The Lost Dungeon Crawls of 2nd Edition

2nd Ed AD&D gets shat on a lot for being too railroady, overly story-focused, full of broken options, and a total departure from earlier versions of the game. I really don't think that's true. First, the overarching narrative plot can be found in many of the classic older D&D modules. Second, here's a list of modules as evidence.

Unlike some of the other 2nd ed adventures that I like (Swamplight, Tales of Enchantment, Fighter's Challenge) these are pretty much for a dungeon crawl style of play. Yes, they do include some extra elements of backstory that you won't find in earlier modules. Are they all quality? I've only run part of one of these. But I'd love to add Shattered Circle to my repertoire of beginner adventures, and both Dragon Mountain and Axe of the Dwarvish Lords look pretty epic. Firestorm Peak does as well, but the dungeon didn't seem as big/loopy at first glance. Baba Yaga's hut has been redone a few times but could also be exciting, just haven't been running things in the right setting lately.

Dragon Mountain (1993)
Temple, Tower, & Tomb (1994)
Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga (1995)
Labyrinth of Madness (1995)
Undermountain: The Lost Level (1996, Dungeon Crawl series)
Undermountain: Maddgoth’s Castle (1996, Dungeon Crawl series)
The Gates of Firestorm Peak (1996)
Undermountain: Stardock (1996, Dungeon Crawl series)
Hellgate Keep (1998, Dungeon Crawl series)
Lost Shrine of Bundushatur (1998, Dungeon Crawl series)
Dungeon of Death (2000, Dungeon Crawl series)
The Shattered Circle (1999)
Axe of the Dwarvish Lords (1999, Tomes series)

This list doesn't even mention the rehashes:

House of Strahd (1993)
Return to the Tomb of Horrors (1998)
Return to the Keep on the Borderlands (1999)
Return to White Plume Mountain (1999)
Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff (1999)

Basically, when you look at the old B/X, BECMI, and 1st ed modules you see a few mentioned over and over as either classics actually good: a lot of others ignored. I think some of these modules I listed above get ignored just because they're second edition, and probably deserve a closer look (nothing from 2nd ed showed up in Tales from the Yawning Portal!). This doesn't mean that some of these might be stinkers: I'm looking at you, Stardock! Just that perhaps some of the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater of 2nd Edition, and while the 90s are known for heavy-handed plot and adventures on rails, there was a good amount of the old-timey dungeon crawl as well.

The lost perception skills of older D&D

Older D&D was weird. Though I don't think I ever used the rules in the 90s, dwarves and gnomes (and some other races) have these strange detection abilities. And they're subtly different between the races. I'm going to focus on dwarves, elves, and gnomes here because the others just cherry pick some of these detection powers.

In AD&D 2nd Ed, dwarves can spend one round to detect things if they're within 10 feet of that thing (except depth underground, since you're always within 10 feet of your depth I guess): sliding and shifting walls or rooms (4 in 6), grade or slope (5 in 6), stone traps/pits/deadfalls (3 in 6), new construction (3 in 6) as well as depth underground (3 in 6). Gnomes can detect depth better than dwarves (4 in 6), grade/slope (5 in 6), but also detect direction underground (3 in 6) as well as unsafe walls and ceilings (7 in 10).

That's right, while 2nd Ed raised a few of these detections so they were all using a d6 (dwarves went from grade/slope and new construction of 3 in 4—75%—to 5 in 6—83.3%) except the gnome's 70% chance to detect unsafe walls and ceilings couldn't be lowered to 4 in 6 or raised to 5 in 6 to make it standard. Stout halflings and half orcs likewise ended up using a d4 for their detect grade/slope abilities (3 in 4 and 1 in 4 respectively), and later races in Skills & Powers just get percentile scores assigned. So while the system mostly uses a d6, it doesn't use it consistently.

In the basic Rules Cyclopedia D&D (which only has dwarves), dwarves get all of these stone skills at a 2 in 6 chance, whereas Swords and Wizardry (my ersatz oldest-school D&D) says dwarves get this but the rolls are up to the DM.

This is fascinating in part because these skills were/are probably almost wholly ignored by most D&D players, but also how specific they were to dungeon crawling. Knowing how deep you were (approximate dungeon level) would be hugely helpful in figuring out how tough monsters might be, as well as if the 5% grade in the 100-foot corridor (nigh imperceptible) was taking you further down or not. New construction seems like an ersatz measure of things being walled off, but it also gives you a sense of history within the dungeon, while shifting walls, traps/pits, and unsafe walls/ceilings are obvious hazards (of apparently differing difficulty). Also interesting to note is that dwarves and gnomes got slightly different sets, meaning it was useful to have both types of characters in your party. It also conjures some strange image of dwarves keeping their eyes down and watching for pits and new construction at the base of walls while gnomes are eyes-in-the-sky noticing the ceilings of the dungeon plus a different sense of direction.

Elves get a different ability, which is passive secret/concealed door detection. They get this at a 1 in 6 chance, so just by walking through the dungeon elves will find one secret door in 6. Not great, but totally nice if the DM remembers it (I also just roll this for random noticing facts in my AD&D Al-Qadim Church game). Elves who are actively searching find 1 in 3 secret doors, and 1 in 2 concealed doors.

It's also interesting to note that there are no rules for how these interact with thief abilities (does a dwarf searching for a trap get his roll plus the thief roll? does it take extra time to get both rolls?) nor do these detection abilities ever increase with level: you have them or you don't, and they never improve.

In 5e, we get a little of these as ersatz fixes. Dwarves get their stonecunning and elves get free proficiency in perception, but I can't help but wonder if the sheet blinders work in reverse here. Often with skills, new players are wondering which one they can roll for a certain thing to get more info or move the story along, but there's nothing specific enough about those skills in 5e to warrant the utterly specific uses (or expectations?) that the old AD&D options provide.

I've been thinking about this more and more because, in my 2nd edition game, many of the rules are buried in paragraph form, when bullet points would bring them to light easier. The oft-maligned Skills & Powers book does a nice job of presenting each as a clear option since you needed to spend points to purchase each one, but it can also be used to nicely gather each option together so you can really see what powers you have. So in my vague dream to do some cut-and-paste work to compile and solidify some 2nd ed material and make it more accessible at the table, I'm wondering if these strange powers shouldn't be made broader (i.e. dwarves and gnomes might passively notice sloping corridors rather than needing to actively do it) or otherwise wrapped into a coherent system which includes general thief/rogue skills.

There's also a strange element of DM determinism in these skills, which is the information these detection powers provide or the paths these open up need to be a bonus in the adventure. For traps, their detection is generally simple since the failure result is merely that the trap is set. For sliding walls/rooms though, a passageway could be blocked if not detected. Similarly, if a secret door is the only exit and it isn't found, the party is just stuck. Just because this stuff is on a character sheet, doesn't mean it will work when you need it. Also, while there's been a lot made about dungeons haveing interesting design (loops, multiple entrances, etc.) there seems to be little attention paid to some of these other issues here: sliding doors or cave-ins which trap a party and force them to continue onwards, subtle changes in elevation leading to distinct levels (or over and underpasses), the history of a dungeon's construction and determining which areas are original and which are recent editions, natural construction problems and hazards vs consciously-made traps. It's a small laundry list of good elements to put into a dungeon that I hope to keep in mind for the future.

It's easy to see how these old skills got consolidated in third edition into a version of notice and search (along with the rogue skills), what you're noticing or searching for has perhaps been lost a little. Also what's lost is the race-specific nature of these skills. Dwarves and gnomes have an uncanny ability to detect a grade or slope in a corridor, others could attempt it with weights or marbles or water, but these races just are that attuned to their world that they get these automatically and no one else will ever be as good as them. And I think that's one thing that's been a little lost in modern D&D: some races were just better at some things than others, which actually made the race/class choice matter a bit more.

Best 2nd Edition Ravenloft adventures

Perhaps in part because I loved Curse of Strahd so much, or that it opened up Ravenloft to the DM's Guild, or maybe just as some macabre interest, I've been looking up a lot of Ravenloft stuff lately. I'm running more Ravenloft for RamaD&Dan this year. The setting wasn't really a favorite in the 90s, but I do still have the Masque of the Red Death box stashed away and collecting dust somewhere in my parents' house. Either way, I've been interested in which other old AD&D Ravenloft adventures were the best.

The obvious starting point is I6: Ravenloft / RM4: House of Strahd / Expedition to Castle Ravenloft / Fair Barovia / Curse of Strahd) for the original material and the revisions/reimaginings. Afer a few searches and having to look up the old Kargatane website on the wayback machine for reviews, I've come across five adventures that continually come up as good (in order of release):

• Feast of Goblyns (1990)
• Night of the Walking Dead (1992)
• Castles Forlorn (1993)
• The Evil Eye (1995)
• Bleak House (1996)

I've now got my hands on all of these in some form (Bleak House only electronically, Castles Forlorn isn't on the DM's Guild yet), but each strikes me as fairly 90s and fairly Ravenloft. This isn't also to say that others are bad (though some almost certainly are). It's just that these seem to have generally positive reviews rather than mixed or negative (or positive with ways to fix it up) plus they are mentioned numerous times in threads discussing the best Ravenloft adventures. I wanted to base this top 5 list on some Enworld poll or the DM's Guild ratings, but there are some old modules that I'm literally the only one who's rated them there. Also, missing maps is a problem with the old TSR modules on the guild, and its hard to distinguish some of the ratings when people rate it poorly for missing maps versus being a stinking turd. In general, there just aren't enough people rating things to get a good sense of what's what.

