In laying out the Black Book Beta, page 63 ended up being blank. This bugged me, but it’s actually a non-trivial problem to solve so I decided to lay it aside. I considered commissioning a full page of art to fill the space, but this would be expensive and randomly out of place given the layout in the rest of the book. So I’ve been looking at various ways to re-arrange Chapter 10: Companions & Allies and/or possibly Chapter 9: Conditions to “pad out” an extra page.

The other day, however, I was running a session of my Thracian Hexcrawl campaign and I realized how significant a role morale has begun to play in my handling of hirelings at the game table when one of the gem sisters collapsed into a complete panic when her sister was killed by a platoon of skeleton archers. So now I’m thinking that Page 63 — coming at the end of the chapter on Companions & Allies — might actually be a good place for morale rules. These would also be trivially adapted to use with adversaries and monsters; but the primarily utility would be aimed at hirelings.

Basically, as a DM, I don’t actually want to run hirelings as full NPCs: I’m already juggling enough balls that the idea of running a GMPC of any sort (player-initiated or not) isn’t appealing. I’d rather let the players manage their coterie. A simple morale system, on the other hand, gives a hireling a certain degree of “otherness” — they aren’t just adjunct PCs. (For some previous thoughts on hirelings and followers in Legends & Labyrinths, read here and here. For some thoughts on old school morale systems, read this.)

With all of that in mind, I’ve got a couple questions for you.

First, is this a good idea? It would be one of the more significant systemic departures from “vanilla 3E”.

Second, what form should such a morale system take? I’ve got a couple options in mind, but wouldn’t mind hearing some open-ended brainstorming in the comments.

OPTION 1 – OLD SCHOOL:In this option, morale and loyalty are essentially flat and don’t scale with level or CR. Loyalty would be determined by the PC’s Leadership score and/or the offer made to hire the NPC. The morale score of a hireling would be determined with a simple 2d6 roll modified by Loyalty. Morale checks would similarly be rolled on 2d6 (with a result lower than the hireling’s morale indicating surrender, panic, retreat, or a similar reaction).

An area of concern here is the scaling of the Leadership score by level. (Check out “Thinking About Morale” for why I think this is problematic. Essentially, it doesn’t take much for such a system to effectively become irrelevant.)

Another potential problem with this approach is that it’s radically inconsistent with the rest of 3rd Edition’s design ethos of having a “core mechanic”. (Although not that dissimilar from the turning mechanic, I suppose.)

OPTION 2 – SKILL-BASED: Alternatively, what if triggering events required a Diplomacy or Intimidate check with a DC set by the CR of the hireling you’re trying to keep from panicking? (Effectively you’d use the Trained Check DC from the Hazards table on page 86, although there’d probably be a morale-specific instantiation of the table on page 63.)

A potential problem with this approach is that it gives no ability for a hireling to stay loyal if their boss is incapacitated or absent. Maybe the hireling makes a Will save with the DC set by the CR of the prevalent threat, and only if they fail do their bosses have a chance to “rally the troops” using the skill check?

What do y’all think?

When I posted Black Book Beta Response 6 last week, it didn’t get much of a response. After some reflection on the matter, I have several hypotheses for this:

1. With the funding project done, nobody is really paying attention any more.
2. People don’t really care that much about art.
3. Since I screwed up the options on the poll, most people couldn’ t vote when they saw the post.
4. The fact that you needed to go flipping through the book to look at the art made it less likely for people to comment/participate.

On the theory that #3 or #4 are most plausible, I’m going to try this again. And this time I’m going to do it better. (Assuming I don’t screw up the poll again.) Below the poll you’ll find that I’ve included all the questionable art that I’m asking for your feedback on. I’m also adding in a few additional pieces that people have specifically commented on.

If you voted before, feel free to vote again. And, again, please feel free to leave a comment pointing out other pieces of art you don’t like. I’m particularly interested in hearing your feedback on any pieces that felt too “familiar” to you. (I’m using public domain art, but I still want the book to feel fresh.)

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One of the major reasons for the Black Book Beta and 8-Bit Funding project was to raise the funds to improve the art for the book.

Some of the new art will be going into the sections of the book currently missing from the Black Book Beta (the Grimoire and Bestiary). But a good chunk of it will actually be replacing art already found in the Black Book Beta (which is almost entirely lifted from public domain sources).

I used those public domain sources because I wanted to lock-in layout. The Black Book Beta is actually a fairly art-rich book. It features 79 illustrations in 150 pages, for an art-to-page ratio of 0.53. (You can compare that to other RPG art throughout history here.) That ratio will probably be dropping as I anticipate some of the sections missing from the Black Book Beta will end up featuring less art per page.

