Minimalist Treasure

I'm working on my minimalist OSR doc again, and this time I think I'll actually publish something before the end of 2026. 

Today, I tackle treasure.

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A Note on the B/X Economy

Analyzing the treasure tables was a somewhat frustrating experience. Things don't seem to make much sense, even after years of forcing myself to accept that D&D's economy doesn't work like the real world. When trying to make sense of treasure weights, I kept noticing that many simple objects — knives, swords, bows — are worth their weight in silver or more. This could, at first glance, be justified by imagining a world where gold and silver are extremely abundant but skilled craftsmanship is rare. But when you start relating this to specific creatures and thinking of commerce across towns, the logic doesn't hold up.

Take kobolds. Their treasure is mostly copper, and often they carry no treasure at all. Maybe the game doesn't want you to get rich by robbing them. Yet a kobold armed with a shortbow is, by the standards of this economy, extraordinarily wealthy, since a shortbow is worth almost its weight in gold. A spear is worth roughly its weight in silver.

Copper, as a whole, serves almost no function in the game's economy. It appears in treasure tables, weighs the same as any other coin, and is worth one hundredth of a gold piece. The average adventurer  (or kobold) would accumulate and transport weapons and simple manufactured objects rather than copper coins, even accounting for depreciation and indivisibility, since the value-to-weight ratio is up to a hundred times better. The fact that travelling is not easy or safe in most D&D worlds makes the whole issue more obvious - the cost of moving copper around would probably vastly surpass any gain you can make. The wages of hirelings/retainers would hardly pay for that service, maybe not even their food.

Aristotle listed portability, durability, and divisibility as the essential characteristics of money. Copper fails the first test badly enough that it feel useless as currency in a D&D world.

And now I can't unsee this. It simply doesn't make sense. 

Before giving up completely: in my last campaign I divided the weight of all coins by ten. I don't know if this actually fixes the underlying problem, but with some good will it seems to work well enough at the table. I also prefer to use: 1000 cp = 100 sp = 10 gp = 1pp, just because it is simpler.

With that brief aside, let's move on. I'll analyse the system as originally written, but keep in mind by the end I'll still coins that are much lighter.

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Let's do this anyway!

I started by giving each creature 100 gp of treasure per Hit Die in another post. Dragons are a different case entirely; they double, triple, or multiply both value and weight. They are, in the most literal sense, hoarders of useless coins.

The other half of the equation is weight. In B/X, every coin weighs (about) one tenth of a pound, and the encumbrance system punishes anyone who doesn't think before filling their pack. With this ruler it's possible to calculate the value density of each treasure type (how much each pound the adventurer decides to carry is actually worth). Before presenting the three groups, I must add that about five treasure types (I, L, M, N, and O) that exist in the tables aren't assigned to any monster in the entire canonical B/X (neither in Moldvay's Basic nor Cook's Expert), so I ignored them for now.

With the remaining types (those actually used in the bestiary) ranking by gp/lb reveals three groups with sufficiently clean boundaries. I used AI for some of the math, so please correct me if I'm wrong - I had to revisit it several times.

BTW, OSE's Treasure Types, reproducing the logic of B/X, have been invaluable to this post.

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Group 1 — Heavy treasure

Types P, J, Q, K, B, C · average ~3 gp/lb

The weight of this treasure is dominated by low-value coins. Type P is pure copper (0.1 gp/lb). Type J, the kobold lair, mixes copper and silver to reach 0.3 gp/lb. Q and K are small amounts of silver and electrum. 

Bugbears, ghouls, wights, gargoyles, ogres, all varieties of lycanthrope, minotaurs, owl bears, harpies,  hold treasure with a density between 3.5 and 3.7 gp/lb. As inefficient per pound as a kobold lair, just heavier. Types B and C are dominated by copper, silver, and electrum, with only a small chance of gems and an even smaller chance of a magic item. 

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Group 2 — Mixed treasure

Types R, H, E, D, S, F, G, A · average ~11 gp/lb

Gnolls, hobgoblins, lizard men, and orcs (type D, 9.5 gp/lb) sit alongside elves and doppelgangers (type E, 8.5 gp/lb), medusa and shadows (type F, 15.9 gp/lb), dwarves (type G, 17.3 gp/lb), and at the top of the range, troglodytes and bandits (type A, 20.1 gp/lb). The treasures balance coin volume with gems, jewelry, and platinum in a way that converges on the same efficiency band — roughly 5 to 20 gp/lb.

