barbarian as a class option, psionic powers but no psionic combat, no weapon speed factors

>AD&D 2e
PHB with clerics replaced by Complete Priest's Handbook or Legends & Lore versions, Complete Psionics Hanbook, 3d6 down the line attributes, no weapon speed factors or armor penetrated by certain damage types, no kits

Those specifically are not very different, but have a few things that I like.
First of all, they start letting you create items at 5th level [it's not 100% like this], which I like because somebody needs to be creating all those scrolls and potions the party keeps finding.
It gives more detailed guidelines on time and gold needed.
Construct creation (now you can have golems)
Crossbreeding creation (now you can have chimaeras)
Necromancy (turn your friends and yourself into liches or other undead)

I'm always happyto look at homebrews, but I always want to know: what's your design goal or goals. Is it literally just "I don't want classes", or is there more? I mean, the first is fine, but each thing you're trying to do informs any analysis of the various component parts.

>Deleting thieves
How are you supposed to deal with locked doors? Describing how to pick the lock?

>How are you supposed to deal with locked doors?
If you have lockpicks you can pick them. Improvised lockpicks mean you take longer to pick them

Thieves are such a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I adore the archetype and I appreciate the dimensions of play that are opened by it (frail individual who isn't good in combat but can lay down the hurt when he gets the jump on someone). On the other hand, I think skill systems mesh with class systems rather poorly.

>Anybody can force open a door, only the thief can pick the lock quietly.
I'm open to any party member trying to pick the lock, but it eats a turn and risks triggering any traps with all that entails. Thieves can try to pick a lock without spending a turn on it or risking the trap going off.

>Anybody can hide or sneak (surprise chance), only the thief can Hide in Shadows or Move Silently.
>Anybody can climb, only the thief can Climb Sheer Surfaces
Those are both good points. The rules don't explain them very well, however.

I have lockpicks. I can't pick a lock though.

>I can't pick a lock though.
GM disagrees, now pick the lock before I kick you from the table.

Anybody?
I tried to make thieves a bit better at earlier levels and give them a bit of extra oomph in combat at higher (mainly backstab).

Is that lack of arcane power for the non-dedicated caster really that bad? I mean, he's got the ability to fight in combat FAR better (higher AB, combat options), or he has adept use of myriad skills. Or a nice mix. What you have is a Caster who's overly reliant on their spells for everything, or someone who is adeptly capable of fighting, skills and magic. And if they're at 8th level and the tough shit they'd be facing, it doesn't need to be a dick swinging competition among players about who is more 'powerful'. It's still just about working together and surviving.

To have more modular PCs in a system without the hassle of post B/X D&D multi-classing.

You look at LotFP and it's quite a good system. I love it. But the whole 'job security' thing I don't think is as vital as people sometimes stress. Why shouldn't that Fighter ever be able to get a little better in skills or dabble in the arcane? Why should that Thief only be a skill-monkey and never learn to fight better like Conan? I'd like to have those options available without a lot of hassle, bookkeeping, math etc...

I like characters that have more to them than their class niche allows. And like I said before, I'd like to be able to figure out how to allow it to be accessible to multiple genres, not just Fantasy.

>skill systems mesh with class systems rather poorly.
Why? How is a thief's ability to Become Invisible different from the cleric's Turn Undead?

I don't, by the way, know how you fix that. The parabolic nature of caster spell power is a real issue in D&D and makes it really hard to come up with simple mechanics for things. The problem with the guy who has half the caster levels is that he has half the number of spells and half the spell power. So it's ½ ×½ = ¼. And if the guy who put half his levels into casting also casts individual spells at half power (a 5d6 fireball rather than a 10d6 fireball), that's a further degradation of his power.

If you keep the same scheme, then I'd suggest starting characters off with a number of spells at level 1 (maybe 3), giving out no more than one spell slot at each level gain, and maybe increasing the number of caster levels you have to gain to get to the next level of spells. Maybe you start off with 1st level spells at 1st level; gain 2nd level spells after 2 more levels, at 3rd; gain 3rd level spells 3 levels after than, at 6th; gain 4th level spells 4 levels after that, at 10th; etc. That might be stretching things out a bit too much at the higher levels, at least without tweaking other aspects of the game, so maybe you cap it at 3 caster levels to get a new spell level, but even that could help a bit.

What's with 5-mile hexes?

Judge's Guild liked them?

>Is that lack of arcane power for the non-dedicated caster really that bad? I mean, he's got the ability to fight in combat FAR better (higher AB, combat options), or he has adept use of myriad skills.
But fighter power is linear. If somebody has half as many fighter levels, he has half as many to-hit increases. Compared that to the caster, who has maybe a third as many spells, and just the weaker ones at that (and who is even casting them with less power?)

