Traditionally in DnD, players have statistics in Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.

In Dragons and Dungeons, players also have Fighting, Shooting and Power Level.

Fightingl and Shooting represent how well a character fights or shoots, and Fighting is also used for Defense.

Power Level determines how powerful a Magic User is.

All three are generated and increased as per the general rules for statistics. In addition,


Armor, Armor Class and Defense.

In Dragons and Dungeons, a characters Armor Class is determined by taking 10, adding their Dexterity Modifier and Fighting Modifier as well as any Shield modifier and Dodge Modifiers etc.

Armor does not contribute to the Armor Class, but each type of armor and helmet confers Damage Reduction on the character. You apply Damage Reduction to a character every time they take real Damage ( real damage means damage that causes Wounds to be taken, as opposed to hit points).

Hit Points and Wounds

Hit Points

Each time a character levels up, he gets hit points. A character can get up to X number, based on a variety of factors.

Hit points represent the luck of the character and they reset every game session.

Any time a character takes damage, he can subtract the total of that damage from his hit points.

If the character is hit by a critical hit, he loses 10 hit points automatically.

A player can spend hit points to make a reroll. He can spend 10 points on his own reroll, 20 on another player's roll, and 30 on an enemy's roll. If a player announces he wishes to reroll after the roll has made, the cost increases by 10.

Anytime a character cannot apply his weapon skill or dex to an attack, or suffers a critical hit or is in an indefensible position, the player cannot use hit points for damage, but instead damage is allocated to wounds.


Wounds

A character has a number of wounds - to half their Constitution score.

Wounds represent physical damage taken by a character or monster.

When a character reaches 0 wounds they are incapacitated and lose 1 negative wound point a round. At -10 they are dead.

Characters take wound damage any time a player declines to use hit points, when the character is out of hit points, when a character can't use hit points, or the character takes a critical hit.

The Forgiven, or gods, were also forbidden to use their magic to alter the world around them. However, this ban did not apply to the natural results that occurred from actions taken by these beings. For example, the offspring of many of the gods created new races and beings, such as the centaurs and minotaurs of Greece or the giants and their kin, who seemed to have been born in almost every region. These spread throughout the world, claiming land and territories for their own, but they never truly mounted a threat to the fast growing populations of man.

Of these races, two rose to prominence: The Dwarves of the North and the Fair Folk. While it has been theorized that the Fair Folk ( made up of gnomes, faeries, brownies and their ilk) came from the union of various gods and elven and human women, none can say whence came the dwarves. Short of stature and broad of build, they became great miners and craftsmen, forming communities in Scandinavia, Central Europe and the mountainous regions of Greece and Italy.

While the elves remained hidden and thus became legendary, dwarves openly traded with humans and even lived amongst them. However, most dwarven communities were closed off and isolated. The Dwarves would mine and trade mostly for food, so while they were shuttered off, the majority of these strongholds were within a day or two of a human settlement.

The greatest dwarven community were the Longbeards, and they created a great kingdom at Mont Blanc, in the northern Alps. The highest peak in Europe, the mountain provided them with security, and more importantly, with a rare mineral that could be smelted and crafted into silver-steel, or mithril, as the elves named it. Besides the Longbeards, there were 6 other great Dwarven families, also led by kings.

Unlike elves, who are extremely individualistic, dwarves are very collectivist. That is to say, dwarves are extremely organized, and believe that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. While they believe that each dwarf should pursue their own path, there is a responsibility to the clan/kingdom to use the gifts one is given for the benefit of the people, even if it is not the heart's desire of the dwarf. Unlike elves who move from pursuit and project, dwarves tend to remain on a steady path in their life.

One of the results of this organization was the creation of a military that was unparalleled in the ancient world. Dwarves had the best armor, weapons and tactics. Like many of the early human civilzations, the dwarves used a phalanx with spears, but their phalanx revolved around small units which were highly mobile and flexible. Their military proved to be a great influence on the Romans in later years. A key belief in dwarven culture was the idea that all dwarves should defend the homeland. While other warrior cultures also had this belief, the dwarves implemented it into a policy differing from most. In Sparta, a two tier class system resulted in slaves being watched over by the military, of which all freeborn males were a part of, while in Rome, a draft was used where all citizens had an equal chance to be taken into the legions. In dwarven culture, all males served a term in the army, before returning to civilian life. They would return to the life of arms if called upon by their king, who maintained a small professional force which served for life.