The most noticeable member of this group is the dragon. Type H — exclusive to the six dragons in the bestiary — has only 8.0 gp/lb, virtually identical to a gnoll lair, and well below the dwarves and medusa sharing its group. 

B/X really is a game about killing dragons: few things make you richer faster than finding a sleeping dragon on its hoard! 

The problem is carrying it... Type H includes 50% chances of 1d100×1,000 silver coins, 1d4×10,000 electrum, 1d6×10,000 gold, dozens of gems and jewelry, and a handful of magic items at the top — producing an expected weight of ~6,180 pounds, more than an adult African elephant. The dragon hoards incomparably more, accumulated over centuries, mountains of low-value coins with rare items buried somewhere in the middle.

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Group 3 — Value-dense treasure

Types U, V · average ~92 gp/lb

OSE call these two types "group treasure".

Type U (66.5 gp/lb) covers a sprawling list of apparently unrelated creatures: acolytes, normal humans, bears, great cats, giant lizards, bandits, pirates, merchants. What they share is that their treasures are light and proportionally rich in value per pound, with small chances of gems, jewelry, and magic items that punch far above their weight.

Type V (121.9 gp/lb) the best "pound-for-pound" treasure assigned for monsters belongs to the cave bear, the sabre-tooth tiger, the gelatinous cube, the halfling, the medium, the noble, and the veteran. Silver, electrum, gold, platinum, gems, jewelry, occasional magic item — in quantities so small that the total weight is nearly negligible, but the composition so clean that almost every ounce counts.

Why do wild animals have such great treasure? The most common interpretation in the OSR community is that these are the remains of what the animals ate — previous adventurers, merchants, unlucky travelers. The gelatinous cube dissolves organic matter and low-denomination coinage, leaving behind only what's worth carrying. Apparently monsters do not eat copper and silver, maybe because it is worse for your health... 

BTW, here is an odd comparison. A fight with a 4 HD black bear is not a great deal when a 4 HD gargoyle will give you almost ten times more treasure — though that treasure weighs more than 100 times more. 

This assumes both treasure are in their lairs; since the treasure is not individual, we can also assume that a group of gargoyles will be twice the size of a group of bear in the wilderness. The gargoyle's treasure is still better because of Pareto.

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Pareto in the dungeon

Vilfredo Pareto observed in the 19th century that 80% of wealth belonged to 20% of the population, a power law that repeats across complex systems. In any mixed B/X treasure, if the adventurer ranks items from highest to lowest gp/lb and starts carrying in that order, the first 20% of the weight typically delivers between 60% and 80% of the total value. 

So all these complex treasure types and logistics to bring the treasure to the city are a bit useless.

Copper is just not worth carrying, except apparently buy a few poor or hoarding monsters. Silver probably becomes obsolete after few levels, then gold. But you can just ignore tons of treasure and still get most of the value from a few gems and magic items.

This, in my opinion, is far from ideal; too many complex subsystems of rolling treasure that have no significant consequences.

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A minimalist version?

This kind of pointless complexity is one of my least favorite aspects of classic D&D. Twenty-two treasure types, five coin denominations, weights, probabilities, magic item subtables — all of it rewarding spreadsheet thinking more than adventure. Which parts actually make the game more interesting?

The analysis suggests the answer is simpler than the tables imply. Strip away the unassigned treasure types and three groups cover everything a DM actually needs.

The bottom tier — around 1 gp/lb — is for savage monsters and humanoids, undead, and the creatures that accumulate wealth without understanding it: kobolds, berserkers, bugbears, ghouls, wights, harpies, lycanthropes, ogres, owl bears, gargoyles. Their treasure is dominated by copper and silver, heavy for what it's worth.

The middle tier — around 10 gp/lb, roughly equivalent to its own weight in gold — covers organized humanoids and higher monsters: goblins, gnolls, hobgoblins, orcs, elves, dwarves, medusa, doppelgangers. This is the baseline of the game's economy, the chest-full-of-gold-coins standard. Dragons sit here too, which is the most counterintuitive result of the entire analysis: a dragon hoard is not more refined than a gnoll's, just incomparably larger. Moving it is the adventure.

The top tier — 50 to 100 gp/lb — belongs to the chests/lairs of wealthy individuals: merchants, nobles, knights, pirates, acolytes, high-status NPCs. Gems, jewelry, platinum, the occasional magic item, almost no dead weight.

