In OD&D through AD&D 1E, there is no formalized skill system outside of the special abilities of each class, but that's not to say that characters can't do anything but fight and cast spells if they aren't of the thief class. Just flipping through the B/X books, we find that there are quite a few "universal" skills, most of which don't even need a roll to succeed in except under very difficult circumstances:
- Negotiate with NPCs and monsters (success influenced by Charisma)
- Hire retainers and henchmen
- Detect traps (1 in 6, 2 in 6 in some editions)
- Disarm and/or evade traps
- Find secret doors (1 in 6, 2 in 6 in some editions)
- Surprise others (2 in 6)
- Listen (2 in 6)
- Navigate, i.e., maintain course in the wilderness (3 to 5 in 6 success, depending on terrain)
- Ride both mundane and flying creatures
- Swim
- Climb trees and rough hills, climb walls and cliffs with proper equipment
- Build a raft
- Forage and hunt for food (1 in 6)
- Evade encounter (% chance based on relative sizes of the two parties)
- Build a raft
All told, the above covers about 90% of what a PC would want to do in a typical adventure. There are a couple of gaps, but we can fill them in readily enough.
Stealth and Surprise
First, stealth. In 1E, the thief's ability hide in shadows was exactly that: The ability to hide in an otherwise empty room in nothing more than a dark corner. Unfortunately, 2E gave that ability to the ranger, which created a perception among many of us kids that only characters with that ability had much of a chance of hiding. This was compounded by the move silently ability being separate.
However, we can resolve this with a couple of minor hacks. First, let us say that the surprise roll doesn't simply mean that you get a free attack, but that you detect the other party before they detect you. This gives you a chance to attack first or slip away undetected, depending on what you want. The opposite is also true: Monsters who achieve surprise on the party might slip away and come back with reinforcements. I would also allow characters working alone or as a pair who aren't wearing metal armor to get a bonus to their surprise roll, perhaps adjusted for Dexterity. Thieves working alone or in pairs could use their move silently rolls in lieu of the normal surprise roll, if desired.
For hiding, while only thieves and assassins can hide in nothing but a shadow, I would make it more explicit that anyone could hide behind cover: Say, the odds are 10% less than the amount of cover achieved so that even full cover has only 90% chance of succeeding (to account for the sounds of breathing or minor shifts that might make one's armor chink) and anything less than half cover having a 0% chance. Monsters that are difficult to surprise deduct another 15% from that chance.
Tracking
While it doesn't come up often, the fact that only rangers can track in AD&D has always rankled some of my players. Certainly, rangers should be trackers par excellence, but why couldn't a fighter also track a foe at a reduced chance of success? Given that there is a 1 in 6 chance of successfully foraging or hunting, why not give any character a 1 in 6 chance to find a monster's tracks? This wouldn't intrude on the ranger's specialty, but it at least gives a rangerless party a decent chance, especially with multiple characters making rolls.
Bettering the Odds
 |
| "Maybe splitting up to hunt wasn't such a good idea." |
Now, all of the above task resolutions assume that pretty much all characters have the same chance of success at a task, and a low chance at that. For example, foraging only has a 1 in 6 chance to succeed for the whole party and can be done while moving normally. It's basically just keeping an eye out for food sources to supplement what you have with you while exploring. (Incidentally, a single character has pretty good odds of keeping himself fed while on the move that way.) Hunting requires staying in one place for a day and also has only a 1 in 6 chance--but if you manage to hunt a deer and spend a day dressing and smoking the meat, a whole party is good to go for days. Moreover, you could take the risk of sending out multiple hunting parties to better your odds, with each one rolling separately to succeed. Sending out three hunting parties gives you almost even odds of finding game, so in the course of 2-3 days you're almost certain to succeed, though you're also taking a big risk on one of those parties having a random encounter with something too big to handle on its own...
Of course, players would protest that a fighter should have a better chance to hunt than a magic-user. Note that the players will never argue that you should make the magic-user less likely to succeed on his own. Players are naturally motivated to better their own odds. Skill systems let them do that while simultaneously giving some room to customize the character so that Bob the peasant hero plays differently than Alice the urban noble, even if both characters are fighters. However, in the context of creating an "Advanced" OD&D, we want to go a different route, one that emphasizes planning and good play by the players rather than which simply removes any real challenge at high levels, and with a few minor circumstantial tweaks, we already have 90+% of what we need in OD&D.
No comments:
Post a Comment