B/X Tomb Robber Hack

I wrote this little B/X D&D hack recently to emulate a gritty, scummy, city style sword and sorcery experience using the classic game rules.

You can download a zine PDF of it here.

B/X TOMB ROBBER HACK

IN THE DIRTY CITY OF HOGBONE, or Tombsburk, or Sluckbucket, or whatever filthy name you give it, the tomb-robbers, treasure-hunters, and murderous criminals thrive. There are no safe shires here.

This B/X sword & sorcery hack is inspired by Conan (the barbarian), Thieves’ World, Lankhmar, The Black Company, and a bit of Ankh-Morpork.

PC RULES

1. Everyone is human. If the GM allows elves or something, they’re inhuman aliens from another dimension or space or Hell and everyone hates, fears, and/or distrusts them. Your campaign is now defined by this fact.

2. There are no clerics. High priests might be sorcerers, but they’re not healing anyone.

3. Good and evil are not linked to alignment. Alignment is related to powers of Law and Chaos. A Lawful monster might be evil as a devil. PCs are most likely neutral, but it’s up to you.

4. Every player character is a 7th level Thief because those are the skills needed to be a crypt-raider. No levels are gained or lost. Level drain drains Ability scores instead.

5. This is your stuff: 3d6 x 100 gold. Roll 2 magic items using the General Magic table (page X44). Re-roll consumable items (like potions) if you prefer.

6. You get these perks based on your highest or second highest Ability.

•Str: Additional +2 to hit, +7 HP.

•Int: +3 (or +1d6) languages, 2 (or 1d4) 1st level Magic-User spells.

•Wis: Re-roll failed initiative; glean 1 useful fact about anything (once per encounter); good ventriloquist.

•Dex: All your Thief Skills are as level 10; climb upside down.

•Con: Save as level 10 Thief, +5 HP.

•Cha: +1 Morale of retainers; 1 devoted follower per Cha score above 10 (as 3 HD bandits); good at mimicking voices.

7. Rest to regain your strength. Heal up to 7d4 HP per day, rolling up to a total of 7 dice at any intervals you prefer. Taking a breather after that alley fight? Roll a couple of d4s to get your spirits up.

8. You know fear. When faced with undead, cosmic entities, or dark sorcery, save vs. spells or be gripped with fear for 1d6 rounds, unable to do anything but run and hide or stand there wetting your pants. Only for the first encounter, per occasion.

9. Gain 1 Hit Point after every adventure.

10. Spell-casting PCs can learn more spells, but it ain’t easy. Make a hard Int check (-4 to the Ability for the check) to learn a new spell from a book or scroll. Only 1 spell can be learned from any discovery of books of magic.

11. They will tell stories of your exploits. When you’ve played enough adventures that it feels like a proper hip-pocket paperback’s worth of short stories, everyone gains +1 to attack and saving rolls. At this time, you can retire a character, making them a level 9 NPC.

GM SUGGESTIONS

1. Monsters. Make them as unique as possible and never say “it’s a goblin”. Instead, “the locals say there’s a bog beast lurking about” or “the old temple is haunted by the angry spirits of the dead” and that’s that. There are no tribes of goblins, but there might be bandit gangs in masks.

2. Make monsters weirder. You can use monsters from the book as templates, but mix them up. Take abilities from three different creatures and hammer them together. That’s not a hill giant, that’s an abomination of human flesh stitched together by sorcery and leaking poison gas… with a big club.

3. Creatures of the night. Monsters of this world hate the sun and mostly only come out at night… mostly.

4. No clerics, but the dead rise. And they are afraid of the gods. PCs using relics of the gods may force morale checks on the walking dead.

5. Nothing is free. If you can waltz into a broken ruin and find a hoard of gold… it’s almost certainly cursed. Either cursed directly and each PC now has a death warrant, or it’s sacred to some ancient guardian who is now awakened and will not relent until everyone is dead. Watch a mummy movie for ideas.

6. Get to the action. Don’t let the players waste time debating their next moves. Keep the pace up. Assume a real time clock is ticking. They’ve been discussing how to or if they should open that crypt door for five minutes straight? Angry spirits show up to run them off. Other tomb raiders ambush them. Etc.