>How is a thief's ability to Become Invisible different from the cleric's Turn Undead?
It depends entirely on how one views the thieves' skills (if they are supernatural in origin). I am of the opinion that some are and some are not. "Hear noises" and "pick pockets" don't seem particularly extraordinary, and the rules are poorly explained within the game books. As I said, there is merely my preference for how to rule the thieves' special abilities.

>"Hear noises" and "pick pockets" don't seem particularly extraordinary
Agreed. I remove Hear Noises entirely as a thief skill, and normal characters either don't get to pick pockets, or Pick Pockets is sort of a safety net before you have to roll for surprise.

To illustrate this, let me recreate an 9th level elf from B/X. An elf is lagging a bit less than a level behind the magic-user at that point (due to higher XP requirements), so I'll just round that up to a full level and give him level 8 casting ability. That means in your system, we need to put 8 out his 9 level increases into casting. That only leaves him 1 to put into fighting.

Now let's look at the fighter side of things. An elf is the tiniest bit more than a level behind the fighter at this point, but we'll round that to a level for convenience sake. That means he should be be attacking as an 8th level fighter (ignoring for the moment that levels 8 and 9 are in the same to-hit and saving throw grouping and therefore have the exact same scores). In terms of hit points, however, the elf is not only a level back, but also penalized one die size. So we're looking at 9d8 for the fighter vs. 8d6 for the elf. 8d6 is worth a bit more than 8d6, but that's the closest match, so the elf is effectively 3 levels behind the fighter there. Let's average that with the one level he's behind in to-hit and saves, and say that he averages out to being 2 levels behind overall. So in your system, we need to put 7 levels towards fighting.

So in order to replicate a 9th level elf from Basic, we'd need to put 7 levels in fighting and 8 into casting. That's a 15th level character to make a 9th level elf. Now, I think elves are significantly too powerful in Basic, and if we depowered with that in mind, maybe you'd only need a 13th level character to replicate him in your system, but that's still 4 extra levels.

All right, I've given it a once-over. I've tried to attach an fdf file with comments but it keeps giving me a connection error when I submit, so here's a dropbox link instead. I hope it helps.

dropbox.com/s/ypjaep1z3phnhvc/homebrew.fdf?dl=0

...

>Beginning at 15th level, a fighter gains one additional attack per round. One further attack is gained every 5 levels to a maximum of 4 attacks per round.

??

>a maximum of 4 attacks
>14- : 1 attack
>15: 2 attacks
>20: 3 attacks
Where is the 4th coming from?

For me, Pick Pockets is replaced with Sleight if Hand, and lets you pick pockets or perform tricks completely unnoticed. If you fuck up the skill check or if you’re a non-rogue, you roll for 1-in-6 of success and then make a surprise check.

4 attacks per round would occur at 25th level.

You should also cite what you're quoting.

backward/forward compatibility rule probably.

I'm pretty sure that's LL.

>I wrote a log of my solo adventure so I could throw that up if you guys want.

Please do

I know, any recommendations?

Labyrinth Lord

But there are no rules for advancing to such a high level

You don't need them, It's incredibly easy to extrapolate.

Weird, maybe it should be level 10 you start at. Someone should email Goblinoid Games and demand satisfaction, or at least errata, but I am le tired.

I ask the magic users to give me the top 3 they're looking for, at their level. Roll d6 and place one of them in the adventure somewhere. The rest is treasure table.

Hey, thanks user. It's appreciated.

I divided Knowledge up into the areas I did to settle certain thing's I've noticed while DMing that I felt demanded less of a handwave and more a particular test of their characters knowledge. It's easy enough to just roll under INT or WIS, but then again I've known dumb as fuck people with no common sense who could recite the Bible to me verbatim, or hyper-educated people who have no fucking idea who Cú Chulainn is or how to speak anything but English.

>Arcana:
Easy way to settle PCs asking if they know about something magical, or if they can sense residual magic, etc
>Architecture & Engineering:
Fills in the for Dwarf racial skill and covers everything from sloping passages to machination.
>History & Lore:
Easy way to settle PCs asking if they know about something obscure in the world.
>Language:
Fills in for the Languages skill. Also useful for decrypting code.
>Religion:
Same as history; good for Clerical oriented PCs.

I think those fields are broad enough to cover most sort of situations demanding knowledge of something. Plus it lets characters have more of a niche in a certain field, which I think is nice. As a player, being uniquely capable of understanding something is enjoyable in play and feels rewarding.

The parry/press/defensive options (and most of this, really) are in the LotFP rules. What they do it in the little box above it's description, but the PDF is just a little start (AC/AB bonuses/penalties).

Is there any rpgs which seek to build from a base of chainmail as opposed to a base of post-chainmail? Anything that eschews the overcomplicated man to man mess and goes for the 1:20 system as a base?

