Been a bit of a lurker on and off of your blog and wiki for years. I have come to place high value on your thoughts and opinions on the game due to your years of dedicated experience. I try to wonder what your game actually looks like, and thankfully you have published a lot of your rules to your Authentic D&D wiki.
I had a couple questions though regarding your evolution of the rules. Forgive me if this is too much, this list has been growing unasked for a while.
1. It appears that the traditional thief skills are the domain of sage abilities. As a new character only gets one sage study at start, does this mean that thieves in your game begin with only a small subset of their traditional abilities, or are all the rulebook skills still available to all thieves?
2. Do fighters in your game ever gain access to multiple attacks as per PHB, or the ability to sweep attack through less than 1 HD opponents?
3. As per my reading, a human man-at-arms would have MASS_HP + 2-5HP (presumably half of a level 1 fighter's HD). How does this compare to your standard Orc warrior? I wonder if you grant the classic 1 HD humanoid monsters additional HP for combat experience, or if they just have their MASS based HD
4. Speaking of mass based HP, does a character with a CON bonus to their HP apply this bonus twice at first level (once for mass HD, the next for level 1 HD?) Does a non-leveled character gain HP bonus from CON to their sole Mass HD?
5. Do you allow the selling and buying of magic items in your campaign world?
6. Do you grant XP to players for magic items acquired?
7. Do you require training time and/or costs for leveling?
8. If you were to roll up a character for yourself (to play under a clone of yourself DMing), what type of character would you choose?
Answer: Let me go through these one by one.
1. Yes, the thief does start with only one actual sage study, which will have at least two sage abilities. Much of the sage abilities for the thief haven't been written, but this is only because it's of less importance to my ongoing campaign at this time. I'd like to draw your attention to a few points, however. To begin with, all thieves possess some backstabbing skill, even if they don't possess this as a sage ability. This is discussed on the backstabbing page, under "unskilled backstabbing." Secondly, thieves go up in level very quickly. This is of special benefit to stealth ability, which gives a bonus per two levels (1 step closer when sneaking up). Since a 1st level thief becomes second faster than any other class, this bonus is of special benefit to the thief more than any other character. Overall, remember, a thief reaches 4th level when a mage only reaches 3rd. This faster levelling also means a swifter accumulation of sage abilities overall, since each level brings more knowledge points. So it works out.
2. You can find the multiple attacks available for fighters, paladins and rangers on this page. In this regard, they get multiple attacks one level earlier than in the PH. After about 30 years of using the fighter multiple attacks against 1 HD opponents (though when I look, I can't find the rule for this in the PH or the DMG), I discarded it. It doesn't add effect to the game if a fighter can't be pulled down by minions. No one should feel that safe.
3. Think of the man-at-arms as someone with practical training, and the typical orc not having this. Thus, a typical human weighing between 150 and 289 lbs. has 1d8 hit points. With training as a soldier, +2-5. A typical orc is larger than a human, by about 10-20% (the MM says they're 6'+tall), so most have 1d8 h.p. and some have 2-8 due to being larger, and 290 lbs. or more. If an orc got the same training as the human, then the orc, too, would gain that +2-5 hit points. If an orc becomes a levelled fighter, then it too has 1d8+1d10, just like a human. Combat experience can produce a level eventually, but training is more effective.
4. On the whole and throughout the game, I don't apply a hit die bonus to any character without training. The first thing the army does when training an individual how to be a soldier is to teach them how to gain the most from their own body. From that I draw that while an orc may have a 16 constitution, it doesn't get a +2 bonus unless it is also "hardened," or trained ... as we may assume that a "civilian" orc generally overeats, doesn't exercise, doesn't care or know about health and the need to train, and so on. So no, a 1st level fighter doesn't apply his or her constitution bonus to both level and the mass die roll.
5. I don't sell magic items in my game world's market. I can't stop a character from selling one. But as I've said often, if I'm buying your magic item, how do I know it's magic, and not a scam? How do I know it's not dweomered so that it looks like one, so the merchant can get my money and leave me in the lurch? For that matter, what does a +1 sword feel like? Look like? How can I tell it's +1 if I'm in a market place? There are so many logical problems with this, I can't believe that any authority would permit the possible grift going on -- after all, what stops the local Lord, or a King, from showing up and seizing everything "for the good of the people"? How is that every one of thousands of towns has a table full of magic items for purchase, for me to pick and choose what I want? How is it shipped? Who's making it all? If it's that easy, then why are the items so expensive? It's all nonsensical to me.
6. I do give X.P. for items acquired, using the numbers from the DMG.
7. There is no cost to levelling and no training that needs doing. Players just "level" on the spot, though they get no experience until a fight is over. I assume that players are simply always trying to better themselves, and that the levelling up is evidence of some epiphany or innovation they've just discovered about how to protect themselves or fight better. Besides, it IS a game.
8. It depends on the die roll. My favourite characters are monks. I enjoy running a mage who's brave enough to fight hand-to-hand.
Kronstadt market. Did you generate one of those for every village that had something for sale? Or only market towns? I've made a couple forays into attempting this but it always seems so time-intensive. Appreciate your response.
