XP Ability Bonuses Redux

The Problem

In a thread on Reddit’s /r/osr subreddit, someone asked about ways to award XP for disarming or otherwise dealing with traps. I replied with this comment:

Just take the easy route and award XP based on the ability score used multiplied by some factor, perhaps based on the difficulty of the trap. EXAMPLE: PC uses Intelligence to disarm a trap that does 2 dice damage, so multiply Int by 2.

Now, this is based on a blog post I wrote ages ago about the more general topic of using ability scores for XP awards. This was originally meant to be an alternative to XP bonuses based on prime requisite, for example Fighters with Strength 18 earning +10% experience for monsters slain. I later broadened the idea to XP for actions other than combat or treasure, which would include dealing with traps. But how large should this reward be?

Scaling by Difficulty

I and some other people playing OD&D use 100 xp per HD and 1 xp per gp for treasure, which means prime requisite bonuses would be +5 or +10 xp per HD or per 100 gp of treasure.

I bring this up because I would set the difficulty of non-combat, non-treasure tasks as either an HD equivalent or a treasure value equivalent. For traps, their “Hit Dice” could be set equal to the damage they do, as in the example from my Reddit comment.

Or, if the trap has a non-damaging effect, the GM can find a spell that more or less duplicates that effect and use the spell’s level as its “Hit Dice”. For example, a trap that drops victims safely into a small cell to keep them from leaving could be treated as Hold Person (Level 3.)

Multiplying an ability score by HD or spell level would thus give an xp bonus in the range of +3 to +18 xp per HD. Higher than -20 to + 10 xp under the traditional system, but not far off.

The Conclusion

My original suggestion was to multiply that score bonus by 10, because I was thinking “average ability score of 10 times 10 equals 100 xp, same as for a 1 HD monster.” But I think I’d prefer one of these two alternatives:

• Add 100 to the ability score and multiply by HD, no other factor. This gives xp awards that are only a tiny bit off from the original.
• Don’t add anything, just multiply scores by 5. This seems low, but if you award xp for non-combat actions and allow ability score combos (Strength + Dexterity for fighters using agile maneuvers to deliver the mightiest blows,) the extra xp awards compensate.

I think I prefer the second option, since it’s easier: just halve the ability score and add a zero to the end as an extra digit (the easy way to multiply by 5.) But I may have more to say about this in a future post.

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Cross-Class Training: Teachers

In last week’s cross-class training post, I didn’t mention anything about hiring a teacher. This is partly by design, and partly because I wasn’t sure which direction I wanted to go with that.

I definitely don’t want to require a teacher. I don’t see classes as professions, more like semi-fantastic abilities. Player characters are larger-than-life figures in some ways, and should be able to train themselves, if need be.

But after a little thought, I think I see an easy way to add the option of finding a teacher. Remember the effects of prime ability scores on training time? If you have a score of 16+, you automatically take the minimum time and spend the minimum amount needed. That basically makes it match the by-the-book rules for changing classes. But if your score is lower, you may have to spend more time, sometimes a lot more, increasing the total cost.

If a character has a teacher, they use the teacher’s prime ability score, rather than their own. Simple! What the teacher charges for their services counts as part of the training cost. At least half the weekly training cost must go for training supplies, though, so if the teacher charges more than that, the excess is just an extra weekly cost.

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Cross-Class Ability Training

Since I recently simplified ability checks, I’m feeling in a simplifying mood. Let’s simplify changing classes and multi-classing!

To add a second class, spend time and money training in the new class.

• Cost Per Week, in coins = Current XP/10
• Weeks Needed: Level modified by Prime Ability score for new class (Strength for Fighters, Dex for Thieves, etc.)

If Score Is …	Time Is …
3	Level x 4
4-8	Level x 3
9-12	Level x 2
13+	Level

GM secretly rolls 1d6. No roll is needed for a prime ability score of 16+.

On 5+, the character improves in the second class, one level at a time, after the minimum amount of training time.

On 1 to 4, add 1 and multiply by minimum time to find out how much more training the character will need.

Apply current XP to new class to find max training level for new class. After reaching this, new levels are added by earning XP as usual.

Old class does not improve further unless character trains to “switch back”.

Use best hit dice, attacks, and saves from all classes, up to last level earned in each class.

I might make a few tweaks to numbers, but there’s only one major change I’m considering for these rules.

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A Simple Way to Handle Ability Scores

Long ago, I settled on a simple way to use ability scores:

1. Set the Difficulty of a task to either Low (8 or less) or High (13+.)
2. Skip the roll if the character’s ability score is higher than the difficulty level.

Roll is 5+ on 1d6. This is not a roll to succeed, but a roll to see if the task is finished in the shortest time possible (1 round, if performing an action in combat.) On a “failure”, the result is how much longer the task takes.

I’ve finally given in to an urge I’ve had for years: the base difficulty is equal to three times the dungeon level, or three times the hit dice of an opponent, or three times the spell level, unless the dungeon notes or rules say otherwise. This makes every spur-of-the-moment GM ruling so much easier.

Player wants to inch along a narrow ledge? If this is happening on Dungeon Level 1, no prob (everyone with Dex 3+ can do it.) If it’s on Dungeon Level 4, only those with Dex 12+ can handle it. Dungeon Level 6? Only Dex 18 characters can handle that crazy crumbling ledge.

