Reverse Engineering

This is the section from Cook Expert (X11) about reversible spells. I’ve read this before, but hadn’t thought about all the ways it can open up amusing plot fodder.

“Clerics can reverse a spell simply by reversing the required words and hand gestures. However, using reversed spells is looked upon with disfavor by the powers the cleric serves, and may result in penalties (or even an alignment change) if overused. Lawful clerics use the normal form of the spell and should use the reversed form only in life-or-death situations. Chaotic clerics normally use the reversed forms and will only use the normal forms to benefit those of the same alignment or those directly serving the same power. Neutral clerics will have either the normal or the reversed form available, depending on the nature of the power they serve. No cleric should have both forms available.”

Let’s look at each of these points in turn:

• “Clerics can reverse a spell simply by reversing the required words and hand gestures.” Unlike magic-users, they don’t need to decide ahead of time which version they will prepare, which makes sense when you look at the next parts.
• “...using reversed spells is looked upon with disfavor by the powers the cleric serves, and may result in penalties (or even an alignment change) if overused.” This is the sort of thing that has been bandied about my games over the years but has rarely been explored as an actual consequence. Granted, I haven’t seen a lot of reversed casting, but it has happened occasionally. I could see a great deal of playing material generated from a cleric switching from L to C and having to find a new divine power to follow. Either that, or some sort of atonement/penance. Not to mention the potential difficulties of the next part with “good guy” party members.
• “Chaotic clerics normally use the reversed forms and will only use the normal forms to benefit those of the same alignment or those directly serving the same power.“ So if a party’s lawful cleric suddenly finds himself chaotic, he’s not supposed to cast things like Cure Light Wounds except on other chaotics and the like.
• “Neutral clerics will have either the normal or the reversed form available, depending on the nature of the power they serve.” Now this is very interesting. To me, it assumes a level of detail about clerics and religion that is not really spelled out in BX. I’ve seen campaigns where clerics are simply described as followers of Law or Chaos and are played accordingly. But when you start talking about different powers a cleric may serve within Neutrality, then your cosmology gets more complex.
• Lastly, “No cleric should have both forms available.” I interpret this as simply underscoring what was said before. Not that the opposite versions are unavailable, but that using them should not happen without consideration and consequence.

By using these guidelines for clerics’ spell availability, the DM could also nudge a party to seek out different temples or priestly types. Your go-to NPC may be fine for you quick healings, but maybe he’s not so comfortable with casting some spells that are restricted by his faith.

Granted, this may not come up all that often. After all, when we look at the clerical spell list, there are a total of 34 spells, of which only ten are reversible:

1. Cure Light Wounds
2. Light
3. Remove Fear
4. Bless
5. Continual Light
6. Cure Disease
7. Remove Curse
8. Cure Serious Wounds
9. Quest
10. Raise Dead

For some of these, the alignment caveats make more sense to me than others: Reversed castings like Finger of Death or Cause Disease are pretty nasty magic! But others seem fairly tame in terms of reversals. Sure, casting Darkness isn’t sunshine and puppies, but it’s not like it’s actually dealing damage or anything. In the case of Remove Quest, you could actually be helping someone enchanted by a chaotic cleric. DM judgement applies as always, I should think.

House Rules for Thief Skills

There have been many posts and discussions about how low level thieves are not particularly good at their jobs. By that I mean their percentages in their class skills are nearly all pretty low. They even appear worse at hearing noises than non-thieves until they gain a few levels.

Along with this criticism has come many attempts to correct this, up to and including new skills tables, new mechanics, or even the whole class being scrapped. So I am suggesting possible ways to address this in my games. Feel free to use or ignore them.

Many of the thief skills are things that any person could reasonable attempt. Anyone can try to move quietly or climb something or hide in the shadows. The rules even allow non-thieves to check for traps and listen for noises. For my games, the only skills and abilities that are reserved as “thief only” are Open Lock, Pick Pocket, and Backstab. The rest allow for at least some chance of success to the non-thief, but thieves do have an edge when attempting them.

Find Trap: Everyone can try to spot simple traps (a trip-wire or snare, a covered pit, etc.). Only thieves can spot complex traps like tiny holes in the wall that shoot darts or vent gas. Thieves can also detect traps of a magical nature if there is something tangible to detect. e.g. a Thief might spot magical runes on a door (even if he can’t tell what they do), but he might not be able to tell there is a spell in effect inside a room.

Remove Trap: Non-thieves might be able to disarm simple devices by a player describing their actions and making a DEX check, like cutting a trip-wire, but a thief can disable a trap without destroying it. He can also disarm more complex traps like poison dart locks on treasure chests.

Move Silently: This isn’t a complicated one. As long as he isn’t wearing heavier than leather armor, any character can attempt to move silently at the same skill level as a 1st level thief. Non-thieves never improve beyond this ability.

Hide in Shadows: Like moving silently, the non-thief gets a base chance equal to a 1st level thief, but does not improve over time.

