Skills in Hell

This has been sitting half done for like a week now, so I'm just going to fucking finish it. Its ramble-y and probably won't be good but I need to do it and move on.

As you all have probably figured out by now, I like talking about and fiddling with mechanics. Mechanics as metaphor, mechanics guiding good roleplay, and mechanically clever systems are all things that I enjoy thinking about and feel pretty confident talking about. As a DM or player, I also see the value in many things that are not mechanically based, but I feel much less comfortable giving advice or talking about those things. How am I supposed to give advice on describing rooms when I'm looking for that advice myself?

Because of my relationship with mechanics of a game being responsible for my outlook and understanding of those games, I generally look at skills as a tool to change how a character interacts with the game world.

At its most basic, monster lore allows your character to try to decipher the clues before or during your encounter to learn about your foe and better understand what you are up against. This is boring when you learn things you already know, but is awesome when that information allows you and your party to change how the encounter occurs in a interesting and meaningful way.

This is the sort of interesting interaction that I would like to have in my game.

During Alex's princess game, I played Bhaltair Blueheart, the King's Knight. I don't remember exactly how the proficiencies broke down, but I was a master of sword and shield combat. Each round I could choose whether I wanted to block with my shield, bash a person with it, or use it to protect someone else. I approached each round of combat differently knowing I that I had the choice of going all out or defending an ally if it was strategically important.

That is the sort of interesting combat dynamic change that I hope to have in my game.

In my uncle's game, there is a weapon proficiency called shield use which gives a +2 bonus to AC and saves when wielding a shield. This changes the numbers of fighters, allowing them to have lower AC, but doesn't really add anything new or change how the class is played.

This is the sort of thing I'd like to avoid.

So like I talked about last post, I'm planning on having the skill system be on a five point scale. Here I'm going to outline the ideas of each rank and also give an example in the form of monster lore.

If you have one box in a skill, its pretty analogous to a non-weapon proficiency: You are now able to make checks in a non-combat situation which will provide a benefit. These are pretty by the book.

Gerry's skill in monster lore allows him to look at tracks, scat, and the environment of a monster in order to get an Int check at -4 to figure out what it is and its powers are. If he can go off of a description of the monster, he can make the check at par. If Gerry can see the monster and is facing it down himself, then he gets a +4 on the check (not that it will do him much good).

When you get up to two boxes checked, the skill now changes how you approach combat. You now have an active check you can make during combat.

Gerald has learned quite a bit from studying his manuals and now can apply his skill. Once per combat encounter (am I really implementing per combat uses on skills?) when making an attack he may make an intelligence based check. If he succeeds, Gerald has managed to apply his theory to give himself a +4 to hit, +4 to damage, or make the monster make a save or suffer a reasonable debilitation. (stab the dragons spit gland with a spear so if it fails its save it has to take an action before breathing fire)

With three boxes checked you now receive a small numerical buff and a passive ability. This is as far as reasonable normal universed characters usually get. Past this is mostly only possible for immortal characters (like those in Hell) or in bullshit over the top campaigns (like one where you journey to the bottom of Hell and beat up the Devil).

Geraldo is now considered a master Lore-er of monsters. His understanding of types of attacks and abilities monster's possess grants him a +2 (1?) on all saves vs monsters he has successfully identified. In addition, whenever any "natural" attack or abilities is used, (not granted by a class) Geraldo can ask the DM to make an int check to get the (meta) stats on the attack/ability.

Past this I don't even know what to do. Obviously additional bonuses are in order for levels 4 and 5, and I suspect with the nature of the world of Hell being they will be more rediculous and over the top than reasonable and normal. I'm thinking level 4 gives noncombat bonuses again, and level 5 gives in combat bonuses. Maybe a stat increase. I'm really not sure.

Progression with skills will be completely separate from levels. Because of how individualized these all are I'm also changing each character to have 1 rank 2, 1 rank 1, and one rank 1 of choice.

As you can tell, this whole idea is much more of a mess than I though it was when I sat down to write about it. I'm going to publish it because when I don't publish things I stop writing, and I don't want to do that.

