Trow Fortress 05: The Encounter

Both sides roll surprise if they are even able to surprise, needing a 5+ in 1d6. If both succeed, no surprise happens.

Distance is slightly abstracted: If a side has surprise, they are as close as the scenario allows and get a free turn (the other side gets no actions). With no surprise, both sides are generally aware of the other, and are as far as it makes sense in context.

After the surprise turn, or if there is no surprise, the side with the single member that has the most HD has the initiative (on a tie, the contestant that carries a sword acts first, else randomize it). After all its integrants have their chance to act, the other side acts. Certain things allow reactions: for example, if you are walking towards a target, anyone with a readied bow can make an attack against you during the way. This consumes the bowmen's turn.

When it is uncertain, I roll monster reaction (I prefer to call it "disposition") in secret, with low numbers being bad. When it comes to the bestiary, I will write specifically what good and bad means for every monster: for example, Wargs that roll low are food deprived and will attack even when the numbers are disfavorable; while an average roll means they will only attack if they are more powerful; but will stalk the party anyways to see if they can catch a stray member.

Combat goes with people taking chunks of life, step by step and critical through critical.

BUT HOW DO I MAKE ATTAKK

You roll some d6 and must get the target's AC or more:

No armor is AC3
Light armor is AC4
Heavy armor is AC5

Having four HD or more gives you +1 extra AC
Wearing a shield has 2 in 6 chance to negate any attack (non fighters actually have 1d6 chance but they don't use shields normally)

Normally characters roll just 1d6 for melee at level 1, but you get extra melee attacks at 6, 10 and 14 HD. Ranged attacks improve only through specializations.

For each d6 that hits, you deal 1 damage, or more if its a critical hit (a 6) 

Damage scored on critical hits depends on weapon (here is the complete weapon list). The quick version is that small weapons such as daggers deal 2, one handed swords deal 3 and two handed weapons deal 4.

Enter table:

 

This table compares the damage output done by a normal BX fighter in each level, with a dagger, a sword and a "d12 weapon". I know that two handed weapons deal 1d10 but to make up for it, this fighter doesn't have any strength bonus (rare in a fighter) This serves to give me a general idea of how accurate is the damage per turn to the original with the new system. The numbers are percentages of damage done, taking a d4 hit dice and a d4 damage as the base. This means that a 100 would be the damage output of a d4 weapon that somehow ALWAYS hit. Whenever there are two numbers, the second indicates the damage percentage done if the wearer carries a shield (stastically tallying damage by a third unless something weird happens)

By comparing numbers, we can see that damage for each type of weapon is similar at the beggining, but that if I try to mash four attacks into a span of 14 levels, the damage will explode bestially in the end. I don't know if that can be a problem yet, the highest PCs are level 4 by now. Monsters also use the same progression, so in that way, its even.

When PCs get to 0 HD they get a save vs death: on a 4 they are unconscious and need medical help, on a 5 they are wounded with a disadvantage to most actions, and cannot save like this until healed; and on a 6 they are just fine and able to save again indefinitelly.

Named NPCs and leaders do get this save too; random monsters do not. Normally the rule is that if an enemy lives enough time for the players to know their name or backstory, it gets a save vs death. More on saves later.

Being mounted on a horse reduces critical hits from footmen attacks by 1, unless the footmen use polearms.

"Unhittable creatures" such as spectres receive only damage on criticals (1 damage) unless the weapon is blessed or is magically suited for the monster in question.

Resting rules are constantly changing and haven't settled yet. 2d6 take worst, and recover that many HD is the current way. This way I can introduce degrees of "resting", such as roll 1d6 instead if they are in a confortable inn or something.

SAVING THROWS

Traps, dragon breath and spells need a 6. Kobolds get an extra die for this category.
Paralyzation, poison and death ray need a 5+
Death at zero HP needs a 4, 5 or 6 for unconscious, wounded and unscathed respectivelly.

Level 1 characters have 1 saving die; and get more through leveling.

This is a comparison chart between B/X saves and my own, using the fighting man and halflings/kobolds.

Notes: NPCs are significantly weaker. I love that. There is a reason that NPCs fear death rays and sleep spells. Saves are plot armor after all, and NPCs are outside the plot. That is for main characters (the PCs). Save numbers are really smooth and alike the original, but they are a little harder now for level 1 characters. That is OK for me. I treat most traps as a save, too. The numbers from B/X (trigger traps 1 third of the time) remain unchanged in this way.

 

MORALE

Morale is used by the book sometimes, but the most times I just make a new reaction roll after significant damage or intimidation, and interpret it.

 

Trow Fortress 04: The Adventure

Beginning the adventure

Right now, all the characters just pick any equipment they want as long as they don't start encumbered AND its common use items (any weapons, any food, armor, utensils, etc. No smoke bombs or potions obv). I don't want to make a new character go through a shopping session in their first day. Not only that: they all start without money, they are assumed to have spent every single coin in their current gear. 
However, I'm on the process to make a random equipment table (will edit when I do). The reasons?  

- Its even faster than choosing equipment. 

- I don't want the players to take decisions before the game starts. Much more if its their first session and they dont know the world yet.

- You can still pick an specific item via your profession's item (see previous entry on that)

- I want sub-par results. I want warriors without armor or weapons; I want kobolds without food. This gives level 1 characters an immediate pursuit (find their missing item) before the dungeon is even presented. Finding appropiate gear is emergent gameplay that is very suited to level 1 peoples.

If the players are seasoned, its OK to start in a base town; if they are noobs, I'd rather spare that and put them on the entrance of a dungeon, and conveniently remember them that there is a nearby base town only once they have crossed the entrance: then spend the first session showing them the basics of exploration, combat, game workings, etc.

Whenever they march through a door or corridor, ask who goes first. Then ask who carries the torch or torches, as many times you feel like. This simple questions set the mood very quickly

There will come a time in season 3 or 4 where they have some money and make big spend (supplies, retainers, etc) but they will make it with better wisdom once they know the water they thread. 

MOVEMENT (in dungeon/combat):

 When speed is a factor, characters roll their Movement die; which is:

1d6 for normal characters
1d6 take worst for encumbered characters, or monsters with speed of 30' per round or lower
1d6 take best for characters that are somehow faster, or monsters significativelly faster than 40' per round.

On a pursuit, both sides involved make a contested roll (separatelly or as a team, depending on whatever I feel). On a tie, the relative distance is kept. After one round of fruitless pursuit, a flying prey is in the air, a fast animal such as a horse has galloped away, and a fleeing man can reach an alleyway or climb a nearby horse.

If you want to do a physical thing that might take one turn or many (such as climbing a tree), roll movement: on a 5+ you achieve it in this very turn. 

 

MOVEMENT (overland)

Normally, 1 hex is 1 day of travel. I imagine hexes being around 12 mile long, but is a guidance. The distance is actually solipsistic. Some hexes like crossing a swamp or a mountain might take 2 days to cross, but haven't done that yet. The fact that is easier to get lost on them might actually emulate that without need of doubling the time.

