DM Theorycrafting

I've been working on my own private D&D v.5 over the past few years, mostly during downtime at work or when the mood hits me. I'm trying to reconcile the eloquence of the 1st edition simplicity with the hard and fast (and more consistent) rules of the D&D 3.x era. I like the idea of allowing humanoids character levels, having stats for some monsters, and basically making everything work in a similar way so that one does not have to memorize too many rule exceptions.

My first stab was at instant-kill game mechanics. No one likes them - players and DMs alike. The way in which they were handled in the past was simply "save or die." Later editions made them merely a momentary inconvenience. Spells like slow poison and neutralize poison become useless when the poison effect is immediate. So I decided to opt for a damage over time system for poisons, where there is a save modifier, an onset time, and a standard 1d6 damage per turn or round depending on the potency. Such poison typically will have an "Effective Duration" since the body seeks to somehow purge it and heal itself. However, this gives spells like slow poison and neutralize poison a chance to save someone.

Energy Drain taking levels away is a campaign killer. Imagine that your party paladin manages to finally struggle to 5th level then faces a wight. Due to an inability to hit the wight (or turn it), the paladin may be locked in combat for a number of rounds, each of which could result in a loss of level (and less chance to affect said undead creature). Since the loss has no saving throw and cannot be prevented in any way, this is sort of a game breaker. The solution? Make the loss a Constitution point instead. It has no effect on experience points, affects hit point totals and system shock/resurrection survival, and the number of times a character can be brought back from the dead. Even if the character somehow restores his Constitution to the previous value (through the cleric spell restoration), the number of times he or she can be brought back to life is forever affected and cannot be changed. This also works for vampires and makes more sense than a mere touch draining away 2 very difficult higher levels. Imagine a group of adventurers facing off against a vampire and his 2-3 vampire minions. They would be dead very quickly! With this fix, the play can proceed with minimal hassle and unless the party members have very low Constitution to begin with, the combat can come to a more equitable conclusion.

Ability scores for AD&D are a nightmare with the % strength for fighter types and the increased charts provided in the Unearthed Arcana and Deities and Demigods supplements. Monster stats were hinted at in the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual, but no concrete stats were provided. The very range of stats in the Player's Handbook seems to indicate that higher and lower scores are possible. I prefer the stat adjustments used in the Moldvay version of Basic D&D over those in the Player's Handbook. They seem to make more sense to the game. Any bonus from strength over +3 seems overkill to me, given the amount of damage a fighter can do with multiple attacks and magical bonuses. A more streamlined version of the stats must be implemented! For example, using the preferred stat arrangement and the expanded limits:

25     Supreme godlike stat
24     Greater godlike stat
23     Intermediate godlike stat
22     Lesser godlike stat
21     Demigodlike stat
20     Heroic Legend stat
19     Exceptional or heroic stat
18     Top of normal humanoid range (+3)
16-17 Superior range (+2)
13-15 Above normal range (+1)
9-12   Normal range of character mediocrity (+0)
6-8     Below average range (-1)
4-5    Very low range (-2)
3       Bottom of humanoid range (-3)
2       Creatures below humanoid stats
1       Least creatures' stat
0       Non-existent condition or stat

You can see that most of the creatures in D&D are measured on the human scale (hence the reason why demi-humans have their stats adjusted during character creation) and all other creatures in the multiverse must therefore ALSO exist in this range. Since size and HD determines damage ranges for most of the really large creatures in the game, no stats are needed to determine relative strengths, constitution, dexterity, etc. All creatures were given a nebulous intelligence stat, so that gives a basis for Intelligence (and Wisdom by inference). Charisma for creatures is a pretty useless stat, although suffice to say that leaders among animals and humanoids will have higher charisma (or strength, whichever is more desired by the species). This more linear representation of attributes make more sense than breaking out percentages between integer points, especially when done at the very high end of the range. What does this mean for some magic items that give monster stats to players? Well, I suppose that those Gauntlets of Ogre Power might just grant a 19 Strength for the wearer, since Ogres and Hill Giants seem to be of the same build (but the larger giants deal more damage and have larger HD of course). Giant Strengths can remain as they are since damage and Hit Dice determine how well these creatures fight better than adjusting for strength for each attack.

