Advanced Gaming & Theory: Mechanic Series

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Are Thief Player Characters Still Relevant?

Albrecht Dürer - Cupid the Honey Thief. 1514

Since adopting more elements from OD&D into my gaming, a style that is less skill based and more player driven, I've noticed that many of my fellow tinkerers have opted to remove the thief player class from the game. Now, long-time readers of this blog know that even though I am very critical of skill based systems, my favorite class to play is the Thief. Doesn't make much sense, does it?

It's not that I think that the entire skill system is bad for the game, I just feel that systems like Pathfinder and modern D&D have allowed it to take center stage. It controls too much! People have gotten too reliant on them, and use the skill system to bypass fun parts of the game. It alters the flow, speeding it up, and I feel that it interferes with immersion.

To make a long story short, specifics can correct the problem of mechanical interference, but that doesn't mean that we should completely scrap the NWP system; and then we have the thief class. A skill based class that relies upon them to function.

In a game where the traps are specific, we know how they function and the players can locate them with tools or equipment, and come up with a plan which may or may not result in disarming them, where does the thief fit into this?

Thieves are more expendable.
They can figure out the hidden workings of advanced traps.
They do more for the team than just disarm and locate traps.

Handling Checks

In my last post, I suggested that we try to stick to specifics as much as possible. The DM listens to the plan, and translates the odds of success to the d%; however, there are times when the players are going to have to make checks. In times like these, I prefer the d20. It is fast, fair, and usually in the player's favor.

d% Thief Checks

via: Pinterest

I never really thought about it before, why do thieves roll d% for thief ability checks? I suppose that it is just a hang-over from 1st Edition AD&D. It gives the illusion of player control, but it really isn't all that functional.

As a player, the thief skill system doesn't work at early levels of play and offers no challenge at higher levels. The best games are when you are gambling with your character's life. As a player, if something is dangerous, I'm not going to even attempt it unless I've got at least a 70%. If things get desperate, I may attempt it at 50%, but never below that. If something has no risk, I will just sit there and roll dice until we all get bored or it works . . . hours and hours later in game time. That sucks, and that isn't playing the game.

I know that there is a huge population of gamers who think that the NWP system is broken, but I don't feel that it is, of course, the way that I design my games I enforce no reliance upon the system to use it. It can allow a user to bypass an obstacle, or make a section easier if you are successful, but play doesn't stop because of a failed check; that is a symptom of bad design. It all boils down to percentages, the d20 just uses increments of 5%. If a character has a DEX of 15, with a -2 to his ability check, he's got a 65% of succeeding. That is actually lower standards than I would normally allow for a dangerous task that will kill me if the dice say no.

PLAYER'S OPTION: SKILLS & POWERS

It was this book that got folks prepared for 3e. It focused on a reliance on skills over the traditional game. It even stripped the class system that we all loved in favor of building some character class that made it even slower to roll up new characters, and caused players to stop play to look at the weird rules in this thing. I hated it. I'm still not a fan.

Regardless if you like the book or not, it did say something interesting . . . if you could find it. It suggested turning thief skills into NWP. How stupid is that? I mean, it goes against years and years of tradition! Besides, thief players aren't going to want to sacrifice NWP slots on skills that they used to have from the start of the game, right?

RAVENLOFT: Masque of the Red Death

This boxed Campaign setting actually predates the Skills & Powers book, but it had lots of mechanics which were unique to it. It isn't a medieval fantasy game, this one takes place in our world during the 1890's. It altered all of the classes, but the most affected were the Thieves.

All of the characters had been depowered, there are no super-heroes in this game, what makes them playable is the skill system, however, this still isn't a skill based game. You aren't going to find the Pathfinder like rules which are overly strict, you pick your skills which define your character, and you play. The skills are passive. You still use specifics over rolling the dice, but I digress.

Thieves are no longer a class. While the other classes still use skills, the class that is dependent upon them is called Tradesmen. If a character doesn't use magic, and can't be defined as a soldier, they automatically become Tradesmen, thus, this is the dominant class.

via Pinterest

It is still possible to play thieves, but since all traditional thief skills have to be purchased with NWP slots, you've got to build them. The skills function as NWP too, you don't have to build them up through gaining levels, if you chose to know how to pick locks, then you can pick locks.

As a fan of thieves, this method works great! I always preferred to play against the grain. I never played The Greymouser type thieves, I could probably count the times that I've used Pick Pockets on one hand, and I never started building it up until I was satisfied with my other scores. It just sat there, ignored. In this system, I don't have to pick it at all! I can replace it with some other skill that I want instead, something useful to me and how I want to play my character.

