Spriggan's Den

Signs and Portents

In a discussion about WotCs release schedule for the new Dungeons & Dragons game, I rediscovered an old forum post I made back in July 2011, just three years after the 4th edition had been released:

Since this topic has come up quite a bit in several threads in recent weeks, I think having a dedicated thread for it might be a good idea, so it doesn’t swamp other threads about completely different issues.

I didn’t believe any rumors about 4th Edition until the official announcement, but right now I expect “something” to be announced within this year. It’s not that I think something is wrong with the 4th Edition (though I don’t play it) or have any wishes how any upcomming publications should be. I just think that the current business situation indicates that 4th Edition will not continue as it is to see a full 10 year run up until 2018 (roughly the time AD&D 1st Ed., AD&D 2nd Ed, and D&D 3rd Ed lasted).

A revision in the form of Essentials has been nothing unusual for D&D editions, though it has been by far the fastes one.

Shortly after Essentials was launched, many upcomming releases had been canceled.

Reportedly WotC has been laying off staff over the last months and what books are released are written by freelancers.

Some store owners claim that the direct competitor Pathfinder is outselling D&D. Also, recent releases like the Dark Sun books seem to no longer be able to be restocked if sold out.

Finally, the head of the 4th Edition development team has released some blog entries in his column on the offixial website, in which he is analyzing what D&D is really about, and what are the bare bones on which every D&D edition has to be build on to really be D&D. I think such thoughts are the first step to develop a new edition, or to look back on your work and consider what was done right and what done wrong.

As it is right now, it does not look as if there will be any more major releases for the 4th Edition. But since D&D is a hugely popular brand and brand recognition is one of the most valuable things a company can have, I really can’t imagine WotC continuing D&D with only four minor releases per year or just discontinuing it and leave the brand dormant.

Something has to happen, and a second reboot of 4th Edition after just one year is something nobody would really dare to risk.

If it will be called Dungeon & Dragons 5th Edition, I don’t know. It’s merely the most simple way to again make some good money with the brand. An alternative could be to pull out of the RPG market as it seems to be widely considered that the real profits of WotC are made in trading card games and other products. And who would have thought that TSR, Sega, or Atari would one day not be the big names of the RPG and video game business? Though as of now, I see nothing indicating a sell of the brand in any way.

With GenCon and PAX the next months, I expect an announcement of any kind to be made rather soon.

15.07.2011 http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?207470

Turned out the announcement came the next january. Looking back, it turned out to be pretty spot on. And it wasn’t a lucky guess, people had been seeing the signs on the horizon for some time by that point. The one point on which I ended up being completely wrong was “I really can’t imagine WotC continuing D&D with only four minor releases per year”. Apparently, yes. This seems to be exactly what they are doing now with 5th edition.

Roll 3d6, in order

One of the things I noticed about the Dungeons & Dragons Basic rules is that the game uses the same modifiers to rolls for all six abilities just like 3rd edition does and which is quite different from the chaos that is ability modifiers in AD&D. However, the modifiers are smaller and more spread out than in 3rd edition, giving only a +3 for a score of 18 instead of a +4.

The actual ability scores in Basic are almost meaningless. As far as I am able to tell, everything really comes down to the modifiers. The reason that you have ability scores at all is that you can easily generate them with 3d6, but they are really just the first of two steps to get your ability modifiers. In theory, once you have the modifiers written down, you could erase the ability scores from the character sheet. They are no longer being needed for anything.

The super oldschool way to generate ability scores is rolling 3d6 six times and applying them to the six abilities in the order you roll, with no moving around to suit your taste. In 3rd edition, but also AD&D, that was pretty brutal and you could very easily end up with crap. When I generated 16 sets of ability scores, all but the first one looked pretty bad. (It was 13, 16, 10, 14, 16, 16! I wish that one was for an actual game.) But when I wrote down the actual modifiers you get from these scores and added them up, it almost always came down to a total between +1 and -1, which really is very average.

