rhialto wrote:

I use Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque for inspiration: Vol. 1 has a d100 table of such backgrounds.

 
What a fabulous resource!  Positively ripe with ideas.  Thanks for the pointer.

Doctor_Rob wrote:

rhialto wrote:

I use Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque for inspiration: Vol. 1 has a d100 table of such backgrounds.

 
What a fabulous resource! Positively ripe with ideas. Thanks for the pointer.

My pleasure: all three volumes are excellent sources of inspiration for Hyperborea.

Spider of Leng wrote:

Also, all PCs get a 20 HP "kicker" at 1st level.  I cribbed this one from Hackmaster.

Characters begin with HP equal to Constitution
. 
As characters level, they re-roll HP dice and only begin to increase total HP when the dice roll (+con mod) is greater than their Con attribute.

HP over Con attribute restores overnight with a good rest. HP up to their Con restore more slowly like normal HP.

I had toyed with monsters crits not being multiples of their damage dice but going straight against (Con) HP but it seemed a bit too dangerous...

Not original, I stole the idea from somewhere.


 

Last edited by mabon5127 (7/19/2019 10:39 am)

mabon5127 wrote:

Characters begin with HP equal to Constitution.
As characters level, they re-roll HP dice and only begin to increase total HP when the dice roll (+con mod) is greater than their Con attribute.
HP over Con attribute restores overnight with a good rest. HP up to their Con restore more slowly like normal HP.
...
Not original, I stole the idea from somewhere.

I really like this idea, Mabon, and just might steal it for myself!  :-) A 20-hp kicker may be appropriate for Hackmaster but it's a bit much for this game (unless, like Spider of Leng, you use full exploding damage dice AND up to x5 crits… then your PCs might need it!)

A compromise, which I've settled on for my upcoming PbP game, is to give each PC a permanent kicker of ½ CN, rounded down.  It should prove helpful at low levels and less noticeable later on.  Of course, the sauce is there for both goose and gander in terms of leveled NPCs.

Some of my other house rules (and I'm trying to keep this a tight list – we already have a great system to begin with!):

Thief abilities (Table 11).  I'm borrowing from AD&D 2e and later editions the idea of customizing thief skills somewhat.  Instead of the fixed +1 bonus for high attributes, the character gets a pool of discretionary points equal to (DX-10) plus the # of bonus languages from his IN.  Each point improves a chosen thief ability by 1-in-12, with a cap of +3 to any one.  This applies to all thief subclasses except bards, who get (DX-10)/2 plus # lang's since they have fewer thief abilities.

(Ex. a thief with DX 13 & IN 13 gets four points; he can use 3 to raise Climb Walls to 11:12, and the remaining 1 to raise Decipher Script to 1:12, or apply it to any other ability except Read Scrolls which is locked until 5th level.)

Runegravers.  I am toying with the idea of adding 8 more runes, thus making the complete Elder Futhark available.  I'll probably sound this out further in another thread…

Armour (Table 46).  Again inspired by AD&D and Gygax, I've slightly changed the stats of laminated and splint armours to differentiate them from chain and banded mail, respectively.  They are cheaper (60gp for laminated, 100gp for splint) and are both now vulnerable to the +1 bonus of armour piercing weapons (those marked Ω).  Further, splinted armour now has MV 20 and is treated as heavy armour for the sake of class abilities and spell failure.

Melee Weapons (Table 48).  Changed the damage for WC 2 broadsword and scimitar to 2d4 (1d6+1d4).

Missile Weapons (Table 49).  A heavy crossbow has the (Ω) trait at short range, and does 2d4+2 damage at any range.

Spells.  I'd love to incorporate the wild summoning rules from _Lamentations of the Flame Princess,_ but haven't yet worked out how…

Treasure.  The weird-tech "Eyes" from Tekumel will be a thing, and the isotopic guns from Geoffrey's _Carcosa_ will definitely be a thing!

~ sub

Last edited by Q-sub (9/04/2019 10:29 am)

House Rule I think I am going to implement.

Two-weapon fighting for monks, but only for empty hand fighting (caestus can be used however as they are mentioned as being included in the Empty Hand ability).

They can do it even without have a 13 or greater DX.

For DX under 13 they still suffer a -3 attack penalty. Otherwise everything else is the same.

So, no attack penalty from their Primary Weapon (WC 0) but a possible 0 to -3 attack penalty from their Secondary Weapon (also WC 0). They still get their damage bonuses from Accurate Strike and the caestus.

It makes them slightly more effective in melee, but they aren't gonna replace a fighter-type any time soon with their not so great AC.