Climbing Sheer Surfaces: Anyone can climb “normal” surfaces like a steep hill, tree, or a rope. Thieves are the only ones trained in climbing nearly vertical surfaces like walls. In my game, thieves tools include things like “climbing claws” and shoe spikes. If a fighter wants up a cliff, he needs to get someone to lower a rope or find a ladder.

Hear Noise: This one is more about careful reading of the rules as written than an actual house rule. Everyone can roll to listen for noise behind a door (as per the rules on B21), and so can the thief. But the thief can hear noises in other circumstances; eg something slithering up behind them.

I haven’t put these house rules into practice in a game as yet, but they seemed a less invasive way to address low-level thieves lousy odds at success and the idea that other characters can try their hands at being “thiefy.”

REF: Castle Encounters

Castle encounters is an interesting subsection of the wilderness encounter tables. Despite the name, it’s not for encounter within a keep or castle, it’s for when the PCs stumble through the woods into the territory of the local lord and one of their patrols. It’s another example of how misleadingly compact the Moldvay/Cook rules are to include such a nifty bit of detail.

As the description states, “When characters discover a castle in the wilderness they will be unsure of the type of reception they will receive.” [X59] The encounter assumes A) the DM doesn’t have an attitude/reaction planned for the patrol and B) “the party does nothing either to arouse suspicion or inspire trust.”

The nature of the patrol (heavy or medium horse) depends upon the type of ruler (NPC class), but that’s a minor detail. Although I love the fact that it states “Note that the men listed are only part of the castle owner's forces. The rest of the force should include men and might even include special creatures such as trolls, or combinations such as superheroes mounted on griffons.”

I get chills.

The meat of this section are the possible reactions. Rather than the full monster reaction table, there are three basic possibilities: Pursue, Ignore, or Friendly. There is no CHA modifier (these are professionals), though I would probably allow a re-roll if the players showed some good role-playing.

Pursue: This isn’t necessarily a chase (though it could be). It could be a toll charged. Refusal can result in a fight or arrest.

Ignore: Just as it says. They pretty much give the PCs a “Move along.” It’s important to remember the ‘nothing to arouse suspicion’ caveat earlier here. PCs can act and look pretty suspicious sometimes without really trying!

Friendly: An invite of the keep’s hospitality. A fun tidbit: This can be offered by bad guys “for evil purposes” (!) Awesome.

A final note regarding demi-humans mentions “Elves, dwarves, and halflings are not given on this list, as their strongholds are special cases.” and suggests they would avoid contact. Fair enough, but that might vary from setting to setting.

So imagine the scenario of the PCs cutting cross-country, entering the territory of a 13th level wizard’s tower. It’s late afternoon and a patrol of a half dozen heavy horsemen appear. They are not hostile and even suggest the PCs might wish to shelter at the tower for the evening. The magus is always happy for guests. If they accept, maybe they come to the tower to find a bugbear mounted on a manticore is guarding the gate and lets them and the patrol enter without fuss.

Is the wizard evil? Are the PCs in for a really bad time? What would happen if they refused the offer? Maybe the mage is benign and he could even become an ally or resource for the party. All because they took a wrong turn at that gully and went one hex off-course.

Man, I love this game!

New BX Screen

I bought one of Hammerdog Games' landscape "World's Greatest Screens" a while back with the idea of designing a new one for my classic games. This is the result.

 The only tables on the player side are equipment costs, cleric turning, and thief skills.

Closer view of the custom art panel I made:

This was all done with open-source software. I copied the data for the tables into LibreOffice and then laid out the pages in Scribus. I exported the whole thing to PDF for printing. The images were tweaked a bit in GIMP. 

I'm not 100% sure about the readability of the tables' sizes, so I may lose the notes panel to allow for bigger table text.

EDIT: As per requests, here is a link to the pdf on my Google docs.

In Defense of Flavor Text

Flavor text, or boxed text, is a staple of classic adventure modules. The bit of copy set aside to read to the players. The part they can know, minus things like where the secret door is or the solution to the riddle carved on the wall.

In recent years, many (certainly not all) writers and reviewers of OSR-style products have voiced criticisms of boxed text. They find it distracting and disruptive to setting the pace of a game, even to the point of being jarring. The text can make also assumptions; such as the characters taking certain actions or that events having occurred in a certain sequence. 

These are valid complaints. While the GM can certainly amend text on the fly to reflect the current status of his individual game, part of the point to a published product like a module is to do some of that lifting for him.

When I have written flavor text for adventures, I have learned (imperfectly) to only present what can be immediately perceived upon entering a room or area, regardless of what may have happened before (within reason) and leaving further revelations to be determined by the players’ choices. Not all published products follow this model, so I can understand some people’s frustration. But before we throw the text out with the bathwater, allow me to offer my take on the value of flavor text in general.