A clean minimalist rule falls out naturally: 1 gp/lb for savage monsters, 10 gp/lb for organized humanoids and most monsters, 50–100 gp/lb for the hoards wealthy and powerful. The 100 gp per HD heuristic handles value; these densities handle weight. Between the two, any treasure can be improvised in seconds without opening a table.

And, again, since few creatures are travelling with more treasure that they can carry, a sufficiently large group may have a few leaders (with extra HD) carrying more valuable treasure, including magic weapons. Likewise, a high-level NPC will likely carry valuable stuff. This has an interesting side-effect of naturally making high-level PCs uninterested in pillaging anyone but the highest-level foes, which I really like.

Individuals will only carry a fraction of the treasures on themselves. Like in the originals, maybe give them a handful of coins (say, 3d6), with total value of around 1 GP per HD (meaning everyone carries silver, mostly, with some copper or gold). IF they have no lairs — for example, travelling nobles and merchants — they must carry all their treasure amongst themselves. Assume few would carry enough treasure to slow them down, so the either have horses, donkeys, and so on, or a few valuable gems.

As for wild beasts carrying high-value treasure because they've eaten adventurers — it's a fun image, especially for the gelatinous cube, but it doesn't hold up. Such creatures would devour goblins and peasants far more often than merchants and knights, which would predict copper-heavy loot, not platinum. Simpler to say wild creatures have no treasure at all (except in lairs) — or assign a value to their pelts and parts instead.

Which leaves the question of lairs. As a rough heuristic, we can try using the same 100 gp per HD we used for most creatures. Honestly, I'd divide the treasure of wild creatures by 10 or something similar; a lion's den is simply not that full of valuable treasure.

Dragons are a special case and should stay that way. They are the only creatures that genuinely deserve complex, idiosyncratic treasure — it fits their mythological origins, their centuries of accumulation, their sheer scale as opponents. Keep them as written. A dragon hoard should feel different from everything else, because it is.

Finally, to put some variety back without restoring the full complexity: a couple of short random tables for special cases.

Maybe this is easy to do with a dice pool - roll 1d10 for each 100 gp expected. In the main table, poor creatures get -1, rich ones get +1. Add other types of coins if you want. For example:

Main table

d10
0–1	Copper coins
2–4	Silver coins
5–7	Gold coins
8	Platinum coins
9–10	Special (roll below)

Special — d10

d10
1	Platinum coins
2	Gems
3	Magic item
4	Potion
5	Scroll
6	Map (treasure, dungeon, or secret route)
7	Art or jewelry
8	Single incredible gem (x10 value)
9	Document (deed, letter of credit, incriminating secret)
10	Pelt, trophy, or caged creature

This way you can keep the treasure "mini-game" if you want, and even have some rare events... A kobold carrying a gem he doesn't know the value of. A pirate ship with a crate of stolen art. The skeleton of a hero in the smilodon's lair, still gripping his magic sword. Treasure maps, unidentified potions and forgotten artifacts. These exceptions are what make individual encounters memorable — and they work precisely because the baseline is simple enough that the exception stands out. 

I'm not 100% happy with this yet, but it is a start.

The Chronicles of Amber (1-5), Norwegian Wood, The Stranger, Ultralearning

I hesitated a little before writing a review of these books, mainly because I don't have many positive things to say about them, and to be honest I was a bit cautious to criticize books that are so widely loved. 

That said, a negative ou neutral review can be just as useful as a positive one, so I decided to share my impressions anyway. Also, I din't quite regret reading any of these books, even if the experience was not as valuable to me as reading Kafka, Wolfe, Borges or Moorcock, to name a few authors that might share some themes.

The Chronicles of Amber (1-5), by Roger Zelazny

This is a well-known series, listed in Appendix N of D&D. I read the first pentalogy, which, curiously, wasn't even finished when AD&D was published in 1977. It is a middling adventure fantasy: a mix of predictable ideas and genuinely interesting ones, quite reminiscent of Michael Moorcock's Elric and its concept of the multiverse. Its influence on D&D is obvious, particularly in the conception of demigods and the planes of existence.