Speaking of two-weapon fighting, I sometimes allow players (martial types) to roll for ambidexterity, with a base 1% chance.  If they have it, they can fight with two weapons at no penalty.  In my Labyrinth Lord or (upcoming) OSE games, elves have a higher chance, 10%; and half-elves have a 5% chance.  Obviously that wouldn't apply to AS&SH, but the first half-elf I rolled up for OSE turned out to be ambidextrous.  In Castles & Crusades I think all elves are automatically ambidextrous, again, not that that matters here.  But you could have certain schools of martial arts (for monks) or swordsmanship that specifically teach two weapon fighting styles like Musashi did.  But have it take up all their proficiency slots or something like that.  I also let monks incorporate weapons into their unarmed fighting if it makes sense for a martial arts style they describe, like crane style using jo sticks.  So the damage they do is off the style rather than the weapon.  Wouldn't matter here since AS&SH nerfs the monk's unarmed damage, but it's interesting in straight D&D/Labyrinth Lord.

Spider of Leng wrote:

Speaking of two-weapon fighting, I sometimes allow players (martial types) to roll for ambidexterity, with a base 1% chance.  If they have it, they can fight with two weapons at no penalty.  ...

I roll with high DX being the marker of that.

Handy Haversack wrote:

gizmomathboy wrote:

Ynas Midgard wrote:

I think that's pretty much by the book - the only part deviating from rules-as-written is the abolishment of minimum DX to perform the maneouvre.

Two deviations.
 * Monks can do two-weapons fighting with a DX below 13, but only empty handed.
 * Monks with a DX below 13 suffer a -3 penalty with their Secondary Weapon instead of a -2

I erred on the side of being complete about the change which includes much of the BtB text. Mostly to avoid pedants looking for holes to wiggle through.

Pedant's Wiggle was one of Rhialto the Marvellous's favorite spells, right?

The first thing we do, let's kill all the rules lawyers.

1) Attribute tests, because I dislike juggling sub systems,

Score / test of x

18 is 10:12

17 is 9:12

15-16 is 8:12

13-14 is 7:12

10-12 is 6:12

9 is 5:12

8 is 4:12

7 is 3:12

For attribute checks that are a challenge equal to an extraordinary feat, a penalty of minus 5 is applied.

This way whether you're tracking, jumping to a ledge, or lifting a barred gate, it all uses the same die. It also provides a little more variation between attributes than the d6 attribute tests.


2) Initiative,

Initiative is rolled once and recorded as the battle starts. All combatants roll a d10 + weapon class + Dexterity modifier (uses AC adjustment). Monsters usually add their hit die. Missiles are treated as weapon class 4. Magic is treated as weapon class 3, and adds either the casters INT or WIS modifier depending whether the caster is arcane or divine.

Characters that go before the monster are group A. Characters that go after the monster are in group B. Every round it goes: Group A, Monster, Group B.


3) Mass Combat, so that high level characters can better fend off getting swarmed,

All characters double their attacks against 0 level opponents. However once fighters (not their sub classes) reach level 2 they instead get their level in bonus attacks, on top of their normal attack routine.


4) Core classes, to make them a little more attractive

Fighters: Crit on 19 and 20s.

Clerics: Get lay on hands (2hp/level). It replenishes every day, and they may distribute this pool of healing however they'd like. This frees up some spell slots that would almost always be used for cure spells.

Thieves: For all thief skills a pure thief rolls 2d12s and takes the better result.

Wizards: Can learn spells from any of the other arcane spell lists at a -10% chance. They must do this by copying other spell books or scrolls that they find, not something they automatically get on a level up.


5) Ascensing armor class


6) Chases

If a pursuit comes into play everyone rolls a d20 and adds their movement score to get a total. If the pursuer rolls equal to or greater than anyone fleeing then they have caught up, and may make an attack. Every round another d20 is rolled and added to the total.



I think that's about it.

With only a few sessions of the current campaign I'm in left and all of our characters high level, we ran into an issue where two spells in particular seem more or less obsolete. Those being ice storm and cone of cold.

Since the casters are 11th and 12th level their magic missiles are doing about as much as an ice storm spell, and cone of cold is outclassed by fireball/lightning bolt.

Because of this we're considering having ice storm add an extra d10 damage at level 9, and an additional d10 damage at level 11. And for cone of cold simply giving it no save (or alternatively an additional +1 per die).

Does this seem over powered? Or has anyone else ran into this? It's not a huge shift and almost not worth the trouble, but players have asked multiple times now "why would I choose this" when considering those spells and I dont really have a good answer. Cone of cold and ice storm seem to be inferior to lower level damage spells in nearly all aspects.

Last edited by deathknight4044 (5/19/2021 3:01 am)