So I went ahead and made this graph to show the chances not to get the ability scores but only the ability modifiers:

(It’s not entirely accurate because I took a shortcut and did not convert the 17 data points into 16 ranges, but it should be pretty close, with only the blue area being a slightly bit wider in reality.)

As you can see, the chance to get a modifier of +/-2 or 3 are actually pretty small. The chance to get a modifier of 0 or +/-1 is 86%. The chance to roll a 3 or 18 is under 0,5% each. That is not too bad and even if you do end up with a -2 or -3 in a stat, it often doesn’t hurt a lot. Only the Wisdom modifier is added tone one of the five saving throw types and there are no skills to which modifiers would be added. Even thieves don’t get any bonuses or penalties to their thieving skills. Also no skill points, so low Intelligence doesn’t hurt much. Strength is only added to the chance to hit but not the damage you do (and no +50% bonus when using both hands and any Power Attack shenanigans). Minimum ability scores to play a class exist, but only to play a dwarf, elf, or halfling, and then that minimum score is just 9 (everything starting from the line at “8” on the graph). Even a low Intelligence wizard or low Dexterity thief still works just fine, they just would level up somewhat slower than usual.

So I think in Basic, 3d6 in order really isn’t any bad. The odds to get truly terribly stats that make your character really suck or make you unable to play your prefered class are pretty low and when it really doesn’t work I probably would let a player roll again. (Better then to wait until the character charges heroically to his suicidal death in the very first encounter.) But a character with lots of 9s and 10s and another 6 really are no reason to complain in this game. May not be great, but still would be perfectly playable.

Now AD&D on the other hand is completely different story. Even the Player’s Handbook says that it is essential that any character has at least two 15s. Except for the one set I generated with the three 16s, I don’t think I had any 15s in the other fifteen.

Fantasy Safari: Creature Catalogue (BECMI), Part 3

The Phanaton is described as a creature that looks like a cross between a racoon and a monkey and also a flying squirrel. They are about as big as halflings and only slightly less intelligent than most humanoids. They build their villages in the branches of large trees and as lawful creatures are usually friendly to most adventurers. They are also friends of elves, treants, and dryads. A normal phanaton is pretty weak and have only 3 hit points on average, but a village is usually led by a king with 8 HD and 50 hp who also has a bodyguard of warriors with 6 HD and 30 hp, which can easily be much tougher and stronger than players would expect.

Rakasta: All I have to say it Khajiit has wares, if you have coin.

Shark-kin seem very similar to sahuagin but with a few unusual differences. In their normal form, shark-kin are unable to walk or survive outside of water and their alignment is neutral. However, any time the king of a tribe dies the legs of the shark-kin grow stronger and they become able to breath air and they come to land for a ritual to select a new leader. During those times they are extremely hostile and agressive, seemingly behaving just the same way as sahuagin do.

Continue reading “Fantasy Safari: Creature Catalogue (BECMI), Part 3”

A total noob explores BECMI: Part 1 – Abilities and classes

About a week ago I stumbled on a forum thread in which some veteran fans went through all the setting material of the Known World/Mystara setting, which had been the default setting for the B/X and BECMI editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Knowing nothing about that world I took a peek out of curiosity and quickly got very much interested. I had some vague familiarity with some retroclones based on it, mostly Adventurer Conqueror King and Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and even though they looked very well made, they just seemed very weird. Very much unlike D&D as I had known it for the 10 or so years before I left it behind me.

But now I got myself really interested in that old game, mostly because it seemed pretty rules light, and the amount of complicated rules had always annoyed me the most about AD&D and made me leave behind 3rd Edition/Pathfinder and look for greener pastures. And I really hate the magic system so much that I never want to run any edition of D&D again and only play it if someone else is GM and wants to run it. But I am still very much interested in how that game really worked and what I can learn from it about running rules light games and how to make dungeon exploration as exciting as the tales I often read. So I got myself the original Basic and Expert rules as pdf and went ahead to really learn how that game actually works and was supposed to be played.

The first impression where so interesting that I thought about making this a series of post for other people like me, who really don’t know anything before 3rd Edition and perhaps a bit about AD&D.