The books are full of adventure, epic battles, knights and unicorns. The fantasy, however, is somewhat generic, and the naming conventions are curious (there are references to Avalon and Merlin entirely outside of an Arthurian context, for example). The characters, with the possible exception of the narrator, feel a bit shallow and hard to tell apart. The intrigue tends to rely on the same repetitive devices: someone pretends not to know what they know, or pretends to be someone else, or forges someone's death etc. This happens repeatedly across different books, and sometimes the scheming characters feel incredibly naive after many lifetimes in a court of intrigues.

Overall, it is an enjoyable, light and fun read, with something of a Young Adult feel, though there are a few darker scenes (some very good) and some interesting ideas around the multiverse. There are also cool, interesting twists that finish each separate book, although the ending of the pentalogy is somewhat confusing, and I felt no urge to continue to the remaining volumes, except maybe to reach a more satisfying conclusion, if there is one.

Unfortunately, the series falls a bit short of the works that likely inspired it, such as Anderson, Moorcock, and others. It does, however, surpass a good deal of modern fantasy, and remains a fun read that can certainly provide inspiration for your D&D games, especially at higher levels of play.

Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami

I have to admit that some parts of this book are beautifully written, and that I read it almost compulsively, trying to figure out where the story was headed. Some passages are really quite good. Even so, the hype surrounding the book remains somewhat mysterious to me.

The novel follows a university student who is thoroughly disengaged from his own life, surrounded by deeply depressed people. The exception, perhaps, is the protagonist and his friend, who seems to attract an endless stream of interested women for reasons the text never makes entirely clear, given that neither of them displays any particularly positive qualities.

The protagonist is a hornier version of Holden Caulfield with considerably better luck with women, and seems to have a surprisingly easy time with them despite an apparent lack of ambition, social graces, or redeeming qualities in general. When he does choose to show restraint, he does so without any apparent moral conviction, and surrenders it again without much of a struggle. The other characters, for their part, are profoundly depressed, some to the point of suicide, others struggling with serious hardships such as cancer and poverty (with the exception of one friend that seems to be devoid of empathy and even more successful with women).

Although the protagonist mentions his interest in Western literature, the atmosphere of inexplicable gloom surrounding some of the characters reminded me more of Osamu Dazai than of any European influence. Though perhaps there is also some Camus at work here (and also The Catcher in the Rye, which the author mentions IIRC), as the next book suggests.

The depressing, existential tone is probably the whole point of the book. I didn't find it particularly enjoyable or enriching, but it may be an interesting experience if that sounds like something you'd like.

The Stranger, by Albert Camus

The Stranger is a classic of absurdism with an enormous cultural influence. Much like the previous book, it features a protagonist who is thoroughly disengaged from his own life and fate, but in an even more radical and unsettling way, and without the excuse of being a teenager. It is almost impossible not to wonder whether the protagonist has some serious neurological condition, though his emotional detachment does not make him any less irrational than the other characters, who are guided by their own equally misguided emotions, such as the romantic interest who insists on pursuing him despite his obvious indifference.

In Kafka's The Trial, the accused desperately tries to prove his innocence before a completely surreal judicial system. Here, the accused is indifferent to proving his own innocence, which is questionable to begin with, even when faced with a system that, while unhinged, seems to follow some internal logic and might perhaps have responded to a coherent defense.

The absurdity of the protagonist's thinking and the circumstances surrounding him are, in all likelihood, precisely the point of the book. But, as with the previous entry, that does not make it a particularly enjoyable read.

Ultralearning, by Scott H. Young

This is a book about intense, self-directed learning, and I found it quite useful. I reviewed and summarized it, and added a few study tips for 2026, over on my other blog, which focuses on self-development. If that interests you, check out that post and the others in the same blog:

https://allinspiringideas.blogspot.com/2026/02/ultralearning-by-scott-h-young-review.html

https://allinspiringideas.blogspot.com/

Smash the ability scores

The "Smash" maneuver from the Rules Cyclopedia has always intrigued me, not only because it's one of those small idiosyncrasies of that book absent from other versions of D&D, but also because it's one of the rare cases outside roll-under situations where the attribute is used in full, point by point, rather than just a modifier.

