OSR Working on succinct OSE house rules for online pickup play

[Mannahnin]

I've just run my first pick-up session of Old School Essentials (basically just 1981 B/X, but better organized) online, and this got me thinking about house rules and how to express them succinctly and clearly. This is my first whack at a brief set of them.

What do you think? Do you have any other house rules you're fond of? Any suggested tweaks or changes?

Mannahnin's OSE House Rules (draft 1)

Characters (Slightly more heroic):
-When rolling ability scores, if the total modifiers are negative, re-roll the character (multiple times if necessary).
EDIT: Replaced with the following, per Jack's suggestion: When rolling ability scores, you may choose to use EITHER the set as-rolled, OR to “mirror” it. That is, reverse all values by subtracting them from 21. This way there are no “hopeless characters”, but if, say, you wanted to play a Cleric and got a high Wisdom in the rolled set but some other poor ability scores, you can choose to stick with the set as-is.
-When rolling HD, a roll of less than half the maximum value should be taken as half the max (e.g. an M-U always gains at least 2HP, a Fighter at least 4).

High Numbers are good:
-We will use ascending AC to make it easier on folks used to newer editions.
-For simplicity and consistency, you always want to roll high. D6 rolls for opening doors, hearing noises, or finding secret doors for example, instead of succeeding on a 1 or 1 & 2 in 6, would succeed on a 6 or 5 & 6.

Thief skills:
-Ignore the percentages. Instead roll a D6 and use the Hear Noise chance (flipped so high numbers are good, as above). For Climb Walls/Sheer Surfaces add 2 to your Hear Noise chance.

Other skills or knowledge:
-Most of the time your player knowledge will be used, but in instances where the character (based on class or other factors) might know a thing, I will normally simply inform you. Please feel free to speak up and remind me of such factors “Hey, would my Cleric know about this?”
-If I am unsure or think there’s a chance of a character knowing or achieving a non-combat task, we will roll a d6. The mechanic of rolling a d6 from Open Doors and Hear Noise and hoping for a 5 or 6 is generalized to other such circumstances.

Initiative:
-Side based, d6. Ties mean action is simultaneous.
-Movement, Missiles, Magic and Melee are resolved in that order. Declare spells or retreats before rolling initiative.
-Generally players may decide among themselves in what order they act in a given step, but I may override that and say that, for example, x character is around the corner and the only one who can see what exactly is going on, so they must go first (or something similar) based on the unique tactical situation.

Crits and fumbles:
-20 to hit = +1 damage, OR you may declare a cool situational effect- disarming, knocking a foe back or prone, overbearing, etc. If the effect is particularly devastating, I may grant the victim a save vs poison/death to avoid.
-I do not use fumbles on a 1 (it’s just an auto-miss), though I may narrate amusing fumbles for hapless bad guys.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Characters
Re-rolls are fine, but if you want to ensure that you never have to bother, one way is to roll stats and then mirror them. Let's say that you roll the following:

Str 5 (−2)
Dex 11
Con 9
Int 12
Wis 15 (+1)
Cha 10

If you subtract each score from 21, you get the mirrored set, which looks like this:

Str 16 (+2)
Dex 10
Con 12
Int 9
Wis 6 (−1)
Cha 11

Then you can just let the player pick which set they want. The second set of scores is "better" if the total of the modifiers is all you care about, but maybe the player wants to be a cleric, in which case the first set is probably what they'd choose. (Just a little suggestion to keep from having to re-roll a whole bunch of stats.)

On hit points, if you set half the value as the floor of the roll, that means that characters are going to have more hp than they ought to. Good ways to handle hp are:
• The character just gets average hp each level (e.g. a fighter gets 4.5 hp per level, so 4–5–4–5−4…)
• The character gets max hp at 1st level and then the low average at each higher level (so a fighter would get 8–4–4–4… this is how I do it)
• The player chooses either the low average or the roll (so either 4 or 1d8), but if they choose to roll and roll lower than 4 they still get stuck with the low roll

High Numbers are Good
Nothing wrong with this, although I do the exact opposite and turn everything into low rolls myself.

Thief Skills
That's a pretty common house-rule, though I'd make Climb Walls start out at a flat 5-in-6 chance of success and maybe have it increment up a die-size (7-in-8, 9-in-10, 11-in-12…) every time the thief's Hear Noise number goes up.

Other Skills & Knowledge
Also a pretty common way to handle it. (For my part, I wound up writing a system of d6-based skills to handle miscellaneous actions and to replace thieving skills as well.)

Initiative
That's pretty much by-the-book, so nothing to comment on there. (One house-rule I use here, you may or may not be interested in: I don't like adjudicating simultaneous initiative, so whenever it comes up, I have each participant in the battle roll individual initiative, with tie-breakers and everything, for the simultaneous round only.)

Critical Hits & Fumbles
That is… remarkably restrained. I approve. I don't like using critical hits in Basic D&D (and I don't like fumbles ever), but if I was playing at your table, I'd be happy to roll with that rule.

 

[Marc_C]

Give max HP+Con Bonus at first level. Then half or more at level 2+

 

[Michael Linke]

I've started putting together a for-personal-use edit of the Rules Compendium. It doesn't really invent many rules, but alters the way some rules are communicated and moves puts my preferred optional rules in the main text. A few example changes i've incorporated...

