Following yesterday's announcement about Dolmenwood being a standalone game, I wanted to give some more details about what that looks like from a rules standpoint, compared with B/X / OSE. The reason for each change is explained below, the overall aims being:
- To streamline presentation and make the game easier for newcomers to pick up.
- To maintain compatibility with OSE and other old-school games.
Caveat: Everything written here is provisional / work in progress.
[Updated May 2023]
Core Rules: Mechanical Changes
Just one. Removing descending Armour Class / THAC0 / the attack matrix.
Reason: Ascending AC is a bit easier for complete newcomers to understand, is much easier to explain, and is already familiar to the vast majority of gamers (via D&D 3, 4, 5 and their associated ecosystems). The standard OSE dual format ("AC 8 [11]") looks arcane and confusing for new players.
Core Rules: Presentation Changes
Adventuring Skills
There are a bunch of X-in-6 based skills common to all character classes hidden away in B/X (e.g. listening at doors, searching for traps, the surprise roll, etc). Dolmenwood will present these as a skill system, rather than as ad hoc rolls. There will be 3 skills: Listen, Search, Survival. The underlying mechanic for these checks remains the same (i.e. X-in-6 chance of success, with certain races / classes getting an improved chance of success).
Reason: Explaining this "hidden skills system" explicitly makes it easier to understand and apply.
Saving Throw Categories
Dolmenwood will use slightly different names for the 5 save categories: Doom, Ray, Hold, Blast, Spell. The mechanic for rolling saves remains the same.
- Doom: Effects that instantly kill or inflict ongoing physical malignities—for example, poison, disease, death magic.
- Ray: Rapidly moving, directional effects that can be dodged—for example, energy rays, magic wands.
- Hold: Effects that hinder or prevent movement—for example, paralysis, petrification, falling rocks that may crush or pin characters.
- Blast: Lethal energy effects that fill a wide area—for example, wyrm breath, explosions.
- Spell: Potent, directly targeted effects—for example, arcane or holy spells, fairy glamours, magic staves or scrolls.
Reason: This makes the save categories more broadly applicable (e.g. Ray instead of Magic Wand, Blast instead of Breath Attack), which makes them easier to understand and apply.
Movement Rates
Are noted in a simplified format: "Speed 40", rather than "MR 120' (40')"
Reason: Exploration speed (the "120'" in the example) rarely matters for monsters. It's just noise to include it in all stat blocks.
Hit Dice
Monster Hit Dice are being reframed as monster Level (to match PC level).
Reason: Hit Dice is an odd term that means pretty much the same as another term that already exists: level. Melding the two terms makes the game easier to understand.
Character Creation: Changes
Separate Race + Class
The race + class character creation method is the default, with race-as-class options presented in the appendix. Note that the method of character creation doesn't affect the core game rules in any way. A race-as-class Halfling created using the B/X rules can adventure alongside a race + class Grimalkin Hunter without issue.
Reason: OSE presents two methods of character creation: one based on B/X, the other based on AD&D. The two different methods make sense to people versed in D&D history, but are a really common point of confusion for newcomers. Zoning in on just a single method makes the game much easier to understand. The vast majority of players are already familiar with the race + class option, making it the obvious choice.
Standard Classes
Dolmenwood will include the standard cleric, fighter, thief, and magic-user classes. (In addition to the following Dolmenwood-specific classes: enchanter, friar, hunter, knight, minstrel. A total of 9 classes.) Each of the standard classes will have some minor tweaks, tying it in with the setting and/or adding some common house rules. As noted above for races, a standard B/X thief will be able to adventure alongside a Dolmenwood thief without issue, should players wish.
- Cleric: Can use any type of weapon, but only holy magic weapons. Chooses to be a member of one of 3 Dolmenwood holy orders, each granting a small class ability.
- Fighter: Gain a combat talent every 4 levels, from level 2.
- Magic-user: Use the AD&D style spell book rules (see OSE Advanced Fantasy). Roll or choose from a list of starting spell books. Gain detect magic as an X-in-6 class skill (each attempt takes 1 turn).
- Thief: Use X-in-6 skills across the board, unified with the general adventuring skills framework. Optional point buy system for skill improvement.
Reason: Cleaning things up a bit, better tying things in with the setting, and adding a few extra abilities to classes that are commonly house ruled.