7. NPCs can be based on PC classes from the monster list, such as Acolytes and Bandits. More important ones can also be 7th level of their class. Boss NPCs should be treated as 9th level or better of their class: Fighter, Magic-User, or Thief.

8. Start local, don’t lore-nuke. Do NOT let yourself get caught up in too much pre-game world-building. Make up the dirty city, some NPCs, and nearby locations as needed. Let the adventurers guide your next move. Let the world grow from this local seed into whatever it will be, even if that means the PCs never really leave town. Cities have crypts, sewers, and assassins aplenty.

9. Luck of heroes. Taking a note from the classic 1e Conan modules, PCs have Luck Points. Only you, the GM, knows how much Luck they have. Players can spend Luck to accomplish feats of adventure that would be very risky if they relied on the luck of the dice. Like leaping roof-to-roof in the rain without dropping a fragile glass egg or putting an arrow through the tiny hole in the dread warlord’s demon scale armor.

Players cannot spend Luck to affect dice rolls and Luck must be announced before actions are taken. Luck doesn’t replenish, but you can secretly give a point here and there for incredible moments of gaming or for completing a book of adventures.

Ask each player to roll 4d6. Now secretly determine which result goes with which PC. That’s their Luck… until it runs out.

Happy sword & sorcery gaming!

The Truth About Magic-Users II

In this post, I bemoan the suckiness of Magic-Users as presented in original editions of D&D such as B/X and 1e and I offer some ideas for house rules to give those poor bastards a kick in the ass. Some folks thought I was being too harsh or obtuse. Fair enough. I wasn't, but I get it.

Here I'd like to revisit that topic and attempt to save the ole MU without any house rules. I know, right? How in the world can you possibly do it?

First, please understand I'm not shitting on a beloved class because I hate it. I do love a good Magic-User. But one thing I never did or do is run them without house rules. Because I simply find the original rules for most classes to be limiting and obtuse in ways that annoy me and don't mesh with my play style.

Anyhow, here are some ways that I would personally want to run a B/X MU, for example, without necessarily needing house rules. Most of these ideas came from reading or hearing about similar ideas in other games, blogs, and social media over the past decade or so.

1. UNIQUE WIZARDS

I love this one. In B/X it doesn't say you can memorize the same spell twice, nor does it prohibit it (as far as I remember). This leaves the GM to decide which way to go. For this mode of play, go with "no you can't". Each spell occupies the wizard's mind as a single entity and will not or cannot tolerate another version of itself in the same brainspace.

But take that idea to another level. Make a setting in which a spell can only exist in a single book, scroll, or crystal, or wherever you like to put spells. If it is copied to another place, it disappears from the original. If it is read out loud to cast it... the damn thing is gone forever.

Also, make MUs very rare. Within the PC party, you don't have to limit folks. If you wanna be a MU, be one. But in the setting itself just don't include MUs on your wandering monster tables or as NPCs in towns. They just don't exist very frequently. Consider a small world and there are like a dozen wizards in it, period. One of the PCs is an up-and-coming member of the elite.

In that kind of setting, each spell is extremely valuable and precious. You can't just go to another MU and learn a new spell. You have to find spells in abandoned spellbooks, negotiate the purchase of spells, or steal them.

This kind of campaign, though it seems low magic, might be very wizard-centric because so much time would be taken up with your MU seeking power and playing 5d chess with other wizards who are doing the same thing. Could be fun.

2. MIX EDITIONS

Not technically a house rule, I guess. Use B/X and Holmes combined to allow your lowly wimp wizard to make scrolls. I don't believe Holmes explicitly limits when a MU can make a potion, so just lump that in with scrolls. Then the party's riches at lower levels could be poured into the wizard's laboratory so they can make plenty of Sleep and Magic Missile scrolls and Gaseous Form potions. Make extra and sell 'em to other parties. Clean out that ruined tower, set up a shop, defend it from marauders, discover the hidden dungeon that lies beneath. That's some fuckin' fun right there.

