Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

Hello everyone. I'm new to the game and new to old school style gaming. I picked up basic fantasy as a trial thing for my group. And it's a good light system to bring everywhere I think.
(I'm Canadian navy, so a book that can be replaced if it gets damaged sailing easily is a Good thing)I usually play 3.5 and have been for 10+ years.

I've been looking over the rules and the additional content on the website and I may just be over looking some things but I have a few questions.

Do fighters and thiefs get any combat abilities in the main rule system? I see things in additions to give some stuff but I don't see things like sneak attack and the like.

I'm looking for my players to always have something they can do that makes the special in any situation. Not necessarily super helpful, but something that can create slight advane

My group loves to roll dice for practically every single thing. And we play a lose kind of krod mandoon style of game play so the bad rolls are usually asgood as the good rolls for rp purposes.

Thanks for your time and help. Have a wonderful session

Welcome!

Fighters get the best hit die and best attack bonus as they level up, plus their unrestricted access to armor and weapon, but that's it, there are optional goodies but as far as core rules, they get that.

Thieves get their backstabbing ability from level one, but the double damage does noes escalate with leveling.

Fighters don't get really any class abilities other than they are good with weapons and can wear any armor. They have the largest HD so mechanically they are supposed to be the ones that can take the hits the best.

Rogues get the standard thief skills and the back stab attack (this is probably what you are asking about the sneak attack).

Clerics can cast divine spells at 2nd level and above but can turn undead from the beginning.

Magic-users can cast arcane spells and are considered the weakest, physically, of the classes.

If your players like to roll dice you can use the optional ability roll system for it, and if you want to make them better at specific rolls give them a bonus to those rolls, if you want to divide their performance you can use use half level or 1/3 level for normal rolls and normal level for class-specific rolls.

A way of making fighters a little "better" is to change their hit dice to d6+2 per level, giving them an extra +1 to AB or use any of the options presented in the forum. But, at low level every class is "not quite good" compared to other games, they are more likely to shine outside mechanic or special abilities, let your players try new things outside of what the rules say they can do, the 1 in 6 chances is good for lots of situation, and you can even go with higher chances based on abilities, class, race and whatever the situation seems right.

oh, thank you!

now see the sneak attack part.


unfortunate for the fighter. might try figure out a mechanic for fighters to allow them to soak up damage a little better. goads, etc to force attacks on them. or maybe a character swap trick. or a mechanic with the shield that it blocks % of time or damage then Break.

but ill try it as is first and see how my players like it.the goal is to not have to try to arrange the game mechanically so i can focus more of story. then change if we find it not to our liking.

If you use the d6+2 mechanic they'll have average to above HP, you can let them add their STR bonus to their AC in melee to represent parrying attacks and or give them an AC bonus as a defense special ability to encourage front line fighting.

Allowing them to intercept an attack aimed at another character is another option.

While characters regain their HP at a slow rate, you can increase it for fighters, or even let them regain a little amount after each encounter, or by resting some time, so that they can keep on fighting while not becoming to strong in the HP department

I found with my group for the fighters it was all about positioning and using the terrain. I bought some small wooden counters and I use them to show where everyone is in a scene. The fighters etc. can then position themselves between the majority of the baddies and the rest of the party to soak up more damage. The system sort of forces that way of thinking on them, else people die ... fast!

Weapon specialization is a fairly simple "house rule" you can add on, which is documented in one of the supplements. For players, it may be nice to have "the maul guy" and the "arrow sniper gal" as fighters to give them a bit more depth. In play sometimes the other classes are using their special abilities to do something while the fighters pretty much only have a fight or run option.

But in the core rules directly there's nothing "special" about fighters, other than that they're the most likely of the classes to advance to the next level given their relatively higher hit dice. As a side note, modern TT RPGs tend to give you a hero to play. The idea of old school games was to give you a character. If he or she survived long enough, he or she would *become* a hero.

If you want a tough fighter consider the barbarian class.