Thursday, December 16, 2021

....on Thieves


I have never been in the party of 'there is something wrong with the thieves class' but upon reading James West's recent blog post I began to think about it.

After an initial distaste for his idea of rolling a d100 for each Thief Ability initial score, I actually came around and really liked this idea. This would create wildly different and dynamic thieves from the outset, making each one unique. I would include Hear Noise, deviating from the d6 roll (which is weird anyway since the rest are d% rolls). 

Now how to handle progression? Lookin at BECMI and BX, the thief goes up by an average of 26 points per level gain. (Side note, weird how we have that damn to hit plateau in the rules but here thieves get better every level....what gives Gary?) Anyway...

So what if we take their Dexterity score, add to their Intelligence score, and that is how many points the character gains per level to increase their Thief Ability scores. If we use an average of 11 for each score, we are just slightly below the points gained in the original system. As we likely are starting off better initial scores, we are most likely ahead of the terrible initial scores in the original game.

What are your thoughts?

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

Nine month itch? Or...

 

Maybe just glad to be alive? I don't know.

I was out in the garage, cleaning it up and getting ready to hopefully start working out again (still waiting on a few of the 13 ribs I broke to finish the healing process), and out of the corner of my eye I see a familiar color of red on a box.

"What is that?!?!" old memories having an inkling of remembrance. Did I mention I have PTSD for memory loss? Yeah, clinically diagnosed and compensated for after a rollover in Iraq. Thank you, Veteran's Administration.

I quickly climb up ONE STEP on a STEPSTOOL and not a ladder (holy fuck no, not another ladder, they have been outlawed at my house for all time). Sure enough, my old mind did recognize that color, it is what I thought it was! I do not recall purchasing this, but I am sure I did. a First printing, 1983 version of the game that started it all (for me). I got this set for my birthday from my friend Chet and we played it constantly. 

Now, finding this, I suddenly find myself with a massive urge to run some games using the game that brought me into the hobby....