Everybody's a Fighting-Man Here, Thufir

[todd]

Been pondering a hack for a fighting-man only game, no PC magic. However, rather than limit everyone to the fighting man class as written, I want to subsume a bunch of outside abilities to different subclasses or flavors of fighting man. So maybe there wouldn't be clerics, per se, but templars and hospitalers that, between them, would encompass many of the cleric's abilities (healing, turning). And skirmishers or reavers would inherit some or all of the thief abilities but give up the ability to wear heavy armor. Or knights that give up light armor to get a charge and/or some bonuses to charisma for reactions, morale, etc.

Interesting or silly and not worth the trouble? 

[merctime]

Well, if you and your friends think it might be fun, then it would totally be worth the trouble. Perhaps there could be some sort of crazy story to it; Some ancient or recent cataclysm in which magic simply, or perhaps violently, was removed from existence. Or, if it's just 'the way things are', it could be a fun game, too.

So I'm seeing Hospitalers and Templars being able to do something like 'battle medicine' or the like; An ability to 'heal' but by poultices and bandages. Right?

Turning IMO doesn't have to be 'magical', especially if you're considering actual, as opposed to currently popular, basis for many undead creatures in myth. They are simply repelled by certain things. Anyone could theoretically do it; the Mirror and the Vampire thing.

I like the idea of divvying up the thief skills over a group of fighting-men. Pretty cool idea! Perhaps roll a d3+1 and take your pick from that number. That could lead to a great variety of characters.

You might look into Arduin for some ideas, if you can find it. Empcho offers it for sale. Arduin is gonzo as heck, and too overboard for many, but there is a metric ton of interesting additions and customization changes that fit with OD&D. Just make sure to get the book that was made during the time of OD&D, as Arduin has gone through changes and some of those changes made it a system unto itself. Not a bad thing, just would require lots more tweaking.

What you describe reminds me completely of R.E. Howard's Conan stories, so I think I'd be remiss if I didn't offer you this site for some further reading and inspiration with a definite aim at OD&D.

Love to hear some more of your ideas on this

Oh, and by the way, I exalt thee for enacting ye olde school 'do it yourself' attitude!  Fight On, brother!  /Salute

[todd]

Thanks for the links. Conan is definitely something I've been thinking of, as far as the feel of it goes.

Re: healing, yes, it would be non-mystical in the fiction-- not laying on hands but more like, as you said, poultices and such (get me some kingsfoil, stat!).

I definitely wasn't thinking of turning as being magical but giving it to the more-or-less "divine"-inspired fighters, perhaps building off of their fervor and conviction but I could easily see some chance given to anyone in a pinch.

[Admin Pete]

Jul 7, 2015 22:16:18 GMT -5 todd said:

Been pondering a hack for a fighting-man only game, no PC magic. However, rather than limit everyone to the fighting man class as written, I want to subsume a bunch of outside abilities to different subclasses or flavors of fighting man. So maybe there wouldn't be clerics, per se, but templars and hospitalers that, between them, would encompass many of the cleric's abilities (healing, turning). And skirmishers or reavers would inherit some or all of the thief abilities but give up the ability to wear heavy armor. Or knights that give up light armor to get a charge and/or some bonuses to charisma for reactions, morale, etc.

Interesting or silly and not worth the trouble? 

I like the idea and I hope you work it out and post the details. Sounds like a lot of fun.  Also I have been searching for a new name for a thief class and now I have it thanks to you "Reaver."  Now I just have to find the time to do it.

[todd]

I'll definitely post for feedback once I've got some details straightened out. I love the name, reaver-- use it in good health!

[tetramorph]

Everybody in Chainmail is a fighting man.

Wizards fight compared to heroes. Heroes are defined in terms of their ratio to normal troops.

I think the same could go for clerics, of course.

[todd]

As I mentioned in another thread, I really have to go back through Chainmail again.

[The Red Baron]

Jul 8, 2015 11:40:40 GMT -5 tetramorph said:

Everybody in Chainmail is a fighting man.

Wizards fight compared to heroes. Heroes are defined in terms of their ratio to normal troops.

I think the same could go for clerics, of course.

In od&d a first level magic user has an even chance of killing a normal man, and at higher levels can even hold his own against a fully armored man or low level fighting-man.

All characters are competent combatants by virtue of myltiple hit dice; fighting-men are simply the best combatatants.

[waysoftheearth]

Jul 8, 2015 11:40:40 GMT -5 tetramorph said:

Everybody in Chainmail is a fighting man.

Wizards fight compared to heroes. Heroes are defined in terms of their ratio to normal troops.

This depends largely on how far "into" the rules we want to delve.

As I commented recently in another thread: all CM figures can participate in fighting, but this doesn't imply they should be transposed to the "fighting man" player-type in D&D-land. IMHO they shouldn't be.

E.g.,

CM-Wizards should become D&D-magic-users.
CM-orcs should become D&D-orcs (see M&T), not 1st level D&D-fighting-men (see M&M).
CM-dwarves should become D&D-dwarves (see M&T), not 1st level D&D fighting-men (see M&M).
CM-men should become D&D-men (see M&T), not 1st level D&D-fighting-men (see M&M). And see particularly the "Composition of Forces" section for each type of Men, which states explictly what proportion of these Men should be classed as Light Foot, Heavy Foot, etc.

And so on.

If any CM figure should become a 1st level D&D-fighting-man, it is surely the CM-Leader who is a Man with +1 on all dice. These guys are, IMHO, mechanically the most similar to the D&D-veteran.


