XXVCR2 Earth in the 25th Century introduced the darter, weapon of choice for the discerning Cannibal of Tomorrow and perhaps the stupidest weapon in the game. It is certainly insulting, along the lines of giving American Indians "futuristic" tomahawks* that shoot lasers or explode.
While the idea on the whole is awful, the darts used are still interesting and worth using somewhere else. But where? Join me now as we take a journey into the Future to find out....
The idea that those poisons used in those darts are only found in Buenos Aires and Guyana (?) and are unreproducible with 25th century science is also pretty stupid. It's not like it's Haitian voodoo powder or something.
Here are the different varieties of darts available:
Type A- A strong nerve toxin, which paralyzes the central nervous system, inhibiting all movement for 1d8 hours. Save vs Poison at -2; successful characters are slowed, capable of only half movement.
Type B- A mild soporific; save vs poison or sleep for 1d12 turns.
Type C- An alkaline which causes 1d8 damage on contact, no saving throw applicable.
Type D- A highly toxic substance capable of 1d6 points of damage and inducing convulsions for 1d8 rounds (save at -2 for limited duration of 1d4 rounds). Convulsing characters drop everything in hand and are immobilized, save for seizures.
Would these unbalance the lowly Needle Gun? In a setting that allows for man-portable particle accelerator guns and gamma ray lasers that can deal horrific damage, would a few non-lethal darts (and a lethal one) really throw everything out of whack? Put too much power in one character's hands? I don't think so.
I would make them hard to come by, though. In my game, not every weapon is available at your friendly, local Ammu-Nation. I would say those darts are normally only available to military and para-military organizations (a local police department, for example) and would have to be acquired on the black market like some of the other death-dealing guns in the game.
In addition, I'd require the civilian needle gun to be modified to accommodate them, rendering the gun useless for standard needles. Considering the ease in procuring a needle gun, it would be much easier to mod one than to acquire the military version.
*For the record, I have no problem including in a Buck Rogers High Adventure Cliffhangers game, since that kind of malarkey is not uncommon there.
Showing posts with label Variants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Variants. Show all posts
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Sunday, June 1, 2014
B/X Notebook- How I do it.
Some of this was already discussed, but I thought I'd list all the changes I have in mind.
Clerics. Either leave them out all together and replace them with Paladins, or make them the "Christian soldiers" they were clearly intended with no other gods represented. I accomplished the latter by filing the name off of Jehova, renaming him "Mithras." If you know anything about Mithras/Mitra then you'll get my thinking behind this.
Priests. If clerics are out as a character class, simply have that area covered by Magic-Users with spells borrowed from the clerics list of spells. Simple enough, I think.
Paladins. Remove the spells, allow for any weapons, and make a few other minor tweaks to the cleric class and you get the paladin. In my mind, they'd still have to serve Mithras/Jehova or they wouldn't be paladins, they'd be... I dunno, some other dumbass class.
How these three changes will be implemented depends of the type of game I'm running. My current game, Atranta, technically has no clerics, but one of my players rolled one up while I wasn't looking and it's a really neat character, so he stays. All others are Magic-Users-as-priests. In my Savage Atvatabar/Hollow World game (not a Savage Worlds game) Mithraic clerics are in full force. So...just depends.
No Alignment. I'd resolved a long time ago that alignment did in no way dictate how a character behaved, it simply stated which team you were rooting for. So, really, I could keep it and it would have no effect on the game or I could get rid of it altogether. Either works fine for me.
Dragons. D&D dragons are pretty stupid. Color-coded and, worse, having some really idiotic "breath" weapons. Chlorine gas? Seriously? No, all dragons in my game breathe fire. All of them. And they're whatever color I want them to be. A guy I knew had an interesting way of handling dragon's breath. Instead of rolling for how many times a day they could use their breath weapon, he gave them a number of points of damage they could exhale. So, like 400 points per day and blow however much fire they wanted to until the points run out. I really like this idea and will probably use it if I ever have a dragon in my game.
Other than that I'll probably use Dave Arneson's dragon creation tables from his Adventures in Fantasy rpg or some variation of it.
The Orc Family Tree. I've made changes to Bugbears, Kobolds, Goblins, and Hobgoblins, but it's a lot of stuff and I'll save it for a later post. I will say this, though- bugbears have pumpkin heads. Because it's fucking awesome, that's why!
Rakes. Introduced in Dawn of the Emperors, the Rake is a variant on the Thief class. Either a skill-less Thief or a Fighter-lite, you decide. Someone tweaked the Rake a little bit, giving them a Fighter's hit die and attack table and retaining the loss of most Thief skills. The result is a pretty nifty Errol Flynn swashbuckler type class that really appeals to me (I usually play a Thief.)
