Sturmgard Conversion: Alignment and the Afterlife

The Sturmgard Conversion is coming along nicely. One sticking point I have is with alignment. The original version of the game used only 3 alignments: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Later versions of D&D adopted 9 alignments by adding in the Good-Evil axis. I'm not sure which I want to use for Sturmgard. I will be using Basic/Expert rules which are not tied terribly to alignment. However, using sub-classes with alignment restrictions poses a problem. Paladins, Rangers, Druids, and Assassins all have alignment requirements, something that seems rather difficult to pin in a 3-alignment system. After all, if the monsters are mostly Chaotic, that only leaves really 2 choices for PCs who are heroic (Lawful and Neutral). However, there are no "devils" in Basic/Expert, only demons. I've also complained frequently about the spells using Good/Evil as descriptors when alignments use Law/Chaos. They are similar but not the same. I was then thinking of using only Good-Neutral-Evil for alignments, but that seems a bit bland. I want to keep the simplicity of the system intact and not add in any unnecessary ingredients to confuse.

So what would a Sturmgard campaign with classic Basic/Expert alignments look like? Well, Druids are Neutral in any campaign, but Rangers and Paladins are Lawful only. Assassins in OD&D were listed as Neutral only (go figure) so that still works. Most of the "good" deities become Lawful, and Chithara remains Neutral. Spithre and Gorgus revert to Chaotic (but they were anyway). How do I convert the other alignments?

Well, it seems that if you take the nine-alignment chart with good alignments on top, neutral in the middle, and evil on the bottom, you come up with a 3x3 matrix. Separating them into three diagonal stripes from the upper right to the lower left gives you the zones of alignment conversion. Thus LAWFUL encompasses the alignments of LN, LG, NG; NEUTRAL encompasses the alignments of LE, TN, and CG; and CHAOTIC encompasses NE, CE, and CN. Having LE and CG in the same band as neutral can be explained in this way - LE is chaotic behavior with a lawful bent, thus equating to neutral; and CG is good behavior with a selfish bent, thus also balancing out to neutral.

What does this mean for the hosts of creatures in the Monster Manual? Well, devils and faeries become Neutral, as do elves. Dwarves become Lawful as do Halflings. All humanoids become Chaotic, including Orcs and Hobgoblins who would otherwise be considered Neutral since they are (erroneously in my opinion) listed as LE in the Monster Manual. Nothing says that humanoids can't be Neutral in alignment, it simply doesn't fit their modus operandi.

So, in a world without devils and high fay, what would the cosmos look like? Apparently there would be a heaven and an underworld, with some form of spirit plane more concerned with nature and the elements. In essence, the structure of the Inner Planes from Deities and Demi-gods fits this view. The Positive Material Plane identifies as Lawful Heaven, the Negative Material Plane as the Chaotic underworld, and the elemental and Ethereal Planes as the Neutral zones. What about Astral? I think that having the Inner Plane cosmos for Sturmgard works for the creation myth I've developed. Astral would equate to outer space, a transitive plane of vacuum that exists for the mind alone where Talas can be seen in the night sky. Using it may lead to other planes of existence separate from this cosmos - such as the D&D standard cosmology, the Forgotten Realms cosmology, Dark Sun or other campaign settings. In essence, the Astral plane separates universes from one another - it is the space in between the layers of reality.

So, when one dies and is Lawful, they go to the Heavens (positive material plane) where they join with the Light. Chaotic creatures descend to the Hells (negative material plane) where they become shadows. Neutral creatures merge with the spirit planes (ethereal and elemental planes) and this is why elementals sometimes form animal shapes or humanoid shapes. In other consequences, Elves are more attuned to this Neutral philosophy and thus cannot be raised from the dead, although they can be reincarnated. Perhaps the cycle of life already takes into account alignment in the D&D system. Assume the following - living Lawful creatures can be raised from the dead as normal; living Neutral creatures can be reincarnated into new forms; and Chaotic creatures once dead can only be reanimated as undead. A resurrection spell is able to bring anyone back to life in the form they inhabited regardless of alignment. This has interesting implications. First, the curse of undeath applied to a non-Chaotic creature means that their soul is not recoverable. Hence, once you are turned into a ghoul, wight, zombie, skeleton, wraith, mummy, vampire, etc. you cannot be brought back from that state (short of a wish, that is). Neutral creatures reincarnated into a form that is not viable for adventuring (animals, monsters, etc) effectively end that character's career, but the chance of coming back as someone usable remains. The problem is the loss of all Experience Points. There is no resurrection survival chance in Basic, so the chance of being able to bring someone back from the dead is 100%. Perhaps having the character make a Constitution check on d20 would be more appropriate, but would suck if their Constitution is too low.

