Designer's Notes
The Twilight Empire campaign uses the four standard OD&D character classes, but each class has received a few tweaks, and in addition to choosing a class a player chooses a training package for his character, which grants a few bonus skills and items and one or more minor powers.
Clerics are not presumed to have military training unless they take the Templar training package. As such, the standard cleric uses only 4-sided hit dice, attacks as a magic-user, and has no armor proficiency and limited weapon proficiency. In exchange, they are given a lay on hands power, and the turn undead power has been expanded so that it includes other types of spirits besides "spirits of the dead".
Fighters receive a "fighter ability", which is a low-powered skill or feat giving them training in a particular weapon or attack form, such as jousting or grappling.
Mages have been given the power to create magical talismans given sufficient time and money; these function as standard OD&D scrolls, but the physical item used to create a talisman (such as a medallion or fetish) can be re-enchanted after the stored spell has been expended (although additional time and money must be spent to re-enchant the item).
Thieves have been given superior hit dice and attack progression, and most of their thief abilities are treated as skills. In Twilight Empire, skills are tested with a simple ability roll, with a bonus equal to the character's experience level. De facto, this gives low-level thieves a much higher chance to use their abilities successfully than standard OD&D thieves.
Characters are also given ability bonuses and bonus skills as they advance in level. The ability bonuses help compensate for the fact that 1st level characters often have low ability scores (rolled on 3d6--or assign the following scores as desired: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13), and to reflect the fact that higher level characters customarily have higher ability scores in published OD&D supplements.
Advancing in level gives a character a small number of "elective skills". Skills represent background knowledge or non-adventuring knowledge gained through experience; mechanically, as mentioned, they give a bonus to relevant ability rolls at the referee's discretion.
All classes use the same experience table (adapted from Empire of the Petal Throne, p. 27). The table stops at 9th level; I haven't decided what to do yet with higher level characters, but additional hit dice will probably stop around 9th level (to be replaced with a fixed bonus, as in standard OD&D), and the XP needed to increase a level will start increasing arithmetically rather than geometrically at the same time.
The motivations for these tweaks are various. Clerics had to be changed to more accurately reflect priests in most traditional societies; OD&D-style warrior priests did exist, but they're less common in history than their non-militant brethren, whether Christian canons, Jewish rabbis, Muslim clerics, Buddhist monks and nuns, or what have you. The fighter powers are a less-overpowered version of the feats from later editions of D&D, and selecting a power adds a little background or depth to the fighter character. Talismans can usefully make up for the fact that low-level mages cast very few spells per day. Thieves have been amplified across the board to make them more balanced with other classes, especially at mid-level and above. The standard XP table was chosen mainly to make it easier to try to balance members of classes at each XP level, and so that the table could be easily memorized.
Classes Overview
Class
|
Prime
Req.
|
Hit Dice
|
BAB
|
Armor
Prof.
|
Wpn.
Prof.
|
Class
Powers
|
Cleric (C)
|
wisdom
|
1d4
|
+1 per 3 levels
|
none
|
club
dagger
mace
staff |
cast spells
lay on hands
spirit ward
|
Fighter (F)
|
strength
|
1d8
|
+1 per level
|
all
|
all
|
abilities
|
Mage (M)
|
intelligence
|
1d4
|
+1 per 3 levels
|
none
|
dagger
staff
|
cast spells
create magic items
create talismans
|
Thief (T)
|
dexterity
|
1d6
|
+1 per 2 levels
|
brigandine
helmet
quilted
|
all
|
backstab
detect secret
bonus
hear noise bonus
thief skills
|
Prime Requisite
A character must have a score of 9 or higher in his class’s prime
requisite.
Hit Dice (HD)
The type of die rolled to determine the character’s maximum hit points score. A character
receives one hit die of the stated type per experience level. For example, a
9th level cleric has 9d4 hit points.
Each hit die roll is modified by a character’s constitution adjustment.
However, a negative constitution adjustment does not reduce a hit die roll
below 1.
A character’s current hit points
fall below his maximum hit points score when he takes damage.
Base Attack Bonus (BAB)
A character’s class determines the rate at which his base attack bonus
increases. BAB is added to a character’s attack roll along with other modifiers.
Armor Proficiency
A character’s class determines which kids of armor he is proficient with.
If a character wears non-proficient
armor, he suffers a -2 penalty
to rolls involving physical actions (including attack rolls, constitution
rolls, dexterity rolls, and strength rolls, but not including damage rolls).
A cleric or mage who
wears non-proficient armor is unable to cast spells. Nonhuman multi-classed clerics or mages are able to cast spells if using proficient armor.
Weapon Proficiency
A character receives a -2 penalty on attack rolls when attacking with a
non-proficient weapon.
Experience Level
Experience Points
Player characters earn experience points (XP) by winning treasure and
defeating foes. The reward is 1 XP per 1 groat worth of treasure, or 10 XP per
hit die of foe defeated.
Earning experience points increases a character’s experience level in a
class. This increases the character’s number of hit dice, base attack bonus, ability
bonuses, elective skills, and class powers (such as casting spells).
A character receives one hit die and one ability bonus per experience
level. A character receives one elective skill at 1st level and an additional
elective skill for every four levels advanced. Improvements in class powers
vary by class.
Experience Table
XP
Level
|
XP Required
|
Ability
Bonuses
|
Elective
Skills
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
2,000
|
2
|
1
|
3
|
4,000
|
3
|
1
|
4
|
8,000
|
4
|
1
|
5
|
16,000
|
5
|
2
|
6
|
32,000
|
6
|
2
|
7
|
64,000
|
7
|
2
|
8
|
128,000
|
8
|
2
|
9
|
256,000
|
9
|
3
|
Elective Skills
An elective skill is chosen by the player rather than being determined
by his character’s race, background package, class, or training package. A
character’s elective skill at 1st level must be one that he could have learned
based on his homeland, background, and social level (referee’s discretion). Subsequent
elective skills can be learned either through self-study or through training at
the hands of an expert. In general, it takes at least three months of training
to learn a skill, or at least a year of self-study.
Ability Bonuses
An ability bonus is a +1 bonus to one ability score. A character’s
ability bonus at 1st level is determined by his race or background package.
Subsequent ability bonuses can be chosen by the player, but must either match
his use of abilities during play (referee’s discretion) or be else be preceded
by a period of deliberate training or self-study, as for learning an elective
skill.
Tiers
Player characters are divided into four tiers based on experience level:
low-level (1-4), mid-level (5-8), high-level (9-12), and very high level (13+).
These tiers are useful for the referee when designing dungeons and other places
of adventure.