Taking longer lowers the difficulty, enabling low ability characters to handle situations that would be impossible for them to deal with otherwise.

Training helps. Anyone with the appropriate skill can use their years of experience in place of their ability score. If that’s not high enough, they can use special gear (use 3 x gear’s level rating in place of ability score.) Untrained characters gain no benefit from special gear. Level 2 gear costs five times as much normal, Level 3 costs ten times normal, Level 4 costs 50 x normal.

Class helps. If a skill is part of a character class’s abilities, they can use 3 x character level in place of ability score. Heroes (4th level Fighters) can easily negotiate physical obstacles on the 4th dungeon level even if their Strength and Dexterity are below 12.

New magic spells can be easy to apply even without a detailed description. What’s the spell level? Multiply that by 3 to get the equivalent ability score when dealing with the targeted situation. So, a 3rd Level Chasm Leaper spell, without any special write up, will at the very least allow leaping successfully across average chasms on the 1st through 3rd dungeon levels.

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How Much Should We Worry About Ability Scores?

I know I'm already working on two other multi-post topics here, but I thought I'd take a break and draw attention to What's the Point of Ability Scores? (Part I) over on the Grognardia blog. James Maliszewski is diving into the topic of what ability scores used to mean vs. what they mean at later points in the evolution of D&D and related Class and Level Exploration Fantasy (CLEF) games. The D&D community went through several stages:

1. referee rolls ability scores, player chooses class afterwards
2. player rolls ability scores, then chooses class afterwards
3. player rolls ability scores, chooses class, and adjusts scores bases on class (point swap in Holmes, etc.)
4. player chooses class, creates ability scores targeted to fit that class (AD&D 1e Method V, point buy in later editions)

These stages of development sort of match up with changing views on the importance of ability scores:

1. guidelines only, few iron-clad mechanics tied to scores (3 LBBs OD&D)
2. some modifiers for high/low scores, gatekeeper function for certain classes (post-Greyhawk OD&D, early AD&D 1e)
3. modifier/gatekeeper functions + roll under rolls for non-weapon proficiencies (late AD&D and Classic D&D)
4. modifiers to "universal" game mechanic (D&D 3e and later)

In other words, the more important ability scores become, either for getting the class you want or just plain survival, the more players are going to want more control over their ability scores, either through guarantees that they can get at least one high score or through actual point-buy.

Since I've made no secret that I prefer using ability scores as guidelines and have been removing modifiers from my own gaming as much as possible, the low numbers on both of the above scales are my sweet spot. Although as I mentioned in a comment on Grognardia, I'm pretty committed these days to the idea of "either roll 3d6 in order, or just pick your scores and let's move on". Some of my ideas on that I've covered before here.

• Let 'em Pick
• Let 'em Pick random table (PDF)
• Just Pick a Class Already

I'm not sure where that would fall in the development of ability score generation methods, although I like to think of it as Stage 5. Once I realized that all ability score generation methods were basically about getting as close to the scores you want without the GM and other players thinking you are cheating, then really everything other than "I'll take whatever scores I get" is some form of "I'll try to get the scores I want". It's just easier to cut out the dice rolling or point distribution tricks at that point, pick the scores you want, and move on. And if the GM is not interested in being a dick about what players can do, there's not much reason to worry about cheating on rolls, is there?

Climb, Jump and Swim

There’s been a discussion on the OD&D forums for around two weeks about climbing, jumping, and swimming. Everyone’s got their own way of handling them. I’ve had some basic ideas about those for a while, but might use a bit or two of other people’s ideas if it helps (1) get rid of a few rolls, (2) shift the focus away from success/failure to time spent, and (3) make things easier to remember.

All three actions are basically about movement, so here’s the first step:

The character’s current Move score is their climbing
and swimming speed, in paces. Base jump distance
is one third of that, or two thirds for a running start.

(A (U.S.) pace is officially two and a half feet, but I see no problem with using pace, yard, and meter interchangeably in an RPG. It’s not rocket science.)

Unencumbered characters are Move 12, which would mean a jump distance of 4 paces, yards, or meters, or anywhere from 10 to 12 feet. Standing broad jump record is 12 feet 2 1/2 inches, so that seems reasonable. The climbing and swimming speeds are just wild guesses, but seem pretty common in RPGs.

Next step is how long climbing and swimming can be maintained, and when to roll:

Characters must rest ten minutes out of every hour
(or double, if overburdened.) If in the middle of a climb
or swim and unable to rest, the character must roll 5+
on 1d6 to continue another ten minutes.

This is just an adaptation of the standard rules for resting. This doesn’t apply to jumping, of course (can’t rest in the middle of
a jump,) but any jump that exceeds the base distance, up to a max of (Move Score x Paces,) requires a roll.

If the roll fails, the character slips or sinks. Falling does
the usual damage. Sinking means the character must
hold their breath until rescued.

Holding breath is something I talked about before, but the shortest, easiest rule is to roll 1d6 in secret for the number of minutes they can hold their breath. For High/Low Con, either add +/-1 or allow a 5+ on 1d6 roll for Average Con to squeeze in an extra minute, two extra minutes for High Con.

If desired, Fighters can substitute Level x 2 for their Move score when performing athletic feats like this. Thieves, of course, use the same rules, but can climb without equipment, climb silently, and climb faster.

