An Abominable Fancy

I'm reworking my Adventurer class for Delving Deeper . For one thing, I'm probably going to call it the Expert class, and use "Adventurer" for what is now rather awkwardly called "the Combat Specialist." Each type of Expert is also getting their own combat move. Subterfugue gets Backstab, Survival gets Ambush, Knowledge gets Calculated Strike. I was working on the move for the Communication Expert and decided to see if I could use the Turn Undead table. +John Stater  had mentioned the idea of testing other applications for this table, and, wouldn't you know,  +Peter Fröhlich  just happened to post an analysis of the table's math as I was in the middle of it. The resulting table is based largely on the numbers from  +Dyson Logos '  Alternate Turning Table . The move is Harangue Enemy, and the idea is that the Expert in Communication (a Bard, or Siren, or firebrand Preacher, etc.) would be able to speechify a real whammy on a group of cr

Delving Deeper, like Oe and B/X, has lots of 1d6 skill rolls scattered throughout the rules— listen at doors, open a stuck door, detect traps. Except for the thief skills, DD's skills are pretty much the same as the early editions and other clones. Being someone who would much rather learn a guiding principle than memorize/look up specific instances, I decided to gather all the skills together and see what I could do with them: Listen at doors Halflings, Elves, Dwarves: 2 in 6 Thief: 4 in 6 Everyone else: 1 in 6 Dungeon Architecture Dwarves: 2 in 6 Find Secret Doors (takes 1 turn) Elves, Thieves: 4 in 6 Everyone else: 2 in 6 Thiefy Stuff: Open Locks; Disarm Device; Climb sheer surface; Sleight-of-hand Thief: 4 in 6 Stealthy movement/Hide Halflings: “nearly invisible” “almost silent” = automatic? (B/X: 10% in underbrush, 2 in 6 w/ cover) Thief: 4 in 6 Surprise Thief: 4 in 6 Everyone else: 2 in 6 Open Doors Weaklings (STR 3-6): 1 in 6 STR 7-18: 2 in

I thought about making a Satyr Class for DD , and then realized that, with Boring Spells in play, the simplest way to model a Satyr would be just to use roll up a Magic User (probably an Illusionist) and use its Satyr-ness as the motif. And it occurred to me that this could be a good way to handle pretty much any character race. Simply ask the player to describe what they want to play, and then ask them if that character is going to solve things by fighting, magic, or skill. Want to play an ogre or minotaur or lizard man? That’s a Fighter. A nymph or satyr or vampire is a Spell-caster run through Boring Spells. Your gnome or talking rabbit or animated scarecrow is an Adventurer. Angels and sufficiently religious-minded creatures of any species can be Clerics.  Now, obviously, lizard men are better in water than minotaurs, and satyrs are better in daylight than vampires, but that could all be handled as role-play and off-the-cuff rulings. So, I then immediately came up with a ch

The recent burst of activity on this blog is largely traceable to being all fired up after reading the wonderful Delving Deeper Reference Rules . I'm not terribly familiar with pre-Holmes 0e, and not at all with Chainmail, but I found DD to be a spectacularly elegant ruleset. And after mentioning how much I like the new-wave OSR take on a broadly-interpretable Specialist/Expert/Adventurer character class, I thought I should write one up for DD. This can model a thief (although the "Bidding Time" ability is less potent than Backstab), but I hope it will also model anybody who isn't trying to fight or cast their way through problems. The Adventurer Expertise Pick or invent a non-combat realm of expertise, with its attendant Prime Requisite: Communication (CHR) Craft (WIS or DEX) Knowledge (INT) Physical (STR) Subterfuge (DEX) Survival (WIS) All player characters are considered generally competent and well-adapted to the campaign wor