One has to consider also the cost involved in bringing the dead back to life. Gygax originally set the Raise Dead spell at 5th level meaning a cleric needs to be a minimum of 9th level to cast it. Animate Dead I believe is a 5th level magic-user spell, later a 3rd level cleric spell. Resurrection is a 7th level cleric spell and probably only available at like 14th level or higher for clerics. Does this mean that any character below 9th level (Name Level) is not really viable for such magics? Should there be a level where using such magic is considered viable? It seems to me that 1st-3rd level characters are too fragile to even consider raising from the dead. Once a character breaks that boundary to 4th level then, and only then, are they considered to be viable for resurrection. The prohibitive cost of such a casting means that only the very successful would have enough ready cash to use. Without training costs, wealth tends to pile up in the base town without much use. Magic items are meant to be found, not bought. So all that loot can be used as an insurance policy against death. So what happens to the loot when low level characters die? One suggestion is to name a next of kin (the next character rolled as replacement). Another is to redistribute the treasure to the surviving party members. This could mean an increase in XP, but since there was no danger involved in its gain I don't think XP is appropriate to be awarded for someone else's redistributed hoard.

I'll have to contemplate these issues a bit more before finalizing the decision.

Sturmgard - Finalizing Plans for Basic

I'm in the beginning stages of the Thuin Conversion Project. I'm basically taking the skeleton of my old campaign and fleshing it out as a Basic/Expert Campaign module written in Old School fashion as a true dungeon adventure. The world is getting a facelift as well, being converted to a more old school format to function as both a Basic Dungeon and Expert Wilderness setting. I'm changing some names, adding in OD&D sub-classes, and separating race and class. In essence, all the changes that make D&D into AD&D without all the wacky and unnecessary rules of AD&D. Spells will be simple and quick, combat should run fast and easy, and the party can enjoy a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl without the need to worry about exterior plots, exorbitant training costs, or unnecessary restrictions to their enjoyment. I hope to get a full group to play test the dungeon soon. I've kept the 1st level map and changed some of the monsters to more closely fit the Basic rules, but I've completely reworked the lower levels as something different. The premise of the adventure remains intact and could have world repercussions if the party passes the "Test of the Riddlemaster" (adventure name).

I'm removing most of the names and references to Thuin, keeping the NPCs the same with some alterations (mostly cosmetic), and perhaps converting the PCs from the Thuin campaign into NPCs to interact with the PCs as trainers or healers. The campaign will NOT be sponsoring half-breed races of any sort (no half-elves or half-orcs allowed). Races allowed are Human, Dwarf, Elf, Hobbit, and possibly Gnome. Classes include Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Magic-User, Illusionist, Thief, Assassin, and Bard. Monks have no place in this campaign. Multi-classing functions similar to the way Elves were made to function in D&D. In essence, you have ONE level to advance, but you need to add together the level requirements for all your classes to make a level. Therefore, if you were a Fighter/Magic-User you would need 4,500 XP to make 2nd level. I may or may not work with level limits, instead charging demi-humans a 10% penalty for their special abilities. Therefore, a single class dwarf Fighter would require 2,200 XP where a human Fighter requires only 2,000 XP for 2nd level. Multi-classed demi-humans have no 10% penalty to XP, since they will be slowed enough in their advancement. I was toying with allowing only humans to benefit from XP bonuses, but I decided not to go that route since I would be enforcing abilities rolled with 3d6 and assigned in the order rolled. This makes those sub-classes rare and valuable. In fact, I want to run the entire game as written in the Basic/Expert rules, with only the minor adjustments listed above. The setting of Sturmgard is meant to be "flavor" for the munch and crunch of the adventure itself - focus on the dungeon!

