Simple Seasonal Weather Table

Just a rather lazy post for today: a weather table I originally wrote for Grim Tales, but I will probably utilise in my Heartwarming Sandbox game.

Spring

1. Chilly, rainy, and windy
2. Chilly and foggy
3. Mild, breezy, and rainy
4. Mild and cloudy
5. Warm and rainy
6. Hot and sunny

Summer

1. Mild and stormy
2. Warm and rainy
3. Warm and breezy
4. Warm and sunny
5. Hot and sunny
6. Sweltering and sunny

Autumn

1. Chilly and stormy
2. Chilly and windy
3. Chilly and foggy
4. Mild and breezy
5. Mild and rainy
6. Warm and breezy

Winter

1. Frigid and hailstormy
2. Frigid and snowy
3. Cold and snowy
4. Cold and windy
5. Cold and sunny
6. Mild and sunny

XP for Exploration in Hyperborea

This is a fairly lazy post about adapting Jeff's eXPloration idea to Hyperborea. I'm a little behind with finishing my reviews due to editing a fantastic (and quite gigantic) book. Nevertheless, I'll try my best to squeeze one in before the end of the month.

In this variation of advancement, XP is awarded solely for visiting major cities, studying the Great Obelisks, and finding hidden wonders. The XP awards aren't divided among party members, and each character can earn XP for visiting a given location only once. I would probably use my own set of hexcrawl procedures to run such a thing.

Visiting any one of the twelve great cities of Hyperborea is worth 2000 XP. The great cities are the following:

• City-State of Kor (Fields of Vol)
• City in the Clouds (Floating Island of Paradoxon)
• Gal City (Gal Hills)
• Krimmea (Kimmerian Steppe)
• City-State of Khromarium (Lug Wasteland)
• Pandoros (New Amazonia)
• Fidib (New Pictland)
• Fazzuum (Scythium)
• City-State of Orcust (Skarag Coast)
• Erikssgard (Vikland)
• City-State of Yithorium (Zakath Desert)
• Port Zangerios (Zangerios Islands)

Studying any one of the Great Obelisks for a week is worth 5000 XP.

Lastly, every region has 4-6 hidden wonders. Finding them earns the characters a progressively larger XP reward within a region (that is, finding two wonders in two separate regions nets 200-200 each, while finding two in the same earns 200+500). The rewards are as follows:

1. 200
2. 500
3. 900
4. 1400
5. 2000
6. 2600

For instance, the Gal Hills might have the following hidden wonders:

• the burial mound of King Arlan the Wolf
• the sacred grove of the blackthorn druids
• the spring of beauty
• the menhirs of the elements
• the pool of visions
• the slumbering evertree

Current AS&SH House Rules

Attribute Generation
Roll 3d6 in order to generate your first array. Your second array is the inverse of this (18 and 3, 17 and 4, 16 and 5, etc.). Choose whichever array you want. Make sure you qualify for the class you want to play.

This house rule is taken from Esoteric Enterprises (aff link), and it's supposed to provide a nice middle ground between 3d6 in order, 4d6 drop lowest, and 3d6 arrange to taste. I personally haven't tested it; I just assume Cavegirl did.

Hit Points per Level
Upon attaining a new level, either roll a single HD (plus CON modifier) and add the resulting amount to your total HP, or reroll all your HD (and CON modifier times your new level) to determine your new HP total. If the reroll would result in no increase in HP, increase your total HP by 1 instead.

This is a house rule I have been using for years now. It has worked fine so far. The intent is to alleviate the impact of really bad hit point rolls in the long run.

Scroll Use
Spellcasters can identify scrolls of any tradition. They can also use scrolls of any spell level. When they use a scroll of a different tradition, there is a 2-in-6 chance of miscasting (1 random target, 2 half efficacy, 3 half duration, 4 lose 1d4 random ability points, 5 opposite effect, 6 different spell of same level).

This one's a bit trickier. I haven't actually tested it at all. Since AS&SH uses so many different spell schools, the scrolls in most OSR modules would need to be tweaked, otherwise only Magicians and Clerics would have a chance to find usable scrolls (let alone learn new spells). This house rule is basically my lazy way of handling that instead of rerolling every scroll found on the fly using the tables in the rulebook, while also helping out casters in situations where I actually do roll on those tables.

