Simple Skill System, Type II

This past September I proposed a system I called Streamlined Skill Rolls. I thought it was a pretty solid idea, though it wouldn’t be a stretch to call it derivative. Earlier today I was pondering various means by which the Pathfinder character creation process could be simplified, and I ended up formulating an entirely different simplified skill system. I woulnd’t use it for Pathfinder, but I could certainly see myself implementing it in a new game.

Since I’ve created another one of these before, but this one is not related to the other in the slightest, I’ll call it “Type II.”

When a character wishes to perform an action which needs to be resolved by dice, but they have no ability to determine the method by which they perform that action, success or failure is resolved by a roll-under ability check. For example, if a character with 15 strength wishes to lift a large stone, they roll 1d20. On 15 or less, they succeed. On 16 or more, they fail. (For really large rocks, the GM might penalize them with a +1 or more on their roll).

The game has a list of such skills. For lack of a better list, we can use the reduced pathfinder skill list I ended up with at the conclusion of my Skills Overview. At first level, characters may select a number of skills from this list equal to their Intelligence bonus, with a minimum of 0. Rogues and bards, as the jack-of-all-trades classes, are each allowed to pick 2 additional skills beyond the ones their intelligence grants them. A character’s skills may be chosen at character creation, or during gameplay, at the player’s option.

When making a roll-under ability check relating to that skill, the player receives a bonus of -1 on their roll. Characters cannot choose the same skill multiple times to receive stacking bonuses. Once chosen, the skills remain unchanged until level 5.

At level 5, the players are again allowed to select a number of skills equal to their intelligence, with rogues and bards again being allowed to select an additional 2. The player has the option of selecting new skills, or of selecting their previous skills again, gaining a -2 bonus in those skills. This process repeats every 5 levels.

I haven’t determined how broad the skills should be with this stystem. On the one hand, if something is going to be itemized, I think the list should be kept short. On the other hand, if the players are allowed to simply select any ability they want (with a note about the appropriate broadness in the book), then the potential number of skills could be endless, and I find that somewhat interesting. If lifting and pulling are different skills, then players will be more inclined to pick new skills every 5 levels rather than just grind the ones they have up to the max. On the other hand, you risk emulating the D&D 3rd edition skills system, with its numerous skills that are absolutely pointless.

The major problem I see with this system right away is that automatic success becomes far too simple. That’s why it would never work in Pathfinder, because characters often end up with ability scores of 20+, at which point a roll under ability check cannot fail unless the GM imposes penalties. Even oldschool D&D, with a maximum of 18/100, would allow automatic successes by level 5 when the player is able to gain skills with a -2 bonus.

Maybe it’s okay for some skill checks to be automatic successes, thus rendering the die rolling unnecessary. I do like mechanics which allow players to simply do cool stuff, rather than roll to see if they can do cool stuff. At the same time, I worry a mechanic like this may fly out of control and allow players to do stuff they shouldn’t be able to. Perhaps this system would work better if high rolls represented success, rather than low rolls.

It’s also possible this is a terrible idea. It just sorta came to me, and I thought others might find it interesting.

Fast Playing Skirmishes

Recently the tide turned in the ongoing war between the elves of the Western forest, and the orcs who had settled in the ruins there. A series of defeats has forced the orcs into retreat. Rather than flee North into dwarven lands, or South where they would likely be subjugated by the Lich, they began migrating East, and established three settlements in the north of the Plains of Nalew. No one holds a true claim on this land, though there is a small human settlement, named Overton, at the confluence of the River Nalew and the Drall River.

The humans of Overton have obviously been distressed by this development. They appealed to the elves for aide, but the elves say they have enough orcs to worry about in their own lands, and are not interested in risking lives in solving human problems. To make matters worse, the orcs have recently erected a fourth settlement. This one south of the River Nalew, a day’s ride from Overton itself, and very clearly an encroachment on human territory.

Fortunately, the local adventuring party returned to town about this time. The mayor begged them for help, and they agreed to do what they could to get rid of the orc problem. Unwilling to take such a large force head-on, the players devised a more cunning plan. First, they did some recruiting around town, and found 10 able-bodied adults willing to join them in battle. Second, they approached the elves again, and laid out a plan which would minimize the risk to elven lives. They also reminded the elves that orcs breed fast, and allowing them to settle so close to elven territory would given them the opportunity to re-invade within 10-20 years. The elves agreed to lend the players 30 archers; but only on the condition that the only real risk be to the players.