There is an 1d6 roll every travel day:

On a 6, if there is some obscure thing at the hex, they casually find it.

On a 1, there is a random encounter.

On a 2, there is a random encounter if there is a nearby (adjacent hex) dungeon, city or lair; and the encounter is representative of it.

On a 3, I make a secret roll for weather change, applicable on the next travel turn.

Scouting an hex to find something on it takes a roll, normally:

3+ on grasslands
4+ on a forest
5+ on a mountain

Getting a roll of 1 or scouting twice automatically ends the day.

When you are travelling without a path or river to follow, you must make an scouting roll or you get lost: This means you end up in a different hex than the one intended, even maybe gettng stuck in the current one for this turn (roll 1d6 to find out). I always tell the players where they are now in the map after that.

During the night, there is a second encounter roll. Not all encounters, of course, are automatically violent. After PCs have rested for the night, they recover all mana die, and 1d6 HD

Light: I suck at tracking torches. Or turns, for that matter. I just never do it. About infravision, none of the PC races have it for now.

Doors: On a case of stuck doors, roll (1+your STR mod) d6; each 6 opens the door this turn.

Secret Doors, or anything strange is automatically found if the right things are examined, same for traps and listening at doors. I intend to avoid search rolls inside dungeons, want to keep it an overland thing where scenario is more ample and abstract to be thoroughly described. I challenge myself to describe dungeon rooms enough so they can be searched analogically.

Traps: There is an specific saving throw VS traps, spells and breath weapons. Traps can have many effects, as usual.

Retainers: NPCs can join the party, but that interactions are roleplayed. Normally, hirelings require money or a promise of money. NPCs that participate in the adventure activelly receive a share of XP. Proper retainers, as in faithful servants, are dependant on charisma: for each +1 you have a slot that can be used for a blessing or retainer. A "retainer" can be anything that you can befriend during the game (below, you can see my current party with a white ape following its owner, a kobold called Pomelo). Dogs and other domestic animals will follow their masters regardless of charisma, but animal retainers will always understand simple orders, as if you could talk with them.

A retainer that is asked to do something dangerous will check morale, modified by their leader's charisma.

Retainers can be static NPCs that don't travel with the party, such as a princess or a hermit. This kind of alliance doesn't provide direct help and may not be very significative, but depending on the nature of the bond, it can give you a magical blessing (will write some at some point and edit here, a bonus to saving throws is always a good choice), plus knowing that said NPC will never betray you offscreen.

Trow Fortress 03: Spells & Magic

Based greatly on GLOG magic. No need to go read it however, my rules are self explanatory.

You have a number of spell slots based on your Magic score and your Class. 

1 spell slot per magic bonus (up to 3)
1 spell slot if you are a Magic User
1 spell slot if you are a Magic User of 12th level.

You automatically learn a spell for each spell slot if you haven't any.

Magic users can additionally write spellbooks: they can store as many as their level on them; and every time they rest, they can change the spells on their slots. Until the point in which they know more spells than their slots, they don't have to worry about that.

Anybody who knows at least one spell, has one Mana Dice (MD). Non-MUs will probably never have more than one if any.

MUs at third level get the right to bear staff (this is taken from A Wizard of Earthsea and I liked the implications it had on the books, making the staff act as a badge of office for the casters). So, whenever they are holding their staves, MUs have an extra MD (in the original PDF, Goblin Punch makes this bonus come from the wizardly robes, but I preferred to put the focus on the staff instead)

Independently from this staff bonus, they get an extra MD at levels 6 and 9. Some magical items may increase this number under some conditions.

S P E L L B O O K :

notes: 

references to turns are equally valid in combat, in dungeon or in overland travel. This means that spells will sometimes last during 4 hours and sometimes during 10 seconds with the same mana. This is intentional and I think it can work, I think it can represent how the caster behaves differently under stress than having time to make proper preparations, meditations and rituals.

I also dont use HP, with Hit Dice being the unit, and everybody getting a death save at 0 HD. Generally, MUs get two per level, while fighters get one. This has made me write carefully all the spells that do or heal damage.

BIRD: You become a bird of your choice (but always the same). You suffer double damage in this shape. This transformation lasts for [sum] turns. Every turn beyond that you must save vs paralyzation or become trapped in this shape.
Inventory slots decrease by 4, but the rest is transformed with you. The rest is lost. Use this table as a guide:

Robin: AC as plate, 24 miles per day
Crow: AC as scale armor, 100 miles per day
Owl: AC as scale armor, 50 miles per day. Good nightvision, bad dayvision.
Hawk: AC as scale armor, 200 miles per day. Consumes 2x turns.

HEAL:  With one dice, heal that 1d6 HD to one target, or 1 HD to 1d6 targets. With more dice, divide the results between HD and targets. Every target that is at 0 HD can make a new save, but no more than once (no matter how many casters try after this). This healing is often not true healing, but more a mix of luck, exhorting and praying so the wounds are not as bad as they look.

SHIELD: Duration: [sum] turns. Caster and whoever is near him gets AC = chain, + a chance to block all projectiles during this turn with a 5+ in 1d6. You can spend a MD to re-roll this dice once per turn.

LIGHT:  Duration: [sum+level] turns. The staff of the caster emits light enough to read. Investing 2 dice or more raises this intensity up to a car's lights, but consumes 3x turns. Without a staff, this spell doesnt light much beyond the caster's silhouette dimly. 

DISGUISE: Put an illusion over something to make it look like another thing. Both the real and the illusory objects or beings must have a trait in common: a characteristic color, a shape, a similar sound, etc. This lasts for [sum] rounds, though a result of 12 or more will make it "permanent". Still, all illusions will degrade over time by acting or being used in a way that doesn't suit the disguise.

FIRE:    For every mana die, 4+ is a success. 1-3 is the turns that this die will take to become a success. It takes 1 success to ligth something easily flammable, such as oil, a pinecorn or a torch
2 successes to put a firewall on a narrow corridor, or put flames on a normal sword
3 on a bigger area. When there is no actual combustible, the fire will burn for concentration + level turns.

Wizards that have attained their wands can shoot fire. Roll as many MD you like: the highest is the damage you deal (save vs half), the rest are the number of targets affected.

DIVINATION: This spell requires an oracle that you must carry with you (1 slot) and some time of rest. Every question you ask requires to invest one MD. The answers are always going to be single or composed NOUNS, never verbs or adjectives, nor yes or no; and the GM should be as specific as he can without breaking this restriction.
Every answer you reveive using this spell is then recorded on a vocabulary list that you forge little by little and that can contain a maximum of 6 words. Once you got all six, every question you make must be answered with one of that words or not being answered at all (whatever the GM thinks is more appropiate)
You could say its a spell that becomes less powerful as the mage does the opposite, and that is interesting. This is the reason for which some MUs need to find other MUs to contrast their readings, even if its less leveled up partners.

WINTER BLAST:   Invest one MD per turn to project a cone of cold wind towards an area, or down a slope. Everyone caught in there must save vs paralyzation every turn or be uncapable to move significantly this turn. A second failed save will also deal 2 damage by frostbite. A third failed save will freeze the affected character.
Every MD you lose casting this spell deals 2 frostbite damage to you. 

