Getting Rid of Some Stuff - For Sale

I am clearing out some storage space and I will be posting a few things here before I go through the headache of ebay.

A. "Field Guide to Encounters" - Vol 1 & 2. by Judges Guild. C$10

B. Traveller Core Rulebook and 760 Patrons from Mongoose Publishing. C$20

C. Talislanta - Fourth edition (the enormous blue hardback) C$20

D. Codex of Erde (d20) from Troll Lord Games C$5

All books are in good shape.

Payment by Paypal only; first-come, first-served; you pay all shipping and any insurance. You can contact me at p_armstrong [at] email [dot] com.

B/X S&S: Sans Armour - part two

I am going back on my previous thoughts about unarmoured AC for fighters. I now dislike the proposed solution I drafted in that post.

A character’s hit points represent his ability and luck when it comes to avoiding the lethal effects created by the point of a sword. In Dungeons and Dragons, armour class doesn’t scale with level, but hit points do. This is because a characters ability to avoid being hit isn’t reflected primarily by armour class, but by his hit point total.

As such, I think there are a couple of things that can be done to better reflect the trope of the loincloth wearing barbarian or chainmail bikini clad amazon while still keeping the same B/X combat system.

These are nothing earth shattering.

1. Start characters at a higher level - this gives them more hit points and also reflects the fact that S&S characters are usually already quite capable.

or

2. Give starting characters some sort of hit point kicker - something like adding the character's constitution score to their beginning hit point total.

An important thing to remember to capture the the S&S feel is to always focus on in-game disadvantages of wearing heavy armour. Such things as noise, heat, sand, insects, costs for repairs, etc should cause definite in game problems for any character wearing heavy armour.

I would also make armour much more expensive than given in the B/X rulebooks if I was running a sword & sorcery hack.

B/X S&S: Renaming the Priest Class

I still like the S&S Priest Class I came up with but I am becoming more and more unsatisfied with the name. I don't think it really fits the role that I envision. After all, a priest of Mitra doesn't fit the Priest Class whereas a priest of Set might better fit the current Sorcerer Class.

Two options:

1. Rename the Priest Class something else - such as Mystic or something else.

2. Rename the Priest Class as a "Sorcerer" and then rename the Sorcerer Class something else - such as wizard, warlock, etc.

What do you think?

B/X S&S: A Skype Test?

I would like to try using some of the B/X - Sword & Sorcery hack I have been doing the last while. I'm looking for three players for a skype + gametable game using B/X Dungeons & Dragons with the Sword & Sorcery house rules I have been working on.

This will be a episodic game set in the Hyborian Age. However, I will be going more for the "feel" and "themes" instead of literary accuracy as I am by no means a REH/Conan scholar. I will be using some of the stories from the Savage Sword of Conan stories for ideas/inspiration.

Given the episodic nature, if this is something we have fun with, there's always the option of adding more episodes or players.

I would like to run the first session during the evening of Saturday, Nov 21st. Note that I am Mountain time.

If you're interested, e-mail me at p_armstrong [AT] email [DOT] com, tell me a little about yourself, what kind of gaming you enjoy, etc. In the event that I get an abundance of requests, I have no set criteria for how I'll pick the players. I'll be happy to put the extra folks on the waiting list for possible future episodes.

In addition, I am also considering a play-by-post game. I will let you know if it progresses.

Check This Out

Dyson has taken the excellent dungeon tiles he has been working on and put them on a website that will generate a map.

Awesome!

D&D Levels and S&S

Back near the beginning of my hacking around with B/X for a sword & sorcery inspired game, Matthew from Wheel of Samsara made a comment:

"D&D is not ideal for S&S. It's not that you can't do it. Akratic Wizardry and The Wasted Lands both posted good, S&S hacks for D&D. The problem for me, is that S&S is not a genre about guys leveling up and that's the central premise of D&D."

While I am quite happy with the alternate S&S classes I have done for B/X there is still the nagging problem that the D&D level system eventually ruins the "feel" of a sword & sorcery game. The are numerous instances in S&S literature where the mighty hero is forced to flee from a D&D monster that a 12th level fighter would slice up for breakfast. Or instances where the mightiest of sorcerers cannot do what a 5th level magic-user can.

The more I think about this though the more that I think it really is not much of an issue because the number of characters that will survive to high levels will be very small. This is due to:

- B/X classes, from which all of the S&S hacks I have done are based, have low power levels.
- The lower level of magic items.
- Fewer magic-using characters due to the drawbacks built into the new classes.
- If there are sorcerers in the party, the heavy artillery spells (fireball, etc have either been made higher level spells of removed altogether.
- If true to the inspiration of the S&S literature, the size of the adventuring party will likely be smaller than assumed in standard D&D.
- The Fear Check mechanic helps to keep the characters on their toes.

Check This Out

Stuart over at Robertson Games has a series of posts about taking OD&D/Swords & Wizardry attribute scores and making them descriptive instead of numeric.

I think it is brilliant and makes the low attribute modifiers really interesting.

Check it out if you haven't.