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Training Before Gaining New Class Abilities

I’ve been discussing my idea for merging the rules for changing classes and nonhuman multiclassing in a couple other places, and there may be a need to further limit having more than one class. As it stands, it takes longer to add a level if advancing in more than one class, and hit dice or hit points can be much lower than you’d expect for a given number of experience points. But some people have expressed the worry that making it easy to add a second class and keep the benefits of both means that players will always choose to add a second class, regardless of which classes are available.

One possible solution: require more in-game roleplay challenges to truly use an added class. For a character’s first class under standard rules, it’s assumed that:

• Fighters know how to use all weapons
• Magic-Users know all 1st level spells (or have a free spellbook containing multiple spells)

When adding these classes as a second class:

• New Fighters have higher combat ability with any weapon they already know, but must train with other weapons they want to learn
• New Magic-Users must locate spells to add to a spellbook before they can cast spells

New Thieves aren’t as limited, but you might require some training before picking up the class abilities. New Clerics might require locating spellbooks or not, depending on how you interpret cleric spells.

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The Art of (Mis)Speaking

In my posts about forgery and disguise, I detailed a way to handle deceptions using these steps:

1. Keep track of all “facts” involved in the deception.
2. Roll 1d6 for time needed to complete the deception.
3. Roll for reaction, shifting reaction down/up for special factors.
4. On Good reaction or better, deception works. It fails on a Bad reaction or worse. Otherwise, roll 1d6 to see through it after 10 to 40 minutes (1-4) or immediately (5+).

But the same process could be added to miscommunication, where the goal is to avoid getting the facts wrong.

Step One: Define the Message
When a player wants to give instruction or commands, or ask for information, and either the speaker or the listener (or both) is not completely fluent in the language used, clearly define what points the player is trying to make.

A character is fluent in their native tongue unless described otherwise. Other languages are ranked this way:

Languages spoken from childhood (“racial” languages): semi-fluent at Int 3-5, fluent at Int 6+

Languages learned later: add Int and months of study in a language. Halve that total unless completely immersed in just one language while studying it.

• Fluent at 18+
• Semi-Fluent at 9+
• Not Fluent otherwise.

Step Two: Convey the Message
Getting a message across either through speech or writing takes minutes for simple instructions. Roll 1d6: 5+ means the shortest possible time, otherwise add 1 to result and multiply by the base time. Pick the base time from this list, based on how long it takes to say in your native language:

• 1 to 5 minutes
• 10 to 50 minutes
• 1 to 5 hours
• 4 to 20 hours (4 x 1 to 5 hours)
• 1 to 5 days

Increase the base time (move down list) for any of these bad conditions:

• talking in a noisy environment
• writing (but not reading) instructions
• one or both sides semi-fluent in language
• one side not fluent (below semi-fluent) = two shifts downwards
• one side Int 5 or less

You can reduce the time (move up list) if one or both sides are Int 13+.

If the situation isn’t critical (can’t cause a problem if one side misinterprets instructions,) you can skip all other rolls and assume the extra time is due to repeated communication attempts.

Step Three: Interpret the Message
If the situation is critical (message must either be understood quickly or a misunderstanding can cause a problem,) make the reaction roll.

• Good or Better: Message understood.
• Normal: Message understood on 5+ (1d6), otherwise takes extra time.
• Bad: Misunderstood. Roll 1d6: on 5+, tries to figure out a different way to communicate (get a translator, try writing things down, etc.) On 1 to 4, gets that many facts from Step One wrong.
• Very Bad: Complete communication breakdown. If PC is cursed or has low Charisma, listener is offended. Otherwise, listener gives up on the conversation.

As usual, move the reaction category down for bad circumstances, for example “communicating with gestures and a handful of words, instead of a language that’s at least minimally understood.”

Any topic (fact) that the listener doesn’t understand also moves the reaction down. Asking the medieval knight where to buy nuclear weapons will, in most game worlds, lead to confusion or chaos.

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The Art of Disguise

The rules I did for forgery could be adapted to another form of deception: disguise.

Step One: Define the Deception
Focus on which facts about their appearance the PC is trying to hide or change. Make hair look old and grey? Cover exposed skin to change its color? Wear uniform to pass oneself off as the city guard?

Some things are going to be hard without the right materials or situations. Changing the shape of your nose with a lump of clay won’t work in broad daylight, but if the character wears a hood and sticks to the shadows, it might work.

If a PC is recognizable and trying to avoid recognition, that’s an additional fact.

Non-human races should be counted as one fact for each difference in appearance. Green skin + pointed ears is two facts, not one fact for “wood elf”.

Step Two: Dress the Part
Anyone with training in disguise or High Int (13+) can create a decent disguise. 5+ on 1d6: it takes one hour. Otherwise: 1 to 4 additional hours. Reducing the time to minutes, or just not being trained or smart, results in a makeshift disguise, similar to a poor forgery.

Step Three: Play the Part
A Good or better reaction means a decent disguise passes examination. An Average reaction means someone might see through the disguise (5+ on 1d6,) but even if this doesn’t happen immediately, prolonged scrutiny will eventually reveal the truth: the disguised person has 10 to 40 minutes with any given observer before the disguise is blown.

