My problem with D&D magic

I must have reworked D&D spell list like 30000 times (the last, a radical GLOG-based attempt can be found here) For me, the way magic is handled is the great flaw of the game; and its biggest missed opportunity.

The greatest points of my gaming history have been when no Magic Users nor Clerics have been involved at all; when the game felt more tangible and, paradoxically, magical. For a while I just didn't even allow them, and it lead me to discover the primal affinity between Fighting Men and Hobbits.

I love Earthsea and the Dying Earth: the hate is not to the Wizard figure on itself, its just that I feel that D&D just doesn't do them right. It works awesome in combat, fighters are solid, every other class makes sense on the practice, but not magic people.

At first I thought, like you are possibly thinking, that the problem was Vancian magic (even if its just ripped of from the aforementioned Dying Earth stories). Now I am putting together a clean, personal rules synthetized from Greyharp's OD&D, and, inspired by this entry, I want to try what it proposes: classic vancian, but with MUs preparing only one spell per day. But then, I start to read the spell list and its all crooked to me. And I think that I've pierced on the problem: they are appropiate for a boardgame such as Heroquest, in which you have a determined drive (kill enemies on dark corridors) and this explains why Clairvoyance, Clairaudience and ESP only need to work just six feet beyond the MU, or why they can cast a Fireball in a given area in squares with scalable damage, yet lighting a bonfire or a torch is not possible RAW. Fireball deals area damage, and Lightning Bolt deals damage in a line.

 

For another example, divination, a great part of magic in real life and in all related media, is messy and fake through a whole sack of specific tricks (detect evil, detect traps, locate object, detect magic, detect invisible, etc) whose use must be preemptivelly divinated by the player so he can prepare by guessing the most important thing to detect. Together with the Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, ESP trio, they seldom have any use outside the dark Heroquest tunnel. And I get that D&D is about dungeons, but its not only about that. It's a game of adventure first, and world exploration and dungeons second. Spells should make the world feel vibrant, but they instead paint it like a bland boardgame. And its worse the higher level the spells get: Wall of Iron? Wall of stone? Wall of Ice? really? But there is more: can you picture getting to level 12 and getting to cast this boring shit? :

 

Because that is the underlying fact on all this: spells are designed to have a given technical specifications in dungeons but are pretty much uninteresting outside them, and not really interesting in dungeons when they are useful. On my opinion, not even combat spells are really needed: thats why MUs increase their to-hits and why they pair up with fighting men. I'd be more invested on a game where they have more utility or even social spells, increasing their use on cities and civilized areas, and less firepower, which they have never needed.

Last but not least, I'd like to remember why magic is in the game at all. It is not to provide gamist buffs. The game doesnt even need that. It is there because magic adds a mood to the game you are living into during the game. It adds the possibility of invoking fire, of unleashing a storm, of creating wonder. The best of having magic is the possibility of introducing wonderful, lush, evocative, epic, thrilling, a e s t h e t i c scenes through it.

I don't know if what I'm describing its even possible, or if I will be able to do it. But now I know a little better what I am pursuing, even if it makes magic irrelevant in battle or impractical in dungeons, though I am sure that all those concepts are not mutually exclusive. A list itself, God willing, will be posted shortly.

Point buy is racist

Racist towards strong people. Or what are you telling me? that if you go to the gym and reach STR +1 its because you are either dumb, clumsy and/or have execrable charisma?

Those are evil stereotypes that might have been created innocently: the dumb brute, the frail genius. Or maybe not? Subconsciously you are being told since childhood that by avoiding physical activity you are not getting weak, but smarter. You are too good to partake in the games of dumb brutes.

Then on the other side, avoiding books, art and philosophy doesn't limit you: on the contrary, you are part of the strong men, who don't need the knowledge of puny men.

Thats one of the many reasons I like to roll for stats, and hate point buy with all my soul.

Actually, the opposites might be true: Strength, Wisdom and Intelligence can make a case to be merged on a super-stat. It is natural that wise people is rapidly aware that strength is a very important thing to hone, even if just a little, and spend some time of their week pulling some bars or equivalent. On the mirror side, naturally strong people has less worries about validation, dopamine hunting and also get much more women. Those worries leave place to much more time to cultivate themselves in any arts and sciences they wish to pursue.

This might be the reason for which quarterbacks are given bonuses to get in their chosen universities in the american movies.
Non-strong kids are assumed to be smart by some, but they are just low key unless they have some charisma (and become emos) or dexterity (play guitar and become super emos)

[bx?] Very variable weapon damage: Sword VS Mace

Enter rule sketch:

All weapons do d6 damage. But fighters, and only fighters, can use certain weapons to their full extent.

