Steal the Eyes ... Scratch That

That feeling when you're playtesting your long-delayed megadungeon and there's a 20' high bird god idol with glowing orange eyes and one of your players -- who has in fact probably never seen this picture:

follows her rogue's instinct to climb up and see if those eyes are a) gems and b) pry-able ...

but no, they are just magic light cast on stone eyes.

In what is not really a fit of pique and more like dogged mission completion mode, she then takes hammer and chisel and chips off all the light-bearing stone, raining a shower of little half-glowing, candle-strength chips on the floor ...

which turn out to be a useful small treasure in their own right.

Confirming that it's much more fun to redraw the path of ages, then follow it.

Improving 52 Pages: Fighter and Rogue Combat Powers

Part of developing the 52 Pages Next, the Expert-like rules extension for my game, involves coming up with alternate powers (feats, whatever) for fighters and rogues as well as what they can do at 5th level. Well, here they are:

It bears repeating my design philosophy here: powers should add effects without adding decisions that slow down play. Most of them are either straight bonuses,consequences on things that happen anyway in combat, or "cool things that happen on this die roll." I find this is vital so as not to slow down the pace of Basic-derived D&D, where the tactical decisions should be less "which power should I use now" and more "how do I position myself and use weapons to best advantage?"

As I prepare for converting my existing Band of Iron players to the very latest version of 52 Pages - they've been playing the 2011 version for some time now - I realize that they've grown very fond of their Whirlwind and Quickshot feats - they really light up when they roll a 5 or 15 for their extra attack, even though these are underpowered compared to my new powers which give you 5 numbers to get an extra attack. So, I souped them up a little and added a couple more.

Yes, Weaponmaster is a little tribute to the old Rules Compendium stuff. I had to think hard on impaling to not create super-ridiculous archers with +d6 damage when ambushing, potential +d6 from Deadshot,and double damage (Runequest style) on top of that. I think the die minimum answer is a nice compromise.

Oh yeah, elves and dwarves now get one feat at level 5.

52 Pages Awesomeness Triage: Rogue (vs. Fighter)

Here's the current version of the rogue class in 52 Pages.

A rogue can shoot OK and fight using Dexterity. Speed save is the specialty, also boosted by high DEX. In skills, which depend on a d6 roll, the rogue starts with +1 in all except Knowledge, gains two instead of one skill points per level, and with a likely high Dexterity will get a further +1 on stealth and acrobatics.

As for the rogue's powers, what sort of combat role are they supposed to encourage? I suppose I would answer that the rogue is supposed to attack from back or side, rather than head on ... to use attacks from distance or from ambush as protection, rather than layers of metal armor ... to excel against a single opponent, rather than hewing through a horde like the fighter ... to be spontaneous and unpredictable instead of solid and reliable.

Looking back at how the rogue has played out (chiefly at the hands of my wife, who runs one in the main campaign), one of the abilities flatly fails at the above goals ... one is rarely used ... and the third works, but tends to lead to rules wrangling, so needs clarification.

Distraction is the one that's rarely used. It's a neat idea but has just too many uses, and is unreliable.

Active Defense is the one that effectively gives the rogue plate mail at mid-levels. Very little is stopping such a character from becoming a front-line bruiser. The rogue should be afraid to get hit, not confident in fancy footwork toe-to-toe.

Ambush is strong, and in character for almost all the desired points - it rewards striking from hiding as well as circling around behind, is no good against an army, and adds an extra unpredictable die of random damage. The only problem is, I haven't been enforcing "from behind" consistently, instead leaving the impression that it works only if the opponent is totally oblivious of the rogue's existence. Another bit of uneasiness came from one incident where the rogue played whack-a-mole, ducking down and scooting around behind a single piece of cover in order to get the bonus repeatedly.

I guess my sense is that these features make the class too strong, in concert with the really high AC bonus. So let's look at the proposed improvement.

Now, you get two powers at each level to the fighter's one to compensate for a lower hit die, lighter weaponry, and slightly worse attack. One is a mobility power and the other a combat power. Steal Away's hit and run is crucial for early-level survival, while Ambush is the basic incentive to sneak and Steal Past. You can't really whack-a-mole any more - but you do get the honest backstab bonus as a reward for maneuvering.

The Opportunity Strike and Exploitation Attack are just versions of the new fighter's bonuses. They key off high numbers rather than low in keeping with the rogue's erratic nature, versus the fighter's reliable nature. They are slightly less useful in that they possibly can lead to overkill or a useless attack.