The lynchpin of the plan was Betsie, the minotauress PC. For the most part, this has been a humans-only campaign, but I allowed one of the players to take control of Betsie when her paladin died and Betsie was the only friendly NPC around. The players figured that the Orcs, as fellow monstrous humanoids, may be inclined to trust Betsie more than they would trust a human. The plan was that Betsie would tell the orcs that the forest west of Nalew had ruins similar to those the orcs had occupied in the Eastern forest, and that ever since the tribe of Gnolls she’d been in charge of had been killed by humans, there was no one there to occupy the territory. (All of this was pretty much true). Further, Betsie would claim, the ruins were filled with treasure, which she would prove with a massive 5000gp diamond the players had recovered from the area.

The player’s hope was that the Orcs would agree, and she could lead each of the four colonies (one by one) into a bottleneck between a large hill and a river, where they’d be ambushed by the humans, elves, and the rest of the party. It was a solid plan. Or, rather, it was an insane plan, but one which met the minimum standard for logical thinking which constitutes a good plan in D&D. Shortly after the plan was made, one of our players had to leave, and we decided to play board games for the rest of the evening.

That was a month ago. I had that long to figure out how to handle the player’s plan. It’s a good enough plan that I didn’t want to simply have it blow up in their faces; at least not by fiat. Assuming that the reaction dice didn’t cause the orcs to attack her on sight, and the player made her case well enough, I figured the plan would go off. (Though no way were the orcs going to be dumb enough to go in one at a time. They were gonna get together with the other three camps, and march in there 100 warriors strong).

So how do I run this scenario? 100 orcs, 30 elves, 10 humans, and 5 PCs. Obviously I don’t want to model a battle with 140 NPCs at the table, because that would take a week and be immensely boring. I do want it to be random though, because that will create a more interesting scenario than one I’ve scripted. Given the small number of forces on each side of the engagement, I do want to track how many die, but I don’t want a battle between NPCs to take up too much of my time. It has to be about the players, and their actions during the combat. Those actions of the players should also have some bearing on the fight’s outcome, though, even if it’s small.

What I eventually came up with was based on the dice chain mechanic of DCC RPG. The chain I used was 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, 1d14, 1d16, 1d20, 1d24, 1d30. Each round, each of the factions would roll one of these dice against the other factions, killing that many members.

Assuming nothing went wrong with the player’s plan, the first round of combat would be a surprise round from the elves. I assumed they’d have plenty of time to line up their shots, so the opening volley from the elves killed 3d6 + 12 orcs. So most of the elves would make kill shots, but it wouldn’t be able to exceed the actual number of elves participating.

The PC who was in charge of the 10 humans had chosen a position a little removed from the bottleneck, and I told him it would take 1 full round of charging before he could get into position to attack. Once they were able to engage, I figured the humans could kill 1d10 – 2 orcs each round (as these are not trained warriors), and the orcs could kill 1d10 humans each round.

Starting on the second round (after the surprise) the orcs could kill 1d4-2 elves each round, with a result of 0 or less meaning they still had not spotted any elves. While the elves, now dealing with the chaos of battle rather than a well timed ambush, would be able to kill 1d30 each round.

While all of this was going on, the players would be in the thick of the battle. Each round they faced off against several different orcs (I invented 6-8 variant orcs to keep things interesting). These death-rolls would be be made openly between each round of combat, so the players could see how the battle was progressing around them.

The majority of play time during the battle was focused on the players, with brief interludes between each round while I rolled to see which combatants on each side had died. As the battle progressed, the ‘kill dice’ I rolled were modified by several factors:

No faction can ever roll a die with a potential to result in more kills than there are attackers. For example, the elves can continue to roll a d30 for as long as there are 30 elves, but once an elf dies, they move down 1 space on the die chain, to 1d24.
Once the orcs score their first kill against the elves, they’ve figured out how to spot the elves and jump up to a full 1d4 on the die chain.
Each round, as the elven positioning is further revealed, the orcs roll a die which is one higher up on the die chain.
Each orc the players kill will be matched by the elves, who gain a +1 on their kill roll. The result cannot exceed the number of remaining attackers.
Any PC knocked to 0HP or lower, or who flees from the fight, will give give the orcs a boost of 1 extra step up the die chain.
If the PCs successfully kill 5 orcs in a single round, the elves will rally and receive a +10 to their kill roll.
Once any of the 3 factions is reduced below 20 members standing, roll a 1d20 morale check each round. If the result is equal to or lower than the number of fighters standing, the faction will press on. If the result is higher, then the faction will break and flee from the battlefield.