But the use of public domain art carries with it some problems:

• Some of it is ugly.
• Some of it is inappropriate.
• Some of it is too familiar.

In short, it was always my intention to replace at least some of the art in the Black Book Beta with different pieces. At the funding level we achieved, I can’t afford to replace all of it.  So here’s your chance: Flip through your copy of the Black Book Beta and tell me what you think sucks; the stuff you hate with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns; the stuff you think is completely inappropriate; the stuff you think is too generic or well-known; and anything else you just don’t like.

I’ve included a poll with what I suspect will be the likeliest subjects. Vote for as many as you’d like, but don’t feel like you need to stop there: If there’s another piece that’s really bugging you, drop it into the comments.

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Over on Hack & Slash, -C has written an interesting trio of posts on the matter of the Quantum Ogre:

On Quantum Ogres

On Slaying Quantum Ogres

On Resurrecting Quantum Ogre

If you enjoy some of the theoretical stuff I post around this neck of the woods, you’ll probably enjoy this stuff, too.

With that being said, however, I pretty strongly disagree with some of his advice. An addendum I’d like to point out: Players making a choice without having relevant information is only a problem if they don’t have the ability to gain that information. The choice to not get that information is a meaningful choice. (Or the failure to do so is a meaningful consequence.)

So any time he recommends giving players access to information that their characters don’t actually have access to, you can just imagine me shaking my head sadly. That technique is killing player agency just as dead as the quantum ogre is.

In Ptolus, the House of the Sacred Heat believes in the divine healing power of fire. They are not priests and they do not have truly holy magic, but their techniques “serve the needs of Ptolusites who cannot afford to pay a temple hundreds of gold coins to heal a wound or deal with an illness.”

This concept of fantastical healing lying somewhere between the naturalistic limits of the Heal skill and the magical extremes of divine magic has always been very appealing to me. Unfortunately, the purview of the sacred heat wasn’t given any mechanical definition. Without that mechanical definition, there’s no compelling reason for the PCs to ever interact with the Healers of the Sacred Heat. As a result, in a setting already teeming with activity, the Sacred Heat is a non-entity.

Reading through Reign t’other day, however, I found the esoteric discipline of Truil Bodywork. Greg Stolze describes this discipline, in part, by writing: “Some Truils argue, quite seriously, that bodywork functions by compressing a month’s suffering into ten or fifteen minutes. The bodyworkers themselves just roll their eyes at the jibe.”

Reign is built on the One-Roll Engine (ORE), so the pain-for-gain mechanics of Truil Bodywork don’t directly translate. But the basic concept was inspiring. Here’s the Healer of the Sacred Heat feat:

HEALER OF THE SACRED HEAT

Prerequisite: Heal 5 ranks

Benefit: The character gains access to the Healing Arts of the Sacred Heat. As long as they have access to an open flame, they gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Heal checks and they can also use any of the following abilities.

Burning Out the Poison: By using flame and heat applied to specific locations on the body, a Healer of the Sacred Heat can attempt to burn a poison out of a patient’s body. (Some ingested poisons will also require the patient to swallow specially prepared coals.) This treatments takes 1 round and deals 1d6 points of nonlethal damage to the patient, but if the healer succeeds on a Heal check with a DC equal to that of the original poison + 5 the patient is completely cured. (They suffer no additional effects from the poison and any temporary effects are ended. However, the treatment does not reverse instantaneous effects such as hit point damage, temporary ability damage, and the like.)

Cooling the Disease: By using strategically placed flames or heat sources around a patient’s body, a Healer of the Sacred Heat can create a biorhythmic vortex which will draw heat out of the body. As the heat departs the body, it draws non-magical diseases with it. The treatment takes 10 minutes and deals 1d6 points of nonlethal damage to the patient due to the sudden chilling of their body, but if the healer succeeds on a Heal check with a DC equal to that of the original disease +5 the patient will automatically succeed on their next saving throw against the disease.

Cauterizing the Wound: With 10 minutes of work and a successful Heal check (DC 15), a Healer of the Sacred Heat can convert lethal damage to nonlethal damage equal to their margin of success. A patient receiving this treatment also suffers 1d6 points of additional nonlethal damage due to the strain placed on their body by the technique.

DESIGN NOTES

I’m tempted to add a “once per day per patient” limitation to Cauterizing the Wound, but I’m  not sure it’s actually necessary. What do y’all think?

This material is covered by the Open Game License.