Halflings II: Other non-fat haffies

Yesterday's undercooked post failed to mention the influence of Jeff Dee's buff little warriors on my conception of haffers though, clearly, if you've read anything on this blog before you'll have guessed that the ripped fuzz-foot from the cover of V. of H. could not be far from my mind.  [Thankfully Leicester came along to correct the matter in the comments section.]  Anyway, I was going to follow up with a splat-post of Jeff Dee's hobbit beefcake, but a quick internet search proved that Scott Taylor over at Black Gate already did that.

Also, B/X Black Razor's Hobbit Love post is in the spirit of the thing as well.  Ages ago, when I started playing thiefless-S&W White Box, I made halfers default rangers, who were basically sneaky fighters.*  Like JB Black Razor--and despite any previous reference to the boggies of Bored of the Rings--I don't particularly care for AD&D's klepto-rific scions to the kender.

*"But S&W White Box was also ranger-less" you say?  Read on.

Race as Class: Half-lings--No longer portly

I generally think that race as class can suck it, but, despite that, I've slowly been re-hashing the generic D&D races as more individuated--and pigeonholed--classes.  Today, I'm taking on halflings; my version being based somewhat more on the Harvard Lampoon's shrewd and devious boggies than on Prof. T's paeans to pastoral domesticity.

Some things you might not have known about halflings:

They hate being called "halflings." 
The preferred term amongst their own kind is unpronounceable gibberish to most non-halfling ears, though they'll accept the more politically correct Haffolk.  Terms such as haffies, smalluns, hobblets, knibbites, shire-fiends, li'lfucks, are also common.


They didn't survive as a species by being plump, complacent, homebodies.

To the contrary, they are stealthy by default, dead-eye shots with all forms of missilery, and are masters of the ambuscade.  Quick for their size, they also have developed a form of gang combat that allows them, when attacking larger creatures, to exceed the sum of their parts.  When challenged or in a dangerous setting they actually seem to grow taller--they walk on the balls of their feet when not in a "civilized" setting--and put on a shrewd and even vicious demeanor.

• small'ns are +3 to hit with bows, crossbows, handguns, rifles, and slings
• gain an extra attack with such if they gain surprise.  
• when several Hobblets engage in melee with larger opponents they gain 1 additional attack for every 2 haffies swipin' at the same target.  Your ogre is surrounded by 8 hobblers?  They attack 8 + 4 = 12 times each round.  This rule could be a serious pain in the butt to administer.

Sneaky bastards, knibbites move silently and hide in shadows as a matter of course and are excellent wall climbers as well; perform all those feats as a thief of 3 levels higher than their own ability level.

They always travel in packs.  

There is an adage:

If you see a lone haffie, beware: you're outnumbered 3 to 1.  

It is a  common tactic of the small'ns to leave the bulk of their number lying in ambush and then send a small portion of their gang out to gauge the temperament of a party of travelers.  Anyone displaying distemper toward the knibbite delegates will be subjected to a fusillade of lethal missile fire.

Furthermore:
All PC halflings will be accompanied by 1-3 beta haffies.  Beta haffolk are 0-level and equipped with padded armor, sling and dagger.  The PC must provide all other provisions and such.  Betas roll 2d6 + 1 for Str, 1d6 + 12 for Dex, and 2d6 + 6 for Wis.  If the alpha haffie (aka, the PC) should die, the beta haffie with the highest Cha will immediately be promoted to Alpha, and the player may run that haffie as his new PC.  

Flame Arrow Strikes Back

Everyone who's ever read a spell list has been puzzled by the presence of Flame Arrow on the 3rd level Magic User spells list.  How could a spell that ignites (1/level) arrows, when touched by the MU, thus allowing them, should they hit their target, to inflict one (1) extra point of damage--be allowed to occupy the same stage as Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Fly, Haste, etc.?  Any party with a torch can do the same thing without an MU, so why would any self-respecting Thaumaturge forgo one of the numerous useful 3rd level spells for this turkey?  The answer is simple: no one would and and no one ever has, ever.  So either Flame Arrow needs to be demoted to the zero-level spell list where it belongs or it needs a serious upgrade.

Hackmaster of course does it better, allowing an option that essentially lets the MU cast a firebolt that causes 4 or 5d6 damage; it's sort of a mini-fireball without all the risk to your dungeoneering cronies. But I'd like to take the idea behind the AD&D version of the spell and maybe make it worthy of being a spell that a 5th level MU would opt to have in his pocket.