These rules only took me about 20 minutes to come up with, but it seemed like a solid method of running a skirmish like this. And it did work pretty well in play, though I did end up straying from the plan a few times when I lost track of what had happened. The players did succeed in slaying the orcs, though with only 10 elves left alive they may want to watch their back if they ever venture into the Western forest again.

Any of my readers have a better method of running a battle like this one?

Deadly Dungeons 8: Shockfloor Crypt

Beyond the archway is a short stone staircase descending 4ft into a large room filled with water. The water is three and a half feet deep, and all but the first step are submerged beneath its surface. The water does not flow, and a thorough examination of the room will not reveal any point at which fresh water comes into the room. Yet strangely, the water lacks any of the stagnant murkiness one would expect to find in still dungeon water. It is crisp and clear, allowing anyone standing at the stairs an easy view of the stone floor beneath the water’s surface. There are no deadly creatures lurking in this water, it appears to be nominally safe.

The main features of the room are the four large sarcophagi. spaced roughly 12ft from both the walls, and from each other. The lid of each sarcophagus is level with the water, such that it is obvious water will not pour into them the moment they are opened; but even slight movement would cause ripples large enough to splash the bodies within. Each of the sarcophagi is adorned with a large stone depiction of an object. Atop one is a large stone book which lies open. The writing on the exposed pages of the book is magical, and can only be read by casting Read Magic. The stones function as a Scroll of Knock which can be used unlimited times. Any attempt to remove the book from the top of the sarcophagus will cause the runes to crack, and become unusable.

Another sarcophagus bears a large stone depiction of a sword, while a third is topped with a massive stone rat who appears feral and hungry. The final sarcophagus is topped with an elaborate feast of stone. It depicts a roast bird, several piles of fruits, a large of wine, and a large fish on a tray.

The room is constructed of simple stone, and the ceiling is 15ft above the floor. The only other obvious feature of the room are three metal rods–one of gold, one of silver, and one of copper. Each is 3ft in length, and they hang down from the center of the ceiling in a triangle pattern.

Anytime one of the sarcophagi is opened, the copper rod in the ceiling will send a lightning bolt down into the water. Anyone standing within the water or who is anywhere near the rods is subject to this damage. [In pathfinder, 10d6 damage, Reflex save DC: 20 for half; in OD&D 6d6 damage, save v. wands for half].

Within the sarcophagus with the book on top of it, there is the dessicated body of a woman. On the underside of the lid is a fist-sized dial. When it is turned, a previously unseeable seam will appear amongst the pages on the stone book. The page will turn, revealing a blank page with three very thin strips of metal embedded into it. The first is silver, the second is copper, and the last is gold. If, for some reason, the stone book’s pages are up against the wall or another hard surface, and cannot turn, then the player will also be unable to turn the dial on the lid’s underside.

Within the sarcophagus adorned with a statue of a feral rat, there is the dessicated body of a man. Immediately upon being opened, a blast of blue-grey smoke will be released. The cloud will force anyone within 5ft to make a saving throw. (Pathfinder: Fortitude, DC 16; OD&D: Save v. Poison) Failure causes the victim’s muscles to become limp and unresponsive for a turn (10 minutes). If they fall into the water, they may drown if they are not rescued.

The sarcophagus with a sword atop it is deeper than the others, and packed tightly with bones. They have been neatly stacked according to their type (femurs with femurs, ribs with ribs, skulls with skulls…). There are exactly enough bones here for 8 human bodies. The bones are not undead. They do not have any aura, and will not react to turn undead. However, if the lightning bolt is ever activated while this crypt is open, the bolt will angle off to the side, striking these bones rather than the water. At this point, the bones will leap from the sarcophagus and form into 8 undead skeletons, where each bone is bound to the others with a tiny arc of electrical static. These skeletons fight as standard skeletons do, but have an additional 2 HD, and deal additional electricity damage in addition to their normal damage (Pathfinder: 2d6; OD&D: 1d6).

