foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 22, 2016 12:04:25 GMT -5
The mountebank flimflam roll looks okay. I guess its sort of based on the assassination table like an "instant scam", etc.. Yeah, that was the idea there. Sometimes it's fun to actually plan and play put a scam in detail, but other times you'll be focused on something else and can make an abstracted roll to cut to the results. Part of this was to avoid the DM and mountebank-player always spending two hours working out scam-details while all the other players are sitting around bored waiting for "the adventure" to start. Re the mystic stuff, I wasn't familiar with Chandu or Zatara specifically, but I did draw from some other pulp-magician stuff of that time period and think the version of the class I came up with isn't all that far off from what you're describing - the sort of cheesy, early-20th-century "theosophical" mix of eastern and western flavors is definitely something I was going for. Where do you think I fell especially short (or went especially wide) of that mark?
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 22, 2016 12:13:23 GMT -5
I just think specifically the Align Chakras spell doesn't sound too monk-ish i.e. where the monk class never mentions anything in Oriental language.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 22, 2016 12:26:42 GMT -5
Thanks for taking the time to read the whole thing and offer feedback. The revised bard isn't from Dragon #56 but it sounds like that author and I accidentally ended up at or near the same place - I basically wanted a bard that started at level 1 (because EGG wrote in Dragon #103 that he was planning to do that) but that retained as much as possible of the PH bard flavor (specifically the "long apprenticeship" feel, which seems to match the Celtic origin of the class - Irish bards having decades of training and such), so I split the class abilities in half, with the charm and spells coming online from 1st (along with thief abilities), but the lore, extra languages, colleges, and Instruments of the Bards stuff held back to higher level.
Some of the thief-acrobat changes were already mentioned in Dragon #103 (reversing the Read Magic ruling, allowing higher level thief skills for higher Dex stats), the rest of the stuff I pulled from Mythus (balancing, swinging) or added myself because as-presented in UA the class is very weak and unappealing to players. The revised skill-chart came from looking up NCAA and Olympic records in those events - I figured if you've got a class that's built around things athletes can do in real life then a mid-level character should be at least as good as a top-level college athlete and a high-level character should be at or near world-record level (and the highest-level characters above that level).
You're right about adding more source citation. When I was originally compiling this stuff it was for my own use so I didn't bother with that, but if I'm presenting it to other people it makes sense to be clearer about what came from where. FWIW the Secondary Characteristics, Equipment, and Weapons stuff is pretty much all from Mythus (some of the weapons are also in AD&D Oriental Adventures, but my stats are mostly different). The Hirelings thing is pretty much just my compilation and reorganization of the info already in the DMG. The only part I made up there was the alignment chart. For the Monster Manual stuff, the expanded dragon damage tables came from an article in Dragon #98 (that EGG "approved" a couple issues later), most of the other "errata"-type stuff came from various forum-threads over the past dozen years. The revised alignments and ACs are just me looking through the book.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 22, 2016 12:51:48 GMT -5
I just think specifically the Align Chakras spell doesn't sound too monk-ish i.e. where the monk class never mentions anything in Oriental language. I could easily change the name of that spell to something less specific - "Align Personal Energy" or something like that.
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 22, 2016 12:55:57 GMT -5
The dragon damage that was approved by Gary here:
From DRAGON #101 (SEP 1985)LETTERS:
Two brief comments on DRAGON Magazine #98. First, Kims reply to Tommy Hendricks letter regarding ranger tracking was on target. A secret door can be searched for when tracks are lost, and if the party being tracked passed through it, normal chances are again used. The key here is DM involvement. There are a number of ways which can be employed for tracking situations so as to cause the ranger to lose the trail. Such devices must be used, or else the trackers will be brought to a secret door locale every time! The problems of adding realism to the game are manifold and include all the facts of reality. Simplicity is sometimes more desirable in an action oriented game. . . . Second, I quite agree with the article Dragon damage revised by Leonard Carpenter. It is a logical step, considering the increasing damage done by breath weapons of dragons, as well as their hit points. The damage he proposes seems well thought out, and I recommend that DMs give the new addition a trial in their campaigns. My guess is that it will certainly put punch back into the species, with allowance, as Leonard points out, for introduction of young, small dragons into lower-level games. E. Gary Gygax Lake Geneva, Wis.