Solving the Dungeon Thief's #1 Problem

One of my players, who runs a rogue, has long been aware of the paradox that arises when you take a standard-model human thief-type into a dark dungeon. All their skills are optimized to scouting ahead in the dark, hiding when foes approach, and surprising them in the back in a fight.

Except they can't see in the dark.

1st edition AD&D gets around this problem because you'd be a dope to run a human thief anyway. I'm running Basic-type so I don't have that "solution" at hand. But the answer lies in a piece of folklore I'd ben aware of ever since I read John Bellairs' The House With a Clock In Its Walls as a kid:

The Hand of Glory.

Originally, this magical object was not an actual hand, but the mandrake root, supposed to grow under gallows, with soporific and hallucinogenic properties that sometimes led to it being described as "shining like a lamp." Transforming "mandragore" to the French pseudo-etymology "main de gloire," the "Hand of Glory" came to be imagined in English folk magic as the actual hand of a hanged man, combined in some way with a candle made from the fat of that hand - either grasped in the hand, on the back of the hand as in the Gorey illustration, or made by actually lighting the fingers.

Just as unclear is what this Hand of Glory actually does. It is always mentioned as a tool for burglars, but variously it puts the inhabitants of the house to sleep; paralyzes them when they see the light; or opens locks and doors. Also, the flames can only be extinguished by blood or milk.Bizarrely, the version found in the 3rd edition D&D SRD allows the holder to wear an extra magic ring. (You have to wonder about the kind of campaign this would be useful in, where characters are going around tricked out with three or more magic rings.) Charles Stross' Laundry novels of modern magic take the Hand even further by treating it as a sorcerous zap gun.

But the one legend of the Hand of Glory that solves the thief's dungeon problem is the lore, also used in the Harry Potter novels, that it emits a light that only its holder can see. This is the basis of my Hand of Glory.

Hand of Glory

Availability: -6 (can be reliably had in only the largest metropolis)
Price: 500$

This magical item is made from the hand of a hanged murderer. It is considered a disreputable item of sorcery, if not evil in itself. When properly mummified and prepared, the hand grasps a candle made from its own fat. The lit candle burns for an hour and illuminates a 20' radius with a sickly yellow light that only a person holding the Hand in his or her own hand can see - the light source is invisible to normal and darkvision alike. Thus, it is prized by experts in sneaking and hiding, for it lets them explore completely dark areas without being spotted.

The candle also may not be extinguished by any normal substance other than a life-giving bodily fluid - blood or milk. If so extinguished, however, it may be lit and used again for the remainder of its burning time.

Making a Hand of Glory requires 150$ in materials, one full day's effort to prepare, a month waiting time, and the casting of continual light, invisibility, infravision, and continual darkness on the same day at the end of that time. The most difficult requirement, of course, is that of the hand itself; many enlightened rulers now order the cremation of hanged criminals to prevent their use for black magic of this kind.

The Thief As Aquaman

Poor Aquaman. Butt of a thousand comic-book meta-jokes because his powers depend on an aquatic setting. If he wants to join in the fun with the Justice League the writer had better provide a port, beach or boat.

You know who's like that in D&D? Yeah, the druid. But less obviously - the thief.

As written in the Basic and Advanced games, the thief is saddled with inferior combat everything, and gets in return some very unreliable skills (more on that next post). However, while combat is a feature of almost every environment, things like traps, locks, climbs, and sneaking opportunities have to be written into an adventure. Putting a trapped, locked chest on a high ledge is like putting a villain's lair in a undersea volcano for the Superfriends. If these opportunities don't make sense in the adventure, tough. Maybe this is one reason for the knee-jerk secret doors, traps, locks impulse I've noted in so much module writing.

In my 52 Pages system, and to some extent in 3rd edition, rogues work better because they have a clearer combat role as missile troops and sometimes scouts. The skills are useful, but secondary. I think any designer has to come to grips with this. "Can't do much but gains levels quickly" is not really a recipe for a viable character class.

There's a strange parallel here with the cleric. In Old School circles, as I've noted before, both these classes are marginal and often questioned. The cleric also presents a skill that is very useful in circumscribed situations - turning undead. This is the most direct tie to the class' origin as a vampire hunter, Van Helsing with the crucifix. Faith healing is less in line with the fiction, but in function, it's become the most important reason for the cleric to exist, to the point where 3rd Edition just laid down and admitted it, with free substitution of cure spells. The Aquaman power here, turning undead, is supplanted by a more generally useful combat power, healing.