I'll stick to first impressions here, and say barring Bleak House (which I haven't looked at as much because I've just got the pdf from the guild) I'd run any of these. The adventures in the setting tend to be much more about investigation and interaction than combats and dungeon crawls, which leads me to be a bit leery about 5e adaptations. I think D&D players expect a bit more combat, that the original Ravenloft and Curse of Strahd deliver on. Feast has the most dungeon to explore, probably because it's straddling the eras and was the first adventure for Ravenloft as a campaign setting. Given the weekend in hell nature of Ravenloft and the Sliders-like domain hopping, I wonder if they could be stitched together into a neat little campaign: Feast, Castles, and Evil Eye are all for levels 4-6ish, while Night is levels 1-3...

Another interesting note is how the railroads work in these adventures. They're quite event-based, eschewing random encounters ("No random encounters, only deadly ones") in favor of things that push the mood and story. I've become a fan of random encounters as they have their uses, but it is intersting to see these as examples of how different event-based sessions can be run. I don't thing this is the worst design ever, but might need some alternate paths so the events don't feel as railroady and player choices can be meaningful in a way that a game can't really go "off the rails" simply because there are no rails to depart from in the way of a good sandbox.

The other adventures that seem to be mentioned with some regularity are the mid 90s ones: Hour of the Knife (1994), Howls in the Night (1994), Circle of Darkness (1995), and Neither Man nor Beast (1995). Also maybe Servants of Darknes (1998) and The Shadow Rift (1998). These don't seem to be mentioned as much, and from the small number of reviews it's not as easy to see them floating up to the top of well-liked adventures.

Water is a terrible element (yet its still my favorite despite being horribly suboptimal in D&D)

While nominally working on my Al-Qadim Church game (I was also tinkering with some 5e stuff for the Princes of the Apocalypse game I'm playing in and working on a secret project), I've been going through a lot of old and new D&D stuff looking at water spells. My conclusion: no one can write a decent water spell to save their lives.

First problem: what sort of damage does water do? You can't really have a water elementalist without enough water spells, but you also can't really have a water elementalist in 5e without those spells doing damage. The Elemental Evil Player's Companion addresses this a bit by adding some spells that do bludgeoning damage. That makes sense: you conjure a big pile of water and whump someone with it. There was an old water blast in Al-Qadim as well, which is just a big spray of water (generally to the face). Unlike fire, however, there's really only one or two big watery face-blasts you can get away with it seems. Thus far one of my favorites is called Cone of Teeth from 2nd edition, where your watery blast takes the form of shark's teeth and rends your enemies.

Second problem: If you're not conjuring water, you're restricted to natural bodies of water. So many spells involve letting things normally on land bypass or function under water. Maybe you need to float or swim or breathe or see in the water? There's a spell for that, and a water elementalist can surely cast it. Possibly a couple different versions of it.

Third problem: Mist/fog is water, but its also air. A lot of the fog spells are listed as both air and water, and its easy to see why. Rain and weather are a combo of the two elements. So, for better or for worse, air and water need to share some spells or you have to decide to try to limit your possibly spells by restricting things to one or the other element. Related: does waterbreathing fall under air or water, or should there be a distinction between water breathing and lasting breath spells?

Fourth problem: ships are both air and water, but also neither. Ship spells are another issue all together. A lot of water spells are found in ship/pirate type games and supplements because it makes sense that they'd be useful in the setting. But is a spell to conjure rigging really a water spell? What about one that strengthens or weakens a ship's hull? Some of the ship spells are even nonsensical if you consider a water-wizard or water-sorcerer to be a "sea" type. Sea things often include storms and ships, by why the heck would a storm-sorcerer have the power to weaken a hull or conjure rigging with their innate magic? Why would a sea wizard gain any benefit for casting those spells which seem like tangentally related spells?

Fifth problem: Ice. Ice is the easy way out. Sure it makes a little sense since water is actually ice, but not when a water elementalist's primary means of attack is doing cold damage with a frostbite spell or a cone of cold. I certainly don't think a pirate in an Arabian Adventure (or, honestly, pirates in general) should be using Ice Knife and Snilloc's Snowball Swarm as their primary offensive spells till they hit 5th level. Ice sure can make for a nicely thematic set of spells though, especially if you add in wind/weather (and maybe some enchantments and northern lights type spells).

Sixth problem: Conjuration or Transmutation (or Evocation)? Related to the second problem, you can easily make many a water spell a conjuration and then you have no ridiculous need to cast it in/near a body of water. This could be the case with so many spells that it blurs the artifical lines between the codified 8 schools of magic in D&D. In 5e I can really see why they remove a lot of those sorts of limits in spells so tidal wave and wall of water don't need to rely on the surrounding environment. Still, if the schools weren't such a big thing it might be nice for them to get a boost in power when cast in the right environment.

So, what's the verdict? Its hard to concoct some original water spells. I bet everyone could come up with about a 6-12 fairly distinct ones (depending on the granularity) but everyone will basically cover the same ground with their water spells (stay dry, go underwater, get over the water, blast of water, something ice, something fog, manipulate the current/flow...). So I'm left with a few different feelings on this. One can either stretch the definitions of water a bit (and if you do that, why not add in a scalding steam spell alongside a bit of ice and fog), or accept the fact that if a player wants a water elementalist its part of the DM's job to ensure the setting supports water (i.e. ships or rivers will be involved). The latter is a bit unsatisfying, so maybe there's a few more ways one can make spells which are thematically watery (a spell that smooths and polishes objects, or alternately bloats and cracks them; scrying in a pool of water) that can be used to expand the list a bit.

Side note: all the elements are a bit repetitive, but somehow air, earth, and fire ones don't seem quite as bad. 

Why I fell in love with Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperboria

I've started two or three posts on why I love Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperboria, but it finally hit me last night during a bout of insomnia. The classes are almost exactly what I think you need for a solid D&D game. Its not just that there's a good number, or that they're thematic for the game that is being played, but really reading through them leaves me hard pressed to do much more than what there is. And I've been vaguely working on a personal version of 2nd edition and we get some very similar things between AS&SH & my 2nd edition.

Warriors.
While I still think the basic fighter is a bit generic, AS&SH has Barbarians, Berserkers, Cataphracts (Knights), Paladins, Rangers, and Warlocks (Fighter-Mages). The warlock is a multiclass character, plain and simple. But this is the same list, more or less, as I'd really like. Though I might replace the generic fighter and make him more low-class (ala the Oriental Adventuerers Bushi) and add in a weaponmaster/kensai. Whether or not knights are a separate group is kind of irrelevant. Also, I had never really consider the Barbarian worthy of classhood (particularly when contrasted with Berserker) but I can almost see it here, particularly if the fighter was given a power or two of civilization.

Rogues.
AS&SH has Thieves, Assassins, Bards, Legerdemainists and Scouts. The Legerdemainist is a mouthful and also just a multiclass thief/mage. That leaves the expected thief, assassin, and bard plus the unexpected scout. I like it because the scout is a different archetype and makes a primal rogue. The legerdemainist could also be a mountebank or fire thief (thief/pyromancer), but the mountebank or trickster are much better names for the class. The bard seems like a really interesting class learning a few magician and druid spells plus the generic song/poetry stuff.

Priests.
I go back and forth one whether or not specialty priests are great, but if you want a few different priest classes it's hard to go wrong with AS&SH's Cleric, Druid, Monk, Priest, and Shaman. Now, I've been thinking that a purely martial monk ought to be a fighter type and most monk/mystic classes ought to have a few spells like the Spells & Magic monk of 2nd edition or be psychics, but these are some solid archetypes. Prophet is the only thing really missing, and you might need to muck around with spell systems to make it work well. As an aside, they solved the priest problem where priests get access to their whole spell list and get a power boost with every suplement: clerics and priests choose a few spells (3-4) per level to add to their lists. Simple and effective.

Magicians.
This is where AS&SH fails me a bit. They give us the generalist Magician alongside Illusionists, Necromancers, Pyromancers, and Witches. Its a nice little slate, but they don't seem as distinct as I might hope, and its not clear that an illusionist can preform the same work for the party that a magician or witch can. But they have unique spell lists and a couple special abilities, so its a nice slate assuming there's only one or two ways magic works in the world. I think with a couple well done spells you could add the idea of the warlock/pact-mage into the game as is, and I'm never 100% sure that the game needs sorcerers (though if they were run like 13th Age Occultists...).

One thing that really caught my attention and made me read through AS&SH again was the ability of
a few of the "primal" classes (Barbarian and Shaman) to draw poison: basically they get a chance to remove poison before it takes effect if they're quick enough and a bit lucky. The other "primal" classes (berserker, ranger, druid, scout) get some similar abilities but they don't all overlap. I'm not sure how it all washes out in play or if some of those skills could be a bit unified as "thief" type skills, but I like how the wilderness classes all give nice abilities (or at least fancy ribbons) that are thematic and cool. If I wanted to take that into a four class system, you could crib the civilized/barbarian theme and add it in as a background. So a civilized fighter might get some towny powers while a barbarian fighter could choose from the wilderness ones.

Essentially, AS&SH is looking very close to a 2nd edition game which uses Fighters, Barbarians, Berserkers, Paladins and Rangers; Thieves, assassins, and bards; Clerics, crusaders, monks, druids, and shamen; and mages and all sorts of specialist wizards. Just tweaked to cover a sword and sorcery setting with a few hard-coded multiclass options. In otherwords, AS&SH gets it about as right as Oriental Adventures.

The big flaw with AS&SH as I see it is that it's based on AD&D 1st Edition, and I'd like it a bit more if it were basic D&D. The unified ability bonus and simplified combat system appeal to me a bit. The combat phases really disinterest me, but by and large I think the game is decent looking (even if I might import a few 2nd edition-isms like d10 for initiative).

Anyway, of all the retro-clones out there I think this one is worth a second or third look. I wouldn't give up Al-Qadim Church for the world, but I'd definitely consider running AS&SH sometime. At least the class system looks to do a very good job of mixing Conan with D&D as though D&D never had elves or dwarves. The only real competitors in my mind are Adventurer Conqueror King and actual published D&D stuff. And the only real reason I like ACKs is that its based on basic D&D (i.e. simpler rules) and yet has some good variety to its classes. Though ACKs classes seem to be more about mixing fighting, thieving, clericing, and wizarding than anything unique and innovative (yeah yeah, Dwarven Machinist and Mystic and such). 

