5E X OSR: Revised PC Rules via the Baltimore Undermountain Dungeoneering Society

 

Waterdeep is known as the City of Splendors, wrapping around a coastal mountain, built on top of the ruins of ancient dwarven settlements and wizard towers. It is a multicultural trade hub along the Sword Coast, and as such, pretty much anything or any type of person can be found here. You are here not as some destined hero, but one of many normal folk trying to improve life for themselves (and maybe others.)

The Baltimore Undermountain Dungeoneering Society pt. 1

 

 

I'm a performing musician in the eastern United States, so every now and then I get to try my hand at making flyers. I've also connected with a large amount of people thanks to gigging and podcasting, and many of them play some sort of tabletop RPG (usually D&D.) So, I wanted to kick something off where we can play some games adjacent to our gigs -- many of which are just a few blocks away from my house.

D&D is best played as a score attack game

  

 Let me start by saying that I do not think TSR ever intended D&D to be a score attack game as we know them today. Space Invaders released in 1978, Galaxian in 1979, and Galaga (pictured above) in 1981. These games all featured a gameplay loop focused on getting your score on an electronic leaderboard. In digging a bit, Gary Gygax states in Dragon Magazine -

Attack Bonus vs. AC sucks, and here's an attempt to fix it

I don't like Armor Class in D&D. I certainly like ascending rather than descending, but I don't like the ambiguity that comes about in actual play. Here's an example (and at the end, some proposed rules.)

The Best (Or Worst) Sword Ever

Whiterazor – capable of killing none, but cures death. Rotting flesh via necrotic energies, disease, or old age quickly regenerates as youthful skin...

Sword by Eliana Rose. She is available for art commissions -- contact her at znijurru at gmail

Death & Dismemberment for LotFP

Avoid Resurrection!

Spells and powers that allow characters to return from the dead can take away from the ability for players to immerse themselves in fantasy roleplaying games. In a world where we can cast a spell and return a person to life, how and why does anyone die? Why would your players take risks seriously when they know there's no permanent danger to their character? These are things to consider if you're a referee who loves gritty, realistic adventure games. One of the easiest, if not one of the best options is to remove (or not use in the first place) Resurrection spells.

This turns up the difficulty quite a bit, and may frustrate veterans who lose characters due to silly mistakes. Let's face it – it sucks when a campaign that is running well is upset by a few poor choices. Some of our characters are cooler than others and we'd like to keep them around for just a few more expeditions. We're not all comfortable with having to ignore a die roll or hand-wave an event to keep characters alive, either. So...

What Happens When A Character Dies?