Cleric Rework - Fuck Spell-Slots Get Miracles

Clerics are weird. This is known.

They're basically just religious wizards with a thematic spell list and a heal-bot reputation. Most of the time they're there to heal and maybe occasionally use a more interesting spell like Command.
I've never been quite happy with them, but adding a bunch of spells per religious denomination helped a little.

This is taking it a step further. Fuck the spell list. Fuck spells per day. You're not a wizard, you're a warrior-priest! Let's get faithful!

(This is part one. Part two can be found here!)

Generic Cleric

A standard Cleric.
Should hopefully be easy to add/swap into whatever you're running with minimal fuss.

Core: HD, Saves, Experience per level, etc of a normal Cleric.

Lay on Hands: Heal the wounded by drawing points from your Healing Pool.
Each dawn, roll 1d6 per level + Wis Mod. This is your Healing Pool for the day.
As an action, you can draw points from the Healing Pool to heal as much HP to a touched target.

Faith: You cast Miracles through Faith.
Your Faith total will change as you cast Miracles and trigger Observances.
At dawn each day, roll 1d6 per level + Wis Mod. This is your starting Faith total for the day.

Miracles: All Cleric spells are called Miracles now.
Healing spells like the Cure family no longer heal HP, but can still be used to cure paralysis or mend broken bones or whatever else they can already do instead.
You can cast any Miracle that would have access to at your level (eg. a 5th level Cleric has access to 1st, 2nd and 3rd level Miracles).

Calling a Miracle: Calling forth a Miracle is a normal Action - the Miracle is cast instantaneously.
After you call forth a Miracle, roll 1d6 per spell level and attempt to roll equal to or less than your current Faith total.

• Success: Your Faith total is set to either the result of the roll or your Cleric level, whichever is higher.
• Failure: Your Faith total drops to zero, and you can no longer call forth Miracles until your Faith resets at dawn.

Observances: Each Observance is an act that will cause you to gain or lose Faith.
Observances can be triggered once each. When you make a successful Miracle roll, this resets so you can be affected by each Observance again.

Discussion

So that's the Generic Cleric.

I've got special stuff for different religions (which is the stuff I'm most stoked about) but I cut it down to one standard Cleric to really show what I'm going for here:

- Retain status as the Healer class.
- Encourage use of non-Cure spells.
- Reward Clerics for following their religion.

Healbot Reputation

In my game to date, Clerics would often avoid using a more interesting spell because they didn't want to waste a potential Cure Light Wounds.
This was alleviated slightly by giving them a Denomination Spell, but not by much.

Honestly a Healer class is a solid niche, I can't fault it from a gameplay standpoint. It's just that sometimes it feels like that's all a Cleric is.
Plus there's the social impact - "wasting" your last spell of the day on Command or Detect Evil is sure to get you moaned at by the rest of the party when someone gets shanked in the lung.

So why not just make healing a separate ability to spellcasting?
Everyone gets heals, the Cleric gets to use cooler spells, it works!

Miracle Mechanic

This is the core of Cleric spellcasting now. Note that there's no possibility of failing to cast the Miracle - it always goes off regardless of the Faith roll.
This goes back a ways to the idea that Clerics are reliable.
There might be a possibility that this Miracle is your last one of the day, but there's no question whether you can cast it. This is also why it's a normal action instead of a full round of spellcasting - you can't be interrupted.

You may notice it's a little janky in regards to starting Faith (1d6/Cleric level) and rolling when you cast a Miracle (1d6/spell level). Yes, even if you have a million starting Faith, a single level 1 Miracle will set your new Faith total to 1-6.

This is because the "real" version is slightly different (coming sooooon....?).
But then, as is, this version of the Cleric is encouraged to start off the day using higher level spells (while they still have high Faith) and work their way down to the lesser spells as their Faith total declines.
You could justify this thematically though. You don't hear about Jesus throwing out a few Commands before he whips out a big Cure Disease or Create Food and Water.

Also a level 6 Cleric can cast infinite Level 1 Cleric spells, since minimum Faith on a successful roll is your Cleric level.
It sorta works - in my game the maximum level soft caps at around level 7, so why shouldn't a high level Cleric be allowed to throw around as many Commands and Detect Evils as they like?


Keep the Faith

Observances are the fun one, cribbed from the Dragon Worship rules which I cribbed originally from Perdition.
The intention is that a Cleric can cast a Miracle, get a new Faith total, then farm it back up with Observances in order to ensure they succeed at their next Miracle roll.
This means a Cleric who's careful with their Miracles and devout in their faith is unlikely to run out of spells per day.

On the other hand, if you spam Miracles you don't have a chance to build up more Faith in between times, so you'll likely run out sooner.
Worse, if you're a taboo-breaking Cleric who triggers the negative Observances, you'll lose Faith and likely run out of Miracles even sooner.

D&D has always had the much-maligned and debated Paladin falling mechanic, so this is a soft version of that. Plus it's codified so you can't get fucked over by a DM who pits Paladins against the trolley problem.

Less Generic Cleric

But James! I hear you cry. This is a bit shit! Those Observances only work for a generic psuedo-judeo-christian paladin-type Cleric! What if my deity is the God of the Woods? Or the Moon? Or the Turbo Dragon Jesus?

It's a simple fix my friend.
If you have any special Cleric spells per religion, add them into the Cleric's spell list.
Then simply change the Observances to fit the Cleric's deity - working with the player if you want to be nice and collaborative.

Here's my guideline for new Observances:

Positive:
+1: Preaching.
+1: Specific healing
+1: An easy act that can be completed anywhere.
+1: A slightly less easy act that can be completed anywhere.
+1: A situational act you have to seek out.
+1: Visiting a devotional location.

