Post by Finarvyn on Jun 11, 2008 22:14:29 GMT -6
I tried running Chainmail as my combat system for OD&D tonight. I had to tinker with a few things, and had mixed success.
It wasn't exactly a Chainmail-OD&D blend, but I think it came pretty close. I tried to work in Chainmail elements as much as possible, but superimposed level data from OD&D where Chainmail seemed lacking.
I got players to use my "index card" character sheet and we stuck to the "big four" character classes (fighter, magic-user, cleric, thief) and the "big three" races (human, elf, dwarf). I thought they would feel limited by their lack of choices, but they were pretty enthusiastic to try a new rules variant. I also plucked the "saving throw" and "treasure trade up" rules from Mythmere's Swords & Wizardry rules (still in development).
I. Combat
I used the "mass combat" rules for my main combat. We found that the fractional dice was sometimes annoying, but I always rounded up. (So, for example, if the chart said that the attacker got only 1/2 dice I actually gave 1 die.)
1. Combat was a little slower than we expected, with lots of misses and not so many hits.
2. The players really liked the multiple attacks against critters less than 1 HD. After a while we adjusted and allowed multiple attacks agains all foes, but then the monsters also got multiple attacks on the heroes. All in all, they liked it.
3. I rated everyone according to "light foot" or "heavy foot" or "armored foot" as per the mass combat tables, but neglected to give different ratings for offense and defense. (If you look at the monster charts in Chainmail you'll see that some monsters are rated differently in those categories.) The players agreed that it would make more sense to have dual ratings, and I plan to try that next week.
II. Spell Casting
I used the system in Chainmail where you had to roll 2d6 to see if you could fire off the spell.
1. The first problem I noticed is that I wanted 3rd level characters (as per Gary's suggestions) and 3rd level wasn't one of the Chainmail options. I created my own table to fill in the levels and don't think I got it balanced well.
2. I used the number of spells from M&M but with the chart didn't use the number of spells for each level. I allowed the magic-user to cast any spell in their range with variable chance of success based on indexing character level versus "spell compexity level".
3. Rather than having three options, I reduced it to two. The spell worked or it didn't. I guess my 3rd option would be that I thought they could lose the spell point on natural snake-eyes rolls. This really annoed my MU player.
4. I used the more limited Chainmail spell list and my MU said that she didn't feel like she could attempt many spells. She was used to having "magic missile" and feared that dropping a fireball in the middle of the battle would hurt more than it helped. I'll have to ponder which spell list to go with next week.
To summorize:
The group had a lot of fun and had no problems with switching midway through the evening. They had some suggestions as to how to re-balance some of the charts and this gives me something to look at over the next few days. In general they found "the old system" to be a little strange but once they got the hang of it liked rolling a handful of d6's rather than a d20.
So far, so good. Will update as I ponder and tinker.
It wasn't exactly a Chainmail-OD&D blend, but I think it came pretty close. I tried to work in Chainmail elements as much as possible, but superimposed level data from OD&D where Chainmail seemed lacking.
I got players to use my "index card" character sheet and we stuck to the "big four" character classes (fighter, magic-user, cleric, thief) and the "big three" races (human, elf, dwarf). I thought they would feel limited by their lack of choices, but they were pretty enthusiastic to try a new rules variant. I also plucked the "saving throw" and "treasure trade up" rules from Mythmere's Swords & Wizardry rules (still in development).
I. Combat
I used the "mass combat" rules for my main combat. We found that the fractional dice was sometimes annoying, but I always rounded up. (So, for example, if the chart said that the attacker got only 1/2 dice I actually gave 1 die.)
1. Combat was a little slower than we expected, with lots of misses and not so many hits.
2. The players really liked the multiple attacks against critters less than 1 HD. After a while we adjusted and allowed multiple attacks agains all foes, but then the monsters also got multiple attacks on the heroes. All in all, they liked it.
3. I rated everyone according to "light foot" or "heavy foot" or "armored foot" as per the mass combat tables, but neglected to give different ratings for offense and defense. (If you look at the monster charts in Chainmail you'll see that some monsters are rated differently in those categories.) The players agreed that it would make more sense to have dual ratings, and I plan to try that next week.
II. Spell Casting
I used the system in Chainmail where you had to roll 2d6 to see if you could fire off the spell.
1. The first problem I noticed is that I wanted 3rd level characters (as per Gary's suggestions) and 3rd level wasn't one of the Chainmail options. I created my own table to fill in the levels and don't think I got it balanced well.
2. I used the number of spells from M&M but with the chart didn't use the number of spells for each level. I allowed the magic-user to cast any spell in their range with variable chance of success based on indexing character level versus "spell compexity level".
3. Rather than having three options, I reduced it to two. The spell worked or it didn't. I guess my 3rd option would be that I thought they could lose the spell point on natural snake-eyes rolls. This really annoed my MU player.
4. I used the more limited Chainmail spell list and my MU said that she didn't feel like she could attempt many spells. She was used to having "magic missile" and feared that dropping a fireball in the middle of the battle would hurt more than it helped. I'll have to ponder which spell list to go with next week.
To summorize:
The group had a lot of fun and had no problems with switching midway through the evening. They had some suggestions as to how to re-balance some of the charts and this gives me something to look at over the next few days. In general they found "the old system" to be a little strange but once they got the hang of it liked rolling a handful of d6's rather than a d20.
So far, so good. Will update as I ponder and tinker.
