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The Undead Strike Back: Turning Clerics

Did anyone ever use this rule: 

When a cleric meets an undead creature that is beyond his/her powers to turn/command, then the cleric must roll--on a d20--a number equal to or greater than the Hit Dice of the undead +1/level the cleric is deficient of being able to affect said undead species.

For example, a first level cleric encounters a vampire: HD 9 (I think) and unaffected by clerics less than 6th level,*  9 + (6-1) =  14.  Therefore Archie the Acolyte needs to roll a 14 or higher or be turned/commanded by Count D.  This Rule also applies to Ponce the Paladin.

Me neither.

* Crunchier AD&D folks might notice a discrepancy in these numbers from the AD&D standard--or they might not, I really can't say.  If there is a discrepancy it's 'cuz I'm referencing the HackmasterPlayer's Handbook "Table 12K: Turning Undead" for the undead turning probabilities shown here because, well, the Hackmaster books are closer at hand.  I mean c'mon--my friggin' AD&D PHB is all the way over there on that bookshelf.

Unified Field Theory of Wizdom

Yesterday I discussed a slight cosmetic change to the wisdom attribute by altering the name to Wizdom; a step which strips it of off-target real world associations--sagacity, sound judgment, etc.--as well as shameful definitions from the gaming milieu--can anyone out there say "connection to a deity" or "strength of spirit" without developing a nervous twitch in their eyelid?  Today I intend to take things a step further; I will refine the very structure of what has long been the sorriest attribute in order to shore it up and make it logically sound and significant to game play.  Yes, I'm feeling full of myself; what of it?  So, here are the parameters:

• Wizdom must apply to the character, not the player;
• Wizdom has to reasonably provide game mechanics that are useful to all character classes;
• Wizdom must, using the same logic that makes the attribute useful to all classes, also  provide a reasonable explanation for why it should be the prime requisite for cleric's; and
• Wizdom, if possible, should encompass the various game mechanics commonly associated with the Wisdom attribute throughout the Olde Schoole gaming community.

You still with me?  Good.  Without further ado, I present to you...

Wizdom, n: a measure of a character's capacity to focus or devote fully his or her mental energies toward a task, vocation, cause, code of conduct, belief system, or divine/malign force or being.

As such, Wizdom defines a character's capacity for sustained, intense focus of his inner forces.  In modern parlance, it would encompass one's internal motivation, passion, and drive; guts, mojo, and heart (in the wholehearted sense, not the magnanimous sense) would fall under the Wizdom umbrella.  It's that stuff that gets you out of bed in the morning and compels you to [CLICHE ALERT] be the best that you can be, give it 110%, keep your eyes on the prize, yada yada.  This is not to say that a highly wizdomed (wize) character will be an aggro-"Eye of the Tiger"-chanting d-bag; one could just as easily be a serene Buddhist monk on the road to enlightenment, a stoic warrior, or a sly burglar.   And while this focus makes Wizdom useful to the success of any character class, which class would most obviously benefit from exceptional capacity for devotion?  That's right, baby; a wize cleric will be much better equipped to impress his Deity that he is highly devoted to the cause and is willing and able to bring acclaim to Her name.

OK, how does this manifest itself in game terms, you ask?  Let us count the ways:

1. Resist mind affecting magics: Intense devotion of the psyche gives wize characters a profound sense of self, making it harder for outside forces to corrupt said self.  Thus, they are awarded a bonus to saving throws against enchantment/charm spells and any effort to possess the character in mind or body or otherwise cause aberrations to this sense of self. 
2. Endure physical/mental suffering:  Related to #1 above, the wize have advanced willpower and thus are better equipped to endure unpleasant physical forces such as torture, exhaustion, fear, etc.  One's constitution or strength will determine the actual threshold of suffering; wiz determines how well they keep their spirit intact in the face of extreme suffering.
3. Perform under stress: Capacity of concentration and focus on achieving goals would also give Wize characters a bonus to perform tasks under duress.  For example, Bart the Thief is trying to open a locked door to escape from a voracious gelatinous cube that is hurdling toward him at top speed.  His Cool J determines that Bart will suffer a  penalty for performing under such extreme circumstances.  Were Bart gifted with a high wizdom score, the Cool J might allow him to apply his wizdom bonus to his dice roll.  The wize would therefore be much more likely to be clutch performers while unwize characters would tend to be choke-artists. 
4. Efficient learning:  Those characters able to better focus on their work are driven to achieve success and will thus be more efficient and effective in their studies/practice of said skills than the dude with loads of natural talent but little personal drive.  Think of the athletes who lack the speed or size to compete in their sport but manage, through sheer force of will, to excel while more naturally gifted athletes sometimes fall prey to off-court/field/ice distractions (drugs, crime, acting/singing/modelling careers) that ultimately detract from their on-court performance.  This absolutely makes more sense than giving exceptionally strong fighters an experience advantage and you know it!   
5. Extra spells for clerics: The Divine forces, in acknowledgment of your devotion, kick a few extra spells your way every morning. 
6. Increased focus of the senses: I didn't really have this in mind when I started this essay, but for you late-edition types, it wouldn't take too much extrapolation to include perception in wizdom's horn o' plenty.