Five Boxes

AD&D is beautiful in its obscure archaic rules and presentation of said rules. Each class has its own experience track which twists and turns relative to others, growing and shrinking at confusing times, sometimes ending, sometimes stretching off forever. The same can be said for saving throw charts and thaco, the patterns they follow never being quite the same, but always telling a story. Watching a Fighter go from being the worst at resisting effects to being able to stand up to Dragon Breath is an exhilarating journey, as is seeing everyone succumb to evil death magic except for the Cleric of the sky daddy. I personally enjoy gazing at the charts and noticing interesting little anomalies and relationships that form and each tell a story. That being said, its pretty shitty design.

Shots Fired

The giant picks up his boulder and hurls it at Freddy the Fighter and ... Does that hit? Wait I think that I'm out of range of a Frost Giant, but not a Stone Giant. Let me look up their thaco, how many hit dice are they? Did I fail that save vs spell? Give me a min to double check my saves for this level, they might have changed.

Holy shit, way to fucking ruin the moment.

Complicated systems are beautiful to look at and think about, but pretty terrible to actually play. Its why Champions can take the amazing prospect of pretending you're a super hero and transform it into a boring night of wasting time double checking what the DCV adjustment due to speed is for traveling 20 meters per second. Its also why no one in their right mind uses weapon speed or to hit adjustments based on weapon vs AC.

This is someones attempt to make the table make more sense.

DCC brings up a brilliant point when it talks about xp, and that is that there are essentially two types of xp systems: Fiddly systems and not so fiddly systems. AD&D has a super fiddly system, tracking each individual monster killed and gold piece earned to add to an ever growing integer which you may or may not add 10% to and then compare to a table of large numbers. For my Hell game I'm going to use a very unfiddly system. Every time you complete something major, difficult, and time consuming, you get an experience point. Once you get 5 (five), you level up. I even have a bar to make it easy to keep track of.

This is the system I intend to use for pretty much any system involving advancement or keeping track of numbers from 1 to 5. Skills/proficiencies have ranks from 1 to 5 that can be leveled up. Your renound for your unique Body, Mind, and Mouth all rank from 1 to 5, along with people's astonishment at your ever increasing trove of treasures. Your secrets will progress from being incredibly useful to worthless as you tell more and more people, again represented by boxes that are filled in. (this time three)

Its really hard to draw consistently sized boxes.

This system will hopefully make keeping track of your progression simple and clean. It will also hopefully tap into the animalistic part of your brain that likes coloring boxes and filling them up, slowly addicting my players to playing my game, after which I will add micro-transactions and pay-to-win elements so I can eat la vics for the rest of my life. 

Dudes of Hell: The Sympathetic Villain

This is the classic evil villain trope. Is some sort of specialty wizard, summoner or necromancer.

You always had a plan. Cheating, conning, or just stealing, you could always get what you wanted. This made it a simple matter for you to abuse your way into a position of power. You acquired pawns and power from places others were afraid to even think of. Soon your true colors where shown to the world. Your name became feared and hated, people wept when they learned of you approach, and with good reason. But even you were not without a heart. A single good deed you performed for another. That was all it took for your enemies to be upon you and everything you worked so hard to create to crumble. Your first act of kindness was also your last.

• Where are you from?
• Who/What were your servants/powers and what did you do with them?
• What was your one good act?
• How did you die?

Your past is behind you, your future in Hell is ahead.

• What is your goal? Why do you seek the 9^th layer?
• What is your motto?

Your ability to create foolproof plans is your greatest strength and your greatest flaw, you alone are able to make plans for any situation, even in Hell.

• What is your master plan?

Like the bard, this last question is meant to make the player get in the mind of the character and try to develop advanced long term goals. Its one thing to say, "I want to be the Lord of the Nine Hells," but quite another to say, "My master plan is to trek to the Ninth Layer of Hell where I will challenge Asmodeus to a game of chess. Little does he know that I will have been practicing playing chess throughout my journey with anyone who is willing to play with me. From all this careful study across the planes, I will discover/invent another secret move analogous to castling/en passant which I will debut on the Lord of the Ninth. In addition, I will get my hands on any and all mind altering substances so I'm juicing for the game."

