Troll Lord Games

(A repost of an identical announcement on the Dragonsfoot boards.)

I made a minor update to the links on my page in that they all open in new windows. I'm getting an urge to make the page not look so plain, but my Homestead account doesn't have a lot of room on it for a graphics heavy site like the TIME LORD RPG site that I have linked in my profile. I might make a second Geocities account to contain the site and downloads, as my updates seem to be ballooning in size due to the use of clip art.

The following have been updated to conform to the 2d printing Players Handbook.
Alternate Encumbrance System - the new equipment lists have been added. The Magic Items table in the Treasure Encumbrance section got a major face lift to make it easier to read. Look and feel is now consistent with the 2d printing of the Players Handbook.House Rules - the tables from the Alternate Encumbrance System are repeated here, but the major update here besides look and feel are some major clarification and streamlining of the Challenge Class system I use. If anyone still uses that system in their games, they might want to take another look, as the system should be a lot less confusing, and thus easier to understand.
There is more to come. Stay tuned.
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NOTE TO ALL: If you don't like something I've said, PM me and tell me to my face, then give me a chance to set things right before you call a moderator.
My small homage to E.G.G.

Will do. I love it when other people do all this work so I don't have to. So I sincerely appreciate your, and everyone elses, efforts.

Treebore wrote:
Will do. I love it when other people do all this work so I don't have to. So I sincerely appreciate your, and everyone elses, efforts.

Ditto!
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Never throw rocks at a man with a Vorpal Sword!

Yeah. Thanks, Traveller.

The "Beat Them to Pulp" took me back to my Rolemaster days and will give it a try as my players go up in level. I don't like using magic too much, so the old RM charts can come in handy to shorten combat.

I noticed that the criticals are determined by the modified to hit. There is a potential problem that characters with good AC's will suffer a critical from virtually all the hits they suffer. Also, with the five critical ranges, you have a 25% of scoring a critical with each swing. That seems deadly: even by Rolemaster standards!

Something to try is to use a margin of success instead of a modified to hit roll. Maybe a progression of two, eg: Hit by >2 is an 'A' critical, by >4 is a 'B' critical, etc., could work. That would make the higher criticals sometimes impossible, but that's what armor is for anyway.

Thanks Traveller, much appreciated!
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Count Rhuveinus - Lejendary Keeper of Castle Franqueforte

"Enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" ~ Gary Gygax

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:" - Macbeth

BeZurKur wrote:
Yeah. Thanks, Traveller.

The "Beat Them to Pulp" took me back to my Rolemaster days and will give it a try as my players go up in level. I don't like using magic too much, so the old RM charts can come in handy to shorten combat.

I noticed that the criticals are determined by the modified to hit. There is a potential problem that characters with good AC's will suffer a critical from virtually all the hits they suffer. Also, with the five critical ranges, you have a 25% of scoring a critical with each swing. That seems deadly: even by Rolemaster standards!

Something to try is to use a margin of success instead of a modified to hit roll. Maybe a progression of two, eg: Hit by >2 is an 'A' critical, by >4 is a 'B' critical, etc., could work. That would make the higher criticals sometimes impossible, but that's what armor is for anyway.

The roots of "Beat 'em to a Pulp!" date back to the mid 80's when I was DMing AD&D. What you're seeing are 20 year old ideas put onto paper by a much older me with far better writing skills.
While yours sounds like a decent idea, I think in order to keep the feel of the system as I envisioned it in 1985, I should change the system so that it doles out criticals on unmodified 1d20 results of 16+. In the Players Handbook, "to hit" is determined by 1d20 +BTH +Str Bonus >= target AC. So, using the A critical as an example, as I have it now, a fighter of 4th level with 17 Strength would in fact only need to roll a 10 on the d20 to score an A critical, assuming that the fighter manages to score a hit at all. After all, if the fighter doesn't hit, then he doesn't get a critical. By requiring the 1d20 roll to be unmodified, while you still have that 25% chance of getting a critical (something I DON'T have a problem with) and a 5% chance of a specific critical, it does reduce the chance of high level fighters getting criticals on every shot. Because at 12th level, with the system as written, a Fighter with an 18 Strength would be guaranteed a critical of some sort (1d20 +12 +3 >=16. 1d20>=1 to score an A critical).

