D6-Only Weapons: Size and Mass

It would seem at first that the mere mass of a weapon would be a great reason to vary damage by weapon type. After all, if bigger weapons don't do more damage, why would anyone buy them? They weigh more than light weapons and are thus more encumbering. But thing again about the foundations of D&D combat: an ordinary man-at-arms has 1d6 hit points, and a short sword does 1d6 damage. An ordinary short sword has a chance to kill an ordinary man. Should a heftier sword kill an ordinary man even more? Or should it have a better chance of scoring that potentially deadly hit?

This is the rationale behind giving more massive weapons a bonus to hit instead of a bonus to damage. We can treat mass as an intrinsic quality that provides a bonus where appropriate: figure that basic one-handed weapons like the short sword as the default weapon mass, give a +1 advantage to two-handed weapons and another +1 if the weapon is too heavy for a person of normal strength to wield effectively, but the fighter has high Strength. Also give the advantage to the side with the more massive weapon or shield, if parrying or blocking.

You can, of course, allow users of two-handed weapons to roll two dice and pick the highest. That's a common LBB houserule. I'm reluctant to do so only because I plan on letting everyone roll two dice and picking one for speed and the other for damage, but perhaps I'll work around that.

D6-Only Weapons: Damage Types

Over at Bat in the Attic, there's a post about a simplified weapon vs AC system, which has helped me clarify in my own mind the next step in this series about how to make weapons distinct without changing the damage. As Rob Conley notes, a threefold division of weapon damage types is pretty much standard in RPGs these days. He uses this simplicity to add up to three modifiers to each armor type, which is pretty compact.

Of course, I only have three basic armor types, so it's just as easy for me to describe weapon vs. armor from the perspective of the weapon.

• blunt weapons are the default; they have a +1 advantage against rigid and semi-rigid armors unless made of a weaker material than the armor.
• edged weapons have a +1 advantage against nonrigid armor and can damage armor made of weaker materials.
• piercing weapons have a +1 advantage against semi-rigid armor made of rings or links and against nonrigid armor, but do no substantial damage to armor (they can make a hole, but this doesn't give an attacker a future advantage as more serious damage would.)

Under this scheme, chainmail, ringmail, banded mail and scalemail are all semi-rigid armor (type 1, equivalent to AC 5,) but ring and chain have a disadvantage against stab attacks, chain has an advantage against edged because of interwoven links, and banded mail has an advantage against edged and piercing (although plate is still better than all.)

MegaDungeon LEXI-1 Notes

Here are some notes on yesterday's megadungeon post (one-page dungeon PDF here.)

• In keeping with an intent to improvise, the background is sketchy: someone was smuggling weapons made by enslaved dwarves; this is the entrance to the abandoned forge.
• The map, as mentioned, is built around a leximorph based on the letters "LEXI"; since this would be all tunnels and an "I" is a rather bland addition to the dungeon structure, I placed it in a slightly unusual place: a gallery to the "L" corridor; after placing the letters, I filled in rooms around them as needed.
• A second goal of this map was to practice mapping in Inkscape instead of my usual AutoREALM mapping; the doors, stairs and tapestries are purposefully drawn by hand, which is why they look a little ragged.
  
• To suggest a story behind why the forge was abandoned without actually setting anything in stone, two of the special monster types are dwarven undead; one of the treasures is a magical hammer with a curse that affects humans.
• The wandering monster list is short and mostly generic, as befits a first-level entryway to the rest of the dungeon; small centipedes, rats and bats will dominate the encounters and will be basically limitless, invading from above; but I've already planned ahead for another region on the first level and added goblin bands from the east.
• I compared some of the simple monsters to published materials like Labyrinth Lord and AD&D, but I mostly improvise their stats, and added two variant jackals for diversity.
• Since I wanted a ghost to fit the mood, but didn't want one of the bad-ass, age-you-40-years ghosts, my haunting dwarf spirits are weaker; they're still pretty dangerous if you stand and fight.
• I added one variant monster not on the main list to two locations: the hoard crawler, which is really just a small centipede with different behavior; these may show up as wandering monsters in another region.
• I also placed one human skeleton with a special treasure in the secret cache; it doesn't wander, and unless the party figures out how to get in, they don't need to deal with it.
• I placed the magic hammer first, at one of the forges, and placed one set of dwarf skeletons and one haunting dwarf spirit each on separate sides of the region; the remaining rooms have random monster and treasure allocation.
• I'm working on a low-treasure principle: silver piece instead of gold piece standard; this region of the level is treasure poor, because it's an easily accessible part of the dungeon; I expect most of the first-level treasure to be in the smuggler's quarters to the east or the mines to the north.
• There are, however, a lot of salvageable items in this region; they aren't explicitly listed, but several of the "empty" rooms like 5 and 7 were former storage areas; rummaging through the debris may yield usable items.