The greatest old school spells (low levels) and dreams of a better system.

Now that I'm running an Al-Qadim Church for SundAD&D morning fun, its feeling pretty crazy to explore some of the brokenness that was old school D&D. Obviously we're doing it with some mid-to-late second edition material, but its is crazy seeing some of these hidden gems.

1) Animal Friendship. Traditionally a druid spell, but it turns out any specialty priest with the animal sphere gets it. This is a set of permanent animal companions, whose total hit dice is less than twice your level. You do need to train them tricks if you want them to do more than follow you around friendly-style. The animals won't be your friend if you have ulterior/sinister motives, but basically its a huge pile of semi-competent companions. Good uses thus far: big cat than can shred goblins. Good suggested uses thus far: guards to stand watch at camp (especially at night) and something small/quick that can fetch things. There's probably a lot more uses, but eventually one or two combat creatures plus one to master each other trick sounds pretty reasonable to me.

2) Charm person. The duration is measured in weeks. And this is a step down from permanent in the Swords & Wizardry book (which I assume is faithful to the original edition). In my game calendar, I have to roll a bunch of saves to see how long folks will be charmed and I'll mark it off when we come to that date. This means if a character of average intelligence is charmed for about 1-4 weeks for each failed save, and the save for 0-level characters is a 19+ on a d20. Still less broken than permanent, but I literally now have a day log so I can eventually decide when NPCs break the charm.

3) Goodberry. This second level spell belongs to druids too, and is a nifty way for them to provide some food or minor healing to the party. The Antagonizer pointed out that the spell seems to need fresh berries, so I guess this is mostly going to be things on the vine from now on, but I also have to keep track of how many berries were made on which day. I think, perhaps, I'll need to start sharing my calendar with the PCs so they can more easily keep track of some of these things. I did decide to enforce that goodberries will first function as rations before doing healing, but only if its actually been 24 hours or so since the last meal (i.e. you don't need to have one for breakfast before you can get healed, though that'd be another good ruling). We're playing in a jungly setting, but I suppose maybe there could still be a winter-ish month where berries are out of season.

4) Armor. Thankfully it doesn't actually stack with actual armor, but it does stack with physical shields (not the spell) and dexterity, and it lasts for a long-ass time till you start taking damage. This spell is definitely saving the collective asses of the players, but they're all restricted in their armor somewhat (specialty priest, or multiclass wizard or thief).

5) Sleep. I knew it was good, but it can basically take out a couple low-level goblins like none other. I'm waiting for the PCs to use it for a hunting spell (sleep on a flock of game fowl?) or some other good uses, but even just putting one or two guards to sleep is pretty amazing.

6) Entangle. This is another druid spell that the specialty priest has, but its basically stopping creatures in their tracks. Because its a huge radius, its stopped a couple encounters right away. Rereading this, I think the creatures aren't effectively paralyzed, so next time I think the party will need to expect a few missile attacks or creatures struggling to free themselves (probably depending on the weapons creature have and the plants in the area), but even if the creatures might get missile attacks this spell is pretty great.

-1) Ventriloquism. Not really a great spell, but I managed a pretty fun encounter with it because it was the only spell the enemy wizard could cast. Obviously he's going to use it as best he can, even if his goblin allies didn't get a surprise round.

These have been the big-use spells thus far (minus ventriloquism), but I expect some others eventually. One disappointment is that I think other low-level spells would be a lot more enticing if their durations were a bit longer to begin with and didn't creep as much. A lot could be something like one hour plus 1 turn per level, and they'd actually be pretty competitive with some of the ones listed above. Invisibility to Undead, for example, lasts a flat six rounds and never improves.

To be fair, some of the lackluster spells of 5e suffer this problem as well. A lot of them simply don't scale with higher slots, and I'd love to re-write some to do this. Things like Invisibility and Greater Invisibility should just be combined into one spell, for example. I'm just yearning to use Create Water to flood things in my 5e game, but that's in part because I once won a 2nd edition gladiator game with the spell when my 30+ level wizard cast it once or twice to flood our arena (8 feet of water really puts a damper on the dwarf warrior). Also, by the book, the 5e version of Create Water fills a container, dramatically lessening its use potentially. I like the precision of 5e, but sometimes things like spells attacking a creature really rubs me the wrong way.

Ultimately, I'm really liking some of the clunkiness of these old school spells. As I do this a bit more I think I'd love a game that is a bit more of a blend of old school stuff with 5e. I like some of the simplicity of how 5e has a nice handful of conditions which don't really overlap, but I also like how the old school spells leave a lot more room for interpretation (I like the reaction mechanic of 5e and would love to see feather fall be able to stop missile attacks mid-flight). I like how the old school game is decidedly lower-powered at low levels so far and its fairly gritty. While I love warlocks and sorcerers, I really love how I can hand out spellbooks to PC wizards to give them things to find and potentially add to their list of powers. I also like how not everyone has to have magic. I suppose there's always room to tinker. I do like 5e, but wish it had skewed a little more old school or that those modular dials that were touted could be turned down from Heroic a bit more. I might have to look at some other OSR games and see what's best to steal from them eventually, but I think this Al-Qadim game, crazy old school spells and all, will keep my attention for a quite a while still.

Random Stats: Story vs Creativity vs Math

As I'm gearing up to try to run a game or two, I've been thinking of how to generate ability scores. For my tentative 2nd Edition Al-Qadim game, I've got the following penciled in:

Roll 4d6 and drop the lowest die in order for each ability score. If you are human, you may rearrange them in any order you choose. You must fit race and class minimums and maximums for any given score.

This gives us randomness while, at the same time allowing people to play the class they desire at the cost of an interesting race. I waffle over whether to somehow encourage a few other races by allowing them one ability swap to a "favored class" sort of thing: something like an elf may swap Intelligence with one other score, a dwarf may swap strength with one other score, a halfling may swap dexterity with one other score, etc. "Rare" races could be not allowed a swap so you either pick the race you want or the best class but not both. Less relevant for a game with a limited slate of races than an open-ended game like 4e which had a Mos Eisley cantina of races.

I like the idea of random ability scores, but the post third-edition math makes rolling potentially really bad. That is to say, a few high scores can be slightly unbalancing, whereas older editions didn't assume you'd have particularly high scores at all.

Now, I wouldn't encourage rolling abilities for anything third edition or later. The bonuses are just too important. One high stat can make a great OSR character, but you're not hindered by mediocre stats.

What's the benefit of randomness? I think, beyond some fetish for tradition and dice rolling, I think it forces a little creativity. We often let players make characters ahead of time, or else they have ideas of what they want to make before arriving at the table. But once you're stating at a 16 strength and 12 intelligence you've got a choice: Do I make the wizard I want who struggles with wizardry, or pick the fighter because I've got the stats for it? Because fewer things are based on stats in older versions of D&D, you can make a 12 intelligence wizard who is relatively functional. You cannot do that in modern editions of the game.

However. Some of the randomness may come at a price. Namely, it may be best to start with a coherent party rather than character concepts. And once the players decide they want to be crusaders fighting against demonic old gods and founding a new city to dedicated to their ideals... Those paladin-preventing scores could be rough. If I'm asking players to decide before they create characters what sort of alignment or ideals the party might have, that may limit some character options that randomness would encourage or possibly discourage.

I'm hoping my rule above has struck a reasonable balance. By allowing humans to swap scores around, it allows people to be the rarer classes of their choosing. It also will make demihumans less common: non-humans are more likely to have unexpected high and low ability scores for their class which or the player might opt for a class that fits the race better.

One possible problem I see, however, is that 2nd edition (like pretty much all editions) needs a healer. It may be beyond randomness in character creation though. If no one rolls well for wisdom or wants to be a priest, there's not many healing options. I'm hoping to alleviate this decision by including the Spells & Magic crusader and monk (revised as Dervish) alongside the more native Al-Qadim classes. I.e. more priest choices so one might be more appealing to players.

None of this, however, deals with the problems of a possible 5e game though. If you roll 4d6 drop the lowest the average character will have at least a 15 as their highest score and its reasonably likely to having between a 14 and 17 as their highest on either end of the probabillity curve. These numbers are high at low levels, but the cap at 20 probably helps. Most ability scores will end up 9-15 (within one standard deviation of the mean of 12.2), which is at least in a reasonable range for modern D&D. Maybe its not worth worrying about it and using the same rule will be fine. Or maybe the rule should only be by-the-book humans rather than variant humans. But here's the real problem: low scores aren't a huge deal in second edition, but in modern editions (including 13th Age) they are.

Low scores can be damning in modern editions. The fact that the 13th Age designers hadn't encountered characters with a negative constitution modifier before making the necromancer in 13 True Ways highlights this. Stats under 8 make for some really shitty characters. This is obviously mitigated by point-buy options, but rolling a 6 isn't going to be super uncommon.

The possible answer: Modify the rule above to allow humans to choose the standard array. This would ensure no PCs have crazy low stats, but doesn't prevent luck from giving someone three 17s, which are bumped up by the chosen race. I might just have to live with a little luck, I suppose, unless I want all the characters to include no randomness whatsoever. And I like how my rule encourages humans at any rate.

I suppose I could reduce the role of luck by changing the rolling method if there's a point buy backup for humans. 3d6 in order, or 3d6 twice in order might do. There's still a chance that luck will grant an exceptional character to one player while the others rely on a point buy.

One possible problem remains with randomness: The players decide on a mercenary party attempting to raid the tombs of old gods to find the wealth needed to found a new city and rule over it, yet one player rolls perfect paladin or monk stats. Maybe that's just a roleplaying or creativity challenge if the player really wants to play the character they rolled who doesn't quite fit the party. Or maybe the party needs to be designed at the same time as ability scores are rolled.

