Henchifying DFRPG

[Infornific]

After looking over the game, it occurred to me you could adopt the templates to a 125 point game. I decided to create lenses to do just that.

1. Templates are adjusted to 125 points. I kept DX and HT to a minimum of 11. In most cases, I kept Speed to 6.00.

2. Changes to skill were minimal - typically the difference between high and low point templates is not points in skills but points in Advantages and Attributes. Disadvantages are untouched.

3. The Martial Artist was a special case. It's hard to do the esoteric skills justice at 125 points. So I went with the assumption that Martial Artists train at physical skills first and focused on peeling off esoteric abilities.

4. I tried to add names where I could think of them.

Obviously, you need DFRPG Adventurers to use these:

Barbarian (Savage)

Attributes: Drop ST to 13, drop DX to 11, drop HT to 12. [-90]
Characteristics: Drop HP to 15. drop Per to 11, keep Speed at 6.00 [4]
Advantages: Drop Outdoorsman to 1. Drop High Pain Threshold. Drop optional Advantages to 25 points. Add High Pain Threshold to optional Advantages. [-35]
Skills: -1 to main melee weapon skill [-4]

Bard (Minstrel)

Attributes: Drop ST to 10, drop DX to 11, drop IQ to 12 [-70]
Characteristics: keep Speed at 6.00 [5]
Advantages: Drop Bardic Talent to 1. Drop Charisma and Voice. Drop optional Advantages to 30 points. Add Voice to optional Advantages. [-55]
Skills: -1 to main melee weapon skill, reduce optional skills from six to five [-5]

Cleric (Acolyte)

Attributes: Drop ST to 11, drop DX to 11, drop IQ to 12, drop HT to 11 [-80]
Characteristics: keep Speed at 6.00 [10]
Advantages: Drop Power Investiture to 1. Drop optional Advantages to 25 points [-40]
Skills: -1 to main melee weapon skill. Drop one optional skill [-5]
Spells: Reduce spells from 20 to 10 [-10]

Druid (Intiate)

Attributes: Drop ST to 10, drop DX to 11, drop IQ to 12, drop HT to 12 [-80]
Characteristics: keep Speed at 6.00 [10]
Advantages: Drop Power Investiture to 1. Drop optional Advantages to 20 points [-40]
Skills: -1 to main melee weapon skill. Drop one optional skill [-5]
Spells: Reduce spells from 20 to 10 [-10]

Holy Warrior (Holy Guard)

Attributes: Drop ST to 12, drop DX to 11, drop IQ to 11, drop HT to 11 [-90]
Characteristics: Drop Will to 12, keep Speed at 6.00 [15]
Advantages: Drop Born War-Leader, Drop Higher Purpose, Drop Holiness to +1. Drop optional Advantages to 20 points [-45]
Skills: -1 to main melee weapon skill. Drop one optional skill [-5]

Knight (Fighting Person)

Attributes: Drop ST to 12, drop DX to 12, drop HT to 12 [-70]
Characteristics: Keep Speed at 6.00 [15]
Advantages: Drop Born War-Leader to 1, Drop Combat Reflexes and High Pain Threshold. Drop optional Advantages to 25 points [-65]. Add Combat Reflexes and High Pain Threshold to optional Advantages.
Skills: -1 to a main melee weapon skill. Drop one optional skill [-5]

Martial Artist (Disciple)

Attributes: Drop DX to 15, drop HT to 11 [-30]
Characteristics: Drop Speed to 6.00 [-10]
Advantages: Drop Chi Talent and Trained by a Master. Drop optional Advantages to 30 points [-70]. Add Trained by a Master to optional Advantages.
Skills: Drop Chi skills and one optional skill [-15]

Scout (Woodsman)

Attributes: Drop DX to 12, drop HT to 11 [-50]
Characteristics: Drop Per to 12, Drop Speed to 6.00 [-15]
Advantages: Drop Heroic Archer. Drop Outdoorsman to 1. Drop optional Advantages to 20 points [-50]. Add Heroic Archer to optional Advantages.
Skills: -1 to main melee weapon and -1 to Bow. Drop two optional skills [-10]

Swashbuckler (Bravo)

Attributes: Drop DX to 13, drop HT to 11 [-60]
Characteristics: As figured
Advantages: Drop Combat Reflexes. Drop Enhanced Parry. Drop Weapon Master. Drop optional Advantages to 40 points [-60]. Add Combat Reflexes and Weapon Master to optional Advantages.
Skills: -1 to main melee weapon. Drop one optional skills [-5]

Thief (Cutpurse)

Attributes: Drop ST to 10, drop DX to 12, drop IQ to 12 [-90]
Characteristics: Drop Per to 12, keep Speed at 6.00, drop Move to 6 [5]
Advantages: Drop Flexibility. Drop High Manual Dexterity. Drop Perfect Balance. Drop optional Advantages to 15 points [-40]. Add Flexibility and Perfect Balance to optional Advantages.
Skills: No changes

Wizard (Adept)

Attributes: Drop DX to 11, drop IQ to 13, [-60]
Characteristics: Drop Will to 12. Drop Speed to 5.25 [-15]
Advantages: Drop Energy Reserve. Drop Magery to 2. Drop optional Advantages to 20 points. [-29]
Skills: -1 to Staff or -1 to Smallsword and Shield. -1 to Alchemy. Drop three optional skills [-11]
Spells: Reduce spells from 30 to 20 [-10]

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Infornific

Druid (?)