The sarcophagus with the feast atop it contains the dessicated remains of a woman. If the players choose to search for a false bottom, they will discover that beneath the body is a stairway which leads to the next level of the dungeon.

The rods on the ceiling can be removed easily enough. Once they are gripped, a simple quarter turn will release them, and allow them to be pulled easily from the holes they’re mounted in. However, the lightning will activate if the rods are not removed in the proper order. The proper order is silver first, followed by copper, followed by gold. Once removed from the ceiling, the rods have no magical properties. However, the copper rod is worth 50gp, the silver rod is worth 200gp, and the golden rod is worth 800gp!

Picture Thursday 15: "Roll for Initiative…" by Jon Hodgson

I really have nothing to say about this piece which it does not say itself. A majestic landscape, a threatening beast, and a party who looks small and terrified in the face of this great danger. (But none the less resolute to find themselves some god damned treasure)!

Jon Hodgson is a talented artist who does a lot of work with this kind of composition. Large, dynamic pieces with a lot going on. It’s no surprise his work has appeared in The One Ring RPG. I’m very grateful he allowed me to share this piece with you, and I encourage you to browse through his Deviant Art gallery. There are dozens of gems to be found there!

A Defense of Knowledge Skills

While my recent posts on skills have focused on crafting skills, I haven’t forgotten that my stated intent was not just to rebuild Pathfinder’s crafting from the ground up, but also to rebuild Pathfinder’s knowledge skill. Knowledge, however, is a much more controversial type of skill than crafting is. And even crafting had to be defended against the argument that it should not be included in the game!

In this post I will make the argument that knowledge skills have their place. I don’t think they belong in a retroclone, or in a rules light game, but that doesn’t mean they are completely without value. Their presence in the Pathfinder ruleset is justified, even if I think it ought to be implemented better. I also hope that through this attempt to articulate a logical support of knowledge skills, I can gain a clearer picture of what is important and what is not for when I move on to designing my own version of this mechanic.

I’m familiar with two important arguments against the existence of Knowledge Skills:

By forcing players to make a successful knowledge check before receiving information, knowledge skills create an environment where the GM often fails to communicate information which the players should be given freely. Players may not be given knowledge that their character should have.
A game where knowledge is a mechanical ability of the character, rather than something possessed by the player, creates a gaming environment where the importance of the player’s skill is reduced. The player is not allowed to use knowledge which their character “wouldn’t have.”

Taken together, these arguments might seem like a case of wanting to have your cake, and eat it to. If the players don’t know something and the GM is supposed to tell them what their character would know; why then also should the player be able to turn around and use information their character wouldn’t know? The answer is quite simple, if somewhat flippant: because we’re playing a game. Our primary goal is not to embark upon a profound exploration of the characters we’re playing. D&D and Pathfinder are not, as -C has put it, an activity for those with thespian aspirations. Perhaps that’s what you’re doing, and if so I truly hope you enjoy it. But that’s not something I’m interested in writing about.

In a game, the player is expected to play to the best of their ability. They bring their experience and their knowledge to the table, and they’re also provided with information about the games rules, and how it functions.

But I’ve diverged from the point of this post. The fact is, depending on how Pathfinder’s knowledge rules are interpreted, both of the potential problems mentioned above can appear. But they do not have to.

In his analysis of the knowledge skill, Courtney listed three possible types of information, and posits that none of these should ever be hidden behind a successful roll of the dice.

Trivial and of no importance.
Non-vital, but interesting and providing some depth and background to the game.
Crucial.

In reviewing Courtney’s analysis in preparation for writing this post, it occurred to me that there is a fourth type of information. Imagine, for example, that my players have entered a room. It would be trivial of me to mention that the cobblestone floors have cracks in a few of the stones. I could mention to the players that the room smells so bad they can taste the pungent air on their tongues. It’s not vital for me to do so, since the smell does not affect the game, but it does help the players to imagine their environment, which is fun, so why not. It is crucial that I tell the players there are two exits on the north wall, and that there’s a large pile of stones in the corner.

4. Hidden information.

I should probably not tell the players that there’s a pile of gold under the stones. If they want to learn about that, then they’re going to need to do some work. Like maybe digging through the pile of stones.

