In my *Labyrinth Lord* game I’m using 1d6 damage for all weapons and I think that’s cool. It also means that in theory, clerics and wizards could wield swords, since it doesn’t make a difference: all weapons do 1d6 damage. But I’ve heard it said that the blunt weapon restriction wasn’t just a reference to real history, it also served the purpose of keeping *magic swords* out of the cleric’s hands. What is your experience?
Right now I think I’m going to drop this restriction and see how it develops. It seems that the difference on the attack table is not too great and eventually all the clerics will be running around with a sword as well. Alternatively, I could use the favourite weapon rule and make sure that those weapons never as enchanted as the magic swords that fighters can wield.
THAC0 for Fighters and Clerics at different XP levels:
+--------+---------+--------+ | XP | Fighter | Cleric | +--------+---------+--------+ | 0 | 19 | 19 | | 5000 | 18 | 19 | | 10000 | 17 | 18 | | 50000 | 15 | 17 | | 100000 | 14 | 17 | +--------+---------+--------+
If you think that the restriction is annoying for cleric players, did you do away with clerics? Or if not, how did about fighter players react? Did they feel that their fighters were loosing an important edge?
Hm, doing away with clerics is an alternative, of course…
Nobody started abusing the system, yet. In the end, the gold price difference doesn’t really matter. My players appear to be interested in prestige, too. There is no mechanic to support it except for the “waste treasure found to gain XP” rule we’re using. It turns out that some of them will spend hundreds of gold to get extravagant helmets, get trophies made into armor (eg. crab man armor), and so on. It wouldn’t do to use a club in this context. I also use the rule that you can’t fire ranged weapons when you’re in melee and switching weapons doesn’t take any time. Thus, the shield worn by a sling wielder only protects you against the first attack (possibly two depending on initiative) as the next round you’ll switch weapons. Maybe this is due to there being a lot of gaming available around here so most of the players interested builds and optimisation have drifted towards the D&D 3.5 and 4E games. The campaign has been going for about 20 sessions – I’m not sure whether this aspect will change much in the future. I’m assuming it will not.
The part I like best about magic swords reacting to their wielder is that it pushes me towards every magical sword being intelligent. I really should push this aspect. I think this is what I’ll be using.
#Old School #RPG