Implementing all six of these might, ultimately, be too much for one attribute to handle; Wizdom's stock value would skyrocket from dump-stat for non-clerics to everyone's 2nd favorite ability, possibly disrupting the established Attribute Hierarchy and causing a character generation crisis on par with the 6-sider shortage of 1981.   DM discretion will, of course, dictate the full effects of Wizdom, but I hope that I've shown adequately that with one reasonably concrete definition Wizdom, or mental focus, could measure success in the numerous spheres of Wisdom without stooping to vagaries and non sequiturs, and that is all that I hoped to do. 

Wisdom Revised Part 1: The Nose Job

As almost none of you might recall, some time ago I went on a tirade about the poorly conceived wisdom attribute in D&D et. al.  The definitions of wisdom in every version of D&D of which I am knowledgeable--which includes many of the recent "retro clones" but none of the post-Gygax era TSR/WoTC/Hasbro editions--do not, in my opinion, do an adequate job of defining an attribute that stands on solid ground compared with the other five abilities.  So in this two part post, I propose a significant remodel of the ol' "Prime requisite of clerics" that I hope will turn the dilapidated shanty of wisdom into a structurally and functionally sound work of art; one that is useful to non-clerics and actually relevant to the relationship between the religiously inclined and the divine powers that bolster their existence.

Since none of us are pretending that the Wisdom attribute should be a measurement of a character's philosophic or scientific learning--that, Mr. Player, is your job--my first act in the wisdom re-design is to give us a little room to maneuver.  Which is to say, I'd like to alter the terminology--just a bit, mind you; we old schoolers like some change, but it has to be bear enough semblance of the original to fit into our established structure.  Since "wisdom" has distracting real world significance that does not jibe with game mechanics, I propose to you the fresh, 21st century term: Wizdom.  Whaddaya' think?

To get to this newfangled yet familiar term, I took a cue from the food additives industry; just as "creme" and "chick'n" evoke an image of what we are eating but are removed in substance from the source material, wizdom provides pleasing familiarity with our gaming roots and acknowledgment of some sort of mental trait, but by merely swapping the "s" for a "z" we are freed from the baggage associated with the standard English word.  Yet unlike cream manque or poultry's soy-based doppelganger, wizdom, I believe, shall improve upon the original; providing a more satisfying, grounded gaming attribute--concrete in scope yet delightful to the palate.  Enjoy!

Greyhawk Realty: Looking to buy in the Flannaes

I used to thrill at the sight of above-ground structures in D&D adventures, and only partly because of the claustrophobia I felt when we ventured under the earth to get our adventure on.  The great beauty of those supraterranean dungeon locales was that they offered the greatest treasure of all--real estate!  As soon as I was done clearing out the baddies, I was sending in teams of the most stylish architects, skilled contractors, and beguiling realtors in all of Oerth to transform these lairs of evil into pleasure palaces.

Bottomless was my desire for new real estate to develop, and though I turned many of my gaming colleagues home-brewed settings into garden estates and townhouses, I preferred the name-brand recognition provided by the official TSR-published adventures.  Indeed some of the most posh addresses in the Flannaes are laid out in those classic modules.  Here are just a few:

First off was the moathouse in T1 Village of Homlet.  When I was done with it, it had become a lovely 7 bedroom, 5 bath cottage with a spacious ballroom and extensive wine cellar.   I even drained the swamp--had to get rid of those murderous giant frogs somehow--and started a vineyard.  I've also put an offer on Rufus and Byrne's little hilltop chateau closer to town.  They've apparently grown bored with the rustic setting of Homlet and are thinking of moving to a more exciting and open-minded burg. 
 
