White Box House Rules Part 2: Druids

Druid (only humans and half elf, max 10^th level):

Druids are neutral clerics with their own spell lists they suffer a -10% experience penalty due to extra abilities, which may be somewhat offset by high wisdom (+5% for >15 Wis).  See GM for spell list if you should want to make a druid.  They use only natural armor and limited weapons (dagger, staff, sickle, etc…).  At higher level, druids gain the following powers:

Immunity to fire (1^st): +2 to saves vs. fire

Initiate Powers (2nd): At 2nd level the Druid gains the following abilities; identify pure water, identify plants, identify animals, and pass through overgrowth.

Shape Change (6th): At this level, Druids may take the shape of a mammal, reptile, or bird. The Druid may shape change up to 3 times per day, but is limited to one type (bird, reptile, mammal) per day. The size of the animals the Druid shape changes into ranges from as small as a raven to as large as a bear. Changing from one form to another heals the Druid of 2d6 points of damage previously sustained.

Charm Immunity (6th): Druids at this level are immune to charm spells from woodland or water creatures such as dryads.

*This druid build used much of the detail from Salvatore Macri's White Box Heroes.  It is a really cool document.  I'm planning not to use many of the spells and instead make up my own list, but I used a few of the powers he had used.

S&W House Rules, Part 1: Fighters and Rangers

Fighter

Multiple Attacks:  Instead of the “combat machine” rules as written – Fighter characters will get 2 melee attacks/round at 6^th level.

A player may specialize their character beyond the basic rules system depicted in the core rules – see GM for specific abilities: Swashbuckler, Barbarian, Knight, Archer, “Second-Story” Man/Rogue, etc…

Each specialization will get a few situational bonuses and a few penalties.

Ranger (only humans, half-elf, and elf)

Use wizard exp. Table for advancement, but use the to-hit bonus, HP, and saving throws of a cleric… max 10^th level.  Rangers can get no bonus to exp for high stats.

Rangers are limited to studded leather armor (+3) or lighter armor.  They may use any weapon.  +1 to saving throws vs. death and poison.

Herbal Healing:  given access to rare herbs and time, a ranger can heal 1pt/level to a character once per week.

+1 to all wilderness checks, and +2 to tracking attempts.

Rangers can cast Druid/Wizard spells (they must store their wiz spells in a book):

Ranger Level	Druid Spells	Wizard Spells
2	1
4	2
6	2	1
8	2/1	1
10	2/1/1	1/1

Back to the White Box

After making two characters using the rolemaster rules, our group balked at the magnitude of the endeavor.  We barely have time to play, let alone invest 1-2 hours per player just to generate characters.

It's sad on one hand, because I really wanted to rekindle the joy of Rolemaster for some new players who have never experienced it.  However, I decided to turn back to the direction that I've been progressing.  Heading backward in time, to go forward...

One of my other favorite things about the S&W white box rules is it is so easy to house rule.  I'll be posting up the house rules that I'm using in the next several posts. Most of them are changes to increase survivability in the first few levels.

Here is a quote from Matt Finch at the beginning of the White Box Rules to set the tone of this game:

 "SWORDS & WIZARDRY: WHITEBOX is a fantasy role-playing game. The

rules are extremely short compared to the multi-paged rule libraries required to

play most modern games. Yet, this game contains within itself the soul of

mythic fantasy and the kindling of wonder. The game is powerful because it’s

encapsulated by such a small formula—like a genie imprisoned in the small

compass of an unremarkable lamp."

Potential Variation in Rolemaster

One of my favorite things in Rolemaster Express is the lack of Potential Stats.  Making an average Rolemaster Classic character takes around 45-60 minutes and probably 15 minutes of that is rolling up stats and potential stats, cross-referencing multiple tables as you go.  The Express version saves you nearly all of that 15 minutes.

With Rolemaster express assign a set group of  5 numbers to your primary and development stats.  This is quick and allows you to customize your character.

Adding more variety:

As a house rule, I'm going to allow my players to replace the standard set of 5 numbers:

90,80,75,75,70

with:

95,85,70,60,50

This will give you the ability to get that 1 really great stat at the expense of two others if you wish and will give PC's more options.  I thought about allowing stat point trading, but I think that is almost too flexible and prone to min-maxing.  I will only allow players to swap out either their primary stats or their development stats with this method (not both).