If it really doesn't exist, i might do it myself. Biggest issue I see is converting the various match up tables into a unified system.

Delta's Book of War, maybe?

> Hey, thanks user. It's appreciated.

No prob: I have my own homebrew, and so know how nice it is to get meaningful feedback.

>most of this, really) are in the LotFP rules

Ah, this explains a bit. I have it and have a passing familiarity with parts, but some of my comments will no doubt reflect my overall ignorance there.

Good luck with your project.

Reboated for visibility from last thread so user can see it:

It depends on the hex size, t bh. If you've got ten-mile hexes like Carcosa, or even bigger, such that you only cover one or two per day on foot or horseback, then encountering the thing in each hex as you enter it is preferable IMO (and then you can roll for encounters in the future). On the other hand, with three-to-six-mile hexes where getting on a horse can zoom you off a ways, just roll at the end of the day or traveling will take forever and be unreasonably clogged with events.

>a save revision that actually makes sense and describes an improvement on existing rules but in line with the underlying philosophy
Pinch me, I'm dreaming. It's like /osrg/ went through Purgatory and came out on the other side or something.

Endorsed, user. Keep working on this.

Can you run B/X modules in Tunnels & Trolls?

Not really, it's pretty different. There are ways to convert things, though.

I had an idea. The key is boosting the spell power of characters who only put some of their levels towards casting, and doing so in a way that's simple and doesn't require you to consult multiple tables, or do a lot of bullshit math to figure out what you need to do. So what I came up with was this table. The figures in red are character levels. If you character level is at least as high as indicated, you get 1 spell slot of that level. So if you're a 3rd level character and you put all 3 levels into casting, your spell slots are 4/1. But if you're a 6th level character or higher, and you put 3 levels into casting, your spell slots are 4/1/1.

So if I go back to this:
>For instance, let's compare the spell slots of a level 8 character who put half his levels into casting and one who put them all into casting:
>half -- 2/2
>all -- 4/3/2/2

With my table we instead end up with:
half -- 4/2/1/1
all -- 4/4/2/2

They have the same number of 1st level spells, but the guy who put all his levels into casting has twice as many 2nd, 3rd and 4th level spells.

I know OSR is inspired by sword-and-sorcery without the PCs being (at least to start with) the kinds of badasses that someone like Conan is.

Is there any way to rebalance so that the heroes *are* the kinds of protagonists you'd find in S&S fare, while still being able to use OSR modules and such without too much work sanding off the edges?

I'm aware of Scarlet Heroes, but that still doesn't seem to involve a lot of the kind of head-busting you might see from your typical S&S hero.

Newer editions do up the power level but in a way that makes it feel less like old sword-and-sorcery stories, not more.

DCC.

>I'm aware of Scarlet Heroes, but that still doesn't seem to involve a lot of the kind of head-busting you might see from your typical S&S hero.

I dunno, last time I used it, that Fighter was kicking in doors and busting orc heads left and right.
>What, four orcs? Ha! You guys should have brought four more!

Start at a higher level?

Broadly, you're looking at more HP, more attacks, better saves, and a better attack bonus. The result would be guys that do a better job brawling it out with enemy but without using oddball powers to do so. Alternatively, you could jsut start guys at a higher level, which largely does all of the above.

Yeah, DCC does this. I've got a homebrew that aims for this somewhat. I'm sure there's others.

Is the Lankhmar Box Set out yet?
Fair enough. Maybe I was mistaken about how much it boosts the characters.
Always an option.

...

A couple more design notes. Every time you get a a new level of spells, you get two spell slots (1 at the new level, and 1 at a lower one). This is necessary to make sure there is never a dead level where you don't get anything. Why? Because if you only put some of you're levels into casting, and your character is a high enough level, he'll already have a spell at that new spell level via the bonus slot in red. (Technically, this doesn't apply to level 20, because there are no bonus red slots for 9th level spells, but I still gave out two slots to keep the pattern.)

Other than that, I kept it to 1 spell slot gained per level. I started characters out with 2 spell slots at 1st level, partly for balance reasons (balance when comparing "partial" casters with those who put all their levels into casting, that is), and partly because I don't like the one-and-done nature of 1st level magic-users.

After you've got 6th level spells (the max for B/X), I stretched out the progression so that it takes 3 caster levels before you gain each new spell level. That's necessary to make the table work well, but I think it's appropriate in any case.

>Is the Lankhmar Box Set out yet?

Still under way, AFAIK. They were estimating April.

What are some dungeons you've had fun exploring?

This looks awesomely useful, but your explanation is really confusing. Could you try to clarify it another way or maybe provide some more examples step by step?