Gardener? Grove Tender? Treebrother/sister? Hippy?

[MIB.6361]

Druid (Grover?)

Knight (Squire, Armsman, Watchman?)

Martial Artist (Disciple?)

Scout (Woodsman, Pathfinder?)

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Gardener? Grove Tender? Treebrother/sister? Hippy?

I misplaced my 1st edition AD&D Player's Handbook, otherwise I'd have consulted that.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by MIB.6361

Druid (Grover?)

Knight (Squire, Armsman, Watchman?)

Martial Artist (Disciple?)

Scout (Woodsman, Pathfinder?)

I like Disciple & Pathfinder. They seem to follow the concept. Knight is tricky - Squire is a logical choice but the template implies this is simply a highly trained fighter who is good enough to call himself a Knight and no one will argue. Armsman might work. I went with Fighting Person as an homage/parody of original D&D.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Infornific

I misplaced my 1st edition AD&D Player's Handbook, otherwise I'd have consulted that.

Let me quick see my PDF copy. For druids, I get Aspirant, Ovate, then Initiate of the 1st Circle and so on up to 12th level, which is name level. So one of those two. If you want to go with Ovate, Bards start out (once they're actually bards) as Rhymer, Lyrist, Sonnateer, Skald. Rangers go Runner, Strider, Scout, Courser. Monks go Novice, Initiate, Brother, Disciple.

[Rasputin]

Once upon a time, while researching a Pyramid article that still has yet to see the light of day, I went through the DF3 lenses to see what were the essential items that were always added in the lenses. Some highlights, when weighed against what you originally had:

• Barbarians always got High Pain Threshold and Outdoorsman if they didn't already have them.
• Bards always got Bardic Talent, Charisma, and Musical Ability.
• Holy Warriors always got Higher Purpose, Holiness, and Shtick.
• Knights always got Combat Reflexes and High Pain Threshold.
• Martial Artists always got Chi Talent and Trained by a Master.
• Scouts always got Heroic Archer.
• Swashbucklers always got Enhanced Parry and Weapon Master.
• Thieves always got Flexibility and High Manual Dexterity.

I'd add them back into the 125-point templates as they're always in the 50-point lenses, then take more points out of attributes and optional advantage points. These are the advantages that Kromm deemed defining of the template, so they're needed. Another analysis I did for other reasons showed the average attribute in DF1 was 12 (DX was 13) and 11 in DF15. Dropping all attributes by one level is 60 points right there.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

Once upon a time, while researching a Pyramid article that still has yet to see the light of day, I went through the DF3 lenses to see what were the essential items that were always added in the lenses. Some highlights, when weighed against what you originally had:

• Barbarians always got High Pain Threshold and Outdoorsman if they didn't already have them.
• Bards always got Bardic Talent, Charisma, and Musical Ability.
• Holy Warriors always got Higher Purpose, Holiness, and Shtick.
• Knights always got Combat Reflexes and High Pain Threshold.
• Martial Artists always got Chi Talent and Trained by a Master.
• Scouts always got Heroic Archer.
• Swashbucklers always got Enhanced Parry and Weapon Master.
• Thieves always got Flexibility and High Manual Dexterity.

I'd add them back into the 125-point templates as they're always in the 50-point lenses, then take more points out of attributes and optional advantage points. These are the advantages that Kromm deemed defining of the template, so they're needed. Another analysis I did for other reasons showed the average attribute in DF1 was 12 (DX was 13) and 11 in DF15. Dropping all attributes by one level is 60 points right there.

I think the question is how do you scale them down but keep them effective. Dropping attributes is an obvious was to scale down but I wanted to set a floor of 11 for HT and DX. For combat specialists, I decided to keep ST at least 11. I also wanted to keep variation within professions so I tried to keep at least 20 points in optional Advantages. As for characteristic advantages, you could as easily distinguish the professions by their focus - barbarians are fighters with outdoor skills, knights are all around combat experts, etc.

The other problem is that certain professions (Bard, Martial Artist) require a lot of points sunk before their esoteric abilities kick in. Trying to make a 125 point Martial Artists with Trained by a Master and Chi Talents is likely to result in a character with limited combat abilities (skills too low to really benefit from TbaM) and so not very reliable Chi abilities. Arguably that is like am AD&D 1st level monk but I wanted something more functional.

There's been some jokes about how the DFRPG is (35 years late) the Fantasy Trip revised box set. That's inspired me to try to create some 125 point DFRPG professions based on the old TFT suggested character types. I may post them at a later date.

[Orsino]

We have just begun a DFRPG game with 150-point PCs, each with a henchman template and/or lens. My Knight-to-be is just a Torchbearer plus a race for now. As we play, we'll be allocating points to satisfy the full class templates.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Infornific

I think the question is how do you scale them down but keep them effective. Dropping attributes is an obvious was to scale down but I wanted to set a floor of 11 for HT and DX. For combat specialists, I decided to keep ST at least 11.

All 250-point templates have at least DX 12, so they can tank a point. The HT 11 templates are Thief and Wizard; dropping those by one isn't a big deal since they're not supposed to be straight-up fighters anyways. Most combat specialists other than the Martial Artist and the Swashbuckler already have ST 12, and again, these guys aren't supposed to be using brute force to get through defenses.