Cryomancers normally use Ice Wands which make MD exhaust only on 5+ or even 6+
Wearing heavy pelts adds 1 die to saves against this spell.

FOLD  Creates a pocket dimension in any small caché (inside a hat, behind a chair, etc) able to fit [sum] objects. On a 7+, the caster can fit on it. On a 11, it can fit a small group of people. Only one fold can be created at a time. The inside of it will have the appearance of a room, with traces of the place it is located. A fold created on a library will have bookshelves; one created on a stone corridor will have stone, and such. This is probably the way that some backrooms were created in our real world.

PROTECTION FROM EVIL:  Duration: [sum] turns. Is actually some version of turn undead. Undead, demons, evil and enchanted beings must save vs paralyze every turn to approach you, and even if they pass, you have +1 AC and +1 save against their special attacks. Monsters save alltogether, using the save of the highest one present. 

Once this spell is ongoing, you can roll one MD per turn to exorcize undead: deal [sum] damage to all or a single target, but if they survive they will attack that turn without the need to save. Intelligent monsters may check morale after this.

ASTRAL PROJECTION:: You must invest a full rest on this. If somebody interrupts you, the spell will fail. In the astral plane, physical distances are meaningless but everything looks like a semi-abstract painting (rothko + picasso + van gogh), so its a little tricky to decipher and navigate. Things as specific as something written on a note might be impossible to read, showing instead a symbolic image of the intention of the writer. For each MD you invest you can attempt one of these things:

*Search your way to some place, no matter the distance (1d6 to find: 4 to somewhere known, 5 unknown and 6 if partially hidden). Mind that some places have random encounters even in astral form.

*Find a detail in that place (as above). On a fail, something else might call your attention.

*Send a message to somebody, who will have an impression of you (the reaction and importance given to the message depends on the person)

*Cast a spell telematically.

Your armor and weapons get transported with you into the astral, but the kind of encounters there is mostly magical so that won't make much difference.

 FAMILIAR:  A nearby animal will come during downtime or if you are activelly searching for one. You can communicate quite well somehow, but lacks knowledge of human subtleties. This bond takes up one spell space.

 

An in-game bestiary (some play report inside)

My new game is going so great. All of them are long time friends, with the exception of a kid, nephew to one of them. I'm getting a lot of advantage of them never having actually played D&D so I am selling all my quirky houserules such as GLOG magic and all d6 pool resolution as "this is the real game guys". And they are really liking it, but not as much as me. They keep me asking for information about new spells (so I have actual pressure writing my long procastinated spellbook). It feels awesome when you just met for a coffee or a walk and they just ask you things about what they found in that dungeon the other day. I know I am doing something right.

One of them happened to be devoured by a ghoul recently; precisely right after he had spent the previous night drawing a portrait of his character (Krim, see above). He died like a hero, tanking a doorway, and two hobbits managed to finish the ghoul shortly after. When the player rolled his new character for the next session, he told me previously that he wanted something:

As I wrote recently, I give characters a "once in your life" object at any time, that must be related to your life background. This is mostly a trick to make characters have at least some tenuous background without the need of writing it prior to play, but has no further impact unless your intelligence is higher than 13 (see full entry if you want). He (an intelligence 9 fighting man) said he wanted to be a former sage, and have a bestiary book as an object.

I quickly saw the potential in this: They are all new players, unfamiliar with the deep lore of D&D beyond what has permeated Final Fantasy, Warhammer and others. This could be a fair way to introduce information that other players take for granted; and the player was actually paying a cost for it: his special object.

So I made it like this: As the character appeared the next day and brought up his book, I made him roll 3d6 and take the middle one: It was a four.
So, his bestiary would give him information four times, after that it would be considered exhausted (actually a great quality I guess). The information would be only about monsters, and it would only have information 50% of the time; you must make a concrete question (are ghouls vulnerable to something?). Failed searches would not tick down uses.

For now they have been only used it twice: One for learning that ghouls are vulnerable to holy water, and another for knowing that ghoul touch produces paralysis. It seems that whoever wrote that book knew a lot about ghouls! Maybe the book is no other than Comte d'Erlette's Cultes des Goules itself!(the fictional book from the Chtulhu mythos)

Before that, the magic user had been picking ghoul drool from its grotesque corpse with his bare hands. They left the room by a new path; the magic user leading the march. I resolved to not have him be paralyzed until two turns had passed for some reason (it felt right). Just at that time, they found a silent, armored knight giving them the back, and then turning his head slowly towards the newcomers.

The magic user got paralyzed right away starting from his hands. The rest of the party (three hobbits, fighting man was dead by then) took him out of the room quickly, all paranoid because they thought it was the gaze of the knight which had caused such effect. They spent the rest of the session recovering a broken mirror from another room (which currently still has a very angry doppelganger inside) and then trying to attack the knight using a mirror to see him, or just shooting at him with the eyes closed. Luckily, they soon understood they had to flee. I had a really bad time trying to not tell everyone of them how cool it was that they were acting so well in a way, but on completelly erroneous assumptions!

I think I am going to put some more books around the setting. Not all of them bestiaries, but can work the same way as that one with other topics; maybe they can even be bought at shops for some ton of money, or even found as treasure. Maybe small town wise men can work like that too: weird people that funnily has an answer to a current problem, and then proceeds to not say anything interesting at all in a lot of time or ever.

The Official OSR D&D Skill List

 

Clickbait /OFF

I only want to transcribe here something from another blog, for it is too useful to be lost to the flow of the internets: "The skills you didn't know you had", where the author distills all the different "x in 6" rolls scattered through the OSE book into a "skill list". I am actually using this list as inspiration for MY OWN LIST (to be posted next time), but the source material is so interesting itself that I felt it deserved recognition.  

    Open doors: 2 in 6, modified by strength
    Listening at Doors: 1 in 6 chance of detecting subtle sounds beyond a door, increased for demihumans.
    Searching: If a character is searching in the right location, there is a base 1-in-6 chance of finding a secret door or room trap, increased for some demihumans.
    Avoiding Traps: Every time a character makes an action that could trigger a trap, there is a 2-in-6 chance of the trap being sprung. Lets rephrase this as a 4-in-6 chance to avoid a trap.
    Foraging for herbs, fruits, nuts, etc: can be performed alongside normal movement. The party has a 1-in-6 chance per day of finding enough food for 1d6 human-sized beings.
    Hunting: must be engaged in as the sole activity for a day—no travelling or resting is possible. When hunting, there is a 1-in-6 chance of encountering animals which may be suitable for eating (if they can be caught!). This is in addition to the normal chance of random encounters. A party with a ranger succeeds at foraging with a 2-in-6 chance and finds prey when hunting with a 5-in-6 chance.
    Boarding: If the occupants of one vehicle wish to forcefully board the other vehicle, there is a 2-in-6 chance of being able to successfully manoeuvre the vehicle into a boarding position. The two vehicles may then be clamped together with grappling hooks.
    Surprise Checks: That's a 2-in-6 stealth check right there.
    Tinder box: Used to light fires, including torches. Using a tinder box takes one round. There is a 2-in-6 chance of success per round.
    Dwarven Detect Construction Tricks: As expert miners, dwarves have a 2-in-6 chance of being able to detect new construction, sliding walls, or sloping passages when searching.
    Detect Room Traps: Due to their expertise with construction, dwarves have a 2-in-6 chance of detecting non-magical room traps when searching.
    Halfling's Hiding: In dungeons, a halfling can hide in shadows or behind other forms of cover. The chance of success is 2-in-6. Hiding requires the halfling to be motionless. This enables an additional layer of stealth on top of the base one. If they are still, and behind cover or in shadow, they have an extra chance to be unnoticed to the rest of the party.
    Lore: From 2nd level, a bard has a 2-in-6 chance of knowing lore pertaining to monsters, magic items, or heroes of folk-tale or legend. This ability may be used to identify the nature and powers of magic items.
    Path-Finding: At the start of each day of travel, the referee should roll to determine if the group loses direction. The probability depends on the terrain being traversed:

        Clear, grasslands: 1-in-6.
        Barren lands, hills, mountains, woods: 2-in-6.
        Desert, jungle, swamp: 3-in-6.

Lets restate this one as a navigate skill with a chance depending on the type of terrain. 5-in-6, 4-in-6, or 3-in-6 depending on the difficulty of the terrain. Listed later is the fact it's 4-in-6 to navigate while waterborne. Paths and rivers eliminate this chance. While waterborne however, it requires a specific navigator to help sail, so this is clearly not a skill that all adventurers have. A party with a druid has only a 1-in-6 chance of getting lost in woodlands, so druids score themselves a 5-in-6 in the skill we now have a name for, pathfinding.
    Duergar's Stealth: Underground, duergars have a 3-in-6 chance of moving silently.
    Svirfneblin's Blend into Stone: Svirfneblins have the uncanny ability to go unnoticed when in an environment of natural or carved stone so long as they remain silent and motionless. The chance of success is 4-in-6 in gloomy conditions or 2-in-6 in well-lit conditions.
    Stone Murmurs: Svirfneblins can understand the imper-ceptible grumblings of stone. If a svirf-neblin stands quietly for one turn with their ear pressed against a stone surface, they have a 2-in-6 chance of divining one of the following pieces of information (player’s choice):

        The presence of secret doors in the stone, within 10'.
        The presence of gems or precious met-als, up to 30' beyond the surface.
        The presence of living creatures, up to 30' beyond the surface.
        The presence of bodies of water or open spaces, up to 60' beyond the surface.

* * *

At the end, the author classifies them broadly:

Individual skills are rolled for every person attempting an activity.

    Force isused for forcing open doors through strength.
    Listen is used to hear monsters through doors (breaking their stealth).
    Search isused to find hidden passages and traps.
    Luck is used to not trigger traps by through chance by stepping over a pressure plate instead of on it.
    Enhanced Stealth is used when the party fails its stealth check, but you are a class that has better odds of hiding.
    Use a tinderbox is used to use a tinderbox.

Group skills are performed by the entire group, usually with a single person leading the activity who can provide their experience as a bonus to everyone.

    Forage is used to find food while travelling overland.
    Hunt is used to find food dedicating time to the task.
    Pathfind is used to navigate without a road or river.
    Board is used to position vehicles for boarding.
    Stealth is used to be unnoticed by foes.

* * *

In order for it to be a comprehensive list, we should add the Thief Skills to it; and, why not? convert them approximately to X in 6 format for cohesion. 

   Find/Remove Traps: starting at 1 in 6, increases by 1 every 3 thief levels
   Hide in Shadows: as above
   Move Silently: as above
   Pick Locks: as above
   Pick Pockets: as above
   Climb Sheer Surfaces: 5 in 6 chance
   Read Languages: 5 in 6 chance, available at level 4
   Scroll use: 1 in 6 chance, available at level 10

From Asterix & Cleopatra. Searching for an image to illustrate the post, I realized that this is the mental image I have for D&D thieves

Gridless Movement

 I thought I had already written this one. But before I forget I do it now:

I am spanish. I do not use feet, yards or pounds in my real life, neither do my players. The translations of those words (pies, yardas y libras) sounds weird in our conversations and I wont use them ever on a game. So, for movement, I use squares instead. In the end, one square is universally equal to 10 feet. So, when I see this extract of BX rules, I assume that an unencumbered human can walk 12 squares on a normal turn, and 4 during combat:

The plot gets thicker: I don't use gridded paper for dungeons, and if I do it's only for aesthetic reasons. I don't measure walking distances. Players can spend a turn getting into a new room, doing something meaningful into the room they are now, or walking a significant chunk of a corridor. So in the end I am using the square unit even if I do not track squares (unless I could do it on a very specific situation that calls for it).

The only other time when movement rates are meaningful is when there are enemies, pursued and persecutors. An enemy that can move 6 squares in combat will catch a PC that can move only 4. To prevent this deterministic fate, rules allow to distract monsters with food, gold, burning oil, or turning into a random direction if there is any (50% chance the monster catches them anyways).

To sever my dependency from this procedures, I'd implemented a randomized MV that works more or less inside the spectre of the old one:

PCs have a MV value equal to the squares they can walk in combat (so, following the table above, it ranges from 4 to 1). When running, or when measuring the normal move is meaningful, they move MV+d6 squares (that is a maximum of 100 to 50 feet, more or less similar to the 120' - 30' range above). The math doesnt suit much but I dont care, the speed is still proportional to encumbrance and that is what matters. 

When in combat, you can do it like this too, why not. But I prefer rolling 1d6 equal or under your MV: If you pass, you engage, disengage, outrace, etc. your opponent, who must also do the same to make you negate this advantage. A failure means you waste your turn, while a success allows you to perform your normal action for the turn. For contests amongst or against monters with 6 or more MV (moving 60' or more in combat) use 5 as their MV.

This methods work equally great with or without a grid, as you can count the squares or just compare rolls against an enemy while the GM narrates accordingly. This will also give you a chance to flee any monster indefinitelly as long as the dice gods allow you.

D6 Skills: Double dipping

Depending on skill level u get 1d6 or 2d6 (take best), maybe even 3d6

TN is 5+

4 might give you partial result or not, will think about it later

the catch is that skill level double dips (or more like triple dips) because also influences a) the things you can attempt and b) the harshness of the consequences if you fail. This subleties are to be set by the GM, the monster/item description that triggers them or the module/trap design

that is all

Fire Elixir Forever

I ran a long cyberpunk-themed campaign years ago, based on the adventures of a street gang (the PCs) versus another gangs of diverse levels; the most powerful one being a mix of the Yakuza and the OCP from Robocop. The rest of the setting was a wild mixture from Battle Angel Alita, Grand Thief Auto, The Warriors, Streets of Rage, Gungrave, Daredevil and Akira. The game stopped eventually due to two of my friends stopped talking to each other for unrelated reasons.