It goes like this:

Smash
This is a Fighter Combat Option maneuver, first available at 9th level to fighters and mystics, and at other experience point totals to demihumans (see their experience tables). With this hand-to-hand maneuver, the character automatically loses initiative and takes a - 5 penalty to the attack roll (he still gets his Strength and magic adjustments to his attack roll). 
If attack hits, the character adds his Strength bonus, magic bonuses, and his entire Strength score to his weapon's normal damage. 
For example, a Strength 17 fighter ( + 2 to attack and damage) using a sword +2 ( + 2 to attack, 1d8 + 2 damage) would perform a smash this way: He rolls to hit with a net penalty of -1 ( + 2 + 2-5). If he hits, he rolls ld8 + 21 (17+ 2+ 2) for damage!

The smash maneuver is also a solution to various combat situations, but I'll set that aside to focus on the matter of ability checks.

A persistent problem in D&D is that there are few mechanics that interact directly with the full attribute score instead of just the modifier. 

The obvious answer to this dilemma is, well, ability checks. The problem is that good examples of them are nearly absent from published D&D modules. Most are simply Dexterity tests used as if they were saving throws — which, in my view, only adds confusion. The example in Moldvay is climbing a rope, which has the odd consequence of making the thief better at climbing sheer walls than ropes. 

AD&D offers some inspiration for broader uses: though it never says so explicitly, the attribute tables include chances to learn spells and resurrection survival odds — both of which could reasonably be framed as ability checks. Strength checks have a few obvious uses — for example, open doors, which unfortunately is treated under a different mechanics, with similar results.

None of this helps much with the harder problem: finding situations that naturally call for a Wisdom or Charisma check.

Using ability checks with skills, non-weapon proficiencies, etc. seems to be a good solution. In a game like AD&D, where abilities average 12.2, it might be as simple as giving a −10 penalty to anyone untrained (minimum 1), and adding level if trained. 

So a thief with Dex 14 might start with a skill of 5, so 25% chance of success (14+1−10), reaching 90% by level 14. A warrior with the same Dex might have only 4 for all his career - and the GM might decide certain tasks are impossible for the untrained.

It doesn't matter whether you prefer roll-high or roll-low. You simply add this to a 1d20 and try to meet or beat 20 (gaining an extra 5% chance in the process, which is a good tradeoff in my opinion). So our thief would go from 30% to 95% over the course of his career.

[I'm more inclined to go roll low, but since the math is the same I'll probably ask around to see what people prefer.]

That's probably what I'll go with, because it's a lot simpler than the idea that got me writing this in the first place.

I was thinking of keeping the modifier as the standard for skills, but allowing certain situations to let you add the entire ability score instead. What would be the equivalent of Smash for other abilities? Anything done slowly could fit... maybe it could be the old-school equivalent of "taking 10":

Taking Your Time

When the character is not in a rush and is not being threatened or distracted, they may add their entire ability score — rather than just the modifier — to the check.

This brings to mind Siegfried using his prodigious strength to forge a sword despite little blacksmithing training. And it still leaves some chance of success and failure.

Another idea: allow a natural 20 to trigger a "roll again, adding the entire ability score" — letting PCs accomplish nearly impossible tasks if they're talented enough.

I may develop these further down the line, but for now I think I've found my next skill system.

BTW, I'm working on my "Old School Minimalist" again, and this time I think I'll go all the way and publish a 20-30 page PDF, after I share the whole thing here.

GMs day sale (2026) - OSR, classic D&D and others

So, it’s that time of year again...

The GM Day's sale has arrived, so here are my picks (same as last years with some additions).

Notice that the usual discount this year is 40%, which is the best sale of the year IIRC.

First, let me remind you that all of my books are included in the sale! 

If your tastes are similar to mine, take a look! They are mostly compatible with OSR games (except for a couple of 5e books - "Manual of Arms").

Here are some big discounts. 

The Dolmenwood Campaign Book looks really cool and it is 50% off! Maybe I'll get it to take a look.

The Halls of Arden Vul Complete is also 40% off again - or $45.00 off. Sounds reasonable for 1.100 pages (!) although it is probably too much material for me to digest.

Now, let's see the old favorites...

Big discounts!

These products seem to be about 40% off and I find each of them interesting. The first two are my own. Some are also mentioned (and further explained) below:

OSR

* Teratogenicon, my monster maker (check the previews!).

* Dark Fantasy Basic, my B/X neoclone.

* Hyperborea (my impressions).

* Monkey Business.

* Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG (DCC RPG);

* How to Write Adventure Modules That Don't Suck; 

* The Monster Alphabet; 

* Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy: Rules Tome; 

* Silent Legions; 

* Into the Unknown (my impressions).

* Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells.

* Tales of Argosa.

