Recent content by Mark Hope

There is also a section on divine ascension in AD&D's Deities and Demigods (aka Legends and Lore) that presents a slightly less arduous approach, which may be worth a look:

I've never seen this before. This is awesome :D :D :D

Yep, something like that. You started as a fighter, then between level 5 and 8 changed class to a thief. Then between level 5 and 9, take up tuition under a druid, at which point you start advancing as a bard. You gained some druid spells, and a bunch of bard abilities - charm, legend lore...

That's from the BECMI (Basic, Expert, Companion, Masters, Immortals) edition of the game and is one of the routes to immortality (the Polymath). There are three others that don't require this - but all require you to reach the highest level in your class (which can be up to 36th). Rules for this...

Yeah, dwarves are great in those situations. Was there much difference in combat ability between the characters? I'm thinking of how all weapons would have been d6, with minimal ability score bonuses. You mentioned that they struggled to hit things - did this apply to the fighting men as well?

Really cool - thanks for sharing :) Did the absence of a thief option have any effect on gameplay?

Retainers also help with smaller groups of players. With my first BX game, we'd play more or less every night after school with me DMing and only 1 or 2 players (my sis and friend who lived in the same town). We'd have larger games on weekends but those school-night games were the backbone of...

We used them a few times in 1e but the system was kinda clunky and it interfered with the flow of play. Used them more in 2e, both as a new type of power appearing in my homebrew and of course all the freaking time in my Dark Sun games. In 3e, only used them in DS.

It's not so much that they're a key aspect - it's more that PCs don't operate in a vacuum. Whenever they book passage on a ship (or buy one), they're interacting with hirelings. The same applies if they ever employ the services of a sage or an alchemist or a weaponsmith or a guide or whatever...

They've always been a part of the game in my campaign. Hirelings are brought on board as staff, ship crew, occasional bodyguards, troops, whatever. There is usually a henchman or follower in the party, sometimes several. Most parties will have one or more members who engage in building various...

My current group here in the UAE was formed from 3 veterans who go back to the early 80s and 3 people who had played like one session of 5e and wanted to know more. They all took to it with immense enthusiasm - it was great to see players new to the hobby discover things that seem like old hat...

Sure, if you never properly leave in the first place ;) My D&D game started with BX, then both editions of AD&D. Although I tried 3e/PF, I have returned to running it with BX and AD&D. It's like I never left. It's the same continuous campaign for over 40 years now. This is home :)

In my homebrew 2e games, NWPs almost never come up - in fact I am happy to not use them at all and leverage secondary skills and "well a wizard would know this" instead. But in my Dark Sun games, they come up all the time. I guess it has something to do with the nature of the setting? It's not...

Yeah, this is more or less what we do. Roll as high as you can, but your stat is a cap to success, like blackjack. And some checks have a minimum ability requirement.

I use ascending AC in my BX and AD&D games and have for years and it works fine. Converting descending AC and THAC0 can be done on the fly if I'm using an old product and when I write my own material, it's just baked in. I also play in an AD&D game run by a friend that uses descending AC and...