Perhaps instead of using Strength for carrying capacity and damage, we could adapt the formula from Villains & Vigilantes - Carrying Capacity = (Str/10)^3 + Con/10) x 1/2 weight. This translates into some number of pounds which indicates how much weight a person can lift and move with. Referring to a table listing various carrying capacities one can then arrive at a base amount of damage a person can do. Since a weapon is little more than a tool for transferring and amplifying natural strength, one needs only come up with a factor to multiply the natural damage of a weapon wielder. This way, whether you're dealing with a 40 lb kobold wielding a small axe or a massive frost giant wielding a similar axe, the axe multiplier stays the same and the base damage of the creature is always the same. Say that a creature has base damage of 1d4 (calculated from a chart and the formula) and is using a long sword with a multiplier of x2. The damage for the sword would become 2-8. No strength modifiers are needed since they are already taken into consideration in the formula. No size or weight considerations are needed either since the formula takes these into consideration. You can assume that a club is a club regardless of size and the damage simply comes from the wielder since the wielder must be strong enough to lift the weapon and use it properly. The only problems you run into are those creatures that can change size (spriggan, et. al.) or spells that change size (enlarge/reduce, polymorph, etc.). In this case the new carrying capacity must be recalculated.

I wonder if encumbrance can be somehow scaled to be more simplistic as well. As it is, movement in 1st edition and previous editions is poorly defined as to how it is used in combat. Later versions are very explicit and allow movement and attacks during the round, but the definition of the round has inflated and deflated over the years. It began as 6 seconds, was inflated to 60 seconds (1 minute), then reduced again to 6 seconds. The exploration turn has always been 10 minutes, but even then the pace is ridiculously slow, even given the rates for mapping and investigation. I'm not a fan of the 1st edition movement scales, but the 3.x version works for me. I don't like 3.x skills taking the limelight, but I think that the better defined rolls for surprise, hiding, sneaking, and listening are way better.

This conversion is on hold until such time as I can complete my other projects. I'm continuing to review the rules as written in search of a "better way" but it seems that no one will currently be able to release the perfect version of the D&D ruleset. It's curious to note that the Wizards of the Coast developers are approaching the game from the same angle. I doubt that we would agree on the particulars of what makes D&D such an iconic game. They have an agenda of selling games to the masses - my only agenda is to play in a system in which I feel comfortable and happy. Those two views are pretty much at odds, and have been since Gygax was ousted from TSR back in the day.

Basic or Original D&D Snafus

The conversion process continues apace, but with several breaks for what I like to call "reality checks." I'm stuck on which alignment system to use. Given the Basic three-alignment system does not seem to work logically in the system, I need to come up with some other method. At first I thought that simply changing from one axis (Lawful - Chaotic) to the other (Good - Evil) would solve the problem, but then adding in the sub-classes to the mix makes me realize that this is perhaps not enough. Moving to a 5-alignment system (LG, LE, N, CG, CE) also seems to not make much sense, although curiously this seemed to be the system the Monster Manual used. Ever wonder why there are so few monsters not of these five alignments? The nine-alignment system has been in place since 1st edition and has not changed since that time. This may be the method to use since it has seen the least amount of modification (although there are numerous people who have balked at the definitions of this system).

Curiously, I looked up Assassins last week and realized that they were originally conceived of as having a Neutral alignment, and were not necessarily allowable as player characters (required DM permission), although the same could be said of all the non-standard classes in OD&D. Given the rationale in the description I could see this as a possibility, however the game is entrenched in Good vs. Evil, black vs. white, and killing for profit is very much an evil thing in my book. Use of deadly poisons is also an arguably evil thing. I believe that the Assassin may have been the antithesis of the Paladin as originally conceived.

So let's look at the Paladin class. The only real requirements of being a paladin are a high Charisma (17 or 18 score) and having to be and remain Lawful in alignment (later Lawful Good). Since Lawful = Good in the old system, this is rather redundant and a poor requirement given that there are only 3 choices and one (Chaotic) is typically avoided for player characters. So all the characters in D&D are typically Lawful or Neutral. Having a requirement like this is ridiculous since you probably would select that alignment half the time anyway. Moving to the 5-alignment system, there is still only one additional choice, so the limiting requirement is not such a limitation after all. The Paladin gets a lot of useful abilities for these requirements. Now, the high Charisma is not so easy to downplay, but I can remember lots of paladins running around in our early campaigns, and I can guarantee that most of them were NOT rolled using 3d6 (or even 4d6).

Assuming that Paladins are used, LG would be the alignment restriction to keep. Using Druids limits them to Neutral in alignment. Assassins would be required to be the same alignment as thieves, but lean heavily towards Evil alignments. I would not keep an Assassin from being Neutral, but such a character would have to prove themselves to be more of a bounty hunter with a bring 'em back alive motto, or someone sent for religious or political reasons to take out only evil dictators or threats to civilization. Such a character could be considered Neutral, but never Good by any means. In fact, it's interesting to note that except for the use of poison, such a character is essentially a Paladin sent to take out what their superiors tell them to. The difference is that the assassin wants to be paid, but the paladin donates his loot to some other charitable organization and cannot retain large amounts of wealth. Given that D&D is all about the rewards (treasure especially), an Assassin makes more sense in a traditional dungeon than a paladin. This is probably the reason why the "novelist" approach to gaming came into being, to give those goody-two-shoes a reason to be in an adventuring party when they make much better mission-appointed temple agents and patriarch guards.