Negative:
-1: An easily avoided act.
-1: A harder to avoid act.
-1: Harming a follower of your own or a related religion.
-2: Inverse of theme - the opposite of what your deity is about


And some examples, which may make more sense with an ensuing post:


Cleric of POWERLAD

 

Drug Cult Cleric

Edgy Atheist Cleric
Further reading:Miracles, Holy War and You!

Titan-Scale Mass Combat

I threw this together to adjudicate the End War - the final battle to save the world.

It went fucking great.
Since it was a one-off (for now...?) I was intending to paper over any weirdness with the rules on the fly, but it ended up working pretty good on its own!

The actual scenario is very my-campaign-specific, but maybe it'll be useful if you need a one-off EPIC BATTLE or as a starting point for better mass combat rules.

Assumptions

When I say Titan-Scale I mean Titan-Scale.

You're not ordering around individual units, you're dealing with entire armies clashing. I'm going for adjudicating a Lord of the Rings clash of thousands rather than a more cerebral tactical battle where you counter cavalry with pikes or whatever.

This means that combat is necessarily abstract.

There are Horde-Scale units. These are units of hundreds, if not thousands, of troops.

There are Titan-Scale units. These are the size of mountains, truly titanic, unassailable by even the mightiest hero.

Combat at the standard encounter scale is ineffectual and fruitless. If the PCs wish to impact the battle directly it will be in the realm of surgical strikes, diplomacy, or perhaps classic PC bullshit.

The Battlefield

Distance

The Battlefield is a hex grid. Each hex is as big as you need it to be.
Here's what I had:

In this case, the hexes are approx 2-3 miles across.

Timescale

Each Turn is about 1 hour.

Titan-scale units lumber across the landscape, while the Horde-Scale units practically zip around underneath their feet.

The Basic System

Horde-Scale

Power:
A Horde's Power dictates the die they roll in combat. It's 1dX, where X is their Power.

eg. a Horde with Power 10 rolls 1d10 for combat, a Horde with Power 6 rolls 1d6.

Speed:
Slow Hordes (eg. zombies) move 1 Hex per Turn.
Standard Hordes (eg. human armies) travel at 2 Hexes per Turn.
Fast Hordes (eg. winged dragon-cultists) can move 3 Hexes per Turn.

Horde on Horde Combat:
Each side rolls their combat die.
The Loser loses 2 Power, dropping down a die size.
The Loser may retreat a hex, if able.

Killing a Horde:
If a Horde is at 4 power (ie. uses a base d4 for combat) and loses a combat, they are destroyed.
Survivors may flee, if possible, as a useless noncombatant unit.

Horde on Titan Combat:
Hordes cannot harm Titans.
The best a Horde can expect to do against a Titan is to slow it down so that their Titan can get involved.
Exception:
Some Hordes might have a special ability that allows them to harm a Titan-Scale Entity.
(eg. in my End War, the Tentacle Cult could summon forth a titan-scale Tendril if left unmolested)

Technically Wun Wun is Horde-Scale, despite being fairly big

Titan-Scale

Damage:
Titan-Scale damage uses Hit Locations.
Each Hit Location can be Unhurt, Hurt, or Maimed.

Here are some example hit locations for an Apocalypse Dragon, the walking city Battlefortress Fate, a big Prime Tentacle surrounded by 3 Sub-Tentacles, and an extremely huge humanoid.

If a Hit Location is Hurt it can't be used to attack. If a Hit Location is Maimed it has been mauled to pieces and cannot be used at all.
It's up to you to adjudicate what this means.

Speed:
Titan-Scale units all move at one hex per Turn.

Titan on Titan Combat:
Each Titan automatically hits and hurts the other - roll for a hit location to see what each hit.
If the Hit Location is Unhurt it becomes Hurt.
If it's Hurt it becomes Maimed.
If it's already Maimed, damage another Hit Location - attacking Titan controller's choice.

Killing a Titan:
Usually impossible, but you can Maim it enough that it's useless.
In my End War, there were enormous horse-sized Rot Grubs that would fuck up a wounded Titan. Luckily this never happened to the players' Titans!

Titan on Horde Combat:
The Titan wins automatically and takes no damage in the fighting.
The Horde loses 2 Power and may retreat if they wish.

Titan-Scale combat for sure

The Turn Order

Each Turn is an hour.

Each Turn goes like this:

1. PCs Give Orders
2. Horde Movement
3. Titan Movement
4. Horde Combat
5. Titan Combat
6. PCs Do Stuff

1. PCs Give Orders

Write down what the PCs want the entities under their control to do.

You can't really change your orders once they're given on this scale.

2. Horde Movement

Horde-Scale Entities move according to their Speed.
If there's any question of who goes first, fastest choose.

3. Titan Movement
Titan-Scale entities move.
If there's any question of who goes first, choose what's coolest.

4. Horde Combat
If two enemy Hordes are in the same hex, they fight!
Follow the Horde-Scale rules above.

5. Titan Combat
If a Titan is fighting a Titan, or has a Horde attacking them, they fight!
Follow the Titan-Scale rules above.

6. PCs Do Stuff
After everything's moved and rolled for and all the rest, it's the PCs turn to take independent action if they wish.
We had things like "fly to a dead city to try to raise an army of survivors", "dive into the Tentacult to destroy their leader" and "chug a bunch of wizard drugs and cast a Titan-scale Force of Forbidment".
It was good shit!

The End War

You can check out my original sheet for the End War here.

The goal was simple.
Kill Shub-Niggurath.