Proposed upgrades:

• Not just arrows and crossbow bolts, Flame Arrow will also cause sling bullets, spears, thrown daggers and heaved rocks to turn into incendiary grenades.  Heck, even a snowball will do the trick.
• No touch necessary, rather all missiles launched from within, say, 1"/level of the MU will burst into flames en route to the target.
• Enflamed missiles continue to burn for the duration of the spell (1 round/level) after striking their target, causing additional damage or at the least leaving small fires scattered throughout the combat zone, igniting wood floors, wallpaper, fields of dry grass, leaf piles, etc.
• Piercing missiles--arrows, daggers and the like--will inflict 1d6 additional dmg immediately and will continue to do so until removed or the duration of the spell ends.  Removing a blazing arrow or quarrel in such conditions inflicts and additional 1-4 pts of dmg.
• Non-piercing missiles such as stones, hammers, rotten tomatoes, would inflict 1 additional point of damage on contact but would not inflict additional damage through the duration of spell unless the target or it's clothing were ignited by the impact.
• The fire is magical. it does not burn up the missile, nor does it need oxygen to burn, thus it can be used underwater, though it will not be able to ignite other objects in such conditions.

20 Balls of Fire: Spheres of Blazing Death HackMaster Style

Inspired by Rients' rant about fireballs from a few weeks back--and simultaneously filling in a glaring omission in Delta Dan's Spells Through the Ages Series--I decided to investigate the numerous versions of every one's favorite spell of incendiary devastation in the most beloved of all editions of D&D: HackMaster!

That's right, HackMaster has 20 different Fireball spells, at least 2 are available at each spell level (except 7th, which gets but one).  Yes, there are not one but two versions available to Prestifidigitatarions. And in case you have to ask: yes they're all "volumetric" and you will roast your party and yourself if you cast one in tight quarters.   

1st Level

Fireball barrage: And right off the bat we have an exception; this one isn't volumetric. It lets you cast one single-serving-sized fireball per round per level for a staggering 1d3 pts. of damage.  Presumably, the purpose of this spell is for the MU to light the candles in his laboratory without having to get up from his studies.
Sidewinder Factor 1: sidewinder fireballs can slither around walls and over obstacles to get to their target... where they will deliver 1d6-4 whopping pts of dmg/level of MU. Also, sub-freezing temperatures reduce the range of the spell by 10' per ℉ (5.5m per ℃) below freezing.  So at 22 ℉ (-5.6 ℃) it's effective range is 0 and you've cast it on yourself.  On chilly days you will want to consult a thermometer before casting this bad boy.

2nd Level

Skipping Betty: a single 10' r. fireball skips across the ground until it finds a target and detonates.
Sidewinder Factor 2: as Factor 1 but slightly more damage.

3rd Level 

Fireball: Yep, here it is in all its volumetric beauty. Well, not all the beauty; this version inflicts only 1d4 damage per level damage.  Strange that Kenzer and co. decided to pull their punches on this one.
Scatter-Blast: causes 1d6 separate 10'r. fireballs to go off in a randomly determined direction and distance.  Don't try this one underground... or anywhere else. 
Sidewinder Factor 3: as Factor 2 but slightly more damage.  

4th Level

Landscraper: Before I read the description of this spell, I thought it would maybe create a conflagration that would spread along the terrain conforming to contours sort of like the Sidewinder but the explosion itself would slither.  I was wrong.  Instead, it's just like a normal fireball but the "area of effect is increased by a 5ft. wide by 10' high parallelepiped* that extends back to the caster from the center of the main fireball."  Which is to say, after the blast fills its 33,000 cf of space, it then reaches out a little appendage in one last effort to reach the MU.  No idea why that would make it a 4th level spell, or what it has to do with scraping land. I like my interpretation much better.
Sidewinder Factor 4: as Factor 3 but slightly more damage. 
Volley: Launch one 10' r. fireball per round for the duration of the spell, each does 3d6 dmg.

5th Level

Sidewinder Factor 5: This, the final Sidewinder in the series, inflicts 1d6 dmg/level of caster.
Torrential: Area of effect is doubled to 40' r. sphere.  Does 1d6 per level.

