Itash the Grim

Here is my newest character, a 1st level wizard created with the 5th edition rules ready to head off on his own.

Name: Itash the Grim
Type: Wizard
Kin: Human
Level: 1

ST 14
IQ 14
LK 14
CON 9
DEX 12
CHR 10

ADDS +4

Treasure: 5 sp
Adventure Points: 0

Weapons: Kukri (2D+5, 20 wu, 15 yd), Haladie (2D+4, 15 wu), Common sling w 100 stones (2D+0, 60 wu, 100 yds)

Armor: Leather armor (6 hits, 200 wu)

Equipment: Warm clothing and pack, calf high boots, 5 torches

Languages: Common, Elven

Magic: Detect Magic, Knock knock, Lock Tight, Will-o-wisp, Oh There It Is, Take That You Fiend, Vorpal Blade, Oh-Go-Away, Hocus Pocus, Teacher

As you can see I had some nice luck with the dice; the Eposic Animated Die Roller is generally kind.

I'll be putting this interesting fellow through some trials in various classic solo adventures whether or not they allow wizards or magic to see how well he fares. Because survival in combat appears to be the biggest question I'll be running him through some fights first.

More to come.

Wizards in Close Combat

In my last post I described 5th edition rogues, at least at low levels, as poor excuses for warriors. This may seem a bit harsh but it is only my opinion. It is certainly not the case for 7th edition rogues. In a comment to this post, Soren stated that while rogues were not as good as warriors in combat, a wizard in close combat was simply a dead wizard but not so for rogues. That got me wondering. Was that really true? It is certainly the common assumption; but how do the combat abilities of rogues and wizards stack up in 5th edition and how likely is either type to survive a typical solo adventure where they would be forced to fight at least once.

In 5th edition, wizards are limited to weapons with 2 or fewer dice. This includes all daggers, the manople, foil, baton, piton hammer, crowbar, bagh nakh, quarterstaff, assegai, javelin, very light bow, common sling, chakram, shurikin, war bola, and caltrops. That's actually not a bad assortment of weapons especially considering the starting funds of most delvers; it also includes a good number of missile weapons. The rules state that wizards must only use 2 die weapons, but it does not say that they cannot use two of these at the same time. At a minimum, a wizard can use two banks, getting 4D+6 in combat and only requiring a STR and DEX of 2. At best, a wizard can use two kukri and get 4D+10 in combat requiring a STR and DEX of 12. That's not bad in either case. Even with two banks the wizard should be able to handle a MR 20 monster single handed. Keep in mind that there is also nothing saying that a wizard cannot use poison to increase the effectiveness of these weapons. It is also important to remember, there is no limit on armor or shields for wizards in T&T. A wizard with enough money (and strength) can deck himself out in plate armor and carry a tower shield is he or she so chooses. The wizards of T&T need not rely on the protection of warriors, nor should they.

Now, what about the combat ability of rogues? They have no restriction on which weapons they can use just like warriors meaning they can use whatever they want in the lists as long as they have the money, strength, and dexterity. But what does that mean really? Will the rogue necessarily have a much higher strength or dexterity than the wizard? How many more dice and adds can the rogue bring to bear than the wizard? One most likely, maybe two. This lack of a difference is most evident at low levels. Rogues get the same use out of armor that wizards do, so they are completely even on that front.

What do wizards have that rogues do not in 5th edition? Ten spells. Starting wizards can blast their enemies to smithereens, freeze them in place, briefly enchant their own weapons doubling their effectiveness, panic their enemies so that they flee, locate hidden objects or invisible monsters, open locked doors, magically lock doors, make magical light without need for torches or lanterns, and detect the presence of magic. Oh, they can also enchant a piece of wood so that their spells require less strength to cast. True they also have a spell that allows them to teach spells to rogues, but why do that? That would cut down their edge. It is true that in 5th edition wizard spells are powered by strength and this can be a problem if the wizard is suddenly forced into combat. But it's all about being smart and conserving your strength, especially when you are delving alone. Use spells only when they will do the most good, otherwise save your strength and rely on your daggers.

Like Soren I had considered wizard useless in combat and therefore lost causes when it came to solo delving. I'm not so sure any more. As long as the mechanics of the solo allow magic to be used, a wizard should be able to survive as equally as a rogue or even a warrior. Well, most of the time.