3. MAGIC SCHOOLS/GANGS

Typically, a D&D party has no real ties to anything other than each other and the dungeon at hand. But maybe create a rich tapestry of wizard orders and fit the PCs into that framework. Now the PC MUs have in-world goals related to the setting. Perhaps more potent spells can be had by working your way into a coven or cabal. Perhaps secret powers can be offered, magic items bestowed. Now the lowly 3rd level MU with three spells also has a talking skull necklace that spits acid and knows the names of 3 demons and can call on them for favors (dangerous but that's magic, baby).

4. CREATIVE GMING

The players can be creative as hell, trying all kinds of cool things. The MU is out of spells, but the player says they want to use their arcane connections and lore to cause some magical effect anyway. A shitty GM would say "No, you're out of spells. Can't do it." But a clever GM who actually enjoys playing the fucking game could say "Neat idea. Tell me what you're doing and what you hope to accomplish".

So the player, jazzed at having to work for it, works for it. They describe how they call on the names of several imps they knew during apprenticeship in order to barter for a boon. They sacrifice some tiny portion of sanity and the imps cause something freaky to happen, such as a swarm of flies to appear. Hell yeah. The GM decides what percentage chance the PC has of succeeding, based on the Magical Research rules. A roll is made. SUCCESS!

"Now reduce your Wisdom score by 3. You're not doing too well, emotionally. You'll gain 1 point back each day you pass a Save vs. Spells."

I like this because it re-purposes Magical Research to accomplish on-the-fly magical effects. Unlike casting a spell from memory, this type of magic has a price.

And so on.

The Truth About Magic-Users

Here's a truth that many OSR folks do not agree about: low-level Magic-Users in pre-3e editions of Dungeons and Dragons suck. I'm sorry, grog, they just do. You know they do.

A first level M-U gets one god damn spell per motherfucking day. They can't even create magic scrolls to store spells until level 7 (if you use general 1e wisdom). In B/X, a M-U must be level 9 to create a scroll or magic item.

Let's drive home this point a little bit more. A M-U cannot even read a magic scroll without casting the spell Read Magic. Which means, as a first level caster, if you don't take Read Magic as your one and only spell, then you can't read scrolls.

"I'm glad I didn't choose Magic Missile instead of Read Magic. I was able to cast Read Magic so I could read that Magic Missile scroll and save the party from that one orc!"

The pushback is obvious and widely-screamed: If you can't think of anything else to do other than cast spells then you suck at this game.

That's fine. Except it's a fantasy game and I came on my Friday night with but one dream: to be a motherfuckin' wizard. And here you got me casting Read Magic and hiding behind the dwarf.

I beseech you, my OSR friends: don't visit this hell upon players. Unless you know for a fact that the person who wants to be a wizard both understands these limitations and LIKES IT, you gotta house rule that shit. And there's a lot of fine, fine house rules out there you can use to fix this broken-ass setup. For example, Magic-Users in your game can...

• Read any scroll.

• Create scrolls and magic items, per the Magical Research rules, starting at first level.

• Cast 3 additional first level spells per day in addition to what's on the spell slot table. Call it baseline training.

• Use any weapon they care to pick up, but if it's not allowed by the rules-as-written, then they get a -3 to hit. No biggie.

• Detect the presence of magic in a device or an area, perhaps by making a simple Intelligence check. You don't have to tell them what the magic is, just that they "get a vibe" off it.

• Possess one trivial magic item at character creation. It's their signature thing, like a hat that returns to them or an unseen hand that carries their sack. I promise you it will not break your fragile dungeon ecosystem.

Ok, this is all just a little bit tongue-in-cheek. But it's also true. If you can't save the Thief class at least pull the Magic-User up from the darkness.

Black Pudding 7

Finally, it is HERE. Black Pudding 7.

This issue features the following awesomeness.

Character Classes:

Rat Bastard

Iggy (by David Okum)

Flamer

Eyeball

Monsters:

Rocky

Grave Crusader

Dracowisp

Tyrano-X

Queen of the Dark Light

And the rest of the issue is a gazetteer of Yria, the setting of Black Pudding. It is an iteration of Pan-Gea. The five cities described, many areas sketched out, lots of random tables.

