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A Dated and Annotated Catalogue of Equipment

The Damage is Done

So like an idiot I got a full-time waste services job (which is actually great) so I’ve been doing more bin crawls than dungeon crawls lately. If you don’t like it pay me.

Justin Hamilton commented on Death & Dismemberment that he doesn’t like the idea of attacks causing wounds on max-damage because it means that smaller weapons end up having a better chance of causing actual bodily harm than large weapons, which for me isn’t a big deal, personally I really LIKE that the shitty knife you’re carrying around has a 1 in 4 chance of seriously stabbing the fuck out of someone’s internal organs. That’s a good trade-off to take a knife instead of a greatsword even though the greatsword technically does more damage.

BUT, in simplifying my rules I’ve also been trying to figure out how to make differences in weapon size affect combat without resorting to something like “longer always hits first”. In the past I made it so that if someone with a smaller weapon started a fight with you, you could make an Initiative check to attack first in the first Round. But god that’s boring to remember/play out.

So I had a potentially stupid idea.

What if when you attack/defend in melee (because I use contested melee rolls instead of the attacker targeting a static AC), you rolled a d20 AND your damage dice.

Now the size of your weapon directly affects your likelihood of hitting/defending against someone with a bigger weapon, and if you hit, we don’t have to wait for you to make another roll for damage: you already rolled it what’s the fucking number?

So the knife still has a 1 in 4 chance of causing a serious wound, but that’s because it’s hard to get it in there against an obese Plague Knight swirling a d10 damage carrion flail around his head, but when you do, you JAM IT RIGHT THE FUCK IN BETWEEN HIS RIBS UNTIL SOMETHING POPS.

Which also rolls in nicely to additional weapon qualities.

It’s pretty common for spears to have Reach, attacking first against charges and dealing double damage. So how about if someone attacks you while you’re wielding a spear (charge or not because personally I’d just stop charging people with spears if that’s the only time they do something cool?) you just straight-up roll double damage dice in the first Round. Now you attack/defend better and cause more damage because you’re the longest. Good job.

Big weapons should be hard to use in tight spaces, so how about you roll twice to-hit/defend and take the worst, which now includes your damage dice. It’s hard to carve someone up with a zweihander in a cave when you keep hitting the sides, you should have brought a knife.

That’s all for now love you x


A Sack And A Knife

Hey, so recently I ran a couple of playtest sessions of STEAL THE EYES OF YASHOGGHUH online (it was great, highlights at the end) and to speed things up we used starting equipment packs that I’ve used a few times before.


While we were playing Brendan S asked if I’d published them and since he brought up how useful equipment packs are for streamlining character generation, here’s the packs I’ve been letting people choose randomly – three Sword-Whores, three Adepts/Specialists/Thieves, and three WIZARDS.


There are a couple of “healing potions” in there that mention making saves. If you fail you randomly mutate, or in the case of The Bottled Nectar of the House of Honey and Salt:

  • Both fail – Your body loses all integrity and slops and expands in a flowing pile of the Velvet Blessing/Saintsblood.

  • Only CON fail – The flesh of a random body part shifts and groans beneath the skin. Make another CON check each Turn – Until you succeed, make a WIS check every time you exert yourself, if you fail the body part becomes Saintsblood.

There’s also some drugs. For me drugs work like this:

Effects last until you FAIL the associated Ability check, made each Turn.

If you roll a 1 or a 20 on a check you’re addicted.

While addicted, whenever not under the influence of the drug you suffer all of its normal negative effects as well as its withdrawal effects, and all checks involving the associated Ability Score are Doomed (checks that would already be Doomed are Double Doomed).

After each full day without the drug, make the associated Ability check to recover from addiction.

Quick, easy, smooth.

Doomed means you roll twice and take the worst. Yes that’s the same as Disadvantage. No there is no replacement for Advantage.



Read the rest…


Arts & Crafts: Morbidly Encumbered edition











I feel dumb that it never occurred to me before.






















I haven’t tested that but it seems sound in theory?


And then hey that feeds in nicely to..




  • After strenuous activity roll your current Movement Dice.
  • When removing your pack roll your current Movement Dice.