The Fair Folk are a small people, smaller even than the dwarves. They resemble humans, save that their ears tend to be pointed. They live in meadows and forests, using magic to keep their homes hidden. They prefer to flee rather than fight, but occasionally a wanderlust comes over one and they leave their village to see the world. The Fair Folk are generally friendly and helpful though, often leading those who are lost to safety and taking in travellers and providing them with a good meal and a warm bed. Usually in a very small, cramped house. Beggars can't be choosers!

Their magical skills are much different from those of the elves in many respects, but they are almost a match for elves in the use of illusions. Almost every member of the Fair Folk can perform magic. For them it is as natural as breathing, while an elf must learn how to use their power through study and practice.

Elven communities are led not by a Lord or Lady but instead by whomever is wisest and most able. Elves tend to follow their passions, becoming interested in a topic, hobby, vocation or activity as it suits them. An elf may choose to work on a piece of music for a century, only to abandon it to learn a new skill, or to travel, or undertake a task for the community. Because of his memory, if he does not return to the piece within a number of years, he may forget it and never finish it.

The wise one of the elves usually lays out the course of action for the community, pointing out how much food needs to be gathered or hunted, how much cloth woven, where repairs on a castle or hut need to be made. More pressing matters requires a decision by council, where representatives of the elves in the community meet. Such representatives are usually chosen by vote per each family in the community.

The emergency presented by the threats created by those who had abandoned the allegiance given to the One God caused a change in the organization of elven ways. Each of the isolated communities agreed to send an emissary to meet at the hidden city of Galathan. There they acknowledged the need for a strong leader who would be able to direct the elves in this crisis. Thanguron from the north was chosen, and he became the first High King of the elves.

Thanguron was a bold and decisive elf, and he understood the nature of the emergency. Until this time, the elves had not known war, the only weapons they had were hunting implements such as the bow and the spear. But many elves in their travels had seen humans using weapons such as the sword, and using armor made from metals.

Elves are incredibly individualistic, and Thanguron knew it would be hard to create a unified force such as those used by humans in their wars. Nevertheless, he was able to have elven craftsmen create swords and armor from materials readily available to the elves, and augmented such gear with magic. Each elf who heeded the call to arms arrived armed and armored, and trained amongst themselves until they became confident of their proficiency at arms.

What began as a series of minor skirmishes led eventually to full blown open warfare, until both sides decided the loss of life was not worth the violence and they ended the conflict, agreeing to stay to their traditional lands. The Northern elves became known as the Silver Elves, for their hair grew to be white and silver, and they worshipped the gods Frey and Freya while the Southern elves were dark and had hair of brown and became known as the Brown Elves. They lived mostly in the South in the Balkans and followed chiefly Artemis and Apollo but all of the Olympians were revered.

The elves who lived north of the Alps had predominantly golden hair, and were known as the Gold Elves. The High King Thanguron chose to rule from the city of Galathan, and mostly he chose as king to oversee that each community contributed needed resources for an emergency if a war or other disaster came about. The elves continued to learn about warfare on their own, and no organized army was created in any of the three regions inhabited by elves. All three races were content to retreat once again from the world, and those humans who had witnessed these battles attributed them as a great conflict between the gods.

The Elves who came to Earth found a land just beginning to blossom with life. They settled in many regions of the world, using what magic they had to survive. They were told not to use their magic to create life or alter it, instead allow it to grow and evolve as per the will of the One God.

As time progressed, changes to the world and the environment caused changes in elves themselves. The Earth warmed and cooled, and the Elves learned to ignore and live within the differing temperatures with ease. With the coming of early reptiles and eventually the larger dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, the elves learned to make weapons to defend and to hunt these creatures, adding meat to their historically vegetarian diet. They also learned how to hide from predators, and eventually to build strong fortresses to live safely from them. Some elves used magic to hide these fortresses from the eyes and senses of beasts while other found ways to cloak their communities naturally.

Elves have a low birth rate, at the most keeping their population steady, and until the coming of predators, at a slow rate of increase. As a result of this, they found it better to hide, and to fight enemies with weapons at range. Thus the beginning of elven archery.

As Pangaea shifted and created the modern continents, the elves migrated until almost exclusively settling in what is now Central Europe.

Following the disaster that destroyed the dinosaurs and the ice age, elves removed themselves more and more from the world. Many used magic to make the insides of the their castles larger, while those who lived amongst trees did the same with their huts and bowers.

During all this time the elves continued to pay homage to the One God, although they did not actively worship Him. They knew that simply being and living good lives would be enough. The elves at this time had no religion per se.

But some elves, especially those who wandered, made contact with the Forgiven, who had returned to Earth. Humans had begun creating civilizations of their own, and had started worshipping these new gods. To them, elves were fairies who lived in the forests, or were servants of the gods, or were bogeymen who stole their children.