Answer: I do it for only market towns -- but then, I have 1,236 of those. I'm able to generate a table for any one, normally, in this manner. I start with an excel document called "One City at a Time." This is a doc that calculates the distance of each market from every other -- which in excel creates circular errors in abundance. The file has to be adjusted to one "iteration" at a time, which means it calculates only once when I hit the F9 key. Left alone, each time it makes a calculation in this manner, excel tries to resolve all the calculations (26,000 everytime I hit F9) until there's a resolution -- which there can't be, unless I get rid of one specific calculation adjacent to the city I want to calculate for. Thus, I put a "1" in front of, say, Amsterdam, and hit F9 until all the numbers resolve throughout the document and they stop changing. This takes about 25 seconds, or about 30-40 taps of the key.
I copy these numbers, which are now the distance of every other market in my system from Amsterdam. This I plug into one end of a different excel document called "Sources." Once the data is pasted in as values, the Sources doc calculates, instantly, the total number of references of all goods and services that I've compiled, specifically their relative value calculated for Amsterdam. I then jump to another worksheet in this document and copy the data there. This takes about 7 seconds.
This new data is now copied, as values, into the prices page, which now calculates the effect of the new reference totals against all the goods and services that are sold in my game, spitting them into a "prices template," such as for Kronstadt or in this case, Amsterdam. I copy this, paste it into a new worksheet first as values, then as format, then save this sheet as a new workbook. I name the workbook and send it to my players (in the last case, through Patreon). This takes about 30 seconds.
Voila. Market page. For anywhere. The price for any given village is set by the market whose "zone" the village is in.
Yes, to build the system took 10 years. At the moment, my price table is in disarray, because I'm rebuilding it, and expanding it, for the Streetvendor's Guide. I save many backups.
My first session with the two player party is Saturday.
My one-year veteran is excited. His paladin is nearly 3rd level, and 4th means warhorse, which he’s been craving since he rolled his character. What’s more, right before we stopped playing he got a magic flail; he’s spoiling for a fight to learn what it does.
Girlfriend is set on a mage because she wants the occultism study; she’s already gone and bought a beautiful tarot deck. Not Rider-Waite, a Universal, with gold accents (this video shows it well enough:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xzewEuAa1Ig) We decided a single-card draw would be plenty for the “make a reading” ability.
She’s played one campaign before, either fourth or fifth edition, and she’s intrigued by just how different my game seems.
I decided the best way to do additional PCs was to simply move henches up to first level instead of fifth. Otherwise I’ll follow your normal rules for henchman acquisition.
I have bumper cars aplenty. I’ve been running sample combats. I’ve been practicing throwing up a blank battle map in photoshop (on the player facing monitor) and quickly sketching terrain. After mapping hammers I’ve been drilling myself on which facilities a given hex has; I think my descriptions are improving. I’ve been reviewing my notes on frameworks you’ve presented , e.g. using NPCs for exposition, eliciting emotion, hooking, and immersion; or rewarding success not only with wealth but also status, power, opportunity, and changes in the world.
Two players will make for a fast-paced game. I’m a little nervous, as always. But I’ll give them my best!
Answer: Had a development in my campaign last night. The party's lesser levelled henchfolk, 1st to 4th level, were investigating a group of local bandits raiding a minor trade route near Kronstadt. I was setting up the series of events that would allow them to discover the bandits, starting with stumbling across a small Romany caravan that had been plundered. While waiting around and talking, one of the NPCs, an old woman, asked the halfling druid, "Would you like your fortune told, dearie? 2 silver pieces?" Tavrobel agreed and produced a "deck" on her cellphone, which we "drew" by touching the screen.
The 9 of Swords. Upright. Absolutely, the worst pull in the deck. I'll read the description from my original tarot tables: "whatever the worst thing that can happen to a player — the appearance of an old enemy, assassins from the player's past, war is declared, the malice of heaven descends — must now take place. Conflict and death must play out as these things will. The time for waiting has gone.
The party has been waiting and working towards the day they can put down a 20+ level wizard whose enmity they've avoided for 6 years of campaigning. They obtained a peraipt of non-location so that the wizard can't scrye them magically. But now the card above obliterates that. Somehow, "Patroclus" has located them and as the DM, I'm forced to abandon all my plans for the campaign instantly and play the card, off the cuff. My method was to have the party find the bandit party on the road the next day ... slaughtered. Evidence of a massive path of destruction headed overland in the direction of the party's lands, intending to take them by surprise. A low-level party following this path and finding a straggler who, unknowing, knows the name of the army's master. Upon my saying "Patroclus," the party paled. A little courage was needed to keep following, while sending back some of the low-level party to warn the party's main characters. Discovering an army of 4000, made of haruchai, ogres, hill giants and owlbears, presumably raised in the wilderness forest of nearby northeastern Muntenia.
The rest of the running consisted of the party rushing in separated groups to call in every favour they could to raise an army in, approximately, 6 days. As the party has been adventuring a while, there were many sources to attempt. They had good die rolls and they're now drawing together centaurs, pixies, sprites, treants, brownies, badger-men, retainers from local lords, a friendly army from an ancient king they once raised from the dead, and his wife too, and as many mercenaries as they can pay for. It was a hell of a running.
And it's not done. The party will spend the next intervening two weeks trying to remember anyone whom they ever helped, while scruitinising their sage abilities for ideas. Fun, fun, fun.
Let that be a warning for the Tarot readings your player does, Max.
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