3d6 in castles and crusades.

I do not make all these house rules because I think C&C is broken. I think C&C's Siege engine is great. But I see no reason not to tweak the system a little. I'm a tinkerer for one' and second I like to mold the system to the setting. I dont always run C&C in the same setting.

Along with the rest of my huge list of house rules for C&C. Why not have a 3d6 option.
I really do like a bell curve. But using 3d6 does mean adjusting a few numbers. One great thing about the siege engine is that most all rolls are against a base difficulty of 12 or 18, depending on if the attribute you are rolling against is prime or not. So all that really needs adjusted in those base target numbers.

First lets looks at primary attributes. A primary attribute base is 12 in standard C&C. For a d20 this is this is supposed to be a roll that is just slightly easier than 50% for a 1st level character with an above average prime attribute.. For a 3d6 most rolls will be average of 10.I think this would be a good target number for a primary attribute roll.

For secondary attributes the base difficulty is 18.
This would be way too difficult for a 3d6 roll. So I feel the difficulty for secondary attribute should be a  14.

This is all just a first impression and needs some play testing. I'll follow up once I have tried it all out.

No longer using AC in castles and crusades.

I really like how the siege engine works in C&C. Why not use the siege engine for combat too? Rolling to hit would be simply rolling on whatever stat you would roll to attack on normally for a siege check (Str for melee, Dex for ranged). And armor bonuses would add to the difficulty of the roll.

So for example if your strength was prime your target number to hit with a broad sword would be 12. If the target was well aware of the attack (Dex bonus of +1) and wearing leather armor (+2) the difficulty to hit him would be a 15.  (this is not entirely a new idea, a Variation is used in starsiege.)

This option may work even better in a setting where armor is damage reduction rather than an armor class bonus. Making difficulties to hit just your base difficulty and dex bonus. (as it is in star siege.)

Another option to sprout off of that last one would be to do both. Armor adds to difficulty to hit. And also gives a damage reduction based on how heavy it is. 1 point for light armor, 2 for medium, and 3 for heavy.

This could also be split into two ways too. Regular armor bonus adding to difficulty to hit. While magic defense bonuses are damage reduction. Or switch that and make magic make you hard to hit and magic is damage reduction.

Remember, Now that an attack roll is a siege check add your level to attack rolls.

Just some options to toss around.

Gritty 6 (Adding grit to Epic6) for C&C

A few posts back I explored the idea of using Epic 6. I have been putting even more thought into this. I really want to use Epic 6 to represent a gritty and dangerous world for a setting I'm working on.

Here is a reworking of some of the basic rules I will be using with Epic6 to make Gritty6. Character cant level above 6th level as in Epic6. Any mortal man at level six is an epic hero, some one of legend.

First off hit points. All character start off with 2d6 HP. If you prime is Strength or Constitution then change starting HP to 2d8. If the character has a Constitution bonus in the positive add it to the total at first level only. That is it. All characters will start with between 2d6 and 2d8+ (Con bonus) hit points. No new hit points are gained each new level.

Attack rolls. On any attack roll that exceeds the "to hit" number needed by five weapons do automatic maximum damage. On a natural roll of 20 weapon damage is doubles. These two do stack. So a roll of 20 that is 5 greater than the roll needed will do double maximum damage.

Im sure more ideas on this will jump out at me. This is just what I got for now.

ICONS

How could I not like ICONS.
I'm a huge FUDGE and FATE fan. Have been since about 1996 when I first ran across an older copy of FUDGE online. Being a huge Dresden files fan doesn't hurt since evil hat productions used FATE for the dresden files game.

Icons is a simple but elegant little system that is really more akin to FUDGE with out words for values than it is FATE. and really doesn't use aspects at all, Which is really what makes FATE different from FUDGE.

Icons uses a style that is very loose and lite on rules. Its also has a style about it that reminds me of the old marvel universe RPG.

The one and only thing about ICONS I find weird is rolling 2D6 and subtracting one from the other. In a of FUDGE and FATE books there are a lot of alternate dice techniques. I think the 1D6 - 1D6 method is my least favorite. Although that doesn't really concern me since I have FUDGE dice.

A lot of what I see for ICONS looks good. But nothing grabbed my attention more than the work being done by Vigilance Press.  

Pulp inspired WWII and Cold war era supers. Yes please!!!!!

Any game that lets me kill Zombie Nazis is a +1 in my book.

ICONS

Desert Troll

 Desert Troll
NO. ENCOUNTERED: 1-3
SIZE: Large (8' long)
HD: 3 (d10)
MOVE: 20 ft., 40 ft. (roll)
AC: 15
ATTACKS: 2 slam (1d6),or club or rock (1d8).
SPECIAL: Darkvision 60', Regeneration (2hp).
SAVES: P
INT: Animal
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
TYPE: Humanoid
TREASURE: 2
XP: 50+3

In the southern reaches of the middle lands is the great desert of red sand. While many dangers await adventurers trying to cross the sand. The desert troll is an opportunist hunter. Often following its prey, waiting for it to be at its weakest before attacking. Desert troll have thick and scaly hide that matches the color of the surrounding red sand. After attacking and either killing or severely injuring its prey the desert troll will drag it back to its cave. Often stringing up what it doesn't eat immediately in a deep reach of the cave to be eaten later.

vɑ̃piʀ (C&C monster)

Vɑ̃piʀ are Creatures of the night. They hunt the shadows and dark alleys of most major cities. Like their vampire cousins they live on the blood of other humanoids. Many also enjoy the flesh as well. While vampires cling to some semblance of their human lives, vɑ̃piʀ do not. They are instinctual hunters who use the sewers and dark ally ways of over crowded human cities as private game reserves. Although animalistic, thay are smart enough to pick off those that will not be missed. Or find ways of disposing bodies in a way that can be explained as natural or at least not supernatural.


vɑ̃piʀ 
NO. ENCOUNTERED: 1    SAVES: M, P
SIZE: Medium     INT: Average
HD: 8 (d12)      ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil
MOVE: 60 ft., TYPE: Undead (Unique)
30 ft. (climb, Wall walk)     TREASURE: 8
AC: 20         XP: 1885+8
ATTACKS: Slam (1d6)
SPECIAL: Blood Drain, Damage Resistance (DR:1),
Spider Climb,


vɑ̃piʀ are incredibly fast runners. They can also climb and wall walk (as spider climb) on any surface.

C&C Advancement (Level)

One thing I really like about 3.0/3.5 was the ease of multi-classing. To do so you pretty much need a single level progression for all classes. There are one or two different options for multi-classing in C&C, none of them have the ease of 3.0/3.5 multi-classing. Once again the beauty of C&C is that its math is based on the d20 system and is easily ported over. I thought I would use pathfinders progression for an example. Pathfinder offers three different progression speeds. slow, medium, and fast. So you can set the pace of your game.

Level     Slow     Medium     Fast
1st           —           —           —
2nd        3,000     2,000       1,300
3rd        7,500     5,000        3,300
4th        14,000    9,000       6,000
5th        23,000   15,000     10,000
6th        35,000    23,000    15,000
7th        53,000    35,000    23,000
8th        77,000    51,000    34,000
9th      115,000     75,000   50,000
10th     160,000  105,000   71,000

The other option for this is to use the System laid out in True20. Which is there is no system in True20. In that system the GM just decides when you level. He looks at your accomplishments and tells you when you have reached the next level. As a group, or individually. Many gamers have a knee jerk reaction to not like this option. But I really think its great. Since the GM decided when you earn Experience any way it just knows down the pretense that leveling is some how up to the system and not the GM.