The Villain's power is their ability to make master plans. This is not automated, the player still must come up with amazing ridiculous plans, but they will have some help. The secret to making plans work in Hell is not to plan for everything, because that would be impossible. No, it is instead to acquire as many McGuffins as possible so that when something that you didn't plan for comes up you can rely on them to bail you out. Every time you make a plan and tell it to the DM, they will give you a hint for each McGuffin you own. In addition, once per plane per McGuffin, As the Villain, you start with one McGuffin: your incredible intellect and ability to create plans. If the player ever forgets to write that he forgot to bring rope, obviously the character would have remembered. (at the cost of his once per plane McGuffin stuff) This can be recharged by the Villain having a chance to relax and recharge his mind and doing some puzzle/other frivolous intellectual exercise. Other examples include: membership to the Esteemed Diabolical Gentleman's Society, a Bag of Tricks, or a mouthy familiar.

Wizardy stats, high int, high wis, low strength.

Tentative Summoner starting spell list:

1.) Summoning I, Farspeaking, Conjure Item, Detect Summons, Read Magic

2.) Summoning II, Protective Circle, Call

Skills:
People Use: * *
Stone Cold: * *
Lambasting? Alertness? Knitting? *

Dudes of Hell: The Beguiling Bard

You're right Will: I really was missing out not having a bard in this universe. Obviously still a work in progress. As always, intros written to be read in this voice.

You were quite the hit during your hey day. Your act was new and refreshing. Even after your death and decline you were always cited as a visionary and responsible for advancing the art. It wasn't long before you became truly famous, influential, and most of all, rich. Your new position of privilege provided many great things to indulge in, and indulge you did. But no one can be center stage forever. At every turn there were up and coming artists trying to take away your audience with something new: It became clear that fame was a fickle mistress. So you started to spread rumors, some true, some less than true, about your competitors, propping up your raised pedestal with deceit and malintent. The joys you used to feel slipped away from you too, so you used your position once again to get you things and people you otherwise couldn't to satisfy your ever growing needs. Every tower crumbles eventually, and your tower of lies was not different. You were exposed for everything you did and said. Everything you worked for and grew to enjoy fell away, and at that point life didn't quite seem worth living.

• Where are you from?
• What were you famous for?
• What did you do to prop yourself up?
• How did you die?

Your past is behind you. Your future in Hell awaits.

• What is your goal? Why do you seek the 9th layer?
• What is your motto?

Your ability to entertain and tell a story is both your greatest strength and your greatest flaw, you alone can spin a tale worthy of telling, even in Hell.

• What story do you wish to tell most of all?

What the last question specifically is asking is not, "Whats a bomb ass story you want to know and tell to people?" but instead, "What do you want the tale of your life in Hell to be? What epic narrative are you trying to play out here?" If you were Ayn Rand, it would be the tale of the person who through hard work and determination created their lot in life and were responsible for themselves. Bernie Sanders might want to tell the tale of someone who fought against those in power and defeated the oppressive powers and created a new world where everyone could live equally. Maybe your story is that of the mad genius, an artist tortured by your brilliance who is doomed to never be happy, but leave behind a legacy of genius. Maybe its the story of someone who messed up and is now searching for redemption, knowing that you can never truly atone for your sins. Maybe its a story of someone who has fallen, but can see the top of the mountain, and will do whatever it takes to get to the top. Its up to you.

The Bard's power is to tell a story. Its also totally stolen from ideas I've read in Dungeon World and Arnold K.'s blog. Once per layer, the Bard gets to tell a story to the DM and all the other players sitting at the table. Because of the Bard's confidence, skill, expansive knowledge of stories, and the reality warping nature of Hell, this story has at least a grain of truth to it. After using their ability, the Bard's player then gets to sit down, calm down, and give the DM at least a session to think up the implications of the story and how it relates to the plot, because jesus christ I hope you don't expect me to make a whole new encounter/story arch off the seat of my pants. Now its the DM's job to figure out how to incorporate this story into the adventure: what parts were true, what parts were just rumors, and what parts are the kind of ironic half truth that the Nine Hell's love so much. By the start of the next session, the DM should have this figured out and can give the Bard the hook based off of the story they told.