It’s probably easiest to roll the reaction once and let it stand for all encounters with average viewers, only rolling again for special individuals. Just roll a d6 or shift the standing reaction up or down when appropriate.

Things that shift the reaction downwards:

• makeshift or poor quality disguise
• losing part of a disguise
• observer has special knowledge (pretending to be an elf in front of elves, for example)
• pretending to be old, opposite gender, different profession, etc., without mimicking at least one visual detail for that appearance (no gray hair or wrinkles when pretending to be old, for example)
• disguising yourself as a specific individual

Things that shift the reaction upwards:

• taking advantage of the environment (using a hood or shadows to cover up disguise deficiencies)
• changing the way you walk, move, or stand (requires High Dex or training as an actor/mime)
• changing the way you talk (requires High Charisma or training in mimicry)

Certain knowledge will completely blow the PC’s cover. The most obvious example would be trying to pretend to be a specific person while that person is in the room.

Bad or Worse Reactions
As usual, a Very Bad reaction means immediate hostility and probably an attempt to expose the fraud to others. But a Bad reaction might be possible to recover from, depending on what the PC’s intent was.

If the PC is trying to avoid capture or sneak into someplace they don’t belong, there’s not many ways out of discovery other than silencing the person who saw through the disguise before they tell others. This can be physical (restraint, knocking unconscious, murder) or otherwise (bribery.) If the person needing to be silenced is not necessarily on the side of the authorities, it might only take a conversation.

If the PC is just avoiding unwanted attention, it might be easier to convince the discoverer that no harm is intended. Think: Aliens trying to live secretly among humans.

Avoiding Recognition
If the PC is recognizable, the goal of a disguise is to appear as anyone other than oneself. What matters is: What description are the authorities or the enemies using to find the PC?

PC is blond in an area where blonds are rare? PC must include change of hair color in their disguise.

PC is an elf with pointed ears? PC must hide ears.

Some witnesses might not have all the details of the PC’s appearance. If most people focus on looking for an elf, but not for a blond elf, hiding pointed ears but not changing hair color will work as planned, but a guardsman looking for a blond elf will shift the reaction down.

Witnesses who have met the PC in person automatically shift the reaction down. Those who know the PC well are considered to have certain knowledge and will automatically see through a disguise if they have direct interaction, but might still need a reaction roll if for example they only see a hunched-over cloaked figure shambling away from them.

Entertainment
Another special situation would be one where the goal is not to literally hide one’s identity, but to create a character as part of a performance. The audience knows they are being deceived, so obviously Bad or worse reactions won’t result in being seized by the town guard (well, maybe…) The audience is looking for a talented deception.

Any disguise gets an unmodified reaction roll. The only factors that shift the result down are the central features of the character that are the opposite of the performer’s features: young actor playing an old man without makeup or a wig, human actor playing a famous elf without using pointed ears, and so on. The reaction result is how the audience judges the performance. On an Average or Bad reaction, the GM could describe a moment in the performance when the PC is obviously losing the interest of the audience and let the player come up with a method of regaining their interest.

In Summary

1. Be certain what the disguise is meant to hide or change
2. Roll 1d6 for time needed to complete the disguise
3. Roll for reaction, shifting reaction down/up for special factors
4. On Good reaction or better, disguise passes examination. Otherwise, disguise may be seen through (5+ on 1d6 or after 10 to 40 minutes of scrutiny) or lead to exposure of the deception

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The Art of Forgery

I saw someone asking how to handle forgery and other kinds of deceit in an old school class and level exploration fantasy adventure game, so I thought about how I’d do it.

Step One: Define the Deception
A forgery or similar deception is basically trying to convince a “mark” that one or more “facts” are true. The player has to clearly state what they are trying to do. This doesn’t have to be stated in-character, but it must cover everything the player thinks the forgery should cover. One or more statements like:

The forgery is an official royal document certifying the bearer is authorized to enter The Forbidden Tower and return with the Crown of Kings.

The GM at this point may want to note which false facts are actually involved. In this case:

• Who “created” the document (the royal court)
• What the document does (authorizes entry)
• What else it does (authorizes returning with the Crown)

The two bold statements are pretty much mandatory: every forgery pretends to be “from” someone it isn’t, who is saying or doing something via the document. The statement in italics is optional and adds another thing the document is trying to do.

Step Two: Forge the Document
Anyone with training in forgery or with High Int (13+) can forge a document. Roll 1d6: on 5+, it takes one hour, otherwise it takes an additional 1-4 hours (result of the die roll.) A hypothetical character class with a forgery class ability would do this in minutes, rather than hours. If the document has to appear to be in a specific person’s handwriting or has to bear an official seal or other special identifier, the forger must also have High Dex (13+). An art forgery would fall in this category as well.

Those with no training and average Int or lower can try to forge documents, too, but the documents are considered poor forgeries. The same applies to an otherwise skilled or gifted forger who tries to forge a signature, official seal, or other feature that requires High Dex as well as skill or talent. This will have consequences when trying to pass off the forgery.

Step Three: Pass Off the Forgery
Whoever uses the forged document must present them in an appropriate manner to the person they are trying to convince. Make a reaction roll: a Good or better reaction means the forgery is accepted.

Even an Average reaction will work for high-quality forgeries, but a mark with a High Int or better, or a mark who is also trained in forgery, has a chance to spot mistakes: 5+ on 1d6 means the mark spots the forgery.

