HMS APPOLYON PLAYERS GUIDE PART 1 - Combat and Exploration

It's perhaps long overdue, and really this document has been sitting about, mostly edited, mostly complete for some time now.  I've finally decided to release it and hopefully others will find it useful.  In addition to being the combat and exploration rules I've used extensively for my last campaign of HMS APPOLYON, it's a set of fairly well tested rules that I've used in modified form for other games.

A LINK TO THE GUIDE

From the Introduction to this ruleset:

H.M.S. APOLLYON

Player Manual Part I
COMBAT AND EXPLORATION

I never set out to write a retro-clone, only my own esoteric setting material, but HMS Apollyon has turned into a retro-clone of sorts – specifically a sort of homage to the earliest editions of Dungeons and Dragons.  I have a copy of the “Whitebox”, the later “collectors’ edition” that I bought long ago in my youth, but I never really read it with a critical eye until playing in Brendan S.’s Pahvelorn game on Google+.  Most of the basic rules and mechanics here are pulled or interpreted from the “Whitebox” and the “Little Brown Books” it contains, but they are more the product of other’s work and games – Nick W., Ramanan S. and most of all Brendan S., as well as the players who have stuck with the setting as it has contorted and evolved, especially Chris H. and Eric B.

I have tried to keep my rules concise, but rather than just offer another set of retro-clone rules I want to provide my reasoning for why I have adopted them.  You may notice small text boxes below some of the rules, and in these I have tried to justify why I am using a rule and what I hope to accomplish with it.  It’s my belief that while setting is largely formed by evocative description, NPC interaction and collaborative storytelling, that rules are still important as they can destroy or support a setting’s tone.  I shy away from too many player-facing mechanics and try to emphasize “player skill” over “character skill” but mechanics do help make a setting, especially combat mechanics which largely set the game pace, character turnover (lethality) and how important central is to the game.

The intent of the HMS Apollyon setting is to provide players an exploration game in a setting where life is cheap, the world cruel, and combat against the denizens of the haunted hull a desperate, not altogether wise gamble. These combat rules are written with this goal in mind.  The rules were slowly developed and modified through play and thus are esoteric as opposed to systematized.  While systematized rules have an intuitive appeal, I have found that the effort to fit everything into a structured rule set rather than a collection of smaller subsystems or individual rules tends to stifle the sort of “rulings not rules” mindset that early Dungeons and Dragons fosters as well as discouraging the individualized house rules that are necessary to fill gaps in any rule system in a comprehensible manner that doesn’t rely on metagaming or “build science” more appropriate to war games.

More Specialist Skills

EXPANDING THE OD&D/LOTFP SKILL SYSTEM

Below is a list of skills that I intend to use for my HMS Apollyon games, it includes variants (Legerdemain, Stealth, Acrobatics, Tinker and Search) of the standard ones found (often limited to thieves) in most D&D/D20 systems.  Specifically I’ve modeled these on the LOTFP system of “X in 6” chance of success. I personally like this far better than the percentile system simply as it feels simpler and can shift more readily with level gain, especially in a system where high level play isn’t common, or level is capped at 10^th (As it is in my own Apollyon Game, and as it seems to be by the nature of LOTFP play).  These skills do a couple things that I like.  First they offer variability to the thief class, and other classes as well – a ranger need not be a separate class, but perhaps just a fighter or specialist with a focus on Animal Handling and Survivial.  Second they allow me to provide alternatives to certain first level spells while keeping those spells useful.  Last they provide some mechanical tests for certain types of odd activities or provide an element of random failure/success for other popular adventurer activities (such as collecting monster poison).

