Random Yuan-ti Pureblood Snake-Like Features

The following are random serpentine features for Yuan-ti Pureblood characters. The features are generally subtle but if the same result comes up twice, the feature is much more pronounced. Roll 1d4 twice.

1 Slitted eyes. (Roll 1d4 for color: 1 Green; 2 Violet; 3 Amber; 4 Bronze)
2 Forked tongue.
3 Patches of scales. (Roll 1d4 for scales location: 1 Around face; 2 Shoulders; 3 Arms; 4 Back)
4 Sharp teeth.

Skills in my OD&D Game

One thing that stands out to me as I read the Little Brown Books is that the Thief class that appears in the Greyhawk supplement should have been called the Dungeoneer. While most of the skills can be found in an archetypal burglar, there isn't much practicality in taking a burglar into a dungeon environment. There won't be too many pockets to pick or windows to sneak into. And so I think that the skills that were given to this class were expected to come from years of hunting for treasure in these forgotten and God forsaken places, not for larceny.

Other material I've read (which I can't pinpoint right now, so I can't cite anything) suggest that the thief/dungeoneer class was created so that there could be a mechanical process for using the skills that would have otherwise been performed by any wise adventurer. In other words, these are things that players were expected to be doing with their fighters, clerics and magic users, but demanded hard rules on performing these tasks and being good at them.

I've decided that in my OD&D game there will be no thieves, but rather every character has a capacity for being skilled in certain dungeoneering tasks. There is no reason why a fighter can't also be a talented pickpocket or a magic-user unable to pick locks.

My solution is that during character creation a player must select three of the six skills for their character. The player must roll the skill’s target number or higher on a d20 to succeed. The target numbers for each skill increase as the character gains levels.

Skills can only be used once by a player in any situation. For example, a failure to pick a lock doesn’t mean that the character didn’t just succeed on that one attempt. It means that the lock itself is beyond the character’s abilities and could not be unlocked until the character learns more about the lock itself (i.e. gains a level).

Level	Pick Locks	Disarm Traps	Pickpocket	Sneak	Hear Noise	Climbing
1	18	18	17	17	17	5
2	17	17	16	16	17	5
3	16	16	15	15	14	5
4	14	14	14	14	14	5
5	13	13	12	12	14	5
6	12	12	10	10	14	5
7	10	10	9	9	11	5
8	8	8	8	8	11	5
9	6	6	6	6	11	5
10	4	4	4	4	11	5
11	2	2	2	2	8	5
12	NA	NA	NA	NA	8	5
13	NA	NA	NA	NA	5	5
14	NA	NA	NA	NA	5	5

(By the way, these target numbers are rough conversions of the percentile and d6 rolls in Greyhawk. I converted them to d20 for simplification.)

Pick Locks: This skill allows the character to disengage mechanical locks on doors or containers. It may also be used to tinker with very simple mechanism. A roll of 1 will result in the lock mechanism breaking but remaining engaged, thus making it unpickable by anyone. The character must have a lockpicking tool to use this skill.

Disarm Traps: This skill allows the character to disarm or intentionally spring traps without harming themselves. A roll of a 1 will result in the trap springing and hitting the character for full effect. This skill cannot be used to find hidden traps. Much like the Pick Locks skill, this skill can be used to tinker with simple mechanisms.

Pickpocket: This skill allows the character to carefully remove something from the pockets of a target. The target must not be expecting this theft and must not be focusing on the character (or at least not on the character’s hands). This skill may also be used for general sleight of hand. This skill check may be rolled by the Referee to keep the result a secret to the player.

Sneak: This skill allows the character to hide and move silently, without drawing the attention of others. The environment must provide some sort of cover, such as shadows or large objects, as this is not a magical invisibility skill. Every turn a character moves silently requires a separate skill check. The character must not be wearing noisy armor to use this skill. This skill will usually be rolled in secret by the Referee as the character will not immediately know if they are sufficiently hidden from any threat.

Hear Noise: This skill represents extremely keen senses rather than simply the ability to hear. A success would provide the character with information based on barely audible sounds in the environment, such as distant footprints or the faint sound of rushing water. This skill may be rolled secretly by the Referee.

Climbing: This skill allows the character to climb a surface without normal hand holds and without climbing equipment. It does not apply to surfaces that are unnaturally flat, like a wall of unbroken, polish marble. A failure will result in the character falling from a distance of the referee’s choosing. A character cannot use this skill if they are wearing armor heavier than leather or have extremely large or heavy objects on them.

