Troll Questions Answered

A questionnaire from Random Wizard. Enjoy!

(1). Race (Elf, Dwarf, Halfling) as a class? Yes or no?

Yes and no. As I discussed in the "Blue Book D&D" post a few days back, I think there is a good compromise in having some classes that are hybrids (ACKS has some good ideas with bad names on these lines), and others that are just hobbit thieves.

(2). Do demi-humans have souls?

Hobbits and dwarves have souls, though dwarves' are slightly weirder than you might expect. But elves are different. An elf may have a soul, but he certainly wasn't born with it.

(3). Ascending or descending armor class?

Descending. Not because it's better but because ascending AC looks wrong to me.

(4). Demi-human level limits?

Level limits make sense for me in multi-class or combination class characters; if you can be an elven fighter/magic-user and go all the way up in level, it doesn't make sense to be a human. Limiting hobbits to level 4 is lame.

(5). Should thief be a class?

Thief should be a better class. I've thought about just giving them 20 points at chargen to distribute among the skills. That said, when running anything but 3 little book OD&D I will allow thieves if that's what a player wants to play. Considering I don't run a lot of 3LBB OD&D these days - sure.

(6). Do characters get non-weapon skills?

Thieves do. Other than that, I don't play with any skill system.

(7). Are magic-users more powerful than fighters (and, if yes, what level do they take the lead)?

With a sufficiently clever player, I think magic-users become better in the dungeon exploration game at 3rd level (or whenever they get 2nd level spells). But for players who aren't clever, the magic-user can wait a lot longer before becoming a dominant class.

(8). Do you use alignment languages?

Alignment languages are technically in my games, but players don't generally use them. As I discussed previously, I think of them as battle-languages like in Dune.

(9). XP for gold, or XP for objectives (thieves disarming traps, etc...)?

1 XP = 1 GP of treasure brought back to town. XP is awarded immediately upon returning to town. There is also BTB XP for killing monsters, but it's much lower.

(10). Which is the best edition; ODD, Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, Rules Cyclopedia, 1E ADD, 2E ADD, 3E ADD, 4E ADD, Next ?

OD&D will always be an inspiration to me above and beyond any editions that came since. But on a practical, day-to-day level, I would say Blue Book D&D (i.e. Holmes / Expert mashup) is the closest to my ideal D&D game.