But wait . . . didn't I just say that Skills & Powers was stupid?

It is. It provides very little motivation to play-test the ideas held within it, however, this system has been play-tested at my table, and it works. It works amazingly well! Masque of the Red Death, to myself and the other members of the club, made D&D fun again. Its higher level of challenge changed not just how we game, but how we see the game itself.

Thieves are all different
Thief skills work from the start
The challenge is consistent, regardless of level
The thief skill system does not place limitations upon the system as a whole

As a DM I am sold, and the players are happy with the results that they get. This will be adapted into all future D&D games.

But Percentages gave more to the game than yes or no answers

As a player, I was always torn. I like rolling my own results, but sometimes I wanted the DM to keep the actual results a secret from me. I wanted to simulate thinking that I'm moving silently but not really being sure if I am or not. As a DM, these thoughts were amplified, but I was stuck because I couldn't figure out how to simulate the event without taking away player agency. This system actually allows that.

Either the DM can translate the d20s into percentages, or tell the player who succeeded their check that they believe that they have found a route which is possible to move silently and hide in shadows, then get confirmation that they still want to do the action or not. If they do, then the DM rolls the percentile check to see exactly how quiet they are.

The point is that no matter what we do, we've taken the traditional Thief Skills System, which was closed and set in its way, and changed it into a Skill System which allows the player and the DM to open it up when they want to.

http://quotesgram.com/dark-evil-demonic-quotes/#Q43E2crKqm

THE DOWNSIDE OF THE SYSTEM

Players can no longer get a 95% chance of success

A perceived penalty imposed on low ability scores

Player's who do want to play traditional thieves hate this

A psychological loss of control

Requires a talented DM to function

THE BENEFITS OF THE SYSTEM

Cleaner Character Sheets

The Level Cap has been removed

Custom Characters without breaking the system

Fast and Easy NPCs who are competent without cheating

Creating Hirelings that grow with the game and aren't static

Easier to level up (and level down)

Rewards Imaginative Play

Skills can be given to Races without weird limitations

Before closing, something needs to be addressed. Since the players are spending slots on abilities, should they get more slots to spend? The answer is no. They still get the same amount. This is balanced by the abilities themselves being useful as soon as they are chosen.

Unmodified skill checks do place caps on abilities. DEX of 18 = 90%, and on the low end, 9 = 45%.

The 3d6 method of STAT Generation prefers to give results in the 11-13 range, which gives you some good numbers that are fun to gamble with, 55%-65% but aren't fixed in my games, they go up and down. If you choose, the Thief Ability Table found in the 2e DMG can be used in conjunction with this system if you need to lean on it now and then. Since the system is open, we can change the difficulty level of a task as we see fit.

Most of the time, it really doesn't matter. The core Thief System is a nitpicker. Either the thief can pick a lock, or he can't. The players can decide to break the door, spend a spell opening the door, or ignore the door and walk away from it. Who cares if the Thief picks a lock? Why impose that restriction at all?

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Streamlining The AD&D Skill System

The cool thing about having a Blog is that it allows you to go back in time and see how your thoughts and opinions about things have changed. G+ User, Stan has gone back into my archives and corrected a mistake that I had made in regards to The Non-Weapon Proficiency Mechanics.

Since writing that article, I have unknowingly adopted a set of house-rules that allows more freedom for everybody based on principles I've learned from researching Original Dungeons & Dragons and have a deeper understanding of how players interacted with the world before those systems were in place.

It goes back to Open & Closed systems. The NWP system is designed to be closed, but it is also designed to be opened up by the players and the DM when it needs to be. What defines this need is the level of detail.

REDEFINING THE SKILL SYSTEM

The proficiencies are guidelines, they help players get a clear idea of who their character is. They are tools which a player can use to tell the DM that they can do something very well.

Having a proficiency is a pass. The player is not limited to these skills, but having these skills defined and written down allows that player to use them, and get extra-XP for using them well.

Owning a Proficiency is proof that your character can definitely do this, and may even go beyond what is defined in the handbook.

USING A SKILL

This system is primarily the total domain of the player, DMs don't use this system, only players do. It is up to the players to remember these things and use them wisely. Since having a skill is a pass, when the DM asks how the character knows something, and they refer to the specific skill, the conversation is either over, or the DM can have them roll a skill check if that needs to happen.

It is also up to the player if they want to risk rolling the dice to perform a task or to start a dialog and get specifics.