Eventually many elves turned to worship these gods. As more and more of them did so, a rift occurred between those who remained loyal to the One God. Some of the gods, seeking to expand their power, drove their followers amongst the Olven folk to take lands from them by force.

The One God created the Universe, and he created the Angels and tasked them to finish His work. The Angels did so, creating the stars and planets and creating life on those planets.

But His Chief Angel, Lucifer, became jealous of the One God. The Angels did all the work, and they should reap all the reward, he thought. So Lucifer led a rebellion of Angels against the One God.

The Host of Angels became divided initially into 3 groups, those who were loyal to the One God, those who joined with Lucifer, and those who remained neutral, too afraid to fight against Lucifer but not disloyal enough to join him.

The forces of the One God triumphed over those of Lucifer, and he and his followers to were cast into the Darkness of Hell. There the Angel Michael used his flaming sword to ignite the flames of Hell, and Lucifer, now known as Satan and his Angels, now called demons, were burnt and scarred.

Of the forces who did not take sides, some asked for forgiveness, and some tried to hide, afraid of the punishment they might receive from God and the loyal Angels. Those who asked for forgiveness were allowed to keep some of their power and might, but were exiled from Heaven. Those who hid were cast to the Earth, losing their Immortality and Power, and cursed with both agelessness and the memory of Man.

These beings were the first Elves. While they could die, they would stop aging and would live forever barring a violent death or loss of will to live. They retained their wisdom, and indeed could still use some of their Power, but their memory would begin to fail them over the years as new experiences and events would fill their mind, making them forget the past.

The Forgiven removed themselves from Earth and the Multiverse for a time, until several million years passed and their power began to wane. They discovered the secret that Lucifer knew...the One God's power came from life itself, for life would acknowledge its existence owed to the power of the One God, either consciously or unconsciously and thus would fuel that power. The Forgiven spread amongst the Multiverse, seeking beings who would grant them the same power and thus stave off the doom of oblivion. They would find beings who would worship them, and thus be able to absorb the energy of life given off by these humans or elves, or dwarves. They became the first gods.

It is not known whether some of the Forgiven turned to evil, or whether it was by accident, but somehow one of them, or perhaps more for no one truly knows, managed to open a passage from the Universe to Hell. Satan sent forth his legions, and the Forgiven took it upon themselves to stop these demons from destroying the world, both from a sense of duty to their worshippers and from self preservation.

The Forgiven had also discovered a Secret. That the One God did not actively influence events in the Universe. All beings had free will, and could act as they pleased. Thus, the Forgiven could gain followers who would sustain them with power, and whom they could instruct and encourage in various aspects of creation or destruction. These early gods united and drove Satan's legions back to the Abyss from whence they came.

The Forgiven returned to their worlds, to set up pantheons of gods who would be either protectors or tormentors of mankind. On Earth the earliest gods were Osiris,Baal, Anu, Ishtar, Tiamat, Bor, Chronus and were followed by Ra, Zeus, Odin, and others. The worship of these gods and others spread throughout the known world, until only one small tribe, located in a land to be called Israel, still knew of and paid homage to the One God.

So why divide up the Classes like this?

Well, because I felt that the structure will allow a player to create the character they wanted to play. Penelope didn't want to play the classic healer-priest that Peter did. But she could always multiclass later to learn spells. Aeric the Paladin is more warrior than servant of the church, while the Grey Mouser's class and skill set make him an excellent jack of all trades.

I got rid of the class Cleric class because in many ways it just does not fit into what DnD has become. It was largely a classed based on characters like Bishop Odo, who in some of the tales of Charlemagne "cast" spells such as flamestrike.

But why would a priest of Odin or Zeus have the same abilities? They shouldn't.

Furthermore, I found it silly that you had two types of spellcasting classes, and one was more powerful than the other! Clerics had access to all of their spells, and could trade utility spells for healing spells. Plus they had better hit points, access to armor and decent weapons.

Wizards/Mages/Classic Magic Users were largely dependent on the Dungeon Master allowing them access to spells. Without access to armor or weapons, they were truly a weak sister to the cleric.

My solution finds its origin in the writings of Robert Howard. His character of Conan often found himself fighting priests who also were spell casters. They were more classic DnD Magic User than Cleric though. So I thought, why not make it that way for the game as well?

If you look at the works of Tolkien, you see Elrond and Gandalf also were healers. Did this mean they, if statted up for DnD, would be multi class characters or could they be single class characters with access to healing spells? Indeed, why couldn't a Magic-User heal someone, or a Priest of Zeus cast a lightning bolt at an enemy?

