Hello.
I've worked to create an OSRIC ruleset, entirely based on Celestian's excellent and official 2E ruleset. I've done that because there are enough differences in OSRIC and 1E to warrant a new ruleset, rather than simply an extension. My hope is that it makes it easier for people to play "1e"-styled games without having to do much other than start a new campaign (or modify an existing campaign) with the OSRIC ruleset and nothing else.
Doing so will resolve several things that can't really be properly resolved by using the 2E ruleset and an extension, at least without a clear understanding of the differences between 1E and 2E. Additionally, using the 2E ruleset and any 1E extension probably presents a higher barrier of entry than just building a campaign off of an OSRIC ruleset. There are also nuances to OSRIC, as written, that I think should be preserved and well-known by anyone intending to play pre-2E AD&D. That's the main reason that I created this.
One can still run a game with the 2E ruleset and the AD&D Options and House Rules extension or the Core 1E extension and/or Sterno's mod to get much of the functionality, but I think that the process should be simplified.
For anyone curious, this is layered upon Celestian's ruleset, so much of the functionality comes from it. However, I've rewritten the parts that I felt need to be rewritten and relied on simple modification for the parts that can serve both purposes.
For now this is what the ruleset has, without getting too much into the differences between OSRIC and 2E:
- Group all initiatives
- Simultaneous initiative
- d6 initiative die
- Assign init based on character who rolled
- OSRIC RAW has an init "swap", this does too
- No initiative mods or surprise mods and proper surprise checks
- Reset initiative every round, with the possibility to auto-roll for NPCs or both NPCs and PCs
- Set initiative range 0-10 to approximate segments and handle creatures who go last (segment 10) in a round
- Use attack and save matrices for classed NPCs, from OSRIC
- Allow Delay, puts NPC or PC at the back of the stack
- No ability checks
- Encumbrance and coin encumbrance mandatory
- Death's Door, with a 0-9 threshold
For anyone just attempting to run a RAW OSRIC/1E game, this should be enough to get started. I'd highly recommend the AD&D Options and House Rules extension, as well, to be able to further customize the game, handle house rules and take care of any optional stuff that differs between OSRIC and 1E, as originally written.
Here's the link to the Forge item: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/890/view
And the link to the aforementioned extension if you want or need additionally configurability: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/688/view
I have some things that I'd like to work on right away and I'll continue to watch this thread for anything anyone has an issue with, needs help with or would like implemented insofar as it involves OSRIC.
Thanks and thanks for reading and/or checking it out.