Example: The player has an investigative skill which allows a methodic search of an area via the dice. The player can automatically use this when searching a room, but a failure is a failure. Alternatively any player, even those that do not have this skill, can ask for details. They can interact with the setting and the DM will tell them the results. Once this is done and the player believes that they have exhausted the place, they can say that they would like to do a skill check, and see what happens.

ACQUIRING PROFICIENCY SLOTS

The idea that a character only knows what is on the character sheet is preposterous and self-limiting for no real benefit to the player or to the game. The DM is going to have to invent fast throw-away mechanics at the table on a case-by-case basis. Specifics dictate what can and cannot be done. Doing something that you aren't proficient at on a regular basis may equal gaining a proficiency.

For instance, if the game is played in the mountains for several months, the players are going to have a really good chance of understanding what they are doing. How can we translate this though?

The DM can just have them roll a STAT check to see if they picked it up, and just give it to them if they are successful.
The Player can write it in once a new Prof. slot becomes available if they chose to.
All slots beyond those chosen at the creation of the character are left blank until a skill is learned through specifics.

That last one doesn't work so well, all of your players will end up having the same skills which defeat the purpose.

There is a myth about open Skill systems, that goes along the lines of the Player taking advantage of the DM. Players going out of their way to change the tone of the game. The player CAN try anything, however, every hair-brained scheme takes the time to execute, time that the player probably doesn't have. I've been playing this way for a while now and so far my players have all embraced the tone of the game and do their best to preserve it.

As DM, I reserve the right to ask the player how they learned this new skill, if they can't tell me, they don't get it. My players so far have written down things that would have been handy in the past. Things that they had picked up along the way but I didn't give it to them for free, and I do give out skills for free if they had been earned.

The question, "How did you learn this?", is a good governor for the skill system. Slots don't have to be filled up right away, and the question goes back to the player; "How can I learn this skill?"

Unlocking the Gygax Code, the game hidden inside of AD&D

FREE-FORM KRIEGSPIEL is the system which the designers took for granted that you knew. All wargaming systems have the same basic rules to function. When variant designers, such as Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, published their changes they didn't really focus on the basics. Not only did the people who bought these books not want them, but, honestly, wargame players become blind to them. They are just there.

There is actually enough basic wargaming rationale in the AD&D system that it makes it fairly easy to understand the more complex processes of kriegspiel and how to get a game on a tactical level to function, and I recommend that you do! There are principles and theories that can be carried over to the D&D table which will greatly help the DM understand the art of war. Understanding is key to running Free-form Wargame scenarios.

When one thinks about wargamers, there is an image in your head which features men standing around a highly detailed battlefield moving finely painted miniatures, determining combat through highly complex rules; this game exists, but it isn't native to AD&D. Folks have incorporated that game into the system, and it can function! If you want to see how a specific large scale war will affect the world, this probably is your best bet, but it isn't necessary, and there are some serious flaws with it that make it incompatible with the D&D system.

STRICT KRIEGSPIEL

http://aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.blogspot.com/2012/11/hg-wells-war-games.html

This is the image that comes to mind for most people. Those who have incorporated it into their games had to deal with pounding a square block into a round hole; it is a bad fit, and since it is a bad fit you have to alter the game until it does fit. It can be done, but it is clunky and awkward for one simple reason, the figure representing the player does not follow the same rules as the rest of the units. Elaborate rules have been introduced in an attempt to fix this, but only serve to extend an already long game into something even more tedious.

Another problem is the players themselves. Anyone who is interested in strict kriegspiel can tell you, we are rare breeds. Buying or creating these games, learning the complex rules, modifying them to your own specs, painting figures- this is the easy part. The difficult part is finding opponents.

Just because you build it, doesn't mean that players will come. Your players don't want to learn these new, very specific rules, and even if they did, strict kriegspiel is a long game that they probably don't care about and are not interested in. While not scientific in any way, I estimate that about 1-10 players of tabletop RPGs are even interested in experimenting with this system, those that find it fascinating and discover enjoyment from it, maybe 1-50.

There is also another glaring problem with the strict wargame format, it is a 2 person game. You can break up into teams, and have fun, but this is not D&D. At its heart, strict kriegspiel is nothing but a complex and heavily modified game of chess. While two players can enjoy it, a DM expecting to challenge the entire table to a strategy game is going to get destroyed. This removes the need to simulate the event and makes the act pointless.

Another problem with 4+ players as powerful as D&D characters is that it takes longer to set up the board than it takes for advanced players to destroy the enemy. This was built into the system by the designers on purpose, that purpose being to eliminate the need for strict kriegspiel altogether.