• the various Experience charts in the classes chapter include the character's THAC0 at that level, so there's no need to refer to a combat chart in another chapter.
• The cleric's turn undead table is removed completely, and instead there's a "Turn Undead Rank" column on their experience chart, which is compared to an undead enemy's "Undead Rank". The odds of turning any given type of undead remain exactly the same, but it makes it easier for the DM to create new undead enemies and simply say "this creature has an undead rank of 1" rather than "this creature can be turned as though it were a skeleton".
• Demihumans gain levels above their old maximum, but with a stipulation that they still stop gaining new HP. This just removes the need for referring to their xp totals or attack ranks for eligibility for certain abilities.
• I like the optional rule from the Gazeteers where elves can choose to improve EITHER their attack ranks OR their magic ability after reaching 10th level, so I add that to the Elf class entry.
• The druid entry was shortened, and included in the "Higher Level Clerics" section.
• In any case where an option rule is being used, i removed the non-optional version of the rule.

As far as actual balance changes, I'm considering letting players pre-roll their first 3 levels' hit points during character creation, and then let them decide in what order those are gained as they level (usually, the player would opt to get the biggest rolls first), or maybe just averaging the three so there's smooth HP progression at lower levels.

 

[Mannahnin]

Characters
Re-rolls are fine, but if you want to ensure that you never have to bother, one way is to roll stats and then mirror them. Let's say that you roll the following:
.....
Then you can just let the player pick which set they want. The second set of scores is "better" if the total of the modifiers is all you care about, but maybe the player wants to be a cleric, in which case the first set is probably what they'd choose. (Just a little suggestion to keep from having to re-roll a whole bunch of stats.)

Nice idea with the mirroring! I dig it, and I appreciate the time savings over re-rolling sets. Let me figure out the most efficient way to explain it.

How about:

"When rolling ability scores, you may choose to use EITHER the set as-rolled, OR to “mirror” it. That is, reverse all values by subtracting them from 21. This way there are no “hopeless characters”, but if, say, you wanted to play a Cleric and got a high Wisdom in the rolled set but some other poor ability scores, you can choose to stick with the set as-is."

Re: HP, my intent is a little bit of inflation, so that's intentional. Although just giving Max HP at first level is maybe enough to give that little durability boost I'm looking for.

Re: Climb walls, I like that one too, thanks!

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I really dig this tweak, and will be using it if I ever get to run OSE. Combined with that d4 HP, having a what, 10-15% chance of finding and disarming a trap, thieves would never live long enough to actually get good at the things they're supposed to do.

Thief skills:
-Ignore the percentages. Instead roll a D6 and use the Hear Noise chance (flipped so high numbers are good, as above). For Climb Walls/Sheer Surfaces add 2 to your Hear Noise chance.

 

[Mannahnin]

I really dig this tweak, and will be using it if I ever get to run OSE.

Yeah; I dig it too. Took it from other people, of course.

Combined with that d4 HP, having a what, 10-15% chance of finding and disarming a trap, thieves would never live long enough to actually get good at the things they're supposed to do.

This is part of why I think a lot of folks view "Find Traps" as being a mistake.

a) The percentages are so low that requiring two rolls makes success vanishingly unlikely.
b) Traps are much more interesting and fun when anyone can find them through narrative play, and try to circumvent them through being clever and using the environment. Thieves having a special ability to Remove/Disarm small mechanical traps is a nice ability to be able to fall back on if it's an EXTRA thing they get on top of regular smart play.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Totally agree. Making a roll and being done with it is far less interesting than having to out-think a clever trap.

This is part of why I think a lot of folks view "Find Traps" as being a mistake.

a) The percentages are so low that requiring two rolls makes success vanishingly unlikely.
b) Traps are much more interesting and fun when anyone can find them through narrative play, and try to circumvent them through being clever and using the environment. Thieves having a special ability to Remove/Disarm small mechanical traps is a nice ability to be able to fall back on if it's an EXTRA thing they get on top of regular smart play.

 

[Michael Linke]

For thieves and traps, i'd let any character search for a trap in the same manner as searching for a secret door (1 in 6 chance). Roll for the thief's find traps ability in addition to their normal 1 in 6 chance. As far as removing the trap being a seperate roll, there's no reason the group can't just agree to bypass the trap, whether that means not bothering to open a trapped chest, or opening it in such a way as to defaut the trap. The classic "a poisoned needle on the latch pricks your finger" isn't going to matter if you just use a long pole to push the lid open. Disarming a trap per the thieve's skill should be necessary only for very special traps, like a pressure plate that releases a fireball in a hallway where you absolutely must march a bunch of rescued NPCs through and can't reasonably ensure nobody steps on the pressure plate. If it's just the player characters with no extra liabilities, they can just jump over or step around the plate.

Edit: Also note that thief's Find Traps ability covers an entire room (or object) in one turn, whereas the normal "search" covers only a 10'x10' area. At low levels it's a fast way to catch some traps, but should be used as a first pass in addition to the 1-in-6 chance i proposed above.

 

[GMMichael]

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