Preview: Entire Interior of the Basic Psionics Handbook

I still have to do a final proofread, and finish the back cover illustration, but all the interior illustrations are in place. I figured that was close enough to being finished that I'd tease you all with a complete preview of the entire interior of the Basic Psionics Handbook. If all goes well, the PDF will be available starting Monday the 26th.

It only took 35 years (New BX Monster: The Intelligent Wooly Rhino)

34 years ago, I purchased my first every RPG product... what has since come to be known as "Cook Blue," though I prefer call it "Cook/Marsh Blue." This was the product that started it all for me (apart from the friend who introduced me to the concept while waiting for a Mardi Gras parade to pass earlier that year). This past year, there were a couple of key highlights during my time at the North Texas RPG Con. One of them was meeting Steve Marsh, the guy who wrote the majority of that very same book. The time he took to sit with me at the con and share his kind words about my Three Castles award-winning Valley of the Five Fires is among my fondest gaming-related memories.

Partly spurred on by that encounter, and partly spurred on my long-intended want of a BX psionics system, I started the quest to do the latter in earnest a few months back. My mystic class, and the inclusion of a "Planar Primer" and "Planar Travel Guide" in my Basic Psionics Handbook, are built on a vision for a plane-traveling mystic class originally penned by Mr. Marsh, but merged with Gary Gygax's devine class by Tim Kask.

"Psionics were added to D&D as the result of two character classes, the mystic and the devine, that were in process. Mystics were finished, Devines (who used the psionic attack and defense modes) were not. Tim Kask cut the material up and put it into Eldritch Wizardry."

Steve Marsh, November 28, 2005, indie-rpgs.com

During the process of writing the Basic Psionics Handbook, I've occasionally emailed Mr. Marsh to get some clarification or deeper information on statements he's made in previous interviews. So when it came time to write up the monsters for the Basic Psionics Handbook, I just had to do something in response to the following...

"Erol Otus mocked my idea of having the Wooly Rhinos be intelligent, so that got canned (I liked the idea of a potentially psionic group of Rhinos in the far north, coordinating the defense of the herd against predators)."

Steve Marsh speaking about writing the Expert Rulebook,
April 11, 2005, Dragonsfoot.org

So I started writing up an intelligent, psionic-using, wooly rhino... and I passed the drafts by Mr. Marsh, who provided great insight regarding his intentions, and specifically mentioned having them use enfilade and defilade tactics in battle. So I re-wrote the listing a couple of times, sent him the final draft a couple of days ago, and received an email yesterday morning which said simply, "Really well done." (At which point I clenched my fist with a "YES!")

Well, it only took 34 years for this vision to come to life (assuming the idea came about the year before the Expert book was published), but without further ado, I present the Steve Marsh-inspired (and Erol Otus-mocked) intelligent, psionic-using wooly rhino for the BX rules. (BTW, the "rho'tha" name was an invention of mine, but the Xhosa-inspired clicking sound in the middle was Steve's idea).

Borrowing Champions' Damage Model for D&D?

NOTE: 3.5's Unearthed Arcana introduced a similar system to the one outlined below. I have never played 3.0/3.5/4.0, so was unfamiliar with UA's integration of this concept into D&D when conceptualizing and writing the post below, and only found it in retrospect as a result of research for this post. I also believe that the overall mechanics of later D&D editions are substantial enough that the system below would be more in line with OD&D than almost any other edition.

Sometime over the weekend, I had a thought about appropriating Champions' use of Stun/Body points for D&D. If you're not familiar with Champions', it uses a "stun" rating to track the kind of damage that might knock out a character (either through bashing, system overload, or just plain wearing them down), while a "body" rating tracks truly lethal damage. Stun is calculated by adding up all the pips on the damage/effect roll (Champions uses only d6s), and each result of a "6" does 1 body point of damage (in addition to any stun points.)

Here's where my D&D thinking is going right now...

A monster's (or character's) hit points are treated as their stun rating, and their hit dice are treated as their body rating; the stun rating would include hit points modifiers to their hit dice (e.g., the "+2" in "3+2" would be included), but the "body" rating would ignore it (e.g., a 3+2 creature would only have 3 body points). Character hp/HD would work the same.

– a small weapon (e.g., a dagger, an arrow, etc.) would do 1d6
– a medium weapon (mace, sword, axe, etc.) would do 2d6
– a 2-handed/pole weapon (halberd, 2-handed sword, etc.) would do 3d6

Reducing a monster/creature/character to 0 hp (or lower) is simply knocking them unconscious. But reducing their HD to 0 or below would kill them. The number of rounds a creature remains knocked out/unconscious is 1 round per hit point below 0 (e.g., -3 hit points would mean the creature remains unconscious for 3 rounds). Kill shots are automatic for anyone attacking a knocked out creature (basically the same as if they were put to sleep).

In this context, a 5th level MU and a 5th level fighter would take the same number of body points to kill them (after all, they are both rather experienced by this point), but the MU would be knocked out much sooner than the fighter (assuming, of course, an median number of hp rolled on variable HD).

Now, imagine an encounter where a party of first level characters is locked a battle with a bunch of 1HD creatures (e.g., skeletons). The MU is out of spells for the day, so he pulls out his dagger; he's got a decent chance of knocking the skeleton down/out for a bit, but only a 1-in-6 chance of killing it on any successful strike. By comparison, the fighter pulls out his halberd; each time that fighter lands a successful hit on one of those skeletons, he's got a 3x greater chance of killing it.

Healing would have to be re-figured overall. For example, a healing spell would now need to restore a limited number of body points (rather than stun/hit points). And since hit points restore more quickly, healing would be more directly related to body points.