Kriegsspiel was originally invented by the Prussian military, it was not designed to be entertaining, it was designed to run thousands of scenarios which allowed the small German army to resist the overwhelming might of the French; a feat that (I believe) was successful!

The game was also used to train officers, and strict kriegspiel had the same problems with accomplishing this as we D&D players do; the participant has the ability to see the entire battlefield from an unrealistic position, overhead. This position also makes it too easy to study and accurately predict the strategies of your opponent.

To fix this, and make the game more realistic, the referees concealed the board. The participants didn't get to see it, they had to ask questions and command their troops through written messages which the referee would take into the room with the board and they would interpret the commands of the player. Commanding Officers would apply the changes to the board and decide what happens, and then update the player.

This sounds exactly like Dungeons & Dragons, and this is exactly how the game was intended to be played. This style is called Free-form Kriegspiel, and the benefits are obvious; namely that the players don't need to know the rules at all.

via Pinterest

Studying the mechanics of D&D itself, and comparing them to kriegspiel, you gain an appreciation for the true genius of Gygax and how his invention was designed to limit the number of dice rolled, while not limiting the game in scope in any way.

Free-form Kriegspiel applied to the rules which govern Dungeons & Dragons eliminate the necessity of an actual board completely. Often, the results of a player's commands to his units can be compared to the tactics which were defined by the DM prior to play, and logic will dictate if an entire battle was successful or not.

AD&D's SECRET WEAPON

Advanced players have known for years that you don't need to kill them all, you just need to figure out ways to trigger a morale check as quickly as possible. In this way, a party of 4-6 high-level adventurers can easily defeat small to medium sized armies. Even mid-level PCs can overwhelm entire armies on the field of battle if the players are skilled enough. They don't even need followers or an army to do this.

The Morale system is the key. This is the tool that makes Free-form Kriegspiel function without the need of a board. When we use this tool, even if a battle doesn't go well for the players or we want more involvement from the participants, we can update the players to the situation and use the morale system to quickly determine the actions of NPCs with very little fuss and just a few die rolls. The play doesn't stop because we have to move a bunch of little pieces and determine combat on a tactical level.

Speed and playability are always desired over specifics and realism.

Applying followers and allied soldiers to the game is made practical once we understand the mechanisms in place to govern their actions. Gygax could take the players into the midst of a full-scale battle, and decide how the player's choices interacted with the event taking place around them without ever having to set up a single miniature soldier. The only person who had to understand the inner-workings of these mechanics was the Dungeon Master.

The DM can alter the challenge of a battle and the players level of involvement by using the Morale System, Enemy morale can be high or low, the higher the level of enemy morale, the more actions and involvement will be needed on the part of the player.

The Language of Free-Form Kriegspiel

Now the folks who played in Gygax's campaign and helped him play-test the designs were all avid wargamers, this is where it can come in handy to do some study, just to acquire some common concepts and the vocabulary. The player need not write down his commands as the rules of kriegspiel were applied to soldiers, we are doing this for entertainment. You can give leeway and continue the standard D&D guideline of trying to error in the favor of the PCs, but the more specific and precise the command, the better.

Once the DM has these vocabulary words, the players will pick them up. A Unit, for instance, represents a number of people, “You see a couple of units of cavalry riding in your direction.” is a good description. The players don't know exactly how many men on horseback are approaching, but it is fair to say that it is more than 10. The statement above is enough to start a dialog, the players have time to ask specifics and come to a conclusion as to what course of action would be best depending upon the information that they were able to get before either side enters each other's range of attack. Exactly how much time and information being dictated by the DM, as always.

It is also helpful to study the old rules of CHAINMAIL, you don't necessarily need to use CHAINMAIL during the game, but it will greatly help you determine results without actually having to run them, Free-form Kriegspiel relies heavily upon the laws of averages, for example: if equal numbers of infantry attack an equal number of cavalry, the cavalry are going to win. Both sides may suffer casualties, but the infantry will be routed.

CHAINMAIL even has the mathematical principals behind exactly how many cavalry units may be lost before the infantry are slain. The actual results may vary if the scenario is physically run on a board with dice, but we want to eliminate that step, thus the averages add to playability and speed of the game.

SUMMARY

Once the DM understands the rules and logic of Free-form kriegspiel, many of the strange or obscure rules and mechanics will finally make perfect sense; the hidden wargame is revealed and the genius of the design is exposed. The system becomes neat and tidy and we discover that we were over-complicating things.