Rogues

I never gave much thought to the rogue type in 5th edition Tunnels and Trolls. Sure they could fight with any weapon and had the ability to cast spells, but their abilities in both were much less than warriors or wizards. The magical ability of rogues in particular always seemed to fall a bit flat to me. Sure they could cast spells, but they started with none and had to learn them from wizards that were forbidden to teach them to rogues. That means high prices. A single second level spell costs a wizard 500 gp from the Wizard's Guild. What would a wizard charge a rogue to teach him one on the sly? Rogues also did not have the ability to cast lower level spells at lower strength costs, use magic staffs or similar implements to reduce casting costs, or use spells higher than 7th level. This highly reduced the effectiveness of the few spells the rogue did manage to learn. In the end, a low level rogue was simply a poor excuse of for a warrior (in my mind at least), and certainly not the best choice for a solo delver. This was not likely to change until the rogue had amassed a significant amount of money to purchase some of the most basic first level spells.

But this attitude changed when I saw a 7th edition rogue in action during a play test on my upcoming new solo adventure. In 7th edition rogues get a new bell and a new whistle that make them rather formidable character types. First, rogues start with one first level spell. Now most players would probably jump at Take That You Fiend, but there are other first level spells that are much more effective and can lay waste to the best laid plans of a solo designer. One such spell is Hold That Pose. The second new feature of rogues that make them viable at low levels is the Roguery talent. Oh, how I hate the roguery talent. The Roguery talent is based on Luck. A Rogue gets this talent equal to Luck + 1D6. This score can then be used in place of any Saving Roll on Luck, Intelligence, or Charisma. That's three attributes covered by one score which is increased by an additional 1D6. Roguery is quite different from other talents which have to be used in specific situations. The Roguery talent covers any saving rolls based on any of these three attributes. This is incredibly useful in a solo adventure. Let me tell you, a certain rogue made off with a large pile of loot thanks to a high starting Luck and his Roguery talent.

So I no longer consider rogues a poor option as characters, at least 7th edition rogues. I'll just have to add three or four to my own stable of characters.

June's Lone Delver

This month's Lone Delver is a rather simple, but highlights one of the primary dangers faced by the solo delver: you're alone. The illustration is by Liz Danforth and is from Ken St. Andre's classic solo, Deathtrap Equalizer (2nd edition). There is no slavering monster or fiendish dark magic depicted, only a delver stuck at the bottom of a pit. Despite the "commonness" of the situation it can be just as deadly as a charging balrog.

A major hazard of solo delving is that there is no one around to help when you get in a tight spot, like the bottom of a pit. If you're with a group, you can rely on your comrades to help pull you out (at least you hope so). But if you're alone you can shout for help all you want; if you're lucky no one will answer your cries, if you're unlucky something might and your probably would not like the result. So what's a solo delver to do? Equip yourself. Bring a rope and a grappling hook. Bring a hammer and some pitons. Be self reliant. Make sure that if you fall into a pit you have the means to get yourself out. The only thing that goblin that wanders by is going to do is laugh at you, and maybe throw some rocks for fun.

Burning Luck

In a previous post I commented on the 'burning luck' option from the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. In burning Luck, a player may choose to permanently sacrifice points from his/her character's Luck attribute in order to raise a die roll by an equal number in a life-or-death situation. I thought that this was a perfect house rule for Tunnels and Trolls, especially when playing solo adventures where life or death often hangs on a single roll of the dice. Well it turns out that someone else thought that this was a good idea. Gaptooth over at the Trollbridge reminded me that just such a T&T house rule was described by JongJungBu (aka Patrick Witmer) over at his website. Patrick has an excellent T&T website and is well worth a look. Patrick has also written and published three excellent T&T solo adventures that you can download for free from his website (or from the links to the right). Patrick's website includes Seven Solo Spicing House Rules and Seven Solo Safety House Rules in which 'luck burning' is included as number 7. Here it is:

Luck: If at any time a fatal roll would kill a character, he/she may permanently spend his/her LK to make up the difference. This LK cannot be recovered like ST or CON but is lost permanently. To spend LK for a killing blow in combat, the player must bring his CON back up to 1 (exactly) and subtract that many points off of his/her LK permanently. Example: A killing blow in combat would reduce CON to -7, instead the player opts to use LK and therefore must spend 8 LK to bring CON to 1. To spend LK for a fatal SR, one must lose LK equal to the difference in the target roll. Example: A failed L1 SR on LK would have resulted in death due to being 3 under the target number, instead the player opts to spend 3 LK to make up the difference. Note that spending LK for a LK SR does not reduce the previous roll for such a case and LK spent on SRs only applies to those that would otherwise result in player death.

I like this house rule a lot for solo adventures, especially with the additional use to soak up damage that may otherwise kill a character. Of course if that character were still fighting, the loss of personal adds from the reduced Luck attribute would likely mean that the player is just delaying the inevitable. But if the damage were delivered by a trap or other one-time mishap rather than a MR300 troll repeatedly hitting you in the head with a club, this would be an excellent use of luck. Sacrificing Luck to make a Saving Roll may prevent injury altogether, or death in extreme circumstances. But again, one would have to use this option wisely because sooner or later you'll need to make a Luck saving roll.