U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh: It took some work to overcome it's "haunted" reputation, but I finally tidied up the mansion on the bluff and sold it for a nice profit.  The private beach access was a huge selling point.  The smuggler's ship is available separately.  Serious inquiries only.

UK3 The Gauntlet has the fabulous Keep of Alderweg, a rugged mountain getaway with stunning vistas and exquisite stonework.  Ease of access makes it a great spot for a B&B during ski season.

B2 Keep on the Borderlands:  A quaintly rustic tree house in a grove of stately oak trees close to both the eponymous Keep and the adventure-laden Caves of Chaos, the Mad Hermit's lair is perfectly located for a weekend retreat.

A3Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords  Buy in the Pomarj?!  Ridiculous, right?  Actually, no other neighborhood on Oerth offers such a great investment opportunity.  Centrally located, close to numerous shipping lanes, adjacent to the always-happening Wild Coast and speckled with bucolic hilltops, the Pomarj is a neighborhood on the brink of greatness.  Though gentrification is already underway, a townhouse in Suderheim can still be had for a song.  You won't have to wait long for this transitional neighborhood to give you a nice return.  The amount of house you can get for your copper will make this a very enticing place to start a family.

X2 Castle Amber: Located in a parallel dimension, this eccentric chateau is far, far off the beaten path.  Comprised of enormous, lavishly furnished chambers complete with an expansive indoor garden, it's definitely worth consideration if you're thinking about retirement or if you're needing a secluded getaway in which to lay low for a while.  At this price, it won't be available for long!

But not all castles are equal, and several promising locales have failed to make an impact in the real estate market.  A prime example: I could barely contain my excitement when I set out to exorcise the ghosts from C1 Ghost Tower of Inverness and convert the place to condos.  You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that the tower itself was the ghost.  Completely worthless as a development property. 

L1-Secret of Bone Hill While Len Lakofka's quirky L-series modules are among my favorites, it's not for the fine architecture.  The structures of Restenford are particularly lacking in charm.  Have a look at the Baron's squat, cramped, little abode; the master bedroom suite is the same size as the servant's quarters--tiny!--and completely windowless.   Look to Pelltar's rental tower* or the castle atop Bone Hill--a definite fixer-upper but with panoramic views of the surrounding countryside--for a better investment.   

* Strangely, the lease terms of the tower are actually included in the module. 

L2 Assassin's Knot The Lord Mayor's castle down the coast in Garrotten, though a vast improvement over L1's dreary domiciles, was still too cramped and utilitarian to inspire the hominess most buyers look for.  Add to that the reputation of the aptly named town and this place was too tough of a sell to merit pursuing.

N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile Gods: Another of my favorite modules, but alas, I couldn't drum up any interest for the temple.  If anyone wants it, you can buy it from the Town of Orlane for back taxes.  Might be a good spot for a night club one day.

If anyone out there has their hands on a promising property in Greyhawk (pre-war structures only, thank you; there's just no market for those over-stylized newer properties) let me know if you're looking for an agent with experience selling in the area.

Castle of the Mad Archmage Session 2 Part I: Thar be orcs!

Inspired by Carjacked Seraphim's (excellent blog name, by the way) recent foray into  Joseph Bloch's Castle of the Mad Archmage (CotMA), I've decided to kickstart my own narrative of said dungeon. 
It's hard to believe that I haven't gotten around to writing up the 2nd session but here it is mid-July, summer is almost here (in Seattle anyway), and I'm reporting on events that happened in January. Actually, knowing me, that isn't hard to believe at all.

For those who haven't read the earlier posts on this matter, my friend Bob and I are sort of tag-team DM-ing this thing, so, in many regards, we're playing D&D as a board game, and we often end up both simultaneously DM-ing and running the party.  One of the odd results of this clusterf**k approach to dungeoneering is that, as often as not, we are working together against our own characters trying to figure out how the dungeon would react to this invasion by an adventuring party.  But, since we haven't read ahead in the dungeon, we don't really know what's around the corner which makes such conspiring somewhat ineffectual.

Anyway, our 2nd session occurred about a week after the first session, which is to say, nearly 6 months ago.  This time I came prepared; in addition to the S&W core rules PDF, I’m packin' the S&W Monster Compendium, AD&D Monster Manual (piñata dragon version) and the C&C Monsters & Treasures tome, and I’ve also downloaded the OSRIC and Labyrinth Lords rules.  We’re still out of luck if we run into more olive slime or anything from the F[r]iend Folio, but we’ve definitely got a lot more ground covered this time out.