All in all, it's a pretty simple but I think effective opening to the dungeon.

Magical Memory

A post on Vancian Crunch reminded me that I should post my thoughts on the way spell memorization works in D&D. I've actually posted the basics of this in a blog comment somewhere and perhaps on a forum, but this is a better place for it.

There's an old technique of memorization called a "memory palace" or ars memoria, in which Roman orators would find a building that was infrequently traveled, walk through it several times memorizing the way it looked, then walk through it, physically or mentally, while mentally placing symbols or objects at each distinct place in the building to represent a key topic or point in a speech. To keep the details in memory, the orator would need to mentally walk through the memory palace periodically; to keep more than one speech prepared, the orator would need to find more than one building and commit its appearance to memory.

There was also historically an elaborate system of magic using the symbols and names of the celestial rulers of planets, zodiac signs, and hours of the day to create a talisman to cause a specific magical effect. Each effect required the name of the spirit able to produce that effect, the name of the spirit that ruled the day you cast the spell, and the name of the spirit that ruled the hour you cast the spell. In the Medieval and Renaissance periods, monks and priests used the ars memoria to memorize massive lists of theological points, but several people renowned for their memory, like Giordano Bruno, were accused of dabbling in that other system, to cast spells.

Now, merge those two ideas back together. Imagine a wizard able to cast spells, not through creating a physical talisman, but through an elaborate sequence of symbols that invoke various powers. Each casting of a spell is unique, since it must include the symbols and names appropriate to the day and hour the spell was prepared. The wizard performs a ritual, placing different symbols in each position withing a memory palace and associating each with a magical word. The act of memorizing the spell is part of the casting; "walking" through through the memory palace and speaking each word in turn,with the correct hand gestures and the mental image of a specific symbol, completes the spell and releases its effect.

Thus, when a D&D magic-user learns a new spell, they are learning what symbols/names/gestures are connected to that specific effect, but this must be combined with symbols/names/gestures connected to the day and hour that the spell is prepared; this latter information is something a magic-user would have learned during their apprenticeship. The memory palace used to memorize the spell might be a physical place, or might be some astral equivalent, but the magic-user has to spend hours, days, perhaps months of walking through the palace to learn every minute detail of it before being able to use it for a spell. Each spell is so elaborate, requiring the memorization of hundreds of details, that the memory palace can only hold one spell at first. After extensive practice, the magic-user may be able to fit another spell in there, perhaps placing symbols on the left and right side of each room in the palace; later, they are able to add more spells.

However, each memory palace has its own tone and feel. The magic-user can't use a 1st level memory palace to prepare a 2nd level spell, because spells of the second level have separate spirits for each day and hour that don't "mesh" with the tone of a 1st level memory palace. So, as part of advancing to the third level, a magic-user finds a new location appropriate to second level spells and commits the details of every step of a journey through that palace to memory. Again, until the magic-user has had sufficient experience with the new palace, it can only hold one spell.

There's a lot of ways this interpretation of spell memorization could be used. For example, if magic-users need a physical location to memorize before being able to add spells of the next level, perhaps this is why they go on dungeon expeditions. Or perhaps they can't use just any old location, but must use one of several real, legendary places, which could be a spur for adventures.

MegaDungeon: LEXI-1

There were a couple ideas in the megadungeon training series, particularly in Parts IV through VI, that I wanted to explore with practical examples, so I've been working on an example megadungeon in my spare time. I've started with these basic constraints:

• each region will be a one-page dungeon based around a four-letter leximorph;
• the wandering monster table will revolve around a few generic types that define a theme for that region;
• monsters will then be copied to a master level list so that they can be referred to by letter.

I will add more of the principles from the series as I build the dungeon. Plus, I'll start out with a simple region and get more elaborate as I add new regions.