I used a very simple ruleset I came up with (Very similar to Lasers and Feelings, with "fiction first" style HPs and freeform skills) which had its pros and its cons, but it was very narrative and I didn't like it drove the game towards the players "negotiating" with the GM out of character; and made combats rely on my personal judgement and whims more than in tight rules. This made combats seem unfair on victories (it always felt like I had "given" them the combat) and even more unfair when they lost. I am maybe being so hard with myself: everyone involved were thrilled and we all remembet the campaign very fondly; pieces of it still appear on our day to day conversations and have changed the way we look at our hometown forever (the game was set on an alternate version of it)

Recently I "unwillingly" came up with some rules that I think that would have worked very good, and I want to write them here just in case I need them again. I don't think I will reunite the old gang or continue that campaign where we left it, but some of them are back in town and who knows if I can pull out some sort of spiritual "reboot".

Character Creation: Roll 4d6, then arrange them from highest to lowest. In that order they give you:

1) your age (add 11 to it. If your character is not part of a young gang for some reason, ignore this result)

2) # of starting items. You roll them on a separate table: some of them are actually traits and are inherent to you, while others are physical objects and can be given or traded to other PCs before the game starts.

3) Your starting hit points. Your gang's vest gives you an extra +1 as long as you wear it. 

4) Your # of skills

Skills: 

Kung-fu: This covers all melee or shuriken-based combat, from fists to katanas. 

Gun-fu: guns, guns, guns. I don't think the genre needs more differentiation in combat skills.

Ninjutsu: This is for when you dodge, sneak, jump more than one would thought, etc. It is possible for non-combatants to be skilled in this arts, specially for animals and kids.

Hacking: From John Connor stuff getting easy money to programming the Matrix

Mechanics: Engineering and repair of vehicles, cyberparts, the physical part of robots, etc.

Medicine: From first aid to acupunture to surgery to the implantation of cyberparts. Ido from GUNNM is an example of somebody who knows both medicine and mechanics

Driving: Useful for biker gangs who do a lot of road mayhem.

Charisma: This is not something that magically bends people to your will, but will come up when an NPC makes a reaction roll, when you try to influence a crowd or when you make a proposal to an NPC that is at least feasible to be accepted. This is Harry McDowell from Gungrave or Cyrus from the Warriors.

Notice that there are no void skills like cooking or lore: history. These nine are those that shape the genre I am trying to emulate. However I don't want to limitate the game to them. You can make up any skill you want as long as it doesnt step on the toes of all those listed above. Any kind of specific lore, an incredibly useless profession or hobby, etc. If you want optimization you can do it, if you want to be a flute player you can do it too. We had this rule for years, it worked perfecly and I loved it

Resolution:

You roll 1d6 if its something everyone can attempt. + 1d6 for skill; +1d6 for skill mastery, +1d6for situational bonus (This is called the Special die), up to 4d6

5-6 is a success. 4 is a partial success, and 1-3 is a failure

Combat:

Highest Hp goes first, unless duels and stuff where everyone rolls at the same time. 

You roll 1d6, + 1d6 for skill; +1d6 for skill mastery, +1d6for situational bonus (Special die), up to 4d6

The results are read like this:

1-3: miss

For each 4, you deal 1 damage.

For each 5 or 6, you deal 2 damage if using fists, 3 if using a street weapon and 4 if using a proper weapon.

Armor is rare, and normally pieces of combat cloth, such like a superhero's suit, provide some work as an extra amount of HP.

Real armor is more likely to happen when one has a metal exoskeleton, or a piece of cloth designed to stop a specific weapon (a kevlar vest for example). This kind of armor negates your best result when rolling against it, instead or in addition to HP increase.

Starting Items/Traits: not the definitive version, I am improvising it, but it looks something like this. There are also examples ingrained on how to deal with bonuses and mechanical parts on a system like this. Probably would benefit greatly from improving the table to a 1d36 one.

3 Minor Psychic Powers. Choose 1, the others may be granted to you sometimes at GM's discrection: Telekinesis, Psychometry, Telepathy, Clairvoyance. You can get better at this by investing in a secret skill: Eerieness.

4 1d6 grenades. They deal 1d6 damage on a hit. On a 4, you can but your enemy gets a free move against you. On a miss, you lose turn cant launch them yet.

5. Toolbox. Allows you to repair and custom vehicles, cyborgs and other stuff. Advanced surgery needs you to work in a lab (improve your homebase until you have one). 

6. Bionic implants, choose 1: Hacking Port (counts as a computer), Adamantium bones (+2 HP), Hidden street weapon; Bionic Eye capable of Thermal Vision. 

7. Aesthetic portable computer: Allows for hacking shit. Taking your effort to set multiple computers allows you to roll, and then re-roll the special dice that many number of times.

8. Tiger Kick: When using street or no weapons, you can add the situational die to combat rolls whenever you can use your legs. Once you miss a roll, your attack becomes predictable and you lose this bonus.

9. First Aid Kit. Use a turn & a medicine roll to cure 3 HP on a 5-6. On a 4, the kit is exhausted. On a miss, you also fail to heal anything.

10. Knife, Chain, Nunchucks or Spiked club (street weapons)

11. Apple, Chicken, Soda or Cigarettes. Those kind of shit gives you back 2 HP when consumed.

12. A couple of walkie-talkies

13. You get a light motorbike that allows for 2 passengers. Roll 1d6 to see its max speed (1:low, 6:very high)

14. Gun or Katana (mean weapons)

15. 1d6 doses of your favorite drug. Choose its effect: Hypnotic, Trippy, Stimulant, Chill, Knock-Out...

16. 1d6 Flashbombs and 1d6 shurikens.

17. Panzer Kunst. This martial art helps you to fight enemies twice as high as you or higher. Every time you score a 6 in melee combat, you can roll the "special" dice and add it.

18. Bionic Body specifically adapted to a single skill (+1 special dice per scene/combat)

Leveling up was achieved by surviving X game sessions, and every now and then you earned a new skill or improved an existing one. Now you also get +1 HP. We didn't use HP back then, but a status box (healthy - wounded - dead). In practice didn't work so good.

Lethality. The game is meant to be quite lethal for PCs once you start combating outside the "unarmed" range. You are expendable troops after all, but there are ways to cheat death. 0 or even -1 HP is just incapacitation/dying depending on what caused it; and can still be treated with a medicine kit or similar. But, if you have read enough Battle Angel Alita, you'll know that -2 HP characters that have their head or brain preserved can still come back if a good cyborg mechanic puts them on a new body.

You are also meant to improve your homebase through the game (specific rules to be written another day), and doing so allows you to have new characters start at level 2 or 3, which makes character death a little less painful.

Balance: I don't care shit about balance. You are a gang. All gangs have tough guys and weaklings, skilled and dumb members, who help each other. This is OK. If you get less skills or HP or shitty gear, you can still hang around and interact with the game world. You are not expected to get into mandatory mortal kombat, nor there are pre-planned solutions: attempt things that your character could do. Think how to buy, steal or borrow a solution. Ask NPCs to help you. Whatever. You are not meant to grind the whole setting. There is also a kind of balance in having toughest members fighting while the weak run or do their thing. Ajax and Swan make most of the beatings in The Warriors for a reason. Still, with time you may level up get better at something eventually.