Giants Proceeding Well

The "Against the Giants" campaign I started a few months ago is going well. We're into a few sessions and the party is running strong and finally making off with sufficient quantity of loot to progress at the level they should be. The ranger is kicking ass as predicted and the planning of the druid is paying off as they are systematically taking out the giants and ogres in hit-and-fade runs.

The first entry to the steading involved a lengthy reconnaissance of a couple days using spells and abilities to locate the major players in the steading and how best to attack. It seemed that the giant security was lax so the party took advantage of this and entered the place during early morning when most of the place was asleep. They entered the main door and began taking out sleeping giants. They found the sub-chief awake in his chamber and, using silence spells to mute the combat, took him out easily, polymorphing his concubine in the bed into a mule. They then explored the eastern half of the place, eliminating 10 sleeping giants in a barracks room with a well-thought out plan (none of the giants awakened, even though I rolled the 1 in 20 chance) and then maneuvered through the other rooms by guile and stealth. When they came to the chief's room they encountered his pet bear on guard at the door and this alerted the chief to danger. The chief managed to escape out the secret door and summon the wolves to attack the intruders. This large battle was amazing, ending in the death of one of the hired crossbowmen and all of the combatants except the chief's wife who retreated to the safety of her room. The chief himself went to rally the troops but there were few left to pose a threat.

After taking out the wolves the party went north to find the chief. They instead came to the outbuilding where the other sleeping giants were just starting to rise for late breakfast. The party stumbled into the place but managed to catch at least one barracks room unawares with a fireball before launching into a melee. Some spell mistakes were made (like casting hold monster on the giant in the doorway - preventing most attacks from both sides) but the party worked well together, displaying their new high-level abilities and spells.

Once both rooms were taken care of they decided to leave and replenish their strength. Stefan (one of the henchmen) actually leveled from the haul so he and the wounded returned to Threshold. On the trip back a freak random encounter had them meet a ki-rin who healed the wounded men to full health. Only Stefan is missing the current activity while training.

Some time was spent waiting for Falim and the other hirelings to return and more reconnaissance missions were performed. During one of these the party learned that the cloud giant emissary left in disgust over the inability of Nosnra to capture the intruders.

The second foray into the steading ended in the slaying of numerous ogre guards posted at the gates during another early morning run. They then went directly to the chief's chamber where he was found sleeping with a concubine. The party would have taken him out easily but the giantess woke and alerted the chief to danger as some wandering ogres on patrol came across the rest of the party in the hall outside. The chief was still slain by the druid and ranger, and the combat outside was silenced by the cleric. This giantess was also polymorphed into a mule to keep her from alerting the others.

The party took all the jewlery on the ogres and the chief's jewelry from his room. They also found some gems on the ogres and some potions in their room. They managed to kill off the remaining giant in the northern chamber and frightened the giantesses, keeping them from leaving the room. So far, they have not killed a single giantess - some form of chivalry keeping them from doing so! Or it could be that most of the females refuse to fight (so far). I had most of the rest of the giants retreat to the safety of the lower level, so they will be unpleasantly surprised to find them below!

They found the stairs down but refuse to leave unknown quantities in the upper level. So they spent some time investigating the other rooms to make sure that they were empty. They seem confused about the fact that the giants might be working with tactics (given to them by their masters), but that's how the module is supposed to be so it seems that it's working thus far. I'm not sure how I want this one to play out. I'm guessing I'll leave this up to the players how deep they wish to progress. I'm willing to run the whole series of G and D modules, but I would highly modify Q1 since I disagree with the tone of the module and the entire premise for the adventure is shaky at best. I much prefer to leave gods and goddesses alone in the outer planes and make the players deal with demons instead.

My take on Q1 would be to have the party end up captured by the drow priestesses and forced to eliminate the threat of the Elder Elemental Cult from the vault with help from the least of the drow houses. Success means that the party 'may' gain their freedom and one of the drow houses would be eliminated - thus creating more chaos as they war with each other to gain favor and higher position. In this way the Elder Elemental God becomes the enemy, not Lolth, and any extraplanar adventures happen in his realm, not the Abyss. Demons, evil elementals, and other nasty villains and high-level drow would still be encountered, just not Lolth.