The starter region's physical structure is based around the letters "LEXI" (from "leximorph".) Each time I add stairs, chutes, or tunnels to other levels or regions, I'll look at a list of news headlines, pick a noun with more than four letters in it, and take the first four letters as the leximorph that defines the structure of the new region. Thus, each region will be labeled with four letters plus a level number. The starter region is "LEXI-1": The Prisoner's Forge.

If anyone wants me to go into more detail on the choices I made for this area, I can do a follow-up post.

Slow-Down and Back-Up

I've been busy on a couple projects, so I haven't been posting much. Number one is a "test" megadungeon. I'll explain more about that when I have some pages to upload. Another is a redone dice map for use with my random monster/treasure/trap/magic rules I've been working on; see the Chaotic Enchantments and Wandering Monsters features for examples which use an older dice map. I intend the newer dice map to be more varied and detailed, but it's certainly taking a long time to complete.

Loosely related to that is a layout demo I did for the Dragonsfoot people, to show them roughly where my skills are. I say it's "related" because I included the Chaotic Enchantments in a quickie 2d6 random treasure table. It's not meant to be actually used, but there it is. You'll also see a map for a one-page dungeon I don't remember talking about here; I'll check, but I think I haven't finished it yet. It's based around a room I created for a contest on a blog.

Speaking of which, there seem to be a lot of blog/forum contests that sort of vanished, without resolution. Considering how backed up I am on my own projects, I guess I can't blame them.

Why d6-Only Weapons?

I try not to post pure "what I like/hate X" posts on this blog. Because, seriously, who cares what I like? Why should they? I prefer to say, "if you want to use X, here are some ideas you might find useful." Problem is, it sometimes looks like I'm supporting some unpopular way of playing for no reason whatsoever. Like in the d6-Only Weapons posts, which Angantyr questioned why I would even do that, since he deems d6-only weapon damage unplayable and a design flaw. His principal objections can be summarized:

• hit points aren't just luck; the Con bonus indicates they are health/endurance as well. (Not really relevant for me, since I'm ganking the Con bonus...)
  
• magic-users can do more damage with spells, why limit fighters? (Of course, fighters get to kill multiple 1 HD opponents and survive combats magic-users can't, but let's ignore that...)
  

Plus, he objects to the arbitrary feeling of my choice. Why is variable damage less supportive of luck-only hit points? Why not factor out the dice entirely, and have level = hits you can take and weapon damage = 1 hit?

The short answer to all of this is "I like what I like", but OK, let's delve into all the myriad reasons why I like it in the first place.

• I prefer ad hoc rulings and improvisation over detailed subsystems and reference materials.
• I prefer abstract principles to concrete simulation.
• I prefer mechanics that make stuff happen to mechanics that "balance" the game or limit unpredictability.
• I prefer a game book that's a training manual and a source of inspiration, a document I need to refer to constantly.

Angantyr actually put it best: "OD&D is a wonderful springboard to build one's own excellent game". It's built to be able to add stuff on the fly, as needed.

Presumably, people who prefer solid, concrete new D&D over ad hoc, abstract old D&D know what the advantages of variable damage for weapons are. What do I see as the disadvantages?

• It encourages GMs to think of weapon differences in terms of numbers instead of qualities. When interpreting combat, most new school GMs just go with the damage roll and attack mode (melee, ranged, area.) There's not much differentiation aside from that. If weapon effectiveness versus armor type, durability of materials, or other issues besides damage, range, and number of victims is even considered, it's again handled in terms of numbers (the infamous AD&D weapon adjustments for speed and effectiveness against armor type; weapon hit points, etc.)
  
• It encourages players to choose the optimum (best damage) weapon instead of an interesting one. If all the GM cares about is numbers, that's all the players care about, too. Why would a fighter limit himself to a weapon that does less damage? Why pick a club instead of a sword, even if you have a hankering to play a wildman?
  
• It encourages a descent into fiddling with "game balance" instead of coming up with new material. To add a new weapon, you have to decide how much damage it's going to do. But wait! What if it weighs less or costs less than an existing weapon? Won't everyone switch to the new weapon? What if it makes a published adventure too easy, because the weapon's high damage lets players kill the orcs too fast? If you want more variability in the choice of weapons, how do you encourage that? Through weapon specialization or feats, of course. Which throws off the game balance again, and you have to beef up the monsters...
  