Art by Giuseppe Rava

It can be difficult to find a DM who will allow followers, but now fighters can enjoy the full ability to gain and use their troops as they were intended to be used. Followers are loyal, can guard treasure and property, keep night watch at camp, search large areas so the players don't have to, their uses are very functional; besides, when the fighter walks into town with a military escort it is awesome!

An unlimited number of NPC actions can be determined with very little work, it enforces the separation between player skill and character skill in a balanced way that truly has to be experienced to be appreciated. CHA matters to this game, it is not a drop stat; an enemy with a high charisma is going to be much more dangerous than a wizard with high intelligence.

This doesn't mean that we can't make complicated tactical battles if we want to, this just means that we have the ability to run them, keeping all of the players involved, and preserving the DM's ability to challenge them. If you need to keep a tactical map secret from the players, do it. If you want to play the CHAINMAIL system or the BATTLESYSTEM rules, you can do that too, but Free-form is what was intended.

Mechanic Series: Necromancer

My favorite Youtuber is Abraham Zentia, who uses the handle, Talking About Games; he is an intelligent guy who reviews table top RPGs in a way that I really enjoy; never one to just point out the obvious, he actually tells you how he feels on certain subjects, and interjects true opinions which matter when one is looking at rule books.

Everybody plays the game in different ways, and I was surprised by one of his comments: He enjoys 2e, but he finds the Necromancer Player Class to be too weak. A Necromancer PC? My mind was blown!

Now, in regards to Necromancers, I had gone through a phase that dictated that the worst monsters are of the human variety, and we played a TON of Ravenloft, so I personally over-used the Necromancer and have no desire to go back. I can’t think of any new ways to play the same character! But the Necromancer has always been an Evil NPC in my games. The 2e rules support this, but it also makes one wonder. The Necromancer is only effective if he is at high levels, but if this is the case, how did he survive to become high level?

WIZARDS IN AD&D 2^nd EDITION

In original AD&D all wizards, with the exception of Illusionists, were general wizards. They all cast basically the same spells, with very little variety. 2e set out to make wizards more unique from each other by encouraging players to specialize in schools of magic, and while the general wizard class is still a very popular one, if one chooses to specialize they will be less diversified, but more powerful, even at lower levels of play. Not all of the schools are created equally; the more powerful schools, while not restricted to just the spells from that school, are restricted from one to three schools of magic which oppose them, and can’t learn or cast spells from those schools.

While the Illusionist suffers the most restrictions, unable to cast Necromantic, Invocation/Evocation, and Abjuration spells, he can still fake it by creating illusions that simulate those spells. The true sufferer of the rule change is the Necromancer, he is unable to cast spells from the schools of Illusion and Enchantment/Charm. While he doesn’t really need spells from the Illusion school (after all, he can cast the real thing), since he can’t cast Enchantment spells, he’ll never be able to create his own magical items, which is a HUGE drawback. But the biggest problem isn’t the schools which oppose him; it is the lack of spells in his school in the first place. In the Players Handbook, there are only 18 spells which he can cast at a higher level because of his specialization. It is the smallest spell pool in the manual.

It is, of course, no secret why this is. This was done on purpose to appease our Mom during the Satanic Panic. Mom didn’t want us playing a Necromancer because before you know it we’ll be arrested for digging stuff up in the cemetery, which is actually a logical conclusion!

THE NECROMANCER

The necromancer is typically a power hungry guy. He doesn’t seek to control the living, if he did he’d specialize in Charm and Enchantment; no, his desires are to control the dead. Of course he still can borrow spells from other schools; well, that isn’t all that accurate, because he will HAVE to borrow spells from other schools because his specialized spell list won’t fill even a traveler’s spellbook.

His spells are good, but not very well rounded; he’s got only one mass attack, Death Spell, which even then requires a higher level to cast than the mass attacks of other schools. He also gets pseudo healing spells in the form of Reincarnation and Clone; good luck using Clone as it is an 8^th level spell, but even for Reincarnation he must be 12^th level.