Ultimately, I still like my rule. Modulo it might need to be adapted for a specific version of the game and specific racial desiderata. Minimums or rearranging ought to prevent absolutely useless characters, and randomness can nicely constrain creativity. However, it means one does need to tread carefully with the party story perhaps.

The cleric is broken: or, how the eff do I give clerics (and others!) new spells...

I'll admit it: I legitimately believe that the 2nd edition specialty priest was one of the best forms of the Cleric class. But we live in a post third-edition world (and first-edition and before are part of that world too), and I have a legitimate dilemma. How the eff do I give clerics new spells..? (I've noted this before.)

Clerics, since time immemorial, have always had access to their entire spell list. The problem is that every book that expands the cleric spell list directly expands the cleric's versatility and therefore power. The conflict is: certain gods should grant certain spells, but the cleric class doesn't have a great mechanism for gods granting spells.

The genius of second edition (at least following on the heels of the 1st edition Dragonlance Adventures) was dividing cleric spells into spheres. You could easily assemble a list of spells known based on spheres, and new spells were simply added to the list of spheres. It wasn't perfect, but at least each book with new spells didn't automatically add to each priest's selection. And those that did add were reasonably appropriate.

Now, I wish 3rd and 5th edition had expanded domains a bit, such that each domain granted more than a couple spells at each level. Ultimately that would be like an expanded second edition sphere of all but more distinction between deities/domains. It still suffers because there's no way to grant appropriate spells to a cleric of Isis and not to a cleric of Horus or Set. The problem remains: expand the cleric list, you do it for all or none (or specifically just to a few).

So I'm considering running a 5th edition assorted Saturdays game here in faraway and need to decide how to integrate spells from the Elemental Evil stuff or the Necromancer Games' Book of Lost Spells. I'm picking on the cleric here, but most D&D classes are now like this: bards, clerics, druids, fighters (eldritch knights), rogues (arcane tricksters), sorcerers and warlocks [Edit: forgot paladins & rangers!] all have the same basic problem. However, there's a few options.

1) Just fucking add them for everyone. This is the least satisfying option.

2) Let some appropriate spells overwrite generic spells. This is say I offer detect disease or putrefy food and drink in exchange for some spell on the regular list. This is reasonable at each spell level, and requires the DM (i.e. me) to decide which spells belong to a particular deity, patron, or whatever-the-fuck bards and sorcerers use for gaining spells. Its reasonable, but also unsatisfying.

3) Discovery. Through mystic tomes, journals from dead mages, runestones, or whatnot I could add spells to particular characters' lists. This is still in the DM's hands, and could be combined with option #2 I suppose. The thing is... there's no real reason why bards couldn't have found a particular spell anyway. For bards and sorcerers this is a bit more satisfying as they basically just add to a set list of spells known. For clerics and druids, this is less exciting because, by the rules, it seems like their god should have either granted the spell from the get-go or not.

4) Replacement. This is like #3 but without discovery. Here I (i.e. the DM) just arbitrarily replace some spells on a PC's list with others. Doesn't motivate anyone to discover new shit, but it is reasonable.

5) Bonuses. Like #4, but based on spellcasting stats. Essentially, the DM gives bonus spells to particular characters based on their spellcasting list. So a Cleric of Ptah with a +3 wisdom bonus would add 3 additional spells of the DM's choice to their list. I like this option, but it might be hard to come up with that many spells per level. Simply replacing the bonus/level with the bonus spread across levels this would be pretty manageable, or maybe double the bonus across levels (so that +3 bonus translates to six added spells of whatever levels are appropriate). The problem with this option is finding the right number of additional spells for any given priest. That's 5 or 10 depending on wisdom scores, I suppose. Thankfully the Book of Lost Spells does provide quite a few, but there might not quite be enough great options for any given priesthood (or bardhood, druidic cult, sorcererous bloodline, or warlock patron).

I'm obviously still brainstorming a bit, but option 5 seems like its the best. Its DM-sensitive, but gives some customization to different types of cleric (or bard or druid or sorcerer or warlock) without stupidly expanding each class's spell list. I'm still looking for something better. I'm thinking combining #3 Discovery with #5 Bonuses, but ultimately anything that could be discovered also feels like it could be a bonus. If deities are active in the world, I suppose one-off spell options could be given as well: Isis knows her agents may need a Detect Curse spell and offers it on one particular occasion. 

Hidden in the depths of 2nd Edition...

After going through a bunch of second edition stuff (and even scouring forums and blogs and the like) I've discovered a few things I've never really realized 2nd edition had. Many of these come from the campaign settings, which were, in many ways, the laboratory of the game. Designers could craft crazy nonsense and at least if they were in one campaign setting they weren't "polluting" the entire game line. There's a tension between game designers wanting a stable core game with players wanting lots of crazy options and expansions, and the settings of 2nd Edition are where good ideas were tested out. I suspect we'll see this philosophy a bit in 5e now, such as Adventurer's League only allowing people options in the core books and the most current setting/player's guide. Heck, we did it once during our first Empire of Man game, where we let each player bring one book to the table. Anyway, three things of interest, though #2 and #3 are kinda related.

1) Racial proficiency groups. This might only be in the Domains of Dread book for Ravenloft, but it is such a superb idea. Just like your class gives you a list of proficiencies you get a discount on, your race could do the same thing. Maybe the groups aren't perfect and maybe races don't need more than 0-3 options to make this a thing, but its kinda nice that elven warriors might take astrology or elven wizards may take bowyer/fletcher.

2) Extra classes. Second edition was obviously full of a lot of nonsense, but they did craft a good number of additional classes, mostly restricted to the campaign settings. Monk and Assassin classes? Added in the Scarlett Brotherhood book (And the internet thinks they're decent too!). Berserker and Runecaster are added in Vikings (and again, the internet thinks they're on-par with the other classes, though runecaster is a bit weak and might could be augmented with the Giantcraft runecaster for Forgotten Realms). The later Forgotten Realms also gave use Harpers, Crusaders, Spelldancers, and Shadow Walkers hidden away in splat books. These last four were news to me just this past month, so I had to update the Wikipedia list of alternate D&D classes.

3) Unlimited slow/weaker spellcasting. Linked to extra classes, both the Al-Qadim Sha'ir and the Forgotten Realms Spelldancer (Wizards & Rogues of the Realms) are spellcasters with unlimited casting potential at the cost of speed. They're both odd options where you have a decent chance of getting just about any spell you want as long as you're willing to wait. Not too useful in combat, but you're a pretty grand utility caster. I'm not 100% sure I think this is fair and balanced or would work well in a low(er) magic setting that I'd prefer, but given that this has appeared a few times (and the interned hasn't shat all over the Sha'ir) it might be reasonable. Presumably in-play the characters also end up getting a number of wands or something for a few things to do in combat (though I might opt to multiclass rogue or something). It does sort of green-light some crazy ideas though like making all spells have a longer casting time (in rounds/turns) and just letting wizards/priests cast at will. Likewise, two versions of the runecaster show up (Vikings, Giantcraft) which has lower-powered but essentially unlimited spells as well. Someone felt this nonsense was balanced at least.

Dreams torn? Online AD&D 2nd Edition

So after all kinds of thinking how I might modify this or that for my dream 2nd edition game, I booted up Roll20 last night to see if they have a 2nd edition character sheet.

Obviously they do, but some options all of a sudden seem better or worse than others.

Stone for Encumbrance, for example, is designed to math things out easily. But that seems less necessary when your character sheet will automatically tally up your weight and tell you what your encumbrance is.

Also Spell Points and Alternative Magic Systems. If your character sheet isn't designed to track how many spell points you actually have left from channelling (or your fatigue levels), that seems like a waste of the online resource.

Now, it does look like its possible to go through all the trouble of paying for Roll20 (not a big deal probably) to modify character sheets to include all this stuff, but its an extra layer of nonsense that might be required.

On the plus side, because the system is doing a lot of the math for you, THAC0 seems pretty easy.

Scimitars against the Dark and the magic in dream Al-Qadim campaign

I still have this dream Al-Qadim campaign I'd like to run, and reading through Spells & Magic lately, I've been thinking of any rules alterations I'd want to do. The key thing that sticks in my brain is those nifty alternate magic systems. Channelers, Witches & Warlocks, Alienists, Defilers & Preservers, Ritual Prayer, Conditional Magic... That could be game-changing stuff.

But I can't find any info on it online. Did anyone use these in play? Was one of the systems horribly broken or easy to abuse? Do they mix well in the same game?

The obvious first thing to do is assign different magic systems to different classes. Start with the priests:

Hierarchy Priests (Pragmatists, Ethoists, Moralists) - Ritual prayer. These folks follow the rules and gain their religion's power through rites and rituals. It may take longer to cast a spell if they do the right thing, but they can save some power by taking time to do it right and/or make a spell more potent with the right sacrifices or time.

Free Priests (Mystics and Kahins) - Conditional Magic. These free priests gain their power through investments and dedication. When they act in their deity's interest, their spells are quite potent. If they act against their deity's will, their spells are reduced.

Hakimas - Technically free priests, but neither of the previous magic systems seem appropriate. I'm leaning towards channelling, but it doesn't quite seem like they should be weakened by the cosmic insights they are granted. There's not a real established Hakima code to build conditional magic out of though, nor is there some Hakima rite to base ritual prayer off of. So I'm a little stumped.

Moving on to the wizards, its also nebulous here. I'm not sure if its unfair to have two types of priests use a different system than wizards, but there's baggage on a few of the ends.

First off, channelling seems reasonably appropriate, even if it were to be shared with the Hakima. I want to keep the Brotherhood of True Flame in the setting, others are so minor it's hardly important.