• It discourages reuse of existing mechanics. Take "social combat". How much damage does an insult do, compared to revealing a dark secret? If you're going to use the existing combat rules in a "solid" system, you have to set damage types for different kinds of social attack... or just go with "all social attacks do 1d6 damage", but in that case, why not go all the way? Also, your hit point system is balanced for variable weapon damage, with a first level fighter (d8 or d10 for hit dice) being harder to kill than a magic-user (d4). Are fighters harder to insult? Or do you come up with a separate hit point pool for social combat (and psionic combat, and other kinds of combat you choose to add?)
  
• It discourages thinking of hit points as luck or as an abstract pacing mechanic, as already seen in the preceding social combat example. You start worrying about how much damage a fall off a hundred-foot cliff should do, and whether 9th level characters should be able to walk away from a fall and 1st level characters should be guaranteed death, and how much damage an aimed shot to the head should do. You start tying hit dice for new monsters to size.
  

In contrast, I like "every weapon does 1d6 damage" because it's easy to remember and it minimizes damage as the distinguishing characteristic of different weapons. It offers a generic mechanic for weapons, which can be varied through improvisation. It's not going to appeal to new schoolers, who will think of it as poorly balanced, a flawed design, but it does what I want, and variable damage doesn't.

Now, do you see why I avoid "I like/hate X" posts? A whole lot of words, no usable content, and that's after deleting some material. Knowing that I like d6-only weapons isn't going to improve anyone's game; everyone, just play the way you prefer, and don't worry about me.

Combat Balance

I've been avoiding posting about the Mike Mearls discussion of game balance, because I figure I've already expressed my feelings about game balance long ago (although perhaps I should dig it out of RPGNet, spruce it up, and post it as a decent essay or two here, so that it doesn't get lost.) But Randall on the RetroRoleplaying blog talked about making combat shorter so that it's easier to balance total time spent in combat against the time players want to spend focused on combat. As he puts it:

This would allow more combats in a session for groups who want their game to center on combat encounters (and more time for non-combat activity in a session for groups who don't want their game centered on combat), reduce the chance that the players of less combat-centered characters would become bored during combat while leaving the option open for players who just don't find combat the most exciting part of the game to play characters whose main strength is outside of combat.

I'm a fan of short, quick combat, so I certainly agree with this. In fact, I feel that a medium-length combat should be about 5 or 6 turns and should take 10-15 minutes, if that. Perhaps this means that I need some insane Arms Law-ish critical hit system to keep combat with high hit point opponents from dragging on too long. Perhaps this means I shouldn't worry about high hit point opponents: let the players worry about how long the combat will take and choose some other way to eliminate such opponents quicker.

I'll probably lean more towards the latter than the former, since I think combat should be a puzzle for the players: "how do we get past this potential time-suck and resource drain with the minimum loss?" Certainly, if I were to go with a critical hit system, it wouldn't be the "natural 20" approach people typically use, nor would I want percentile-based tables.

But it's something to consider.

d6-Only Weapons: Special Abilities

Up to now, there hasn't been anything remarkable about the suggestions I've made for distinguishing weapons without varying damage. Someone, somewhere, has done each of those things, although perhaps not in such an explicit manner.

Special abilities are a little different. Occasionally, you'll see a note that gives a flail a percent chance of disarming an opponent, so the concept is definitely out there, but not unified. My own approach to special abilities, like disarming, entangling, and the like, is to think of it as a risk for the target: the opponent rolls a d6 and compares the result to the damage roll; on a match, the opponent is disarmed, entangled, tripped, or whatever the weapon's special effect is.

In some cases, a weapon may have an ability that takes effect when the damage roll beats a target number or a d6 roll by the opponent; this can be paired with a more serious effect if doubles are rolled. You can even have multiple special effects on doubles: on double 1 through double 5, one ability takes effect, while on double 6, a more severe ability takes effect.

Friday Discussion: What's Your Favorite Magic System?

Over at RPG Blog II, they ask the question: "What's Your Favorite Magic System?".

Since this blog is overwhelmingly focused on LBB-style OD&D, it probably will come as no surprise when I say "Hedge Magic".

Wait, what?

