Happy Christmas

I meant to have a holiday gift for you in this post, but creating it is taking a bit longer than I had estimated. So for now, I’ve got nothing, aside from seasonal greetings.

Still, I didn’t want to leave the week blank; I made a commitment to myself that I would post every Thursday for as long as possible. I’ve kept that going for five months now. It is an accomplishment of which I am quite proud. Yay me.

If you’ve been reading this blog, commenting, utilizing the 2e Primer, or are one of the kind people that threw me some change: Thank you. It’s been cool to have someone like my stuff.

I still want to give you something. I’ll make do by digging into my bookmarks folder like a panic-stricken coworker searching for a Christmas party gift in the back of his closet.

AD&D 2e Character Generator by garumoo

Enjoy making a few thousand 2e characters.

See you in the new year with a post on implementing the optional Weapon Speed rules.

Hacking 2e: Roll-Under Mechanics – Part 2

Last time, I looked at converting Saving Throws, Surprise, and Attack Rolls to a roll-under system. Let’s do the rest. Please note: this is mostly the “make a new ruleset for initiative" post and will constitute most of the text.

 

4. Damage

Unless we’re altering the hit point system (which I’m not looking to do today), this mechanic needs to give us a value to subtract from those hit points. With that requirement, converting damage into a roll-under check is a weird and torturous exercise. I think it could be done by giving every weapon two static damage values, then giving the higher damage value on successful rolls. However, this is sweaty and lame, and it provides zero advantage over a flat roll.

Rolling the value directly on the die is the cleanest way, as is adding modifiers to the die roll. Since this doesn’t align the goal of making everything a low roll and only adding modifiers to scores, I’ll need to add in a caveat for this type of roll.

Whenever you roll dice to obtain a result, rather than beat a score, you’ll want to roll high and add any modifiers to the roll itself.

Damage won’t be alone in this; Hit Dice and calculating starting gold also meet this criteria. 

Hacking 2e: Roll-Under Mechanics – Part 1

The inconsistency of die mechanics in AD&D is often cited as one of the more confusing parts of the game. Putting aside the cacophony of die types (death to the percentile roll), the main issue is roll-under vs roll-over and where the modifier goes. This can seem arbitrary on first glance, but there is some consistency. Here are (most of) the rolls one can make, the ‘goal’ of that roll, and what’s being modified:

Modifier for…	Attempting to…	High or Low	Modifying
Saving Throw	Beat a Static Value	High	Roll
Surprise	Beat a Static Value	High	Roll
Attack Roll	Beat a Static Value	High	Roll
Damage	Get a High Number	High	Roll
Reaction	Place on a Spectrum	High (if you fix it)	Roll
Initiative	Get a Low Number	Low	Roll
Nonweapon Prof.	Beat a Static Value	Low	Ability Score
Thieving Skill	Beat a Static Value	Low	Thieving Skill Score
Morale	Beat a Static Value	Low	Morale Rating

Note: The assumption in this breakdown is that we’re gunning for the ‘desirable’ result for the PC.

You can see that we’re mostly trying to beat a value, whether that number is based on rolled attributes, level-based tables, more-than-three, or whatever number THAC0 spits out (depending on how one uses THAC0). Damage and Initiative are just seeking straight-up results from the dice. Reaction is our outlier, as it’s used to determine the temperature of the NPCs.

There’s correlation here: you add the modifier to the roll if rolling high, and you add the modifier to a static value if rolling low. Initiative is the weirdo, being the only time you modify the roll while also trying to roll low.

As I’ve made clear in previous discussions, I’m in favor of making everything into a roll-under mechanic. This chart shows that in order to do that, I’ll need to add modifiers to the values rather than the rolls. We’ve already got three rolls with that setup (NWP, Thieving Skills, and Morale), so let’s do the rest.

What is This Blog Anyway?

The following post is self-indulgent state-of-the-blog stuff. You’ve been warned.

I wasn’t sure what this blog was going to be when I started out a few months ago; I just wanted to start writing again. I’ve tried writing fiction and short stories for some time, but it tends to end with a whimper rather than a completed work, and I always seem to come back to games.

When I really started digging into 2e, I found myself all over the web, discovering blogs, forums, and OSR hacks as I tried to better understand this unique game. Through those blogs and forums, I got the itch to write in the nerdiest way possible. Through the hacks, I knew that I wanted to tear 2e apart and put it back together again in my own image.

So I guess I really am making a game.

Since I’ve just spent the past few months ripping apart the Ability Scores and Saving Throws, let’s interlude to discuss what the goals are here.