So by taking away the classic Cleric class, and simply allowing a player to pick and choose what spell casting abilities the character has, and using Holy Levels to gain access to certain old school clerical abilities, one can craft a Priest whose powers and spells reflect their deity. Or you can craft a Wizard who can heal. It's your choice!

In regular DnD, there are a plethora of character classes one can choose. You can also choose to have your character have more than one class ( such a character is said to be multi-classed).

Pre 3.0, such a character was limited to several categories of multi-class, and only non-human races could partake of that option. Humans could leave their original class, and take up another, but could never advance in their old class.

3.0 DnD changed this. You could simply add a class to your own, and any race could do so. Wanted to be a gnome paladin/bard/rogue? Sure! Or you could be a half-dragon druid/ranger/assassin...why not?

While these options allowed one to have more role-playing options, it also led to what many called Build Playing. Basically you looked at available classes, saw synergies between them, and made your character based on those to create as powerful a character as you could. Google Pen-Pen to see what I mean.

In Dragons and Dungeons, there are only 3 classes: Fighter, Magic-User and Rogue. Each character can choose to level up in one of those classes, but they can also level up in a Profession, or they can choose a Holy/Unholy level.

For example, Aeric the Paladin has the class Fighter, the Profession of Paladin, and he has also chosen to gain 3 Holy levels.

As a Fighter he has several class abilities, such as the ability to make a free attack after he kills an enemy. As a Paladin he has access to a number of skills, such as mounted combat. Finally, his holy levels make him powerful enough to heal himself or others through his laying of hands on them.

I believe my system will allow players a better way to sculpt their character, without locking them into a set of skills and abilities.

Some more examples: Peter the Priest is a Priest of the One God. He has a class of Magic-User, his profession is Priest, and he has 6 Holy levels. As a magic user, he has chose to specialize in healing spells. As a Priest he has access to scholarly skills and contacts in the church. His 6 Holy levels allow him to use the power of God against foul undead creatures, turned them away from his presence or even destroying them. He can also perform minor miracles, such as healing disease with his touch.

Penelope the Priestess is different from Peter. She has a class of Fighter, her profession is Priestess ( of the Goddess Athena), and she only has 3 levels of Holiness.

The main difference between her and Peter is she is a better fighter, and her only holy ability is protect herself from evil beings such as demons.

Finally, we have the Grey Mouser. He is a muliclassed character, having levels in all 3 classes! His profession is Thief, which means he has learned Thieves Cant ( watch any of the Ocean's movies for examples of this), and access to all types of skills such as lockpicking, sneaking, climbing etc. As a Rogue he has abilities that give him a bonus to stabbing someone in the back, and being able to take less damage from falling or even certain attacks. His Fighter levels make him good in combat, and while he only has a few levels of Magic-User, his few spells can give him an edge in a fight!

Hey welcome to the Dragons and Dungeons Blog!


I could go on about my background as a gamer blah blah we've all heard the stories.

So I'll tell you this....this blog's purpose is to detail the changes I am making to the DnD game to make it the game I want to play, and hopefully make it an even more fun game for others.

My version of the game will have a more realistic feel to it. That's not to say it will attempt to simulate every situation as accurately as possible. There simply won't be situations that are implausible or ridiculous because of bad game mechanics.

 For example, in Dragons and Dungeons you won't have fighters who can easily beat 1000 orcs in a fight on their own. One of my favorite characters, Aeric the Paladin, is 18th level and could probably do that under the 3.5 rules. He could probably do it even without his magic items.

Indeed, with these rules changes even a single orc could kill an 18th level paladin, while a 1st level fighter could actually have a chance to kill an ancient dragon! Not likely, but it could happen.

It has become a staple of RPG games for characters to level up, "earn" magic items, become more powerful, fight more powerful monsters and so on. I feel such a system hurts the player and the character. Eventually the character becomes unplayable, because he becomes too powerful. I've seen characters who have the equivalent power of a small nuke. It becomes silly to have such a character walk into a town and be asked to save it from say, a marauding troll, while at the same time, any adventure that will challenge the character will be something on the level of saving the world...over and over again.

I once wanted to run a prison break story for the characters, but I didn't want to just announce to them that they had been captured, all their magic items were gone, and they were sitting in a cell. At the same time, in order to capture them, I'd have had to "violate" laws and rules of RPGing. The players themselves would have revolted if I just took their items away, and this is a bad side product of the DnD mindset. The story, and the challenge of the adventure became secondary to the desire to have a powerful character with lots of magic items.

Such characters become harder to challenge, and the game becomes boring as a result.

Instead, the point of Dragons and Dungeons will be to promote a game where a character can be played for years, will be able to be challenged over and over, and who can participate in all manner of stories.