The Ranger class can either be considered to be Lawful (Good) in nature or Neutral if using the old system, although I tend to see them as more CG or NG in the 9-alignment system seeing as they are tutored by druids and elves. Their selfless nature, endangering themselves for the good of others, seems much more in line with a good alignment, but their not-so-direct methods of attacking from the shadows and using ranged weapons tends to keep them from a traditional and military (lawful) style of fighting, much like the elves. They make better scouts and agents than leaders. I could see rangers as being Neutral in the old system, but that seems counter-intuitive to me since the alignment requirement seems to dictate the actions of the Ranger. So I suppose that the Good alignment component remains.

In the end we get to the 1st edition paradigm for the classes, and as much as I hate to admit it, the 1st edition rules work better in so many ways. However, I am still a fan of the Basic version of combat. In my first games, we would mix the two systems together to make the whole thing work and it seemed like it did for a long time. It wasn't until I started trying to piece together the rules for combat from the Dungeon Master's Guide that all the confusion started. Is the added complexity good? It seems to be, but at some point adding more to the game takes away from the enjoyment as the later versions proved. You can only seem to have fun so long as you keep it as a game - the more of a hobby you make it the more involved you get and seek answers in-game to questions that never really can be resolved with the roll of a die.

I'm going to keep trying to resolve the differences, but I still feel like the evolution of the game into 1st edition and beyond is a natural course of such things and that in the end we should end up simply picking bits and pieces from each edition that work the best. Accepting limitations once everyone has been given all the options is very difficult unless the DM can somehow explain why choosing these things is not necessarily better. Some people just want to be the most powerful thing on two legs and will lord over everyone else to get it. Thankfully I am not one of those people and neither are the people I currently play with.

Sturmgard: Druid Class

I did a little research into the OD&D Druid presented in Eldritch Wizardry the other night. It seems that the Druid of AD&D resembles this version rather closely. The only difference is in the level structure. The abilities are relatively the same, including the shape change ability although it is not well-defined. I may have to look up the monster version of the druid in Greyhawk Supplement I. A Basic D&D version may look like this:

DRUID

Druids are a sub-class of cleric in that they are worshippers of all things natural. They are protectors of the wilderness and worship the sun, moon, and trees. Their magical powers are derived from this worship and include elemental spells as well as influence over plants and animals. In this way they are more of a combination of magic-user and cleric.

REQUIREMENTS: Druids have no special ability requirements, however they have Wisdom as their prime requisite and must be of Neutral alignment. If a druid ever changes alignment they lose all their druidic powers (abilities and spells) and can never again advance in level. A fallen druid can perform a quest to regain his or her former status but will not be able to gain experience until the quest is completed. Druids may not wear metal armor, can only use wooden shields, and have a list of allowed weapons including: scimitar, sickle, dagger, staff, sling, spear, and club. They may not use any proscribed weapon or lose their spell casting abilities for one day. Druids use mistletoe as a holy symbol and this plant must be specially picked and preserved for their use. Properly picked mistletoe makes all their spells work at full strength. Improperly picked or natural mistletoe can still work, but all saves against such spells are at +2 and/or range and duration is halved. They may use any magic items usable by clerics except those which are written (scrolls, books, etc.)

SPECIAL ABILITIES: Druids cast spells like a cleric, but they cast spells of a different sort taken from the druid spell list. Druid spells deal with nature (weather, plants, animals) and the elemental forces (fire, water, air, and earth). Druids have no influence over the undead. All druids are able to identify plants, animals, and pure water. At 3rd level they may walk through undergrowth without any movement penalty and without leaving a trail. At 7th level they gain the ability to shape-change into an animal form three times each day (once each of mammal, bird, or reptile). At 9th level they are immune to charm effects from fey folk (such as pixies, nixies, dryads, satyrs, etc.). Druids attack and save as clerics but gain +2 to saving throws against fire and lightning.

Druids have an organization based on wilderness regions. Each large wilderness area is presided by a Great Druid who is the supreme druidic ruler. This position comes with many responsibilities and may be challenged by any of the lesser Archdruids. Above 10th level, druids advance by trial combat with a druid of the next highest rank. These duels can be simply ritual or to the death, as decided by the combatants beforehand. Those who best their opponent become the next rank; those defeated drop a rank to the next lowest level.