Some targets will be harder to convince. Anyone who regularly receives royal documents, for example a captain of the royal guard, will shift the reaction result down one category. So will anyone personally familiar with the handwriting of the supposed author of the document. Each “fact” noted in Step One is a potential pitfall as well: if the mark has some knowledge about that topic, the result is shifted down. If the mark has certain knowledge that contradicts the forgery (if they know the Crown of Kings was removed from the Forbidden Tower last week, or if a document with a royal seal is unknowingly handed to the king who is in disguise,) the forgery automatically fails.

A poor forgery shifts the reaction down one category all by itself, or shift it down two categories if one of the problem areas mentioned in the previous paragraph also applies. Likewise, anyone with a bad reputation known to their mark will have trouble passing off a forgery, just on basic principle.

In theory, other factors might shift the reaction result up a category, or cancel out a downward shift because of the factors listed above. For example, the person passing off the forgery could arrange a distraction to prevent the mark from thoroughly examining the forgery. Or, someone who already has a good personal relationship with the mark might be trusted more than other typical encounters.

Bad and Very Bad Reactions
Any mark with legal authority (like a guard) will arrest the person trying to pass off a forgery if their reaction is Bad or worse. Other victims with no legal authority will usually only demand the deceiver’s arrest (or seek vengeance) on a Very Bad reaction; if their reaction is only Bad, they have serious doubts and definitely won’t give the deceiver what they want unless someone they trust confirms the document (in other words, the forgery has to pass examination by a second person.)

If the player opts to give up at this point, they may be able to leave casually without triggering suspicion. The GM secretly rolls 1d6: on 5+, the player can leave without a problem. Otherwise, the player has 10 to 40 minutes (die roll x ten minutes) before the mark decided to involve the law. If the forgery was poor, time is reduced to only 1 to 4 minutes.

In Summary

1. Be certain what the forgery is trying to prove
2. Roll 1d6 for time needed to forge the document
3. Roll for reaction, shifting reaction down/up for special factors
4. On Good reaction or better, forgery is accepted
5. On Average reaction, some victims spot the forgery (5+ on 1d6)
6. On Bad reaction, convince another mark or roll to escape before victim is suspicious
7. On Very Bad reaction, victim is immediately suspicious and demands vengeance or legal action

There are a couple other applications that could use this same basic framework, which I may return to in future posts.

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Situations: Why Not Ability Checks?

Possibly the last follow-up question raised by the Situations: The Basics post would be: Why not use a straight Dexterity or Intelligence check, or other ability check?

Obviously, one reason is “Because I really like the idea of skipping rolls.” A unified, unchanging roll is simple to use. Letting players simply skip the roll if their characters are trained or have high ability scores is a big reward that they will appreciate.

But the more typical response of a veteran old school GM is to use “Roll Under Ability” as a solution, either 3d6, 1d20, or 1d100 under the score. This can introduce two issues that might be a problem:

1. Some players won’t like “roll under” because it’s the opposite of the way attack rolls and saving throws work. Some people get hung up on “higher is better” and just don’t like “roll under”. You might be able to appease them by treating the roll like Blackjack: higher is better, but the roll can’t be above the ability score. I may have more to say about this in the future.
2. A straight “roll under” ability check creates extreme differences between characters. Using a d20 roll under ability check, a character with Strength 3 will have a 15% chance of pushing a heavy lid off a sarcophagus, while an average character with Strength 10 will have a 50% chance, making the Strength 3 character very, very weak in comparison. It makes ability scores extremely important.

One solution, used by the Judges Guild, was to use a d% roll under ability. This makes the range much narrower (3% vs. 10%,) but also makes the chances punishingly low, even for characters with max scores.

A different solution, which eventually became a standard in later D&D editions, is to assign modifiers to different score ranges (-1 for Strength 3-8, +1 for Strength 13-18, no modifier for Strength 9-12.) This helps reduce the impact of differences between scores, but this approach (dice + mods > target) leads to its own issues:

1. People become overzealous about using just this method. The end result is people asking “Why not get rid of ability scores entirely and just use the mods?” To which I say “Why not just exert some self control?”
2. People become overzealous about target numbers. Most GMs seem to start out with three target numbers (DCs) at a minimum: Easy, Average, and Hard. Not only does this mean they are rolling too often (Use Rope or Wear Pants skill rolls,) but the open-ended nature of the roll tempts them into adding more DCs, which makes ability scores or other sources of stacking modifiers more important, which means leads to hacking to extend the ability score range or add buff spells, which leads to GMs saying “Now I need even more DCs to keep my players challenged,” and the death spiral of modifier overkill begins.

Dice + Mods > Target can be OK if it is very restrained, for example the Target 20 system (one target number) plus minimal ability bonuses, and preferably only one other modifier (no stacking mods.) Still, a system that lets players skip rolls most of the time seems far more preferable and avoids all the problems listed above.

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Situations: Why 5+ on 1d6?

Delving further into the ideas raised in Situations: The Basics: why do I choose 5+ on 1d6 specifically as my go-to situation roll mechanic?

Obviously, six-sided dice are super common and super easy to use, and a single die is simpler to use than multiple dice, but there’s more to it than that.