Second, either warlockry or alienism seems like it could be grand for the setting, but they don't fit with the Brotherhood of True Flame. They'd be great for a Scimitars Against The Dark type game though, and alienism fits the sungazer wizard kit in that Scimitars.. article in Dragon Magazine. But in a world where magic is gleaned from demons or the dark between the stars (or monsters that existed before time was?), where is the role for the Brotherhood? The sword-and-sorcery that I've read generally eschews wizards' guilds because wizards are power-hungry madmen, so maybe alienism isn't the worst. Warlockry kinda steps on the Sha'ir's feet though. Also, alienism really would force a Scimitars Against the Dark type game where I'm not 100% sure that's what I'd be into.

Speaking of the Sha'ir, even if Alienism is adopted for most wizards, alienism certainly doesn't fir the Sha'ir. Then again, the sha'ir also has a unique magic mechanism, so maybe an alteration there isn't needed after all. Though channelling would be fitting, it would just hinder the Sha'ir more: they're already pretty limited in terms of spells they get to cast, and channelling wouldn't really limit the Sha'ir much because they'd be resting a bit while their gen fetches a new spell anyway.

Then there's the Rawun. Bards are spellcasters in AD&D, so what's their magic system. And there's paladins and rangers too, but I suspect paladins could be ritual and rangers could be conditional no problem. But bards get a good number of spells. Should every rawun go bad from learning cosmic secrets? Probably not. So I'm tempted to give them channelling like the Hakima, but that seems crappy too.

Best case thus far, I'm just doing stuff for priests other than the Hakima. Maybe its not worth it after all. Or maybe channelling can be just used for the mages (not sha'ir), bard, paladin, ranger, and hakima. Alienism might really shake up the setting a bit (what if you eliminate non-free priests as spellcasting options?), but it might do too much.

The other major problem here is these variants are only applicable to an OSR or 2nd Edition game. This would majorly impact the balance of things in 5e. One reason, I suppose, why I like how older editions are still more customizeable.

Morale and the Old School Magic-User

Since I've been reading up on some old school AD&D lately (and perhaps reading the first edition DMG for the first time?!?) I've noticed that the morale system (which I like) interacts oddly with magic use.

Basically, magic use has a couple ways to force morale checks, sometimes at a penalty. Using 2nd edition morale, the goblins fighting the party will have a -2 penalty to their morale if the PCs have an obvious magic user and the goblins do not. Furthermore, if "an ally is slain by magic" that forces a morale check. Given that morale rolls are done by adding 2d10, that -2 penalty adds up. Furthermore, each time an ally is slain by magic that could force a morale check.

That gives a bit of a different perspective on the low-level mage: that magic missile spell not only will automatically hit the kobold, but has a reasonable chance to scare the group off it it kills it. If it doesn't kill the kobold, the magic user can still attempt to force morale checks again by offering a chance to surrender. If you can kill the leader with magic, so much the better.

This might seem like min-maxing the morale rules, and maybe it is. But its a very different take from later editions, where wizards suddenly have a small pool of cantrips it not outright at-will spells they can constantly blast. And now 5e where every single class can select an option to get spells of some sort, even if only in a very limited way.

[Edit: I should note that the D&D Rules Cyclopedia isn't quite as generous as AD&D 2nd, but the magic effects on morale are there. First edition is such a mess I'm either not seeing magic effecting morale, or its not there. Hard to tell with that DMG.]

Cleric, but not a priest

In the D&D 5e game I'm currently playing in (that may or may not be winding down as the DM may be leaving the country in the near future), I'm playing a gnome trickster cleric, but I'm not a priest. This has caused mostly consternation for the other players and DM.

The other folks in the group don't seem to understand the concept. Which I get, but it's not how 5e classes are set up anymore. I don't have the religion skill. I don't lead mass. I don't administrate for a temple. I don't read the oracles and omens. I don't even wander and spread the good news of Garl Glittergold. I just happen to have access to his powers.

So the DM thinks I'm just dicking around a bit, I think, and causing a bit of trouble. But really he didn't ask for much background info and I thought I had explained myself: I was a troubled youth who found solace in Garl and then was chosen by him to wield his powers for some inscrutable reason. Yeah, its a 4e Invoker or Pathfinder Oracle. I'd run him as a prophet if the DM had let me. Alas.

So, woe is me and all. But this is an issue. 5e has tried to divorce classes from background and skill and not entirely succeeded. How can you be a wizard (intelligence-based caster) and not have any Arcane knowledge? I'm not sure about that one. You can do a cleric as a prophet or oracle, chosen by the got but not part of the hierarchy of worship and avoid taking religion knowledge. You can't quite do a bard without music, as the bard is trained in 3 instruments. I see a lot of wandering monks who seem to know nothing about their temples/history/religion. A fighter really should have some background knowledge about fighting and military orders, but that leaves out the hometown hero who should mostly have local knowledge.

Regardless, this is why I really am liking the 13th Age style backgrounds-as-skills a bit more. I think they're a bit story-focused and gonzo for some games. Or can be, maybe giving people examples or example sentences to fill in would be good: "I was trained as a pewterer by my father, but abandoned the trade because of my wanderlust."

The old AD&D secondary skills are somewhat similar. Granted, the DM decides when they apply and there's probably little principled rolling, but you just assume people can do the relevant things and they run into problems the few times they wouldn't know something. I was looking at the old Proficiencies of AD&D 2nd as well, and I think one of the flaws with them (and 3.5/Pathfinder) is you're not required to take a proficiency/skill that would actually reflect your background. It might lead to a lot of wandering healers (trained by their parents), mapmakers, blacksmiths/armorers or the like, but a lot of the crazy system abuse comes when people ignore character backstory and pick all the good options. Its a simple thing to switch things so the backstory (or some element of it) is real and meaningful.

Which brings us back to the cleric who isn't a priest. Its an odd thing back in the era of AD&D. Becomes more plausible in 3.5 or 4e, where specific classes (favored soul, invoker, oracle) exist to handle the cleric-but-not-priest type of prophet or divine champion. Even roles like inquisitor-priests and the like end up being folded into their own classes (and increasingly the Paladin, it seems). But the plain old cleric is still shoehorned into the priest role. Which is a shame, then, in 5e because the only reasonable backgrounds are mostly Acolyte. Sure, you could be a convict or a sailor or a noble who joined the church, but then you're still a priest, no?

In my dreams of a AD&D 2nd game, I'm contemplating using the Spells and Magic rules to bust cleric into two sub-classes: hierarchy priests who use ritual prayer, and free priests who use conditional magic. Which would give the actual priests distinct magic from the prophets and mystics. But would anyone care about the distinction besides me?

Its hard to get through stereotypes, I suppose.

The Influence of Combat & Tactics

I burnt my hand cooking breakfast today, so in a fit of childishness I opted to do nothing this afternoon and ended up reading Combat & Tactics a bit. I'm still a little shocked at how it really does pre-figure third edition quite a bit. Armor is classified into light, medium, and heavy (or Leather, Mail, and Plate). There are proficiency options that are basically feats by another name. And the whole 5 foot square gridded combat system.

Obviously all of it didn't make it into later editions, but there's one aspect that I'm wondering if we left behind. Third edition codified a lot of bonuses to individual weapons into weapon properties, but left some things behind a bit. And now Fifth feels a bit like an exercise in filling a grid of weapon damage types and properties. Its not quite that bad, but a couple more weapon properties might be helpful.

I think some of this is the tactics that have been left behind with the transition to more story-focused games. Don't get me wrong, I love 13th Age and Vampire and other story-focused games. But I have a hankering for some old school simulation too, and I like the idea of two soldiers opting to use shields and short swords because they're optimal in a cave where both can be in the front ranks where a longsword or battle axe would be ineffective. Maybe I yearn for the days of putting the dwarf and gnome up front too where others can use reach weapons or ranged weapons over their heads. And Henchmen. But henchmen might be for a different post.

Anyway, I've picked a dozen and one (ish) additional properties here inspired by Combat & Tactics. The designers probably considered something like these and opted not to use them, so there may be reasons not to. Chief among them is probably the part where many of these properties only apply to fighting armed humanoids, not beasts. It also makes the game more complex, obviously. A well-trained fighter might be encouraged to switch weapons based on his opponents (a feature, in my mind, rather than a bug). Some of these properties have a "critical" effect. This could be re-worded to happen in addition to extra damage, but it seems possibly excessive. These properties are also written for 5e. As such they are mostly limited to +1 bonuses: advantage seems too good and would synergize with things like a rogue's sneak attack. A small (+1) bonus shouldn't really muck with the math; besides rogues/bards can already get stupid good at disarming or tripping because of expertise. If I were writing these for AD&D, they'd be more like Defensive +1 or Armor Piercing (Mail) +2. Because AD&D could work that way. I also listed some weapons these properties might apply to (though not all exist in 5e): this might be motivation for adding in a few other polearms or whatnot as well.

