Hit Dice Redux

I'm actually not committed to any change of the hit dice and "to hit" progression tables, but I figured I should provide a better explanation of my previous post. Here's the LBB hit dice progression, as best as I can recall (still haven't located my copies...)

Level  Fighter   Cleric  Magic-User

1      1+1         1        1
2       2     2     1+1
3       3     3      2
4       4    3+1     2+1
5       5     4      3
6       6     5     3+1
7       7     6      4
8       8    6+1     4+1
9       9     7      5
10      10     8     5+1

These are all in d6+adds format. Now, for monsters, you can take the monster hit dice and add that to the result of a d20 roll and adjust for the target's armor; on a 20 or higher, the monster hits. That works for S&W White Box. For Labyrinth Lord, you also have to round up to the next hit die if a monster has bonus hit points, and the formula only works up to 8 hit dice. LBB doesn't match this progression and actually advances quicker, but doesn't progress past 12 HD; if a monster has more hit dice, it's harder to kill, but doesn't get any better at hitting.

What would be cool is if you could simplify the character "to hit" progression by linking it to hit dice as well. The problem is that the "to hit" bonuses go up too fast if you do this. This is what I was mulling over in the previous post.

Should Hit Dice Be Hit Dice?

I'm beginning to think I need to modify the "to hit" tables.

What do I want out of a "to hit" table?

• all classes start out the same as far as combat effectiveness;
• fighters progress faster than clerics/magic users, but not too fast, and never become unstoppable;
• the progression is easy to grasp and can be quickly calculated in your head, if necessary.

Microlite74 fails on point 1. AD&D fails on point 2 (at the highest levels, a fighter can only miss AC 2 on a natural 1, assuming that rule is even in effect.) OD&D fails on point 3, improving by 2 steps in some cases and 3 in others. Monsters seem to have an entirely unrelated progression.

The Target 20 algorithm helps to meet point 3, as long as the combat adjustments for monsters and classes are regularized. What I'm thinking is: use the original d6 hit dice progressions for the classes and monsters, and make the "to hit" adjustment equal to the hit dice. Monsters with hit dice plus adds round up to the next hit die, characters don't. However, this does make fighters progress too rapidly. I may have to tweak the character hit dice, if I go with this.

Behind the Scenes

I've got nothing worthy of a formal post at the moment. Right now, I'm trying out different revisions of the dice map I'm using to create those random monsters and magic items. I'm also thinking about how to apply that technique to traps, tricks and puzzles. I will probably be posting about that in the next couple days.

I should probably write something also about the undead. There's been some discussion about various aspects of the undead on a couple forums: a thread about level drain, another about liches. It reminded me about some of my own musings on the undead. But that will be later.

Ditching Clerics

I've had a vague idea on how to ditch clerics without losing their functionality, and the recent blogosphere murmurings about the cleric -- at Trollsmyth and RPG Blog II, for example -- have prodded me into acting on those ideas.

First, in my opinion, cleric abilities are keyed to Law. This may seem shocking to those used to the way alignments and religion have evolved in D&D, but I think the original rules kind of hint that clerics can't be neutral and Chaotic clerics (anti-clerics) are actually more like medieval concepts of Satanists than an actual religious faith. The cleric is devoted to strengthening the community through faith in a higher power: essentially, a Lawful pursuit. The anti-cleric is someone who bargains with dark powers for power over the living and the dead. Druids, in keeping with the earliest versions of that class, are more like devotees of nature who have gained power over the wilderness through study rather than through faith, so these rules won't apply to them.

Second, following this idea, the ability to turn undead as a first level cleric could be made into a prayer mechanic for any character aligned with Law. Since turning undead was the original reason for the cleric class, this partially salvages their primary function.

Third, what about higher-level cleric ability? I'd make players sacrifice experience for increased turning ability: if a character earns enough experience to increase a level, the player can opt to increase cleric prayer ability to the next level instead, resetting experience points to the start of their current level. Call the cleric equivalent level "faith level". To get a faith level above 1, however, the character must seek out a temple and take a vow of some kind. I'd require a triple vow: no edged weapons (as per clerics,) tithe (as per paladins,) and something else, which could be open to discussion.

Fourth, what about healing and other clerical functions? I'd expand the turn undead ability to cover miracles (clerical spells.) A character can pray for a miracle, then use the turn undead mechanic to "turn" a creature with hit dice equal to the spell level of the equivalent clerical spell. Characters can pray for miracles as many times as they want, but their level of faith limits the number of miracles that will actually be fulfilled; use the clerical spell progression for the maximum number of miracles of each type.

Anti-clerics would work the same way, except that Chaotic characters are relying on their own force of will to enslave undead and must find a Chaotic supernatural power to pact with in order to get higher anti-clerical powers.

I would probably combine these rules with the piety rules to further control miracles.