There are two restrictions to Burning Luck that I would add, however. First, burning luck cannot be used to prevent a fumble or a natural roll of a '3' on 2D6 (or a 3 and a non-double 4 in 5th edition). A 3 always fails, period. Second, Luck may not be burned to less than 3. After all, an adventurer needs some luck just to survive from day to day. With a Luck less than 3 a character is certain to be struck by lightning, fall in a pit, hit by a meteorite, or all three at the same time.

Now I just need to put this rule to the test. If anyone else uses this house rule in solo or group play, let me know how it works for you.

10,000+ Pageviews

The Lone Delver has now exceeded 10,000 page views since the system starting counting in July 2010. Ok, I have no idea if that is a high number or not relative to other RPG blogs (certainly not Grognardia), but I'm pretty happy with the number.

Edit: Oops. I corrected the start date on the counter from May 2009 to July 2010. It seems a bit better of a count now.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG

Ok, so this has nothing to do with Tunnels and Trolls and little to do with solo gaming but I would like to join in the discussion of the recent Beta release of the Dungeon Crawl Classic RPG rules. I have to say that I was not really paying much attention to this system. I have a small set of games that I enjoy and my fantasy gaming interested are met by a few of them so a new set of rules did not interest me. But I read the post on Grognardia and the comment about the art piqued my interest so I downloaded a copy for myself to have a look.

The art is amazing. I am quite surprised that so much of the art was included in the free download. I suppose it speaks to how confident Goodman Games is in selling the final product. The art is definitely old school and you'll see a number of recreations of art from previous rule sets (Moldvay D&D in particular), but Earl Otus was one of the contributing artists so how can you go wrong. I would recommend downloading a copy simply to look at the art even if you have not interest in the rules. It's that good. I got five or six solid ideas for new solo adventures just by leafing through pdf once.

As far as the rules go, I cannot really see myself playing this one. The Beta version of the rules come in at 157 pages and it's only supposed to be an excerpt of what's to come. Oh my. I'm not sure I want to deal with more rules. There are also a large number of different tables which are required for use during game play.

But there are a few things which interested me at first glance:

1. The rules for character generation explicitly state that abilities are rolled by 3d6 in order. All other variation are not allowed. This can easily be ignored by those that prefer, but I like it.

2. Luck is included as an ability. Luck provides a modifier on actions, but the player rolls on a table with 30 possibilities to see what types of action his/her luck helps or hinders. The possible options range from attack rolls, agility checks, poison resistance, spell checks, and finding secret doors. Luck also has certain affect depending upon a character's class. A warrior, for example, may use his/her luck modifier to influence attack rolls with one type of weapon. What I really like, however, is the option to burn luck. Players can opt to permanently lose luck in order to influence a die roll in order to survive life-or-death situations. So to get a +6 on a roll, you permanently lose 6 Luck. This is a nice rule and one I may consider adding to my T&T House Rule list. Burning Luck to add an equal bonus to a Saving Roll would help in those extreme situations where death is only a roll away. It would also increase solo survival rates; for a while anyway. A permanent reduction in Luck would eventually come back to haunt you.

3. You start the game a Level 0 nobody. In fact you start in the hole with -100 xp. You have to work your way up to 1 xp at which point your character can choose a class. So what are starting characters? You roll on an occupation table to find out. There are 50+ possibilities including gambler, indentured servant, cooper, mercenary, grave digger, noble, woodcutter, shaman, dwarven miner, halfling gypsy, and elven forester. Each occupation provides a starting weapon and a piece of equipment. The mercenary, for example, gets a longsword and a suit of hide armor. The cooper gets a crowbar and a barrel. In addition you get a handful of copper coins; enough for some torches, sacks, and a bit of food but not much else. The rules state that these 0-level characters will have a high level of attrition. No kidding. They also state that a properly sized party of 0-level character is 15 individuals. Wow. I suppose each player has few characters. As member start to die, however, those that are left are better equipped. Suddenly the cooper has a longsword and some armor to go with his crowbar and barrel. I am really intrigued by this idea. There is always the question of where your character came from and this method serves to help answer that question. You in fact guide your character through those first steps of becoming an adventurer. But then there is the question of how your Level 0 Cooper suddenly becomes a Level 1 Warrior skilled in all manner of weapons and acts of martial prowess or a Level 1 Wizard capable of wielding magic and other arcane knowledge. I suppose we could assume the cooper goes off to train for some period of time, but that seems a bit forced. But the idea of a party of poorly equipped 0-level characters going down into a dungeon really sounds like fun. There is a pretty funny illustration in the book depicting just such a group. This idea makes me want to write a solo for Citizen types.


Those are my initial impressions. As I said, I'd likely never play this game but I can see it's appeal. If you have not done so, download a copy and have a look. If nothing else do it for the art.