For example, swords allow a second attack if the first one hits. This way, swords are better against enemies with light armor or none, and they get exponentially better as the fighting man or woman accumulates attack bonus.

The table below shows the equivalent damage per attack in percentage (where a 100% would be a d6 sword that always hits) and which damage die would deal that amount in a single attack. Notice that it behaves as a common longsword a little above leather armor, and drops a little on plate and shield (17 ac)

On the other side of the ring, we have the mace. Maces, on the hands of fighters, deal double damage on natural 20s. This increment will be hardly noticed against low acs unless the occassional lucky shot, but against highly armored foes, and those who are above your hitting range and require 20s, you will deal much more damage per hit. See below:

 

 

Mace keeps being a d7 (a little better than the d6 it is normally) until plate armor, at which it exponentially rises. I have also calculated the effect of a +1 damage in both cases. For the full effect of a +1 strength (+1 to hit and +1 damage) see the +1 damage at the next best ac. The equivalence to the normal bonus is flawless (+3 numbers in the die as it should). 

And now, my opinion: 

All weapons being equalled one to other both in damage and to hit makes no sense. "b-b-but a dagger can slit your throat just as a broadswooord". NO. If you are so retarded as to not find the flaw on that argument you deserve to be thrown into the roman colosseum with a broomstick.

All weapons being differentiated by their damage dice makes a little to introduce the concept of good and bad weapons. But it fails in the gamist aspect, not as much as it is unrealistic, but because it annuls any meaningful choice in weaponry: the d8 longsword is the best on one hand, and then there is the greatsword. End. "b-but an axe can be used to chop a door". Well, yes. But how are they going to chop it if NOBODY PICKS THE AXE, BECAUSE THE LONGSWORD DOES D8?

All weapons having a VS ARMOR table is wonderful. It comes with problems on its own, of course. Referencing the table is one, and also is when monsters are adjudicated an armor type based on their numerical value instead of their armor type in game. But at least comes close to what it should be the ideal: give weapons small nuances in combat that makes them a valid choice to be carried, even if in a completely marginal case and even if their bonus is almost always negligible (in fact, marginal differences would be the best in my opinion)

My approach here described is just an idea, but fails in the execution as the mace gets too good at 20+ and does it too far from plate armor, which the sword damages very competently anyways. The choice would be viable if the Plate Armor spot was around 18 AC instead. But still, I spent a lot of work tonight on calculating this shit. Let's call it a day, and who knows, this study might be useful at some point.

[osr] shields shall be activated, part II, re-rewritten

One more iteration on the concept of Activated Shields. A much simpler method than the previous entry, in which the shield d20 roll replaced the current AC. 

The rule is:

Shields don't provide any passive AC bonus. Instead, they block a succesful hit on a roll of 6 on a d6 (before damage is rolled). This makes their relative AC be better or worse depending on the armor worn (as they are going to "work" more on lower ACs), according to this table.

 

AC (ascending)	% to be hit at +0 bonus	1/6 blocked by the shield	+ ac equivalent (+1 in d&d)
2	95	15'8	3'17
3	90	15	3
4	85	14'1	2'87
5	80	13'3	2'66
6	75	12'5	2'5
7	70	11'6	2'33
8	65	10'8	2'17
9	60	10	2
Unarmored (10)	55	9'16	1'83
11	50	8'3	1'66
Leather armor (12)	45	7'5	1'50
13	40	6'6	1'33
Chainmail (14)	35	5'8	1'17
15	30	5	1
Plate Armor (16)	25	4'1	0'83
17	20	3'3	0'66
18	15	2'5	0'5
19	10	1'7	0'33

 As you see, this makes shields be a liiiitle better on leather and chainmail, not enough to make a big difference, but its a little treat to those fighting man who don't get plate as soon as they can. I want to open the possibility of using less armor in order to open more encumbrance. Not sure if this little boost would be enough.

Below this lines, you can see the same table but for a shield roll that prvented hits 1/3 of the time (5 or 6 on a d6)

AC (ascending)	% to be hit at +0 bonus	2/6 blocked by the shield	+ ac equivalent (+1 in d&d)
2	95	31'6	6'33
3	90	30	6
4	85	28'2	5'66
5	80	26'6	5'33
6	75	25	5
7	70	23'2	4'66
8	65	21'6	4'33
9	60	20	4
Unarmored (10)	55	18'33	3'66
11	50	16'6	3'33
Leather armor (12)	45	15	3
13	40	13'3	2'66
Chainmail (14)	35	11'6	2'33
15	30	10	2
Plate Armor (16)	25	8'3	1'66
17	20	6'6	1'33
18	15	5	1
19	10	2'5	0'66

As you can see, the relative AC of a shield is greatly improved from the original. It is remarkable that with this rule, they can a priori block natural 20s.

