Party Time

This past weekend I rolled up a party of Tunnels & Trolls delvers: four PCs and four hirelings. Creating a single PC is a piece of cake, but putting together a large party by one's self involves a little more consideration. I'll post the completed characters in a future post after I finish equipping them. My intention was to understand the party creation process and then to tweak and streamline it. The end results are five T&T house rules specific to the character creation and advancement rules for the Finsterschmerzen campaign.

1) The TARO (triples add and roll over) rule for rolling beginning stats only applies to humans. I decided on this in order to give more incentive to play human PCs. The other races have stat multipliers that makes it hard NOT to choose a demihuman when creating a new PC. Nothing wrong with a ton of demihuman PCs, but I prefer a good mix of humans too. So if you TARO a 3d6 stat roll, that character must be a Human.

2) The race choices are limited to humans plus the five races listed on the Common Kindred chart: dwarf, elf, fairy, hobb, and leprechaun. The 32 races on the Rare Kindred chart are not available, since they are primarily evil races that will be contained in the castle. Those races will be available to play in a future campaign, entitled Everything's Gray: The Most Morally Ambiguous Campaign Ever.

3) PCs start with 3d6x10 gold, but hirelings (blanket term for things such as squire, apprentice, best pal, bodyguard, slave, etc. that accompany PCs) only start with 40 gold (i.e. the minimum amount that can be rolled on a TARO 3d6x10). The King of Ruheundfrieden is gifting 40 gold to any man or woman brave enough to enter Finsterschmerzen. This is enough to buy basic gear such as a mail coif, buckler shield, and a spear. Or, downgrade the spear to a cheaper weapon (such as a war shovel) and then add another piece of armor, such as vambraces. In general, the PCs are those who have a little extra coin saved up, whereas the hirelings are the young or poor and seek to join up with PCs to get started. Ideally, the PCs will have enough money left over to upgrade their hireling's equipment slightly.

4) Players have full control of hirelings, except they cannot use hirelings to declare special Saving Rolls. Hirelings can only perform SRs for purposes of casting spells, ranged combat, and other passive effects. They cannot declare stunt SRs each turn like PCs can. Because of this restriction, hirelings will gain xp at a slower rate than PCs. See my Tunnels & Trolls & Saving Rolls post about the relationship between SRs and xp.

5) The Specialty character types (humans only) add a fun easter egg factor to creating characters. A Specialty type can only be chosen if a stat roll is TAROed and 15 or greater. They aren't really any better than the regular types, they just have a single, powerful special ability. The rulebook only describes three specialty types (for Wisdom, Dexterity, and Charisma) but implies that others can be created. So this house rule adds Specialty types related to the other five stats. I'll describe them in more detail in a future post.

Realist - (Wisdom) - Just a fancy name for what the rulebook generically called "Specialty Mage"

Idealist - (Intelligence) - Another kind of specialty mage, but with a different advantage

Mouth - (Charisma) - The rulebook called this "Leader", but its special ability went beyond just leadership

Marksman - (Dexterity) - The rulebook called this "Ranger", but they are just good with ranged weapons...a misleading pun.

Greenlander - (Strength) - A warrior from the Northern Lands. Generic Norse/Irish inspiration.

Redskin - (Constitution) - A warrior from the Southern Lands. Generic Native/Barbarian inspiration.

Escrimador - (Speed) - Martial arts weapons master from the Eastern Lands. Filipino inspiration.

A Chosen One - (Luck) - This guy has all the luck.

Also, a few new weapons I created to go with some of the Specialty types:
Shillelagh - Walking stick club
Loaded Shillelagh - Lead poured into the club head
Pinuti - Filipino peasant short sword
Tamahak - Hatchet with mystical stone blade.

What do you think?