IMHO CM-Wizards do not really fight "compared to heroes" in any tangible way. In normal combat wizards fight as two Men but this is the least of their combat significance. In fantastic combat a wizard's profile on the FCT is very different to the hero's profile and, vs. magical-types, is more equivalent to (but still different to) the superhero's profile.

IMHO heroes are not "defined in terms of their ratio to normal troops". A hero does indeed fight as four Men in normal combat, but this is hardly the sum of his significance on the battle field. The hero has a fistful of potent combat benefits which puts him in a totally different class to normal Men. The two are hardly comparable! A CM-hero would nearly always defeat four normals.

YMMV.

[waysoftheearth]

Jul 12, 2015 17:44:55 GMT -5 The Red Baron said:

In od&d a first level magic user has an even chance of killing a normal man,

I agree that a 1st level M-U [AC9 HD 1] has an even chance of besting an unarmored normal man [AC9 HD 1], but as soon as the normal man becomes a Bandit or Brigand in leather armor with a spear or axe (giving him the first blow over the M-U's dagger), the M-U had better run or surrender

Jul 12, 2015 17:44:55 GMT -5 The Red Baron said:

and at higher levels can even hold his own against a fully armored man or low level fighting-man.

Hmm, I guess it depends exactly what level figures we're comparing, but I'd say an AC9 M-U armed with a dagger would be ill-advised to enter combat at all, let alone vs. an AC2 fighting-man.

A few years back I wrote some software to calculate the odds of various figures winning a one-on-one combat duel. I'll see if I can find it and report some proper odds...

[tetramorph]

waysoftheearth:

I see I was wrong now.

I think you are right.

Helps me understand CM, D&D, and their interface better.

Thanks!

[waysoftheearth]

Jul 13, 2015 1:55:00 GMT -5 waysoftheearth said:

A few years back I wrote some software to calculate the odds of various figures winning a one-on-one combat duel. I'll see if I can find it and report some proper odds...

I eventually found what I think was the latest code but, after establishing a whole tool chain around building it again, it appears I abandoned it in a half re-factored state. After a couple of hours effort I couldn't get it running again. I might have to start over; I guess it's an opportunity to do it better than last time

[finarvyn]

Jul 7, 2015 22:16:18 GMT -5 todd said:

Been pondering a hack for a fighting-man only game, no PC magic. However, rather than limit everyone to the fighting man class as written, I want to subsume a bunch of outside abilities to different subclasses or flavors of fighting man. So maybe there wouldn't be clerics, per se, but templars and hospitalers that, between them, would encompass many of the cleric's abilities (healing, turning). And skirmishers or reavers would inherit some or all of the thief abilities but give up the ability to wear heavy armor. Or knights that give up light armor to get a charge and/or some bonuses to charisma for reactions, morale, etc.

Interesting or silly and not worth the trouble? 

Perhaps I'm troubled by the language, but when you say "a hack" do you simply mean "a variant" for the rules? I'm trying to decide if you are wanting to re-invent the wheel or just tweak OD&D. (I mention this because if your plan is to tweak, then I do it all the time. If your plan is to start over I'd advise against it because it's a lot of effort.)

Anyway, one easy fix would be to start with OD&D+supplements+SR (or AD&D) and trim out the spellcasters. That would give a healthy mix of Fighting Men, Rangers, and Paladins, not to also overlook Thieves, Assassins, and Monks. That's six non spellcasting classes to pick from. You might also be able to bring in some form of Bard. Simply ignore all spell options in the class descriptions.

I can see this sort of thing working well for Conan, King Arthur in Camelot, or any number of historical scenarios.

Depending upon what you want to do with thief, you could simply demand that each character multi-class. Perhaps they would have a fighting class (Fighting Men, Rangers, and Paladins) plus a rogue class (Thieves, Assassins, and Monks) with some rule as to how they have to divide XP among those main categories. For example, you might say that they have to alternate between a fighting level and a rogue level, or say that at least 1/3 of the levels must be rogue, or whatever. This probably works best with a unified XP chart, a la 3E, but could be done with any XP charts you like.

I did something like this for a Middle-earth campaign (wizards had to match fighter level with magic-user to keep spell use down) and for a Lankhmar campaign (all characters needed 50% thief levels to simulate an urban setting) and it worked well.

In other words, this may not require much work but can be a lot of fun. Either way, let us know what you decide to do and how it works out.

[todd]

finarvyn, definitely a tweak, not a re-invention.

The multiclass idea had occurred to me but I hadn't thought about it much. I like your approach. Did players find it too constraining?

[finarvyn]

Jul 17, 2015 12:42:59 GMT -5 todd said:

The multiclass idea had occurred to me but I hadn't thought about it much. I like your approach. Did players find it too constraining?

Remember that I tend to shuffle rules around from one campaign to the next, so any class restrictions in one may totally be gone in the next. In general my players seem to respect the fact that I'm trying to establilsh a particular mood in a given campaign setting, and they don't complain about any restrictions. I suppose if every game I ran had the same restrictions, they might tire of having to always do it a certain way.

[Von]

My problem with all this is that a character who is a Fighting Man but can't wear heavy armour and instead can do sneaky or scouty stuff is basically a Thief. Conceptually, I mean: things like hit rolls and experience requirements will differ but in terms of the obvious, palpable differences, you've described the differentiations that make the classes discrete anyway, haven't you?

I would be more inclined to leave particular classes out of the field entirely to create a different feel to the campaign, as finarvyn recommended.