Well, this seems to be all the details I can remember at the moment. The druid here is not well-defined since I'm not listing all the spells. Most of the spells from 1st edition are also found in the OD&D supplement, with key spells such as faerie fire, heat metal, produce flame, wall of fire, animal summoning, protection from lightning, insect plague, and firestorm among those that stand out as purely druidic in nature. Druids do have access to basic curative spells, but they can only reincarnate souls, not raise them from the dead. I suppose this class can function in the Sturmgard campaign in place of a Neutral Cleric (since I'll already have a cult of the Riddlemaster which is very Neutral in alignment). I have to make sure that animal friendship is one of those spells usable in the lower level since I want rangers to have access to that spell as well.

Sturmgard: Ranger Class

To my knowledge there was never a published ranger class until the 1st edition of AD&D. Sure, there were some attempts at a ranger class in Dragon, but they all seemed based on Aragorn from Tolkien. I wonder what such a ranger class would look like in Original D&D? Some thoughts below:

RANGER

A ranger is a human who follows the teachings of the elves and the druids, learning the wilderness stealth, woodcraft, and tracking abilities of the elves while paying homage to the beliefs of the Druids. Although they revere the teachings of the Neutral Druids, Rangers are of Good alignment and must remain so or else they are forever cast out from their order, unable to cast spells or increase in experience ever after. A difficult quest set by the druids is the only way to regain lost status, along with a reversion of alignment back to Good.

REQUIREMENTS: In order to become a ranger, a character must have a Strength and Constitution of no less than 13. Strength and Wisdom are the prerequisites of this class. If a ranger does not have a Wisdom of 9 or higher he or she may not cast Druid spells at higher levels. A ranger never gains bonus experience points from having high ability scores.

SPECIAL ABILITIES: A ranger is able to Move Silently and Hide in Shadows in outdoor settings as a Thief of the same level. This allows the ranger to attack with surprise or shoot from a distance unseen as a sniper in the woods. Unlike the backstab ability of Thieves, this only nets them a surprise round of attacks at +2 to hit. Furthermore, a ranger can track creatures moving through the wilderness with great skill. A ranger has a 3 in 6 chance at levels 1-7, 4 in 6 chance at levels 8-14, and 5 in 6 chance at level 15+. Success allows the ranger to follow tracks for one watch period (4 hours) without having to check again until weather conditions change or the creature tries to hide his or her trail. Rangers can do +1 damage to humanoids and giants per Hit Die they possess, up to Name Level (max +9 damage). This bonus applies to kobolds, goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls, lizardmen, troglodytes, bugbears, ogres, trolls, and giants of all sorts. Finally, at 8th level the ranger gains the ability to cast a limited number of druid spells as a caster of half his actual level (an 8th level ranger can cast a druid spell as a 4th level druid). A ranger begins the game knowing the Elven language as well as the secret languages of Druids and his alignment tongue.

Rangers have a d8 Hit Die, can wear only leather armor or chain mail armor, and are limited to using any sword, spear, short bow, long bow, crossbow, hand axe, dagger, and club. Rangers may use shields. Their code and beliefs forbid them from using flaming oil or poison in combat.

I envision rangers as protectors of the forest, defenders of the Good creatures of the woods, and liaisons with the elves in the deep woods who accept rangers as trusted friends while they are more distant to humans in general. I see rangers as advance scouts in times of war, border guardians in times of peace, and would readily join any group seeking to eliminate some evil that threatens civilization or areas of Good demi-humans in the wilderness. Rangers should be able to come from any climate, from northern tundras to tropical rainforests.

A fallen ranger is essentially stuck at whatever level they attained before turning from Good and cannot cast Druid spells (although they retain all their former abilities). I can see such fallen rangers as outcasts attacking strangers in the woods and possibly seeking former associates to beg forgiveness or try and atone for their misdeeds. Altogether a very interesting facet of the class.

A Name Level Ranger (Ranger Lord) does not build a castle as a Fighter would, but may start a ranger conclave in the wilderness, a refuge for travelers in the wilds and a place to train new rangers. A Ranger Lord breaks from his own conclave (usually on good terms) and starts a new conclave, typically in a wild region that needs taming. Such new conclaves are meant to reduce the threat of Evil in a region so that travelers are kept safe. A ranger will thus clear a 5-mile hex of land as his own and patrol all the hexes adjacent to his conclave, usually near a road, river, or other stretch of land generally traveled by Good folk. A conclave is usually housed in a wooden lodge or adobe dwelling, possibly camouflaged, but definitely guarded by wild animals friendly to the ranger conclave.