  • SHORT BOW: d6 damage.
  • SLING: 2d4 damage.
  • BLUNDERBUSS: d6 damage, uses Burst tag.














































Instead, everything is done with Ability checks now.



If it’s something easy you wouldn’t be making a check.









Which I think is pretty great.

Wait where was I…






Finding Your Rules Unsupervised, Makin’ Them Do Weird Shit

So I’ve been putting together a new version of my character sheet to fit with rules that have changed and things I’ve noticed in play.


Click below for the four page fold-over pdf.

Cörpathium Character Sheet v2

Basic changes apart from obvious things covered in the House of Rules:

  • Ranged weapon distances got kicked off the sheet, because needing to shoot someone far away and know the precise distance hasn’t really come up, and when it does I’ll just say “aw, it’s pretty far, you can do it but you’ll take -2 to the roll”, or “no, they’re hella far away”.
  • The girls pretty quickly collected various different pieces of armour that they put on, and I’d like to acknowledge that. The main armour class still stays as Light/Medium/Heavy, but I added a section on the back where they can list the individual pieces and their Quality rating, added the numbers 1-5 under Defence for them to circle the Qualities that apply to their armour, and when they roll that number or less on their Defence roll it will damage that particular piece of armour first. I’d probably say that each additional piece of armour (like gauntlets, helmet, sabatons, etc.) adds 1/2 a point of AC, so you need two for +1AC, additional pieces can’t raise your AC by more than +2, and they don’t affect Heavy armour.
  • I replaced Sneak Attack with a Quick Death. Sneak Attack always felt weird to me, sitting in there with the other skills but you don’t actually use it like a skill, it just adds a damage multiplier when you attack from surprise. So, a Quick Death does work like a skill. When you sneak up on someone or you’re grappling, if you make a successful Quick Death roll you’ll outright kill anything up to 2HD, and if they have more than 2HD it will add a damage multiplier equal to your skill level if you then successfully attack them. So it’s like learning the best way to cut something if you can get close enough.
    If you fail when attacking from surprise, you can still make a normal attack but they don’t take any AC penalty.


And then I got to the encumbrance section with all the different movement rates listed and holy shit is it unnecessary, players don’t need to see that, and so I wanted to get rid of them but couldn’t think of what else to put with the encumbrance description.

Then I had the idea, for movement dice.






  • An unencumbered human is d8. Encumbered is d6, Heavily encumbered is d4. Cheetahs are d100.
  • Whoever rolls highest wins. In a one-on-one situation I’d probably apply -1 for Medium armour or -2 for Heavy armour.
  • In a pursuit use the lowest Movement Dice of the group, and you could either resolve it as a one-off roll, or have a lost roll decrease your dice size, a win increase your dice size, and the pursuit ends when someone loses on a d4 or wins on a d20.

[By LotFP rules chases are contested d20 + 10% of your movement rate, which is still pretty easy, but I think this is easier and has much more obvious consequences for the amount of shit on your back.]


The lowest Movement Dice of the group is also used for random encounter checks, because if you’re heavily encumbered you’re shuffling and jangling around like an idiot, rather than the guy padding around with nothing but a sack and a knife like an agile agile cat.


I’m sure I’ve read something similar to the random encounter check recently but I cannot, for the life of me, remember where.



And then I looked at the light tracker with its boring-arse checkboxes, and realised that I hated it and changed it to something else.





Instead of a set time limit, light sources use a decreasing dice check.

  • Torches start at d8, Candles at d10, and Lanterns at d20.
  • When you’re asked to make a light check (so each Turn or what have you), you try to roll in the upper half of the dice, though there might be modifiers if it’s wet or windy.
  • If you fail it drops down to the next dice for the next check.
  • If you roll a 1 or fail on a d4 it goes out or you burn yourself and drop it.
  • If you have to make a light check because of something threatening to extinguish the flame, if you fail it goes out.

Jeff Russell reminded me that this is really similar to this ammunition tracker, which I’d clearly forgotten about but not.