The PCs had, over the course of the apocalypse, united pretty much every other apocalyptic threat against this one true enemy.
They controlled the Apocalypse Dragon Ninhursag - the Earth Dragon - and had equipped it with the most virulent poison known to man. Any living organic matter that was touched by this noxious Omnipoison would be catalysed into more of the toxic gas.
If Shub-Niggurath was successful it would undergo planetary lysis, cracking the world like an egg and spreading itself far across the cosmos.

The plan:
1. Get Ninhursag to the largest closest tendril of Shub-Niggurath - the Prime Tentacle.
2. Blow a hole in the Prime Tentacle.
3. Send Ninhursag plunging down the hollow inside of the Prime Tentacle until it reaches the centre of the planet, then unleash the Omnipoison into Shub-Niggurath's frothing core.


My intention for the push-pull of this battle was it to go something like this:
- Titans get into battle.
- When a Titan is wounded, they are vulnerable to the Parasite Grub Hordes that want to dive into the wounds and eat them.
- Wounded Titans need to be protected from the Parasite Grubs by their Hordes.

Instead we also got some of the most metal shit that's ever happened in the campaign, including a PC becoming a Titan-Scale monster and throwing a fucking Apocalypse Dragon at the Moon.
It was rad as hell!




Titan-Scale Foes

The Prime Tentacle
- Immobile.
- Surrounded by 3 malformed ancillary tentacles which can also attack.
- Regenerates each Turn: Maimed > Hurt > Unhurt.

Apocalypse Dragon Ereshkigal
- Unknown agenda.
- Airborne, but wings are Maimed.
- Gravity well will, if not stopped, pull down the moon.

The Black Sun Ultrademon
- Coming in from the north, Black Sun between its horns.
- Trailed by a wave of impenetrable darkness.
- Surprise! It comes in peace. Wants to rescue its constituent demons by entering Fortress-City Fate and turning into obols.



Horde-Scale Foes

Tentacultists
Power 6. Speed 2.
- Protect the Prime Tentacle.
- Can summon a Titan-Scale tendril to damage Titans.
- Won't summon tendril if they're in battle with an enemy Horde.

Ereshkigal Drakencultists
Power 10. Speed 3.
- Defend their dragon at all costs.
- Can open Space Warp between two points anywhere on the battlefield.
- No clear agenda

Grubs
Power 6. Speed 1.
- 1d4 hordes spawn per Turn near random Titan.
- Spawn new 6 Power Horde in front of them if they win a battle. Insta-killed by Titan damage.
- If a Horde get to a Titan with a Maimed and undefended Hit Location - drill in, hitting another Hit Location (internally...) every Turn.



Titan-Scale Allies

Apocalypse Dragon Ninhursag
- Armoured in bone: each hit location starts off with armour that resists one hit.
- Carrying the Omnipoison around its neck.
- Obeys the mental commands of POWERLAD

Bone Dragon
- Currently Ninhursag's armour, could potentially become own entity again.
- Head contains Ossuary of All Bones, allowing control of all Undead. Could be damaged.
- Controlled by Galaxy RJ

Fortress-City Fate
- Walking City. No Titan-Scale melee capability.
- Every round choose: Fire Macrocannon to deal ranged Titan-Scale damage or raise Shields to resist one incoming Titan-Scale hit.
- Controlled by Styx

Orbital God
- Ranged Titan-Scale attack - can strike with impunity from above with god-beams.
- Distracted by urgent matters across the globe.
- Will listen to Styx and/or POWERLAD.



Horde-Scale Allies

Ninhursag Drakencult
Power 8. Speed 3.
- Defend Ninhursag at all costs.
- Overgrowth reduces speed of foes within 1 Hex.
- Obey POWERLAD

The Dead
Power 8. Speed 1.
- Defend Ninhursag at all costs.
- Gain +2 Power if they defeat a Horde with bones.
- Obey Galaxy RJ

The Army of Fate
Power 6. Speed 3.
- Mounted on Guber-brand hovercrafts
- Good at hit and run - bonus +2 to power if they didn't attack last Turn.
- Obey Styx

Angels
Power 8. Speed 2.
- Can be deployed at Styx's request.
- Can freeze a combat they're in - stalling it for one Turn.
- Obey Styx, via the Orbital God

my clearly v cool notes while i was working on this

Santicorn 2018 - The Powerglass

Mini Santicore ripoff from the OSR Discord!

This one's for Catalessi of Unreal Star.

Catalessi asks for:
"a sandglass-based monster, location or tresaure. all three if you manage"

I was gonna try to do all three but I've been travelling across the world for the past week, sorryyyy!
I did a monster though, and at least it's illustrated I guess!

Powerglass
HD5 AC varies ML10
One ranged sandblast attack for 1d6 damage + blast target into the future.

A large fat sandglass filled with pure white sand, encased in a spinning rings like an orrery. Pearlescent hands formed of bands of coloured sands reach out from around the sandglass and spin the orrery mesh.
It floats through the air, softly spinning, the armoured orrery-case opening itself more and more as the timer runs down, allowing the nacreous sandy limbs a better chance to blast at foes.

The sandglass itself flips every 30 seconds.

On the first round after it flips, it has 18 AC and +1 to hit.
As the sand trickles down, it loses 1 AC but gains +1 to hit at the end of each round.
On the 5th round it has 14 AC and +5 to hit, and the sand has trickled into the lower bulb. At the end of that round the Powerglass flips, deals 1d10 damage to anyone in 20’ as the hoops of the energy-mesh blast out and fly around and reconfigure, and becomes 18 AC and +1 to hit again.