I suppose that as a role-playing guide, this horrible spell progression would imply that he must hide what he truly is, he’d study normal magic, but in his own private researches he would be collecting tomes of the darkest nature possible. If he is discovered, he will no doubt be slain by his peers. He must bide his time until he feels that it is too late to stop him.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE BALANCE OF POWER

If one takes a look at the spell lists broken down into different schools, one can see what was done. Clearly they stole spells that were better fit for the Necromancer, and assigned them to other schools of magic. Was this fair? At epic levels a Necromancer can kill your entire army and turn it against you. One can say that that is a pretty strong ability to have, and one that balances itself out in the long run. If a PC uses this ability without moral obligations of any kind, then he could take over the entire campaign, but how is this any different from the other schools of magic? Enchanters don’t even need to kill you to turn your army against you. Illusionists can create entire armies of whatever; all of the wizards are truly epic in high levels of play. The Core Rulebooks go out of their way to tell us, specifically, how powerful the Necromantic School of magic is, which if you know anything about propaganda, the reason why they single this one school out as often as they do, is because that statement is utterly false.

The best fix is to restore the spells to the school by simply rewriting an expanded list of spells to Necromancy in Appendix 5. I’m not going to do this because it wouldn’t serve much purpose here; you can do this just as easily as I can, and in a format that you prefer.

CREATING AND INTRODUCING NEW SPELLS

I have always believed that the spells included in the Players Handbook are just there to get you started. As you play the game you’ll invent new spells, there is advice in the DMG to help you do just that. Once you understand how the magic system works, you can port spells in from other systems and settings if you don’t have the imagination to come up with them yourself. Players will have to submit them to the DM, as it is the DM that will have to live with this stuff. It is also helpful to let the player know that you are play-testing the spell, and things can always be altered later to make it better fit in the campaign world.

The Necromantic School has been expanded by the Ravenloft Setting; you’ll have to modify the spells that you take from the setting down, as the nature of that world promotes the art of necromancy specifically. You can usually cut one or more characteristics in half and it will be properly suited for your world, but that, of course, is just a suggestion. The books that might help you the most are, of course The Compete Necromancer’s Handbook (which I found to not be very helpful and don’t even own it), or Domains of Dread by William W. Connors & Steve Miller, and the Wizard’s Spell Compendiums Volume I-IV which had collected a huge range of TSR spells invented after the publication of the Core handbooks.

CAN A NECROMANCER BE GOOD?

We are dealing with a character that can raise the corpses of your dead loved ones, and turn them against you. It is a psychological assault on so many levels that the very implications are horrifying. To force you to fight your dead loved one is one thing, but to also be forced to see your loved one in the shape that they are in is an additional insult and an attack all in itself. The fact that this school of magic would appeal to the forces of evil is beyond questioning. The more one thinks about what is happening, and its implications, the more unsettling these spells become. What requires a true work of imagination and creativity is coming up with ways that one can perform acts of good within this very dark school.

A necromancer may be summoned to help with moving a cemetery to a different location, but then again, wouldn’t a cleric of the dead be better suited for this job? Hiring a known Necromancer probably wouldn’t make anybody involved feel better.

A necromancer may be hired to retrieve corpses from a calamity. A respectful one would cover them up and have them walk to where clerics could properly intern them. I can see that as a PC class, but again he can only do this job at very epic levels, which sucks. The Necromantic Priest is much more powerful in regards to this, as he is able to STEAL the undead by altering the Turning Ability.

Fighting Fire with Fire: A scholar who is well-versed in Necromancy can use his powers to hunt evil magic users, and destroy them. If one created a Corruption Table, that would be one hell of a fun class to play. Very Call of Cuthulu, but so what? I can see a Necromantic avenger in Forgotten Realms.

Necromantic Battle Mage: Again, an epic level character, which sucks, but this mage is a soldier. Those that he raises from the dead are his allies, and once the war is done, the battle mage will make sure that the men that were slain and in his charge are properly interned as beliefs and custom dictates. Fellow soldiers would not see this type of Necromancer as evil, but as a blessing as they can still complete their missions even if death takes them. Becoming a ghost because of failure is probably more feared than this option.

FINAL NOTES ON CLASS WEAKNESS

If one looks through modules they’ll notice that even TSR hated the Necromantic weaknesses inherent in the class. I had converted the 5e Starter Set and found a huge error; a low level wizard of Thay had raised a bunch of zombies and was controlling them with no explanation as to how he was doing this. Either the spells were dramatically lowered so a 5^th level wizard could use this stuff at will, or the module was cheating. Personally I’d say that the designers were cheating, but it proves a point. Low level Necromancers are severely underpowered. The only benefit of the school is to control undead, and they can’t even so much as raise a skeleton until 9^th level? The Necromancer can’t even create magical items to allow him to do this; apparently the only way to fix this mess is create a spell, which should be core in the first place. Even a first level Enchanter can cast Friends. A Cleric can Animate Dead at 2^nd level, why would Mom say that that is okay for evil clerics but not for Necromancers? That makes no sense at all, thus our friend, Talking About Games, has found a HUGE hole in the system, the question is, how can we patch it up without having to totally rewrite the book.