Gameplay procedures: Will expand on this on another entry. I'm taking a lot of time to write this one and I am fucking eager to click publish, so I can chill and take my time with the rest. For now I'm proud with what I got.

Magic system sketch v2

After all this time, I've still haven't found a magic system that I like 100%. This is the current iteration I am working now. Numbers are made to fit with this other previous work, though they can work with any rules using roll-under, under a magic stat such as wisdom or intelligence.

Wizards grow in 2 fields:

# of Spells and Magical skill

There is a magic skill, lets say X in 6, that grows as the wizard gets more powerful. 

Using certain magic items (like oracles) passive reactions (like detect magic) or small magic effects (cantrips) uses a roll of this to work. Wands also use this as primary factor of power, I will explain soon. 

# of Spells is very reduced, even though if spells themselves are more "versatile" and should not have a single, ultra-specific effect.I want to limit it to four or five even in very powerful wizards. More spectrum is added by gathering items (jewels, wands, etc) that allow casters to have more repertoire. This magic items are not too overpowered because they need a good magic skill score to work, so it is fine. It is hinted in the books that Gandalf uses fire thanks to the elven ring he carries; so wizards having lots of power and not many spells has basis on the holy fantasy books.

This is a hint on how this could work:

Lets say you have a spell list of 2: Heal and Cold

You use the Cold spell to deal damage, so you roll 1d6 and check your magic score (3)

If you roll under or equal your score, you take that number of HD from your enemy or enemies (you decide how this damage is divided). Lets say that the Cold spell has a side effect or alternate effect of slowing enemies down: then everyone affected rolls a save or is paralyzed. At 0 HD they are frozen permanently until defrosted. 

Having more level or good gear might increase the number of dice you roll: If you roll multiple d6, treat them separatelly

If you roll OVER your magic score, then the result is assumed to be equal to your magic score (3) but either the spell is lost if all dice are over (like a vancian system) or you lose magic die which roll over (making energy decrease instead, instead of making spells deplete separatelly)

Depending on the spell, the number rolled can be interpreted as HD of damage, yards, meters, possible individual targets or just an abstract degree of effect (up to the GM to decide the spectrum of effects on all results from 1 to 6). 

A very interesting interpretation could be to make a spell (for example, CHARM) be able to target a monster with HD equal to [number rolled + wizard HD]. So the spell always works with monsters under the wizard's HD, and makes a nice progression for spells to grow up in power as the wizard does (per BX rules, sleep, charm or hold person have hard caps on which monsters can be affected based on HD or size, but seem a little arbitrary and make you wonder: why is a dragon never affected by a sleep spell, EVER, no matter the wizard's skill? it seems something that could happen on a fairy tale. Why not in a D&D game?

So, wizards get exponentially better as they raise their magic score, which is something I activelly want. My idea is to make multiclassing possible, but mathematically sub-par. Having one fighter and one wizard should render more "powerful" characters than having two fighting-wizards, even if the latter might be useful in some situations. 

Having made this, only one more task remains: to make a provisional spell list to be tested, and deciding what kind of effects can be used as cantrips or produced on a different way.

One idea is that both HEAL and COLD, as do FIRE or BOLT, can produce light under certain conditions (for example, when used by a "magic score=3" wizard who is carrying a wand). This way, you can have spells produce lights of different colors depending on the wizard's favored powers (just like jedis have different lightsabers)

Another one is that spells give you both active and passive abilities.

Having mastered the HEAL spell means that you must be a very lawful or righteous person, so you have a +1 to turn undead.

Having mastered the COLD spell might give you a passive resistance to cold temperatures, and so on. 

Ah! I almost forgot: Wands allow certain effects (such as light) but magically imbued wands give you an extra d6 when rolling to their favored spells (Wand of cold gives you an extra 1d6 when casting cold, for example). This die never depletes unless you are one of those sick people who makes wands a depleting resource.

Here is a big good list of spells alongside the cantrips/passive bonuses they grant to the caster that memorizes them. While I make my own list (the real tough work) this can serve as inspiration

Math on d6 D&D: building around d6 pool combat.

(Warning: This post is heavy on numbers. Is meant to be used as a reference)

Working after the steps of Homebrew Homunculus again, I was trying to make my own try at taking damage rolls from combat. One hit is one hit, so it takes one hit dice. Easy! Is fast, simple and requires almost no conversion. But of course, this started the design train: you change a little thing, and then you change another one to go with that, and end up having a whole different game. 

I thought on making the fighter do multiple attacks instead of getting to hit bonuses. Even if the average damage per round was the same, there could be the chance that each round none of the attacks landed, or any number of them would. This way, there would be a kind of "variable damage" without any damage roll taking place!

But there is a number of how many d20s one can roll simultaneously in a confortable way. So I ended up doing what I had already done other times, and made it with d6. Only that, this time, I did the math.

This an orientative chart on the damage output of an attacking PC (where a 100% represents doing consistently 1 hit dice of damage per turn over time) depending on their class/level and his/her opponent AC.

This other table shows the % damage output of Fighter 1 (a just made level 1 fighter) versus enemies with various ACs (still not assigned what kind of AC do these numbers represent, so I described them as Base, fightey, soldier and tank). He rolls 1d6. Fighter "2" rolls 2d6 and Fighter "3" rolls 3d6. Each result equal or over the AC is a hit, and again, the chance of dealing consistently one hit every turn is represented as 100% damage.

If we look at fighter 1 alone, we see that AC 3 is slightly easier to hit than the "base" in d20. AC4 is a little worse than d20 leather (actually corresponds to wearing just a shield in the original), AC 5 being roughly equal to chain and AC 6 being an enchanted +1 plate and a shield.

Then it shows the chances of hitting the same enemies by fighter "2" and fighter "3". The brackets are there because we dont know yet at which level would a character get their second and third attacks.

As I see it, if we take the AC6 (Tank) to be roughly equivalent to Enchanted Plate + Shield, the chances to hit are pretty similar than if Fighter "2" was a 7th level fighter and Fighter "3" was a 10th. Well, this can be worked with. We can make it so the fighters gain other bonuses like weapon expertises, AC bonuses by using armor or extra HD until then, and the additional attacks are gained at those levels. But I'd lean towards granting them the attacks earlier, as otherwise the fighter hasnt any kind of "to hit" bonus until then. 

But if we look at the lowest ACs, we see that the increments compared with their d20 counterparts are crazy: the chance to hit base AC is doubled, and the same could almost be said about the next higher one. AC5/chain stands a little better with just slight increments. This informs us that our new high level fighters are roughly equally capable vs higher armored foes, but are about double as capable vs unarmored foes or lowly armored mooks. This could be seen as a problem or as a boon. For one, I can see it fixing the problem in which high level fighters had to slay hordes of mooks one by one. Now they can just send an attack to three 1HD enemies at once with a great chance of killing them, without the aid of any cleave or "you can attack as many 1hd enemies as your level" houserule.