Encumbrance
Encumbrance limits are calculated based on one’s Constitution score.

This one we haven't tested yet, although The Nighmares Underneath (aff link) already does this. It makes more sense in the fiction (because encumbrance isn't really about raw strength but endurance, plus STR already has so much going on for it.

Critical Hits
If an attack roll is a natural 20, use the standard critical hit table in the rulebook. Furthermore, critical hits add a notch on the target’s armour (or shield, if they so choose).

Critical Misses
If an attack roll is a natural 1, the attacker chooses among the following options:
1) Weapon gets a notch (-1 to-hit and damage per notch; breaks at 3 notches)
2) Attacker is disarmed (weapons falls 2d6 feet away in a random direction)
3) Attacker gets off-balance (-2 AC penalty for 1 round)
Unarmed attacks always result in off-balance, while ranged attacks always result in a notch.

Weapon notches have been part of my game for a really long time (about 30 sessions, probably more), and they have proven to be a very nice addition. The intention is threefold: (1) to incentivise bringing more weapons along, while balancing encumbrance; (2) to surprise the GM and the players at the table at times; (3) and to provide another resource to juggle, one which is decoupled from levelling. Repairing weapons costs one-third of its gold value per notch, which is especially expensive for magical weapons (although they are able to withstand more notches in general). High quality weapons are easy to model in mechanical terms without introduction to-hit and damage bonuses, too. It also generates anecdotes, like the fight with a bunch of skeletons, where the party suffered like 10 notches and had to retreat immediately, even though they had plenty of HP and spells. Even trivial fights may deplete precious resources now, which is a huge positive for me. As for the other options, I have tried similar outcomes in the past, but this is the first iteration I find actually fitting. This way every attack has a possible negative outcome, but there is also player choice involved for most cases.

Grim Tales Hexcrawling

This post sums up the streamlined hexcrawling procedures I developed for Grim Tales. This lacks the tables referenced in the rules (except for the master level "Event Table"). I'd like to thank Gavin Norman, whose recent blog posts really inspired me.

Dwimmermount Town Procedures (Muntburg)

My current Dwimmermount campaign, as I have stated it on this blog, is exclusively focussing on the exploration of its tentpole megadungeon. The surface world merely serves as background; even its history is just a bag of clues to the dungeon (like how the red metal called areonite was used mostly by the Eld, who were great sorcerers, thus encountering something made of that is a sign that there might be magical traps around).

The base town of Muntburg is a place where characters go to sell their hard-earned loot and replenish their supplies of torches, helmets, and hirelings. In order to make these things expeditious yet interesting, we have been using some simple rules (namely that items were limited to a stock of 6 in the market per session and the Meatshields random henchmen generator), but they got boring soon. I wanted something that offered more player agency in the form of a simple mini-game.

Note: The numbers were written with Kazamaták és Kompániák in mind, which means it should work with S&W, LL, and the rest with no or minimal modification.

Revisiting My AS&SH House Rules

Even though I am running a monthly Dwimmermount campaign in the capital (for which I still have to write up the latest session report, repopulate some areas in the dungeon, and create a short side quest based on the treasure map the party found on the first level), I'm entertaining myself with the possibility of starting another AS&SH campaign, this time in my home town.

First, let's see the house rules of the previous campaign, copied from the AS&SH page (which I'll probably replace with the content relevant for this new campaign, anyway, so this post is also sort of preservative in nature).

Abolishing "Save or Die" Mechanics

I have talked about my dislike for the "save or die" mechanics; they disrupt the pattern of combat by introducing ways of overcoming ablative hit points and deciding the fate of characters on a single die roll. In this post I would like to present a number of ways to eliminate such "save or die" mechanics from D&D-esque games, enumerating their respective advantages and disadvantages, as well.

Social Combat Redux

I recently posted a conversion of Courtney Campbell's social attack rules to the AS&SH system. However, after crunching some numbers it became apparent that such a system (no matter how baroque and appealing to me) would produce rather unbalanced results, so I decided to redo the maths.