There are two types of hidden information. The kind which can be modeled at the table, and the kind which cannot. The example above of the gold hidden under the pile of stones can easily be modeled at the table. If the players say “I knock over the pile of stones,” then voila, they’ve revealed the hidden information about the gold. However, this room also contains a hidden door on the south wall. The players haven’t seen it, but they’re pretty sure it’s there, because they saw a monster run into this room. There’s no sign of the monster now, and the only other exit from the room is barred from the other side. So they players would like to start searching the walls for hidden doors. At this point, we bring out the dice, because there’s no way for the players to describe how they look at a blank wall for a secret switch.

Based on this, I would say that there are three types of information which might be included in a game.

Player Knowledge is what the player themselves knows. When a black dragon appears, the player knows to ask the wizard if he can borrow that potion of acid resistance, because the player knows that black dragons have acid breath.

Character Knowledge is information the GM freely gives to the player, because the PC would obviously know it. If the player is in their home town and says they want to go to the local pub, the GM can simply tell them that it’s called the Pig and Whistle. When the player decides he wants to become more religious, the GM can identify a few religions the character would be familiar with. There’s no reason to hide that kind of information.

For Skill Check Knowledge, three things should be true. First, it should not be trivial. Second, the game should be equally interesting whether the players know it or not. Third, there should be more than one route to obtaining it. When a fighter encounters magic runes on the door of a crypt, it would not be trivial for that fighter to know whether the runes were arcane or divine. Even if they can’t read it, the type of writing on the outside of the door could provide valuable clues to what’s inside. If they fail to determine the type of writing it is, or even get it wrong, the game will be interesting because they’ll be less prepared for what they encounter within. Whereas if they succeed in determining the rune’s type, the game will be interesting because the player will have an opportunity to prepare for what they think is within. And, of course, if all else fails they could just go find a wizard or priest and ask them.

Resource: Old Maps Online

In an attempt to buy myself some time to work on a side project, I’ll be forgoing my normal Tuesday post. In its place, I have a present for you, gentle readers! One which should be of particular interest to those map-heavy GMs among you: Old Maps Online. It’s a fantastically designed repository of old maps, dating as far back as the 16th century.

The interface is intuitive, and should be relatively familiar to anyone who has ever used google maps, though obviously it works slightly differently without satellite images. You start by zooming in on the part of the world you’d like to explore. As you zoom in and out, the selection of historical maps on the right hand side of the website will change. If you hover your cursor over these maps, you’ll see a highlighted box on the screen which shows the area the selected map details. You can even set a date range for the map between 1000 CE and 2010 (though, as noted, I don’t believe they’ve yet added any maps prior to the mid 1500s). Once you’ve got a map you want to look at, just click it, and you can explore it in all of its high resolution glory.

I’m not much of a cartographer myself, but I would like to improve my skills in that area. And this seems like a marvelous tool! Here are just a handful of samples from the site’s massive collection:

Player Agency

Player Agency is a concept I mention frequently, but not one I’ve ever defined for myself. Other bloggers have defined it so well that it feels arrogant of me to even try. Courtney of Hack & Slash (with whom I share many readers) is responsible a definitive work on the subject. Taken together, his writings on player agency could fill a thick chapter in a textbook for game design. Add to that all of the other game designers who have written on the subject, and putting my own thoughts to digital paper begins to seem redundant.

But lets be redundant. Perhaps it’s a waste of text; but at least the exercise will help me organize my own thoughts. If I’m lucky, two or three other people might even benefit from it!

In discussions of ethics there is a term: moral agency. The term is useful in distinguishing between those who are capable of guilt and those who are not. When an alligator kills a person they’ve really done nothing wrong, but when a person kills a person they’ve committed one of the most heinous acts imaginable. What’s the difference? Murderers have moral agency, alligators do not. A moral agent is one who is able to make meaningful decisions about their actions, with regards to right and wrong.

I bring this up because moral agency is easy for us to understand. Even if a person doesn’t grasp the nuanced “philosopheese” definition of moral agency, they still understand in their gut what it means. And starting from that gut-understanding of moral agency, we can begin to understand the more abstract concept of player agency. Moral agency is to ethics, as player agency is to tabletop RPGs. Which leads us to the following definition:

A player with agency is one who is able to make meaningful decisions about their actions, with regards to the game world.

In practice, this means more than letting the player control the actions of their character. That’s so obvious as to be trivial, and not worth my time nor anyone else’s to discuss. I’m certain there are terrible GMs out there who will casually exert direct control over their player’s characters; but such absolute disregard for the spirit of the game isn’t a problem I’m interested in addressing.