ADDENDUM: Our friend Brandon Lighter whose blog is The Rosetta Drake had this to say on Google+

As just-another-specialist-wizard, the Necromancer hardly bears discussing as a separate class -- though the Complete Book of Necromancers helps this tremendously (giving a lot of love to the classic villain -- including 1st and 2nd level spells that let them animate skeletons and zombies, albeit only 1 per casting), thus making low-level adventures to stop the zombie-creating apprentice Necromancer make sense. They are no more or less powerful than any other specialist -- though party tactics and the nature of encounters the DM runs can skew this one way or another (i.e. invoker has a clear advantage if the game features large-scale combat too heavily).

One of my longest-running campaigns featured a PC Necromancer who was the only truly good character in the entire party. The party (in 5 years and 28 levels of playing) never acquired a cleric, so the Necromancer quickly stepped up into that role, loading up on spells like: Hold Undead (in place of turning), paired Empathic Wound Transfer and Vampiric Touch (taking her allies wounds on herself then healing them at the expense of their enemies in place of more normal healing), and rampant Reincarnation at high levels (in place of Raise Dead). With the exception of VT for work-around healing, the character was otherwise a committed pacifist, studying the powers of death in order to understand how to counter them.

Talking about Games said:

That's a really good blog post, thanks a lot for mentioning me! So far, my favorite versions of d20 Necromancers are the ones presented in "13 True Ways" and in "Adventures Dark & Deep". If you are curious about those or haven't seen them already, here are the links:

Talking about Games reviews 13 True Ways, and Adventures Dark & Deep

The first one feels powerful and customizable without 'stealing the spotlight' from the other members in the party. The second one is pretty standard old school stuff, but the spells, the ability to create magic items and affect undead make it a lot better.

I also somewhat liked the 3.5 versions presented in "Libris Mortis" and "Heroes of Horror", but the former felt too fiddly, and the latter felt too powerful at times.

CORRECTIONS: Paolo Greco (AKA: Tsojcanth) whose blog is Lost Pages pointed out that Enchant an Item is also associated with the school of Invocation, so Necromancers ARE able to create magic items.

Mechanic Series: Armor Class & Damage

What exactly is Armor Class? We know that it came from naval war games, but I’m asking exactly what it means. In standard game play the combat is broken down into rounds, each round equaling 1 minute, and in that minute there is a lot going on which we are ignoring, the characters involved are parrying, feinting, and engaging in sword play, but this may not really be going on. For instance if a thief attacks an archer in single combat, the archer isn’t going to be able to parry unless he has a sword available, which he might not, but even if he don’t than the thief has to roll against his opponents AC anyway, which would be the same as if he had his sword drawn. Clearly these are game mechanics, and not meant to be taken seriously. We have sacrificed accuracy for ease of play. The alternative to this system would require a gigantic book of charts and require the thief to spend 1d10x10 minutes to figure out if he hit or not.

To those of us who play the game, the above makes perfect sense! We’ve come to except this logic as fact; we just roll the dice and move on without losing the images in our heads. This is the way that it has always been, which works! But, there are those out there who want to simulate different things, and there are rules hidden here and there in our handbooks which help us do just that. Of course every time we add supplemental rules to our combat, we are slowing it down just a little bit, and all of those little bits add up.

HELMETS

Some armors have them included by default, but if the character chooses not to wear one, then some DM’s heavily penalize them, but I don’t believe that a helmet supplies even 1 point of AC. To me, this is just how you envision your PC, which is up to you. If you are wearing a helmet, you can’t get sapped, but, depending on your helmet type, your vision may be impaired, which the DM does have to know. Of course, there is another rule-set that influences this decision; called shots, but that is another topic entirely.

SHIELDS

Shields have also got many strange house rules attached to them, some offering a cheap way of getting 3 free AC points, which grants the user the AC of studded leather if used by itself, though something like this does seem impractical to carry with you, so is a 10’ pole; and that shield rule kind of follows the Core Rules on Cover & Concealment, so why not?

How exactly does the shield protect the user? The rules imply that the shield is always protecting you, it factors into your AC, but some claim that they can do more with it, and block hits, which I don’t agree with. A hit is a hit. Perhaps this would work in a duel situation, but if that is the case, than the shield should be taken off of your AC score.

I’ve also heard that if your opponent misses you by 1, then it means that he hit your shield and it is destroyed, which is just silly to me, but different strokes for different folks, right.

