Thursday, May 10, 2018

All Under Hero: BECMI D&D To Hit progression


Karameikos has always been the starting point of my understanding of Mystara; the first Gazetteer was my first realization that it was its own setting.

And since the Gazetteer states that Karameikos was designed as being designed to accommodate the rulebook classes, I've decided to assume that the D&D cyclopedia classes and levels are sort of 'rules of thumb' to build Mystaran characters -- and even to use as NPC templates for customization in the course of play.

So -- let's look at the To Hit tables for the classes (which include demi-humans)!

Progression Insights

According to this table, we can see that:
  • Character classes are a cut above normal humans (even magic users), with a +1 to their To Hits at 1st level. 
  • Fighters improve their To Hit chances by +2 every 3 levels.
  • Clerics, Thieves, and Druids improve their To Hit Chances by +2 every 4 levels.
  • Magic Users improve their To Hit Chances by +2 every 5 levels.
  • Demi-humans progress a little bit differently (see the letters).
This can easily be done in HERO with equivalent bonuses to the PC's OCV per level.

Why not make these straightforward Skill Level purchases? Well, there are a couple of things that might complicate matters:
  • reflecting hit points: rather than a straighforward boost to BODY, STUN, or PD / ED, allowing a bonus to CV instead of just OCV could reflect how higher level characters are just better at combat in general (as a guideline).
  • weapon mastery rules: these also have an effect of boosting your skills, and any characters with this should have these reflected as skill levels with their chosen weapons; implementing with skill levels instead of a straight OCV bonus might confuse matters.
So, I'll proceed on this basis for now.

1 comment:

  1. CV OCV what? it doesn't actually hurt spelling out these strange math formulas to pyslexic doobs like nyself. I suppose everyone knows what these strange wandering monsters are except us moobs.

    ReplyDelete

That's my side of things. Let me know what you think, my friend.