First, there’s the precedent. OD&D uses 1d6 rolls for a lot of little stuff. Any decision roll that isn’t an attack, save, or reaction, basically. OD&D usually picks low rolls (1 or 2 in 6,) but it uses high rolls in a few cases. I switched to high rolls in all cases partly because I know many people shudder at the idea of “lower is better”, and partly because if I’m going to modify the roll, adding a +1 or +2 to the roll when the character has an advantage is pretty easy to grasp.

Second, there’s the ease of making the die roll perform double duty. Most damage rolls are 1d6, or multiple d6s. This makes it very easy to tie a weapon’s special ability, or a bad morale result for the enemy, to a 5+ damage result, skipping the need for a separate roll.

Related to that: I tend to interpret situation rolls not as “Can the player do this?” but as “Can the player finish this in time?” I make a 5+ on 1d6 mean that the character finishes an action immediately, if in combat, or in 1 minute, 1 turn, 1 hour, or 1 day, outside of combat (time period based on what’s being attempted.) When the roll fails, the result (1 to 4) is how much additional time it takes to finish. It’s a simpler and far more forgiving way to interpret things like lockpicking than either requiring multiple rolls or forbidding all retries.

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Situations: Why 1 in 3?

In Situations: The Basics, I wrote “Anything that’s roughly a 1 in 3 chance is good.” But why do I like a 1 in 3 chance?

Again, think of the three categories. Either you tell the player “No, what you are trying doesn’t work,” or you say “Yes, what you try to do works,” or you say “Let’s roll and see if it works or not.” There are two possible outcomes, so the simplest solution would be 1 in 2, a 50-50 chance. A bit dull.

1 in 3 is the next simple probability, easy to do on the most common kind of dice available. It makes the player’s choices a little more tense, and since a lot of actions are still going to fail, it means the player on average will have to try more than one thing to escape each situation.

It also leaves plenty of room for three possible outcomes, instead of only two, in cases where three outcomes make sense.

• 1 in 3 chance the player succeeds,
• 1 in 3 chance the player has to try something else,
• 1 in 3 chance something goes wrong.

A 1 in 3 chance that something bad happens isn’t too punishing, but also isn’t so low that players will never see bad things happen.

I think Arneson and Gygax had this in mind when they were deciding on dice mechanics. They started with a 1 in 3 chance for any given situation and then revised the mechanic where desired to provide more details or options. Most of the incidental mechanics – chance of surprise, chance of dropping a weapon or torch when surprised, chance of falling into a pit – are 1 or 2 in 6, which fits the 1 in 3 model.

For reaction rolls, they needed three outcomes at the very least (Friendly, Neutral, Hostile,) with the option for more outcomes in some negotiations. A 2d6 roll allows room for more outcomes and only lowers the chance of a Friendly outcome a little: 9+ on 2d6 is a 27.78 % chance, not quite 1 in 3, but close.

Reaction Roll Probabilities

(Probability charts created using AnyDice)

For combat, a close to 1 in 3 chance of hitting an armored enemy seems about right, but you have options for better armor, worse armor, or no armor to cover, not to mention shields. So, they switched to a 1d20. The closes to a 1 in 3 chance (33.33 %) is 35 %, or 14+ on 1d20, which just happens to be the target number for a 1st level character to hit chain armor, the middle armor option.

Combat/Saving Throw Probabilities

At the next combat tier (4th level, for Fighters,) this just happens to be the target number to hit the next armor tier, plate armor. Also at this tier, the target number to hit an unarmored opponent is 8+, or 65 %, which is very close to 2 in 3.

Saving throws do get kind of crazy, maybe too crazy, but it still starts from the same principal. One of the Fighter saving throws (vs. being turned to stone) is 14+ on 1d20, with other saving throw categories being +/- 1 or 2 points away in most cases.

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Situations: The Basics

Technically, I’ve written before about replacing skill rolls with situation rolls, as well as when and how to use them. Even did a pamphlet explaining some details. But I never described the core mechanic this succinctly.

When a player wants to do something, there’s basically three possibilities:

1. Player can’t succeed (no roll needed)
2. Player could succeed, maybe (make a roll)
3. Player should succeed (no roll needed)

If the character is trying something that either definitely needs special knowledge to even try, or that is flat out impossible normally, that’s Situation #1,

Almost anything else falls under Situations #2 or #3, based on whether the character is untrained or trained. If there’s a risk, it’s usually Situation #2.

High ability scores can upgrade Situation #1 to #2, or #2 to #3. So might some player suggestions. Low ability scores or unusual hazards might kick a #3 down to a #2. They might even kick a #2 down to a #1, if the player is also cursed.

The roll itself depends on personal preference, but it’s best if there’s as little futzy bits as possible. That’s why I prefer 5+ on 1d6. 9+ on 2d6 would also work. Anything that’s roughly a 1 in 3 chance is good. Another option is to key it to level, either using the attack roll or the saving throw. Roll under ability score would work, too, but this has the bad consequence of making ability scores too important.

Pick a simple roll and stick with it. Your job as GM is just to decide which situations are #1, which are #2, and which are #3, and what seems like a reasonable way to upgrade from one level to another.

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What Is Wisdom, Really?

I’ll have more to say about overlapping ability scores, but I want to go back and discuss Wisdom some more. On Why I Like both Wisdom and Intelligence, PatrickW had this to say:

High INT, low WIS is absent-minded genius.
High WIS, low INT is Edith Bunker.
The difference is clear.

