Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes Oh my! Part 2
So, a serious lack of thief and what to do about it... Well there are several ways to resolve this issue and I've not settled on any of them so far. First I could simply encourage the player that is up in the air about what character class to run to create a thief. Through life experience I have learned that getting other people to do what I want simply by asking and the use of a logical argument is unlikely to get anyone (especially a 20 something D&D 4ed player) to do what I would like. Besides there are several other options all of which are more fun.
Another possibility is to allow the players to simply avoid or jam all traps that they know are there and to do so by having at least one of them in the lead using the ubiquitous 10' ft pole. That person would walk slightly ahead of the party pressing said pole onto the ground like the equivalent of a dungeoneering blind man looking for those little pockets of DM haha known as traps. When one is encountered there would be a possible chance of setting it off with the pole or simply seeing the triggering mechanism give slightly and knowing that the trap is there if not the nature. They could then investigate it knowing the whole time that it could go off in their faces and then attempt to jam the mechanism or avoid it altogether still not knowing if they're successful until they have to walk over the deadly little pretty.
Beyond that they could carry a hammer/ram/crowbar to take out locked doors. They could use the magic users sage like ability to read languages (hmm that requires some development). They could then rely on their own pitiful chances of hiding in shadows, moving silently, picking pockets and hearing noises all to the DM's delight. But....while the whole bit about having them look for and disarm traps sound rather entertaining for me and them and while the busting of doors is a time honored tradition among the fighter class the continuous failures at trying to sneak past those 10 or more guards to get the key off their leader's belt and hearing if they're noticed and given chase are going to get annoying if not downright sucky.
Well why not just kill off said party of orcs and take what they have. Simply put I'm the kind of DM that believes in stocking a level of dungeon with far more than what the party can take out. I think that the most fun about playing this game is not rolling some dice and doing math until one side loses but instead having the players up against it and coming up with clever ways of figuring out how the heck they're going to not only survive but come out successful and richer for it.
So what the heck does all this have to do with the titular Dwarves, Halflings and Gnomes. Well if you don't already know the older (basic) editions of D&D and most of the retro clones handle demihumans not as race to be applied to classes but as racial classes. In other words you do not play a dwarf fighter or a halfling thief etc etc but instead you play the class of Dwarf or Halfling or Elf. Each has some special ability and some cross over ability from one or more of the 4 human classes (Fighter, Cleric Thief and Magic User).
The Elf is a Magic User/Fighter. They've got all the abilities of both classes with a slightly lower hit die of d6 than the fighter, full selection of weapons and full use of armor. They do though have to come up with a great deal of xp to go up a level though (the highest per level in the game) and this limits their number of hit die/HP a great deal. I've also applied a couple more restrictions. Elves do not get the bonus spells per day I allow magic users (one per level as per specialist wizards) or have access to nearly as much learning as do magic users (MU in my campaign are very well learned and are essentially travelling sages to an extent). This means they have to learn whatever spells they can find for the most part and simply will never research or create any spells on their own. Also I will not likely allow them to enchant items either though this decision is up in the air.
The Dwarf is best compared to the human fighter class. He has access to all weapons and all armors. He has the same hit die of d8 and he has a very good table of saving throws especially versus poisons and wands. This makes the dwarf seem a bit simple but he is in fact a very hardy and classical type of character class. Also the dwarf has infravision a nice addition to any character that only he and the elf have. Lastly the Dwarf has one final ability which is his as I call it "tunnel sense". This is the ability of a Dwarf who has been raised and lived his whole life in Dwarf made tunnels to sense/detect things like new versus old construction, sliding (hidden?) doors and the occasional trap. This makes the dwarf a valuable addition to any party especially one that is thief poor.
Well time to get ready for work. It looks like this two parter is going to be a trilogy. More to come
Another possibility is to allow the players to simply avoid or jam all traps that they know are there and to do so by having at least one of them in the lead using the ubiquitous 10' ft pole. That person would walk slightly ahead of the party pressing said pole onto the ground like the equivalent of a dungeoneering blind man looking for those little pockets of DM haha known as traps. When one is encountered there would be a possible chance of setting it off with the pole or simply seeing the triggering mechanism give slightly and knowing that the trap is there if not the nature. They could then investigate it knowing the whole time that it could go off in their faces and then attempt to jam the mechanism or avoid it altogether still not knowing if they're successful until they have to walk over the deadly little pretty.
Beyond that they could carry a hammer/ram/crowbar to take out locked doors. They could use the magic users sage like ability to read languages (hmm that requires some development). They could then rely on their own pitiful chances of hiding in shadows, moving silently, picking pockets and hearing noises all to the DM's delight. But....while the whole bit about having them look for and disarm traps sound rather entertaining for me and them and while the busting of doors is a time honored tradition among the fighter class the continuous failures at trying to sneak past those 10 or more guards to get the key off their leader's belt and hearing if they're noticed and given chase are going to get annoying if not downright sucky.
Well why not just kill off said party of orcs and take what they have. Simply put I'm the kind of DM that believes in stocking a level of dungeon with far more than what the party can take out. I think that the most fun about playing this game is not rolling some dice and doing math until one side loses but instead having the players up against it and coming up with clever ways of figuring out how the heck they're going to not only survive but come out successful and richer for it.
So what the heck does all this have to do with the titular Dwarves, Halflings and Gnomes. Well if you don't already know the older (basic) editions of D&D and most of the retro clones handle demihumans not as race to be applied to classes but as racial classes. In other words you do not play a dwarf fighter or a halfling thief etc etc but instead you play the class of Dwarf or Halfling or Elf. Each has some special ability and some cross over ability from one or more of the 4 human classes (Fighter, Cleric Thief and Magic User).
The Elf is a Magic User/Fighter. They've got all the abilities of both classes with a slightly lower hit die of d6 than the fighter, full selection of weapons and full use of armor. They do though have to come up with a great deal of xp to go up a level though (the highest per level in the game) and this limits their number of hit die/HP a great deal. I've also applied a couple more restrictions. Elves do not get the bonus spells per day I allow magic users (one per level as per specialist wizards) or have access to nearly as much learning as do magic users (MU in my campaign are very well learned and are essentially travelling sages to an extent). This means they have to learn whatever spells they can find for the most part and simply will never research or create any spells on their own. Also I will not likely allow them to enchant items either though this decision is up in the air.
The Dwarf is best compared to the human fighter class. He has access to all weapons and all armors. He has the same hit die of d8 and he has a very good table of saving throws especially versus poisons and wands. This makes the dwarf seem a bit simple but he is in fact a very hardy and classical type of character class. Also the dwarf has infravision a nice addition to any character that only he and the elf have. Lastly the Dwarf has one final ability which is his as I call it "tunnel sense". This is the ability of a Dwarf who has been raised and lived his whole life in Dwarf made tunnels to sense/detect things like new versus old construction, sliding (hidden?) doors and the occasional trap. This makes the dwarf a valuable addition to any party especially one that is thief poor.
Well time to get ready for work. It looks like this two parter is going to be a trilogy. More to come
posted by Jason1977 at
6:22 AM
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