OOC Chatter II

[Faanku]

The Halfling is oblivious to the goings on in the cabin since Laila hasn't screamed for help or anything.

Yeah this is intentional for now, if the situation worsens then expect a load scream.

(I was absolutely positive I posted this yesterday, my apologies.)

[Leitz]

Stirling, I think Arlen is looking to join Foxy on her adventure.

[Leitz]

Of course, the more I read, the more I see why Foxy has a difficult time getting people to adventure with her.

[Stirling]

Really why is that?

Her aide Sephanne died in the line of duty defending Gaul's frontier. That is the only loss in her adventures she feels responsible for. Thundred and his warriors willingly sacrificed themselves to enable the party to access the goblin halls. The three retainers who died were under Halfpint's command.

She volunteered to stand as tribute before Scatha the dragon (just ask the Duke). She has bravely stood before dragons, demons, renegade dwarves, a legion of undead, evil wizards, been declared 'free of infernal taint' (unlike other characters), she humbly declined knighthood and has been vindicated as a truthful character worthy of trust by her God.

Okay, she blags outrageously, is prone to drunken states and provocative insults, has a poor sense of decorum and propriety and struggles with authority figures. She is a risk taker who fails epically. Her character sheet portrays that she is aligned as a chaotic free spirit.

Fools may go where angels fear to tread, yet 'fools' still follow with her.

[Stirling]

We have much read regarding dwarven history and belief in Moradin. Any chance of removing restrictions on dwarven player characters as clerics?

[Stirling]

Foxy

currently in the Dwarrowdelf Tavern. I will make a post for her in the tavern thread after her visit to King Drunil is concluded for that will have a knock on effect to what she might say or do in the tavern regarding scouting further and recruiting.

[Marullus]

We have much read regarding dwarven history and belief in Moradin. Any chance of removing restrictions on dwarven player characters as clerics?

In LL Basic you only get one race/class. I have been okay modifying narrative color around it. For example, Issachar wanted to be a half-orc cleric. That's a cleric who chooses orcish as a language and has narrative color of divided heritage.

If I were to allow the same, you would abide by the book rules of cleric and not dwarves. (No infravision, tunnel sense, extra languages, or the house rule on sword-and-board style). You would mechanically be a cleric but could color it as being a dwarf. Same if you were a Magic User but colored it as a dwarven Runecaster.

Thoughts? Is that objectionable to any players?

[Leitz]

Like most of the motivations for house rules, sometimes you have to go beyond the book. It wouldn't bother me at all if the PC was both Dwarf and Cleric. I prefer humans due to their cultural flexibility; a Dwarf cleric could add a lot of flavor if played correctly.

[Zhym]

I like your idea. A PC is either a cleric or a dwarf. Someone who wants to play a dwarven cleric can play a cleric with dwarf RP flavor.

The race=class thing is fundamental to old-school basic D&D. The extensive house rules and religion-based subclasses have made this game anything but basic, but I think that separating race from class would be a fundamental shift in the nature of the game. I'm not sure it would break game balance, but I'm not sure it wouldn't. LL Basic isn't set up to balance what a PC could get by getting both race abilities and class abilities.

[Leitz]

The rise of AD&D removed the "race is class" distinction, and I liked that. Pretty sure basic D&D died out for a reason; "old school" is available more because "there's no more proprietary copyright" than "this was the coolest thing ever and since".

That said, I'm not the one running the show, and not really involved either way.

[Zhym]

I wouldn't say that basic D&D died out. It existed quite well next to AD&D for a while, and many of us still enjoy playing it.

More to the point, however, this is a Basic D&D game, or a variant of it, anyway, and race = class is one of the most fundamental parts of that. Change that, and you might as well say we're going to use LL AEC now. When AD&D split races from classes, it added restrictions to prevent demihuman races from being overpowered. Level limits, to start, which are crappy balancing tools. But I don't think you can just split classes from races without also doing something to correct the imbalance that would result. Or, as I said, just switching to LL AEC, which would a big change.

[Marullus]

So, the second alternative is this: the elf is already a functional dual-class example. It is a fighter/mage with elf flavor. Allowing a dwarf warrior/cleric or warrior/mage would be similar. (I also love dwarf flavor, so I am willing to ponder this).