There is a debate to be had regarding the use of skills, including all the classic “Thieves’ Skills” because it’s often opined that rolling dice to solve a problem rather than allowing the players to use their creativity to figure out the puzzle involved diminishes one of the best aspects of tabletop gaming.  However, I think these skill are mostly limited to areas where some mechanical component is necessary.  There should be some mechanical component to certain activities that can’t be part of player skill, but are obvious elements of character knowledge. Specifically things that specialists (or other subclasses) know that cannot be readily known by players and which have a mechanical import.  The most clear example of this sort of skill is something like “Arcana” or “Tinker” as no game I’ve been in has available locks to pick or secret languages to focus hermeneutic knowledge on.  Moreover, focusing on these tasks for too long detracts from the play of other players who aren’t figuring out the lock puzzle or deciphering the secret inscription.  On the other end is something like the “Search” which really should be easy to model with player knowledge (I pull on the candle holder, I dig through the refuse pile etc.) but demands a great deal of knowledge by the GM regarding things like secret door mechanisms and what sort of dungeon dressing is scattered about (both to conceal valuables and to provide pointless things to search).  

A GM can’t always have these things, but a good module should make efforts at description with this in mind.  Rather than saying “secret door in North wall” something like “twisting a torch holder (one of several) on the North wall clockwise will cause a latch to snap open and reveal the secret door on the North Wall”.  Yet this isn’t always possible, and sometimes describing the wide variety of cruff on the floor of a goblin lair that the party can dig through is not a good use of game time.  In these cases a skill is helpful.  Skills also have an advantage of being clear about time and risk, with each skill roll taking one turn (10 minutes roughly but who knows in a game using an overloaded encounter die - as opposed to the Gygaxian strict timekeeping), a roll on a random encounter/exploration die – and a clear risk reward calculation for the players.  

It is for this reason, the encounter roll, that unless there are compelling circumstances I don’t bother with catastrophic failures for character failure with skills.  It’s usually just wasted time, though in some circumstances (trying to stealth past alert guards, trying to run up a wall Kung Fu movie style in combat, trying to disarm a ticking bomb or doing emergency surgery on a dying comrade) there are obvious consequences.

The ultimate point is that I like these skills and find they add aspects to the game, specifically a deeper, faction based exploration game, especially in that they both encourage players to use their skills – a character with a survival skill will try to identify local flora, because they can – and allow the creation of a wider variety of character types.  Specialists need not simply be magsmen, sneak thieves or an assassin, but can be tinkers, scholars, charlatans and doctors.  While the descriptions below are written with my own Apollyon Setting in mind I think they can be generally applicable to most exploration based settings.

Why I Use the Classic Saving Throw System

SAVE vs. NOVELTY

Blackleaf didn't get a Saving Throw, and we know
how that ended

Saving Throws are an iconic element of table top  roleplaying games, that likely has its roots in the First Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, those Little Brown Books (well before that really) .  Saving Throws are still a part of Dungeons & Dragons 5^th edition, but frankly I think they’ve lost something.  Don’t get me wrong, I like 5^th edition a lot, and have enjoyed the flexibility of the character generation, the careful balancing of armor class (a real problem area if one is trying to limit power creep) and how despite its heroic elements 5e has maintained much of the feeling of character peril one might get from Basic/Expert style D&D.

Yet 5e does something strange with Saving Throws, something I think is a holdover from newer editions of D&D, in that it links them to character statistics.  This is a huge departure from the LBB’s and the editions that followed them.  In early editions saving throws are static based on level (with a bonus for a high Wisdom in some editions).  I like this system; I also like the eclectic names of the classic saving throws “Death Ray or Poison, All Wands Including Polymorph and Paralization, Stone, Dragon Breath and Staves & Spells”.  I like the way Saving Throws are managed in the LBB’s (and similar systems) because they are related to class and level, without consideration for ability scores.  Likewise the variety of saving throws are bizarre, but clearly they all relate to terrible, likely deadly effects and seem so specific that they encourage adventure designers and GMs to expand their use into other areas/against other dangers.