The far more subtle, and far more relevant issue of player agency is that the choices the players make must be meaningful. If the players are exploring a dungeon and reach a “T” intersection, they’ve been presented with a choice of turning left, or turning right. What they experience beyond this intersection mustdiffer based on their choice if agency is to be maintained. There should be a room which is on the right, and a room which is on the left, and those rooms must be the same before the players make their choice, as they are after the players make their choice.

A few ways agency might be subverted in this situation:

Rather than preparing “right” and “left” rooms, the GM has prepared “first” and “second” rooms. Whichever way the players turn, they will enter the “first” room first, and will only be able to visit the “second” room once they’ve already seen the “first” one.
The GM wishes for the players to face as certain encounter here. And while it was originally placed in the room on the right, the GM will secretly move it to the room on the left for the sake of maintaining the ‘flow’ they wish to impose on the game.
An out-of-place door which cannot be opened, unlocked, bashed down, or damaged at all blocks the players from entering the room the GM wishes for them to visit second. It remains impassable until the players visit the room the GM wanted them to enter in the first place.

These are just a few simple options. I’m sure you can think of more. The above scenario is a textbook example of agency robbing behavior. It is constructed so that the loss of agency is obvious. Unfortunately, not all scenarios where the GM is in a position to steal agency from their players are so clear cut. In fact most are quite subtle.

Consider traps, for example. I recently designed a magical trap which I thought was magnificently clever. So clever, in fact, that I included a cryptic hint about how to overcome it early in the adventure. When my players reached it, however, they stumbled through a loophole I had not considered. They bypassed the trap entirely, without ever engaging with the clever mechanisms I had been so proud of.

It would have been a simple matter to force them to engage with my trap. All I would need to say is something like “Your hammer bounces off the glass without leaving a scratch. Some sorcery has made it stronger than steel!” And in fact, that did occur to me, but I held my tongue. The players had outsmarted me. Forcing them to witness the cleverness of my trap would not be better than the sense of accomplishment they would feel from subverting it entirely.

If retroactive changes are made to the game world in order to invalidate the player’s choices, the players have no agency.

And it’s not as though I can’t use the trap again some day. I doubt I’ll even alter the flaw my players found. I doubt other groups would think of the same plan, but if they did, it would be equally impressive.

Having followed Courtney’s writings on player agency for a long while now, I’ve become familiar with a common response to discussions on the subject. I believe I may have even offered it myself at some time in the past, but have since come to view it as incorrect. Rather than wait for it to be brought up in comments, I’d like to address it here in the post.

“My players don’t know what’s written on my notes, so they won’t know when I change something.”

The common response to this is “You may think they won’t notice, but they will.” And there is some truth to that answer. Players are not stupid. When the ogre is taking a sound beating, then suddenly roars and starts hitting the PCs with twice his previous strength, nobody is fooled. Everybody at the table knows that the GM was frustrated that their monster was dying too quickly, and decided to give the creature a last second boost to their stats.

But I think that response is a little simplistic as well. The truth is, the GM probably can fool their players if they’re quick on their feet and have a good poker face. But just because the players don’t realize they’re being fooled, doesn’t mean the game isn’t being harmed. When every encounter is just the right amount of difficult, when the players can never subvert the mad wizard’s puzzles, when the villain manages to escape at the end of every single encounter…the game becomes stale.

Part of the excitement of tabletop games is the chaos and the unlimited possibilities. When I’m playing a video game, I’ve been given a very limited set of ways to interact with my environment. My solution to every problem must stem from those limited abilities I’ve been given. In a tabletop RPG, I can attempt to solve problems in any way I choose! Perhaps I’m too low level to fight the troll king toe-to-toe, but if I can drop a boulder on his head, why shouldn’t I be able to kill him?

In the era of video games, player agency is what makes tabletop games worth playing.

Deadly Dungeons 7: Skeletal Assembly Line

Note that the below describes a single instance of a Skeletal Assembly Line room. It functions on its own, but if one of these rooms exists, then there are likely more of them. Hidden behind stone walls and false book shelves, producing the tools of war and sending them to who-knows-where for who-knows-what purpose. If this room is used, the GM is encouraged to hide several similar rooms. And don’t forget to add material gatherers to the random encounter table!