It attacks with blasts of temporal sand from its writhing hands. 1d6 damage and the target disappears - blasted forward in time. They will reappear when the Powerglass next flips, possibly very confused.

Ideally the Powerglass wants to blast a few people into the future, then get close to where they’ll reappear so they get hit by the AoE when it flips.


The Powerglass is summoned by time-thieves to support their temporal endeavours. The Powerglass is a unique creature, but time-thieves often have a few that they’ve stolen from other timelines.
Time-thieves can appear in any place at any time, usually in groups of themselves. Getting the Powerglass to blast people into the future tends to give ample time for them to grab whatever they’re stealing and go.

TFP DMG: How To Run Combat

To my surprise and delight, there are people out there running my rules as-is!
This is wonderful, but also made me realise that I've got a lot of assumptions about how to run a game that don't necessarily come through!

Getting in Fights

The classic OSR rhetoric is to say that "combat is a failure state".
That is, the optimal tactic is to avoid combat at all costs.

This is true but let's be honest - violence is both inevitable and interesting.

Let's get into it!

Real Basic Assumptions

Let the dice run the combat.

Congrats! You've become a part of the audience with your players!

It's not your show any more, you're here to be an interpreter.

Sit back, relax, and get worried with your players when it looks like they're at risk.
Remember: It's not your fault. It's the dice.

Roll in the open.

Roll monster attacks and damage and everything in the open. It's fun, means you can't fudge, and shows newbies more examples of how the game works.
Plus the players get to celebrate or despair when they see what you just rolled with a big baddie.

Explain what you're doing.

Get into the habit of saying "this guy has 14 AC because his skin is like leather" or "this thing has a +4 to hit because it's got a whip-quick lashing neck like a snake" or "the poison bite gives you bleed poison equal to damage".
Not only does this help people understand how the game works under the hood, but their character can probably tell that a living statue will be harder to hurt than a robed tentacle cultist.


Simple initiative.

Simple, aka side-by-side initiative, is when each side (DM and player) has all their turns, then the other side has all their turns.
Roll 1d6 per side, highest wins, players win ties since I'm nice.
Not only does this speed up the actual game around the table and allow greater player cooperation, rerolling initiative each round has the added bonus of occasionally letting one side have two turns in a row.
Truly the easiest way to chuck balance out the window and watch it splatter on the pavement below.
There's little more nail-biting than an initiative roll when someone's about to die and facing down a massive hit from a big monster.

Be lenient.

Combat is messy. It's easy for a player to have a different idea in their head of what the situation is compared to you.
If someone says they're doing something, make sure of two things:
- The intent. What is the outcome they're hoping for?

- The consequences. What happens if it doesn't work out?
These are usually pretty obvious, but if you notice somebody trying to do something exceptionally stupid or impossible make sure you (and they) are on the same page.


Justify results retroactively.

Whatever you rolled, make up a reason why it happened! Or even better, work with the players to work out why it happened.
"These massive dragon jaws, this huge mouth comes down, about to bite you in half, and holy shit a fumble wait wait ok... it's stunned!?... what even happened here?!"
"THE SOUL OF ARACH-NACHA DID IT!"
Divining meaning from randomness is the heart of this game after all!

I give this handy combat option summary to Fighters, so they can be the ones who tell people how best to fight
Link.

Fuck it I stab him - Adjudicating Players in Combat

Violence

I've got three ways to resolve PC violence:
- Attack. Your classic roll to hit then roll for damage.
- Wrestle. For when they get in close and grapply.
- Gambit. Combat manouevres and other cool moves.

Attack.

Any time someone simply wants to make something die with their weapon, it's a regular Attack.

1d20 + modifiers vs AC. On hit, roll damage.

Players have got a fair few options for messing with the attack roll, mostly centred around weapon type modifiers (see Fighter handout above).

Also if multiple PCs are Flanking an enemy, they can roll Backstab on hit to upgrade it to a crit.
Most PCs only have a 1 in 6 chance of this, but Specialists and people who chucked in a point or two for Failed Career might bring their chance up.

One good thing about an Attack that might not be obvious is that you're not opening yourself up to immediate repercussions. If you Wrestle or Gambit you might get hurt on your own turn!

Wrestle.

Usually comes up when someone says "I want to stop her from attacking" or "I tackle them!", very useful for resolving PC-on-PC conflict where nobody actually wants to hurt each other.
Monsters love to wrestle too, so another common reason is "I want to get this off me!"

Contested d20 roll, melee bonus applies. Winner chooses Hold, Disarm, Brawl or Kick Away.
Hold: Try to pin them. Three Holds in a row makes them pinned and helpless.
Disarm: Snatch something from them, or throw something they're holding away.
Brawl: Deal damage with Small, Minor or natural weapons.
Kick Away: Kick them back in the direction of your choice.

One interesting thing to note is that since it's a contested d20 roll, wrestling effectively bypasses armour. The only exception is that Shanky weapons like daggers get a bonus Brawl attack if your Wrestle roll beats their AC - win or lose.
Sometimes it's better to wrestle an armoured foe and shank him in the ribs rather than keep plinking away at his armour, especially if he's got a larger weapon that can't be used to Brawl.

Since starting your go in a Wrestle means your only choice is to roll to Wrestle, it's also a real good option for locking down an enemy that might otherwise run away or attack a friend.

Once the Wrestle gets going you effectively roll twice a combat round - once on each wrestler's go. Since they're both at risk with every roll it makes things feel much more intense.

Gambit.

If they want to do something that's wacky/interesting/otherwise not covered by Attack or Wrestle, it's time to go to Gambit!
My table fucking loves Gambits. They're exciting!

