"Black Dougal gasps 'Poison!' and falls to the floor. He looks dead."

Friday, July 6, 2012

New B/X Monster: The Uberilla

Uberilla
Armor Class: 5
Hit Dice: 7 (L)
Move: 120' (40')
Attacks: 4 claws
Damage: 1-6/1-6/1-6/1-6
No. Appearing: 1-2
Save As: Fighter 4
Morale: 9
Treasure Type: L
Alignment:

A giant, two headed gorilla, both heads having one eye, giving it a sort of cyclops like appearance. The Uberilla has four arms and four legs. Their fur is purple. An Uberilla can attack up to two opponents each round with two claws (with each attack suffering a -1 penalty to-hit due to poor depth perception) or may focus all four claws on a single target (without the penalty). If two claws hit a target, the Uberilla grabs the target and makes a bite attack for an additional 1-6 damage.

Inspired by watching World of Quest with my son this morning.

Filling Out My Lulu Order

I am planning on placing an order with Lulu over the next while. Currently my shopping cart contains:

  • Fight On! #13 (which rounds out my Fight On! collection)
  • Towers of Krshal
  • Terminal Space
I want to make sure my shipping costs are worth the trouble so what else should I add to my order?

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

B/X Sword, Science & Sorcery - House Rule #1 Classes

Classes
Classes allowed will include:

  • Fighter (as B/X rulebooks with the additional ability of when fighting creatures with less than 1 HD their # of attacks = their level)
  • Thief (as B/X rulebooks)
  • Magic-User (as per the B/X rulebooks. However, their prime requisite changes to wisdom given the willpower and resolve required to master spells and using my strict reading of their spellbooks)
  • Barbarian
  • Scientist
  • First Men
  • Savage
  • and possibly a Mutant class and a Synthetic class which I will post soon.

All characters are human (at least in some derivative form for the mutant and vat-man).

Edit: I had considered using Labyrinth Lord with the Advanced Edition Companion so I could use various types of humans ala the Races of Algol Men but decided to stick with B/X.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The Dungeon of Random OSR Evilness was done in my absence.

Before my long break I had the idea of posting a small dungeon using the B/X rulebooks and the free materials provided by the great members of the OSR blogoverse. In what I like to think of as a case of great minds think alike, the Planet Algol blog shortly thereafter made a post titled Semi-Random Megadungeon "Saturday Night Special" Generation Using Existing Resources that did pretty much exactly the same thing I was thinking about.

I will be revisiting this for the B/X Sword, Science & Sorcery game.

Key Principles for B/X Sword, Science & Sorcery


The key principles for the B/X Sword, Science & Sorcery campaign are:
  1. Develop an online, weird science meets sword & planet campaign using my favourite version of D&D plus a some house rules.
  2. Specifically designed to fit into the busy schedule of adults having a flexible schedule. It will follow the same scheduling convention as what was used for the West Marches - there will be no regular time: every session will be scheduled by the players on the fly. It may eventually also include face-to-face play.
  3. Designed as an open game. There is no regular party: each game can have different players. Invite your friends. Ideally, I would like to draw from a large pool of people. This will be enforced by having the players use a tavern in the city as a "homebase" and using Jeff's Triple Secret Random Dungeon Fate Chart of Very Probable Doom if you don't make it back before the end of the session. To support the open game there will be campaign wiki.
  4. The game is an exploration-focused sandbox game set in an ancient, sprawling and decadent city with a maze of catacombs and vaults beneath it and an alien landscape outside the walls that provide for numerous adventure opportunities.
  5. I am a busy guy (and paradoxically quite lazy) therefore I am going to try to make life as easy as possible for myself. The main resources I will use include Vornheim, Towers of Krshal, various published adventure modules (some of which you may recognize), various maps and adventures available online, my archived copy of Scott Driver’s World of Thool blog, the Planet Algol blog and some adventure sites I make up myself. But I will steal shamelessly from anywhere.
  6. The players decide where to go and what to do. It is a sandbox game. No overarching plot, just the overarching environment.
  7. A "beer 'n pretzel" game where fun is the key. Everyone is aware that it is a game and can enjoy as such. This isn't Shakespeare, this is a game of murder-hobo where the players that gather the most treasure win.

Monday, July 2, 2012

B/X Sword, Science & Sorcery

I am looking at starting a new online sword, science & sorcery B/X campaign. 
The elevator pitch is...
Sword and sandal and weird science meet in a sprawling ancient and decadent city lying in the blasted terrain of a dying planet. The city has numerous palaces, temples, arenas, inns, taverns, brothels, towers, prisons, laboratories, graveyards, etc. for adventures to snoop, infiltrate, rob, burn down, etc. Also, below the city lies a megadungeon, as well as an uncountable number of dungeons, lairs, vaults, chambers, tombs, caverns, crypts, and caves to explore/plunder. Outside the city's walls lies the potential for hexcrawl exploration of the alien landscape.

It is inspired by some of the blogs I follow such as Planet Algol and Scott Driver's old Thool blog as well as novels such as Leigh Brackett's Skaith and Mars series.

The next few posts will develop some of my thoughts and the house rules I am considering.

If you are interested either reply in the comments below or email me at p_armstrong [at] email [dot] com.