Delving Deeper - long/short weapons

As a companion to my post about weapon speed/reach. These are the arms listed in the Delving Deeper boxed set, with an entry for which weapons have reach.

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These rules are hereby designated as Open Game Content via the Open Game Licence.

Battle axe              short
Dagger                  short
Flail                   long
Hand axe                short
Lance                   long
Mace                    short
Morning star            short
Pole arm                long
Short sword             short
Spear                   long
Staff                   long/short
Sword                   short
Two-handed sword        long   
War hammer              short

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You might disagree about some of those, but these are the ones I'd use. Even if they all only do 1d6 damage, this rule will add some tactical chrome to it game experience. Have fun with it!

Long weapons with reach for older editions

I just revisited my old favourite Stormbringer, and found that in that game there's a neat mechanic for how to handle reach and speed of longer weapons. As you probably already know, there are rules for weapon speed in AD&D, but they are fiddly. This is how I'd adopt the Stormbringer rules for D&D.

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These rules are hereby designated as Open Game Content via the Open Game Licence.

Long weapons and Reach

Weapons are rated as Long or Short. If you have a Long weapon, and are not Engaged, you will have the advantage and may attack once before any enemy with the same initiative count.

To Engage an enemy you roll 1d20 below your DEX, forfeiting an attack to do so. After that you will have Engaged your enemy, and that figure loose the advantage of having a Long weapon, and must Disengage to regain that advantage. Disengaging uses the same procedure.

Optional: If you fail your roll to Engage/Disengage, the opposing figure get one free attack at your figure. 

Group initiative

Roll initiative as usual and use the rules as written, except that before the first action are taken by the side winning, all figures equipped with a Long weapon get one strike each. These attacks are resolved in DEX order, and then the initiative proceeds as usual. No figure may attack more than once per turn in this way, unless explicitly allowed by other rules for multiple attacks.

Individual initiative

Roll initiative as usual. When resolving actions, first make one pass through the count down for all figures equipped with a Long weapon. Each may may one attack, in DEX order. Then go through the count of actions once more for those who have yet not taken an action. No figure may attack more than once per turn in this way, unless explicitly allowed by other rules for multiple attacks.

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Long time readers of this blog might remember that I wrote about this rule once before. That rule used the initiative roll in stead of a DEX check. It would be fun to try both out and see how they feel in comparison.

Anyone good with the minutiae of the OGL?

I have the last few days been working somewhat on a clone of the psionics rules from Supplement III, Eldritch Wizardry, to OD&D. Part of me have wondered why this have not been cloned before. I took a peek at the psionic book for 3.0, and found that the content was not Open Content. But, in the 3.0 SRD found online the psionic rules where there. So, how do you utilize that SRD? In the 3.5 SRD there are some parts missing, like the psionic attack and defense modes. How am I to use the first SRD then? I'm not very good at the legalistic parts. It's my understanding that I should be good just by putting in a reference to the SRD, copright so-and-so, in paragraph 15 of the OGL included with my clone text. Anyone have any feedback on that?

Swashbuckling, whitebox style

Reading up on the rules for 7th Sea for our game tomorrow I found myself with the idea of a swashbuckler for S&W. My White Box showed up a while ago, and this is a new class for S&W-WB, my first attempt to do anything with WB.

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The following content is hereby designated as Open Game Content via the Open Game Licence.

The Swashbuckler Class

Character Advancement: The Swashbuckler uses the Magic-User advancement for Hit dice and Saves, and the Cleric advancement for Experience.

Weapons and Armour Restrictions: Having trained to strike quick and be light on the feet, Swashbucklers are limited to Leather armour, no shield. Also, no other weapons than swords (long, short) and a dagger may be used.

Saving Throw: Since the Swashbuckler is swift moving, and as such get +2 to attacks (like oil splashes) and spells with an area effect.

Swiftness: The Swashbuckler may roll a Saving Throw to once a round push one item or character in between himself and a foe, or to swiftly transport himself behind an enemy by swinging in low hanging chandeliers . This ability may be used as many times per day as the level of the Swashbuckler.

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Open Game License

All Open Game Content on The Omnipotent Eye will be clearly marked as such and linked to this license.
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[edited for clarity]

Creature Feature - The Chaos Turkey

This is the first time I've posted new game material of my own making, I don't really know if it will happen again. If so, I've posted a licence and the preamble below will be used for all such material when applicable. My daughter invented this, and told me all about the beast. Kids are fun. Now I present it to you, with stats for the most ubiquitous or familiar (to me, I have never done S&W stats before!) old school systems. [edited for clarity]

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The entirety of this monster is hereby designated as Open Game Content via the Open Game Licence.