Roll to hit twice.
Two hits - it works like you wanted it to!
Two misses - Ironic reversal, often the thing you wanted to do happens to you.
One hit one miss - partial success or success at cost (I tell you the options, you get to choose).

The advice above about intent and consequences is most important here.

Make sure you're clear on their intent. What happens if they succeed?
Make sure you're all clear on the consequences. What happens if they fail?

Once you're on the same page, say something like "ok so you'll do this if you succeed but this happens if you fail. Still want to do it?"

Sometimes there's a situation where you could adjudicate it as a Wrestle or a Gambit.
An easy example is a disarm - you could do that via a Wrestle (roll off, if you win you can choose to disarm) or via a Gambit (roll to hit twice, on success you've disarmed them).
In a case like this just ask them what they'd prefer, telling them the difference and the stakes.

Non-Violence.

There's a ton of stuff people can do that doesn't directly hurt, hinder or otherwise mess with the agency of others.

Much of the time you can just say "yea that happens". If someone wants to run away or use an item or whatever, just let them do it.

If it feels like there should be some chance of failure, like they want to do something super quickly or while they're in melee or are otherwise in direct danger, make them roll an appropriate skill.

I use Climbing for this fairly often. If there's a real difference in elevation, like you're on the street and want to get up to the fighting on the roof, I'll have you roll Climb to get up there in a hurry.

Even if it's something that seems impossible to do in a single round, like grab an oil flask and stuff a rag in it and light it, feel free to say it takes a few discrete rounds of actions.
In my game this often results in "fine I'll throw the oil and then someone else lights it" which is legit. Teamwork innit!
Also remember - Sleight of Hand to quickly do fiddly things is a legit way to use that skill.

Don't make it too much of a ballache to do non-violent stuff in combat!
The worst thing that can happen is that someone goes "oh fuck it whatever it's too hard, I just stab him" and just attacks instead of doing something more interesting or memorable.

It leaps at you! - Running Monsters in Combat

The main thing with running enemies is that generally you want to run them as quick as possible so the players can get back to making decisions.

What do they do??

You get all sorts of monsters with all sorts of bullshit abilities.
Make sure the powers are easy to adjudicate! Sometimes I'll make a monster and give them some cool fiddly power and oh no turns out I made them come in packs of 2d10 what was I thinking!?

I know Spwack has success with letting monsters use Gambits, but I don't do it personally.
That means monsters are either Attacking (probably with some bullshit monster ability) or Wrestling (monsters love wrestling, especially if they have teeth and claws and/or can jump great distances).

Don't be cagey about why monsters are doing what they're doing.
"It's protecting its master!" or "you hurt it last time!" or whatever.
Hell, if they're tactical enemies have them talk to each other about their tactics!
"Hit the wizard before she casts that spell!" or "stay at a distance from the one with the greatsword!", that sort of thing.

I'd reiterate a bunch of stuff about how to make "simple" monsters fun in combat, but again, some shithead did it better long ago.

Sidebar: Monster Wrestling

If multiple monsters gang up on one PC, they could be in trouble!
Since everyone rolls at once and the winner chooses what to do to one of the losers, it's hard to win and hard to kick them all off even if you do win!

Tying a PC down with a few little baddies is a good time, and if they've got Shanky weapons like knives they can all potentially deal damage by beating the PCs AC.

Who do they kill??

Sometimes you know exactly who an enemy is going for, like they're in deadly melee with a PC or they always go for the person with the least HP or they hate goblins.

Other times, I roll and decide why they did what they did after rolling.

A common phrase at my table is "high or low?", meaning that there are two potential targets and you've got to choose whether you're attacked on a 4-6 or a 1-3.
Roll the dice, see who they go for.

Sometimes I weight the results. "Ok you're down and no threat, but they might come to finish you off anyway because you killed their best friend. How about on a 1-2 they go for you and on a 3-6 they go for your friend nearby?"

If someone goes "hey no why are they attacking me?! Why don't they attack that guy?" then rolling to see who they go for is a good shout.

When do they stop??

When you:
- Kill them
- Make them stop
- Run away

Kill them!!

The obvious one! Kill them before they kill you!

I roll monster HP on Xd6+X, where X is HD.
Not necessarily for mechanical consistency reasons, I just have lots of d6s and the bell curves line up. If you've got enough d8s by all means use them!

I've got a couple of gimmicks with monster HP too.

If it's a gang of small enemies, like humans, I'll roll HP in the open after an attack hits them. If they survive, I put the die I just rolled on that enemy to show how much they've got left. (This is easy because I use pennies or other flat tokens for baddies).

For big beefy boys I roll all their HP behind a book or something, then as they're damaged I chuck the dice back into the box behind the screen to show how hurt they are.
It's fun to throw a few back when someone hits with a particularly meaty blow!

Make them stop!!

Morale is the main one! Roll on first death, when there are half left and/or when shit's starting to get slow and it's obvious the PCs are going to win.

Otherwise this is because my players have tried to initiate negotiations or something. If this happens just keep in mind what the enemy probably wants ("not to die" is a common one) and what they've got to bargain with.
I love a chatty baddie, so I'm usually open to this sort of thing!

Run away!!

When the going gets tough, the tough get out of there!

Chase scenes use the snakes and ladders minigame. I've got this on the back of the laminated marching order sheet, so I can flip it for chase scenes!

All you've got to do is work out how fast the baddies are on a scale from 1d10 (fast and light) to 1d4 (slow and clumsy). Since the maximum for an unencumbered character is 1d10, extra super fast enemies might roll on a 1d12.