I’m still not sold on using it for ammunition since I tend to run attacks as one roll one swing/shot and abstracting the ammunition feels wrong, but for something like fire, which can vary depending on conditions and quality, it seems just about perfect.

I think it’s a nice easy way to make light tracking interesting and maybe a little bit fun. Each Turn you don’t mark off a box, you roll to see what state your torch is in, and you don’t look down and see three empty boxes and think “okay I’ve got half an hour before I have to light another”, you look down and see that your torch is on a d4 and think “aw shit it’s all spluttery and stuff there’s a good chance it will go out the next time it matters, I should get another one ready”.


[Edit: After discussing it more with Jeff and James Young, we figured that using a target number is a lot better, and the best target number is 4. So, regardless of the dice you’re on you need to roll 4 or higher or you drop to the next dice. This also makes it easy to vary the required roll based on the situation, i.e. “It’s raining from nowhere, the ceiling seems to be screaming at you, roll 6 or higher or your torches all go out!”]



The House of Rules

The new Cörpathium character sheet has a lot of new/tweaked house rules on it, so let’s collect them here for a little more clarification, and to make it easier to refer/link back to them.


First of all a few little tweaks to basic LotFP rules.

  • For one thing I’m giving everyone access to Combat Options. Only Fighters know how to fight recklessly or defensively? I call ballshit.
    …I meant to type bullshit but no, ballshit, that works.
  • The bonus for carrying a shield doesn’t vary between melee and ranged AC, it’s +1 for a small shield and +2 for a large shield, but only Fighters can actually attack while using a large shield.
  • Fuck alignment.







If both hit, it happens.

If one misses, it doesn’t.

If both miss you fail so badly that you can’t do anything next round.











Ranged attacks still target a static AC, but melee resolves as d20 +AB vs. d20 +DB, your Defence Bonus being AC -12. If the attacker fumbles you get to cut them.







Notches stay pretty much the same as they always were, with the added Quality rules that Smiler and I (mainly Smiler) came up with.

Basically, every weapon has a Quality rating from 1-5, and whenever you roll that number or less when attacking the weapon takes a Notch.

Weapons can take a number of Notches equal to their damage die, but once they have two Notches roll two of the weapon’s damage die after every attack, hit or miss. If the roll is equal or less than the number of Notches, it breaks. So you might embarrassingly break your axe with a wild swing against the wall, or you might snap your dagger off in the merchant priest’s chest.

If the weapon takes another Notch after it has reached its limit, it breaks.


And because I’m now having people roll for their defence in melee, I can use the same Quality range for armour.




Prices are still subject to review and gouging.






The weapon properties I originally posted have been tweaked slightly.

Weapon damage is still determined by its size, but depending on what it is…

  • Hammer: +1 to-hit vs. Medium or better, successful hit reduces Heavy AC by 1.
  • Axe: Two damage dice vs. Light or less.
  • Flail: +1 to-hit vs. Medium or better, ignores shields, successful hit reduces Heavy AC by 1, roll twice for damage and take the best. Can choose to attack weapon, Strength check to disarm on hit. On any miss roll under your AC or hit yourself.








Again, pretty much the same as they always were.



  • You lose consciousness at 0 Flesh, and die at minus half your class HD.
  • If someone rolls a Critical hit against you but you still have Grit left, roll your Defence again. If it’s higher than their attack roll the damage affects your Grit first, otherwise it cuts straight to Flesh.
  • Being attacked from behind or by surprise bypasses Grit, and any attack against Flesh that deals maximum weapon damage or half of your maximum Flesh causes a serious wound and removes any Grit you had left. Lost arms, plucked eyeballs, and messed-up innards don’t lend themselves to finesse.


If you don’t have any Flesh wounds, you can spend a Turn resting to regain Grit, roll your class HD.


From Josie’s Hit Point Stopwatch, when below half your Flesh hp, you will be unable to act after that many Rounds of physical exertion such as combat, or that many Turns of simple movement until treated.

Lose another point of Flesh every Round/Turn you try to push on.