Was followed up by the same guy a few issues later with another article:
DRAGON DAMAGE REVISITED in DRAGON #110 (JUN 1986) which covered MM2 dragonS, FF Orientals and Neutrals from DRAGON #37 (MAY 1980) as well as the BEST OF DRAGON III (JULY 1983)
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 23, 2016 11:09:02 GMT -5
Sorry, that I got so siderailed from this thread but the AD&D COMPANION document is pretty interesting... Anyway, what can be converted from DJ and would some of it be too "Earthy" for D&D?
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 23, 2016 12:29:23 GMT -5
Sorry for derailing your thread. Back to business!
If you've got a workable DJ-to-AD&D stats-conversion formula, there should be a fair number of convertable monsters in the Subterranean and Inner Aerth sections of the Aerth Bestiary - bugs and creepy-crawly stuff that would be usable in dungeons from the former, lost-world stuff from the latter. There was a never-published Phaeree Bestiray floating around online a few years ago that presumably includes some more traditionally AD&Dish monsters that could be converted. I confess I never paid much attention to either of those so there may be less there than meets the eye, but I imagine there must be at least a few useful/interesting things buried in there.
Mythus Magick definitely contains lots and lots of castings that could be converted into AD&D spells. Most of them aren't enough to support a full class (though Withcraeft possibly does), but some sort of quasi-prestige-class sort of specialization for Magic-Users and Clerics could bring a lot of these spells online - Alchemy (m-u), Apotropaism (cleric), Conjuration (m-u), Exorcism (cleric), Herbalism (cleric), Necromancy (cleric), Sorcery (m-u), and Elemental School Dweomercraeft (m-u) each offer a couple dozen or so potential new spells. There are also plenty of castings that could be converted over and added to the lists of the existing AD&D classes as new spells (where green school dweomercraeft = druid and gray school dweomercraeft = illusionist).
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 23, 2016 14:30:32 GMT -5
On second thought about those Mythus bestiaries, IIRC they were both written by Dave Newton, not EGG, which makes them significantly less interesting from an AD&D-conversion perspective.
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 23, 2016 15:11:28 GMT -5
It seems like the whole system is based on FIGHTER CLERICS and MAGIC-USERS with the THIEF end falling into either FT or MU:
MENTAL ALCHEMY Alchemist Apothecary DWEOMERCRAEFT Black School Elemental School Gray School Green School White School NONHUMAN Alfen Gnome OUTLAWRY Mountebank Thief (or PHYS) PRIMITIVE Medicine Man Witch Doctor SCHOLAR Philosopher Poet/Musician Sage VOYAGER Merchant
PHYSICAL ARMS Cavalier Engineer Mercenary/Soldier NONHUMAN Dwarf OUTLAWRY Assassin Bandit Pirate Thief (or MENT) PRIMITIVE Hunter Warrior VOYAGER Explorer SPIRITUAL MYSTICISM Astrologer Diviner Fortune Teller Soothsayer NONHUMAN Alfar Elf PRIESTCRAEFT Healer Priest Theurgist Wisewoman PRIMITIVE Seer Shaman
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 23, 2016 17:27:57 GMT -5
Creating new AD&D classes out of the Mythus professions is tricky because they aren't really the same thing, game-functionally - the professions are really just a list of starting skills and 1-2 paragraphs of flavor text. The Mythus profession-list suggests possible AD&D Alchemist, Scholar (philosopher/sage), Voyager (merchant/explorer), Outlaw (bandit/pirate), and Shaman (medicine man/witch doctor) classes, but if you're trying to create such classes all you can really do is take the Mythus description as inspiration to make up an AD&D class that sort of feels similar. For the Alchemist, Shaman, and Scholar you'd presumably pull castings from Mythus Magick to give them unique spells which would help (but also be a lot of work), but for the non-spellcasting classes you're going to have to make stuff to make the class unique and interesting, otherwise you're likely end up with something as bland and boring as the various Dragon NPC classes (Ed Greenwood's scribe in #62, Roger Moore's bandit in #63, Len Lakofka's cloistered cleric in #68, etc.).
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 23, 2016 18:19:15 GMT -5
Yeah, it looks pretty boring for the town type DJ characters when compared to AD&D rangers and paladins.
Its definitely a different system but it has enough Gary-isms that you could make D&D-like abilities.
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