Unfortunately, you'll have to bear with my memory a bit as, sadly, my notes from this session are less than helpful; they read thusly:

“CotMA Session 2:  ”

One thing that I do recall is that this is the session when the now infamous slope discussion arose, but since that’s been covered at length elsewhere, I’ll move on.  Before embarking on session 2, we added two more humble adventurers to our number: Barkurp the Wise (a fighter with a 17 wisdom, though he’s only got a 6 intelligence),* and a magic user named Cleavebourne, who, thanks to his 13 strength, supplants Borrance, the other magic user, as the strongest member of the party. 

*We used the fatalist approach to character generation: the character's name, race, and class are determined before we roll 3d6, keeping the results in the order rolled, for the 6 abilities.  As a result, in addition to the aforementioned hellaciously wize fighting man, we have a dwarf with an 8 constitution but an 18 charisma, and 3 spell casters (an Elf and 2 MUs) whose intelligence range from as low as 10 all the way up to a high of 11. But, OD&D/S&W being what it is, these stats have almost no significant consequence on game play. 

This time out, the courageous party selected a different entrance from the 3 options available to intrepid CotMA delvers.  They stumbled down the stairs into a room occupied by a giant tick and... I have absolutely no recollection of this encounter.  I do remember that they opened another closet full of (2) skeletons, though these were much less impressed by our cleric’s pious stance than in the previous effort.  In fact, they showed some serious undead combat competence by hacking the crap out of our front line: Sigurd was once again knocked to 0 Hp--man, he's a lightweight--and Polvo the dwarf was gimping around with only 2 HP before the magic users finally stepped in and knocked the grins off those skeletal mugs.  After so many years of AD&D in my system, it’s hard to grasp the combat effectiveness of low level OD&D magic users.  At 1st level they use the same attack charts as fighters and get 1d6 HP—only slightly less well endowed than a fighter’s d6+1.  Add to that the lack of combat bonuses for strength in OD&D and the only real advantage 1st level fighters have in combat is 1 additional hit point and their unrestricted choice of armor.

Anyway, a little while later our brave party was listening at a door when they heard orcs--a bunch of ‘em.  We devised a plan wherein we would bust in and cast a sleep spell on these bozos before they could beat the crap out of us.  With a little luck of the dice, we achieved surprise and put all the snouty suckers to sleep before they could even let out a peep.  We dragged one of 'em out in the hall and cast Charm Person on him while the rest of the orcs were knifed in their sleep.  The Charm seemed to work because he was rather endeared to Cleaveborn, the new magic user, or was it Goldraviel the elf?*  Anyway, he informed us that the other door in the room lead to 2 more rooms inhabited by 6 more of his clan, a clan which also occupied several more rooms on a lower level of the dungeon.   We fed him some BS story about how we had saved him from his colleagues who were traitors and had been about to kill him and steal the clan’s treasure blah blah blah; he agreed to help us deal with the other guys.

*Another consequence of our peculiar gaming method is that the characters are not really achieving a great deal of individuation; they really function as a communal entity most of the time. 

Back in the orc room, we tipped over a large table and some cots near the wall opposite the unopened door to provide shelter for our archers Glebberd the halfthing, Polvo the dwarf, and Goeatyourveal the elf.  Sadly, our best archer, Sigurd the near-dead ranger, was resting in an empty room down the hall. The rest of the party hid in the alcove in which the entry door was set, while the charmed Orc lay down amidst the corpses on the floor and sprung the trap by calling for help.  A moment later the door flew open and 3 orcs burst into the room.  If they were shocked to see the decimated ranks of their colleagues, they had no time to show it; a flurry of arrows pelted into them—the dice were on our side!—and 1 orc lay dead and the other two were injured before they even knew what hit them.  The survivors turned to run and were cut down by another volley just as 3 more orcs entered the room, one of whom was unfortunate enough to catch an errant missile in the chest.   He survived but with the rest of the Adventurers now surging out from the vestibule, capitulation was the only answer.  He threw down his arms and fell to his knees even as his two unscathed colleagues turned and fled back to the room they had just left, slamming the door and locking it.  Thanks for nothin’, chumps!