Fallen Empire - Reviving the D&D Language System

LANUAGE AND POWER

The immolation of the Imperial Archives by disgruntled boxing
devotees in the 7th Century of the Successor Empire helped
limit learning to those with access to private libraries

One of the class abilities that both magic-users and nobles (dual classed F/MU with skills in scholarship and ancient knowledge) have is the ability to speak one or more esoteric languages.  In early editions of D&D language skills were handed out to characters with a decent Intelligence in huge bundles, and even more common amongst demi-humans.  These language skills had value as reaction rolls and morale rolls with intelligent monsters often allowed an opportunity for parley or surrender, providing a very fun roleplaying-rich way of avoiding combat encounters and entering into the ‘faction game’ amongst dungeon dwellers.  Just thinking about the set-up of the feuding humanoids in B2 – Keep on the Borderlands should offer an example of how useful speaking orc, goblin and kobald might be in an old Gygax adventure.  I have no desire to track the uses and relationships between fifty fantasy languages, however and while I greatly enjoy a tense parley as both a player and GM, for Fallen Empire I want to emphasize a largely human world and primarily use ‘common’ as a language available to all players.

Rather than create languages that are specific to races or types of monsters I have decided to create a set of languages that is useful in dealing with certain classes of society or broad groups of monsters.  A scholar need not worry if they speak hobgoblin or goblin, but should be able to talk to denizens of the underdark (yes there is an underdark in Fallen Empire – Deep Carbon Observatory made that certain) if they know the Underdark’s version of common – “Crawl”.  Another expected advantage with a smaller number of languages is that inscriptions and mysterious texts can be accessible (assuming you have a scholar in your party) while still being strange and mysterious.  I intend to have two tables of languages - Esoteric Languages and Living Languages, with the first only available in very limited numbers to Magic-Users and more easily to noble scholars, and the second open to anyone based on intelligence (likely only one or two extra per PC to keep the numbers down).

In addition I have made the parley game slightly more amusing for me by constructing language meta-games with mild mechanical effects.  Speaking Crawl works better if you talk like a cartoon cave man, and trying to overawe bureaucratic robbers or get information out of reluctant functionaries (really the most common kind of bandit in Fallen Empire) will work better if you can speak in Imperial Law and use a really long word or two. 

Below is another letter from the wandering and addled noble Imperial Noble "Pepinot Vex, Hereditary Peinkernes Extraordinary" regarding his continued efforts to reach his beloved cousin's country estate.  Apologies in advance for the bad fiction - it's just one of those weeks.  Feel free to skip to the table of Esoteric Languages at the bottom of the post.  

Dragon Breath and Artillery - Monster Design as a Basis for Rule Modification

Abstraction & Movement

In the recent online discussion of monster design, partially inspired by my Trick Monster post earlier this week, I’ve crystalized a few of my views on designing monsters for the type of battlemap free OD&D I prefer.  I find trying to use exact positioning and even calculated missile range hard to do in the context of an active game.  Early D&D shows its wargame roots though, adopting distances and strict movement ranges without examining these choices.  These rules have always frustrated me, and like many others I’ve largely ignored them. The issue then is how to better make use of the abstract elements and to create the same sort of tactical considerations and tensions without any sort of concrete or empirical spatial considerations.

Specifically, I want to look at rules for two kinds of special attackers that are extremely dangerous and should likely be treated similarly, Dragon Breath weapons and artillery (or any kind of heavy siege weapon really).  

Range

Goya, Disasters of War I Think.

The first consideration is range, as there needs to be some consideration for range to keep tactical options open, but breaking it into broad classifications is better for my goals than tracking combat movement.  This treatment of  rsnge may seem cursory and makes closing range easy, but given that the majority of D&D combat happens in poorly lit mazes of 10’ wide stone corridors I think it will serve. 

Range should be determined by movement and in an abstract tabletop game combat movement is really only important in attempting to flank, charge, and most important for retreat.  I think a simplification (one I am undoubtedly stealing from someone) of movement into a value from 1-6 and treating it similarly to a specialist skill for difficult combat movement, while using opposed rolls for flight, is appropriate.  Since the unarmored D&D human, or at least most humanoid monsters in the old monster manual, seem to have a movement rate of 40’, setting ‘movement’ at 4 of 6 seems about right. Being encumbered or wearing armor one lacks skill in using reduces movement by ‘1’ point per level of armor (light, medium, heavy) or based on the level of encumbrance.   Thus a magic-user wearing plate armor has a movement of 1, meaning they move very slowly.

