Saturday, August 24, 2019

Pregenerated Clerics 1st level


To start the list, I have created 3 first level characters, Kells, Rona and Iulio. Click the link to download the PDF file. These characters are almost ready to go. In generating ability scores, I made sure the range was acceptable in both D&D and AD&D. To convert this character to straight AD&D, simply add or subtract the racial modifiers, if any.

The equipment and coins are not balanced for a first level character. It is safe to assume that each has prior adventurers in their background, perhaps even entering the Lion Castle from BSOLO and escaping before victory.

If there is a call for it in the comments, I will make DOCX and Google Doc file available as I have the PDFs. The reason I have not done this from the get go is that I created every character of a class in one document and print each page as a PDF.

Pregenerated Characters

I have reworked the way that my tabs above function, clicking one results in a search on labels. This way, I can have my tabbed content appear as both a tab and a post. It avoids the mess of hard coding in the tabs and then forgetting to update.

For my pregenerated characters, I am using a simple form based on the character sheets in BSOLO - Ghost of Lion Castle.

I meant to have 3 characters for every class or race in D&D, AD&D and Unearthed Arcana. One of the character classes is the Swashbuckler, which is an D&D or AD&D specific character class. It is completely unlike the Swashbuckler that appears in AD&D 2.0. Additionally, some of these characters will have professional skills, which appear from my book called Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners. Finally, if you would look a retro characters sheet, I have one on DriveThruRPG for characters using Unearthed Arcana. All of these items are in the links to the right.

Campaign Kick Off

I am kicking off a new campaign on The Peninsula of Plenty. Before I detail any of the events of play, I want to cover some general background and house rules.

First, Elves, Half-Orcs, and Dwarves are not allowed as character classes at the start. Humans, Elves, Half-Orcs and Dwarves are at war and the players are starting in the Human Empire's Capital. Half-Orcs are clients of the Elves and both are aligned with the Dwarves against the Human Empire. Halflings are a problem in the human realms, as they are fleeing south, over the mountains. They are at best, politically unreliable.

Below is the racial preference table we are using, which is revised from the last posting of this chart.

Peninsula of Plenty - Racial Preference Table
Race Dwarves Elves Gnomes Gnolls Half-Elves Halfling Half-Orc Human Kobold
Dwarves Preferred Neutral Neutral Apathy Apathy Goodwill Preferred Hatred Hatred
Elves Neutral Preferred Tolerated Apathy Apathy Goodwill Preferred Apathy Apathy
Gnomes Goodwill Goodwill Preferred Tolerated Goodwill Preferred Preferred Preferred Goodwill
Gnolls Apathy Apathy Tolerated Tolerated Apathy Tolerated Goodwill Tolerated Goodwill
Half-Elves Goodwill Apathy Apathy Goodwill Preferred Goodwill Goodwill Apathy Apathy
Halfling Goodwill Preferred Goodwill Goodwill Goodwill Preferred Tolerated Hatred Apathy
Half-Orc Hatred Preferred Goodwill Apathy Apathy Goodwill Preferred Neutral Apathy
Human Apathy Hatred Goodwill Apathy Hatred Neutral Neutral Preferred Apathy
Kobold Tolerated Tolerated Goodwill Neutral Goodwill Preferred Goodwill Preferred Tolerated

As a consequence, virtually all player characters are human, although that was not the intent. I was expecting some half elves, gnomes, and kobolds. We are playing D&D, with an overlay of AD&D. It is possible to be a generic elf which is the straight D&D class, or to pick a class as per AD&D. Only one character did this, the magic user is a halfling.

Next, we are using my rules for the Swashbuckler character class and Uncommon Commoners.

I have two house rules regarding magic: Clerics get spells at 1st level and every Magic User can cast Read Magic once per day in addition to any other spells.

I have a couple house rules regarding combat: Anyone can use a shield to protect themselves, two handed. They can't cast or attack, except for a rough attempt at knocking someone back with the shield. It isn't a good idea if you are a magic user. This rule appears in Uncommon Commoners.

If a magic user or cleric is has a weapon skill due to a professional background, they can replace one weapons with that profession's weapon. For clerics who are also chefs, they can use knives, but generally don't in combat. If a magic user has a skill that allows for a different weapon, say a hammer because they are a mason, they can use that instead of a staff, dagger or dart. These rules also appear in Uncommon Commoners.

Some rule sets state that once a person has been downed, they can be revived by another player. The mechanism for this in my campaigns are either a prayer to Saint Elam or a vial of Elamium. This is a reference to anesthesiologist, James Elam, who performed experimental mouth to mouth resuscitation here in Buffalo, NY at Roswell Park. It's an anachronism owning to my hometown.

There is the expectation that a lot of combat will do subduing damage, but the players can do as they wish. If NPCs are doing this, I will not announce it, but will describe it. This circles back to the Swashbuckler class which engages in this type of combat all the time. Swashbucklers are very far from fighters or thieves. They tend to kill only by a run-through attack after offering a chance to escape. It doesn't work on animals, because they can't be disarmed. 

The first session was pretty eventful and I will detail that in another post.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Nerd Cred, 1970's Edition

Muffit. Like Boxey, he only had
a single scene in the re imagined series
Do you know what was hot in the 1970's? Hook Latch.

Do you know what else was hot in the 1970's? Battlestar Galactica.

The only thing that would make this more nerdy would be if I had one that had Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict all shooting a thumbs up.

I might not have been born this way, but boy did my mom plan it this way.

New Add to the Blogroll - THAC0

Ryan and Jarad are fellow bloggers both on Facebook and BlogSpot.com. They write for THAC0 RPG about D&D. I'd tell you all about their recent posts with new character classes, but I went all the way back to the beginning, to the time Ryan wrote: I think I might have broken my AD&D party.

Since the demise of Google+, I have been enjoying the universe of blogs. THAC0 RPG is no exception. Other recent adds are Ten Foot Polemic and 3 Toadstools. I'm on Blogger.com, but Blogspot seems pretty hot.

I have to do something about my blogroll to make it stand out, but while you are there, check out Old School RPG Planet. It's the best blogroll for RPGs around.