The Fighter WIP

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I've been lax on posting my work on this blog, mostly focused on running my weekly game. At this point I rarely make new rules, just mostly rewriting and formatting. One change I have made is to make the choice of a specialization to follow occur earlier at 4th level instead of name level. It doesn't make a huge difference because in practical terms the pattern I'm following is give out one ability specific to the specialization at 4th(such as use spell scrolls for thieves) and everything else at name or higher. The reasons for doing this are varied, but it boils down to giving players choice. Back during the 5e playtest, D&D Next, one of the things I always liked about the rules presented was the whole idea of waiting to choose a subclass until 3rd level, now the published rules were less consistent on when this happened for specific classes, but the idea of starting with something basic and then building complexity as you level was always appealing to me. We already have this to some degree in Classic D&D with the proto-prestige classes of the Companion Set, and so for a while I was happy to leave it at that for a while. In building more of these specialist classes for my players, I've found a solution is to let the classes specialize earlier  to keeping them from branching out too far to the point where they need to to be their own class altogether before they are tied down to a single archetype. This way I can keep the low level classes relatively few in number and broad in scope, mid and high tier characters can be more specialized. I'm making the break at level 4 because that point is already built into Classic D&D with the Basic and Expert Sets, so we can have have Basic classes that go from level 1-3, and Expert classes that go from level 4-36. 

So with that, I've kinda been focusing on rewriting the Basic classes to fit this new model. My plan is to have a small booklet for each class(the fighter book, the cleric book, the rogue book, etc) presenting the Basic Class and all the Expert Classes available at level 4. I've just finished redoing the basic fighter, and the first fighter expert class, The Hero. The Hero is your default weapon master fighter (I was going to use the name Man-At-Arms until just this last week I remembered the level title for a 4th level fighter is Hero and liked it better as the example of the standard fighter progression), next I need to do the crusader(the paladin), the avenger, the ranger , the berserker, and I have a few other ideas. but meanwhile here is what I got so far:

For info on the ability requisites read this post.  For weapon specialization and weapon mastery, I will have to make a separate post, but essentially I took the To Hit bonuses from weapon mastery and and separated them it into a separate ability called weapon specialization(somewhat inspired by AD&D). All classes get weapon specialization at different levels, and only fighters have access to weapon mastery. Its a topic for another time. 

 The special abilities of the Hero are pretty much all taken from the Fighter Combat Options in the Companion set with a few tweaks. 

Cleave is a combination of the Smash ability and the ability of the fighter in OD&D to make multiple attacks against mooks, I've found this to be a good balance in play without giving out completely unlimited attacks. 

Defend is just a renaming of Parry, and I turned into a deflect ability instead of an AC bonus for the same reason I made that exact same change to the weapon mastery charts; basically I want AC to be mostly an aspect of armor, and if the weapon is doing the defending I want the gameplay to reflect that. 

Disarm is pretty much unchanged

Multiple Attacks is also pretty much unchanged. For a while I was having multiple attacks by both PCs and monsters only apply to separate targets, if you had 2 attacks you couldn't attack the same person twice. I was doing this to represent the abstractedness of combat in dnd, but it really ended up being a complication that wasn't worth it in gameplay, so I've gone back to the old method in the last few months.

Fighting Styles is something I came up with to give more options in weapon mastery, for those that might want to not just specialize in a single weapon. I first floated the idea in May of 2023. And its seen some playtesting in my game(not every style though) but I've been a bit unsure of if I wanted to make it available to every PC or just fighters. With this redesign of the Fighter I am satisfied with making it exclusive to the Hero Expert Class, though I may give certain styles as a bonus ability to other Expert Classes(like Swashbuckler rogue class will have Dirty Fighting). Fighting Styles allows different flavors of fighter without having to create a whole new subclass/Expert Class. Want to play a mounted warrior? Play a Hero with the Lancer Fighting Style, no need to make a million Horse related Feats or non-sensical magical overpowered abilities(looking at you, Cavalier). I'm still thinking of adding a Marksman fighting style for archers(though I do like the idea of the Hero being more melee focused, maybe leave the archery to the Ranger), and am still open for other options if they occur to me, but think I've covered good variety

And as a teaser, this is the description I've written for the Crusader: "A Fighter may join a Crusading Order out of piety, or as a way to atone for a past life of sin. No matter the reason for their devotion, a Crusader acts as the earthly power that spreads the message of The Church."