Defensive - +1 to AC while wielding the weapon (even in your off hand). We lost the defensive property from earlier editions, but I'm not sure why a parrying dagger or gunsen couldn't have it. There may be a good reason this went away.
Added to: Parrying Dagger/Main Gauche, Gunsen, Jitte, Ranseur/Spetum/Partisan, sai, three-piece-rod

Wrap Around - This property would give chain weapons a +1 bonus to hit opponents with shields or behind cover.
Added to: Chain, Flail, Whip, Kusari-Gama

Armor Piercing (Heavy, Medium, Light). These properties would give a +1 bonus to hit opponents wearing the appropriate plate, mail, or leather armor. A weapon might only pierce one type of armor or all three. The idea is plate might not be as good at defending from a weapon designed to pierce it.
Added to: Crossbow (Heavy), Dire Flail (Heavy), Mace (Medium), Morningstar (Heavy), Pick (Heavy), Halbeard (Heavy or Medium), Greatsword (Heavy or Medium), Estoc (heavy or Medium), 

Disarming - A +1 bonus to disarm an opponent. On a critical hit, you can instead deal normal damage and automatically disarm your opponent.
Added to: Chain, Flail, Whip, Scourge, sai, three-piece-rod

Tripping - A +1 bonus to "shove an opponent" and instead you may opt to pull them closer or knock them prone. Or/Also, a critical hit you can opt to deal normal damage and also knock your target prone. A tripping weapon cannot trip an opponent with more than two legs.
Added to: Chain, Flail, Whip, Bill/guisarme

Charger - Double damage when mounted and you've moved at least half your speed.
Added to: Lance

Set-For-Charge - Double damage if you set the weapon to receive a charge. (This needs set-for-charge rules and possibly better charging rules. Probably readying your weapon is like readying an action and then you get the attack if your opponent "charges" or moves 15' and then attacks you.)
Added to: Spear, Pike, Halbeard, Glaive and other pole-arms

Shield-Sundering - +1 bonus to sunder a shield. On a critical hit, you can instead deal normal damage and automatically sunder your opponent's shield. [This would need a rule for sundering a shield probably, though the crit property could live on its own.]
Added to: Battleaxe, Greataxe

Close-Quarters - No penalty for attacking in close quarters or while squeezing. [This would be different than just giving this to piercing weapons, which I had considered. Then I remembered picks.]
Added to: javelin, Spear, Shortsword, Rapier, Trident, Pike

Quick - You can use your reaction to make an attack of opportunity when an opponent attempts to grapple you.  [If it weren't such a pain, I'd consider saying that after making an attack with a quick weapon, your initiative increases by +2. So after a couple rounds you'd end up passing people in the initiative order. Its not a bonus attack, but could be interesting.]
Added to: Dagger

Subduing - This weapon only attacks to subdue. If the opponent is reduced to a number of hit points equal to your level + the damage bonus from your ability score, they are instead reduced to 0 hit points.
Added to: Sap

Ineffective (Heavy, Medium, Light). These weapons are less effective against particular armours, and receive a -1 penalty to the attack.
Added to: Blowgun (Heavy), Bo (Heavy)

Surprise - When you initiate combat and your opponent isn't expecting you to be armed, you gain advantage on the surprise role and a +1 bonus to the initiative roll.
Added to: Brandistock, Ninja-to

In 5e, many properties correspond with damage dice alternations. For example, a two-handed or heavy weapon will do more damage than its one-handed counterpart. Likewise light weapons tend to do one die-size less damage than an otherwise similar weapon. Here, I think the quick and defensive properties should likewise be associated with smaller damage dice. The others don't seem like they're quite sexy enough to merit a change in damage dice as long as they're associated with thematically appropriate weapons (i.e. chain weapons tend to do wrap-around, disarm, and trip).

There's a few other bits of "tactics" that would be interesting to add (I'm thinking forming a shield wall), but these might do a bit to help add in a few tactics to the game and make various weapons a bit more unique. I'm still a little unclear on the bonus part. For some, proficiency bonus might be an appropriate thing rather than just +1. But, by and large, +1 is easy to add in and not going to be overpowered. I'll have to take a closer look to decide if any of these properties are redundant or could otherwise be combined, but it just might make a slightly more interesting set of weapons available.

OSR and TSR Options

Since I've got a bug up my butt about running Temple of Elemental Evil (For better for for worse), I'm looking through some of the OSR material I have as well as the TSR options. I've seen a few things I really like or are at least notable. A lot of this comes from the Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) with a eye on Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea (ASSH). But some of it might be doable in a 5th edition game or 13th Age, not just TSR D&D or an OSR retroclone or whatnot, but some are really tied to those older d20 rolling fantasy games.

1) Warrior damage bonus and cleaving. ACKS just flat-out gives warriors a scaling damage bonus from +1 at first level to +5 at 12th Level. It reminds me of weapon specialization in AD&D. At some point, fighters just need to be doing a little more damage. I'm just not quite sure what the correct amount is, but something simple like +1 at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20 surely can't be overpowered. Weapon Mastery (double specialization) and beyond show up in Combat & Tactics as single-classed fighter only options which is nice, but guarantees that fighters become very kensei-like and overspecialized in a single weapon. I like the option, but I'm unsure what the implementation ought to be. ASSH gives fighters a couple weapons that they get +1 hit/damage with over their careers and the option to double specialize in one. I like the kensei class option in greater specialization, but maybe its not for all warriors.

2) Warrior cleaving. First edition had a somewhat hidden/obscure rule (well, lots really) that allowed a fighter to make a number of attacks equal to his level against creatures less than 1/2 hit die. It gets repeated in a number of OSR books, and adapted a little by Combat and Tactics. But I like the ACKS implementation mostly though it might need a slight tweak. When a warrior kills an enemy, they get to make a bonus attack with the same weapon against an enemy within 5' (though if they have movement they can still move 5' and make the attack). They can do this a number of times equal to their level. Clerics and Thieves can do it up to half their level. That's powerful! Removing the hit die cap (which is what ACKS appears to do) makes it much easier to use. Combat & Tactics specifies you must be outnumbered to use the rule, and it might still have a hit die limit. I like the idea of a scaling Hit die limit still. Though a "kill in one blow" wording might de-facto do an appropriate hit die limit. Combat & Tactics limits the number of bonus attacks, giving double your normal attack rate as the limit, which I kinda like. But some version of this really gives a nice bonus to warriors. Note that, depending on the wording, this warrior cleave or heroic fray might work for missile attacks as well, not just melee.

3) Encumbrance in Stone. Its around the internet in a few places, but ACKS uses is too. Basically, you use a much larger weight unit so encumbrance has a better level of granularity. ACKS defines a stone as 10 pounds, but the 14-pound stone is still used in the UK as a unit of human body weight. However you define it, you're dealing with numbers in the range of 20 or less usually, so that's a bit easier to math out.

4) Rations. DungeonWorld and ACKS use a nicer ration system, though its there in all forms of TSR D&D too. It could just be a little simplified. TSR D&D never gave lots of healing overnight though, which is where rations might be more important for a game like 5th edition or 13th Age where you fully heal (or more fully heal) overnight. I actually did something like this in the 4th edition Dark Sun game I ran, which was letting the PCs cast defiling magic to regain all their healing surges while they were travelling. It made wilderness encounters actually worthwhile since you might actually lose resources on the way to the dungeon. Normal AD&D makes regaining HP difficult enough unless the cleric totally blasts the party with cure light wounds.

5) Dual Wielding. In ACKS, dual wielding just gives you an offensive bonus, not extra attacks. Extra attacks should, I feel, be limited to special situations and certain classes (warriors in general, the monk specifically). I also like the 13th Age take on dual wielding, but extra attacks can get pretty powerful (especially when you have magic bonuses to hit and damage in addition to ability score bonuses) and they can be a pain to deal with consistently. Saying that though, some missile weapons in TSR D&D more readily get multiple attacks, particularly with weapon specialization.

4) XP for gold and Carousing (i.e. gold for XP). I can see how gaining XP based on the loot you get makes the game a bit more Sword-and-Sorcery than high fantasy. So I like it. I also agree that its maybe best if you get the XP for magic items you sell (but don't use): so its really for gold you're bringing back to town. ACKS has a carousing rule which says you can piss away that gold and start an XP bank for your next character. I kinda like that idea too. Again, not sure the best implementation, but I like the idea. However, this doesn't look like it'd work well in a game like 5th edition or 13th Age: something about those distinct XP charts for classes and AD&D multiclassing makes this feel like it works best in those games. When you either don't really pay attention to XP (or gold, for that matter) and just give out level-ups for milestones or whatnot, it doesn't seem to matter.

5) Simplified weapons. ACKS does a 5th edition on weapons a bit, taking the broad number of weapons down from AD&D's massive set. I like the idea, but I also like the notion of weapon properties. A few more properties might play up some more differences between weapons, like flails and chains ignoring shields (wrap around) and entangling enemies (easier to disarm or trip). You could even capture some of the weapon vs armor stuff of AD&D with properties like plate-penetration or whatnot. Certainly they must have considered this in 3rd edition and decided against it for some reason, but I'm not privy to what that reason was so it still seems worthwhile to simplify the weapons slightly but keep some of the crazier properties and oddities of the system. Maybe the properties could be steamlined a bit to generic +2/-2 so its easier to keep track of though.

6) Shield sundering (and more). Though I can't seem to find it in ACKS, the internet claimed there was a shields-will-be-sundered rule. I'm not sure I like the option where you can just let your shield break anytime for half-damage, but I like weapons and shields breaking. Its part of the reason why I'm thinking one benefit of fighters is they should automatically get something like tight-group proficiency with weapons and be able to use more weapons, rather than funnel them into grand-mastery specialization with just one weapon. I wonder if this might be great as an alternative to some critical hit nonsense. Crits and fumbles might where your equipment has a chance to break (or enemies equipment does) rather than always just doing something like max damage. Actually, I really like the idea of crits doing things like breaking equipment in addition to or instead of just heaps of damage. Cause unless you have a max damage on crits rule, just rolling double dice can be a bummer when you roll 1s on the damage die for a crit.

7) Wisdom (and Charisma) for bonus XP. This comes out of Swords and Wizardry, where your prime requisite bonus is only 5%. A wisdom or charisma of 13+ gives you a 5% bonus to XP as well. I'm not so sure I like it for Charisma, but any class with a better wisdom seems like it should get that XP bonus. I might give the Cha bonus for classes who would otherwise be required to have a good wisdom like Clerics or a Necromancer rather than letting wisdom do double duty there. But Wisdom as a prime requisite for all classes might be nice.

8) Spell preparation. ASSH uses the TSR / vancian method of fire-and-forget. But ACKS uses the method that classes like the Spirit Shaman of 3rd edition or now 5th edition use. A wizard's spellbook lets him practice/prepare a set of spells, but the spell slots themselves are also magic points used to cast those spells. In this case, the wizard is a little more versatile. Clerics in ACKS, it seems, have their whole list prepared! I do like the 5th edition system a little, but is is odd if you have 2nd level slots left and need to cast a first level spell. I'm not sure about this, but see scrolls below.