Allowing someone benefits of both the dwarf warrior class and the cleric or magic user class could work if they used the Elf XP progression (and advanced at half the speed of single class human versions).

Is that better or worse than "cleric with dwarf flavor"?

[Leitz]

So, the second alternative is this: the elf is already a functional dual-class example. It is a fighter/mage with elf flavor. Allowing a dwarf warrior/cleric or warrior/mage would be similar. (I also love dwarf flavor, so I am willing to ponder this).

Allowing someone benefits of both the dwarf warrior class and the cleric or magic user class could work if they used the Elf XP progression (and advanced at half the speed of single class human versions).

Is that better or worse than "cleric with dwarf flavor"?

I'd consider it much better, and still following the spirit of the rules.

Of course, the odd question pops up. What if the "cleric-ism" of Moradin is tied into runes, and such? So, a dwarf "mage" isn't a magic user, but a cleric whose "spell book" is the inscribed runes on her axe, or the color sequence and texture of the beads in his beard? A lot of the lower level spells overlap, and some MU spells don't seem quite "dwarven". This might explain the highly detailed engraving dwarves do; instead of painting "bless this house" over the mantle, they carve the design taught them by a Moradin Rune Lord (to borrow a Runequest term). A non-cleric could carve the same thing as a written matra, only a cleric could "bless" the house.

Since clerics don't have to memorize spells, putting a "spell book" in public isn't really an issue. It binds the community and reminds them of Moradin's provision and leadership. For a cleric, it gives them a daily reminder of their duties and devotions. Spells available are up to the deity in question.

[Zhym]

I think it's probably better, and I'm coming around to the idea that it wouldn't be game-breaking if properly balanced. I'd probably customize (and possibly limit) the list of spells, too.

The elf is an interesting comparison, because the XP table and a level limit (that I'm curious whether you'll enforce if anyone ever gets past level 10) are the only ways an elf isn't superior to an MU in game mechanics. The level limit is actually a pretty major limitation of the elf, if enforced, since it caps the elf's spell-casting ability at 5th-level spells.

Oh, and elves have hit dice that are a blend of MU and fighter HD. So you'd need to decide what the dwarven cleric uses for hit dice: the dwarf's 1d8, the cleric's 1d6, or, hell, because this is all electronic, the middle ground of 1d7.

But allowing dwarf clerics raises the natural question of whether we can also have dwarf magic-users; halfling clerics, magic users, or thieves; or elf thieves and clerics. Or is this a "Marullus thinks dwarves are cool, so it's okay" thing only?

I mean, honestly? I think the most old-school Basic D&D answer is that dwarves have priests but there's no such thing as a player-character dwarven cleric. But we left old-school basic behind a long time ago, so I guess the question is how to say "yes" without breaking things too much.

It does kind of seem like we're house-ruling our way to LL AEC, though. Not just with a dwarven cleric, but in general.

[Marullus]

I always preferred the advanced rulesets anyway. I'm okay considering an option to dual-class if someone really wants it, whether Dwarf Cleric or Halfling Thief or Halfling Magic User. Using the Elf XP scale is really punishing, but fair enough, imho.

[Zhym]

This isn't a "greatest moment" in the game, but has anyone in this campaign made quite as catastrophic a move as Amistad's decision to release an angry, deranged, feral dragon?

---

The elf XP scale is punishing, but it's not that punishing compared to multiclassing. The elf progression is basically in multiples of 4,065. Fighter is 2,035 and MU is 2,501, so a traditional dual-classed F/MU would need 4,536 to level in both classes.

Using the elf scale is extra punishing if one of the classes is thief, though. For example, a halfling (2,035) thief (1,251) would need 3,286 combined XP to level under traditional multiclassing rules instead of the 4,065 in the elf progression.

I'd suggest just making the XP for any multiclass be the total XP needed for each class, maybe with a slight discount (10%?).

The other issue that comes up with multiclassing is what to do about class restrictions. The elf is like a F/MU in that it gets the benefits of both classes eithout the limitations of either: it can cast spells while wearing metal armor and wielding large martial weapons. I assume that would not be true of a halfling thief or dwarven cleric. The thief could only do thieves skills in armor allowed for thieves, and a dwarven cleric would be restricted to the cleric's weapons.