Delvers and Denizens: Gnomes

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I reskin halflings and dwarves as different varieties of gnomes for reasons discussed here. Halflings are garden gnomes, dwarves are mountain gnomes, and regular old dnd gnomes are forest(also sometimes called hill) gnomes. I really haven't altered any of these classes all that much. Lets go through the minor details in my version of these classes: 

I didn't mention it when going over the elves, but I gave each demihuman class the same weapon mastery as fighters, which for my version of weapon mastery gives one new mastery at every level; with their level caps I see nonreason to restrict their fighting ability, demihuman adventurers are basically all fighters anyway. 

I also gave all gnomes what I'm calling the "Burrower" ability, which is just the old dwarven ability to detect underground construction; all gnomes get this because every type of gnome makes their homes underground, though their typical profession and lifestyle may differ they all live in burrowers underground. 

All gnomes also receive the same hearing bonus as elves, as they have always been depicted with pointy ears. I just felt that was more in line with any fiction depicting halflings, gnomes, or dwarves, they always have more acute senses than humans.

Garden Gnomes:  other than what is outlined above, they are the same as in the original BX rules. One thing to note is their lack of night vision(which I use instead of infravision for humanoids). This means they are diurnal like humans and work during the day, all other gnomes have night vision and thus are nocturnal, and so less encountered by men. Of all the gnomes, garden gnomes are the ones most often seen by the day-dwelling men of the surface.

Mountain Gnomes: I gave them the same bonus to ac as garden gnomes, because they may not be quite as small, they are still short and most of this sub species wont measure up to even the shortest men. I also gave them the Cleave fighter ability because of all the demihumans dwarves were always portrayed as the most ferocious and fighting-focused.

Forest Gnomes: I use the version presented in the OSE Advanced Genre rules almost verbatim. As with elves, gnomes get an inborn magic called fae sorcery with a modified spell list 

Delvers and Denizens: Elves

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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

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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.

Delvers and Denizens: Fighters

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My version of the fighter is essentially the same as that presented in B/X or BECMI. Though I have made a few minor changes. 

I use a modified version of Weapon Mastery, which I've rolled into level training, so there is no longer a need to train for weapons separate from leveling up. Along with this, I've beefed up the fighters weapon training so that they get 1 new weapon mastery level at each level. though I have limited them to a skill cap based on level to stop them from just being grandmaster at early levels.

The other changes I've made are to the fighter combat options:

Cleave - available at 4th level this replaces the old 'smash' maneuver, lose initiative and must wield 2 handed weapon, apply -5 to hit in exchange for adding Strength score to damage, if kill foe then can attack another foe

Parry - the only change I made was to make this available at 4th level

Disarm - kept this at 9th level and just changed the save. Instead of making a DEX check, the victim of the disarm simply makes a Save vs Wands. so the fighter rolls to hit, the foe makes a saving throw vs wands adjusted by the DEX mod of the fighter(the save should already be adjusted by the victim's dex)

Multiple Attacks - made this available at 9th level, lets the fighter attack up to 2 opponents(and eventually 3 at 12th or maybe 15th level) at once, but not 2 attacks on the same opponent. I make this distinction to represent how I envision the abstraction of combat, the 2 sides are making multiple moves each round, and the to hit roll represents if any damage was caused from any of those multiple strikes; the attack roll doesn't represent a single sword swing, it represents whether a significant wound was caused. 

Dual Wielding - available at 4th level, I've changed how this works a number of times, because I couldn't come up with something I was satisfied with while adhering to the design principles of Classic D&D. I wasn't quite happy with my most recent iteration, so decided to look The Riddle of Steel RPG, which gave me the inspiration to tweak it to something that I'm finally happy with. 

So first the fighter must be weilding medium sized or shorter weapons; unarmed attacks with the fists or feet and shields can also be used as offhand weapons. Then the fighter must make a choice of how they want to use the offhand weapon. There are 3 basic maneuvers. 1) is the double attack where they simply attack with both weapons, this calls for separate attack rolls and damage rolls, but each roll to hit is done with Disadvantage. 2) is the Bind where the offhand weapon is used to control the weapon of the Foe. A normal attack roll is made with the offhand weapon, and if a hit is made any damage rolled is applied as a penalty to the Foe's AC for 1 round. 3) the last option is to use the offhand purely defensively to simply Deflect(or block if a shield) an incoming attack using the standard weapon mastery maneuver. 4) the fighter could use the weapon to perform a special maneuver if they have weapon mastery in the offhand weapon

Tinkering with Vancian Magic-Users

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I was thinking about how I could modify the rules for vancian spellcasting I outlined here more to my liking.