Since the minigame is intentionally fairly abstract make sure to tie it into the fictional events! If the someone rolled really poorly or particularly well, make up why!

THE BEAST COMETH - Boss Monsters

I don't often use boss monsters. It's a lot of work for something that, if all goes to plan, dies and can't be used again.

But hey, I do them sometimes! Most recently with Elemental Dragons, and usually one-shots end with a big baddie.
Like that one time versus Santa Claus.
And that other time versus Trump.

Basically boss battles work best in a one-shot railroady format, so they turn up a lot then!

What I do use sometimes is a powerful foe with fiddly abilities - and isn't that what a boss monster is when you get right down to it. You don't want to have more than one or two fiddly foes in a battle!

The main thing to remember is that the players have almost always got way more actions and agency and attacks than a lone baddie, and mine have enough alpha strike potential to nuke a single target to the ground in the course of a single turn. Unintuitively, boss monsters are more vulnerable than a mob.
A boss monster that's just a big lone guy with lots of health is going to die.

So how to run them? Be aware of this. Give them abilities that allow them to be a threat outside of turn order. Make sure it's not just one meaty boi in a room - have them call for help.
Sometimes this can be a bullshit aura. Sometimes this can be immunities or resistances to certain attacks. Maybe they fuck with terrain, or have weird abilities that fuck with the players instead of the characters.

On their turn, try to change the battlefield a bit.
Smash characters around with a huge and powerful monster, pounce on the back rank with a fast and leaping monster, command the troops intelligently with a smart and tactical monster.

While your usual rabble might just act at random, give a bit of extra thought to boss monsters and other more complex creatures.
If they're chatty and can negotiate with PCs while they're carving them up, so much the better!

A Final Note on PC Death

Sometimes, a character will die.

For a PC death to feel legit it has to be:
- a consequence of player agency, and
- a known threat

If it feels like the PC had no choice in the matter, or couldn't have done anything to prepare for it, it feels cruel and arbitrary.

Look at Jon Snow up there. He made some dumb fucking choices and deserved to die for those choices, but they were his choices.

If it feels like you've railroaded a PC into a situation where they had no choice but to die, it's bullshit.
If the PC just dies out of nowhere and couldn't have discovered the thing that killed them, it's bullshit.

This is why it's important to telegraph traps, or at the very least telegraph that this is a place where traps are possible. 

It's also why my Death and Dismemberment rules are so complex, it means that you can survive a poorly telegraphed attack better!

Basically, make sure that if a PC dies it's their fault!

Crits and Fumbles 2018

Crits and Fumbles document is here.

If you roll a natural 20 on an attack, roll 1d20 on the Critical Hit table.
If you roll a natural 1 on an attack, roll 1d20 on the Fumble table.
I know, revolutionary.

click to embiggen

click to embiggen

Notches

If you've read my house rule doc or saw one of the previous versions this will be familiar.
For those who haven't, here's an explanation!

Notch Weapon
A weapon that takes a Notch drops a die size for damage. 1d10 > 1d8 > 1d6 > 1d4 > 1

When you hit with an attack, you can sacrifice your weapon to roll its original un-notched damage die. If you do this it falls apart and is irreparable.

This is generally more worthwhile when your weapon is so badly Notched it’s not worth using.

Notch Armour
Armour that takes a Notch gives the wearer -1 AC.
If your armour takes so many Notches it’s worthless, it falls apart and is irreparable.

Repairs
Repairs cost 10% of the cost of the weapon per Notch.

Dwarves can fully repair an item given a day and simple tools.
The Mending spell fully repairs an item.

he's just a high level fighter whose DM thinks HP is Meat Points

Ongoing Effects

Hopefully these are self-explanatory.

If you're affected by something, save at the start of the round to end the effect.
Remember that your Wisdom Modifier applies to saves vs mundane effects!

If you want a guideline to the mechanical impacts I'd apply -

Blinded: Can't see (obviously). Melee attacks at -4, ranged attacks don't work.
Helpless: Melee attacks automatically hit a helpless target for max damage.
Prone: +4 to hit prone target in melee, -4 to hit prone target at range. It takes a move to stand up.
Slowed: Moving requires an Action instead of being a free move. (ie. you can either move or do something)
Stunned: Can't do anything on your turn.
Surprised: AC is 10+Armour only. Attackers can roll Backstab for potential extra damage.

textbook gambit, I should have saved this for a combat post

Changes

This isn't so different from the tables I've used for years, it's just those were four years old and needed a bit of a redo.
As before I've kept the effects fairly generic so you can describe them in a way that fits the fictional situation.
Crits and fumbles are a fun time to let the player narrate what just happened too! Mix it up a bit!

Choices for the common case of inhuman foes
Several crits now have a choice. eg. Sunderer gives a choice between shattering target's weapon or disabling a natural attack until they Save vs Stun.
This is because I fell into the classic trap of considering only armed person on armed person combat, when much of the fighting in this game is against monsters.
Fighting a knight? Shatter their sword. Fighting a giant snake? Disable its bite.

Theatre-of-the-Mind Slowed Condition
Movement-based effects were kinda lame because it's been nearly a decade since I last used a battle mat, nowadays anybody can move anywhere (within reason) and the biggest limitation on movement is Opportunity Attacks a la 5e.
Instead of the worthless-in-context "halved movement", being Slowed means you've got to use an action to move.
Cute mechanical impact - this means you can't Parry and Move to disengage. If you want to get away you'll have to take a hit, or maybe gambit.