Go!

Beakadon

Here's a sketch and a monster block for Doomslakers B/X.

Beakadon

Armor Class: 5 [14]

No. Enc: 2d6

Hit Dice: 3 (14 hp)

Save: F3

Move: 50’

Morale: 9

Attacks: 1 x beak or kick

Treasure Type: Nil

Damage: 1d8 or 1d6

Alignment: Neutral

XP: 65

These tall creatures walk on long, thin legs, their bulbous eyes keeping constant watch for danger (they can only be surprised on a roll of 1 on 1d6). They navigate swamps and ponds and leap over small walls or obstacles with ease, even when carrying a rider. They will kick to defend themselves, reaching as far as a polearm. But once the threat is closer they will strike with their savage, sharp beak. If a beakadon scores a natural 20 on a beak attack, something on the target will be broken (helmet, shield, armor, weapon, etc.). In the case where the target has no items other than clothing, they will lose the use of a random limb for 1 day (roll 1d4 to determine).

Beakadons are easily trained to carry riders or gear and cost twice as much as a horse. Even wild beakadons can be quickly trained to carry a mount. But when attempting to ride one for the first time, the PC must make a Charisma check. If the check fails, the creature will attack the PC. This will continue until the check is made.

The meat of this animal is delicious and sweet. It is highly valued in regions where the creature is not native. But in lands where beakadons roam wild, it is considered to be bad luck to eat them.

The Original Backstabber

When I talk about fixing the B/X D&D Thief class for Doomslakers B/X I'm not really talking about changing it too much. At least that's not what I want to do. This is why I don't embrace any of the more radical changes such as gutting the entire percentile system out of it.

No, what I want is to use the original class pretty much as-is, but layer on some additional perks and options that make the class more appealing and fun to play. I know a lot of people will argue that it's fun to play the original Thief without any house rules, and that's fine if it's your jam. Personally I just don't want to play a fantasy character who has a 10% chance to do the one thing they are "good" at doing. And I am really not sure why the original designers went with such a dreadful way of thinking. Maybe they assumed very low level play would be only a tiny portion and most people would play at over 10th level? I dunno. In my experience most people play between 1 and 9.

Anyway... I've mentioned a shitload of Thief house rules, because it's fairly easy to house rule this game into the stone age. But for Doomslakers I really want to keep that class unchanged as much as possible.

So my current thinking is that the setting itself will provide the layers of perks and house rules. It is a setting book, after all, not a generic manual. So when you roll up a Doomslakers Thief you'll choose a Guild and there are only a small number of Guilds in the world. Each has its own secrets. So the Guild you pick will modify your base skill ratings and grant you certain additional perks. THIS SHIT IS FUN.

Why do I want to avoid changing the original classes? Particularly the class tables...

Because Doomslakers B/X is a love letter, if I'm being completely saccharine. It is meant to be a 64 page saddle stitched book you can use in direct conjunction with the original game books (or OSE, Lab Lord, etc... you know the drill). It is a resource for that game not an altogether new game. It stems from the B/X 64 Challenge from the G+ days where I suggested that people should try to create a B/X supplement in 64 pages within 6 months (or something like that).

Alternate Ability Rolling Method

Here's something for Black Pudding 7. I haven't used this in play, but of course I played around with it myself and kinda dig it. Maybe it's not new, I'm not sure. I hadn't seen it.

This method does not get you a nice bell curve. For example, it's far easier to get an 18 since it is a 1 in 8 chance. If I was "gaming the system" with this, I'd just always roll that d8. Which, of course, is totally valid. It's your choice. You aren't breaking anything

Just rolling the d4 all the way gives you an average PC that has no negative and three +1 stats... which is pretty nice too.

EDIT: I posted this in haste from an old thing I forgot about and it has shitty formatting so you should ignore it. I didn't proofread bc nobody got time for that.

Doomslakers Elf

For the Doomslakers B/X book, my Elf class tweaks are kind of like this.

1. Lawful Elves are the keepers of tradition and knowledge, very concerned with preservation of history and continuity of the world. They are very tall, often lean. Like creepy long and alien in some ways. Maybe called "high elves".