And some dying rules because I figure most adventurers would have some kind of idea about first aid, and because the Poison save matches up nicely with which classes would probably be better at it:

  • Once reduced to 0hp save vs. Poison every 2 Rounds. If you fail you die, if you succeed lose another hp.
  • Stop bleeding out if you roll a 1. If another character tries to stabilise you, both players save vs. Poison.
  • If both succeed, you regain consciousness at 1hp (but will lose consciousness if you do anything strenuous).
  • If they succeed but you fail, you stabilise at 0hp.
  • If both fail you die in their arms and they’re all “CURSE YOOOOOUUU! WHHHHYYYYY?”

I figure for it to be successful you need to stay with them for Rounds equal to negative hp. That seems about right.






Because yes, I use it, I think it can be interesting. But I also don’t want it to be confusing or constrictive, which my first attempt kind of was.

I started pondering this back in September and think it’s pretty much perfect for what I want from encumbrance, which is the freedom to carry a pretty reasonable amount of stuff without constantly tracking it, but having it matter when it should.

  • You can carry an amount of Worn Items equal to half your Dexterity or Strength, whichever is highest, rounded up.
    They can be strapped to you, in pouches, in orifices, just draw it on your sheet.
    Every additional Worn Item adds a -1 penalty to physical rolls.
    A quiver contains 20 arrows and counts as a single Worn Item.
    Medium armour counts as 1 item and Heavy armour counts as 2, Fighters don’t count armour as a Worn Item.
  • Oversized items like two-handed weapons have to be on your person and count as 2 Worn Items. Ten foot poles don’t go in backpacks.
  • When you wear a pack you are encumbered, move slower and take a -2 penalty to physical rolls. You can carry items in your pack equal to your Strength or Constitution, whichever is highest.
    (Bundle amounts mostly taken from Arnold K) You can carry small items like daggers and flasks in bundles of 3 as a single pack item.
    Even smaller things like iron spikes or sling bullets can be carried in bundles of 10 as a single pack item.
    300 coins can be carried as a single pack item.
  • You can carry half that amount again, rounded up, but are even more encumbered, move at half speed and take -4 to physical rolls.
  • Carrying any more than that means you can’t do anything other than shuffle around under the weight.
  • Finding something in your pack during combat takes d3+1 per encumbrance level Rounds.

The immediate penalty for wearing a pack might seem harsh, but have you tried swinging your arms around while wearing a backpack? Awkward. If you want to fight as well as that other guy you’d better drop the bag.






Maleficar and Mystics remain intact, the only thing I changed is that being encumbered doesn’t make casting spells harder. If you want to risk more belongings transmuting into angry goo when you muck up a spell I’m not going to stop you. And Reading Magic is still a deathtrap.


Oh but hey Blood Magic/Sacrificial Lamb:


Maleficar can bleed themselves of hp for extra Cataclysm needed to cast. The cost is triple if the blood isn’t their own, and they need to smear themselves in it.



If a Mystic wants to heal a bled Maleficar, they have to make a Hand of God roll.






This one only occurred to me the other day so it needs to be tried out, but I don’t like Specialists being the only ones who can ever get better at skills ever.



Erase all your successes and start again.


For example:







The Rookery of Van Möldus

What better place to start in the greatest city of the new and ancient world than in a slum as a nobody?


This is the Rookery of Van Möldus, a borough of Cörpathium that you could probably use as a city all to itself if you really wanted to.




Sights, Smells, etc.

  • Cold and damp, smells of fish rot and stinging salt.
  • Makeshift shelters crowd alleys and cul-de-sacs.
  • Purplish barnacles grow on buildings and side-walks, finding more nourishment in the squalor than the sea. They’ll attach to people if they stay still for long enough.


  • Decrepit worn stone and rotting wood, roofs leak and wind whistles through the walls.
  • Mostly two or three jettied stories, a mixture of stone and wood, many with basements that reach below sea level.
  • No windows face the Hollow Sea, they only look inwards upon Cörpathium.
  • No Deicidium.

Building: d4 storeys, d6 sub-levels (5-6 no sub-level).

Occupants: d10 x2 per storey, 0 = currently unoccupied.