No Quality
I used to have a Quality rule where better weapons would notch less often, but in practice people just paid the cash for the best weapon and/or just plain forgot.
Weapon/armour damage on crits and fumbles comes up enough to be interesting without being a real drag.

there's a bit in this scene where a guard's laser knife mysteriously disappears which I was going to call a fumble

To all the haters out there

Some people will tell you that crits and fumbles (usually just fumbles) are bad for the game because a Fighter will roll more fumbles than a Wizard just because they're rolling more attacks or some shit.

Those people are boring and haven't discovered the rad as hell solution called "Fighters get a +1 bonus to crit and fumble rolls per level".
Wow would you look at that, now Fighters recover from fumbles and do multi-overcrit instant kills a whole lot more. Wild!

Now this is just for Fighters, other classes in the melee combat niche like Barbarians will still roll a bad fumble every so often, but that's because Barbarians are sloppy and Fighters are OP.

Putting G+ to Death

It's here. The death of Google+. Long prophesied.

To jump on the back of Chris' post here, even though I doubt I've got as much reach as him, here's some options.

GET DISCORD

We've got an OSR Discord. It's pretty chill.

MAKE BLOGS

There's a possibility that the scene gets more blog-heavy again, just like old times!

There's an OSR Blog Roll building up in Sheets, add your blog there. Contrary to what you might believe, the OSR blog scene is still pumping and there are new authors all the time, so get on it!

My blog roll on the sidebar there has a bunch of blogs, but it's hard to keep up!

FADE INTO OBSCURITY

There's a possibility that there will be a migration towards MeWe, another obscure social platform nobody cares about.

Is another obscure site the real way forward? Should we be worried about the weird free speech bent to the site? So many questions!

Anyway, I'm there as James Young for now.

GET ZUCCED

A number of people are on Facebook, but the signal-to-noise ratio in facebook groups is fucking abysmal. Either way, I'm James Young there too.

Dungeon Masterchef - A Cooking Subsystem

As my campaign world slips ever-closer to its inevitable end, a very mundane question has arisen.

What the fuck do we eat?

With the precipitous decline of the human population as a consequence of a third of all plants dying and all water being fucking poison and, you know, all the demons and undead stalking the land, a fundamental pillar of the standard D&D game has been shattered - the humble home base.

No longer is there a convenient village within walking distance of the dungeon entrance where you can flip open your equipment list and buy some rations and ropes on the cheap. Because everybody's fucking dead.

And so my players huddle in a cave just inside of Dwimmermount, hoping that they'll be able to obtain the azoth they need to maybe stop the apocalypse, their supply of iron rations slowly dwindling, hoping that the various dungeon creatures here will be edible enough to stave off starvation.

A perfect time to become a DUNGEON CHEF!!!

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Cooking Spreadsheet here

Includes:
- Rules Summary
- Deliciousness table
- Dinner Perks table
- Known Recipes
- Known Ingredients
- Exotic Ingredient Side Effects

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The world's smallest taco

Hors d'Oeuvres

The key concepts in tl;dr:

You can eat food to heal.

Take a break. Minor HP recovery during the day.
Long rest. Major HP recovery overnight.

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You can eat food for buffs.

Dinner Perks. A delicious dinner grants you a boost until your next long rest!
Exotic Ingredients. Monster flesh and other weird stuff can grant strange powers and mutations!

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There are two types of food.

Iron Rations. Basic bitch adventurer food. No use-by date. Calorie-dense but unappetising and you'd never eat this if something else was available. Dry nuts, chewy meats, hard cheese and stale biscuits. The Huel of the D&D culinary world.

Proper Meals. Now we're talking! Fresh ingredients cooked into a hot meal, from fortifying and hearty stews to tender brisket and leafy greens! A good chef can concoct a delicious meal from even the lowliest of ingredients, filling adventurers with good health and good cheer!

Stackable wheat crisps topped with soft cheese and chorizo

A Quick Bite

Eat food to heal during the adventuring day!

Taking a break takes a ten minute Exploration Turn and involves eating food, adjusting your bags, hyping yourself up, and treating minor wounds.

Iron Rations
Heal 1d6 HP.

Proper Meals

Heal 1d6 HP by default, but get improved healing up the dice chain based on how many unique Ingredients the meal has and how Delicious it is.

Dice chain:

0 > 1d2 > 1d4 > 1d6 > 1d8 > 1d10 > 1d12 > 1d12+1 > 1d12+2 > etc

The primary means of improving the meal's Die Size is to add more ingredients:
+1 Die Size per unique ingredient.

The secondary means of improving the meal's Die Size is to improve its Deliciousness.
Up to +3 Die Size based on Deliciousness (see Get Cooking below)

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Food takes the place of standard Healing Potions in my game.
Cheap mid-delve healing at the risk of a Random Encounter.
Iron Rations are perfect for this because you don't need to cook them. Bringing a lunchbox of cooked food in the dungeon is even better though!

Crumbed chicken with salt-tossed sweet potato strips

The Main Meal

Eat food to regain HP rapidly overnight, and get a boost the whole next day!

A Long Rest is a night of peaceful sleep.

Overnight Healing

As per my house rules:

Importantly, if you have food and shelter you upgrade from Vagrant to Comfortable conditions.

Tents and food are important on wilderness trips - tents are easy shelter, rations are easy food.

Iron Rations
Easy but uninspiring. With shelter, upgrades you to Comfortable conditions as above.

Proper Meals
A sufficiently delicious meal unlocks an additional Dinner Perk!

These range from further improving overnight healing rates to temporarily boosting an ability score.
Dinner Perks last until your next Long Rest, so you get them for the whole next day.

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This has already led to players getting back to their base camp and cooking up a nice meal for all their friends, which I really dig.

