1 Reply by PlanarRambler

(28 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Lord Inar wrote:

I myself do something different (a classless system), but a short answer is: sorcerer, barbarian and scout, respectively. For the scout you can choose to either keep or remove the small size stuff (weapon restriction and Dex bonus)

See, that's what I was thinking, too, but there was a definite lack of anything resembling the typical barbarian in Europe around this time. Oh, but there were the natives of the Canadian and American colonies! They could be classed under 'barbarian', I suppose. And they did bring some of these folk back as exhibitions and the like. Again, the class would require some re-working, but it's doable with very little effort.

Sorceror is still... ehhhh. I dunno, it's hard to picture a sword slinging spell weaver in any sort of modern or semi-modern historical context. Still falls in the land of Moorcock and high fantasy/swords and sorcery. Can't imagine a European historical equivalent from around the 1600's.

Edit: Brotherhood of the Wolf and the human zoos of Europe are examples of possible ways to introduce the barbarian class back into Europe. Granted the human zoos were something that came later on, but there are several well documented examples of natives from the colonial settlements being returned to Europe and placed on display in the palaces of kings and other members of the aristocracy. One fellow was even de-fleshed after he died, and his remains put on display in a museum. I think they only recently got around to interring the poor fellow.

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2 Reply by PlanarRambler

(28 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Well... if you're just looking for re-skins then I'd recommend altering the halfling into a forester or somesuch. Afterall, the class already has the whole woodsy stealthiness thing going for it (and the thought of every midget on Earth suddenly becoming a woods-wise midget is just... terrifying). You could switch their saving throws around (halflings get ridiculous saving throws) and obviously they would no longer suffer from the inability to utilize larger weapons. Boom... woodsman/ranger/forester.

Dwarfish folk are a little tougher, as they're far more specialized, and their extra detection abilty really just mirrors one of those possessed by the specialist class. With their +1 Constitution bonus and higher hit die, I think you could justify casting them as a, uh... I don't know, it's late.

I'll think up some stuff tomorrow and get back to you. Oh, and check out some of the blogs out there. Obviously someone has done up some custom classes/re-skinned the basic ones at some point. Gank the hell out of their ideas and resources, that's why they share 'em.

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3 Reply by PlanarRambler

(28 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

They could be made to fit in an Alternate Earth type setting, ala Three Hearts and Three Lions (or any similar work). I suppose it all comes down to how you wish to re-skin them. Libertad has an excellent write-up on halflings that I've just finished reading. His entries on elves and dwarfs are also excellent, and should still work fine, but are firmly in the weird/otherworldly vein.

I might recommend (off the top of my head) reading The Mound for some inspiration regarding some more unobtrusive elves. Could be reworked to reflect the whole... faerie mound thing found in old folk stories, with decidedly weird overtones. Plus it would keep the elves out of the world at large, but still viable as a character race (albeit a rather degenerate representation of one).

Just keep in mind the social effects of having "old folke" out and about in the world. Things would be a little... different. Oh, maybe check out another Anderson story called The Queen of Air and Darkness. Might help you out, and it's not a long read.

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4 Reply by PlanarRambler

(18 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Does James often comment on house rules or offer referee advice? I haven't been through the whole forum, but I haven't seen much from him when it comes to that, but again I haven't been through the whole forum so...

Anyway, does anyone have any additional insights on the topic?

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5 Reply by PlanarRambler

(18 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Thanks for the welcome!

Yep, the Peg-legged Princess was the piece from the upcoming supplement that I mentioned earlier. A fantastic piece of artwork, truly.

Anyway, WFRP was exactly what I had in mind when I started this topic. In fact, the lil' lady and myself were just discussing that particular system a few minutes ago. I actually ran across another mention of that system on... Paul's Blog, I believe, along with an adaptation for Labyrinth Lord. I was thinking, basically, that once a character hits 0 hit points he or she would then have to roll on a table to determine possible injuries or auto-kill (just like in WFRP). Additional damage suffered would result in a penalty to the roll, thus making it very likely that a character would be maimed or simply killed if he or she stayed to continue the fight. Also, larger monsters or monsters with a higher damage output would likely just auto-kill the character due to the penalties imposed on the player's roll. Could be applied to traps or... anything, really. I wouldn't want to clutter the system with needless junk, but I think this could add something.

As for high fantasy... yeah, I'm somewhat partial to the zaniness of the Known World (Mystara), but I do love me some grimdark, too!

Edit: Still, I'm very much partial to the slightly more arbitrary but equally effective "You done goofed" method. Player gets careless, slime falls, terrible burns, reaction penalty, done. A blend of the two would be effective, I believe, but I think some referees would be uncomfortable maiming a character without a table or die roll to back them up.

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6 Topic by PlanarRambler

(18 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Do you? If so, how? Why?

I'm sure we've all cooked up or come across something like this before. My first experience with such a contrivance was back in the days of AD&D 2nd Ed., right after our DM purchased some nifty new screens with what amounted to a number of tables that charted out hit locations and critical effects. He ran out and purchased Combat & Tactics shortly after, and the game session after that my fighter was down a few IQ points (brain damage is a bitch). Definitely added something to the game, but it resulted in quite a few more dice being rolled.

Anyway, the wife and I were discussing some of the art in the Grindhouse boxed set (and in one of the upcoming supplements), and the Flame Princess' encounter with the slime came up, so we got to discussing possible reasons for tearing a player character a new one. I brought up the classic slime dropping from the roof, and mentioned that I'd have no problem taking a couple of points off a character's charisma score due to poor/sloppy dungeoneering on the behalf of the player. The wife sees it a little differently, but that's because she's a very kind-hearted lady. So, yeah, I think maiming a player character in any game is perfectly acceptable given the right reasons, doubly so if your group is engaged in a campaign with darker, more horrific aspects, but how do you gents go about handling this? What's your opinion on the matter?

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7 Reply by PlanarRambler

(219 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Howdy folks!

Okay, so, my name is Jim, I'm 28 years old, and I've been tabletopping for, oh... about 14 or 15 years on and off. Mostly AD&D 2nd back in high school, quite a bit of Ravenloft, a good deal of 3rd, some Mechwarrior, a bit of BRP, and various homebrews and suchlike. Back in the day we used to break out the old Otus boxed sets once in a while, but it's only in the last couple of years that I've really become enamored with the whole "old school" dealy.

Anyway, I'm here mainly because LotFP is just so damn metal. Oh, and to pick a brain or two. I'll do my level best to contribute to the materials hereabouts, but for the most part I'll just be concentrating on my home game and gleaning what advice I may.

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