What followed was a drawn out stalemate between our party and the 2 orcs behind the door; one of whom, it turns out, was the leader of the group.  Eventually, with the help of our charmed orc and some begrudging assistance from the captured dude, we brokered a peace.  We would agree to help them fight some posse of hobgoblins that they are constantly sparring with and they would provide us with some CotMA intell.  As a token of respect, we agreed to pay them a weregild of 12 hobber heads to offset the 8 orcs we killed; we argued them down from 4 for 1 to a mere 1-1/2 : 1.  Silly orcs.  Still, half of our party was opposed to dealing with the orcs at all and is awaiting the first opportunity to commit an act of treachery against them, a feeling that is no doubt shared by the orcs--except the charmed guy, whom we are now calling "Quisling."

As this is already overly long, and this seems as good a stopping place as any, I'll call it quits here for now.  Look for Part 2 of Session 2 which, at this rate, should be out in time for the Christmas shopping season! 

Seasons Greetings, everybody.

Random thoughts: Rollin' up characters

Does anyone else do this: you see three 6-siders sitting somewhere and, in an idle moment, pick them up and roll them.  If the result is high enough (for me, the threshold seems to be 16), you think "Hey, this could be the makings of a good character!" and roll the dice 5 more times, perhaps even writing down the results on the back of an envelope or an old receipt.  I confess that I do this all the time;* after all, a good dice roll should not go to waste.  That said, I can't imagine a circumstance wherein I would actually use these archived dice rolls for a character.  I mean, I'm not about to sit down at a gaming table and reach into a hat stuffed with these odd scraps of paper and use the selected set of dice rolls for my new character; I'm gonna' roll the dice all over again!

* I have a set of 3 dice sitting by my computer with which my wife and I sometimes play an impromptu yahtzee-like game.

One of the outcomes of this habit is that my preferred D&D ability rolling method has changed from the old AD&D standby Best-3-of-4 to this technique: I roll 3 dice, if one (or more) turns up a "1", I re-roll it/them one time. If I get another 1 on the re-roll, I'm stuck with it.  I like it because now 1s become a symbol of new hope, of a second chance.  In fact, I was inspired to write this post when, moments ago, I rolled a 5 and two 1s, re-rolled the ones and--Bingo!--scored a pair of 6s.  From a 7 to a 17 just like that!  Whereas with the best of 4 method, I could have hoped for a 12 at best.  Of course, with this method, you roll three 2s and you're stuck with a 6, whereas in the best of 4 method you have a 4 in 6 chance of upgrading at least a little bit. I don't know if a method like this has ever been endorsed by any version of The Game, but I find the added dice rolling to be very satisfying without introducing a munchkinriffic element.*

* For a really good munchkin system, Unearthed Arcana, I believe, introduced a method where you rolled your six abilities using an ascending number of dice for each roll starting at 3 dice and working up to 8 dice, taking the best 3 of each set. We called it the Steroid method back in the day.

The other thing I've started doing is adding up the total net bonuses of the "characters" I've made in this way.  First you need a universal bonus set up to use.  For a while I was switching between several universal bonus systems: the Old School +1 for abilities 15 or higher, and a standardized system based on AD&D.   But I've settled on what I call the "Post Modern" system; you're probably familiar with it: 9-12 = 0, 13-15 = +1, 16-17 = +2, 18 = +3 with symmetrical penalties at the lower end of the spectrum.  Castles & Crusades and, I think, Labyrinth Lord, use an identical arrangement.  I add up the total bonus/penalty to get a nice, neat assessment of how good the "character" is, attribute-wise.  What's been shocking to me is when I roll up a character that, in my AD&D trained eyes, looks like a total Fudd but ends up being a pretty decent dude in the final analysis.  For instance, I rolled up one character with a 15, four 13s and a 12.  Using the old AD&D bonuses, you'd immediately slap that 15 on your Dex or Con and take the AC bonus or an extra hit point, and then you'd have 5 meaningless scores to spread across the rest of your humdrum character.  Using the Post Modern bonus system, this seeming Fudd scores a +5 total bonus, which I can say with confidence, after assessing at least a hundred "characters" in this fashion, is pretty excellent.

As an aside, the dice in the illustration* above are ephed up: or at least the one in the middle is.  Everyone knows that the numbers on opposing faces of a 6-sider always add up to 7, and yet there you see the 3 and 4 sitting right next to each other.  Amateurs.

*Thanks, by the way, to the Folks at the National Parks Service for providing this image in an item about the historic game "Farkle"  which was apparently a popular dice game in the colonial era.  I'm more familiar with it as a drinking game played by snooty grad students.