9) Scrolls. ASSH gives mages the ability to scribe scrolls right away at first level. This is a case where I'm not sure I like it. Scribe Scroll seemed quite potent in third edition, so allowing wizards to explicitly scribe scrolls at low levels seems a lot. Mostly because at mid and higher levels, the wizard is only spending a pittance of XP or gold to have a good number of useful low-level scrolls scribed. Now, a game where you still use your own slots or magic points to power a scroll might make it more interesting and balanced: you're scribing the scrolls to expand your repertoire but not your number of spells cast per day. Depends on your rules, perhaps. Though that wouldn't fit with thieves being able to read a scroll on occasion, though maybe you could also rule you lose 1d4hp per level of the spell if you don't use a slot to cast that spell.

There's a whole lot of other options out there, but the Player's Option books and the OSR literature don't always make this stuff easy to find. Also, deciding on what to implement isn't easy. I'm guessing a lot of this stuff wasn't playtested as well as it could be, and what works well in one system or even gaming table might not translate at all to another. More reading to do, I suppose, but this was a first pass at some interesting options.

Skills, proficiencies, and secondary skills in D&D

I was going to try to run one-on-one D&D this past weekend, but my friend's napping stopped that. So instead I was looking through some old D&D stuff and thinking about the 5th edition game I've been trying to play. One thing I noticed: even with this new group, people are rolling a shit-ton of perception checks. I even heard someone tell one of the new people to take perception because that and stealth are among the most useful skills in the game.

My dislike of skills keeps growing. Or, at least how they've been implemented in D&D. When I ran some 2nd edition this past year, I was happy to skip proficiencies. I'da had the players roll for secondary skills, but it didn't seem relevant at the time. Secondary skills, in second edition, were just backgrounds basically. You were a blacksmith, so you should know blacksmith sorts of things. Simple as that.

But looking at proficiencies again now, I feel like some are misplaced. Blind-fighting is a key example. The only reason it's a non-weapon proficiency is because weapon proficiencies came first. If they were called combat proficiencies, blind-fighting would obviously be one of those. The Players' Option books have lots of different options (not surprising) for things to do with your weapon proficiency slots other than weapons, so a backwards compatible (i.e. OSR) revision of 2nd edition might distinguish between combat and non-combat proficiencies.

There's also a few which provide real good benefits, while others are more back story. Pottery or Agriculture, for example, are occupation-based backgrounds that could really just be a secondary skill. There's almost no reason to roll those. Tracking and healing, however, provide some really great benefits. Yet these are, to an extent, still background related.

Then we see the thief skills in 2nd edition. Acrobatics and read-lips are proficiencies, but the thief-skills aren't. I assume that's backwards compatibility too.

So. I might consider using proficiencies, but in a slightly revised way. Most characters would need an occupation-based proficiency or two. Or maybe just that one-word background that'd cover some of that stuff. Then maybe those other things could become more like thief skills. Reading lips, healing, tracking, setting snares, disguise, forgery... These are useful but... really. Why should a wizard be reading lips? And how could a wizard not have Spellcraft? Some need to be baked into the class a bit more, others less. Maybe I could just use the secondary skills and assume wizards would get the benefit of having spellcraft with just intelligence checks.

But then we come to Healing. Back when I thought I'd be playing, I was totally min-maxing the healing non-weapon proficiency to see how good it could be. There's a Halfling healer kit that is for priests and doesn't modify the proficiency. There's an Anatomist in the necromancer book who ends up getting a +2 to healing checks. There's a medician in the paladin book who gets to heal 1d4hp if they get to the wound within a round or three, rather than 1d3 if they get to the wound immediately. Both the necromancer and paladin books have a proficiency (anatomy and diagnostics respectively) that boosts healing, while herbalism does that too in the main book (but herbalism actually boosts the amount of healing too, not just the check). So it looks like the best you could do is that medician paladin who heals 1d4+1 hp if you tend a wound within a round or three. If you use skills and powers proficiency rules, you could heal 2 pts if you get to the wound within an hour. It only works once a day on any given character, but you can also ensure an extra hp or two for resting. Of course, if you were a paladin, you'd also have magic healing via lay on hands anyway. I thought it'd be cooler on the necromancer. Meh.

I also was a bit baffled about the rate of healing in older editions, but a friend of mine pointed out that it could be a feature, not a bug. If hit points represent some kind of ability to deflect wounds and such, then a fighter is legitimately taking a lot more damage than a wizard, and the wizard who was reduced to 1hp should heal up faster than a fighter in the same situation. Meh. Digression. Healing plus herbalism gives you 1d3+1 hp on a good healing check, once per character per day. Plus maybe an extra hp each day over night of travel/camping (or 3 if they're full-on resting).

This isn't impressive healing, but it is useful at lower levels. Even higher levels a little bit of healing can help, as a by-the-book 10th level fighter might only still have 50-60 hp, and you only get a fixed bonus after a while so a level 20 fighter might not pass 100hp without a hp boosting rule. And what does this digression mean? Some nonweapon proficiencies are actually useful. As in, might have a noticeable impact on the game. Of course, this seems to be a 2nd edition thing, my copy of Oriental Adventures doesn't have a healing proficiency at all. The healing proficiency could be overrated.

But, maybe skills aren't all that bad. 5e seems a little simplified for my taste, and includes that awful perception skill. If I run 5e, my house rule will probably just be that I roll most skill checks for the players. Perception is still overly useful compared to, say, preform, but at least it might stop people from constantly rolling perception checks (to be fair, it is the DM for this new group asking for all the perception checks).

It might be worth giving Lorefinder (gumshoe rules for pathfinder) a closer look, since I picked that up a little bit ago. Seems like an easy transplant, but its also designed for a game with good recurring attendance. I'm thinking I might be running a megadungeon with a slightly rotating cast, if I can get some people into it.

I'm not sure how you can fix more backgroundy skills (carpentry, blacksmithing, pottery) with useful skills (stealth, tracking, survival, healing) but there must be some better system than these games are currently using. I think 13th Age has it good with their backgrounds-as-skills, but it doesn't give you mechanically effectual healing. Though 13th Age is one game where that doesn't seem needed based on all the recoveries (i.e. 4th edition healing surges) PCs get. For an old school game though, a few of these skills might really benefit a group, if only they could be worked in to the system a bit better. Maybe that just means pairing down the proficiency list and putting some skills (back?) where they belong (i.e blind-fighting as a combat proficiency, read lips as a thief skill) and giving fewer proficiencies for PCs to choose? It might work. As long as one of them ain't perception. That still grinds my gears.

[Update: I was looking at Combat & Tactics over lunch. It lets you buy some proficiencies which are normally listed as non-weapon with your weapon slots (awareness). So, backwards compatibility, but they recognized some problems with the weapon/non-weapon distinction.]

Using Crusader, Monk, (Mystic,) and Shaman in 2nd Edition (or earlier)

I've always been a bit of a fan of the Player's Option stuff in 2nd Edition. But come on, I was, what, 15ish, when that stuff came out. Also, I've been a low-key fan of the Shaman as a different take on magic. So when I'm contemplating running an old school (ish) second edition game running Temple of Elemental Evil, I want to give my players at least some relevant options without just outright opening up all of 2nd edition.

So I get to thinking: why not allow the alternate priest classes from Spells and Magic. (Aside: There's also the mystic if you add Faith and Avatars, but I think that one seems dumb because they use candle magic. I might know someone who loves to play witches who would love that class though. Dunno. At any rate, I have a vague rule of: no more than one extra book per player, and you gotta bring the book to the table. I'm not buying Faith and Avatars for that class, but I might not stop someone else from doing it.) So then I start looking around the internet and simply cannot find a halfway decent rundown of how these might work. Granted, I might be looking for shit that is marginally pre-internet (I know, I know, 1996 wasn't really pre-internet, but maybe reviews were posted on AOL or something). But getting actual play info on these classes isn't easy apparently.

First issue: 2nd edition balanced priest classes by access to spells, not by number of spells. So the bard isn't as great a caster as a wizard, but that's not how priests worked. Whether you build with the Priest's handbook or Spells and Magic, number of spheres (i.e. spell access) is the balance, not number of spells you cast per day. So the Crusader, Monk, and Shaman have a limited spell selection compared to the Cleric, and that's a key balancing factor. Access to weapons/armor is another. So if you have better weapon selection, you should lose out on spells. I'm not 100% sure that is the best design, but that's how these classes were designed.

Second issue: the classes seemed designed to make use of the Tome of Magic spheres. That's kinda laudable, since otherwise these Tome of Magic spheres were just there and clerics couldn't use the spells. Some supplements used them, but not all of them. And whereas wizards got elementalists and wild mages, the part where priests didn't get a shaman or monk or crusader or mystic seemed odd. Sure, you can design your own faith (and those rules should have been in the DMG not the Priest's Handbook), but generic clerics and druids didn't benefit from those new spheres like Numbers, Time, Travellers, War or Wards. So, in a sense, Spells and Magic really just filled out the details of what we were missing for years: basic classes to use the Tome of Magic spheres: spheres which were neglected in other products since they were "optional" anyway.

I'm sure I've used the Spells and Magic monk in the past, including briefly for an attempt at 2nd edition planescape last year. The violence was strong with him, but because it was planescape, my spells were bunk when we got out of Sigil. So it was hard to tell, but it seemed like a reasonable class which could somewhat fill in that healing role of the Cleric. The spell selection was definitely limited, and I felt it. But it did the divination stuff well with access to Numbers and Thoughts. The slight beefiness in combat might have been due to combat and tactics martial arts. None of the other players looked at that book.