It's true. I prefer vancian magic, although not with as many frills as post-0e versions of D&D. There's a certain appeal to Ars Magica-style verb+noun, and Fantasy Wargaming's astrological aspect-base magic is a guilty pleasure... but the one I think has the most appeal and usefulness without being either overpowered or too limited is S. John Ross's little hedge magic system. I also like a couple of the magic systems in GURPS Fantasy II (Madlands,) specifically soulless poetic magic and Savarginian themed magic, but perhaps they are too open-ended... unless maybe I combined them with hedge magic.

Now there's an idea...

d6-Only Weapons: Materials

Imagine for a moment we're playing D&D in a Bronze-Age setting. We have a lone warrior with a bronze short sword and bronze breast-plate. Against similarly armed warriors, I would consider most attacks to be at the chest (AC3,) although attacks aimed at the arms or legs might use a different AC.

But what if the warrior is attacked by a goblin wielding a bone club? The AC is still 3, but I would consider bone to be less durable than bronze, so I'd give the warrior a defensive advantage. Likewise, if the warrior attacks a dwarf wearing an iron breast-plate, I'd still consider the AC as 3, but give the dwarf a defensive advantage. Give the dwarf an iron ax, and that's an offensive advantage against the warrior as well.

Furthermore, when our warrior strikes iron armor with a bronze sword, I'd give the sword a 1 in 6 chance of being damaged. That counts as an offensive disadvantage, and needs to be repaired. I'd only have two levels of damage: "damaged" (or "battered" or "rusty" or other appropriate term) and "badly damaged". Beyond that, the weapon is useless.

Parrying a weapon (or having your weapon parried by another weapon) made of more durable material likewise runs the risk of damaging your weapon. Having your armor struck by a more durable weapon runs a 1 in 6 chance of damaging your armor in the same way. Damaged armor or weapons can be repaired for about 1/4th the cost of a new piece of equipment, or half the cost if it's badly damaged; destroyed armor and weapons need to be replaced.

d6-Only Weapons: Intrinsic Qualities

Weapon length and range is an obvious non-damage-based difference between weapons, but some not-so-obvious distinctions can also come into play on an ad hoc basis. For example, if two characters are throwing daggers at an enemy, but one is throwing a dagger balanced for throwing, that character should get a bonus on the attack. Another example: if a character has a weapon that is designed to be effective at getting through plate armor, attacks with that weapon should be at a bonus when used against plate armor.

The second example was the idea behind the weapon adjustment tables, but I'm talking about an easier, more laid-back approach. A player says, "I want a weapon that's effective against plate armor." The GM says, "OK, here's a specially-designed polearm that costs 7 gp, or you could get a mace for 8 gp." If the group is really into weapon porn, or if the DM uses the weapon adjustment tables as a guideline, things can get more specific (lucerne hammer, footman's mace;) otherwise, you can just make it up. The player writes "maces are effective against plate armor" and gets a bonus when attacking opponents wearing plate armor. I'd only give a +1 for such a weapon, because I work on the principle that if one side has a greater advantage than the other, they get a +1, or a +2 if there are several advantages, a +3 at the most if there is a great advantage. I keep it loose and don't split hairs.

To me, this approach meshes well with the original approach of a single die roll representing several attacks and maneuvers in combat. Hardly any monster gets multiple attacks, one obvious exception being a hydra, which for all intents and purposes is more than one monster, hence the multiple attack rolls. I'd give a chimera or two-headed giant multiple attack rolls as well, but other monsters would just get a bonus to their attack roll if they can attack more times than their opponent. Likewise, a weapon that in theory should allow multiple attacks should get a +1 bonus against an opponent unless that opponent can specifically counteract that kind of attack. A short sword with a double-edged blade that could slash on the backstroke might get a +1 compared to a single-edged blade like a machete, for example.

So in general: any intrinsic quality of a weapon that gives an advantage in a specific combat situation gives a +1 to the attack roll. Different weapons get bonuses in different situations, which is why different weapons exist.

This approach can apply to more than just attack bonuses, as I'll explain in future posts.

d6-Only Weapons: Length and Range

Even if all weapons do the same damage in OD&D, they aren't all the same. For example, bows and swords: you can use bows from a distance. In fact, you can distinguish different missile weapons from each other based on who can attack whom at what distance, with either the hard numbers (comparing the ranges of short bow and long bow on a table) or with abstract comparison, giving the archer with a longer range the chance to move out of the shorter-range bow's reach.