The point in which shields will really shine with this rule is when fighting monsters with high attack bonuses. A fighter in plate armor and a shield, for example, when fighting a red dragon with +8 attack bonus, would defend with an equivalent AC of 9 (17 -8).

By this rules, the 16 AC plate would become an 8, and then get the bonus from the shield: +2'17 for the 1/6th version and +4'33 for the 1/3 version; making it a factual AC of 10'17 and 12'33 respectivelly.

Not sure if implement this or on how. I like that the increment in AC can make up for the fact that I want to drop the attribute scores (and with it, the Con bonuses) and it seems appropiate that the con bonuses are more important at higher levels, just as when the monsters attack bonuses are higher and raise the effectivity of the shield. So in a way, the 1/3 version of the shield might not be as OP as it looks in comparison.

On the other hand, there is something so easy on giving normal shields 1/6 of effectivity, and have magical shields (that would be +1 as per the original rules) to work at 1/3.

Non-fighters have also the choice of using shields at a reduced armor rate. Be it taking the 1/6 instead of the 1/3, or using them at disadvantage (roll 2d6, keep lowest). I'm a bit reticent to hard-coded restrictions, and though it may sound ridiculous, the game feels more "real" to me if that kind of things are just severely handicapped instead.

The great downside of the shield roll is that it, of course, adds another roll. On its defence, I'd say that it only comes up on a succesful enemy hit. Personally in my current "D6 D&D rules" I pair it with my variant of Homebrew Homunculus D&D without damage dice, and with the damage rolls gone, I don't find the shield rolls tedious at all.

[osr] shields shall be activated

Have the summer end rains already blessed your part of the world? I can feel them approaching in timid peeks; barely passing through the ranks of their mortal enemy, the ch3m7rails. Welcome to your comfy mood blog where we sometimes post and discuss rpg houserulings. 

I was working on a chart tonight. In my d6 pool d&d there is one rule that proved to be very cool: the shield roll. Shields basically do not add to your AC, but instead block an attack 1/3 of the time (roll a 5+ on a d6)

This means they mean much more protection than the small +1 (5%) they add to AC in B/X. But the increase is not good on itself: its a matter of taste. The good part is that it's relative importance increases as you wear less armor: the percentage of blows stopped increases as you are easier to hit. 

For example, a PC in plate armor can be hit on a 6 (17% chance), so the shield drops the chance by a third (by about 6%). The same PC in light armor is hit on a 5 or a 6 (33% chance) so the shield drops the chance by 11%. At AC four (no armor) and three (no armor and yet a level 1 fighter) the shield will be useful in 17% and 22% of the attacks received, respectivelly.

I made a chart that ports the system to B/X like this: Instead of adding a +1 to your AC, the shield can be activated once you have been hit (before damage). Roll a d20 when you do it: your AC becomes that number against that specific attack.
These are the chances against a monster with no attack bonus. Took a little time to calculate the percentages manually with the Windows Calculator, then I translated it to AC:

As you can see, the relative protection of the shield increases greatly, from their simple +1 ac on the original; being much greater in the lighter armors, but never too big as to make them useless. A fighter in leather and shield has 16 AC! just as if he wore plate. However, a one in plate and shield is just 18 AC, just one pip over his original equivalent, which I like because it mimics how plate armor got diminishing returns from the shield in real life.

Against monsters with actual attack bonuses (which is the norm) this shield boost diminishes gradually, but still getting on a median an extra AC point (around +2) at chainmail levels, with marginal benefits the greater the armor and the greater the monsters, but not reaching total zero. This way, the decision on wether or not to use one is always present.

YMMV about if the increased AC is a good thing or not. To compensate for it, I'd limit the shield activations to one per turn, which will only be relevant against monsters with multiple attacks or against multiple enemies.

[BX/OD&D] Towards a single save

 In my game of Trow Fortess, I don't use the five saves. I only use a d6 pool and two saving throw types (plus an special one at zero hp)

The types are the Easy (Death Ray, Poison and Paralyzation) and the Difficult (Spells including wands, Triggering Traps and Dragon Breath). Their chances by level are based on BX's Death Ray and Spells saves, respectivelly; and there is nothing in between (full spread of chances here)

I am thinking on trying OD&D at some point; but getting back to the classic 5-saving throw system and consulting charts is not appealing to me anymore (It's specially painful to check saves for monsters and having them referred to like "as fighter 4" instead of a fucking number). If you follow this blog, you know I usually take an effort to eliminate rules and charts that I feel are redundant, or just do not offer enough reasons in exchange for their cost.