As stated previously, boxed text takes some of the work off the GM’s hands. It gives him something to tell the players about their surroundings in an easily presented format. Granted, some boxed text can go on for far too long. A few sentences should be enough. Alternately, you can have a short initial description that breaks and allows for player agency. Then, if the players “trigger” the next part, there can be a followup box of relevant text. 

Of course, the flavor in flavor text is often the mood-setting, or atmospheric, descriptions to help people feel more immersed in the game. While this is a laudable goal, I often feel it is over-emphasized in boxed text. I mean, that clever imagery about the moon through the dead tree branches is cool and all, but not if I have to listen to a minute and a half of it before the GM tells me there’s a werewolf under the tree.

Another reason for prepared text is to help the players. Not just in setting the mood or presenting their initial impressions of their surroundings, but in filling in what I call the “perception gap.”

There is an old-school GM-ing conceit of “The player never expressly said they checked X, so they don’t know Y.” While this is fair as far as it goes toward allowing for player agency and their characters to stand or fall by their choices, there is a range between what one overtly sees or hears, and what one might realistically perceive if one were actually there. This is the perception gap.

Articles and books about adventure design often address this with advice like using all five senses when giving descriptions, not just sight or sound: What do they smell? Is it cold or hot? Dry or humid? and so forth. The idea is it helps the players visualize and become immersed more in the game. This is good advice, but has two potential pitfalls.

First, this can be a lot more work for the GM. Hence the previous point about using a published module. If an author has already incorporated some of these descriptors into the text, then the GM doesn’t have to. I am a proponent of not overusing this technique, though. Every room shouldn’t have a laundry list of sensory stimuli. Use the technique sparingly, and usually only when it will have an impact. Which brings me to my second point regarding the perception gap.

Providing more detail to players via prepared text not only for atmosphere, but to provide hints relevant to gameplay. A rotten smell might indicate zombies in the cellar, or a drafty room might hint at a secret passage. These are things that a person would probably notice just by being in a place, but may or may not consciously register. Some may be less obvious than others, but still definitely perceptible. Unless you want to train your players to repeatedly stop you and ask for input for each sense, scattering some of these details in subdued ways gives players a chance to follow up on these cues without necessarily smacking them over the head with them. The tricky part is to make such cues normal enough in one’s “GM patter” that metagaming players don’t pounce on every adjective, but distinct enough that they were given a fair shot before saving throws are called for. This sort of lexical balancing act can be tricky, which is all the more reason to use text that was prepared ahead of time either by the GM or by a published module’s author. 

As with any aspect of game design, boxed flavor text can be done well or poorly or anywhere in between. When it’s done well, I feel it can be a real asset to the players’ experience, both for setting the mood and filling the perception gap. 

Curious Objects: Staff of Wizardry

Once again, he is undeterred!

The staff of wizardry is arguably one of the most powerful magic items in the game. It's effectively the BX equivalent of AD&D's Staff of the Magi. Basically, it is three separate magic staves in one: in addition to its own distinct powers, it has all the abilities of the Staff of Power, which in turn can be used as a Staff of Striking. Let's start with the most straightforward of the three and move upwards, shall we?

Firstly, the Staff of Striking lets the wielder have a stronger melee attack than your average MU is capable of (2d6 damage, but costs a charge). While this staff is unusual in that clerics can also wield it, I do not think that aspect translates to the Staff of Power or Wizardry. While it isn't expressly stated, this is usually ruled to count as a magic weapon attack for purposes of hitting special monsters like gargoyles.

The Staff of Power gives the wielder some nice attack spells: fireball, lightning bolt, and cone of cold. Each dealing 8d6 damage! Sure it costs charges, but an Elf or MU toting one of those around is going to have something to bring to almost any fight. I particularly like that he has a variety of damage types to choose from. Fighting something immune to fire? Cone of cold it is!

The Staff of Wizardry is the main event, though. In addition to all of the above powers, it can also cast quite the laundry list of super-useful (and powerful) spells:

• Invisibility
• Passwall
• Web
• Conjure Elemental

These are some awfully nice abilities that aren't tying up a spell slot! Something I hadn't previously considered is that the elemental conjuration isn't just for one kind, it's any of the four! We're not done yet, though.

The staff also allows the wizard to create a whirlwind like a djinn. It also doubles as a wand of paralyzation. 

The last trick the staff carries is its "final strike." This release a fireball effect of 8hp damage per remaining charge (not rolled) to anyone within 30'.* This includes the caster or any friendlies, so it's a last-ditch effort, to be sure. It's still mighty impressive.

Staves in BX are found with 3d10 charges, and there is no BtB way to recharge them. So while this is a very powerful item, it is limited. The Elf or MU that found one would probably want to be conservative in its use. With an average of less than 20 charges, it's not going to last forever. In fact, I can imagine an NPC wizard with one who knows it's down to just a couple charges, but does his best to hide the fact in order to appear more dangerous. 

*Cook lists both 20' and 30' as the radius, but the Rules Cyclopedia says 30', so I went with that.