The crusader is the one that people online seems to just poo poo right away. I think its mostly the part where the crusader is a full-on caster with a warrior THAC0. But, in one discussion I was able to find, there are distinctions between the crusader and paladin. Importantly, the crusader doesn't get the warrior bonus attacks. Likewise, they're rolling d8 for hit dice, don't get exceptional strength or the warrior constitution bonus. And, from what I gather, even if you used the expertise rules from Combat and Tactics, you maybe would only ever get 3 attacks per 2 rounds, not the full-on specialist number because that's based on also getting the warrior bonus attacks. So on the surface and at lower levels, the crusader probably does step on the toes of the paladin or other warriors. By about 7th level you'll start to see that the crusader needs those spells to keep up with the warriors. They also have access to a reduced spell selection compared to the cleric. Overall, it seems boarderline acceptable. If you're really concerned, you could give them one fewer spell at each level (that'd be no spells at 1st level if you don't allow the wisdom bonus spells). Fewer spells would be a noticeable drawback at low levels, but might balance things out. Alternately, the bard's spell progression chart would be even more of a hindrance. Not sure if reduced spell progression is really needed though.

As for the shaman, people seemed slightly concerned that the player could abuse getting access to some spells early with their bonus boons they can get from spirits. But I think the roleplaying factor probably would limit this somewhat, as nature or ancestor spirits might just be too far from their homes to provide all the assistance all the time. Plus they could ask for things in return, presumably. Its the kind of hokey OSR story balance, but I think this works much better than, say, the Elven Bladesinger's massive chruncy benefits compared to a few easier-to-ignore story hinderances. Seems reasonable. At least more flavorful than the Barbarian's Handbook Shaman or the Humanoids shaman. Not sure how it compares with the Shaman shaman though.

If I do ever run the Temple or maybe in another 2nd edition game, I'll totally let the players choose these or at least consider them based on the setting (Al-Qadim could use a crusader, I suppose, but less so the martial arts monk or unenlightened shaman). Crusader is the only one I'd consider dropping, just because I think the cleric does the role of warrior-priest quite well. But that's more story-based than mechanics based. Then again, given the folks who I've gotten to play some 2nd Edition here, I doubt they'd really take the options. Even if I also allowed things like the Berserker (Vikings), Runecaster (Vikings/Giantcraft), or Sha'ir (Al-Qadim), it'd probably be more a party of fighters and thieves and assassins than monks and shamans.

But whatever. I like options. But they need to be good ones that fulfill the basic needs of the game. And I think the Crusader, Monk, or Shaman could probably fill in for a cleric or druid just fine, and two could exist in the same party without stepping on one another's toes too much. This monk might step on the toes of the 1st edition Monk or Shukenja, but in a 1st edition game I might still try to import the shaman.

D&D legacies that just won't stop

I've been thinking lately as I read 13th Age and DungeonWorld and the new D&D that we still have a number of rather odd legacies in D&D based on the original edition.

Obviously one of the big ones is spell slots. While they made sense in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, they have stopped making sense in 5th edition. I mention this because during/after my first official 5th edition game, I had to argue that a first level cleric can only cast 2 spells. The guys had somehow confused spells prepared with spell slots, which might be a legacy of the playtests, but I couldn't fathom how they did that and why it took an hour afterwards to convince the DM how the rules read. Eventually I did citing the multiclass rules as my evidence (you combine slots, not spells prepared/known). Anyway, there's no real reason not to just say those are magic points and your magic points have levels. Slots are the currency of the game and they really function just like the slots did for 3rd edition sorcerers. Buy why call them slots? Tradition.

The paladin and ranger come to mind as another odd tradition. Both have survived since shortly after the dawn of time, but they've drifted quite a bit from their original incarnations. Rangers were originally more like fighters in 1st edition, gaining giant-slaying powers but weren't tied to bows or two-weapon fighting. Second edition expanded rangers by letting them choose favored enemies and rolling a few thief skills into them. But rangers Rangers lost their magic in 4th edition, only to gain a little back in the essentials classes (when they realized two power sources weren't terrible for a class, also power source was largely meaningless). Paladins likewise changed from the cavalier-like devotion to right and good (alignment-based powers) to serving a deity (4th edition and 5th edition). I think they're reasonable as classes, though the fighter steps on their toes (and vice versa) to an extent. But now we're stuck with warrior druids and warrior clerics which, imho, aren't as distinct as the older versions of the classes.

Elves and gnomes are another case of odd tradition. Third edition brought us the Sorcerer class, but Elves who are said to have innate magic got wizard as their favored class. Even long ago the Druid came to the party late: it's not hard to envision elves as being primarily associated with druidic magic. Gnomes had illusionist in 3.0, but it changed to bard in 3.5 rather than sorcerer, and their innate magic was something that ought to have distinguished them from dwarves and halflings a little more. Sorcerer could have been a better fit here than wizard, especially if sorcerer were given a way to focus on enchantments or illusions.

Bringing us to Sorcerer. Its kinda cool that the third edition sorcerer has this vague story of dragonblood to give magic power, but they ran with it in 4th edition and 5th edition (13th Age does likewise). This means now that sorcerer is a traditional class, its also stuck with draconic and wild magic as its essence. A beguiler or trickster option would really speak to the idea of the elf or gnome with innate fey powers.

Tradition. Rangers and paladins have been popular classes (I think because they not only have some distinct powers that other warriors don't have, but also because they fill a warrior role), so we're stuck with them. Elves originally cast wizardly magic, so they need to be good with that but we can't switch them to sorcery. Or god forbid giving them druidic powers that actually might mesh more with ideas of what Elven culture might be.

We have done away with some aspects of tradition, such as the Paladin's alignment restriction, or now the bard's limited spellcasting. And that's not a bad thing. But 3rd and 4th edition have been really conservative with setting material, so we didn't really get any broad new archetypes entering into the distinct forms of that d20-rolling fantasy roleplaying game or its followers and acolytes. 

5th Edition Wizards

I've played the playtest rules as a wizard a few times now, and while the rules are generally quite close to 2nd edition or 3rd edition, I still find the magic system a little disappointing. To a smaller extent I have the same problem with Pathfinder/3.5, but wizards are no longer defined by their spells.

I mean this in two ways. Both their ability to cast spells as the undisputed masters of magic, and the number and variety of spells.

First, it  seems like everyone and their mother also gets spells. Now, this was somewhat true in 2nd edition or earlier since Paladins and Rangers did get a couple spells at higher levels, but they were so few as to be completely unmemorable for me. We'll know for sure when the PhB comes out, but it looks like Rangers, Paladins, Bards, Druids, Clerics, not to mention Wizards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks, but also the Eldritch Knight fighter and Arcane trickster thief get spells. Meaning its mostly Barbarians, Monks, and some fighters and thieves who don't get spell access. That's a lot of magic!

Second, the playtest wizards have very few spells they can cast. 1 + wizard level. In the basic rules this is increased to Intelligence modifier + level, which I think is going to be a nice little boost, but Clerics also get Wisdom modifier + level. Wizards do get ritual caster, but the number of spells castable as rituals seems quite low (mostly low-level divinations in the Basic rules) and their casting time makes them a little prohibitive. But they are, at least, options.A wizard basically has room to take a few combat spells that they'll continually cast (including the boring blast cantrip, a damaging area of effect, and a single-target damage spell) and then its whatever utilities they can manage that might also have combat uses. It seems like a master of magic should be casting more variety. I suppose as a sorcerer I'd just feel more limited? Or maybe there'd be a 2-4-1 deal on spells of your specialty, so enchanters actually had an incentive to prep enchantment spells? 1+level would be great if you got to prep Intelligence modifier bonus spells of your specialty. I suppose this is partly my beef with some of the more modern design theories: I'd rather Wizard class features support their spellcasting rather than be fixed thematic powers related to their specialty. Because now every illusionist casts invisibility as their reactionary spell instead of being able to do blur or whatnot, and Necromancers will probably get some "steal your soul" deathknell type feature rather that whatever thematic spell specialty which uses the rules which are already pretty much in play.

Finally, the spells themselves seem much more focused and combat focused like the powers of fourth edition. I suppose some would count that as a feature, but I felt it as sheet blinders. Just like in 4e where you focused on the small set of powers you had, in the playtest rules I felt constrained by what my small number of spells allowed me to do. Invisibility, for example, can only be cast on a creature. The new Levitate can at least be cast on unwilling targets. Maybe its nostalgia, but AD&D spells seemed to all have variations or possible combat uses. Light, for example, could be cast in the dungeon as usual, might negate magical darkness, or cast on someone's eyes to blind them. Sure, its not the best use of a first level spell but its an option for a combat use of a non-combat spell. Now light is just a cantrip that means you don't need a lantern. They're good about letting most combat spells level up, but few utility spells have text explaining what happens with a spell when cast at a higher level, which is a huge loss. Small "spell chains" like Hold Portal and Wizard/Arcane Lock could have been linked with one just being the higher level version of the other. Similarly the various illusion spells could all be one spell, gaining additional senses or volume with higher level slots. Overall, it seems a little silly that Prestidigitation can't affect enemies in any appreciable way, yet ray of frost can do quite a bit of damage and slow the enemy (but can it create an icy patch on the floor so your enemies might slip and fall? or keep your beer cold?).

It all culminates with a loss of what I see as one of the great funs of wizards: a crazy list of kookie spells (particularly when you have to seek out strange and new spell effects). We don't need a Bigby's Gentle Wipe (or Vigorous Wipe) spell and dungeon necessities like Banish Excrement (taught in three versions, the Baatezu version which transports it to the Abyss, the Tanar'ri version which transports it to the Nine Hells, or the Athar version which transports it to a randomly selected deity's domain). Moreover, you don't have room to memorize Mordenkainen's Fluffy Pillow (or soft bedroll, or even full-on bed). I guess you can still use prestidigitation and thaumaturgy that way, but even those have a bullet point list of options, not a list of inspiration.

I'm not sure 13th Age or Pathfinder got it right with their cantrip rules and spell lists either though. And, frankly, AD&D was a bit of a mess. I guess my ideal wizard game still might not be out there.