So I started wondering if I could keep a single save number that scaled with level; and then, with advantage or disadvantage mechanics, cover my two save types mathematically faithfully. The answer is yes:

The two rows above are the fighter's saving throw progression for his best (death ray) and worst (spells) saves. These numbers are the same for OD&D and BX, saving me time because I had already done that calculations.

The third row is the Spells saving throw, rolled with advantage (2d20 keep best). As you can see, and without counting the unimportant normal man's saves, it follows the Death Ray saving chances with a maximum deviation of a 5% at level 10. This allows me with a clear conscience to use the spells save as the baseline single save, use it for the hard saves (spells, traps and dragon breath) then giving advantage for the easy saves (death ray, paralization, poison)

(PD: Lets ignore the fact that elf saves fuck this proportion completelly)

The fourth row is the opposite: disadvantage (2d20 keep worst) on the Death Ray numbers. The mathematical probabilites deviate from the original Spells' ones a little more, and the psychological act of rolling an easy save with disadvantage feels worse than rolling the hard one with advantage, so the previous method feels much better in both senses.

Hurt and Fatigued

No way there is this in B/X and never saw or used it!!! not the action of running, of course, but the concept of exhaustion and its effects. I find very cool that they are very intense, in contrast for the fact that they appear in such marginal cases: 30 rounds of combat running are A LOT. It could probably be written as "characters are exhausted after running for 1 turn", as 1 turn encompasses 60 rounds, and running is probably better modelled on "turn based time". If combat is taken place, it makes strange to have a pursuit ongoing.

Picture is from the OSE srd, which is an awesome tool to search for monster stats or any kind of Basic D&D information in the cellphone. Consulting B/X specifies that exhaustion prevents you from running further (which was kept ambiguous on the above bullet points) and that exhausted characters always deal at least 1 damage on a succesful hit.

I like the idea of worn out PCs that are not in conditions to fight. D&D uses hp as a measure of stamina, too, so they could have modeled fatigue through HP loss. But this way is more tangible, factually it introduces a status effect.

I was wondering if the same penalties could be applied to when monster or PCs are worn out by combat (and this is the purpose of this entry). Written in B/X format, the idea to be tested would be:

"Whenever a PC or Monster has his HP dropped to a number equal to its HD or less, he is badly wounded, and incurs in exhaustion effects"

This means that, stastically, fighters and dwarves would be wounded after taking more damage than elves or magic users (because their 1d8 HDs have more HP on them)

This also means, of course, that some monsters can be badly hurt before they are dead. I like this for many reasons:
- It makes for an organic place to call for a morale check, and different monsters allow for many different psychological approaches to being close to death/defeat (though making morale checks at 50% hp also makes sense, as to prevent this state)
- It serves as an alternate way to subdue dragons
- Its a way to reveal to the players that the monster is about to go down, without telling them the actual HP
- Maybe some monsters can have special attacks that only happens in this point
- Differentiates living monsters from undead or animated monsters, which have no point in having a "wounded" status.
- The higher HD a monster has, the higher the chance that becomes wounded at some moment during combat; which feels appropiate in genre.

Assuming healing at 1d3 hp per day rate, this means that high level PCs will be wounded more days than low level ones. This might be a little weird but narrativelly it makes sense as it is implied they sustained more damage to arrive to this situation. I imagine it sort of when Zoro or Goku are incapacitated after a great battle.

In my game, as I don't use hp (only HD) I must homebrew some proportions, remembering that fighters and monsters, with 1d8 hp per hd, will on a median be put in "wounded" status at 2/9ths of their health.

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EDIT: The whole concept is interesting to pair with the "Roll the Body" type saves; or save versus death at 0 hp. From AxianSpice:
 

"When you reach 0 hp, you drop down and you might be dead. You make a final Save versus Death when (if) someone checks on you. You pass it, you're back on your feet with 1 hp and still have a chance to make it back from the dungeon. This type of rule can be found, for example, in Dungeon Crawl Classics. If you're left there, you're dead, eaten by monsters or just bled out"

I like it in part because it gives back the survability that the debuffs take from characters. In part, also, because I like that with little effort it gives you the whole spectre of possible status without any extra bookkeeping:

Full power
Wounded
Unconscious
Unknown state
Dead