There are enough variations on how class combinations work that instead of just allowing multiclassing, you might want to create new classes for the combination. Then whoever wants to play that class can propose how it would work, what the limitations would be, what the XP progression would be, etc. Doing it that way has the advantage of limiting abuse that might occur if you just say, "okay, multiclassing is allowed now" (Hooray! Here's my new halfling mage/cleric/thief who's also a ranger!).

[Spearmint]

This isn't a "greatest moment" in the game, but has anyone in this campaign made quite as catastrophic a move as Amistad's decision to release an angry, deranged, feral dragon?

yeah. to be honest I am gutted. The actions were of course a possibility and not forewarned about so I shouldn't be too surprised but part of me thought it could go some other ways. Release the dragon and it flies away or it begins to follow us as rescuers and over time is tamed or trained by the ranger or Akaara. If it was released and angry, I thought that as the orcs had held it captive and beat it, any anger would be taken out on them and it would note we had just slain the other dragon and had it's head on the back of the wagon.

But then I rolled for Akaara to speak with the dragon, with her Morlock being a form of draconic. I thought that would be positive but a high score 2d6=11 meant a very bad reception. I think if the roll had succeeded the narration would have been different. But that is role-play and we live and die by the fates of many sided dice. Too bad for Amistad. I was trying to play Akaara for his love interest but that has melted into goo along with all his retainers and reputation.

I am sure Sir Piers won't say, "I told you so!".

[Zhym]

Yeah, that roll did not work out, to put it mildly. OTOH, hoping for a feral dragon to follow you as rescuers and be tamed over time seems highly optimistic to me. But that's just my interpretation. Who knows what might have happened if the reaction roll had been a 2?

Well, Marullus probably does. Maybe he'll tell.

[Marullus]

I said I'd "consider an option" not "all proposals are approved." I don't intend to do any work on dual-classing until someone has a serious proposal for a PC that requires me to do so.


Regarding the dragon...

I thought I was pretty clear that this dragon was feral, hateful, etc. I forewarned HARD. I have to arbitrate IC actions, however, and you have the freedom to make bad choices.

I didn't comment on the dice rolls since you already assumed they failed. The lesson learned I would put to this event is that it is important to ask about those kinds of things rather than just assuming and committing dice. (Rolling dice is a commitment to me.) You rolled [2d6] to try and win over the dragon and, to be honest, I have no idea why. If it was a recruiting roll, you can't attempt that until the creature is friendly, you can communicate with it, and you make an offer that actually is enticing. If you were just trying a CHA roll under the house rules for that, a 2d6 roll also only applies when the creature is already friendly. I always forshadow relationship statuses in my IC text - this dragon was clearly "hostile, may attack" which would have been a 6d6 CHA roll for your chosen action. I'm okay saying "if you couldn't pass the 2d6 roll, we'll assume a 6d6 roll also fails." The dragon is clearly forshadowed as hateful (including direct statement by Bulak), feral, and not rational. Had you succeeded on a 6d6 CHA check, I would have allowed its reaction to improve to "Unfriendly" due to gratitude and it would have departed. Otherwise, the likelihood of the dragon flying away is governed by morale checks (which I make, not players) and which the dragon has repeatedly passed... also just not lucky for you this time. The dragon following you like a puppy dog until you tame it is not a realistic possibility.

I'm not sure why you are assuming Morlock is a form of Draconic? It isn't, and that assumption is news to me. Not relevant here, but I want to clarify it for future situations. Morlock is derived from Ellurian, the language of the pre-cataclysmic human mages. Akkara has already been useful because of this.

Dice can be hard. You've been exceptionally lucky in all previous dragon encounters - you've always won initiative and always had good (if not mutliple critical) hits. It WAS possible that you could have won initiative, gotten good bow shots, and neutralized its breath weapon before combat began (as in the previous five dragon encounters). This is turning out very differently, but that's sometimes what happens. You're right in that we live with those choices.

[Jernau35]

I am sure Sir Piers won't say, "I told you so!".

That's certainly somewhere on the sliding scale of options he's considering