Advancement in old school games

[Alex Schroeder]

I’m running a campaign using a house-ruled B/X called “Halberds and
Helmets” in Stonehell. Yesterday, a player mentioned that there was no
point in advancing their thief from level 1 to level 2 since all that
changed was a reroll of their hit-points (using 2d4 instead of 1d4 and
they had already gotten a 4 on level 1; rerolling all hit dice and
keeping the result if it is higher than their previous score is one of
the house rules). After some back and forth and much chuckling they
finally rolled 2d4 and got a 5. Yay! +1 hp for second level. While
adventuring, they got hit for 4 damage! It had been worth it.

But then they got attacked by an insect swarm that did 2 damage to
everybody in the area, so that one remaining hp was gone and they had to
roll on the Death & Dismemberment table (another house rule) and lost a
leg! The corridor was already on fire so it was the burning cockroaches
and hornets and whatever else that was in there that caused the leg to
swell up and get infected… and it had to be taken off in order to save
the poor thief.

My rule for losing a leg is that it works like Captain Hook in the
Disney Peter Pan I remember from my youth: there’s no real disadvantage
except for the tock tock tock sound the wooden leg makes. No sneaking!
Which is tough for the second level thief.

The players really want to find some elven boots, now, because that
allows anybody to sneak, and we decided that you should be able to tie
the second boot to the wooden leg and it should work.

Yay!

"All we wanted to do is find the kobold market. Instead we find a
murdered kobold, chase down the murderer (an orc we think), get
ambushed by more orcs, sleep them, get ambushed by more orcs, sleep
them, tie them all around us as a "buffer" of sorts, decide to take
the 10 orcs to the orc leader to see what we can get, accept
membership in the "Festering Wound" tribe of orcs who are already very
afraid of halflings, finally make it to the entrance of the kobold
market, get ambushed by an insert swarm, burn and sleep that swarm,
have one character's leg eaten off by burning cockroaches, and finally
leave. With 20 sp. These are the days of high adventure!" Martina
drones on between beers...

[gbbgu]

Post by Alex Schroeder
Yesterday, a player mentioned that there was no
point in advancing their thief from level 1 to level 2 since all that
changed was a reroll of their hit-points

I've read a few attempts at smoothing out the level advancement. Here's one I
found after a quick search:

<https://talesoftheramblingbumblers.com/2022/02/24/smoothing-attack-bonus-progression/>

They just tackle THAC0, I'm sure others have taken on the saving throw tables
as well.

I don't know the history of why it was originally lumped into 3 groups of 3. A
theory from the above link postulates it might be limitation of using a
typewriter and being efficient in small books.

Levelling up and then just getting "yay a few more hp" seems pretty
anti-climatic.

In a home-brewed skills based game I played years ago we had a rule that you
remained at your current level until you got to a largish town and could train
to get the new benifits. You don't get better at using a sword just cause you
waved it around a lot, you also needed someone better at it than you to show
you how to improve your technique. Similar to a magic user researching new
spells.

[Alex Schroeder]

Post by gbbgu
I've read a few attempts at smoothing out the level advancement. Here's one I
<https://talesoftheramblingbumblers.com/2022/02/24/smoothing-attack-bonus-progression/>
They just tackle THAC0, I'm sure others have taken on the saving throw tables
as well.

Sure thing. I don’t care enough to make the change, but we’ll see.
Perhaps the pressure increases to add something to my house rules.

For the moment, I’ve added the link to the “Links to Wisdom” wiki.
https://campaignwiki.org/wiki/LinksToWisdom/

[gbbgu]

Post by Alex Schroeder
For the moment, I’ve added the link to the “Links to Wisdom” wiki.
<https://campaignwiki.org/wiki/LinksToWisdom/>

Wow, that is a fantastic resource! I'm amazed by how many links you're
collected there. I love seeing that after all these years people are still
hacking on the rules.

[gbbgu]

Post by Alex Schroeder
(using 2d4 instead of 1d4 and
they had already gotten a 4 on level 1; rerolling all hit dice and
keeping the result if it is higher than their previous score is one of
the house rules)

How do higher levels work when you have multiple dice? Do you reroll the whole
pool keeping the new total if it's higher and then making a second roll for
the new level dice?

It reminded me years ago I'd hear beginners sometimes would re-roll the whole
HP pool and then get worse results.

For interest, here's the text from the Basic rulebook:

ROLLING HIT POINTS: Each time a character earns enough experience points to
gain a new level, the character gets to roll for more hit points. When
starting out, each character rolls one hit die, using the type of die given
for the character class. Upon reaching second level, the character rolls the
same type of die a second time and adds the result to the first roll. This
process is repeated for each new level. The result of each new hit die roll is
always added to the total of the other hit die rolls.

[Alex Schroeder]

Post by gbbgu
How do higher levels work when you have multiple dice? Do you reroll
the whole pool keeping the new total if it's higher and then making a
second roll for the new level dice?

You reroll the entire new pool and keep the new sum if it’s higher than
what you have. So first level fighter rolls a d8 gets a 5; gains second
level and now rolls 2d8 gets a 4, keeps the 5; gains third level and now
rolls 3d8 gets a 14. That’s my house rule, not from B/X.

[gbbgu]

Post by Alex Schroeder
My rule for losing a leg is that it works like Captain Hook in the
Disney Peter Pan I remember from my youth: there’s no real disadvantage
except for the tock tock tock sound the wooden leg makes. No sneaking!
Which is tough for the second level thief.

Sounds like an excellent opportunity to pivot into security consulting work :)