Continue reading “A total noob explores BECMI: Part 1 – Abilities and classes”

Fantasy Safari: Creature Catalogue (BECMI), Part 2

A Gator Man is basically just a beefed up lizard man with the head of an aligator instead of a lzard. In actual combat, they are a lot meaner, though. Gator men stand well over 2 meters tall and at 7 Hit Dice really have a lot of hit points and good chances to hit which are well beyond what you usually get from humanoid monsters. They also swim 50% faster than human characters run, which can make them very mean ambushers. They attack with normal weapons, but these completely pale compared to their bite, which deals a massive 3d6 damage. Groups of them are usually lead by a chief, who is even bigger and meaner and has a bite that deals 4d6 damage. When encountered by low level characters, they probably simply bite their head off!

A Hephaeston is a giant for high level adventures. It’s 8 meters tall and has intimidating 25 Hit Dice, which should be well over 100 hit points. The skin of a hephaeston is like iron and gives him a very high armor class and can only be injured by magical weapons. It is completely immune to mind affecting magic, all spells of 1st and 2nd level, and fire. Though I think by the time a group of player characters has any chance to fight this guy, they probably wouldn’t attempt to hurt him with nonmagical weapons and low-level spells anyway. The amount of damage it can dish out is staggering. When attacking with a weapon, it deals 4d10 points of damage and it also has the option to attack with a free hand as well, which also deals impressive 3d10 points of damage. If that bitch slap from hell hits with an 18 or higher, the hephaeston grabs the character and smashes him into the ground for another 5d6 damage. This is so funny I wonder if anyone would ever make make a hephaeston fight with a shield. In addition, it also has the ability to levitate iron objects (to throw on people, I assume), make an iron object get red hot, or magically create a wall of solid iron. Fighting one of these guys really doesn’t sound fun. Or very fun, depending on how you look at it. Fortunately, hephaestons live alone.

The Hutaakans are probably one of the most iconic creatures of the Known World. Which means that most of you have probably never heard of them. Hutaakans are humanoids with jackal-like heads but are otherwise very similar to humans or elves. In the ancient past, they ruled over a small empire but have almost disappeard by now, with only a few groups remaining in remote mountain cities. They are not particulary strong and have no real special abilities other than being able to see in the dark and being quite sneaky. They are highly civilized and ruled by a caste of priests. Overall, they are really very similar to stereotypical elves with dog heads and priests instead of wizards. It’s mostly their place in the Known World setting that makes them popular, but as generic monster for games in other worlds there really isn’t anything remarkable about them. Continue reading “Fantasy Safari: Creature Catalogue (BECMI), Part 2”

Why clerics in D&D can use heavy armor

This is something that I always thought to be somewhat odd, and I think many of the people I played with did too. Why are clerics in D&D the third best frontline fighters? (Excluding self-buffing shananigans from 3rd edition which simply make them the very best.) Heavy armor is not something one would usually expect from a priest. Shouldn’t he be dressed in robes like a wizard? In 3rd edition, only three of the standard classes get proficiency with heavy armor, the other two being fighters and paldins. Why do clerics get it?

I’ve been reading and dabbling in the old Basic Rules these past days, and considering the whole design paradigm of the game, I think it makes perfect sense. Clerics can fight in heavy armor not because it’s their speciality, but because there is no reason for them not to wear it. The way armor proficiency works in 3rd edition is the opposite of how it originally was. The older editions worked by a logic that all characters can do everything unless there is a reason why they could not. Wizards don’t wear any armor because it interferes with their spells, and thieves don’t wear heavy armor because it limits the mobility they need for sneaking and climbing. Cleric spells are not restriced by armor and they usually don’t try to be extra stealthy or do any fancy acrobatics. So why shouldn’t they be wearing the best protection they can get?

When later wearing armor became something that needs a speical ability to use, clerics got that ability simply because they always had been wearing heavy armor. Even though under the new logic of the game it didn’t really make any sense anymore.