2. Chaotic Elfs (not spelled "elves") are absolutely not concerned with that shit. They are very short and have a preference for the physical pleasures. Maybe called "low elfs".

3. Neutral Elves don't have a dog in the fight and tend to be slightly shorter than humans.

Lawfuls and Chaotics also have minor tweaks to ability scores but otherwise the class is unchanged.

This is in contrast to the Magic-User, which is significantly changed. Current plan is to replace it with the Wizard class but honestly that's just semantics. We'll see.

GAZ

Some thoughts about setting. Also, last post of 2021. Hope you are having a good New Year!

The gazetteer of the Known World from X1: The Isle of Dread is a little over 1,200 words. At the time of this writing, the gazetteer portion of Doomslakers B/X is a little under 1,200 words. I am not sure what this means. How much is too much? How much is too little? When it comes to campaign setting material, this is a matter of taste and often strong opinion.

My opinion has always leaned into less-is-more. I buy RPG books based on a few criteria and one of them is that they not be overwhelming. If the book is thick enough to deal 1d6 hit points of damage I probably won’t pick it up. My sweet spot really is the saddle-stitch realm of 32-96 pages, with a very strong (irrationally strong) love for 64 pages. If you can’t fit your idea into 64 pages then you might need to do some brutal editing. Just my opinion, for me personally.

Why? Because my time is limited, my attention span is limited, and I don’t enjoy treasure-hunting for a rule or reference in a 300 page monster of a book. I like succinct, but with style. I like brevity, but with character. The Basic and Expert rule books are excellent examples of brevity and usefulness, especially Expert since it also includes much from Basic. Star Fronters’ Expanded Rules is another classic example of delivering the goods in 64 pages.

(Aside: I do enjoy massive catalog style books, though. Here I’m really just referring to core settings and/or rule books. But if you make a 500 page monster catalog I’ll be into it. I don’t have to read it all, I can find inspiring bits and use them as I wish.)

X1 describes 16 distinct areas on a single page and includes a cool drawing of The Broken Lands by Jeff Dee. X1 gives us bare-bones descriptions. It's a beautiful little gem of world-building because it is so simple. A map coupled with some descriptions of entire nations that clock in at 100 words or less… enough to get any campaign started, with a little imagination and elbow grease from a dedicated DM. That’s pretty much the heart of old school gaming.

Of course D&D took the Known World much farther with the publication of 14 Gazetteers and a box set. Probably hundreds of thousands of words in total. Too much? Yes. Way too much, for me. I appreciate that those books exist and I own a few of them but I wouldn’t use them in any campaign. I’d steal from them though. And I have.

But I think you can do more complex settings than what is in X1. I mean, 1,200 words is perhaps a little too bare-bones. I was thinking of Yoon-Suin as a great example of a rich and complex setting that is at the same time very simple and easy to use. Because the book is composed almost entirely of random tables, it means the book isn’t prescriptive. You don’t have to know all the history and lore because you are generating it each time you use that book. I love that approach.

Another example of excellent world-building is found in Barrowmaze. The setting is small and laser focused on tomb raiding. The book is well organized and gives you all you need to run a campaign. It fits into an existing world easily or you can run it without referencing the outside world at all. Meaty and lean.

The setting of Mork Borg is a good example of image-first world-building. The details are less important than the vibe. This is the kind of setting you can pick up and run without having spent more than ten minutes examining it first. Bare-bones, but highly evocative. As if you took the text of X1’s gazetteer and reformatted it with art and layout to make it look sick.

For Doomslakers B/X there will be a lot more than 1,200 words. The book is a campaign setting, after all. But I’ll still fit the rules tweaks, new content (spells, monsters, magic items), and gazetteer into 64 pages – with art.

Umbrashade

 

Umbrashade, +2 Sword: User can see clearly in any darkness. Infernals take max damage on every hit. 1/day, user can cast Darkness of dispel it. If sword exposed to light more than 3 rounds in a row, user must save vs. Wands or the sword crumbles to dust.