Deciphering OD&D

When I haven't been working on my Star Wars White Star Campaign, I've been picking away at the original little books for D&D. I've been doing this for two main reasons. First, I want to learn more about this history of the game and this is the seminal rule set. Secondly, I want to figure out the best possible rule set for me and my players and Original Dungeons and Dragons has the fewest rules of all the editions. Since my players are not rules-minded people and I only have so much mental bandwidth I can devote to knowing all the rules for the game, OD&D seems like the best place to start.

You may have heard that the OD&D rules are hard to grasp at first. That they have terrible organization and make certain assumptions about the players and their knowledge of tabletop gaming, specifically with wargaming. This is all true, but I've found that the rules are not that hard to comprehend if you have the right guidance. After about a week of reading the rules and reading commentary on the rules, I am confident I could run a very successful game using only the rules as they appear in the three little books. He's what I used to get here.

First, download the original books from RPGNow. At least read the first book, Men and Magic, strait through. Don't look for explanations cheat sheets right away. The book is the size of the average zine, so you won't be in the woods for long.

Next, read Philotomy's Musings as a commentary to the original books. This will give you valuable insight into how the game is run using those weird, bare-boned rules. The author does a great job of addressing most every rule and explaining what Arneson and Gygax were thinking and why those rules work at the table.

Once you've done this, you can read through the free version of Swords & Wizardry Whitebox. This is not a true retroclone of the first set of rules as there are several key differences, but it's pretty close and you can easily see how all those rules spread out across Men and Magic would work together with better organization. You may also be more interested in this version of the rules after spending some time with OD&D.

I was planning on making a document that was just the rules from Men and Magic with better organization, but now I think that piecing together the rules for oneself is a valuable rite of passage. It has certainly helped me come to terms with how few rules D&D needs to still feel like D&D and it has strengthen my idea of what My D&D Game is like.

On Tieflings and Their Horns

In majesty he is like a firstborn bull; his horns are the horns of a wild ox. With them he will gore the nations, even those at the ends of the earth. Deuteronomy 33:17

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It is no mystery that at the tiefling race is born from the unholy union of man and demon, although the specific nature of that union may never be uncovered by mortal scholars. Just as the race of man manifests itself in a multitude of skin tones, so does the tiefling race find diversity in the many shapes and characteristic of their horns. Just as legions of different demons bring pestilence to the earth, so are there differences in the physical features of this infernal race. 

Parentage has no bearing on the type of horns that a tiefling will grow. If anything influences the growth of these horns, it is the stars or the flippant will of dark gods. 

Each type of horn imbues a different set of abilities upon the tiefling in the form of its Infernal Legacy spells. The spells on the following tables replace those that appear in the Players Handbook. 

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d12	Horn Manifestation	Infernal Legacy Spells
1	Short and blunt, like that of a young goat.	First level: Thaumaturgy cantrip. third level: Hellish Rebuke; fifth level: Darkness
2	Large, long and sharp, like that of a great steer.	First level: Prestidigitation cantrip. third level: Protection from Evil and Good; fifth level: Hold Person
3	Thick and curving backwards, like that of a ram.	First level: Guidance cantrip. third level: Longstrider; fifth level: Beast Sense
4	Tall, many-pronged antlers, like that of an elk.	First level: Druidcraft cantrip. third level: Speak with Animals; fifth level: Pass without Trace
5	Long and tall, spiraling widely like that of an antelope.	First level: Dancing Lights cantrip. third level: Color Spray; fifth level: Mirror Image
6	Smooth, stout and sharp, like that of a bull.	First level: Blade Ward cantrip. third level: Armor of Agathys; fifth level: Hold Person
7	Long and tightly ridged, like that of a gazelle.	First level: True Strike cantrip. third level: Expeditious Retreat; Fifth level: Blur
8	Thick at the skull, swooping downwards and up again, like that of the musk ox.	First level: Thaumaturgy cantrip. third level: Sanctuary; fifth level: Zone of Truth
9	Large, pointing forward with deadly sharp points, like that of the auroch.	First level: Spare the Dying cantrip. third level: Command; fifth level: Silence
10	Spiraling wildly and at uneven lengths, like that of the chimera and the monstrous.	First level: Eldritch Blast cantrip. third level: Hex; fifth level: Crown of Madness
11	Long and rough, curling in on themselves many times over, like that of the Sun Goat.	First level: Thaumaturgy cantrip. third level: Cure Wounds; fifth level: Spiritual Weapon
12	Made of gnarly ironwood, like the branches of a cursed tree.	First level: Mage Hand cantrip. third level: Unseen Servant; fifth level: Spider Climb

An avatar of the Sun Goat.

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