Potential increases:

While I hated the mechanism of "potential" stats, I did like that you could increase your stats during the life of your character.  As another house rule, I'm going to allow players to mark or "star" 3 stats out of 10.  Each time they level their character, if they can roll higher than that stat, they can increase the stat score by 1 pt.  I will probably max this increase out by ~5 pts.  Maybe to allow for some variation I will allow increases of 1d3+4?  If they choose a stat this is really high, it will be hard to increase due to the small chance of rolling high enough.  I may allow PC's to spend a few development points in this case to increase their stats by only 1pt per level.

The Armored Cleric Dilemma

One of the largest struggles I had to overcome to merge Rolemaster to a D&D based gameworld like forgotten realms is why can't Clerics wear metal armor.

After mulling it over for a while I came up with a solution that changes things in an interesting way for me.   Here it is:


It has been two decades since the great disaster, it is remembered as the Time of Troubles. The gods walked amongst men. Their war in the realms nearly destroyed all of Abeir-Toril. In the years after the gods returned to the heavens, the war continued. God slew god, and the demons and devils combined forces and destroyed the new god Cyric. It is rumored that these demons have gained the spark of deity and now walk Fearun as demigods! Rumors of devil worship abound in the far reaches of the realms, some say that demons have wrested control of the entirety of Mulhorand.

A decade ago the gods war ended abruptly, in what is remembered as the Spirit Gasp. Overnight, clerics found it much harder to channel the might of their gods. They were forced to trade metal armor for leathers, and the potency of their spells was far less. Many of the minor gods seemed to fade away overnight, perhaps departing for other realms. The days of the gods meddling in the afairs of men seems like it is over! Some in Faerun cried out, some rejoyced. All could agree that things had changed.

During this retraction of gods, the goddess of magic Mystra gave her life to preserve her weave forever. She bound her weave to the planet, establishing magic power as an essence, forever connected to all living things in Toril. However, without a guiding deity to control magic, areas of wild magic and magic dead zones drift spontaneously througout all of Toril. Wizards throughout the realms have begun meeting and discussing the future of magic at each of the yearly Mage Fairs. Without a god to control things, they have taken the responsibility of preservation of magic.

Now that the Time of Troubles is over, and the overt meddling of the gods a thing of the past (for now), the future of the realms will be decided by the free races. Now is the time for bold heroes to make names for themselves by deeds of sword, and spell!

By extending the Time of Troubles, I was able to: Kill off a bunch of gods that I've never liked away.  Minimize the power of all lesser and intermediate powers - to reduce the number of deities I have to come up with Rolemaster spell lists for.  Explain a larger presence of animists/druids in Faerun.  Explain why clerics have lesser powered spells (I also am removing the life mastery spell list - no Resurrections, period!) and can only cast spells easily if they aren't wearing armor.

What do you think?

Quasi crystals

Gotta love it when Lovecraft is right.

I saw this article in wikipedia about quasicrystals and immediately thought about the Haunter in the Dark.

This is a icosahedral Ho-Mg-Zn crystal grown by chemists in a furnace which is a naturally occuring d12.

Rock on!


 

Refreshing

Yep, I've been gone a long time.  I wasn't really planning on posting here anymore.  Trends in my life have pulled me away from having enough time for blogging.  However, recent events have changed my mind - I'm going to be running Forgotten Realms again, using Rolemaster!

My long time running Greyhawk PBEM is over.  It lasted 3.5 years (pretty epic) and survived a system change, a whiny player meltdown, and several 2-3 month long episodes of lackluster posting.  I'm really glad I ran the game, and I look forward to more PBEM games in the future.

I'm still a player in Daddy G's awesome Decade of Darkness CoC PBEM game. That has really rocked over the last couple years and I'm having fun watching my character slowly spiral down into madness.

So anyway, that's my gaming history over the last year or so.  I'm looking forward to running this FR rolemaster game.  When I posted some early ideas up here, some folks were pretty interested, so I'll post up what I'm thinking and how it is working in case others would like to try converting a D&D type group toward rolemaster.