Referee-Facing Stuff
Monster #Appearing
Will be listed in a simplified format. (The exact format isn't yet finalised.)
Reason: The B/X #Appearing format is very weird and confusing.
Treasure Types
These will be replaced by a new system of letter codes and treasure tables separately listing Coins, Riches (gems, jewellery, art objects), and Magic. Each list will be sorted in order of average value, making it easy to choose a treasure type by looking down the list. (There'll be a 1:1 conversion guide from the B/X treasure types, for those who need it.)
Reason: The B/X treasure types don't follow any kind of pattern, making them difficult to understand and use.
Monster Tags
Monsters will be listed with "tags" noting their size (small, medium, large), creature type (fairy, undead, animal, etc), and intelligence (mindless, animal, low, etc).
Reason: This simple addition clarifies a lot of other rules, for example which monsters count as "larger than human-sized" for the sake of small characters gaining an AC bonus.
Equipment
There'll be a bunch of tiny changes and additions here and there, such as:
- Slow weapons: Removing this rule as virtually no one uses it.
- Rations: Stating how long rations of each type remain fresh.
- Crossbows: Making them armour piercing (+2 to attack vs metal armour), to counteract their Reload downside.
- Battle axes: Now one-handed.
- Silver: Specifying the cost of making silver weapons of any kind (i.e. not just daggers and arrows).
Reason: Adding useful little details, clearing up minor rules.
Old-School Essentials
Just to reiterate from yesterday's post: our intent with OSE is as follows:
- Continue reprinting and publishing the game in its current form.
- At some point in the future (perhaps 2024?) start work on a revised, non-OGL version. (Despite WOTC's current stance on the OGL v1.0a remaining in place, we feel the best approach in the long run is to move away from it, to avoid potential future rug-pulling attempts.)
- The non-OGL revision will just involve re-editing the text to remove verbatim wording derived from Open Game Content material. The game itself won't change.
76 comments
Agree with others that race+class leads to build optimization and complexity. Plus classes are the incentive to be human. Race as its own class is more thematic and mysterious for new players I’ve found.
For the most part, this seems good to me. Actually I find most changes to be an improvement and like the idea of having the Dolmenwood books as a stand-alone product (even when I own the OSE books already).
There are only two parts where I’m not so sure:
1) As others have commented, race-as-class brings an additional flavour, so I would appreciate if it could be kept in some way.
2) To me it doesn’t sound like the standard classes will be a good fit for Dolmenwood, especially when there’s partly an overlap with DW-specific classes. I tend to say, they should be left out.
I love these changes and look forward to the final product!
Many of the paedagogical changes are good, although I just have to say I like the evocative aspect and flavour of the old saving throw categories.
Two of your proposed changes will slow down the character creation process:
1. Choosing a fighter combat talent from Carcass Crawler #1 on 1st level is also build-creep. The solution is simple though, just make it Cleave by default. This is also in the spirit of the “mook rule” in OD&D.
2. Separate race and class. You don’t need to be a min-maxer to understand that the right combination of racial modifiers, ability scores and prime requisites will enable you go go from let us say a +1 modifier to a +2 modifier. Furthermore, the sheer number of race-class combinations will slow down character creation. This is “build-creep”, and goes in the opposite direction of where you went with e.g. random equipment generation in Carcass Crawler #2
I also have a beef with the Advanced Fantasy rule permitting the copying of spells from scrolls. This will make it a lot less attractive to drop random weird spell scrolls into the game, without having to worry it will end up in the spell book of all the magic-users and elves in the party. The solution is simple though: forbid copying of spells from scrolls, make it an optional rule, or make a distinction between “casting scrolls” or “learning scrolls”. Copying from spellbooks is…fine, I guess, although some of us (admittedly a minority) like the restricted spell choice in the classic B/X rules, as it has some fun implications for the nature of magic in the world, and keeps things simple for beginning players.
Although I will absolutely 110% back the Dolmenwood kickstarter, and I am superhappy to be on the Patreon, I hope I don’t have to houserule away too many of your hoserules to play the game;)
I am very much in favor of changing the safe system because the existing one is confusing. However I don’t know if this new approach is truly better than the previous one. For example, let us say that a party is exposed to a cloud of poison gas. Do they save versus blast or versus Doom?
That’s a very obvious question, and I’m sure there are more ambiguities than this.
If you’re going to simplify the save system, go all out. Find something that’s imminently simple to understand and to use.