Is it, though?

Leaving aside the characterization of Edith Bunker as low INT (she’s clearly way smarter than Archie, possibly smarter than Gloria, and I’d consider Gloria above average,) I don’t think Wisdom means the same thing for those two examples. When I think of smart but foolish characters, I think of mad scientists or socially-awkward geniuses, not characters who forget what time it is or which shoe goes on which foot. But it does raise the question: Does everyone agree what “wisdom” is? Not the ability score with that name, but real-life wisdom, as commonly understood?

Take the famous example of Solomon and the two women who both claim the same child is theirs. Solomon tells them that logically, none of the facts support one woman’s claim over the other, so the smart thing to do is divide the child evenly between the two – literally. But his secret wisdom is a gut feeling that the real mother, or at least the one who would be the best mother, would do anything to keep her child from being killed, including giving the child to the other woman. This wasn’t a wholly rational thought process, but just an awareness that the right choice is not what’s best for the two women, but what’s best for the child… and the best mother for any child is one that puts what’s best for the child ahead of her own personal preferences.

Another example is the story of the Gordian Knot. Whoever undoes the Gordian Knot will become the ruler of the whole world. Everyone who tries, can’t figure out how to untie it. Only Alexander thinks “Untying the knot is not the point. Removing it as an obstacle is.” And so he just cuts through the knot.

There’s a whole lot more that could be said about this. Blurting out the wrong thing in social situations is certainly considered foolish, which means wisdom must include empathy or emotional intelligence as well as intuition. Choosing to do what is moral rather than what is rational is also considered a matter of wisdom over intelligence, which I’d argue is the reason why Gygax made Wisdom the prime ability for Clerics.

But I cut through this Gordian Knot by interpreting Wisdom as a sense of right or wrong. Common sense, danger sense, and moral sense, as I’ve said before. If you just know that what you are about to say or do would be wrong, in some sense of that word, and so choose not to do it, regardless of the facts, you are operating on a completely different level than if you’ve weighed all the available facts and reasoned out what the best option is, choosing to do that.

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Which Scores Overlap? Part I

In Why I Like Both Wisdom and Intelligence, I talked about those two scores overlapping and suggested there may be other potential overlaps in the six ability scores. One thing I was thinking of was Strength and Constitution.

Most people wouldn’t think of those two ability scores as overlapping. I mean, they are pretty well-defined, aren’t they? Constitution governs health and resistance to physical damage. Strength, on the other hand, is an active ability, rather than a passive one, and governs damage dealt and weight carried.

But think about another physical quality that’s pretty important: endurance. How long can a character run, hold up a falling timber, or hold their breath? There are no hard rules for these things in OD&D, so referees have made their own rulings when necessary. Those that hate overlaps probably pick Con for holding breath, Strength for holding up a timber. But I’m willing to use the best of Strength or Con when trying to judge those situations.

A few people have felt the need for a separate Endurance stat to cover this. Some RPGs even treat this as a calculated stat, an average between two other stats like Strength and Con. A good way to look at overlaps is to ask “in games that use derived stats, what stats are considered derived? Which stats do they use as their parent stats?” My preference is to just use the parent stats directly, either the highest or lowest of two as the situation calls for it.

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Why I Like both Wisdom and Intelligence

I have no major topic for today, so I’ll turn to a minor topic: overlapping abilities.

There’s a forum discussion about what people would pick for a seventh ability, if they were to add one, and a side topic that showed up was a complaint about Intelligence and Wisdom being “the same thing”. But of course, they aren’t the same thing. They just overlap. And I love ability overlaps.

Let’s start from the conventional wisdom (har!) that Intelligence and Wisdom are the same thing. OK, but people’s scores for those abilities are usually not the same. That means that sometimes, the GM may say “You have a chance of noticing this in time if you have high Intelligence” and you will say “I don’t, but I have high Wisdom. Does that count?” Having two chances of rolling a high score is better than one, right?

But of course, Intelligence and Wisdom aren’t the same. We don’t need to go into detail about how they are different, here, since there are several different interpretations, although most involve Intelligence being linked to learned information and Wisdom being more instinctive. The real point is: whatever the difference, there are going to be some situations where that difference is going to matter, where having a high Intelligence won’t matter in a situation, but a high Wisdom will.

By the book, high Intelligence matters when trying to control a magic sword with a high Ego, but Wisdom doesn’t matter at all. Other situations will depend on how a GM actually interprets the difference, but they will exist.

And going back to situations where either score would be useful, which score is higher will inform the player on how to play the character, and inform the GM on how the character was able to escape the situation: “You recognized the markings on the beast from an old biological treatise” vs. “You had a bad feeling about the creature” or “A small angelic voice warned you about the danger just in time.”

This is why I sometimes wish for more overlap in ability scores. But maybe there’s already some overlap hidden in the existing system? This may be a topic I will return to later.

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B/X Is Bad, Mmmkay? Part I

In a comment on a blog link post, Norman J. Harman, Jr. expressed his opinion about Gygax’s writing and quality of rules. Which is fine, everyone can have opinions. But the comment ends with “B/X is a better game than AD&D.” And that had me do a double-take, because I think of both as being about equally bad, and certainly B/X had a couple distinct rules differences I’d consider worse than AD&D. And I’m not talking about minor quibbling differences that people always seem to focus on. I’m talking about the differences everyone seems to ignore that are basically the deal-breakers for me.