Perhaps a million years ago the great Shadow Knight of Darkmirth, in their war against demons, drew Umbrashade from the obsidian mountain far beneath the city and imbued it with the Knight’s own will. The sword remained true and hard for centuries until the city fell to ruin. Now Umbrashade itself is falling into ruin and must be kept hidden away in darkness, locked in a magically sealed tomb somewhere in that black city.

Gootmaul

Gootmaul, +1 war hammer, +2 vs. reptiles: User can cast Fear, Snake Charm, or Hold Person 1/day. Weapon speaks a Contact Outer Plane spell 1/week, but user must make an offering to strange gods first. Speaks its mind when it chooses.

Deep in the Ovens of the Earth, where orcs are spawned on the regular from the passing of demons, there roamed a pack of giant snakes. These snakes were called Igg, Zind, and Broo and other than being smarter than the average serpent they were self-assured of their dominance. Though few mourned the swallowing hole of many orcs, some orcs took issue with the situation. The little-known Orc hero Bant Brashlin, an accomplished metalworker, took to the forge and, with the help of unknown magics, emerged a year later brandishing Gootmaul. Within three weeks the three dreadful snakes of the Ovens were smashed to pulp.

Battlevolf

 Battlevolf, +1 mace, +2 vs. Lawful: Smashes doors open on a 1-4 on 1d6. The mace’s head speaks with Chaotic creatures and bites Lawful creatures trying to wield it. It vomits acid as a Magic Missile once per day. The user suffers -1 on Reaction Rolls except with Chaotics.

The powers of Chaos give rise to many faces, many weapons of war. Battlevolf, an agent of Chaos, is one such weapon and its willingness to serve the cause is unquestionable. It will tell any who listen that it was forged a million, billion years ago and that it desires to wade through gore.

Wingsbane

Wingsbane, +1 battle axe, +2 vs. flying: On a Critical Hit vs. a flying target, the target is grounded for 1d4 rounds and must Save vs. Paralysis or their ability to fly is destroyed. The user can understand the languages of flying creatures.

Forged on the peak of Old Gnarly in the Rock Hardy Mountains, this axe was made for the purpose of killing wyverns. According to legend, the dwarfs at that time were engaged in a massive war with an army of wyverns lead by a cunning and powerful wyvern master. With the aid of Wingsbane, the wyvern master was brought down and since that day wyverns have not been prone to or receptive of organization and are merely flying, meat-hungry pests.

 

Eccentricities of Oddly Met NPCs

 When your PCs run into a strange NPC.

River Tickler

River Tickler, +1 sword, +2 vs. aquatic: The user of this flamberge can swim like a fish and can breathe water for 6 turns 1 time per day. Aquatic monsters will always attack the wielder of this sword first.

The Wizard known only as The Dolphin used this blade for many years on her exploits along the Waving Wyvern River before she was eaten by the terrible Helligator.

 

Slowpoke

Slowpoke, 1+ short sword: Each round the user waits to attack, add +1 to hit or to damage. On a Critical Hit, the target must Save vs. Poison or take 1d6 damage per round for 1d6 further rounds.

Among the Goblin peoples, patience is not a virtue. But the Goblin hero Gog the Looming (he was almost 5' tall) prided themselves on being a patient warrior. After Gog aided the wizard Gim, the old magician repaid him with the gift of a sword with patience to spare. Unfortunately for Gog, he waited too long in a battle with the Elf assassin Lier Landor and died a mere month later.

Cascade

 

Cascade, +1 Sword: Each consecutive hit after the first deals +1 additional damage. Any missed attack deals 1 point of damage to the user. 1/day, the user may speak to the sword's devil spirit as if by the Commune spell (1 question, 20% chance it is a lie).

Stormdriver Thornheart, one of the greatest of the old dwarf forgers, was challenged by a powerful and mysterious hero to make a weapon that could contain his dark soul's fury. He then heaped sacks of gold upon the table and added "If it is within your skill to do so." Thornheart, being a proud artisan, immediately agreed. When the forging was finished and the dweomers sealed, the dark stranger marveled at the blade's beauty. "And now" said the dark hero, "let us see if it can contain the fury of my soul." The dwarf's final payment was the full length of Cascade in his heart. The sword drank, the eyes of the pommel glowed, the enchantment was complete.

