Ok, I want some method of adjudicating task attempts, which satisfies the following criteria:
- Any character can attempt anything.
- Characters get at least a little better at everything, as they increase in level.
- Characters have at least a few things, at which they excel.
- The Thief is no longer necessary.
- Keep it simple.
So, an increase in the chance of success as the character levels up and at least two different levels of aptitude. That reminds me of the Combat Charts. What if skill checks were against a range of AC’s, with the Universal check made on the Magic-User Table and the Trained check made on the Fighter Table? Everything’s pretty much already laid out and you can’t get much more simpler than adapting a set of rules, which are already very familiar and used constantly. So, how well will this work?
The first thing that comes to mind, is the disparity amongst the various versions of the Tables. The Spread between the MU and Fighter is greater in 1e than in Swords & Wizardry, with LL falling in between. Some bonuses or minuses, may be necessary.
You could assign an “AC” between, say 5 and –5, giving a ten point range of difficulty. Now, using the AD&D charts, a 10 lvl MU hits an AC 5 on a 14. A 10 lvl Fighter, will hit on a 7. On the LL charts, the MU hits on a 12, with a fighter still hitting on a 7.
A 10th level thief’s skill, in LL, are all right around the 80% range.
A 5th lvl MU will hit AC 5 on a 16. The Fighter on an 11. In LL, the MU will hit on a 13.
A 5th level LL Thief’s skills, are in the 30% range, or so, at this point. In AD&D, they’re closer to 40%, on the average. In the latter chart, there’s a greater disparity between the percentile scores of the various skills.
So, at 10th, the “Fighter” won’t be quite as skilled as the Thief and at 5th, he will be more skilled. Kinda wonky, but doable, I suppose. I’m not sure if I would keep the 5 to –5 range, or if I would really like doing it, this way. I might just stick with the minimalist approach of S&W.
So, what do you guys think?
When I play thief, that drawing is why.
ReplyDeleteSorry, nothing to have to do with your article.
It's a cool drawing!
ReplyDeleteSimple and elegant... I like it.
ReplyDeleteYou basically just invented the d20 system of skill checks, with descending instead of ascending DCs, and more balance between classes.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly the thinking that the designers of D&D3.5 would have gone through - "how can we come up with a system that fits with what people are familiar with?" "I know, let's extend the combat skill system to other skills."
This is a cute little natural experiment with basic D&D, and contains a little gem of truth about the historical inevitability of skill systems.
I third the cool drawing (unless Risus Monkey is talking about how simple and elegant the drawing is, in which case I'm fourthing it). Dave Trampier made some awesome stuff, and his art is how I envision D&D. And that image is the quintessential 1st level Thief to me. Similarly, the 1E PHB cover with the red demon statue, and the adventurers below wrapped around the back cover. And the old red/orange DM screen with the adventurers over the treasure chest, the lizardman army, the Fighter leading the rescue in close-up, and the lightning-lit castle with the dragon hovering above.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how much we're influenced by the art.
Now for on-topic!
The attack matrices from 1E did some special things. For one, the repeating 20 six times was an interesting design feature that you lose with THAC0. But as a design principle, THAC0 is superior because you distill five huge tables into one thin table.
But you can take a step further, and distill the thin THAC0 table into a short list:
Untrained: +1/5 levels
Trained: +1/3 levels
Specialized: +1/1 level
d20 roll to hit, 20+ succeeds. Your bonus to hit applies to your roll, enemy AC is a modifier to hit (-5 AC gives you -5 to your roll, 10 AC gives you +10 to the roll).
Now if you take that as weapon combat, we can use the same structure to tasks that don't have an AC. The referee just gives a bonus for easy tasks, a penalty for hard ones, from +10 to -10. The referee needs to have a clear understanding, for his game, what a -5 difficulty means for example.
Now each character chooses from a short list of tasks, one Specialty, two in which he is Trained, and four in which he is Untrained. The rest he gains no bonus for. A list to choose from may look like this:
Wilderness Survival
Melee Fighting
Missile Fighting
Abjuration
Illusion
Necromancy
... (other spell schools)
Stealth
Locks and Traps
Perception
Social
Mercantile
And so forth. Each would need an ability score modifier, and it makes sense to have a universal ability score table. You don't need to use the d20 method of "+1 per 2 points above 10" but a 16 Dex should give the same modifier as a 16 Cha, as in the Rules Cyclopedia.
Then you give everyone a single XP chart, d6 HP per HD.
Spells would need a little reworking to conform to the Untrained/Trained/Specialized system. Die roll to succeed at casting seems clunky. Perhaps you get 1 spell level per day per +1 value in that school.
A dedicated spellcaster could choose all spell schools for his skill categories. But someone who didn't choose a spell category for even an Untrained slot would be unable to memorize any spells.
Oh, and throw the Cleric and M-U lists together. The Cleric spells have M-U school listed anyway so there's no extra work to do. Everyone uses spellbooks.
What my little rules there do badly, is changing your character later in the game (this is possible but would require you to do some funky recordkeeping which may be too confusing to bother with) and giving characters new skills as they advance. For example, giving the Ranger or Paladin their spells at higher level works properly, although it doesn't adhere strictly to the levels in the original books. But things like the Monk class would be difficult to do unless you assigned a special ability to a specific + value of a skill.
ReplyDeleteFor example you could say that anyone with +7 melee weapon skill gets an extra half attack per round with melee weapons. And then at +12 skill they get another half attack, putting them at 2 per round. This fits with the Fighter attack progression.
But it also means if you're just Trained (Cleric or Thief) in Melee Weapons you get an extra half attack at 21st level and a second half attack at 36th level. And I think that's okay, as it's far too high level to really worry about all the M-Us getting multiple attacks (35th and 65th level respectively). I'm not sure many games would reach a level high enough to care.
Mainly this just lets you freely multiclass, or more accurately it lets you construct a class to your specifications without it becoming unbalanced.
You could consider certain skill choices to be optimal, but in a campaign with some variety no choice combination should be useless.