Rules
I am planning to shift to a “roll in order” for ability scores, with the opportunity to swap two scores.
We’ve almost always played “4d6, drop lowest”, but I’m leaning toward a straight 3d6 for Labyrinth Lord from now on. I believe that the +1 modifiers for to-hit, damage, and hit points at 13 is excessive. Yes, I realize that this is how original B/X played it, but I believe it’s just too much. My conscience requires me to either adjust the ability score modifiers, probably to a +1 at 15 instead of 13, or slightly deflate ability scores.
Since the 3d6 method is by the book to begin with, going that route is preferable to me.
Over at Dungeons and Digressions, I see the sidebar poll shows a sizable lead for the “4d6, drop lowest, arrange to taste” method. This has long been my own most common rule, though I’ve varied things over the years.
What do readers do and/or prefer?
UPDATE: I also posed this question on the LL forum.
Tags: rules
I’ve noted before that I grant thieves six-sided hit dice in my Labyrinth Lord game rather than a d4. As I stated, I believe that thieves are generally tougher than magic-users but maybe not as tough as clerics. The problem arises because in LL clerics have d6 hit dice and magic-users have d4. There’s no simple middle ground as there is in AD&D where clerics have d8 hit dice and the d6 splits the difference. As I believe that most thieves are adventurers who have ignored advanced combat techniques for some specialized skills rather than normal men who have learned some technical crafts, I give them d6 hit dice.
Now, I find myself making another house rule to benefit the thief class.
The revised Labyrinth Lord rules have made a number of adjustments to armor. The most significant of these, in my opinion, is shift of leather armor to AC 8 from AC 7. Though maybe not a big deal to other classes, this is a major issue for thieves, who “cannot wear armor heavier than leather” and cannot use shields. Suddenly, every thief wearing leather armor is more than 10% easier to hit, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. High dexterity, magic items, whatever…any thief wearing leather armor (which is about 95% of them in my experience) lost half of their armor protection in combat.
So I’m going to allow thieves to wear studded leather armor. Studded also lost an AC point in the revision, and now grants base AC of 7, the same as pre-revision leather armor. Problem solved.
Honestly, I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of the thief class and am not thrilled about constantly tweaking things for them. If their abilities were better at lower levels, I’d probably resist the temptation. But I also don’t want their biggest contribution to be a pick locks or remove traps roll. I see them as adventurers, not specialists.
Tags: Labyrinth Lord, rules, thief
I didn’t have an opportunity at the time to try anything other than orcs against a tyrannosaur while pondering a flat 100 XP per hit die for monsters.
If your PCs can see this, they're probably in trouble.
As some in the comments pointed out, low-HD monsters are vulnerable to mass attacks like sleep spells and fireballs, while high-HD monsters like good old tyrannosaur is unaffected or, at least, more resistant. This is an important point.
Also, I wanted to simulate a couple of other fights with creatures of higher HD. So I ran six quick melees between five ogres and a tyrannosaur, both of which would be worth 2000 experience points under the proposed system. The dinosaur won all six fights rather easily, as it almost always hit and nearly always killed one ogre each round. It seemed to me like the ogres rolled really badly on their to-hits, which didn’t help them in a fight where the odds were already stacked against them. None of the six fights were close.
I tried another round of battles, this time between ten gnolls and one tyrannosaur. This was a lot closer, with the tyrannosaur winning three of five battles. In one of the battles, it finished off the last gnoll with only 7 hit points left.
A few commenters have pointed out that the majority of XP should probably come from treasure in most standard campaigns, and I agree. In my current games, probably around 75% or more of XP comes from treasure. I wouldn’t want this to change by very much, if at all. I don’t know that the fact that most experience comes from treasure should affect the awarding of monster XP one way or the other, though.
Current XP calculation methods do not take a monster’s treasure rating into effect, so whether or not a monster is likely to have a lot of treasure does not affect how many XP that monster is worth. If monster XP creeps up a bit, the game master would have to keep an eye on things and keep total XP awards and the combat:treasure ratio where he or she wants it, but that’s something that game masters already have to do.