Here's an idea, the number of spell points, let's call it mental facility, still uses the D&D spells/level chart, but is limited by the magic-user's intelligence. So, a magic-user with 10 INT would be limited to the 1st level spell column, an 11 INT would add the 1st and 2nd level spell columns together, a 12 INT would combine the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd columns together, and so on. so intelligence would play a role in what level of spell could be cast, but it is not limiting it directly. Here's a chart:

	Mental Facility
Level	10 INT	11 INT	12 INT	13 INT	14 INT	15 INT	16 INT	17 INT	18 INT
1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
3	2	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
4	2	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6
5	2	6	9	9	9	9	9	9	9
6	2	6	12	12	12	12	12	12	12
7	3	7	13	17	17	17	17	17	17
8	3	9	15	23	23	23	23	23	23
9	3	9	18	26	31	31	31	31	31
10	3	9	18	30	40	40	40	40	40
11	4	10	19	31	41	47	47	47	47
12	4	12	24	36	46	52	52	52	52
13	4	12	24	36	46	58	58	58	58
14	4	12	24	40	55	67	67	67	67
15	5	13	25	41	56	68	75	75	75
16	5	15	30	46	61	73	87	87	87
17	6	16	31	47	67	85	99	99	99
18	6	16	31	47	67	85	99	107	107
19	6	16	31	51	71	89	103	119	119
20	6	16	31	51	71	95	116	132	132
21	6	16	31	51	71	95	116	132	141
22	6	18	33	53	78	102	123	139	157
23	6	18	36	60	85	109	130	154	172
24	7	21	39	63	88	118	146	170	188
25	7	21	39	63	88	118	146	178	205
26	7	21	42	66	96	126	161	193	220
27	7	21	42	66	96	126	161	201	237
28	8	24	45	69	99	135	177	217	253
29	8	24	45	73	108	144	186	226	271
30	8	24	48	76	111	153	195	243	288
31	8	24	48	76	111	153	202	150	304
32	9	25	49	81	121	163	212	268	322
33	9	27	54	86	126	174	223	279	342
34	9	27	54	90	130	178	234	298	361
35	9	27	54	90	135	189	245	309	381
36	9	27	54	90	135	189	252	324	405

To prepare a spell beyond their Mental Facility the magic-user must make an ability check versus Intelligence with a penalty equal to the spell level.

Still not sure what to do for miscasting spells, I'd like to get rid of adding extra dice rolling. On the other hand maybe it fits, as my modification of Clerical casting also requires dice rolling. Maybe I should only require a check for miscasting when the spell is interrupted or when casting a spell of a higher level than the magic-user's level? Hmmm . . .

Ok, I think I got it; a magic-user only needs to roll to see if they miscast up to certain levels. this is based on the spell/level chart and when a new spell level is given. So they no longer check for miscasting 1st level spells when reaching their 3rd caster level. 2nd level spells are automatically cast upon attaining 5th level. 3rd level spells are automatically cast upon attaining 7th level. 4th level spells are automatically cast upon attaining 9th level. 5th level spells are automatically cast upon attaining 11th level. 6th level spells are automatically cast upon attaining 15th level. 7th level spells are automatically cast upon attaining 18th level. 8th level spells are automatically cast upon attaining 21st level. 9th level spells are automatically cast upon attaining 26th level (beginning of the Master Set and quest for Immortaility).

Also instead of chances to Miscast based on percentile, I think it would be easier to us a Saving Throw vs Spells. The penalties would remain basically the same, 1 point per spell level, 2 points per AC granted by armor or shield, and each Intelligence score modifier point (+1 to +3) would give a bonus. The spell backfires instead of fizzling out if the roll lands on the Saving Throw number. Also, if a spell is interrupted it is automatically miscast, at which point a failure to Save vs Spells results in the spell backfiring.

Now I'm satisfied with the system, and I think I will use it. I feel it represents the fiction well, while still retaining the simplicity and essence of the D&D ruleset.