But why is the "2d6 take worst" represented at the top of the table? Well, that is for wizards and other non-fighters. While in the d20 combat all classes start with the same "to-hit" bonus (with some of them having a +1 for fighters) in the practice the fighters always deal a little more damage because they can afford using all weapons, while wizards are restricted to daggers and darts. 

By making wizards roll with disadvantage, we make the a distinct gap between fighters and wizards even at level 1, which feels very right to me. 

Then, the idea is this: when PCs use lesser or tricky weapons like daggers or such, they roll as 1 "combat level" less, so fighters roll with disadvantage at level 1. Wizards still roll with disadvantage, there are no lower levels than 2d6 take worst.

This solves two problems right the early stages of the game design: it creates variable weapon damage when there was none, and implants an invisible system of weapon restrictions: wizards can carry and use any weapon, but they won't do more damage than they would with a staff or a dagger anyways.

Though AC6 is the maximum available, you can always make monsters tougher by other means. For example, a giant might only be attacked after you dodge his attack first. If you are hit by him, you suffer the wound and cannot act for one turn. I kind of like this limitation because it invites me to be more creative with monster rules. 

How does strength, magic swords, etc factor into this? Well, this is the foundation. We will have to slowly figure out the rest around it, but that will be part of a new entry. For the sake of making reading this easier, the provisional codename and blog tag for this project will be d6 d&d.

On the other hand, working the saves is very straightforward. Here is how I would set them (taking the fighter saves as a guide) using 2d6 vs target number, or 1d6 roll under (the one I am using right now). I dont think I'd advance them more than that. A 100% chance of saving should never be reached, and there has to be room for other bonuses that might come from elsewhere.

(Notice the drop on the saving chance for first level characters. Today I had one guy rolling his 1 just before running into a pit trap with only one hit remaining. Yeah!)

********************  EDIT:  ***************************

I have been working deeper on this. I will drop here two more tables, and I will explain in a moment.

This one is the classic to-hit, ascending AC table. Leather and Chain are merged halfway into a new armor (a kind of "light armor"). To check how much would a shield add to each armor, just add a 5% to it. The percentage is the rate in which a hit is delivered each turn, with a 100% meaning that the character will stastically deliver a hit per turn.

The next table shows the same, but using the d6 pool. Armor is arranged in two types: Light and Heavy. This is mainly because each step up and down the AC means much more in this situation, and I didn't want armor to be so much decisive in combat. Instead, being a fighter gives you +1 AC straight away, moving you beyond non-martial classes right at level 1. Fighters (and clerics if you use them) are also the only ones able to use plate, so wizards and thieves have to search for alternative ways to go higher than AC4. 

The number in brackets is the damage if the target uses a shield. Shields deflect 1/3 of the succesful strikes. So, when you are hit, you roll in this (provisional) table:

6-deflect

5-deflect if you are a fighter

4-hit

3-hit

2-hit and shield breaks if enemy is Strong AND has a mace/axe

1-hit and shield breaks if enemy is Strong or has a mace/axe.

If you are hit by a flail, you roll twice and get the worst result. They are designed to bypass shields after all!

I love how this approach creates a lot of granularity with very little. Yes, the shield roll adds another roll to combat, but they are only going to come up with shield-wearing characters and monsters (which are not too many). The same is true for flails. And we took out damage rolls anyways, so in the end there are much less rolls involved.

In this way, shields are comparativelly much more protective the less armor you wear, which makes some sense given on how they are supposed to behave in real life. A fighter in loincloth gets much more relative cover by a shield than a fighter in plate does, even if the total numbers are higher for the latter.

The shield roll can also adapted to monsters that don't have shields, be it to increase their ACs or for other purposes. For example to add “counterattack” abilities; such as “additionally to its normal attacks, a dragon breathes fire over an attacker on a shield roll of 6”

The next point: 2 handed weapons. When you get hold of a greatsword or greataxe, you are given a red die instead of your normal one. When that die comes up a 6, your weapon crits, doing 2 hits of damage. As you go building your pool you get more d6, but only your red dice can cause critical hits. 

The increase in damage by armor and by levels is shown in the F1, F2, F3 d6 crit rows. As you can see, the damage increases much more in comparison against the more armored enemies than it does against the less armored; which makes them specially important when fighting giant enemies or fully armored knights. Again, I love when simple mechanics help portraying something logical in-game, even if its not excesivelly realistic. As levels go up, the crit die matters a little less, but remains a great advantage.

Next: adjusting fighter improvements to fighter levels. 

d6 F1 works similar enough to d20 Fighter 1 when targeting plate armor. d6 is a little worse, but d6 with a 2handed weapon is a little better, so one evens the other. The same is true for fighter/light armor and the other ACs when using shields. 

For Fighter/naked and Wizard/naked, one handed weapons work a little better than in the d20 counterpart, if compared with the same leather/chain median, with 2handers being way better. 

Is hard to choose to which Fighter attack levels do d6 F2 and d6 F3 correspond, as damage output is exponential the less AC your enemy has. Adjusting the levels VS fighter/plate armor leaves lesser ACs much easier to hit. Adjusting to lesser ACs leaves AC6 much harder to hit. 

Personally I feel that they should err on the side of generous; for two reasons. First, the d20 fighter will also benefit from multiple bonuses like strength (available even at level 1) or magic weapons; which on the d6 counterpart are very hard to implement. Second, there are only 2 pool upgrades, and until then the fighter has not much progression beyond getting more HP. If I wait for the fighter to have the corresponding "firepower" on the d20 to give him the pool increment, he will be always under the power curve. If I give them a little earlier, he will be sometimes over the curve, and sometimes under it, so the "power curve" will be more tightly followed, paradoxically. 

Following this points, I can see F2 adjusting to fighter 3 or 4 (level 6- 7 for a wizard), and F3 being somewhere around levels 7 or 8. If using a level 10 cap, wizards should never achieve this combat range. 

Next: Lesser Weapons.

Daggers, staves, maybe bows. I originally had two ideas for them, which are:

- rolling with disadvantage

- rolling normally, but on a 6 you must roll again. You keep the second roll, and this time a 6 is a hit.

I like the second one better, as it represents the attacker using that result to "find a weak point" in the enemy's defence, then you are able to hit normally. This decreases drastically the effectiveness of the weapon towards the greater versions or ACs, but still allows for 2 handed, lesser weapons strike x2 on a hit.

The math for both approaches VS ac is unfolded at the table above.

When you get an increment of the pool, they also go up one step, so F2 rolls 1d6, and F3 rolls 2d6.

Alternativelly, fighters roll all their normal dice and just roll again if the highest one is a 6. This one is very wild, as they are more likely to roll again the more dice they have, but in the end they get surely better output anyways. I should do the math but a priori it is cool and feels organic. If there is some kind of "bow expertise" might work by allowing spending a turn aiming to automatically get the first 6.

This approach also allows for easy unarmed combat: You must roll again on a roll of 5 or 6, and in your second roll all numbers are valid.