Finally, I want to be clear that I’m not championing this idea. I don’t even use it currently. However, I do wonder if it might not be an easy way to award XP while maybe doing a better job modeling the danger of groups of weaker monsters. It would probably make advancement out of the first few levels a little bit quicker and advancement into the higher levels a little bit slower, but I don’t see that as a problem at all. I personally think the best adventuring usually happens in levels 4-8 anyway, so if this system extends the period that PCs are in that golden range, so much the better.
Tags: Labyrinth Lord, rules
Yesterday I wrote a little bit about the idea of using the original OD&D rule of a flat 100 experience points per monster hit die. I gave three reasons in favor of this: simplicity, ease of advance at lower levels, and making hoards of lesser creatures “measure up” in terms of combat ability to lone high-level monsters.
It takes 800 orcs in Second Edition AD&D to equal the XP value of one Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The example I gave, as a sort of extreme contrast of basic fighting monsters (i.e., no magic or special powers) was the orc vs. the tyrannosaur. To the right is how the lowly 1-HD orc measures up to the tyrannosaur in some of the various versions of the game, with the last column showing how many orcs it takes to equal the XP award of a single T-Rex.
Now, does anyone really think that defeating 800 orcs is the equivalent of defeating 1 tyrannosaur? That 12,000 XP value is just plain whacked. Even at the lowest ratio, 200 orcs vs. one tyrannosaur, is way off.
In the 100 XP per hit die system in Labyrinth Lord, 22 orcs would equal one tyrannosaur. I fought two simulated battles of 22 orcs (1 leader and 17 footorcs with long swords, 4 archers with short bows) against one tyrannosaur. The orcs won the first fight in 8 rounds, the second fight in 10.
My son then said that all a 1st level fighter has to do is kill 20 orcs and he gets to 2nd level. I said if a 1st level fighter can beat 20 orcs in a row, he deserves 2nd level. So we played it out. I used our house rule of max PC hit points at 1st level, a rather common mod, and rolled for the orcs. The fighter won 15 of the fights, which is exactly what I predicted. However, he never won more than four in a row. Under standard Labyrinth Lord rules a fighter would need to defeat 200 orcs in a row to advance to second level.
This comparison has actually strengthened the idea that 100 XP per hit die is a workable system. I certainly think it’s worth considering as a quick and simple replacement for the standard system.
Additionally, I found that both Sham and Jeff Reints are fans of the system.
In any event, I still think that 75% or more of a typical PC’s experience point total should come from treasure, not combat.
Tags: rules
Not as tough as 225 orcs
I’m considering going to a flat 100 experience points per HD for combat. First of all, it’s just plain simple.
Secondly, it makes the first few levels a bit easier to attain, as the goblins and giant rats are suddenly rather rewarding, XP-wise. Taking on a band of goblins is a seriously dangerous thing for a party of 1st levelers to do, yet if four PCs defeat a dozen gobs, they each get a whopping 15 XP.
Finally, fighting monsters in masses, as is often the case with lower-HD types, more accurately compares to the danger of fighting one biggie, where the entire party can concentrate on one target. Sure, a tyrannosaur is tough. But is a party of four PCs going to have more trouble with one tyrannosaur or with twenty orcs? Both have a total of 20 hit dice, but the orcs are almost certain to be a tougher opponent. Using the standard system, the party gets to split 200 XP for the twenty orcs and 2250 for the tyrannosaur. Sure, against mid-level and higher PCs the orcs are going to find it tough to score a lot of hits, even when greatly outnumbering the party, but I don’t think the difference is tenfold (and then some). For the XP equivalent of a tyrannosaur, the PCs would have to fight 225 orcs.
Here’s a breakdown of a few creatures I just listed off the top of my head:
XP Comparison, Labyrinth Lord standard vs. Flat 100 XP/HD
I can see adding a 100 XP kicker for monsters with special abilities or cutting XP in half when the party’s average level is twice the hit dice of the monsters, but even these simple adjustments seem unnecessary in the long run.