The Chaos Turkey

This benign overseer of the farm yard, is a feathered beast resembling the common turkey. This unique creature walks around among the other animals, sometimes suddenly snacking on some of the smaller animals like rats and rodents. Equipped with a peculiar sense of humour, animals with long ears (say, like a donkey) will sometimes find themselves the butt of the cruel jokes of the Chaos Turkey. Those poor animals will have their long ears pulled by the fowl-like beast which then jumps away gleefully with a shrill sound like laughter.

The most astonishing ability of the Chaos Turkey, though, is its ability of telekinesis. When larger animals like horses and cows fall over, like they are prone to do, this beast show a gentler side. It will use its psychic power to carefully help the quadrupeds to get up on their feet again.

When attacked, the fowl will use its telekinetic powers to throw attackers aside, and otherwise hinder their advance.

Swords & Wizardry stats: One random attacker will be telekinetically disengaged from action, or dropped from high altitude with a roll of 1-2 on a d6. Chaos Turkey: HD 3+1; AC 5[14]; Atk 1 beak (2d4); Move 12; Save 14; CL/XP 3/120; Special: Telekinesis, 33% chance.

End of Open Game Content

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Tunnels & Trolls stats: MR: 65 Special Ability:2/Fly Me - attackers will be telekinetically moved out of combat, and might be tossed aside and be damaged. Tunnels & Trolls is trademarked by Flying Buffalo Inc and used with permission.

Kobold Quarterly, interviewing Dave Arneson

When I heard that Kobold Quarterly was coming out with a new issue, and that there would be an interview with Dave Arneson in it, I decided to finally pay up and take a look at this new gaming magazine. I have heard a lof of positive things about it so even if I don't need more general OGL d20 stuff (this is Dragon Magazine, resurrected, folks!), I guessed it worth checking out if the last ever Arneson interview was in there.

Today my copy arrived, and it was noticable that even though I live in Canada, the shipping was free! Nice. I even got a handwritten note of thanks for checking out the magazine, and would I consider subscribing? No, I wont, but thanks for asking. So how was it, and did Dave say anything memorable?

So, the magazine had some new powers for Bards, an article about bat god, familiars, some monsters fleshed, reviews and some columns. The latter included a new one by Monte Cook, which might evolve into something interesting and some of the new creatures was dinosaurs, and they are kind of fun, right? All in all, it was a mixed bag and it felt quite unfocused. It felt a little bit like Dragon when it was at its most journymanlike.

What I really cared about though, was the interview. The answers to the questions sometimes felt very short and terse to the point of banality. Considering the bad health Dave was suffering from I'm not that surprised. Interestingly enough, he does expand a bit on the answers when they're about some early experiences of Blackmoor. Some of the questions probably would have been more fruitful as starting points for longer conversations, since they are so general that it's hard to give a very meaningful feedback. One example of that kind of question is “What makes for a balanced game”? Who says it's even something desirable?! It can be argued about, quite a lot. Still some nuggets of wisdom appear in the answers to this interview.

One thing I have read about before, and which got me thinking as I read about it again, is the question about the players involvment in the game. It's fairly clear cut that the old school way of doing things is to involve the players by making the encounters in the game challenge not only the characters, but also the players. Dave had a thing he did, where he physically removed his players from the table to a specific environment and observed how they acted when he yelled in the dark, and things like that. I found that interesting. While I like to put forward information in my game which will tell the players things which will help them steer their characters action, I can see how that way of doing things involved the players in a different way. While I can see some value of the position taken by a player who want the game system to help him figure things out, since his character have a high intelligence, I still like to make the player somehow contribute. While it might not be feasible to do it in all situations, setting the player up and using his or her actions as a starting point, might be a middle ground. That way you could let the game system take over after setting up the situation in a LARP fashion. Now, this is nothing revolutionary, but it still made me think of new ways of exploiting that physical aspect of the game. There is a difference between playing World of Warcraft alone in front of your computer and hanging out with some friends rolling dice. Maybe using that physical difference a bit more isn't such a bad idea?

Well. As I said I'm not exactly revolutionising gaming here, but sometimes it pays off to get reminded of obvious stuff and it can get the brain going. I probably will have to think more about it a bit more and also some things he said about the story being central to the game, since it did trigger some associations in my brain. More about that in a later post.