Ranger Druid spells begin at 8th level and increase in number and power until the ranger reaches 16th level. The ranger selects his spells as a druid and is required to carry a holy symbol.

8th   - 1 first level
9th   - 2 first level
10th - 2 first level ,1 second level

11th - 3 first level, 2 second level
12th - 3 first level, 2 second level, 1 third level
13th - 4 first level, 3 second level, 2 third level
14th - 4 first level, 4 second level, 3 third level
15th - 4 first level, 4 second level, 4 third level

16th level + no more spells per day are gained, remains 4 first level, 4 second level, 4 third level

Conversion: Thuin to Sturmgard, Basic D&D Style

I've been trying to decide what to do with the couple of binders of material I made for my own campaign world Thuin. I think I've come up with the perfect solution! In order to occupy my month-time off from 1st edition I'll convert my world to a Basic (or Original) D&D setting. This really is a trivial task, although it also involved getting to work on revising the Dungeon Trial of the Riddlemaster. In fact, this gives me a chance to re-write all the history of the world and make changes to my original world concept.

I intend to keep the main maps I worked on so long ago, but change the names and personalities in the area. All adventures need a base town and Malbork was just a wee bit too isolated and small to serve that purpose. Moving the base town to Poznan makes more sense. The Sturmgard Forest region remains integral, but I have to rewrite the portion on magic being scarce and the paranoia of the Twilight Council. I think I can keep everything else pretty much the same. I want so desperately to eliminate Drow from my campaign. It was an addition I made to appease one player long ago and I regret the decision since it added something to the campaign that it really did not need.

That being said, I can tell already that this move is going to be somewhat limiting. Using the old rules brings back level limits, class limits, and fewer alignments (my one concession will be using alignments of Good, Neutral, and Evil instead of Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic). I've never really understood why spells like Protection from Evil and Dispel Evil existed in a game dominated by Law and Chaos. Heck, I may even decide to use the 9-alignment system, and some of the classes from OD&D supplements (like the paladin, druid, and assassin). It seems to me that the game could be very fun, and even plausible on-line.

My 1st dungeon level is complete, as was the 2nd level (about 180 rooms between the two!), but by the time I got to the third level everything sort of went haywire. The players got bored of entering the place and I think it had a lot to do with the northern clime I placed it in. It took forever to get from Malbork to the dungeon, and even longer when the weather got bad. There was a great weather system in the Chainmail rules using 2d6 to figure out the weather conditions hourly, but I'm sure that can be changed to once every watch period (4 hours of time). I think I'll have the Sturmgard be a little warmer, possibly from geothermal activity and partly from elven magic influencing the clime from the central portion outward (so it will be colder at the edges of the Sturmgard). I'm thinking of really only mapping the Sturmgard region for now and only dealing with that as the world map - the other cultures will be described at the edges of civilization, but there's no need to explain the distant races until I make an adventure in that region. Perhaps I'll assemble a Gazetteer series starting with GAZ1: The Sturmgard. I want to keep such figures as the Goblin King (although he has to change to suit the system), the Riddlemaster, Count Simon Whittenborg (although there are no rangers unless I want to develop them for the system), and the Dwarves of Boldersted. The Dungeon becomes changed to the basic races - mites become kobolds, norkers revert to hobgoblins, the goblins and orcs remain the same, and the Clerics of Neutrality remain essentially unchanged. The grimlocks on the second level are changed to gnolls, and the gnolls/flind become troglodytes. I can keep the magic-user section and undead sections with a few changes. I really need to revamp the flow of the dungeon since the pre-determined route through the levels is no longer required. Originally the party was going to have to find keys, one per level, and then follow the clues that led them down to the next level. However, in order for this to work they would have to pretty much do it all in one shot - pretty much an impossibility given the size I made it.

My expanded version will feature more D&D creatures, multiple entrances to the dungeon, a druid cairn or stone circle marking the mound, more dungeon stairs and shafts to the surface to allow for fresh water and fresh air flow as well as a away for those pesky vermin to crawl into the place. I intend on keeping the access to the caves beneath Sturmgard, but changing the nature of the caves to more of a geothermal/volcanic nature. I want the surface forests to teem with wildlife of natural origin, humanoids, demi-humans, and other monsters. The mountains are to be the scary places of the campaign, filled with goblinoids, giants, and some dragons (just like in old-time Thuin), but these should be defeatable if played correctly. I want to keep the green dragon, although he'll be much less scary to a high-level group (unless I decided to increase his size per the Mentzer set).