By the way, that task I mentioned where the thief has to climb a ledge, pick a lock find a trap, and disarm it? In AD&D a 5th level human thief with 17 DEX has a roughly 7.5% chance of completing that skill sequence successfully. More on this next time.

High-Level Combat: Designing Feats

In the Wizards editions of D&D, much is made of the tactical depth that the plethora of feats and skills gives to combat. This is part of a conscious decision to make fighter-types as interesting to play as classes that must make tactical and strategic choices among spells and skills.

I say "Bah to that!" and "Yay to dumb fighters!" Well, not exactly dumb; even when doing little more than tracking positioning in a fight, knowing how to use that can mean the difference between life and death. But in my view of the class archetypes, fighters are intentionally the straightforward ones. They don't have to make as many hard choices that are tied in with their class powers, and that is a good thing that serves the diverse needs of players.

Of course, this doesn't mean that playing a fighter has to be boring. In my house rules, awesome and interesting things happen to fighters without any choice. I use Arneson's "chop till you drop" rule to grant extra attacks when an enemy falls, as well as compensating low damage rolls  by having them inflict a critical effect on the enemy with some weapons (feats of force) and a fumble on the enemy with others (feats of finesse; I now reward low damage for both types of weapons, unlike the linked rule). Over some 8 sessions of play, these rules have proved to be fun and empowering without slowing down play.

It's the rogue - not just thieves in my view, but all kinds of light fighter - that I envision as using optional feats more effectively. But even for this goal, math-crunching can really take away from immersion in the game. An all-out attack where you get +2 to hit and -2 to armor class, for instance, can be wildly more effective depending on the relative to-hit ability and armor class of yourself and your opponent. Against someone you're hitting only on a 19, that doubles your effective damage. But if you're hitting on an 11 and your opponent hits only on a 19, that gives you only 20% increase in potential damage while doubling your opponent's. I want you to use your Piercing Stab not because you have calculated it increases your Actuarial Expected Damage Coefficient (AEDC) by 24%, but because you observe that the plates of the dragon are thick and scaly.


Which feats to take should mainly be a strategic, character-level rather than tactical choice. It should be back-loaded onto higher levels, so it doesn't encumber character creation. Also, the mathy figgering-out should be done by the rules designer rather than the player, trying to keep things as balanced as possible. For instance, do you want each feat on average to give the equivalent of +2 to hit (MATH CORRECTED)? This means, assuming a 50% chance to hit the typical opponent, the feat improves the chance by 20% (50% / 50%); 20% of the average damage per round, 2.5, is a half point of damage per round. It also means that an extra chance to hit (including gaining initiative or opponents being incapacitated from a critical hit effect) is worth 2.5 damage, so to be balanced it should happen about 1/5 (20%) of the time. This is roughly in line with the 1/6 to 1/4 chance of a crit/fumble my "feats of force and finesse" rule gives.

Defensive bonuses are harder to balance out, depending as they do on the relative hit probabilities and hit point totals involved. Anyway, I'm ruling these out as feats because a straight AC bonus prolongs fights, and this is anathema to our goal of making them more fun. Any defense will come as a side-effect of feats such as being able to disengage from combat without penalty, or maneuver into a position where fewer foes can hit. I'm also not ruling out hit point recovery mechanisms mirroring the bonus damage amount (about 1 hp every other combat round), making the most of the concept of hit points as player confidence and morale.

Next: OK, OK, some actual feats.

One Page Class Powers: Rogue

The rogue is not just supposed to be a troubleshooting thief filing his nails until the next 13% chance to detect traps, but a light fighter, a real ranger (not the spell-slinging ridiculoid beastmaster 2d8 munchkin thing from AD&D), a swashbuckling fop, and others of that ilk. These powers are all combat, encouraging use of terrain and positioning, built off the need to survive and run in encounters while scouting ahead, and incidentally work best against a lone opponent. Oh yes, and a rogue is really good at the old thiefly adventuring skills, including noticing detail and mechanics.

(D&D Murphy's Rule #57864: elves are only good at noticing secret doors vertically in walls, not mechanically identical secret pressure plates in floors, which count as a trap. And what if the trap is a secret panel in the wall ... is it a door or a trap?)

As I mentioned a while ago, I think each of the classes in D&D is best served by mechanics that emphasize the different styles of their players.

Fighter: unlimited use powers that require little strategy.
Rogue: unlimited use powers that require strategy.
Priest: limited use powers that require little strategy.
Wizard: limited use powers that require strategy.

That's the template I've followed here, anyway.