Monster Manual Expanded Pdfcoffee
John
FORGE is a simple, quick to learn roleplaying game, with enough depth to enable campaign play. It's earlier version was based on Knave by Ben Milton, however it has since been overhauled and massively expanded, whilst remaining fully compatible with all OSR and B/X D&D resources.
Added an optional one-page supplement to FORGE that helps to enable true solo character play. These rules make lone characters more durable, as well as giving them the tools to stand up to challenges that would normally require a full party to face.
Hello, thank you the great and comprehensive (yet with small page count) rule set. Also the solo rules! One question: do you have an alternative way for spell casting? I do not like slots, I prefer either mana points or a casting roll per spell (like in Shadowdark). If you do not have them, I will create my own. Do you have any advice in terms of system balance? thanks
It looks like you are using Samsung Notes too :) All of the sheets were originally hand drawn on my tablet in Samsung Notes, so I wonder if it has converted it back to SDOC from PDF? Very interesting!
If you want to make sure you don't accidentally erase the background, you can import as a PDF page template. This is how I play on my tablet. I guess this also means you can make mods to the sheets as you see fit, like I do :)
Oh, I already got it taken care of, but thanks so much for the tip! I initially tried converting my note (back) into a PDF, but that didn't help at all. I'm glad I learned that's a thing, for future reference. :P
I play pretty much every RPG and a few board games in Notes, but I didn't even notice you'd used it until after I tried to erase something. That was pretty much the last thing I would have expected to happen!
May I please ask whether there is some sort of streamlined ...method to calculate a fair combat encounter for our PCs? And by fair I mean that they have a chance of winning...(little point in 2 level 1 folks encountering an overpowerd enemy\monster/ beast)...
Heroes deal their damage directly to the enemies' HD, while enemies deal their damage to the heroes' HP. That means a 1HD bandit is killed in a successful hit if the damage die roll is 2 or more. (Since FORGE doesn't use HD for its example creatures, just use the creature's level instead.)
Heroes also have what's called a "Fray Die" equal to their weapon damage die that they can roll once per round to deal additional damage to enemies of equal or lower level. So a Lvl 1 Knight engaged with two Bandits (1HD) and a Bandit Leader (2HD) would be able to roll her d8 Fray Die at any time during the round and potentially deal 1 or 2 damage to the two bandits (but not to the higher HD leader).
This is a relatively simple way of beefing up a single hero such that they can take on a standard OSR combat encounter alone, or with a companion. However, it's not recommended to use this method for more than 2 heroes, or else they will be significantly overpowered.
Hi there! The above advice is great, and actually ties in nicely with an addon that I've been putting together that helps facilitate true solo play - Paragon Mode. Both systems essentially toughen up and increase the capabilities of a lone adventurer (or two) allowing you to throw more at them.
The playtest for FORGE Paragon Mode is currently on the Discord, if you wanted to check it out. It is functionally similar to Scarlet Heroes, however more tuned for the FORGE primary/secondary attributes and (hopefully) simplifies some things.
With regards to balancing encounters anyway, I suppose the normal response you will get is that OSR games are inherently unbalanced.. which isn't particularly helpful I know. I suppose you could say that a 1HD/1st Level enemy should be roughly equivalent to a 1st level Player Character, however that would also depend on the character's equipment and what capabilities the enemy had. I think it is important to remember that in OSR games it is generally not a good idea to try and go toe-to-toe with an enemy, as you would in more modern versions of D&D. Instead, you are encouraged to think outside the current combat engagement - can you use terrain/topple scenery/bypass the encounter with stealth or diplomacy? Ultimately it isn't as straightforward as you were hoping!
I think you get a feel for it, the more encounters you play/GM. I have seen a group of 6 level 1 adventurers clear out an entire goblin/bugbear cave (30+ enemies) with clever use of poison on their food supplies... there will almost always be a way for the players to win if they come up with a good plan!
Great game! I just bought a printed copy. But ... my v1.03 pdf has some elements in the sidebar table of contents (viewable when open in a pdf reader) that do not correspond to anything in the document. For instance the sub-links, "Weapon" and "Armour" (under Treasure) should probably be be removed and "Magic Item Effect" added instead. Haven't looked at all the sub-links ... maybe when I get more time. Anyway, just fyi. Love the game and keep up the good work.