The same principle can be applied to thrown weapons: smaller and more aerodynamic weapons like throwing daggers can be used at a greater distance than a sword. It can also be applied to melée weapons; a fighter should be able to maneuver out of a magic-user's reach, if the fighter is using even a short sword against a magic-user's dagger.

Instead of using miniatures or tracking exact distances, I prefer an abstract approach to combat maneuvers. If I judge that one combatant's weapon has a longer range, that combatant can attempt to maneuver out of reach, then continue attacking. My original approach to this was to give the maneuver-er a 3d6 vs. DEX roll to move out of range, although now I think I'd just have both sides roll a d6 for reaction time, lowest roll goes first, adjusted for relative DEX and movement rate. The combatant with the longer weapon can still attack while maneuvering, although perhaps at a slight penalty; on the next round, the combatant with the shorter weapon must flee or break off, throw a weapon, take some other option, or attempt to move closer to attack.

d6-Only Weapons: the Basics

To begin elaborating how I would differentiate weapons if they all do the same 1d6 damage, let's start with the basics: weapon proficiencies. I'm against the later D&D-style proficiency slots; I prefer the original D&D distinction between fighters who can use any and all weapons versus magic-users who can only use very basic weapons that anyone could use (knife/dagger, club, staff, thrown rock.)

But (critics reply) what's the point of limiting magic-users to a handful of weapons or giving fighters the "power" of being ability to use absolutely any weapon if they all do the same damage? The thing is, not all weapons do damage in the same way. There are definitely some things a dagger can't do; it should take much longer to chop through a door using a dagger than it would with an ax, for example. Many of these differences are going to be the topic of individual posts.

The other objection usually raised is how unrealistic it is to say that a magic-user can't pick up and swing a sword. AD&D answered this objection with non-proficiency penalties, but I dislike those. My own opinion is that characters only get their level-based (or HD-based) attack bonus if they are using a weapon appropriate to their class. It's not that a magic-user can't use a sword or doesn't know how; it's that magic-users aren't any better than a common man-at-arms when using a sword.

Next: the most obvious difference between weapons, and how I'd use them in play.

Weapons Do 1d6 Damage

In OD&D, every weapon did 1d6 damage, at least until people started house-ruling it away (I think in Supplement I, but certainly in AD&D and post-Holmes.) Over on another blog, Coopdevil has come out squarely in favor of every weapon does the same damage. He even defends it against objections about two-handed weapons.

Even though I've dabbled in converting The Fantasy Trip's approach to weapons to D&D, I'm very strongly pro-d6 only. I see it as inextricably tied to the "hit points are luck" viewpoint. If hit points represent a character's ability to outlast an opponent, and if they increase as the character gains levels, then it makes no sense for a sword to do more damage to hit points than a dagger. Of course, if you're using 1d6 for all weapon damage, then you should really be using the d6 as the base hit die as well... but that may be a topic for another post.

I have been fiddling around with ways to make different weapons feel different while still keeping the "every weapon does the same damage" rule. Perhaps this topic explosion on the blogosphere signals a good time to start talking about it.

Monsters and People

A thread on the RPGnet forums started me thinking about categorizing fantasy races and alien species. At the top are two broad categories: monsters and people, the chief difference being that the latter are social and political, the former are merely dangerous or valuable. Fantasy races and alien species that fit into the people category can in turn be sorted into three subcategories:

• better than humans in at least one respect: mentally superior, morally superior, harmonious, psychic... whatever appeals to the author, game designer, or GM who made them.
• worse than humans in at least one respect... surprisingly, almost always one or more of these three adjectives: nasty, brutish, and short.
• disguised humans, with cosmetic differences only (forehead aliens.) They are usually a historical human culture with weird skin color or other alien features.

Elves are the quintessential "better than human" race; other almost-human, but better, races often feel like "yet another kind of elf".

Orcs are "nasty and brutish", while lion-men, centaurs, and the like are usually just brutish, often noble savages. Dwarves and halflings, of course, are "short".

My point is that this isn't really a bad thing. You don't want races or species to be superficial, but fantasy and science fiction literature, film, and gaming is, after all, made by humans for humans, so social races should be relevant to the human experience.