I Fight!

The Fighter.

I haven't posted as much about this class as others, mostly because they are pretty cool as is. I did post some simple house rules here though.

Of all the basic classes, the Fighter is perhaps the most meat-and-potatoes. The B/X Fighter's benefits are basically this:

1. Best attack values, along with Dwarfs and Halflings of course*

2. No weapon or armor restrictions

3. Can use the fuck out of magic swords

4. Best hit die, along with Dwarfs of course

For Doomslakers B/X I have really struggled to articulate this class. Because there are two competing things going on. First, you can add tons and tons of house rules to make Fighters much cooler. But the aesthetic of B/X leans toward simplicity and I'm trying to embrace that way. So I do not want a ton of fiddly bits. I want Fighters to be as unchanged from the original game as possible. They need to be simple.

That being said, here's my fairly simple additions to the B/X Fighter class for Doomslakers B/X.

Weapon Bonus

Fighters are particularly good with a single type of weapon, gaining +1 to hit and to damage when using weapons of that type. Choose between: axes, bows, daggers, swords, or other.

At every fourth level (4, 8, 12) the Fighter gains the same bonus in a different category.

Crits & Momentum

Upon scoring a Critical Hit, a Fighter can immediately attack again if there is a target within range. Also, when a Fighter slays a target they can immediately attack another target that is within range due to their killing momentum.

Battle Moves

A Fighter can declare a stunt or special battle move before making an attack roll. If the attack hits, no damage is dealt but the maneuver succeeds. For example, a Fighter can disarm their opponent, kick a brick loose to topple some stones, or some other equally cool stunt. The GM will consider the difficulty and utility of the stunt and apply an attack roll penalty as they see fit.

If a Battle Move causes a ruckus that could cause damage to foes, the GM may grant Saving Throws vs. Paralysis for the affected enemies. The damage dealt should be modest (generally 1d6). For example, knocking over a large statue into a throng of charging guards might deliver 1d6 points of damage to any guard failing to make the Save.

(Battle Moves were presented in Black Pudding #4. Clearly this is inspired by DCC RPG's Mighty Deeds mechanic, but also it flows naturally from game mechanics such as Feats, which are quite common. The genius of Mighty Deeds is to disentangle the idea of a Feat from it's spell-like clarity into a more creative outlet.)

*Though it does SUCK MUCH that all PCs attack with the same values for 3 levels. It would have made more sense and been more elegant if Fighters started with a slight advantage in this area. For a one shot game, this means playing a fighter is not the best pick, even if you wanna fight. Better to choose Elf. Sure, the hit points are SLIGHTLY less but you have the exact same fighting prowess otherwise AND you get a magic spell. But I digress...

Straightedge

 

Straightedge, +1 sword, +2 vs. chaotic: Lawful blade cannot be drawn by Chaotic users. User can repair mundane item or heal 1d6+1 damage, 1/day each.

No one knows the origin of this perfectly straight, pristine blade. It’s first recorded use was in a great battle between Nylar and Skyler just before their fall. Since then, stories abound of heroes tiring of theft and murder in their homelands and taking up Straightedge to deal out justice. Then, as quickly as the sword appears, it vanishes again. Could it be that the sword has a purpose known only to itself and uses Lawful warriors to its own ends?

Cutting Lass

 

Cutting Lass, +1 sword: Re-roll 1s when rolling damage. Cuts bonds such as chains or door hinges in 2 rounds. On a hit, deal max damage automatically, 1/day.

No Elf of Summertop was quite as well-known as Misty Morn Nighthand, a steadfast defender of The Great Stump. Neither aligned with Law or Chaos, Misty was known to cut through the manure of diplomacy with a steely edge. During the invasion of Summertop by the menacing army of dark Wizard - and former lover of Misty Morn Nighhand - Thrall Omvar, Misty and her trusty blade disappeared. Even as his head was removed from his body, Thrall Omvar merely smiled when asked what became of her.