Drunks waking in the street with barnacles clinging to their flesh, the occasional fog-bloated corpse, beggars and waremongers drifting off to Möldenghast Blvd, men dumping buckets of barnacles recently removed from the Dockmaw.
-2 to reaction rolls
Encounter chance 1 in 6 per hour
Overhear Rumour on a 6
Chance of Godless: 1%/Turn


(Unless someone is already running screaming to get them, Chance of Godless is rolled per Turn while something is happening in the open that shouldn’t be. Since there is no Deicidium in the Rookery and no one really cares about it chances are low, and there’s every possibility that even if they do show up, they’ll leave you to it. More on that later.)


Idle cutthroats, strangers slinking between houses and alleys.
-2 to reaction rolls
Encounter chance 1 in 6 per hour
Overhear Rumour on 6
Chance of Godless: 2%/Turn


Unaffiliated whores in doorways, drunks spilling from makeshift brewhouses, crumpled bodies thrown from fight dens, knives flashing in the dark.
-4 to reaction rolls
Encounter chance 2 in 6 per hour
Overhear Rumour on a 6
Chance of Godless: N/A





  • Murder Loot: d100 cp (even) /10 sp (odd). Carrying Curio on a double.
  • Barnacles: If the purple-hued barnacle Cthalamus Siren, commonly known as Siren of the Slums is consumed, save vs. Poison. Failure results in an overwhelming desire to walk into the sea which lasts for d8 days.
  • Rats: Can’t help but eat the barnacles, subsequently drowning themselves without fail. Other boroughs tend to herd any infestations towards the Rookery.
  • Crime & Violence: Those who dwell within the Rookery rarely turn on each other unless cheated, insulted, or involved in rivalry. Cutpursing is reserved for those who live in neighbouring boroughs.
  • Family Van Möldus: Own near every building worth owning in the Rookery. Lodging houses, Our Lady Sacculina, The Foetid Babe, The Cuckoo’s Nest, all pay rent into the hands of Van Möldus.



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No comments yet, tell me what you really think

This Is Weighing Me Down

Encumbrance should be a measure of not just how much weight you can carry, but how easily you can manoeuvre whilst carrying different things, we’re adventuring here after all. Besides that, there’s also the fact that most of the time there’s going to be some things that you want to be a bit more accessible than just sitting somewhere in the big pack on your back.


[Edit: there’s a much better version of this in The House of Rules, thought it doesn’t have a pretty picture.]


The encumbrance system I use requires a touch more maths at character creation, but is a hell of a lot more interesting than a shopping list of crap in a sack. It’s built off the existing LotFP “different items” list and Rotten Pulp/Evil Baboon’s Anti-Hammerspace Item Tracker, and probably a couple of things that have been discussed by Brendan over at Ultimately (now of Necropraxis). It adds a touch of reality and management to the important things, differentiates between characters, but isn’t so complex or restrictive as to make it boring.


So you’ve rolled up a character and you’re going shopping. Excellent. Let’s start at the top (or skip to the summary if you’ve a short attention span):


What Has It Got In Its Pocketses?


– Everyone is able to wear leather armour and carry a normal weapon without it counting towards anything, because otherwise an adventurer might as well be naked. Maleficar will normally pick up their spellbook before a weapon though.


– At any time an average character can carry 6 other Significant Items in an immediately accessible place. The location of these items is noted on your character sheet. Specialists automatically carry their Specialist’s Tools as one of their Significant Items.

e.g. Your 50′ of rope is coiled across your chest and you’ve tied a lantern to the end of it, you have a short bow across the opposite shoulder, a quiver of arrows secured to your thigh, an iron-clasped Book of Pestilent Proverbs suspended from a chain attached to your belt, and a sheathed dagger strapped to your left forearm. In addition to that you’re gripping an axe in your right hand and holding a map in front of the lantern light with your left. You’re carrying a normal weapon and 6 other Significant Items (the map doesn’t count), which doesn’t affect your ability to explore or fight because hey: adventurer.


Notes on weapons:

A “normal weapon” would be a d6-d8 melee weapon or a d6 ranged weapon. If you use a weapon that deals d4 or less damage you can carry 2 in place of a normal weapon. Each additional weapon carried on your person counts as a Significant Item, with two-handed and heavy weapons counting as 2.


