House rules of the Hyborian Age

Combat

Everyone can backstab

World of the Hyborian Age is not a place of chivalry and honor. Everybody will do everything to eliminate his opponent by any means. In  game terms this translates to the ruling that if someone can attack his opponent from behind he gains +4 bonus to hit. If the attack roll succeeds, the opponent should make a saving throw vs. death, if he fails, he dies.

Critical Hits and Fumbles

When someone rolls natural 20 or 1 on an attack roll he has scored a critical hit or fumble respectively. Critical hit allows to roll damage dice as long as the to hit roll is succesful. When fumble occurs, the player gains -2 penalty to the AC for the next round.

Opportunity Penalty

The opportunity penalty can be applied when a spell is being cast, someone rolled a fumble or moved for the whole round.

Two-weapon Fighting

Fighting simultaneously with two weapons grants the character a bonus +1 either to the Armor Class, melee attack roll or melee damage roll.

Unarmed Attacks

Brawling attacks, such as those conducted with fist, foot or dagger pommel, will normally inflict 1d2 points of damage, plus the attacker’s Strength bonus to damage.

Death, Rest, Healing and Insanity

Falling unconscious

Everytime character recieves a critical hit he must make a saving throw. If he fails or his HPs are reduced to 0 he falls unconscious. Also when a character's subdual damage points are equal to his constitution score, he must make a saving throw or falls unconscious.

Death

Character dies when his HPs are reduced to 0-his level.

Healing

A full rest of 8 hours restores one HD.

Once a day character can drink booze to restore 1d6 of HPs.

Rest

Since not everyday we wake up in a perfect condition I thought It would be aproprieate to cover this in the rules.  Every day adventurers roll their HD.  0 Hours of rest - all HD must be rolled 3 Hours of rest - 1 HD is full, the rest must be rolled 6 Hours of rest - 2 HD are full, the rest must be rolled 9 Hours of rest - All HD are full All wounds achieved must be substracted from the daily amount of HPs.

Sanity Points and Insanity
Every character has sanity points sum equal to his wisdom score. Everytime character experiences something, gruesome, terrible Referee should  call for a saving throw. If character fails the saving throw he must substract d6,d8 or d10 sanity points(at the discretion of the Referee) from the SP sum. If it's reduced to 0, the character is completly insane and is under the control of the Referee.

Movement and Encumberance

As per LotFP rules.

Magic

Spellcasting roll

Magic in the Hyborian Age is a dangerous endavour. Dealing with demons and other cosmic entities can cause insanity or even death. To reflect this, everytime sorcerer casts a spell he must make a saving throw vs. magic with penalty equal to the level of the spell that is being cast.

saving throw  effect

result

         1          spellcaster must immediately make a saving throw vs. death

      failed       sanity loss: 1-3rd level spell 1d6 sanity loss; 4-6th level spell 1d8 sanity loss

     passed      target: -1 to ST vs. spell

        20         target: no ST vs. spell

Nomad class

Prime attributes: Dexterity 13+, Constitution 13+(+5% experience bonus)
Hit Dice: 1d6/level(gains 1 hp/level after 9th)
Armor/shield permitted: up to plated mail
Weapons permitted: sword, scimitar, dagger, lasso, whip, short bow, mace

Nomads hail from very different ethnic groups such as hyrkanians, turanians, shemites. Many of them are Kozaks. Experts at riding horses and horse archery.

Level	Experience	Base „to hit” bonus	Hit Dice (d6)	Saving Throw
1	0	+0	1	15
2	2,500	+0	2	14
3	5,000	+1	3	13
4	10,000	+1	4	12
5	20,000	+1	5	11
6	40,000	+2	6	10
7	80,000	+2	7	9
8	160,000	+2	8	8
9	320,000	+3	9	7
10	640,000	+3	9+1	6

Horse archery: No penalties while shooting the bow while on horseback.

Born in the saddle: No penalties to HD roll after rest on horseback.

Expert archer: +2 bonus to either hit or damage roll while using bow. This does not apply while on horseback.

Lasso mastery: +1 to hit roll while using lasso.

Saving throws: Nomad gains +1 on saving throws vs. death and poison.