One difference is race as class. I’m not completely opposed to the idea, but I do think it’s a terrible design choice. People generally want to add fantasy races so that they can have more variety… so making all elves the same, all dwarves the same, and so on seems counterproductive. OD&D started with fighter-dwarf, fighter-halfling, and elves that could be either fighter, magic-user, or both, then expanded the options for those three races with thieves… and then B/X came along and got rid of the options. AD&D expands the options, and though I don’t think it did so in the correct way, at least it’s not B/X.

Continuing that line of reasoning: minimum ability scores is also a bad idea. B/X shares this with AD&D, though, and at least B/X doesn’t have minimum scores for the core classes, just the races, so that’s one thing in its favor. But having minimum scores at all, for anything other than rare classes like paladins, is a bad decision, again because it limits variety. You can’t play the weak but brave dwarf in B/X (or the weak but brave fighter or cleric or thief, in AD&D,) because hey, why have more variety in your game? Plus, it has the added effect of making ability scores more important and dominating the game, but that’s a whole other line of argument.

You may have noticed, in the Liber Zero class pamphlets, that none of the variant classes like Beast Master, Witch, or Apothecary have minimum scores. I decided to shift the opposite direction, away from B/X and AD&D, towards more freedom and variety instead of less.

Because dammit, even if I agreed B/X is a better game than AD&D, it’s not better than OD&D.

Liber Zero Adventurer Skills Reference Sheet (PDF)

I’m making a surprise Friday post to mention two things.

First, I made some corrections to yesterday’s General Abilities pamphlet and uploaded the new version. Not a big deal, just a problem with some wording.

Second… a surprise extra Liber Zero pamphlet this week! It’s the Adventurer Skills Player Reference Sheet. It starts out with a short and simple method of handling players who want their characters to have training in another skill or weapon, either during character creation or added later. This is a tiny add-on to OD&D and doesn’t change gameplay significantly. The only game effect is that trained characters can do things a little faster. There’s also a training time and cost table that looks new, but is really just a repurposing of existing rules. More on that in a bit.

The pamphlet has an additional optional system for handling characters with a little more detail in their background. This is a rewrite of the background system I’ve proposed before, and it is now better integrated with the traditional ability scores. Rolls are kept to a minimum. Again, the focus is on how long tasks take, or the ability to skip rolls you might have to make otherwise.

Design Notes You Can Skip

Back to the training table. The table is, believe it or not, based on the magical research rules. Previously, I’ve proposed using the cost to research a 1st level spell as a basis for training costs. Just divide the cost by 10. Researching a 1st level spell with a 100% success rate costs 10,000 gp and takes 1 week. So, the cost to pick up a new skill is 1,000 gp (called “coins” in the pamphlet, to make it compatible with the silver standard houserule.)

You can spend less to research a spell, and by analogy you could spend less to train in a skill. The chance of success goes down, though: it’s proportional to the amount spent per week. If you spend 20% of the full cost, per week, you have a 20% chance of success.

But I wanted to make things simpler than that. I assumed instead: When you have paid the maximum amount, regardless of whether you pay it all at once or broken up in installments, you succeed… Unless you interrupt your training, of course. Doing things quicker should cost more, but shouldn’t always work. So, how to figure out the odds?

I decided to go with the simple 5+ on 1d6 situation roll again. On a 5+, you succeed in the shortest amount of time. Otherwises, multiple the die roll by the base time to get the additional amount of time you spend. If you try to learn it all in a week and blow your roll, the worst that can happen is that it will take five weeks. Similarly, if you try to finish it all in a month, the worst case is it takes five months, and so on.

So: I set the maximum time in each case to full cost (1,000 coins) and then divide the time by the number of weeks to get the per-week cost.

• 1,000 / 5 weeks = 200 coins/week.
• 5 months = 20+ weeks. 1,000/20 weeks = 50 coins/week.
• 5 seasons = 64+ weeks. To make things easier and give players a break, I round up to 100 weeks. 1,000/100 weeks = 10 coins/week.
• 5 years = 260+ weeks. I gave everyone a break and assumed anyone taking years to learn a skill is learning on the job and not paying for training.

If a PC pays the full amount up front, they can either just call it “1 week” or, to see if they get some free time, roll for it the same as for the other training times. This means training takes 1 to 5 days.

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Liber Zero General Abilities Reference Sheet (PDF)

Today’s Liber Zero offering is the General Abilities Player Reference Sheet PDF. What are “general abilities”? The six standard ability scores, basically, although I include hints that GMs can add other abilities as well. I call them “general abilities” to distinguish them from class abilities or trained abilities. They are the abilities that everyone in general has.

Features of this reference sheet are:

• A brief run-down of what the various abilities mean. More detailed than the summary on the back of other reference sheets, but still short.
• Tables that show ability ratings and time adjustments.
• Explanation of how ability scores are used, focusing on the “high scores mean skipping dice rolls” approach, but with a mention of the optional “add ability score bonus”.

I’m torn over whether I should create individual reference pamphlets for each ability, or whether I should save that for a GM reference booklet.

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