6th Level

Show-No-Mercy: like a normal fireball but dmg is 1d8/level.
Proximity Fused: Spell is cast on a point in space and detonates only when someone approaches within 10' of this point.

7th level

Delayed Blast: just like it sounds. 

8th Level

Death Brusher: "This spell is the same as the 3rd level spell Fireball, except [the casting time is 8 segments instead of 3].  In addition, those taking damage from the Fireball must pass a system shock roll or be instantly slain."  I friggin' love HackMaster.
Maximus: Same as regular fireballs except damage is d10/level of MU.

9th Level

Lava Yield: Damage is 1d12/level and it melts stone within the area of effect.
Nuclear Winter: The spell description reads:"This spell has been rescinded in HackMaster 4th Edition."  And for good reason: the 20-mile radius area of effect, as indicated in the statblock for the spell, would make it more than a little ungainly.

In conclusion, there is no standard, 1d6/level fireball, but there are plenty of variants.

*A parallelepiped, as it turns out, is a rectangular cube, if that makes sense.  A very useful word, but so tragically cumbersome that it should not come as a surprise that the HackMaster rulebook is the only known usage of the term in a sentence.

Average Joe in New Basic D&D, or W. of the C. and I have something in common after all

As you already know, the latest Basic D&D rules abide by the old AD&D standard for rolling abilities: roll 4d6 and take the best 3.  But it also has a rule that, if you can't be bothered to roll your own dice you can just take a default set of "standard" ability scores and assign them to your character.  The standard scores are:

15
14
13
12
10
8

What's really astounding to me is that several years ago--a few years before I started this here bloggery-do--I was trying to devise anti-munchkinry character generation rules for AD&D, when I came up with the exact same idea, to the extent that the numbers are even strikingly similar.  Here's the standard set of ability scores I came up with back in '07:

16
14
13
12
10
8

The only difference is that they lowered the ceiling from 16 to a 15, which is in keeping with their whole "15 is max" ethos.  I'm pretty certain that we used the same approach to determine our standard abilities, whaddaya' think?

I came up with my standard by rolling thousands of sets of characters, ranking each character's abilities from highest to lowest and then averaging the ranked numbers in order to find an "average" character.*  In fact, I called the rule the "Average Joe Rule" and some perk was offered for taking the default ability scores instead of rolling your own, though I don't remember what the benefit was.  Of course, my players were so repulsed by such a notion that they never acknowledged its existence. Oh well.  But if nothing else--and assuming that all this isn't just a colossal coincidence--the Wizard-boys seem to validate my statistics, which is nice.

*Seriously, there were over 100,000 "dice rolls" involved, though Excel did all the heavy lifting for me.

Undead PCs

A few years ago I got into a debate with someone somewhere on the interweb--I think it was Rients--about what happens if you roll a 1 for your Hit Points and your Constitution is in the penalty zone: can a character be dead at inception?  Obviously that's not very satisfying, and yet hand-waving a minimum of 1 HP or re-rolling until you achieve a more arithmetically-pleasing result both seem like cop-outs.

Your new character sketch

Then, suddenly, just moments ago, it came to me in a flash: when your Con penalty puts your brand new, freshly rolled PC's hit point total at 0 or less then he/she is undead: you get to begin your adventuring career as a zombie!  The perks:

• You get to re-roll your hit points using 2d8 and ignoring your constitution score.
• No more worrying about things like drinking water, oxygen, and sleep or charm spells.
• Stick with this long enough and you get to be a freakin' Lich.

And some cons:

• Your appetite for brains might be a bit off-putting to your adventuring colleagues. 
• The cleric in your party can use Speak with Dead to force you to reveal embarrassing events from your past.
• Until you reach 9th level -- Vampire -- you might as well forget about getting laid; it absolutely will not happen.

New Basic D&D

Over the long weekend I celebrated American Independence by watching Copa Mundial on Univision--screw ESPN and its staid British commentary--and reading what other bloggers have to say about the newly released Basic D&D fantasy adventure game.  In order to keep my sheep credentials up to date, I thought I should follow the herd and compile my thoughts on the matter but, as a devotee of Advanced D&D, I can't really take anything called "Basic" seriously.  So, in lieu of my own analysis--which might require me actually reading the rules--I offer this cartoon by  Daniel Clowes:  

by Daniel Clowes, patron saint of outsiders