With regards to your comments - the 'Weapon' and 'Armour' links are to the two nested tables within 'Magic Item' at the top of that page (I didn't necessarily need to put bookmarks to these, but decided that it was useful even for non-magic items discovered as treasure - e.g. the hyperlinks from the non-magic items on the table opposite). To save on space, it is the only table where the type of weapon or armour can be randomly determined. It would have potentially been clearer if I had included a separate weapon/armour table that both 'Magic Item' and 'Non-Magic Item' linked to, but space was at a premium!
Thank you Oliver for releasing this! I ordered the A5 version! I am pretty new to solo rpg tabletops and I was looking into dungeon worlds and waiting for my copy, do you happen to know if forge works well with it?
Do you mean 'Dungeon World'? That is a Powered by the Apocalypse (PBTA) style game, which is slightly different to a game based on D&D mechanics, like FORGE. PBTA games tend to lean more heavily into the fiction, and often run best with multiple players working together to interpret the emerging story. Personally, I find FORGE easier to play as a solo game than PBTA, as I benefit from the increased mechanical crunch as a scaffold to hang my story from. If you prefer a PBTA style game, I can recommend Ironsworn as an alternative to DW, as that is designed to be played solo.
I'm really impressed with clarity of presentation and enhancements to old school rules. One thing I'm not sure about is how the primary and secondary attribute bonuses affect play at higher levels. +1 to a primary seems reasonable at level one, but when you get to level 10 that +10 means you'll nearly always succeed on actions with your primary attributes. How has this worked in play testing?
If this were for a saving throw, it isn't too dissimilar to B/X which has saving throw chances between 50% and 70% for the average level 10 fighter (A level 10 dwarf would have a 90% chance to succeed a save vs death).
In play testing, we have occasionally had a character make it to the higher echelons, at which point they are definitely expected to succeed at most of the things they attempt.. however I fully expect a Dragon or similar high level creature to make short work of them should they throw themselves into combat without proper planning! :)
Runestones and writs are one per spell. This is designed to be slightly restrictive - more in line with the low number of spells memorised by magic users and clerics in b/x d&d. At some point your character might well own several more runestones than they can carry, this means they will need to choose which ones to take with them (similar to memorising), or come up with ways to carry more, e.g. hiring a porter.
Feel free to join us on the FORGE discord where we've talked about this, as well as many other topics. There are also options for increasing carry capacity if RAW feels too restrictive - everyone has different preferences!
I appreciate that there are options like porters which mitigate this, but at low levels it seems to punish magic users even more than most OSR systems and dissuades the use of niche spells like 'Ventriloquism' or 'Read Languages' when you can only carry 2 or 3 total.
Going from level 1 to level 6, unless strength is a primary, then an arcane magic user will have 5 more spells per day and 60 more spells to choose from but only 3 more slots. Meanwhile a melee fighter is unlikely to ever need more slots than they start with besides perhaps having a secondary weapon or acting as the party's pack mule.
Just going back to your point about a low level magic-user only being able to carry 2 or 3 spells - this is effectively similar to how many spells a magic user has access to in, e.g. OSE. They have only a single spell at level 1, 2 at level 2, 3 at level 3.. etc. Whilst RAW a FORGE magic-user could potentially have 3 runestones at level 1. Yes this would be at the expense of other gear, but the option is still available to them.
Whilst I do agree that the rate at which you gain inventory slots as a magic-user increases more slowly than the max number of spells able to be memorised in OSE, the earlier availability of higher circle spells (e.g. 6th circle at level 6 instead of level 11) swings the balance quite considerably back in the magic-users favour.
In any case, as I mentioned previously, please feel free to increase carry capacity to your preference. For example, using (STR check bonus + 15) inventory slots will give you more wiggle room at lower levels without breaking anything.
The book was originally written for A4, so the A5 format is a scaled down version (65% scaling) to fit within the POD margins. I'd say that it's perfectly readable, but perhaps this might enable you to make a judgement yourself (Full size A4 on the left, A5 on the right and ruler with centimeters along the bottom - zoom on a tablet or phone and match up the ruler with your own.. then you'll know exactly how the text will look):
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