Skip to main content

B/X Race-as-Class: The Hummel

Hummel
Rosy-cheeked, dimple-kneed, tow-headed little porcelain golems.

Prime Requisite: CHA
Saves and XP Progression as Fighters.

Armor: Hummels can wear armor, but is must be comically too large for them, causing them to subtract the AC value of the armor from any DEX checks.

Due to their short stature, Hummels receive +2 AC vs. Large opponents.

Polarizing Reaction: Hummels do not have gradated reaction rolls. Roll 2d6 + CHA bonus. Any result over 6 is “Willingly helps/protects” and under is “Attacks immediately.”


Baby Animals: A Hummel can charm 1 baby animal (including baby monsters) per Level.

Big Tears: Upon taking damage, a Hummel can plop onto their bottom and shed a single, impossibly large tear. It hangs there, quivering, reflecting the attacker’s visage back at them and making them question the choices that have brought them to this act of cruelty. Save vs. Paralysis, or be caught in state of guilt and doubt until the Hummel moves or blinks, finally shedding the tear.

Hollow Inside: In the heat of battle, Hummels may relax their adorable façade, and reveal the stark horror within. A Hummel gripped by bloodlust receives +2 to melee, +2 to AC, and requires a Morale check from all who witness it, including their own NPC companions. After the battle, they fall sweetly asleep for as many Turns as the combat lasted in rounds.
Notes
Sometimes, you just have to see a stupid joke through to completion.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Knaves, fancypants

I've prepared a new layout document of Ben Milton's Knaves . Knaves is a great, light rules set that has an extremely elegant core mechanic while retaining total compatibility with OSR material. It's pretty much the rpg of my dreams. This document contains the complete rules, plus a bunch of useful hacks from the community, plus a few of my invention, plus some useful resources from Ben Milton's previous effort, Maze Rats . EDIT: I've updated the layout to fix errata and make a few tweaks. Further, I've made 3 variations: KNAVES TABLET LAYOUT The Tablet Layout is meant for scrolling on screens, and contains hyperlinks. KNAVES SPREAD LAYOUT The Spread Layout is set up to print on Letter-sized paper. KNAVES A4 LAYOUT The A4 Layout is set up to print on A4 paper, and is probably the most elegant of the three versions. This is presented with generous permission from Ben Milton, and should in no way be an excuse for not purchasing a copy of Knav

Reviewing Rules for Play-by-Post Optimization

I’ve played a lot of PbP games: all your favorite flavors of OD&D, AD&D, and their retroclones, Call of Cthulhu, Marvel Superheroes, Traveller, Dungeon World, etc. ad nauseam. In almost every instance, I forgot what ruleset we were using at some point. Which is a good thing. Once chargen is over, you spend a lot more time describing your characters actions and poring over the GM’s descriptions than you spend interacting with rules. When you do roll, it’s usually a combat to-hit roll, which you’ve probably programmed into the online dice-roller as a macro. Pretty much any game will work for PbP. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t points of possible optimization. Point 1: Resolution. Anything that can keep the action moving is a boon to PbP. A game that requires a back-and-forth exchange of information to resolve an action is going to progress very slowly. A good rule of thumb is that it’ll take 2 or 3 days to get a response from any given player. At that pace, an exch

Maze Rats by Post

In my previous post , I reviewed a bunch of my favorite rulesets for optimization for Play-by-Post. It occurred to me almost immediately that I hadn't really thought about Maze Rats enough. In fact, I'd mis-remembered and mischaracterized it. Upon reflection, one of the mechanics I took issue with is actually a big strength. Re-reading the rules, it seems like just a few very simple hacks could make it a highly-optimized PbP game. As follows: Danger Rolls are rolled by the GM. Danger rolls usually fail, so it is in the player’s interest to describe their actions plausibly and mitigate as many risks as they can, in the hopes that they don’t trigger a danger roll. 2d6 + ability bonus ≥ 10 If you have taken enough precautions to have a distinct advantage in an action, but not enough to have eliminated the distinct possibility of danger, the GM will give you a roll with advantage. 3d6 keep 2 + ability bonus ≥ 10 Because each character only has 3 ability scores (S