Movement works two ways, first in combat and second in pursuit.  My range categories (below) consists of five basic combat ranges (Grappling, Melee, Short, Medium and Long) and it takes a movement value of 2 to close one increment of range, or to attack (though attack ends any movement).  Likewise most actions take 2 movement points (swapping weapons or removing something from a pack for example) Charging allows an attack at the end of a full movement (meaning an attacker can charge from medium range to attack with associated penalties and bonuses).  Unless someone is actively trying to impede this movement in combat or the movement is tricky (pushing past allies into the front line) there’s no need to roll, but if there is a doubt about the viability of the movement a roll on a 1D6 under the movement value should suffice.  The reason I am simplifying movement to this extent isn’t just practicality, it’s because removing specific distances creates abstraction and should help with arguments about what a ‘real’ character could or couldn’t do, in the same way the abstraction of hit points decreases the number of arguments about character injury and death.

I think this simplified movement will work well in pursuit scenarios, as the runner and the pursuer can each roll a movement check on a D6 and the amount of success or failure creates a number representing distance gained or lost between the pair in  that round of flight.

I wade into the greatest OSR fight ever, several years late

Sacrilege! Shame! The center cannot hold! Madness! Rioting neckbeards! Muderous halflings!

Look at that flat affect, he'll use that blowgun on you in a second.

I think I will adopt ascending AC.  I am bad at math, ascending AC is easier to figure for me then THAC0.  I’ve never seen any real debate here and I’ve enjoyed using ascending in some games recently.  How to convert seems to be the biggest issue.  Nothing new really said below, notes to show my players mostly. Still I feel it's a decent discussion of my personal conversion story to ascending AC.

Simplified HMS APOLLYON or OD&D gun rules.

Below are draft rules for firearms that I would use for HMS APOLLYON or any similar reasonably high lethality game based on a Basic/Expert or more specifically OD&D (whitebox) system.  I have only dealt with small arms below, but crew served weapons such as heavy machine guns and artillery have their own, very deadly, rules that I will detail in a future post.

My aim is to make firearm rules that provide some advantages to guns, but limit them in other ways so they don't come to dominate player's weaponry.

Thoughts on running a Viking Game

Of late I've been reading some Viking history.  Also a bit about about the Saxon conquest of Britain and am struck by how these time periods might lend themselves to mid-level D&D play.  Generally the dreary heroic and bloody minded nature of the primary sources have the sort of convoluted level of double crosses, poor hasty decisions and pointless feuds that I expect from a game of D&D.  However I don't think the game rules as written really work well for modeling the feel of Dark Ages epics, and my mantra in games has really been, house rules/mechanics must work towards a feeling for the game.

A Pict - 19th century

I am struck by a couple things in the Dark Ages/Viking history and sagas that D&D models badly.  The first is combat, the second magic. Basically the entire subject of dark Age's literature.  Northern European Dark Ages combat seems to have been split into two different kinds of fighting.  First, challenges and ritual one on one combat between leaders or champions and second shield walls pushing at each other until one side broke or gave up and tried to run (with often fatal consequences).  In both cases what you have is a champion or group of champions in better armor, with better weapons and a supporting body of spear and shield armed fodder. The leaders/champions do the work of breaking through the enemy shield wall and killing eachother, while the rest just make sure they don't get surrounded. Basically a warband is a D&D party where the fighters predominate and have a mess of henchmen. 

Here are aspects that need rule changes designed to encourage the feeling of Saga combat where the heroes do most of the "fighting", and it's heroic action that turns the tide of battle, but without a mass of henchmen a warrior is not especially effective against large numbers.  I'd propose using OD&D D6 damage, AC and HD rules because these generally lead to quick and dangerous combat. The changes made however make personal skill and Strength of Fighters more important.