Naturally it's also led to one player becoming obsessed with harvesting meat from dead creatures to taste their exotic flavours. Just as planned...

I was going to illustrate with amusingly nicely arranged oven food, but I was legit proud of this salmon with balsamic glaze on quinoa salad.

Get Cooking!

Now that you know the benefits, you'll want to know how to cook!

Ready Steady

Cooking a meal requires fire and half an hour.

In a dungeon, cooking doubles the chance of random encounters
Enterprising gourmands might use this to their advantage.

Servings

Each Ingredient is a standard ration. You make as many servings as standard rations you put in.
Iron Rations can be used to bulk out a meal - an extra serving per Iron Ration - at the cost of flavour.

Don't Ask How the Sausage is Made
If you're a player, this is all you need to tell me:

1. What Ingredients are you using?

2. Do you apply any modifiers?

3. Tell me the final deliciousness and we'll see what happens!

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Here's the backend.

Recipes
A unique combination of ingredients is a Recipe. If you're the first to make it, name it!
Each recipe has a Base Deliciousness (2d8). Some dishes take more work to make them tasty.
Each recipe has a Dinner Perk (see d100 Perks table). You'll get the same perk each time you make this recipe.

Deliciousness
Anyone can make a tasty meal with a well-stocked kitchen and a bit of effort.
Those without the proper equipment will just have to do their best.

Take the Base Deliciousness and apply these modifiers:

Then look up the result on this table:

The more delicious the better!

Dinner Perks
The big gimmick, Dinner Perks.
Have a tasty or delicious meal for dinner and you get a Dinner Perk.
Eat a truly superb meal for dinner and you get an upgraded version of the perk!

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The big one for chefs is the bonus per time you've cooked the meal before. The more you cook, the better you get! 
The good part is that we've got one person who's bang into this cooking system now and they're doing most of the cooking... but the downside is when they're not there everyone's like "fuck we don't have our chef!"

Halflings are naturally better cooks. Obviously that's why they have so have so many elevenses and second breakfasts.

Yes, there's a 1/100 chance of taking minimal damage from fire because you ate something yummy for dinner last night. It'd be amazing if that's the recipe that involves a lot of risky exotic ingredients!

You may have seen "weather effects" in the 21-30 result and wondered what those are.
Fog, rain, high wind: Half overland speed, double chance of getting lost off-road.
Extreme heat: 1 Con damage per four hours of travel.
Sheer cold: 1d6 Con damage per four hours of travel unless wearing cold weather gear.
Four hours of travel lines up with the time between encounter rolls.
These feel a little boring so if someone has better weather mechanics out there I'd love to see them!
The apocalypse might go six-dimensional weather soon with Raining Blood and Lacerated Sky and shit on there so it'll get more interesting soon I promise!

I actually ate this bad boy - legitimately delicious cooked, like a bacon sausage.

Experimental Dishes

Exotic Ingredients are those from strange sources.
Living plants, mutant beasts, the flesh of sentient beings.
There are even rumours, some say, of a Fifth Meat...

Monster Mash
Exotic Ingredients have weird and wonderful effects, unique per creature.
When you eat an exotic ingredient, roll 1d10 on the respective table (See: Exotic Side Effects) and see what happens...

I want Fugu!
Some creatures can be prepared properly to reduce the risk or get some extra bonus - like boiling Green Slime to make it edible or grinding up dried Fire Beetle glands to make Beetle Spice.
Such things are noted in the Ingredients section.


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This is straight from the Monster Menu-All, obviously.
Eat monsters to get weird powers.

Black mole best mole

Local Produce

Last but not least - hunting and gathering!

Now that fresh food grants boons and healing, it's beneficial to go hunting for fresh food even if you've got iron rations to spare!

Foraging
When you spend the day foraging, roll Bushcraft with a modifier based on terrain.

On success, gain 1d4 Standard Rations of the following type:

These are broad categories of Ingredient, but you can choose exactly what it is you found if you like. 

Common forage could include nettles, dandelion leaves and berries.
Special forage might be plump mushrooms or wild onions.
Small game includes hare, grouse, duck and other small animals.

Fishing
When you spend the day fishing, roll Bushcraft with a bonus equal to your Sailing score.
On success, gain 1d4+Sailing score Standard Rations of fish.

Butchering
Every ten minutes spent butchering a creature yields 1d6 Standard Rations.
Maximum butchering rolls are based on the size of the creature.

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Terrain table directly from LotFP.
I was going to do a Foraging table but it's so season- and biome-dependent that it didn't seem worth it, especially since I've got no experience of foraging myself! I figure if a player is into it they'll be able to do a better job of saying what they found than I ever could!

LotFP has a thing where you reduce your overland speed if you're hunting... but in practice people only bother hunting for food if they're waiting for their friends to heal up so they tend to come back to base camp anyway.

Fishing gives some ROI on Sailing score - mostly because I feel guilty about that skill being so very niche. People tend to put "Sailing" as one of their skills if they roll a fisherman Failed Career so this works for me.

Butchering takes some time if you want to use the whole beast, so you're best lugging corpses out of the dungeon and butchering them at the camp.

Battered goujons with tomato reduction schmear

Sauces

Last but not least, the chefs who inspired me.

This subsystem owes most of itself to the Unified Food Theory post by Dan (aka Dandyman on Discord) over at Throne of Salt. Drawing together a multitude of food-related posts into one place is what made this happen!
Primary amongst these is the Eating Good in the Dungeonhood post at Occultesque which has the more-ingredients-mean-more-healing bit.

The other big hitter is the Monster Menu-All  over at Coins and Scrolls. Of course it's Interesting to eat monsters! They're monsters!