Delvers and Denizens: Elves

Go to the Delvers and Denizens Index

I include 2 basic versions of the elf in my games, the Sylvan Elf and the Water Elf. The Sylvan Elf is the version introduced in the Basic rules and lives in the forest and is reclusive, while the Water Elf is from the gazetteer to Minrothad being seafarers and traders and much more common in human cities. The Sylvan Elf has several ethnicities; the wood, the grey, the high, the wild, the green. There are a few changes to the sylvan elf:

• I expanded the immunity to ghoul paralysis to any undead special effect such as the mesmerizing gaze of a vampire, and mummy rot. This gives elves and inherent advantage over undead
• I also expanded their secret door detection to the general ability to search for room traps, I see these as basically the same thing
• I codified the fact that elves are supposed to have good hearing, giving them a 2/6 to hear noise and a 1/6(as opposed to humans 2/6) chance to be surprised
• I switched out infravision for night vision, ala eyes like a cat. This also means elves are nocturnal. I've done this for most demi-humans, I do keep infravision for creatures that actually live completely underground.
• and I switched up how elves cast spells, I call it Fae Sorcery. This is a natural inborn ability that elves just learn to do like walking; they do not have study books and memorize spells like humans to cast them. In reality, much of human magic is an attempt to recreate the magic of the fae. Basically elves and other fae descended creatures can cast spells at will but gain fatigue in doing so and gain spells they know by meditating when they level up. I also require that when casting a spell each elf has a unique "twitch" that triggers the spell, such as wiggling the nose or the ears, snapping the fingers, clicking their tongue, blinking or winking, etc. Elves have access to a spell list first shown here

Water Elves, as sylvan elves with a the addition of:

•  Direction Sense which allows them to know the cardinal directions if outside, this ability is important to any seaman and serves to separate the cultures of the two types of elves
• and Navigation Sense allowing the elf to know the cardinal direction of a place they have been to before. This is paired with direction to give the Water Elves a reputation as skilled navigators.
• their spell list is also modified to reflect their watery environment based on the Minrothad gazetteer. 

Delvers and Denizens: Rogues

Go to the Delvers and Denizens Index

In Delvers and Denizens I have opted to use the modern name for this class, Rogue, as opposed to Thief, because one of the advanced classes associated will be the Master Thief. So Rogue is a more general term that encompasses many activities, while thief would be a specialization of the rogue class; some of the other advanced classes would be Assassin, Spy, Swashbuckler, etc.

Again, as the fighter, this is essentially the same as in the core rules(using the progression in BX and OSE as opposed to BECMI or the RC), with a few clarifications on the Rogue skills:

For Climb Sheer Surfaces a 30% penalty is applied if partially encumbered, and a 60% penalty for encumbered. this references my encumbrance rules which I'll discuss at some point, but could also be used with most encumbrance systems. The basic rationale is that its hard to rock climb while carrying a lot of stuff(think of the scene in princess bride when andre the giant is slower than the man in black).

Hide in Shadows requires the rogue to be in cover, whether that is deep shadows, hiding behind a tree, or rock, or furniture. the thief must actually be hidden, they cant just disappear while standing in plain sight. of course this means that if there is no cover available, they can't hide. This stipulation will also apply to the hiding ability of other classes(garden gnomes aka halflings).

Move Silently requires that the rogue be unencumbered, it's hard to be silent while carrying a lot of stuff. This is why most rogues wear light or no armor. In general Delvers and Denizens is less proscriptive than the original rules; outright bans are replaced by disincentives. 

Pick Pockets allows for more than just picking someone's pocket, it covers any general case of sleight of hand or legerdemain. 

For Hear Noise I've rolled searching for room traps(as opposed to treasure traps, as explained in OSE) and secret doors into the same category. These are all things any PC can do, the Rogue is just better and gradually improves as they gain levels.

Traps includes the setting of treasure traps and not just detecting and disarming. I also allow this roll to be repeated ad infinitum, so essentially the player is rolling to see how long it takes to detect or remove a trap, not if it is possible. However each reroll entails a 2/6 chance of setting off the trap, so there is some danger involved.

I also allow Open Locks to be repeated, so that the roll is a test of how much time it takes to pick the lock. Any roll of 100 always results in failure, jamming the lock with a broken pick, breaking the locking mechanism etc. The standard % roll is to pick the lock in a single round, but if the rogue wants to be sure of success (and has the time) they may take a full turn(10 minutes) to pick the lock and automatically succeed as long as they don't roll 100. Of course the chances of success both in a round or a turn can be adjusted based on the quality of the lock.

For Backstab I added the clarification the victim must be humanoid in form as the rogue would be trained to know the best places to kill a human, and not some non-human beast.

I exchanged the ability to Read Languages with the Encryption ability. I think it fits with the rogue theme better, it still allows the rogue to 'read languages' simply hidden ones instead of spoken languages. Basically this allows the deciphering of encrypted material or the rogue can do the encryption themselves. This ability includes forgeries, coded messages, special inks, etc.

I got rid of the Scroll Use ability of rogues because I don't think it fits with the theme of other mundane abilities a rogue has access to. Also, based on my revising of Vancian Casting, anyone can memorize a grimoire and cast a spell, with a certain degree of risk involved. I thought about replacing this ability with something else, but haven't been able to think of anything appropriate and that mirrors the ability like encryption does for read languages.