Tattoos as a Magical Item

The denizens of the criminal underworld, phantasmagorical cults, ancient orders of fallen knights and shamans both wise and treacherous know that there is power in marking the flesh, that the life-force of the marked twists and fuels strange magic, while sigils of arcane power warp and empower the flesh they mark.

Classic American Tattoo

Magical tattooing is a potent form of sorcery that relies on the permanent linkage between the life energies of the marked individual and simple magical formula to create lasting magical effects without overly complicated arcane knowledge.  Generally such tattoos will be protective in nature, and almost all will effect only the tattooed individual as they are linked to his or her personal being.  Another common form of magical tattooing, is that of certain wizards (often deemed barbarous or simple by more academically inclined thaumaturges) who will tattoo themselves with their spellbooks.  This has the advantage of making it very hard to deprive the sorcerer of his store of mystical knowledge and provides a clear warning to other practitioners of how advanced a specific caster's knowledge is.  The tanned and preserved skins of great warlocks are a valuable magical commodity amongst sorcerers of this kind for the knowledge they contain, and it is not unheard of for casters to seek the skins of their enemies as trophies and to craft into magical garments.  Red Balthazzar, a puissant lich of the horse tribes was also known as Balthazzar the Skinner or Nine-Skin Red due to the large number of potent shamans he slew and flayed for their knowledge.

Armor Rules - HMS APOLLYON

HMS APOLLYON – Revised Armor Rules

Normal "Body" Armor comes in three basic varieties: Light, Medium and Heavy.  Armor is determined by variety and maximum AC, rather than material.  Frogling beaded cord armor is just as good as ringmail (Light AC 7) and Steward Segmentata is as effective as a merrow-crafted coat of teeth. (Heavy AC 4).  While Armor has a listed AC, this is the best AC that the armor will provide for a trained user. All classes except magic users receive some armor training as part of their basic package of skills, and selecting certain proficiencies can both provide training previously untrained types of armor and expertise in the use of armor that grants additional bonuses.

Better AC (to 0) can be provided by powered armor, or boiler mail, which also grants (often considerable) damage reduction.

Thieves aboard the Appolyon

I've been working on this post for quite a while, and frankly it's overdo for my Apollyon players.Below are the skills that Specialist's aboard the HMS Apollyon can train in and gain skills in.  Specialists begin with 5 skill points (with a limit of 2 maximum on a skill to start) and advance at a rate of 3 points per level, but a limit of spending 2 maximum on a skill.

Specialists Aboard the Apollyon

Most Scavengers are not dedicated warriors, magicians or infused with divine power, most are jack of all trades who have a wide variety of valuable skills,  These specialists take on a variety of roles, from light fighters and assassins to thieves, explorers and even learned antiquarians.  I have tried to make the skill set varied enough to include mountebanks, medical students, false priests, wayward sorcerer's apprentices, animal handlers, researchers and engineers - All of whom might find themselves in the hull.

Note: Rules for Fighters are HERE
while rules for Magic Users are HERE

Baby's on Fire.

So Adventurers love oil, they like to pour it on the floor, douse things in it, and most of all to throw Molotov cocktail style bombs of it at everything that looks remotely flammable.  All this pyromania should have consequences.  Below is a table for effects of fumbling with flaming oil bombs. The effects are not pleasant, but one or two fumbles will have any surviving characters considering oil based grenades with a bit more circumspection...