My goal was to keep the rules simple while providing choice and strengthening class archetypes at the same time. I certainly like them better this way.

To-hit modifier = +1 per odd level + (INT or CHA modifier)
Social AC for monsters = 12 - morale - 1 per even HD
Social AC for players = 6 - 1 per odd level - (WIS or CHA modifier)
Social Damage = 1d8 + CHA modifier

Every player character may choose one of the four social attack types (Anger, Fear, Confusion, and Charm) as favoured, granting a +2 to-hit bonus (monsters usually do not get this bonus, but ultimately it is up to the Referee to judge). Furthermore, the following special rules apply:

• Using an appropriate spell grants +SpellLevel to-hit bonus and deals double damage.
• Assassins deal double Fear damage.
• Bards consider each social attack type favoured, and deal +1 damage per odd level.
• Berserkers are immune to social attacks while raging. (cf. Unbreakable Willpower).
• Druids and Scouts deal double damage against animals.
• Monks have a point of social damage reduction per level.
• Rangers deal double damage against otherworldly creatures.
• Thieves consider each social attack type favoured.
• Witches deal double Charm damage.

Social Combat in AS&SH

The following is a summary and conversion of the social combat rules found in Courtney Campbell's On the Non-player Character.

Characters may substitute one of their attacks (regardless of whether melee or missile) to make one of the following special attacks to deal non-lethal damage. Non-lethal damage is not deducted from one's current hit points but is totalled separately; once it exceeds 1/4 or 1/2 of the creature's current hit points, a Minor or Major effect takes place, respectively, depending on the attack type.

Attacks are resolved as follows:

• 1d20 - 4 (base penalty) + Intelligence modifier + Charisma modifier
• target AC equals either (10 - Wisdom score) or (10 - Morale) - 1 per 2 HD; creatures with animal intelligence have +4 AC bonus
• the attacker's Fighting Ability is a key factor; use your character's regular attack matrix to determine success
• successful attacks deal 1d8 points of non-lethal damage, plus the better of your Intelligence or Charisma modifier

N.B.: For the purposes of social combat, Intelligence modifier equals the number of extra languages, while Charisma modifier equals reaction bonus.

Alternate Rule for Paralysis

In standard D&D rules, ghouls' paralysing attacks work something like this: (1) ghouls need a successful attack against a target, (2) target makes a saving throw, (3) if it fails, they are paralysed, and effectively, out of the game, for a given time. It makes ghouls, and other paralysing creatures, fearsome, but also boring. It takes away the tension regular combat achieves as one's HP drops round by round, circulating closer and closer to their inevitable doom.

Some editions of the game (3rd and 4th) try to solve this problem by allowing characters to make a save against such an effect each round. It might not be a bad idea, but it also lessens the power of ghouls, plus there is a lot of extra rolls involved.

Justin over The Alexandrian offers a different solution: he proposes that these attacks deal ability damage instead, both extending the generally ablative nature of combat to such situations and maintaining their seriousness (1d6 or 2d6 temporary damage to an ability may not be lethal, but a couple others have a great chance of debilitating your character; thanks to dice rolling, it varies a lot). My problem with this variant is that one is required to keep several totals of damage: one for HP and possibly one for each ability.

In -C's On the Non-player Character, social combat is resolved through regular attacks dealing subdual damage and checking its total against the target's HP to determine whether it has a minor, major, or no effect on the target.

This system could be used for paralysis (or actually any other "save-or-die" effect). A successful attack and a failed saving throw would result in the accumulation of subdual damage (probably 1d8 for B/X and 1d6 for 0e types of games); the minor effect could be along the lines of the shaken condition (-2 to attack rolls), while the major effect would be ye olde paralysis. If neither effect would be triggered, the paralysis damage would convert to standard non-lethal damage, as usual.

Also, one could eliminate the need for a saving throw by penalising such attacks with -4 as other types of non-lethal attacks; the target's AC could be (10 - 1/2 HD - Con modifier). This way, ghouls would have the option of attacking regularly or trying to paralyse the characters, if different types of attacks are your thing.