I'm not entirely clear either, but I think he means that if you had one level as a mage and maxed your level, you'd have one spell of each spell level, like 1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1, and then then you bump up the totals to match your levels in a magic using class, so level 1 mage gets 2 first rank spells, meaning your 1 mage/19 whatever would total up as:
>2/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1
whereas a 20 mage would be:
>4/4/4/4/4/3/3/2/1

That's not perfect IMO, since that 9th spell rank is still fantastic, but it's better than a lot of other suggestions I've seen for for multiclassing.

>I'm aware of Scarlet Heroes, but that still doesn't seem to involve a lot of the kind of head-busting you might see from your typical S&S hero.


That's explicitly what Scarlet Heroes is about. There's a mechanic called the "Fray" die that only heroes get, it's automatically done each turn without rolling, and is meant to represent the things inbetween attacks, awesome kicks, goblins hitting other goblins when they fly back etc.

Scarlet heroes is EXPLICITLY for a Conan-esque game

If that's still not up your ally though, just up their levels a bit and play AD&D where they can multi-class so you can get a proper mouser.

>Is that lack of arcane power for the non-dedicated caster really that bad?
Speaking as a guy who played a shit-ton of 3e before realizing how busted it was: It's bad enough to be a trap option, t bh. That's why AD&D multiclassing works the way it does.

>What are some good dungeons for someone's first game?
Tomb of the Serpent King
Hyqueous Vaults
Broodmother Skyfortress

They were specified as the standard in OD&D.

Is Tunnels & Trolls good?

Okay. It's a bit tricky to put this into words, so you'll have to forgive me if this explanation isn't much better than the last.

The black numbers on the spell table work the way they always do, so only the red numbers are special. Further, the red numbers will never even come into play if you put all your levels into casting -- they only affect "partial" casters (characters who put only some of their levels into casting).

So let's say you've put 4 levels into casting. That gives you spell slots of "4 / 2 / (red 6th) / (red 8th)". So there are two pieces of information we need to know to determine what spell slots you actually end up with: are you at least 6th level, and are you at least 8th level? If your character is at least 6th level overall, that means you unlock the "red 6th", getting a 3rd level spell slot. If your character is at least 8th level overall, you unlock the "red 8th", gaining a 4th level spell slot.

So we already know you put 4 levels into casting, but if your overall character level is 4 or 5, you aren't high enough level to unlock anything, and your spell slots end up being 4/2. If your character level is 6 or 7, you unlock the "red 6th" but not the "red 8th", indicating you have spell slots of 4/2/1. If your character level is 8 or over, you unlock both the "red 6th" and the "red 8th", and end up with slots of 4/2/1/1.

So the red numbers amount to a declaration that: "if your character level is at least as high as this number, you unlock a spell slot here". Does that make sense?

Not exactly. There's just one number for a 1st level caster: a black 2 in the 1st level spell slot, indicating that you get 2 first level spells. There are no red numbers anywhere on the 1st level caster row, so it doesn't matter how high your level is, you aren't getting anything more.

But if you're a 2nd level caster, there's a red "4th" in the second level spell slot. That means if your overall character level is at least 4, you get that second level spell slot.

Depends on taste, it's got a very "ghetto D&D" vibe. It works, but it ain't pretty.

>Is there any way to rebalance so that the heroes *are* the kinds of protagonists you'd find in S&S fare
Unfortunately this is actually impossible within the confines of D&D, due primarily to the leveling system. For example, in the very first Lankhmar story, "Jewels of the Forest", Fafhrd is fighting two brigands at once and reflects that he's fucked; although he had heard old sagas where the hero fought as many as four opponents at the same time, he knew this was actually impossible, and that even against two men, the best a skilful fighter can hope for is to hold them off and hope for luck. On the other hand, by level 4 or 5 in D&D you'll be routinely able to fuck a bunch of brigands up the dickpipe at the same time, especially in OD&D where by level 5 you have five attacks per round against normal man-types.

This is something that's basically necessary due to the nature of progress and advancement in D&D, which in turn is a vital part of the main motor of the game.

>8d6 is worth a bit more than 8d6
This is meant to say "8d6 is worth a bit more than 6d8", right?

Is troika! OSR?

No, it's definitely old school, though.

>This is meant to say "8d6 is worth a bit more than 6d8", right?
Yeah. That.

Or, to represent the same information differently, here's a table that simply uses footnotes.

But what if they roll to seduce the door open?

This is the False OSR Enthusiast Discord. Come in and shitpost.

What are your players currently the most afraid of?

Wizards

Forgot link lol.
discord (dot) gg/BkvPQUQ

...

Me

What if 2e had used a universal table?

How does this chart work?

Why did none of you tell me?

Not that. Book of war goes the other way (simulate mass battles using the d20 resolution mechanic)

The Big Brown Book is based on just that premise.

Also, Jason Vey's Spellcraft & Swordplay gives it a go.