The secret door was more difficult to find than most; just a sliding section of wall in the middle of a corridor. The players never would have found it if they hadn’t seen a skeleton run by with an armful of old chains, then be gone from sight too quickly to have used any of the visible exits. Even with that to go on, it took the characters an hour to finally find the loose stone which, when turned, unlatched the hidden door and allowed it to swing open freely, revealing a short corridor leading to a room filled with the red glow of a fire.

Within the room was like nothing the players had ever seen. The soundproofing on that door must have been remarkably, because the characters were suddenly assaulted by a cacophony of sound once they stepped through it. Flames roared, hammers clanged, and the omnipresent clacking of bones against steel and stone. The room was filled with skeletons, dozens upon dozens of them, each repeating some mundane task over and over again. And not a one of them paid the intruders any mind.

Right in front of the players as they entered the room was the pile of refuse; dead adventurer’s armor, a thousand goblin spear heads, countless belt buckles and chains and other detritus. All of it steel. Skeletons swarmed over the pile, disassembling each piece, discarding anything that wasn’t steel. Leather, cotton, twine, even gold and gems were tossed into a wheelbarrow held by another skeleton. When it was full, the skeleton would wheel it away down another corridor, out another secret door, to dispose of it. Another skeleton with another wheelbarrow was already there to take the place of the first.

The steel that was left over was piled into another cart on a small rail. Whenever it was full, it was rolled up a ramp and dumped into a boiling vat of liquid metal. When the steel was ready, the skeletons at the vat would tip it forward, spilling the steel into a mold where it was shaped into the component parts of blades. A half dozen skeletal smiths cooled these parts in a communal pool of water, and hammered each piece into the proper shape before other skeletons take them to sharpen on a whetstone, before finally dropping them onto the conveyor belt.

Still more skeletons standing on either side of the belt deftly assemble the swords component pieces into usable weapons. Leather strips for the sword handle is periodically carried in by a blood-covered skeleton who probably comes from a similar room elsewhere in the dungeon. Given the denizens the players have encountered in the dungeon so far, they can only imagine the leather comes from goblins, orcs, or human adventurers like themselves.

The belt is turned by a skeleton with crank in hand, who moves it at a perfectly efficient speed to allow all of the work to be finished before it reaches the end of the belt, where the completed swords are dropped into a mysterious chute. The swords can be heard sliding against the stone for a long while, descending to some unknown depth for some unknown purpose. Who, the players wonder, could possibly need so many swords?

At least they have one clue to that riddle. The final step before the swords are dropped into the chute is for a strange symbol to be engraved on each blade. The players don’t recognize it, but perhaps someone else will? At least it’s something to look out for as they delve deeper into the dungeon.

The skeletons will continue to ignore the players indefinitely. Even if the players attack one of the skeletons, it will do whatever it can to continue working at its task for as long as possible. A disruption in the production chain will be noticed, however. The skeletal assembly line is a well oiled machine. And the moment any given skeleton no longer has a task to perform, they will immediately attack any living thing in the room, whether it’s a rat, or an adventurer.

Picture Thursday 14: Sandwich the Drow Paladin by Slants

EDIT: Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

This was probably the most verbose entry in the Picture Thursday series I’ve ever written. Most of the time I just put up a 200-300 word assessment of the art. For this piece I had written some 600+ words on why it’s not a cliche, what the piece means to me, and the history of the character. Everything was fine last night, and I checked the post several times. Yet somehow when the post went online this morning, everything but the art itself was gone.

I honestly can’t rewrite what was here. I could try, but by the time I was off of work and free to do so, this post would be 10 hours old, and it’s doubtful anyone would see the revisions. Plus it would make it more difficult for me to get Tomorrow’s post written.

I’m sorry about this. Perhaps I can share Sandwich’s story some other time; for now you can explore her origins on her 1d4Chan entry.

If I can find the missing info, I’ll update this post again.

Pathfinder Class Analysis 5: Fighter

*Valeros is better than Regdar and Tordek put together. I will fighter you on this.*

Core Concept: Nobody will agree with me, but fighters are the most fundamental class in Dungeons and Dragons. Every other PC class could be dropped from the game, and it would still work just fine. Of course, the game is better with several classes to choose from. Suffice to say that I approve of the Fighter’s core concept.