Stats and shit are bardy. Some thief abilities, one or two illusionist spells/cantrips, ok thaco, decent hp.

Skills are:

Performance **

Exploitation **

Something else, I don't know man *

Alright, quick aside, is malintent really not a word, or is the red squiggly wrong? That totally seems like a word, but I've been wrong before.

A Small Message From Myself

Listen, you fucked up. Look around, does this seem normal? Look at how the light from that streetlamp hangs in the air, its glow sticking to the night like warm breath on mirror. The sodium street-vapor street lamp spreads its yellow light over sickly trees, monochromatic branches twisting and turning in unnatural ways.

You're just thinking that man, its all in your head, you're freaking yourself out. The car which breaks the silence comes racing down the street, the breams from its headlights stretching out into the darkness. It takes a quick turn to the left down Washington Street without signaling. It probably would have hit you it you were there. As it leaves the street goes back to its eerie silence.

The truck to its left had its window smashed in and is now taped up in a haphazard fashion. You realize that you expected someone to be hiding behind it as you crossed the street, shadows lurking everywhere in the dim yellow light.

Its obvious you just feel this way because you're hungry, you aren't thinking straight. The sidewalk stretching on, trees making it look like a tunnel undulating slowly away from you into the dark. There's a man across the street a block down sitting in the lamp light.

You could go back to your house. The single florescent bulb on the porch shines brightly even now. Maybe you could push past the dishes and rotten food and find a small morsel to tide you over, just enough to get you to bed. But you're already more than half way to your car. I'm sure that it will be comforting, and you should eat something real tonight.

God you're dumb, this is all fake, there was no reason for you to dash across the street like that, you probably looked so fucking stupid. Inside the car the windshield causes the street light to spread its sickening glow twice as far. You get the impression that you could even just reach out and pull the glow off, peel away this reality and reveal something underneath.

Just turn on the car and get some food you idiot.

Strength is Dumb

Hey. So the way that Strength works with percentiles and stuff is completely unique among the systems in AD&D in a relatively nonsensical way, so since I'm ignoring/changing a bunch of rules for the Hell Game, I'm going to change how Strength works. Percentile Strength is now gone, here's the rest.

1-14: Unchanged

15: +1 Damage
16: +1 Hit, +1 Damage
17: +1 Hit, +2 Damage
18: +1 Hit, +3 Damage
19: +2 Hit, +3 Damage, 18/51 for everything else
20: +2 Hit, +5 Damage, 18/91 for everything else
21: +3 Hit, +6 Damage, 18/00 for everything else
22: +3 Hit, +8 Damage, 20 Str for everything else
23: +4 Hit, +9 Damage, 21 Str for everything else
24: +5 Hit, + 11 Damge, 23 Str for everything else
25: +6 Hit, +12 Damage, 25 Str for everything else

Maybe I'll ignore this, maybe it'll all backfire, maybe its dumb, but I'm going to try it since its always bothered me and I feel like I have the opportunity to fiddle with it now.

The Anatomy of the Devil

It is no secret that most mortals are made up of three disparate parts: the Mind, the Body, and the Soul. The Body is simply the physical form of the being, and everything which is derived from that. The Mind is the conscious and controlled thoughts of the entity. Its knowledge, cognitive reasoning, and memories all make up the Mind of a being. The Soul is truly where the personality and uniqueness of a being lies. The core beliefs and ideals of a person lies in their Soul. Souls are unique identifiers between people, which is why some mortals can recognize their reincarnated friends in different bodies. This is why Devils do not have souls.

The main purpose of transforming larva or promising LE souls into lemures is to make them completely and utterly nondescript. Each gooey blob of flesh appears the same as the other, and they are stripped of any ability to express their individuality. If the transformation into the lowest form in Hell isn't enough to strip the dead of its soul, then the constant abuse will. Every lemure in the history of Hell has been obliterated at least five times. Because these fleshy punching bags regenerate, Devils love to cure any anger, frustration, or boredom they may have by obliterating lemures. This constant destruction and reformation is incredibly taxing on any fragment of individuality left in the being, and it doesn't take long till the soul is completely destroyed.