Classic D&D

This are some of my favorites, also 40% off. Explanation here.

* D&D Basic Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic).

* D&D Rules Cyclopedia (Basic)

* Dungeon Master's Guide (1e)

* Monstrous Manual (2e).

* Dark Sun boxed set.

* B10 Night's Dark Terror - one of my favorite classic adventures.

Goodman Games

In addition to the amazing Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG (DCC RPG), I really like The Dungeon Alphabet, The Monster Alphabet and The Cthulhu Alphabet. They are near system-less and full of awesome stuff to inspire your games. I still haven't read How to Write Adventure Modules That Don't Suck but it is also on sale. All of them 40% off.

They also publish awesome adventures; alas, few are on sale, but fortunately Doom of the Savage King, the one I am currently running, is 40% off! Recommended! Same for Jewels of the Carnifex, which I reviewed here.

Necrotic Gnome

Several Old School Essentials titles are also on sale in addition to Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy: Rules Tome. I really like Old-School Essentials. It is basically a concise, well-organized version of my favorite D&D (B/X). The SRD is great. the version that interests me the most is the advanced version - it is NOT an AD&D clone, but B/X with many new options taken from AD&D, dragon magazine, etc. For players and DMs.

Sine Nomine Publishing

Worlds Without Number is 40% off. I have only read the free version briefly, but seems very good overall, and I've appreciated many other titles from the same author, including Scarlet Heroes and Silent Legions (maybe my favorite OSR take on horror and Lovecraft).

I think that's it for now. If you know any other books on sale that you'd recommend (especially if it is 40% off), let me know in the comments and I'll add it to my list. Feel free to promote your own products!

These are all Affiliate links - by using them, you're helping to support this blog!

The critical hit "checklist"

As you might have noticed, I really like critical hits, but I dislike complexity. Playing systems such as Rolemaster with extensive crit and fumble tables, where a bad roll could mean your character trips over an invisible turtle (really!), was fun but also slow and frustrating.

This is another idea for critical hits. 

My aim is to pile all weapon complexity onto critical hits, so we don't have to write it down in every character sheet. It makes critical hits lengthy and detailed, but something you can easily change or ignore if you dislike it.

Maybe critical hits activate on a natural 20 (maybe 19-20 for certain fighters), or maybe on a margin of success of 10 or more. Whatever method you use, I think this table would simplify things. Each line can represent an idea that applies to lots of weapons, and you can just skip the lines you don't use.

You start with the idea that a critical hit not only gives you maximum damage, but — if it doesn't outright kill your target — gives you a percentage chance of doubling it.

The chances start at 5% for each point of difference between your d20 roll and your target number (e.g., with ascending AC, if you have a total of 23 against AC 13, you start with a 50% chance).

Then you go through a small checklist, skipping the items that do not apply:

• Using two hands gives you +10%.
• Armor (or tough/brittle bodies) gives swords and axes -10%.
• Shields give swords, spears and arrows -10%.
• No armor (or soft/flexible bodies) gives swords +20% and axes +10%.
• Lack of blood and functioning organs gives swords and spears -20%.
• Spears give you +10% otherwise (i.e., if there are blood/organs).
• Oozes give blunt and small weapons and missiles -20%.
• Large foes give blunt and small weapons and missiles -20%.
• Polearms are combinations of weapons, so it depends. Other weapons might fall somewhere in the sword (slashing) spear (piercing) or mace (blunt) categories. 

You get the idea. You can tweak the numbers, but potentially the entire "weapon versus armor" and "weapon versus large" tables could be included here — and since critical hits are rare, all this complexity only comes up occasionally, keeping the game fast the rest of the time.

When you get the percentage (if positive), you roll the chances of doubling your damage. If you roll doubles, you triple damage. Such a critical hit should always be described in detail, and someone killed in this manner will often suffer a gruesome death (decapitation, disembowelment, etc). If you miss the percentage roll, you still add +2 damage if you roll doubles.

If you like to use fumbles, a natural 1 could give you a fumbling chance. At least here they wouldn't apply to 5% of all attacks. Fumbling chances could be affected by circumstances such as:

Using a flail.

Shooting into melee.

Fighting with large weapons in small spaces or using bows indoors.

Uneven or unsafe ground.

Either way, the goal is the same: keep the complexity tucked away where it rarely surfaces, but it exists and always stays somewhere in the back of the players' heads, making weapons feel more grounded and detailed without slowing your game down.