SURPRISE

Surprise is also a topic worthy of talking about here; since your AC also depends upon the user actively participating in the melee; would it be fair to adjust this when a character has been caught off guard? The attacker does gain a bonus to hit, is this enough? Is a surprise round really still 1 minute long? If not, how long is it?

PARRYING

Actively parrying is also an option which increases your AC, you focus on Defense, giving up all attacks. I’ve heard of DMs making players role to see if they block a hit, but I prefer to just increase the AC. I think that people may like the Roll to block method because they feel like it gives them more control, or at least allows them to participate, but I still prefer the easy AC bonus because it speeds up play.

DAMAGING ARMOR

Leather armor must be tended to regularly, if it gets wet it will rot, and since we are dealing with sweat and blood, rain and dew these things probably get gross really quick. If one doesn’t properly tend to even the cheapest of armors; this is magnified for the better stuff: Chainmail rusts, buckles break, dents in plate from who knows what, dirt and sand gets trapped in hinges, in other words, armor needs tended to, and tended often! For this reason a DM may enforce a monthly living expense, if this tithe is not paid saving throws must be made to see if your equipment holds up, failure indicates that a weapon is shoddy, and AC will suffer because you didn’t maintain it. Many DMs have applied personal modifiers; the higher the AC rating the more expensive that maintenance will be.

Sleeping in Armor also isn’t good, this stuff needs to be taken off; if it isn’t, than not only did you not get the full benefits from rest, but your armor will suffer for it as well, and runs the risk of damage. How long does it take to put back on? Look it up in the index, this is covered in the Core Rules.

Critical Hits vs. Armor

If you are using the optional rules in the Player’s Option handbook, than this is already covered, but even if you aren’t you can add a forced saving throw: if the save is successful, it could mean that the plate was still bent, or the shield was still trashed. If the player is carrying a shield, chances are the shield was sacrificed and damaged and he now has a new AC because the shield is worthless, but if he doesn’t than we can just assume that for whatever reason, the armor has lost 1 point of effectiveness that can be hammered out during your next break if the player can do that (NWP: Armorer), else the damage is permanent until the character can go back to town and get it repaired or replaced by a professional.

Weapons vs. Armor

This is an optional mechanic that probably requires its own space, but for now I’ll suggest that we can invent weapons that are designed specifically to damage armor types. Many existing pole-arms have this function, but, short of a guilty conscience, there is nothing stopping you from having a goblin design a strange blade which is meant to slip between armor plates and slice leather straps on a successful attack, while it wouldn’t be much good for attacking the man himself, it would allow his buddies a better chance of actually hitting him, and may make it so that the 15^th level fighter has to get out of his armor before attacking because it’s just in the way.

Magical Armor

We have to decide exactly what we are dealing with; is the armor truly enchanted, or is it made out of a harder metal? While the metal can be enchanted, perhaps the bindings holding the thing on aren’t. Maybe, instead of just giving them Armor+3 you give them the pieces they need to make it, but the bindings had all rotted away? If the entire armor is enchanted, than it will do strange things: it will mold itself to the owner, and it will not break under most circumstances. This would be special armor indeed! But why not counter this by giving it an alignment; no need to be sentient, however, it can still disagree with the PC’s actions and betray them in subtle ways, such as a cuff coming lose and interfering with an attack, or not offering full protection until the character rights a wrong that he committed, have fun with it!

Players like to believe that Armor is constant, and it really isn’t. I don’t think that the above really adds to much bookwork to the game, but it will add some. I think that it can be over done, adding modifier after modifier is just silly to me, in my games an AC of -10 is the absolute best you can ever have, and that would be god-like armor.

Adjusting the armor system is actually quite brilliant when you look at it, the ideas above are pretty crazy, but they all function without breaking anything in the core rules. The Fighters Handbook has a few other ideas to add to the game, such as piecing together your own armor out of stuff that you find, and again, it all works!

If somebody has the wild idea of skinning a dragon that they had killed, and turning it into armor, this can easily be done on the DM’s side of the screen; probably not on the player’s side, but creating something like that would definitely be fun!

I suppose that the only thing that we have to debate about in regards to AC is Ye Olde Chainmail Bikinis!

Further Reading:

A Treatise On Mages & Armor in AD&D, 2nd Ed.

AD&;D Rare Metals Breakdown

Crafting Systems in Tabletop Games: AD&D, Second Edition

Thac0 Forever: Shields

Trollsmyth: Shields Shall be Splintered