I’ve implemented some significant changes to Immergleich’s rules. They affect three things – attributes, skills, and hit points.

Attributes are now attribute modifiers

D&D characters are succinctly described by their six attributes (strength, dexterity, etc). it’s easy to make lots of rolls using just attribute values. Creating them randomly gives you a possibly-surprising character to play, which is fun and a challenge. But the raw attribute values (3-18) are very rarely used, and they don’t improve through advancement at all.

(for more detail and thought process on the above, see D&D attributes, equal random generation, and skills).

So, I have changed some things:

• Attribute values (3-18) are gone; attribute modifiers (-3 to +3) are all that remain.
• I’ve standardised on a +2 modifier total at chargen
• …but I have removed the “swap two attributes” option
• PCs now get a +1 to one attribute at 3rd and 6^th level

Side effects of above –

• There is now a new d100 table for chargen. The old one is retired.
• If your character started with a +1 total, or is higher than 2nd level, then they are due some extra points.
  • In the former category I count — Thorgrim, Lorn, Aaron, Daneesa, Enocracie, Tarrun

Skills are gone; Thieves get special abilities

LotFP skills provide a way to implement thief abilities, and in doing so they give thieves niche protection. But in theory every character has them at a low (1 in 6 chance) level, and it’s not clear how they fit with Immergleich’s DW-style attribute checks.

(for more detail and thought process on the above, see Combining Dungeon World attribute checks with LotFP skills, badly.)

So, I have changed some things:

• Skills, as such, have completely gone
• Thieves now have access to a list of special abilities. They get two at 1^st level and 1 per level thereafter.

The list of abilities can be found in the Immergleich house rules v11.

Hit points scale slower with level

In every D&D edition, hit points scale rapidly with PC levels and monster hit dice. But in LotFP, PC damage barely scales with level, which means fights take longer and longer as levels advance. For example, an average Fighter 6 has 34hp and damage output around 2.8 hp/rnd against AC 17 — that’s an average of 12 rounds to drop a clone of themselves. For drama, and for good session progress, 3-4 rounds is my target fight length.

So, I have changed some things:

• Fighters starting hp is reduced slightly (to 10 rather than 12)
• Hp per level beyond first is reduced dramatically
  • Fighters go from +d8 to flat +2
  • Clerics and Thieves go from +d6 to +d2
  • Alchemists and Magicians go from +d4 to flat +1
• Con now grants +/- 10% overall hp per point (rather than a flat add/subtract per level). E.g. Con +2 gives you +20% hp.
• Monster hp-by-level is reduced somewhat at middle levels and markedly reduced at higher levels.
  • To compensate, monster damage is slightly up at higher levels

This is the change I’m least sure about, but that’s because it’s very difficult to analyse without playing. There are more interacting constraints than I know how to model in a spreadsheet. So I want to try it in play and see what happens.

Updates to documents

All of the above are captured in the house rules, character creation guide, and character sheet. Access the latest versions of these (as always) from A player’s introduction to Immergleich.