Thursday, April 14, 2016

Old vs. New - LotFP Character, Level 10, Max Dice Rolls

Think of this as an addendum to my last two posts about the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Playtest rules (HERE and HERE).

As a quick experiment, I wanted to compare some characters made with the current LotFP rules to ones made with the Playtest Document 0.1 rules. Out of curiosity regarding a "best-case" scenario, I decided to compare two characters who had rolled the maximum amount possible on all rolls of the dice during character creation and leveling up. Out of similar curiosity about "high" levels, I picked Level 10 for both characters, since that is the first level in which Constitution stops influencing HP in the current rules, so HP per level would start to drop off in the current rules compared to the Playtest rules (assuming I understand them correctly).

Grindhouse McGee
Level 10
Experience: 384,000 for Fighters; 288,000 for Specialists; 432,000 for Magic-Users; 336,000 for Clerics
Charisma 18 (+3 to Retainer Hiring and Loyalty)
Constitution 18 (+3 to HP per Level and Daily Travel Distance)
Dexterity 18 (+3 to AC, Ranged AB, Initiative)
Intelligence 18 (+3 to Saves vs. Magic Effects and Languages)
Strength 18 (+3 to Melee AB, Open Doors)
Wisdom 18 (+3 to Saves vs. Non-Magic Effects)
Items per Encumbrance Slot: 5
Unarmored AC: 15
HP: 102 for Fighters, 83 for Specialists and Clerics, 39 for Magic-Users
Base AB: +10 for Fighters, +1 for others
Melee and Ranged AB: +13 for Fighters, +4 for others
Skill Points (beyond 1 in 6): Specialists get 22 to freely distribute and +3 to Languages and +3 to Open Doors (Total 28); others get +3 to Languages and +3 to Open Doors (Total 6)
Magic-User Spells per Day: 4 First-Level, 4 Second-Level,  3 Third-Level, 2 Fourth-Level, 2 Fifth-Level (Total 15)
Cleric Spells per Day: 4 First-Level, 4 Second-Level, 3 Third-Level, 3 Fourth-Level, 2 Fifth-Level (Total 16)
Fighter Saving Throws: Paralyze 8, Poison 6, Breath 7, Device 7, Magic 10
Specialist Saving Throws: Paralyze 9, Poison 10, Breath 12, Device 11, Magic 10
Magic-User Saving Throws: Paralyze 11, Poison 11, Breath 14, Device 11, Magic 12
Cleric Saving Throws: Paralyze 10, Poison 7, Breath 12, Device 8, Magic 9

Playtest Pete
Level 10
Experience: 640,000 (Assuming the amount needed continues to double with each level)
Charisma 18 (Saves vs. Magic Effects 6d6)
Constitution 18 (1d12 HP per Level)
Dexterity 18 (Roll 1d12 for Initiative)
Intelligence 18 (+5 Skill Points to randomly distribute)
Strength 18 (Items per Encumbrance Slot: 7)
Wisdom 18 (Saves vs. Non-Magic Effects 6d6)
Unarmored AC: 12
HP 120
Attack Bonus for Fighters: +11 in all categories (or +10 if AB still caps like in the Grindhouse rules)
AB for Specialists and Magic-Users: +1 in Firearms and one random category, +0 in the others
Skill Points: Specialists get 22 to freely distribute, a +2 bonus to randomly assign, a +3 bonus to randomly assign, and 5 to randomly assign individually (Total 32); others get a +2 bonus to randomly assign, a +3 bonus to randomly assign, and 5 to randomly assign individually (Total 10)
Safe Spells per Day (Magic-User): 10
A partial save requires rolling one 6 on 6d6. A full save requires rolling two or more 6s on 6d6.

Honestly, I'm not sure how much this data can tell you, since rolling all 18s on ability scores and rolling max HP every level is almost impossible. This doesn't take minimum HP into account, for example. Still, I hope this might give you some idea of the different on-paper capabilities of Grindhouse characters vs. Playtest characters. Different things are either constant, class-based, or ability-based in each set of rules.

A few notes about Max-Stat Level 10 Characters in particular: Playtest Pete gets more HP, more Skill Points overall, more items per encumbrance slot, less AC, less Attack Bonus (but possibly more if he continues to level up, depending on how the new rules are meant to be interpreted), less safe spells per day (but more if he chooses to risk any more castings beyond that), and saving throws that I'm not sure how to compare mathematically. It seems that Grindhouse McGee gets to affect the hiring and morale of retainers without spending skill points, gets to travel farther per day, and gets to use the same Base Attack Bonus for all attacks. Playtest Pete determines his saving throws, HP, and initiative independent of his class (except that Fighters get to roll twice for HP at first level). Perhaps most strikingly, it takes Playtest Pete a lot more XP to reach Level 10.

Anyway, make of this as you will. I'm sure things will look much different for the average (or below-average) character.

EDIT: I realized I made an embarrassing error on the HP of Playtest Pete, originally listing it as 168, because I was going to use Level 14 as a baseline but changed my mind. Sorry!

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