Could this lead to high-level parties running around in search or kobolds and goblins to beat up on? I suppose that could be an unintended consequence of this. But as most XP should be coming from treasure to begin with, and goblins and kobolds aren’t going to have much in the way of hoarded wealth, I don’t think this will be too much of a problem, either.
I wrote earlier about the XP for treasure system, and had been planning to institute a 1 gold piece = 5XP rule in my now-abandoned Swords & Wizardry White Box game. I am now thinking about bringing that over to my Labyrinth Lord game.
Yes, you can rack up some big XP at 100 per monster hit die and 5 per gold piece recovered. But, believe me, in my campaign you’re going to have to work for it.
Tags: Labyrinth Lord, rules
Some aspects of the typical multiple attack routine by monsters in these games that we play have bothered me for some time, particularly the way that rolling a claw/claw/bite tends to slow things down a bit. Three rolls for each monster instead of one, multiple damage rolls if hits are scored, etcetera, etcetera. Not a big deal, really, but something I’ve never been a big fan of.
1d3/1d3/1d6
Lately, however, I’ve been wondering if it might not be better to roll all the attacks into one roll. It was probably Swords & Wizardry White Box, which generally uses 1 d6 attack per monster, that got me thinking on this. We already assume that a round of combat consists of multiple swings, feints, parries, and counterstrokes, and we already assume that hit points are more or less an abstract representation of “fighting toughness” (for want of a better term). So why not extend this abstract approach to attacks by monsters with multiple claw or claw/bite or pincer/tail attacks?
One roll to see if hit point-reducing damage has been done, and, if so, one more roll to see how much.
For instance, this past weekend my son’s character was leading a party of adventurers and hirelings through a dungeon called Osgorr’s Labyrinth, wherein they encountered two mountain lions. Each mountain lion had a claw/claw/bite for 1d3/1d3/1d6. Nothing unusual or terribly difficult, but still sort a pain to run through, in my humble opinion. I’ve taken to rolling all multiple attacks at once, so I’d roll three d20s for each mountain lion, having designated one of the dice as “the bite.” Then I’d roll any and all damage at once, as well. This speeds things up a bit.
But why not give the mountain lion one attack for 2d6? Statistically, I’m not sure how this would compare numbers-wise over the long haul, but it seems to me that it wouldn’t shift things too far one way or the other.
The damage roll, as always, could be used as an indication of the exactly what blows were landed. Roll a 3? Well, one claw must have nicked the character. Roll a 10? Apparently both claws raked and solid bite was delivered, as well.
Seven heads are better than one
If the “fearsomeness” of monsters with multiple attack routines is needed, maybe a +1 to hit could be granted to simulate the creature’s ability to deliver quick strikes from different directions. Some “two weapon fighting” house rules already do something like this.
Note that I wouldn’t necessarily use this approach for some creatures. Hydras and chimeras, for instance, have multiple heads that are at least semi-independent and can strike against different foes in the same round. In cases such as that I would definitely leave the separate attacks in. Fighting a seven-headed hydra is a lot like fighting seven monsters. Fighting a mountain lion is not really like fighting three monsters.
One thing I’m not sure how to handle this way would be when one of the attacks has a special feature, such as the poisonous sting of a giant scorpadillo’s tail. Maybe keep separate attacks for that, particularly if it can be used against a different target than the primary attack. Alternatively, perhaps a natural ’20′ or a roll 4 greater than required to hit could indicate that the special attack has struck home. Maybe it could be different for different creatures, depending upon the perceived likelihood of the special attack hitting, though I’m trying to simplify things here, not add new rules.
This is not something I’m currently using, or even something I’m currently planning to use. However, I want to give it some thought and, unless holes are uncovered, I may consider it in the future.
Does anyone have any thoughts?
UPDATE: More on this idea here.