I don't see reduced HD ("body") points affecting attacks. E.g., a 5HD creature would not attack/save as a 4HD creature if reduced from 5 to 4 body points. Experience/ability doesn't go away as these body points are lost.

Thoughts?

Free Oe/1e/BX Mini-adventure: The Hanging Garden (for characters levels 1-3)

Now that April is officially over, and I'm not bound to the A-to-Z schedule (or commitment for that matter), I can finally get back to some non-d30-related stuff. (Don't worry, Fridays are still "d30 Download Days" 'round these parts.)

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago on Google+ that I'd finished my entry into the One Page Dungeon Contest, and that it was inspired by an Arthur Rackham illustration from Malory's Arthurian stories, showing the fallen grail knights hanging from the tree. Honestly, my goal for this year's OPDC was not to win overall, but simply to earn "most macabre" (or something similar). The adventure I designed starts off innocent enough (orcs kidnapping locals and dragging them off into the woods), but something pretty gruesome awaits our heroes. (The title of the adventure should be your clue).

What's linked below are both the one-page version that was submitted to the contest, and the "expanded" 4-page version. There aren't a ton of differences between them, but they expanded version provides some additional color/aid to the DM. For example, a certain encounter in the one-page version simply says "dozens and dozens of carnivorous plants (some ambulatory)." By comparison, the 4-page version provides a 1-page plant monster generator (converted from the d30 Plant Monster Generator I posted a couple of months back on the blog), that allows the DM to quickly create a roster of plants monsters for the encounter. If the Þrymjahellir adventure I posted back in 2012 is any indication, downloads of the the expanded version should outnumber 1-page downloads approximately 2-to-1.

* For the expanded (4-page) version of The Hanging Garden - click here
* For the official OPDC (one-page) version of The Hanging Garden - click here

Free PDF Download: New Monster Worksheet

Since I'm trying to get myself back into "new monster mode" I though I'd develop a New Monster Worksheet that I could use to flesh out new monsters. BTW, have I mentioned this thing is for use when developing new monsters?

I've tried to make it as system flexible as possible, and know that everybody won't use every space on the sheet. E.g., as a BX/LL guy, I like the use of the "Save as" stats for monsters (instead of the 1e "Magic Resistance" stat). Also, I'm not a THAC0 person, but I know some people are.

If you have any thoughts for revision/improvement, please leave a comment below and I'll take them into consideration.

To download a free PDF of the
New Monster Worksheet from MediaFire, click here.

Free "Adventure": The Lost Caverns of Azgot

First off, the reason I put the word "Adventure" in quotes, it's because it's not so much an adventure as it is a locale - a fully-described locale, but generally "empty" in regards to monster and treasure. This was an intended support piece for Valley of the Five Fires, and I still like the story it sets up, but it never really came together as an adventure. I think it's got a pretty cool backstory, but anything I would have stocked it with wouldn't really have fit well in the context of the module, so I dropped it.

Unlike the freebies I usually put up on the Free Downloads page, this one is available from RPGNow, since the last page is a pretty blatant promotion for the complete Valley of the Five Fires module (available in print from Lulu.com, and available in PDF from RPGNow).
BTW, the 5th page is not previewed below, but is pretty much the same as this.

Click here to go to the RPGNow page for
Old School Adventures™ Mini-Module VA1a:
The Lost Caverns of Azgot.

Ogress of Anubis: Free PDF Now Available!

After Welbo and I did a run-through of the adventure Friday night, I realized it had a few holes to be filled. That meant going from 12 pages to 16. So what are you getting now? Information for adapting to different OSR rules editions; adventure background; regional overview (small map + info on villages and wandering monsters); information on the temple compound and its vicinity (including wandering monsters); a detailed map of the temple compound; a 4-page detailed encounter key for the temple compound; new monster (animal mummy w/ 7 variants, statted for Oe/BX/1e); "generic" stats for all monsters and NPCs mentioned in the adventure; 12 pre-generated NPCs w/ details; 10 adventure seeds (for continuing adventures in the area); and 8 additional unkeyed maps (7 tombs, 2 caves, 1 sunken city) for use with the adventure seeds.

And it's abso-freaking-lutely free!
Available at this link from RPGNow.com >>

New preview image below.

Ogress of Anubis: Preview of Free PDF

First off, an apology. I realized as I was trying to put the entire encounter key for this past Monday's map into a blog post, it was going to take a long time to typeset, and wouldn't be terribly user friendly. Since the plan all along was a free PDF of the whole thing (map, encounter key, etc.), that I'd just do a preview of the entire layout today, and then let you know it will be available Monday a.m. for FREE from RPGNow. I'm not even going to do a "pay what you want." I'm simply going to make it free. And then, in about a week, a print version will be available (at cost) from Lulu.

So here's what you get for the incredibly low price of absolutely nothing....
• an adventure that's Oe/BX/1e (and compatible) ready
• page 1: a fancy cover page with vintage clip art!
• page 2: an overview on adapting to editions, and the adventure introduction
• page 3: an area map (no scale), overview of the villages, and wandering monster tables
• page 4: a map of the temple
• pages 5-7: the encounter key for the temple map
• page 8: new monster info for the animal mummy
• page 9: monster stats (for wandering and encounter monsters), and NPC information
• page 10: twelve pre-generated characters, with stats and equipment
• page 11: ten adventure seeds (one of which has variations for every village)
• page 12: the obligatory OGL and © information

And it's all packaged into 12-pages so you can print it on tabloid paper and saddle-stitch. Or let the free PDF help you decide whether it's going to be worth the $5.53 for the fancy Lulu version with the added color cover! Which, by the way, will available the following Monday (July 8) at the same time as... The Valley of the Five Fires. (Huzzah!)