I think I should point out that I am always looking for feedback on these types of things, because I know there are people out there who want to actually use them. By bouncing ideas around, everything gets to be better.
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NOTE TO ALL: If you don't like something I've said, PM me and tell me to my face, then give me a chance to set things right before you call a moderator.
My small homage to E.G.G.

I agree that using an unmodified roll is better than a modified roll. That sounds like a good change. However, that also means that all hits against a knight in full plate and shield from a low level monster will also result in a C,D, or E critical. I suppose that will keep high-level characters on their toes from even lowly goblins since it can result in a nasty '66' result on the chart: they were always such grusome deaths! So, I can undestand why some might consider that favorable. I prefer to keep criticals less common, but hey, that's why were playing C&C: to adjust to taste. Thanks for the conversion of the charts and reminding me of all those fun tables. I'll give it a run later in my campaign.

Just to let you know how brutal I can be, I'm an advocate of bumping dragon hit dice to d20, as I believe in their present state in Monsters & Treasure, they are not fearsome enough. After all, as I discovered myself in playing AD&D, at about level fifteen there wasn't much to challenge the adventurers. So a knight falling due to a critical from a goblin isn't so bad. Of course, I don't allow knights in my game.

Let me know how things go for you.
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NOTE TO ALL: If you don't like something I've said, PM me and tell me to my face, then give me a chance to set things right before you call a moderator.
My small homage to E.G.G.

The Character Creation Cheat Sheet has been updated to conform with 2d Print standards. I believe I have one other document left to update, and then I'll rack my brain for some new stuff.
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NOTE TO ALL: If you don't like something I've said, PM me and tell me to my face, then give me a chance to set things right before you call a moderator.
My small homage to E.G.G.

Hey Traveller, I'm getting nothing but browser crashes whenever I try to download any of your files. Not sure if the problem's on your end or my end, but I thought I'd mention it juuuuuust in case.

Ink
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Check out Inkpot's C&C Downloads: http://www.cncplayer.net/inkpot/index.htm

C&C: Blissfully devoid of gestalt neko-hin rogue/fighter/mages!!

Inkpot wrote:
Hey Traveller, I'm getting nothing but browser crashes whenever I try to download any of your files. Not sure if the problem's on your end or my end, but I thought I'd mention it juuuuuust in case.

Ink

Me too. At least on the house rules .pdf. 2 out of 3 times it locked up my browser (Firefox). There might be an issue with FF's Adobe plug-in.
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Count Rhuveinus - Lejendary Keeper of Castle Franqueforte

"Enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" ~ Gary Gygax

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:" - Macbeth

Homestead was having some issues last night, and I'm moving to another geocities account because of Homestead's failure to properly support Firefox. Homestead requires a plugin in order to work with Firefox, and while the plugin works, Homestead's javascript is messed up, and I have to use IE to upload files. At least with Geocities, I don't need anything special, plus I get more space.

Rhu, what version of Firefox are you using? There have been reports of Acrobat plug-in problems lately on Firefox, usually from not having the latest version.

I made these up in Acrobat 7, and they more than likely need Reader 7 to work properly, although in the settings for the PDF printer driver, they claim compatibility with 5.0 when using the most current version of the PDF spec.

Try upgrading Acrobat Reader, or dump Acrobat Reader and download Foxit PDF Reader. The Foxit program has no installer. Just dump into a directory (mine is in Program Files/Foxit) and point your PDF's at it. It does a fairly good job for a freeware program.
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NOTE TO ALL: If you don't like something I've said, PM me and tell me to my face, then give me a chance to set things right before you call a moderator.
My small homage to E.G.G.

Traveller wrote:
Rhu, what version of Firefox are you using? There have been reports of Acrobat plug-in problems lately on Firefox, usually from not having the latest version.