Note to myself: If I end up doing weapon expertises, they should not increase dice rolled in any way, but work as a side help, never equiparating themselves to a "fighter level" but useful in all levels. A good one for trained swordsmen is "you get an extra attack once per combat". A good one for martial artists might have something to do with shield rolls.

Edit: Note to myself #2: As maces/axes have a small upside on shield rolls, trained or not, swords should have one too. A good idea is to have them increase the initiative by one level (see the post I did later about Initiative without rolls)

magic system sketch

Following the guidelines of previous entries, I'm devising some possibilities to simple and cool magic systems.

I want magic progression to follow a 4-step, exponential structure; from non-magical, to initiate, mage and archmage (and diminishing gains after that if any). 

Magic, then, is cast from a list of spells that increase in number on every "magical grade", but also in power.

What I have for now is this:

Initiates roll 1d6 when casting spells

Mages roll 2d6

Archmages roll 3d6

and spells have three parameters to be measured:

Impact (how many hp you heal, damage you do, effect you cause, etc)

Range (how many people it affects)

Retain (decides if the spell is retained after use or not)

As I want that there are mechanical benefits to casters to disregard armor, I made it so wearing armor or other encumbrances decreases the chance to retain spells: you must roll your movement rate or under to keep the spell.

Sample movement rates:

No armor=2

Light armor=1

Heavy armor=0

Initiates roll 1d6 to cast magic. So when an initiate rolls a heal spell, the result defines all parameters; but one from impact or range is defaulted to 1:

Lets say he rolls a 4: he can choose to heal a target 4 hit points, or heal 1 hit point to up to four targets. As he rolled over its movement rate (no armor=2), the spell is lost.

Mages roll 2d6 to cast magic. They can allocate the results anywhere they see fit from Impact, Range or Retain. A parameter which has no results is defaulted to 1, and if its Retain, its automatically lost.

Mage in no armor rolls a 4 and a 2 when healing: He can choose, for example, to heal 4 points to a target and keep the spell (2 is equal to his movement rate); or maybe he can heal 2 points to 4 targets and lose the spell.

Archmages roll 3d6 to cast magic. They are, of course, benefited from allocating low rolls on Retain and high rolls on effect. 

Archmage in light armor casts heal and rolls 3, 3 and 1. He heals three points to three different targets, and as he keeps the spell, he can attempt it again next turn.

Now the base is established, lets get to the fun spare bits:

* Some spells make no sense in having a numerical score for Impact, but they can be described differently depending on the result assigned to it (from an 1 to 6 score, how much does "Magical Light" shine into the cave?). On others, where the result is a matter of yes or no (charm, sleep, maybe) the Impact roll can measure the number of turns affected, being a threshold that you must reach for the spell having an effect (like in "sleep needs a 3 at least to kick in") or just having the spell work straight, and making it more a matter on "how many people you sleep" (effectivelly putting the weight on the Range score)

* Mages and Archmages revert to 1d6 lower if they are for any reason deprived from their magical wands (I'm a great fan of Earthsea novels)

* Spells can be learned multiple times. This is the way in which a forest nymph (Initiate level) would cast Entangling vines many times before retreating.

* Things that complicate this structure further must be treated on a case by case basis, described on the specific spell description.

* Casters can attempt to cast spells reactivelly: when they are attacked, they can attempt to cast a spell before the attack takes place. This is done by casting normally, and if the Retain is successful, the spell is cast before the attack. If the Retain is lost, the spell takes effect after the attack (if the mage is still alive and any other conditions allow it). In any outcome, this consumes the casters' turn.

*It is weird that mages can only cast spells on groups of 6, no matter their power, huh? To fix that, having a range of 6 means you cast the spell on all the group you select (all foes, all allies, everyone but a single person... its your call)

Dagger (a review)

I like to skim through obscure manuals a lot, and I though on making some reviews in order to remember what I like of each thing, and because it might help this people to visibilize their work. This is a review for Dagger, allegedly an OSR game for kids, and I was curious on how it was adapted from common retroclones. And I found a game with the nice simplicity I love in gaming rulesets (Curiously, I feel that kids are conversely capable of learning any kind of complex rules when they want to, if its by their own initiative. It is us, grown ups, who love simple things because we lack the patience and the sense of endless time we had as kids, but what the hell, this is not an entry for deep thoughts!) 

The game is free at drivethru, and the link gives you the revised and the original version. 

The game has no attributes, but uses just classes. Fighters get 2 attacks: that's their combat advantage (all characters start with the 15 hp, which seems like A LOT even for a kid-aimed game. I would stick to class based hp myself) and it makes them get double advantage for +1 swords (which add to damage instead of to hit)

All rolls are done with 2d6, magic and combat, and something I love is that all spells are resumed into four: 

Blast (choose the way it deals damage), 

Heal (all forms of healing, curses, etc) 

Protection (armor, but probably could work to protect against evil, etc) 

and Charm (charm, sleep and somehow manages to include Web).

I find very curious that 1 of the 6 pages is dedicated to combat fumbles, magic fumbles and fumbles in general (It tells a lot about the author's objective with the game XD) 

The most stealable thing I found was the nice way it handles monster Treasure Type: d6+monster HD VS this table:

1-3 no treasure

4-5 coin purse

6-7 sack of treasure

8-9 treasure chest

10+ treasure horde

With each treasure having a specific GP, Gems, Magic Items, etc. honestly I find this system much more attractive at first sight than the classic B/X one.

The monster list is very concise (one line description) and one thing that is inspiring is that surprise is never rolled: it happens if the GM sees it fit. And by this rules, bugbears ALWAYS surprise unless you do something about it.

Advancement increases HP only, all the rest happens diegetically (through items found, etc)

Saving Throws are fixed at 8 but dwarves, elves, etc have bonuses for certain situations. Interestingly enough every monster has their own saving throw rate listed, not based on anything. It is very simple but I like its adjusted with love by the author, not just calculated by their HD size.

This is all about the revised version, but, as the download also gives you the original version, I also read it, and found something cool too: the spell list.

The book states that it is a sample list and that you can use the TSR original, but I like to imagine that this was the "official, complete list" (which ties nicely into the game being that the top level is five). Four spells for level, and having Charm and Hold Monster and no Charm of Hold Person, which means that you have to be really high level to use that game-breaking charm spell. I would try to tie protection from evil into Cure Light Wounds and bless into an optional variation for Light.

This early game version uses d20, evolutionary Saving Throws and Monster to hit matrixes (which I think that were wisely removed in the final cut)

Finally, as a catch all, attempting uncovered risky situations as sneaking, jumping, etc is covered by 1d6 vs a TN fixed in the moment (hell yeah!) fast and fair, and very appropiate seeing that there are no attributes to use for that. That puts the weight on using inventory or alternate approaches to avoid doing that risky roll, or to increase the chances somehow.

It is a little odd, but what I find most lacking in this game is a reaction table (which is trivial to add, anyways), and double being a game for kids wich would benefit a lot in my opinion from monsters being talkative or neutral.