Which is part of why the Fighter’s treatment in D&D 3.x was so disappointing, and why the class’ revitalization in Pathfinder remains (in my view) one of Paizo’s greatest triumphs in designing that product. In fact the fighter class is so close to perfect, that I fear this post may end up being really short.

Bonus Feats: There are problems with the feats system, and since “moar feets” is a class feature of the fighter, the fighter inherits some of these problems. However I’ve already written at great length about the feat system in Pathfinder and what I think should be done with it, so I won’t re-hash old content just to pad out this post.

What I will say is that the fighter feats tend to be some of the stronger feats. Most of them improve upon an ability which is explicitly already available to all players; such as two weapon fighting, improved bull rush, and combat expertise.

So while Fighters certainly suffer from the failings of the feat system, those failings are not as severe as they might have been for a different class.

Bravery: On any other class, I might call this a filler ability. It has all the hallmarks of one: it’s a minor bonus which only applies in a very specific situation. It’s the kind of ability which Paizo added to many classes in an attempt to remove all of the ‘dead levels’ where players didn’t receive any interesting upgrades.

A +1 to saves against fear every four levels doesn’t seem as trivial on the fighter as it would on another class, though. Perhaps that’s because I like the way the fighter is put together, and am thus inclined to view everything about it in a more positive light. I wouldn’t completely discount that idea, but I have an alternative theory.

The fighter has much fewer abilities than other classes in the game. Counting the bonus feats, fighters have a grand total of 6 special abilities. Compare that to the Druid’s 14! When a fighter gets a +1 to saves against fear, it’s special. It represents the fact that the character has spent a lot of time in the very thick of combat, and cannot easily be frightened.

When a Druid gets +2 to Knowledge(Nature) checks, it’s just another piece of class-related minutia that gets tossed upon an ever growing pile of stuff the player will forget to use when it’s relevant.

Armor Training: This is a perfect ability. I know I linked to it, but I’m going to write it out here for all of my non-Pathfinder playing readers, that they might admire its elegance”

“Starting at 3rd level, a fighter learns to be more maneuverable while wearing armor. […] reduces the armor check penalty by 1 (to a minimum of 0) and increases the maximum Dexterity bonus allowed by his armor by 1. Every four levels thereafter (7th, 11th, and 15th), these bonuses increase by +1 each time, to a maximum of -4 reduction of the armor check penalty and a +4 increase of the maximum Dexterity bonus allowed. In addition, a fighter can also move at his normal speed while wearing medium armor. At 7th level, a fighter can move at his normal speed while wearing heavy armor.”

To sum up: fighters gain an expertise with armor which goes beyond simple proficiency. They can dance a jig in full plate and look good doing it.

In 3.X, fighters suffered from being essentially a blank slate of a class. The designer’s intention was that each player would build their own fighter, and I can respect that idea. But they inadvertently made a class which had no personality whatsoever. And it didn’t help that they severely underperformed according to the rules as written.

Armor Training is an ability unique to the fighter. It’s the kind of ability other classes become envious of, and it was accomplished without increasing the armor’s AC bonus even a tiny bit. That’s the kind of ability which makes the game interesting to me.

Weapon Training: While I think this ability is a great addition to the fighter class, it’s much more pedestrian than armor training. The longer I play tabletop games, the less interested I am in performing basic arithmetic.

Functionally, it’s nice that a fighter can become specialized in a certain group of weapons, and grow ever more proficient at using them. It just doesn’t get me excited. As I may have said before in this series, I like dramatic abilities. The type which sound game-breaking when you read them. Some potential alternatives to numerical bonuses, off the top of my head:

When attacking with X weapon, treat all enemies as flat footed.
When attacking with X weapon, all attacks are touch attacks.
When attacking with X weapon, a roll of Y or higher is always a hit. (The monster’s AC is 30, but I’m using a longsword, which is my specialty, so all attack rolls of 25 or higher hit).
Unique benefits related to the weapon group. Bows allow +50% range increments, flails grant an automatic success on attempts to grapple a foe with the weapon. Blades can have the numerical bonus, so it’s still available to those who want it.

Armor Mastery: I like the idea of armor as damage reduction anyway, so this works fine for me.

Weapon Mastery: This is the kind of thing I’d like to see for Weapon Training; but it’s a perfectly adequate capstone ability.

I guess this didn’t end up being all that short after all. I should never underestimate my own ability to blather.