1D10 (+ or -)	The table of accidental incineration (Flaming Oil Fumbles) Roll 1D10 and add or subtract the appropriate DEX bonus/penalty
-2	Inferno of Death – Somehow You've managed to coat yourself, and every party member within 10' in a flaming haze of oil doing normal oil damage. That's not the worst though. The flames have caused a chain reaction as any oil bombs in the party's possession explode, unless a save vs. Paralysis is made for each vial. These vials will do 1D6 damage per explosion to the individual carrying them.
-1	Airburst – A perfect throw scatters flaming oil over all party members in 10' of the oil thrower. The oil does normal flaming oil damage.
0	Premature Impact – You've thrown the vial perfectly, assuming you were attempting to drench another party member. Randomly pick another party member and do full oil damage to them for three rounds.
1	It's in Your Armor – Not only did you manage you break the oil over yourself, but you managed to light it after it had soaked into the nooks and crannies of your armor. Take normal oil burn damage for the next three rounds as the trapped fire takes longer to burn.
2	Self Immolation – Your doused in flaming oil. You're on fire and it hurts. Take normal oil damage.
3	Friendly Fire – You've doused 1D4-1 party members in flaming oil for normal oil damage.
4	Splash Damage – It wasn't a clean hit, but you've splashed 1d4-1 party members (including yourself) with flaming oil. All will take 1D4 points of damage.
5	Ceiling of Pain – Now the Ceiling is covered in flaming dripping oil. Everyone in a 10' radius must save vs. paralysis or take 1D6 points of damage for the next two rounds. If outdoors treat as a roll of (-1).
6	Hot Foot – You just dropped a flaming bottle of oil on your foot. Take 1D4 damage and roll a Save vs. Paralysis to hop away before taking an additional 1D8 next round. In any event you're jumping around with a flaming foot, unable to act for 1D4 rounds.
7	Fails to Light – The bottle clash against the ceiling, a branch or your fighter pal's helm and douses 1D4-1 party members in oil. Luckily it was unlit, and your allies are simply soaked in highly flammable oil.
8	Covered in Oil – You managed to break the bottle over your head and are now soaked in oil. It's not on fire, but it could easily get that way.
9	No Retreat – Whoops, slippery bottle. The oil lands directly behind your party and blocks any hope of retreat until it burns out in two rounds.
10	A Perfect Disruption – Arcing with perfect aim the oil bursts between the shield walls and creates a flaming barrier that prevents melee combat between the belligerents for two rounds. Missiles may still be used,
11	Drops in Eyes – The oil flew off fine, despite missing embarrassingly, but a big splash of unlit oil ends up in your eyes. You'll be blind for 1D6 rounds, attack at -4 each round or rub your eyes and save vs. Paralysis to get the painfully stinging junk out.
12	That's not Oil – You threw something else by accident, GM decides what else in your pack was hurled, and its effects, but hobgoblins are nonplussed by holy water, and that potion of heroism you were saving, well now it's on the shattered on the floor.
13	Stoppered Vial – In the excitement you forgot to light or unstopper the darn thing and it bounces off a target landing unbroken on the floor. Maybe you can pick up it later.

Passenger Class Characters

The Passenger Class

Aboard the HMS Apollyon, the hereditary ruling class is known as the 1st Class Passengers, Uptowners (though not all Uptowners are strictly 1st class), or simply the Passenger Class. They are a decadent and cruel race, having tyrannized the Apollyon's human population for hundreds of generations and watched it decline, struggle, and fail. The Passengers still affect the veneer of the civilization that their distant ancestors left behind, a mannered society of politeness, protocol and duty, but one where even the most mundane domestic rituals have mutated into stylized performances. The passenger class is stereotypically made up of sorcerers who deal with sinister otherworldly forces and to a large extent this is true as even the most mundane Passengers have some magical ability due to a history interbreeding with otherworldy “outsider” entities.

Fighters aboard the Apployon

Steward in Bronze 1/2 Plate

HMS APOLLYON FIGHTER RULES

Fighters aboard the HMS Apollyon come in many varieties: gunfighters from the lawless regions of the crew deck, pit-fighting toughs and brawling sailors as well disciplined stewards specializing in the use of heavy armor.  Various types of warriors have different advantages fighting with their chosen equipment and in their chosen style.  Below are skills that fighters can specialize in using a tiered 6 point rule.  Each skill can have up to six points placed in it for increased effect.  A Fighter begins with three skill points and then adds an additional one every level up to name level once no more points may be added. I have tried to make most of the advantages conferred simple static adjustments that don't effect game mechanics. I have no idea if this allows min-maxing and don't care, because I don't think overpowered matters much against an army of demonic men-fish armed with heat seeking wasp cannons and foul sorcery. To limit obnoxious play I'd let the GM pick where points after the 1st three end up (unless a fighter specifically says they want to seek training in a new area - such as the use of powered armor).