Trav, I'm using 1.5.0.5 which I think is the latest version and have had occasional problems with PDFs. But I think you're right, in that I need to download the latest version of Adobe's Acrobat. I get prompted to do so, but don't because I'm typically in a hurry or in the middle of something!
I'll bump the Acrobat upgrade up on my to do list!
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Count Rhuveinus - Lejendary Keeper of Castle Franqueforte

"Enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" ~ Gary Gygax

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:" - Macbeth

My firefox has been working fine with his stuff. Are you trying to open the PDF's in Firefox or save them to HDD? If your trying open in firefox, update both Firefox and Adobe to latest version. That is good plan anyway.
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Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

-George Washington

My frustration with Homestead has reached its limit. I've got all of my PDFs moved to Geocities. I'm just in the process of setting up the HTML now, and changing the Homestead page so it reflects both the site change, and also directly links to Rigon's items that he asked me to store. I'm not moving his stuff to the new site nor am I deleting the Homestead account, as it still has its uses.
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NOTE TO ALL: If you don't like something I've said, PM me and tell me to my face, then give me a chance to set things right before you call a moderator.
My small homage to E.G.G.

Traveller wrote:
My frustration with Homestead has reached its limit. I've got all of my PDFs moved to Geocities. I'm just in the process of setting up the HTML now, and changing the Homestead page so it reflects both the site change, and also directly links to Rigon's items that he asked me to store. I'm not moving his stuff to the new site nor am I deleting the Homestead account, as it still has its uses.

If you ever need space, I can give you your own sub-account on cncplayer.net
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Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

-George Washington

Hmm....I have the latest version of Acrobat (just installed it about a week and a half ago) and the latest version of Firefox (just updated). The problem I get is when I click on the link for the PDF file. My browser freezes up whilst trying to load the file. Not sure what the deal is....but it really stinks. Your character creation cheat-sheet is great! I just hand it to new players and let them go through the steps without my having to hold their hand through the process. *grins*

Ink
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Check out Inkpot's C&C Downloads: http://www.cncplayer.net/inkpot/index.htm

C&C: Blissfully devoid of gestalt neko-hin rogue/fighter/mages!!

Inkpot wrote:
Hmm....I have the latest version of Acrobat (just installed it about a week and a half ago) and the latest version of Firefox (just updated). The problem I get is when I click on the link for the PDF file. My browser freezes up whilst trying to load the file. Not sure what the deal is....but it really stinks. Your character creation cheat-sheet is great! I just hand it to new players and let them go through the steps without my having to hold their hand through the process. *grins*

Ink

I hav ethe exact same problem when I try to load pdfs to my website via firefox. Strange indeed.
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CK the CK
"My goddess touched me at an early age."

-Grikis Valmorgen, Paladin

The beginnings of my homebrew campaign world and info for my play by chat game:
http://kbdekker.googlepages.com/home

Gentlemen, if you're having a problem with Firefox and Adobe, check out the Mozillazine forums because you're not the only ones having issues with the Adobe plugin on Firefox. I'm running Firefox 2.0 beta 1, but I cannot say I wouldn't have problems, as I don't use Acrobat to view PDFs, but Foxit. Acrobat is used to MAKE the PDFs though.

However, I do know that all of the updated PDFs are in fact working, because I can open them find in Acrobat, and open them fine in Foxit. But I'm not about to install Acrobat Reader just to see if I can freeze up my system.

One last thing, double check about:plugins and see what version your acrobat plugin is, as it's possible the plugin may not have updated itself.
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NOTE TO ALL: If you don't like something I've said, PM me and tell me to my face, then give me a chance to set things right before you call a moderator.
My small homage to E.G.G.

I am not having any problems with the pdfs, and I am using Firefox 1.7 and Acrobat 5.5. I have FF open pdfs in a new window.

Okay, I got them working. I did a re-download and repair of my existing Acrobat. Voila! Must have been a goofy-ism on my system.

Ink
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Check out Inkpot's C&C Downloads: http://www.cncplayer.net/inkpot/index.htm

C&C: Blissfully devoid of gestalt neko-hin rogue/fighter/mages!!

It's not finished yet, as I haven't provided links pages for forums and other useful sites, but you can take a peek at the new pages on Geocities. Something I noticed. The downloads go much faster.
http://www.geocities.com/cnctraveller/
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NOTE TO ALL: If you don't like something I've said, PM me and tell me to my face, then give me a chance to set things right before you call a moderator.
My small homage to E.G.G.