The fireball hand grenade

You might have heard me complain about fireballs a couple of times, so I hope you'll forgive me for trying a new fix to a problem some of you might share. The fix is really simple and does not significantly nerf MUs (in fact, I'm not sure it is enough).

Usually, when an MU throws a fireball at a group of goblins, things like saves and damage rarely matter - goblins within blast radius are toast. Which is fine, but it gets weirder and weirder to me when the MU can instantly kill a group of orcs, lizard men or even bugbears.

What if we just roll damage as usual (say, 7d6 for a 7th-level MU), but that is the TOTAL damage dealt. So, against a group of goblins, a weak damage roll (say, 20 points) and a successful save would reduce the number of goblin casualties to only two or three.

The damage is distributed as the GM sees appropriate - think of the fireball like a hand grenade! Most of the damage hits the center, shrapnel spreads outward.

This logic seems to work for groups. Against a single creature, the fireball remains equally effective. If you want to change that, you can just decide that, like a grenade, the main target gets most of the damage but a part of it (say, half of the damage, round down) is spread around.

Lightning bolt could function similarly, but maybe I'd let the MU concentrate all damage into a single creature or create a "line" of damage that diminishes as each creature is hit in a straight line. This spells has not been as common in my games, however. I'm even tempted to treat dragon breath in similar way (well, as a flamethrower) and let fighters jump with their shields in front of wizards when needed.

Anyway, I like this idea because it makes a 10d6 fireball very different from a 5d6 fireball against a group of lesser foes, which gives the wizard a real sense of progression without making him overpowered in comparison to fighters. Thinking of them as grenades makes them feel more grounded and tactically interesting, giving MUs interesting choices of where to aim - and it is also reminiscent of the original Chainmail origins that treated wizards like artillery.

Maximum Damage

We've been playing with a lot of ideas using D&D weapons and margins of success. Yesterday, a new one occurred to me: maximum damage.

Let's say weapon damage is determined by margin of success, but the maximum damage is unchanged from the original game. So a d4 becomes 4, a d8 becomes 8, etc.

This has several benefits before we get any deeper:

• You don't need a damage roll.
• Damage raises steadily with level, especially for fighters.
• Armor becomes even more significant.
• Armored duels
•  feel a bit slower and more realistic, with lots of wounds.
• Magic users could use swords etc. but it would usually not be worth the effort.
• We'd get more granular weapons (e.g., maximum damage 5, 7, or 9).
• Even a goblin can potentially survive a hit of a +3 sword, although this is very rare.

If we rule that a natural 20 doubles or triples maximum damage (or just raises it by 10 points or whatever), even a dagger can be deadly in the hands of a very skilled fighter against an unarmored foe.

Conversely, we can introduce laser guns with 15 or 20 maximum damage, and he stormtroopers would still have a hard time actually killing someone with it in a single shot.

I'm tempted to add your attack bonus to maximum damage too, so Conan can occasionally kill a sorcerer with a punch.

We'd have to consider how backstab works. Maybe a flat +4 bonus to attack and maximum damage.

Also, how do exact hits work? Maybe 0 damage, maybe 1, maybe some special effect, not sure.

One downside I can see is that average damage is a bit higher than usual even for low-HD creatures, although this is somewhat countered by the fact that in my games, PCs don't die at 0 HP. The fact that high-level warriors deal lots of damage is a plus for me, especially because I don't like having many magic weapons.

The fact that people get used to thinking about margins of success could also be useful if you use this for skills and other checks, which I like.

Another problem is that big foes such as giants and dragons could have their damage significantly diminished if we use this system exactly as written, never being able to actually reach their "maximum damage". Maybe that's a problem for another day, but I can imagine we could have a size multiplier of ×2 to ×4 (maybe "3x6" instead of "6d6"), which could create an interesting effect: a giant will not often hit the fighter, but when he does the damage is massive — one mistake might cost him dearly!

I think I originally had this idea years ago, when playing bell-curve systems, which might have different, but interesting, effects.

There are probably another issues I'm missing, but so far I really like this idea... let me know what you think in the comments!

Note: the GM Day's sale* is on, and most of my books are included! 40% off many titles! Here are some of my picks from past sales. Some deep discounts here, including the Dolmenwood Campaign Book looks really cool and it is 50% off! Maybe I"ll get it to take a look...

* Affiliate link.