Example: The Stewards tend to fight defensively using discipline and armor to make up for their low numbers.  The average Steward is a 3rd level fighter, giving her six points to spend on skills. 2 in Heavy Armor, 3 in Shield, 1 in Firearms.

For Gavrilo Princip

ASSASSIN RULE HACK:

Assassins, an often despised as either virtually useless or game ruining class.  Well now I have one in my party and frankly I don't like the old rules at all.  This here is my completely new rules hack of the Assassin.  They are specialist thieves who focus on poison, murder and fast one-on-one melee combat.  Yes, they are like ninjas.  So far the assassin being played in my campaign under these rules has not created imbalance, or more specifically, any imbalance she creates is caused by some amazing stat rolls (See previous post re: Nell) and the core AD&D/LLC rules on statistics bonuses. 

Gravrilo Princip, Assassin - Photographer unknown

Death in the Gatehouse - Campaign Rules Regarding Death

Death in the Gatehouse:

Session IV was a disaster for the party, a near Total Party Kill prevent only by some lucky interaction rolls, and by Lemon's timely use of oil.  The encounter was just bad luck frankly, the wandering encounter roll indicated that the adventurers were going to run up against the nastiest (and arguably toughest monster) in the Gatehouse without understanding the nature of the place.  I have no desire to kill characters, but they live in a nasty world, with pretty unforgiving rules, and so this was bound to happen.  I am glad it wasn't a TPK, because the party keeps taking on character and everyone dying might have driven my new players off despite my warnings. Death is pretty permanent in Denethix, divine healing is extraordinarily expensive and it's doubtful there's any cleric above 5th level anywhere nearby the city. I suppose untrustworthy super-science also exists, but it's hard to guess where they'd find it, except by accident.  The characters lost a couple of friends, worse for them perhaps, they also got nothing for their troubles.

Treasures: Grimgrim has an ancient coffee mug, but no one can tell it's ancient. It's worth 1 sp to a motivated buyer. It was not a good night for the party. 

Player Reactions: Both P and B had become attached to Mukuls and Hump – B even having worked out that elaborate history described at the start of the prior Session-log and repeated in Grimgrim's eulogy. (supposedly written in Dwarven in a small book recovered from his corpse). P was the more upset, this being her first character and disturbed at how quickly the well armored 8hp fighter had gone down to a lucky roll. She wanted him to come back and briefly toyed with playing his brother 'Beg Mukuls' come south to find Mukuls.

Both replacement characters rolled very well, this 4D6 this is too generous I think. P rolled and 18, 17 and two 13's while B rolled an 18, two 14's and a 13 (which is still pretty spectacular, even for best 3 out of 4D6). Neither of them rolled any stats with penalties attached. I let them pick what sort of characters they wanted to play and arrange stats accordingly, again being too nice. 

Inagural Rule Hack

COUNTER MAGIC RULES – Mages, wizards, sorceresses, warlocks and thaumaturges all kind of suck compared to elves. To offset them and to make magic feel more special I've invented the following rule applicable to practitioners of academic magic (I may add counterspell as a spell for elves/clerics etc, perhaps at around 3^rd level).

Since mages study the formula of magic in a rigorous more or less academic fashion and aim to understand the root of thaumaturgic power or some such they can often figure out subtle and seemingly trivial ways to undermine each other while casting. A mage who chooses not to actively cast a spell may counter the magic of another magical practitioner if they know the spell being cast.

What this means mechanically is that a mage who sees a spell that they have recorded in their spell-book being cast may attempt to counter that spell if they have not already acted that round (and they may elect to counter spells that round if they have initiative and want to wait out any opposing wizards). In countering a spell the mage must roll a d20 to hit (with a hit bonus based on INT as if it was DEX or STR) as if attacking AC 10 opponent ( with -1 one AC for each level the caster is above the counterspeller).

Mukals - Axe Lover. Totally Unrelated to the Above.