Though they are missing a Soul, Devils are still made up of three parts. Anything less would not only make them unbalanced, but, even worse, violate their precious Rule of Three. For this reason, Devils created the metaphysical concept of the Mouth.

At the heart of Devils are three things, all of which are represented by the Mouth: ambition, lies, and taste. Ambition is what the Devil hungers for, what it desires to devour wholeheartedly, shoving into its gullet with reckless abandon. Lies are what come out of the mouth. A Devil never gives anything away for free that is true, and how it uses its words to twist, pervert, and misinterpret reality are what make a Devil itself. Taste is what brings a smile to a Devil's lips. Each Devil has something that brings them joy in an otherwise monotonous world, whether that be fine wine, murdering children, decapitation, or a nice meal. All of these together make up a Devil's Mouth.

The first form that Devils take upon being promoted out of its horrible existence as a lemure is a spinigon, or spined devil. At this point, the entity has no real Mouth to speak of, and is indistinguishable from other similar Devils. Because of this, the spined devil's job is to be a messenger, where they can learn of more powerful Devil's mouths and emulate them to slowly gain one of their own. Slowly through promotion, each Devil develops there own ambitions, lies, and tastes. By the time a Devil has become a Pit Fiend, it has a unique Mouth, different from each other Devil.

Unique Devils are beings who have completed mastery of their Body, Mind, and Mouth, knowing exactly who they are and what they want, along with what their weaknesses are. Because of this, unique Devils can take an action with their Body, Mind, and Mouth each combat round, with each part rolling initiative individually. The Body will do all things physical for the Devil. Moving, dodging, and attacking (even bite attacks) are the general plan. The Mind is what is in charge of almost all spells and spell like abilities the Devil commands, along with psionic abilities if you play with those. It is also responsible for enacting master plans thought up by the Devil and reacting to anything its opponents do. The Mouth is responsible for interpersonal communication, using the Devil's suggestion and reality warping abilities, and any signature or special moves the Devil has up their sleeves.

Each part of the Devil must also be defeated in order to completely finish off a unique Devil. Even without a functioning Body, an Arch-Devil's Mind and Mouth are formidable enough to finish off most foes.

The Body can be defeated in classic hack and slash fashion, poisoned, or even just bound. It should be noted that just as the body is the most obviously wounded, it is also the most commonly repaired by the actions of the other two. Many a fight have been turned when a Duke of Hell healed themselves when put in a sticky situation.

The Mind is vulnerable to distractions and impairment, along with psionic attack. Foiling a Devil's master plan can usually buy you a minute while they figure out what they want to do next. In addition, keeping the mind occupied on trivial tasks or impaired through magic will buy you a minute free from the minds advances.

The Mouth of a Devil is the most tricky part to defeat. The best way to do it is usually to besmirch the fiends honor or wound it's ego. Spitting in the eye of a Devil will be sure to put you on its list of most hated enemies, but it will also buy you a few seconds of peace as it tries to regain it's composure.

An example of play:

Mortalius the Meathead is a Duke of Hell who is currently being attacked by the Knights of Night, a LG adventuring party. Gary the Fighter runs up to the Devil and swings at him with his flail, only to miss. Mortalius's Mouth takes its action to scoff at the Gary's puny attack. If Gary fails a save his confidence will be broken, giving him a -2 on most actions for the rest of the battle. Mortalius now sees Barnaby the Mage standing under a stalactite and decides to use his Mind to throw one of his many iron hammers at the cave roof. Barnaby is only saved from being impaled by his Stoneskin spell. Finally, Mortalius uses his Body to throw another hammer at Bhaltair the Paladin.

The Knights decide they need so use better tactics to take on the Dread Duke. First, Barnaby yells out the secret combination to Mortalius's Bizzar Briefcase. Confused how the mortals could have figured out such a secret, Mortalius must make a save or loose his Mind's action this round. Realizing that hurting the creatures body will be all but impossible, Gary instead attacks the Devil's Mouth, using his dagger to cut Mortalius's belt. Mortalius lets out an angry below his Mouth spend their next two rounds trying desperately to keep his Diabolical Privates unexposed. Bhaltair now takes his oppertunity to slice the Devil with his Holy Sword, damaging the Meathead's Body. The Knights of Night may yet have a chance.