Winning the game. One of the original members of the TRS crew mentioned to me that his group actually had a way to "win" D&D. The first person in the group to build and maintain a keep to level 15 (I assume they were playing AD&D) was the king of the hill. My memory may be slightly off on the particulars of that idea, but it doesn't matter since it fits in nicely with B/X. The first person to start a domain at 9th level and maintain it until 14th wins.
Now, this is something that will probably never happen since I don't play D&D in a group nor do I run a regular game, but I still think it's an interesting way to play. The alternative that will most likely be put into use is the following.
Advancing past 14th level. This is something I just came up with recently and there are a lot of things to work out, but the gist of it is that the DM would award magic items of increasing power as the situation demands. This would mean that all new powers and abilities are "borrowed" and lost once the item is returned or destroyed or whatever. No more experience points or counting gold or whatever. Just play for the fun of it and try to achieve whatever the goal of the adventure or campaign is.
If nothing else it's a way to keep playing your character without him becoming a ridiculous, bloated demi-god.
Everybody has a god. If a god is not chosen at character creation, one will be assigned to you. Quit yer bitchin', it's not like I'm making you go to fuckin' church. Everybody has a god. Get over it.
Clerics. Either leave them out all together and replace them with Paladins, or make them the "Christian soldiers" they were clearly intended with no other gods represented. I accomplished the latter by filing the name off of Jehova, renaming him "Mithras." If you know anything about Mithras/Mitra then you'll get my thinking behind this.
Priests. If clerics are out as a character class, simply have that area covered by Magic-Users with spells borrowed from the clerics list of spells. Simple enough, I think.
Paladins. Remove the spells, allow for any weapons, and make a few other minor tweaks to the cleric class and you get the paladin. In my mind, they'd still have to serve Mithras/Jehova or they wouldn't be paladins, they'd be... I dunno, some other dumbass class.
How these three changes will be implemented depends of the type of game I'm running. My current game, Atranta, technically has no clerics, but one of my players rolled one up while I wasn't looking and it's a really neat character, so he stays. All others are Magic-Users-as-priests. In my Savage Atvatabar/Hollow World game (not a Savage Worlds game) Mithraic clerics are in full force. So...just depends.
No Alignment. I'd resolved a long time ago that alignment did in no way dictate how a character behaved, it simply stated which team you were rooting for. So, really, I could keep it and it would have no effect on the game or I could get rid of it altogether. Either works fine for me.
Dragons. D&D dragons are pretty stupid. Color-coded and, worse, having some really idiotic "breath" weapons. Chlorine gas? Seriously? No, all dragons in my game breathe fire. All of them. And they're whatever color I want them to be. A guy I knew had an interesting way of handling dragon's breath. Instead of rolling for how many times a day they could use their breath weapon, he gave them a number of points of damage they could exhale. So, like 400 points per day and blow however much fire they wanted to until the points run out. I really like this idea and will probably use it if I ever have a dragon in my game.
Other than that I'll probably use Dave Arneson's dragon creation tables from his Adventures in Fantasy rpg or some variation of it.
The Orc Family Tree. I've made changes to Bugbears, Kobolds, Goblins, and Hobgoblins, but it's a lot of stuff and I'll save it for a later post. I will say this, though- bugbears have pumpkin heads. Because it's fucking awesome, that's why!
Rakes. Introduced in Dawn of the Emperors, the Rake is a variant on the Thief class. Either a skill-less Thief or a Fighter-lite, you decide. Someone tweaked the Rake a little bit, giving them a Fighter's hit die and attack table and retaining the loss of most Thief skills. The result is a pretty nifty Errol Flynn swashbuckler type class that really appeals to me (I usually play a Thief.)
Winning the game. One of the original members of the TRS crew mentioned to me that his group actually had a way to "win" D&D. The first person in the group to build and maintain a keep to level 15 (I assume they were playing AD&D) was the king of the hill. My memory may be slightly off on the particulars of that idea, but it doesn't matter since it fits in nicely with B/X. The first person to start a domain at 9th level and maintain it until 14th wins.
Now, this is something that will probably never happen since I don't play D&D in a group nor do I run a regular game, but I still think it's an interesting way to play. The alternative that will most likely be put into use is the following.
Advancing past 14th level. This is something I just came up with recently and there are a lot of things to work out, but the gist of it is that the DM would award magic items of increasing power as the situation demands. This would mean that all new powers and abilities are "borrowed" and lost once the item is returned or destroyed or whatever. No more experience points or counting gold or whatever. Just play for the fun of it and try to achieve whatever the goal of the adventure or campaign is.
If nothing else it's a way to keep playing your character without him becoming a ridiculous, bloated demi-god.
Everybody has a god. If a god is not chosen at character creation, one will be assigned to you. Quit yer bitchin', it's not like I'm making you go to fuckin' church. Everybody has a god. Get over it.
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