Revised Bard for Labyrinth Lord

A long time ago I wrote up a terrible over powered bard class for ll.  This is the revision.

Bard:  

A person who composed & recited epic or heroic poems, often while playing the harp, lyre or the like. 

Requirements: INT 9, DEX 9, CHA 11

Prime Requisite: DEX

Hit Dice: 1D4

Use dwarf attack matrix.

Bard Level Progression

Experience	Level	Hit Dice (1d4)
0	1	1
1500	2	2
3000	3	3
4500	4	4
9000	5	5
18,000	6	6
36,000	7	7
72,000	8	8
144,000	9	9
288,000	10	+2 hp only
576,000	10+	+4 hp only

Bards will be able to cast spells & perform thieving abilities upon reaching 5th level.  After 10^th level they do not receive any more bonus spells, or upgrades to their thieving skills.

When casting spells Bards must be unarmoured.  Bards tend to stick to charm & illusion type spells, normally not offensive destructive spells, they leave those up to the crazy wizards in the pointy hats! 

Spell Progression

Class Level	1	2	3	4	5
4	-	-	-	-	-
5	1	-	-	-	-
6	2	1	-	-	-
7	2	2	-	-	-
8	2	2	1	-	-
9	2	2	2	-	-
10	3	2	2	1	-

Thieving Skills Progression

Class Level	Climb Walls	Pick Pockets	Hear Noise
5	87	23	1-2
6	88	27	1-2
7	89	30	1-3
8	90	37	1-3
9	91	40	1-3
10	92	43	1-4

Once per day a bard can sing a song that acts as a charm person spell.  

Bards have a 15% chance of knowing the best tavern in a town to find solid rumours.

Bards can only wear leather armour.  They typically have a pair of daggers, and on occasion a small crossbow or sling.

They always add +1 to morale, and encounter checks because of their wonderful smile.

Turnbuckle

Turnbuckle is a bustling village in the shade of luminescent mushrooms.  The citizenry is made up of dark humanoids who moved to the surface years ago.  These include (dark) elves, gnomes, dwarves, darklings, and a few nastier creatures from the underworld.

Don't get me wrong, for the most part the citizens are pleasant and sort of get along.

As previously discussed this is the underworld above ground after an apocalypse, ruled by the iron hand of a death knight.  

Please throw out whatever you believe about the above creatures, they've come along way from their cruel ness.  Some more than others.

Turnbuckle is ruled by a council of 5, most of them being dwarves.  They are generally concerned for the welfare of the community and others.  Great planners, and politico's.

Darklings have a knack for commerce and own quite a bit of property and business. 

Gnomes as they've always been are inventor's, architects, and engineers.

The few dark elves make up the bulk of the workforce.  

Rope bridges and ladders jump from mushroom to mushroom, some homes are built among them.

The three eyed newt is the place for gossip, a glass of wine and a bards song.

Resting your weary head, look no further than the nestled hen, a nice inn on the edge of town.  A small stable sits outside for riding lizards and the like.

The village has a very small crew of volunteer guards, made up mostly of dwarves.  Most are not seasoned.  Thankfully the raids from undead and others are infrequent.

There are a few market stalls were common goods can be found.  Most goods worth more than 25 gp in your equipment list are 15% more and there is a 45% chance there is only one.

The Mulvey brothers (darklings ) own a small trading company and store.  They tend to only be in town for a few weeks at a time.  There is a 25% chance they are available.

The village does not have a blacksmith proper, however a smart person could speak with a gnome for design, and find a dark elf to do the work perhaps.  

Work wise, there's plenty of farming, a small quarry, fishing and the big job of finishing the wall around the village.

Religion is quite varied among the races.  This however a cult of the moon, that worships when the sun goes down (reminder it's only sunlight four hours a day)

They believe that thru sacrifice they can bring on eternal darkness.  

*Please note: darklings are halfings with dark vision.  They have grey hair on their head and feet.  

Of course this is a starting point.  I obviously need to add some politics, NPC names, all the balancing act goodies.