My take on the map of the world in the Hyborian Age

I'm working on the map of thurian continent only with locations mentioned by R. E. H., here's first w.i.p.:

Gaining experience

Well to emphesize some themes characteristic to the Sword & Sorcery genre, I've decided to make a list of things that characters can do to gain experience.

Experience for Exploration
1 exp for every 6 miles travelled by the road
5 exp for every 6 miles travelled off-road
10 exp for every 6 miles of sea-travel
2 exp for every 6 miles of river-travel
50 exp for finding long lost ruins

Experience for Carousing
1 exp for evert 1gp spent on luxurious possesions and entertainment
2 exp for every 1gp spent on booze
5 exp for every 1gp spent on whores
8 exp for every 1gp spent on drugs
10 exp for every tavern brawl

Experience for Fighting
Gaining experience from fighting is achieved not only when the adversary is killed, but also when the combat was avoided.

Scoundrel class

Prime attributes: Dexterity 13+, Charisma 13+(+5% experience bonus)
Hit Dice: 1d10/level(gains 3 hp/level after 9th)
Armor/shield permitted: leather armor
Weapons permitted: sword, scimitar, dagger, throwing knife,

Scoundrel is a person, who by either his wit, charm or steel gets what he wants.

Level	Experience	Base „to hit” bonus	Saving Throw	HD(d10)
1	0	+0	15	1
2	2000	+0	14	2
3	4000	+1	13	3
4	8000	+2	12	4
5	16000	+2	11	5
6	32000	+3	10	6
7	64000	+4	9	7
8	128000	+5	8	8
9	256000	+6	7	9
10	512000	+7	6	9+3

Luck: ½ level times a day scoundrel can re-roll single saving throw or attack roll.

Charm: Swashbuckler has a +2 bonus on reaction rolls while dealing with the opposite sex.

Two-weapon fighting master: Scoundrel gains +2 bonus to attack roll instead +1 while fighting with two weapons.

Information-gatherer: Scoundrels are well-rounded in social interactions, thus they roll twice on rumor tables when gathering them. Also they can try to obtain useful knowledge about people, their whereabouts and secrets by making a saving throw by discretion of the Referee.

Saving Throw: Scoundrel gains +1 on dexterity-based  saving throws. 

Barbarian Class

Prime attributes: Strength 13+(+5% experience bonus)

Hit Dice: 1d8/level(gains 3 hp/level after 9th)
Armor/shield permitted: up to chainmail, shields
Weapons permitted: Barbarian is proficient with one and two handed swords, one and two-handed axes, mauls, maces and Spears

Level	Experience	Base “to hit” bonus	Hit Dice(d8)	Saving Throw
1	0	+0	1	15
2	2,000	+0	2	14
3	4,000	+1	3	13
4	8,000	+2	4	12
5	16,000	+2	5	11
6	32,000	+3	6	10
7	64,000	+4	7	9
8	128,000	+5	8	8
9	256,000	+6	9	7
10	512.000	+7	9+3	6

Acute senses: Barbarian can be suprised by Animals Only on 1 on d6.

Barbaric Fury: If barbarian loses half of his hit points barbarian goes berserk achieving +2 to attack roll in a melee attack, and -2 to AC for rest of the encounter. He cannot use distance weapons, nor do anything else except engaging in melee with closest enemy in that encounter.


Superstitious: Barbarians are a superstitious folk, frightened of all things magical or unnatural; they receive a -2 penalty when making a saving throw vs. magical effects.

Saving Throw: Barbarians are very tough folk and get +1 bonus while making a saving throw vs. death and poison.

Character sheet

Here's my new character sheet for the Hyborian Tales Campaign:

Welcome

Hi, I'm working this blog will be dedicated to my side-project the Hyborian Tales - a campaign and rules inspired by the great works of Robert E. Howard about the Hyborian Age. This will be Howard-only campaign and a bit of H. P. Lovercraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

Howard's world was made in wide brush strokes, the aim of this blog is to build upon this wide brush strokes adding my own creations.

Game-wise, this campaign will be using Labirynth Lord with a fair share of the Swords & Wizardry: Core Rules game with some house rules detailed in the following posts.