Tags: rules
We’ve played a fair amount of Labyrinth Lord over the past few months. My initial inclination was to begin house ruling left and right, but we’ve settled on a rather short (and apparently not unusual) list of official house rules:
- Abilities – 4d6, [drop lowest], arrange to taste
- Hit Points – Maximum hp at 1st level
- Thieves – Get d6 hit dice
- Bonus Spells – Clerics with Wis 15+ or Magic-Users with Int 15+ get one extra first-level spell per day
- Critical Hits – A natural ’20′ means roll damage dice twice
- Critical Miss – A natural ’1′ means no attack next round *
- Death and Dying – 0 hit points (exactly): Unconscious 1d6 turns, revive with 1 hp
-1 to -10 hit points: Save vs death to survive, save means 0 hit points (as above)
Below -10: Dead, no save - Bind Wounds – Heal 1-3 hit points after each combat if 5 minutes spent
Can bind unconscious character’s wounds to revive (with 1 hp) after 5 minutes - Infravision – Simply see in the dark…no IR heat-sensing vision
* We plan to replace this with a different system which will give variable results. A critical miss with a missile weapon against a foe in melee with a friend means the friend may be hit.
One thing we’re sort of waiting for is the upcoming Advanced Edition Characters system for LL which will bring AD&D-style classes to the LL rule set. Our expectation is that we will adopt AEC for our LL game. I was initially resistant to the idea of bolting advanced characters onto the basic game, thinking that if I wanted advanced characters I’d play the advanced game. But then I remembered that our AD&D game back in the day was a heck of a lot closer to B/X than to AD&D even though we had never played B/X.
The plan at this point is to play Labyrinth Lord more or less by-the-book and to house rule Swords & Wizardry White Box to the hilt. I’m actually in a bit of a quandary about S&W, because though I love the concept of the lower power curve, Labyrinth Lord is getting everything done I want to get done. I’m actually a bit hesitant at this point to commit to another rule set, particularly one I plan to customize seven ways to Sunday if I use it.
Tags: Labyrinth Lord, rules
After some feedback, discussion, and reflection, I’ve tweaked the original draft of Labyrinth Minions a bit. Here’s the final product:
Labyrinth Minions - PDF
I changed the roll for the number of potential hirelings found per recruiting effort to a d6 and added a couple of simple modifiers for city size. GMs can further modify this roll quite easily to take campaign conditions, regional attitudes, and party reputation into account. The result of a massive recruiting effort which canvases all the taverns and inns in a city will result in a roll of a handful of d6s. Which is always a lot of fun.
I also modified the weapons an armor table a bit. Swords & Wizardry players may want to tweak the armor chart a bit more, perhaps substituting ring mail for one of the scale mail results. A little more variety was added to the weapon/shield column.
A quick note regarding hit points: I stuck with 3-6 hit points for men-at-arms as I feel that the weaker types simply will not attempt that line of work. Another possibility is that a 1hp weakling wants to be a man-at-arms but is not regarded as such by PCs and gets lumped in with the non-combatants anyway. Who wants employ someone lacking in even the most basic toughness as hired muscle? I upped the non-combatant hit points to 1d4+1 for similar reasons. The most fragile just won’t choose this line of work, or won’t be seriously considered by adventurers as labyrinth material.
I also added a quick note about wages, reaction checks, and loyalty. This quick system is not meant to replace any of that. It’s simply a quick way to see who’s looking for work, how tough they are, and what sort of gear the fighting men have.
Finally, I must point out the nifty card-sized Labyrinth Lord Hirelings Generator and Record Sheet at Dungeons and Digressions. Very cool, and I particularly like how he incorporated the attack tables and saving throws for 0-level hirelings into the card. That’s something I always have to glance at during play, and it always sort of drives me nuts.
Jeff Rients commented that he’d probably hand the thing out to his players and “let them roll their own dang hirelings.” That, as they say, is brilliant. I like this record concept and the idea of letting players roll up the red shirts. I will probably have to do something similar for my own game.
Also, I just noticed that he included a note that his card was “inspired by a Lord Kilgore creation.” That’s very classy and very appreciated.
I will also be adding this to the Kilgore Kreations page. The collection of free stuff is slowly growing.
Tags: Kreations, Labyrinth Lord, rules