I'm addicted to pirate games

 I only just realized this after purchasing "Neverland" that I'm addicted to pirates.  My favourite adventure of all time is isle of dread which I've ran a few times.  I grabbed a copy of saltmarsh as well and enjoyed reading it.   I've had multiple 5e characters with the pirate background including a female dread pirate Roberts I created for my wife to play.

I'm thinking there is probably a way to stitch all of the above adventures together!  I also have the basic fantasy Monkey isle which is awesome.

In other random news.  The grognard google chat has decided to run one game a month online.   Basically a one shot.  I had mentioned it had been awhile since I GMd a game, and I wanted to try out Holmes dnd.

I've got a small dungeon ready to go for it.  Just need to add some bits and bobs to the player drive (including the link to zenopus archives reference sheets).

After my game we are all going to take turns running a game.  I'm sure there will be 5e, shadowdark, and other interesting stuff.

I've spent a lot of time writing adventures, factions and other world building stuff while I've been on vacation.  Doing it old school in a notebook.  Which includes drawing maps on lined paper hahha. 

Unfortunately I have to really keep an eye on my schedule lately as we have some family things we are dealing with and it only leaves so much time.  I'm making the most of what I have available.  

I'm excited

 I haven't ran a game in a good while.  I had a monthly 5e game going for a bit.  However that was derailed when my Dad moved in with us unexpectedly.

I was chatting with the guys on our Google hangouts thread and I suggested that I really want to run a game for them at some point.

This lead to the idea of each of us taking a turn once a month and running a game.  Rotating GMs!

I've decided to run a Holmes game, as I received a copy from my friend Jeff and have been itching to play it.

I read thru the sample dungeon and I may run that.  Alternatively I'm on vacation and may be able to create something.

Either way it should be fun!

I think this will be a hangouts game, no roll20 or maps.

Random places on dark world

 1.  An ancient magical portal that transports you to an elegant throne room.

2.  The outskirts of a ruined city, infested with bandits and slimey monsters.

3.  A lookout tower that allows a 360 view of the surrounding countryside.

4.  A marble chess board that is lifesize missing it's pieces.

5.  A small fen filled with greenish glowing water.

6.  A wasteland of rusted metal mounds piled high.

7.  A repository of information.  A small cubicle that will spit out a prophecy on parchment.

8.  A vacant marauders camp, their bones are piled on a former pyre.

9.  A field of low growing mushrooms, guarded by mutant dogs.

10.  Cracked earth, a cliff overlooks a deep hole leading underground.

11.  A small village being rebuilt.

12.   A purple Haze choked grassland.

More to come.  

Don't suggest it

Too often I here people say they are

Starting a campaign as a player

Or 

Creating a campaign as a DM.

This wording puts a lot of pressure on people.  Especially when you are first starting.  I myself have had this is issue numerous times.  Some anxiety seeps in and I spend way to much time over thinking it.

Your are playing an adventure or running one.  Maybe it will continue... maybe it won't, maybe it will restart.

I think the best thing you can do is play games with friends and see what happens.  Stop worrying about an end goal.

 I'm going to be running "horror on the hill" soon using whitebox fmag with some friends.

Why I love rules light games when playing online

I tried Shadowdark RPG for the first time this evening and throughly enjoyed it.  I should likely preface this statement by stating the following: 

• I had to take a brief break from the ongoing OSE campaign (which ended up at 30+ sessions)
• It's in the exact same world at the same time as the OSE campaign. 
• The OSE campaign was wildly fun but also fairly serious at times.  
• Trying a new game is a great restart for everyone.
• Hanging out with all my friends is making my heart so happy.  I honestly needed a laugh with everything that has been going on latetly. 

The nice thing about playing easy to run D&D like games online is you get to the meat and potatoes of gaming.  We start laughing and roleplaying and not worrying about any tactical, min maxing silliness.  

When you only have a couple of hours to play (Which BTW I absolutely adore...more on that later) its nice to just be able to jump into a game.  I rolled up my character in all of 5 minutes.

Honestly that's all I got.  Much like whitebox or holmes, I really enjoy just jumping and going and not getting dragged down with any extra sheets on my character sheet.  

I have to say Shadowdark is the best of a lot of the great OSR ideas that have come along over the years.  There's a bit of everything in there.  Definitely try it out.