Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Goblin PCs for Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition


As I've mentioned a number of times, I really enjoy Goblins as a PC race.  For fans of old school gaming, James Maliszewski at Grognardia created these Dwimmermount Goblin PC rules for his Dwimmermount setting using the Labyrinth Lord rules.  James uses a mix of regular LL, LL Original Characters, and Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition for his games, but his race rules for the Goblin lean strongly towards the original edition rules- split advancement, limited class selection, racial prime requisites, etc.

I'm currently working on putting together some OSR-style dungeon crawl adventures that I want to run via PbP.  I'd like to offer Goblins as a PC race (since I expect players will be running multiple different PCs over the course of things, death being a frequent possibility) but wanted to adapt the Goblin rules to be a little closer to the rule system I had in mind- essentially a simplified LL Advanced Edition that keeps the notion of race and class being separate, but focuses on the core four classes of Fighter, Magic-user, Cleric, and Thief.  With that goal in mind, I pulled together the following rules for Goblin PCs in Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition:


Goblins

Requirements: DEX 9
Ability Modifiers: STR -1, DEX +1
Ability Min/Max: STR 2/17, DEX 8/19, CON 7/19, INT 3/18, WIS 6/18, CHA 3/18
Goblin Classes Available: Cleric (7), Fighter (6), Thief (14)
Goblin Thief Skill Adjustments: Pick Pockets +7%, Move Silently +10%, Climb Walls -15%, Hide in Shadows +10%

Goblins are short humanoid beings standing between 3 and 3½ feet tall. They possess a wide range of skin colors, with shades of green, yellow, orange, and red (and everything in between) all being possible, while their eyes are usually red or yellow in color. Tribes of goblins in a particular location often have similar skin and eye colors.

Like dwarves and halflings, Goblins may not use large and two-handed weapons, but may use any other weapon and armor as indicated by class.  Because of their small size, their Armor Class is lower (-2) when being attacked by creatures of larger than human size, and they have an advantage (+2) in making saving throws against breath weapons.

Goblins are adapted for a life spent either underground or in nocturnal raiding.  They have infravision to 60 feet but suffer a -1 penalty to their attacks when fighting in sunlight. They have a 2 in 6 (1-2 on 1d6) chance of detecting decrepit or unsafe structures above or below ground (walls, floors, ceilings, etc.), knowing current depth underground, knowing direction while underground, or noticing if passages are sloped. Goblins must be actively searching for these abilities to function.

Goblins spend much of their lives as scavengers.  They have a +4 to save versus poison as a result of their robust digestion, and are able to scavenge or hunt while travelling underground, but any food gathered by these methods is only suitable for consumption by other other Goblins.

Goblins speak their own language (goblin) and Common as player characters. Goblins can also learn to speak dwarven, gnome, hobgoblin, orc, and kobold.  Goblins tend towards Chaos and are rarely Lawful; adventuring Goblins are often Neutral.

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