For example:


Feargus the Fanged, assassin for hire (Specialist), carries out his contracts with two daggers sheathed in a small poison-filled bladder on his back. They count as his normal weapon, so he can carry 5 other Significant Items after equipping his Specialist’s Tools.


Magnus, Mouth of the Ever-Present (Cleric) carries a two-handed mace to enforce the will of his god. He doesn’t carry a normal weapon so the two-handed mace takes up both that slot and a Significant Item, after which he can carry 5 other Significant Items.


Elsbeth Copperbound (Fighter) prefers to use a long sword, but carries a heavy crossbow on her back to even out the odds from a distance. The sword is her normal weapon and doesn’t count as anything, but the heavy crossbow she carries on her back counts as 2 Significant Items so she can only carry 4 other Significant Items rather than 6.


– Your Strength/Dexterity modifier affects how many Significant Items you can carry. If they’re both positive/negative the highest/lowest applies, but if they’re different add them together and that is the number that applies.


For example:


Strength +2 and Dexterity +1 means you can carry 2 more Significant Items than normal.

Strength -2 and Dexterity -1 means you can carry 2 less Significant Items than normal.

Strength +2 and Dexterity -1 means you can carry 1 more Significant Item than normal.


– Wearing Chain or Plate armour decreases your Significant Items by 1 and 2 respectively unless you’re a Fighter.


– You can carry additional Significant Items on your person, but each one adds a -1 penalty to your physical rolls including Attack Bonus.


– In addition to Significant Items you can carry any number of Insignificant Items on your person as long as you can explain where it is. The location of these items is noted on your character sheet.

e.g. In a small leather satchel attached to the back of your belt you’re carrying a pipe and tobacco, 5 copper coins inscribed with your own face are in a pouch hanging from the hilt of your sword, 3 vials of spider venom are tied around your ankle with string, a bronze whistle hangs from a delicate chain around your neck, and a map said to lead to the underground chapel you were born in is tucked into a fold of fabric inside your left sleeve.


– The things you’re carrying on your person count as your first point of encumbrance if you’re carrying at least 3 Significant Items in addition to your weapon, which keeps you Unencumbered within LotFP rules. After that, you can start shoving things into your backpack.



We Should Get a Mule..


– Things carried in packs are considered dead weight. An average character can carry 4 different kinds of items in a pack before gaining a point of encumbrance. Insignificant Items don’t count.


– Your Strength/Constitution bonus affects how many different items you can carry before gaining a point of encumbrance. If they’re both positive/negative the highest/lowest applies, but if they’re different add them together and that is the number that applies (minimum 2 items per point of encumbrance).


– There will come a point where the Referee (I like to be called the Lamentation Princess) will rule that your set of items is taking up more than one slot. Heavy items always count as separate items.

e.g. The 3 flasks of lamp oil you were carrying up until you pulled them out of your pack and started throwing them counted as a single item, but the twin metallic meteorites you just stole from that cult count as an item each. After escaping, your coin pouch held 12sp and counted as a single item, but after selling the meteorites it holds 190sp and counts as 2 items.


– If it can’t realistically fit in your backpack, it’s not going in your backpack. Therefore ‘oversized’ items like 10′ poles are strapped to you and treated as Significant Items. This means that if you’re already carrying your limit of Significant Items, strapping a 10′ pole to yourself counts as 2 additional Significant Items (like a two-handed weapon) and incurs a -2 penalty to your physical rolls including Attack Bonus.

(This takes the place of the +1 encumbrance imposed by LotFP rules, which makes more sense to me. If I start carrying a 10′ pole I’m not going to say “Oh crap you guys wait up I don’t think I can walk so fast anymore”, I’m going to say “Oh crap having this pole tied to me is really awkward, I hope I don’t get attacked because wow, feeling clumsy.”)


– Finding something in your pack during combat takes d3+1 per encumbrance level rounds.


– Becoming Lightly/Heavily/Severely Encumbered incurs a cumulative -1 penalty to your physical rolls including Attack Bonus, in addition to movement penalties. If the encumbrance is due to wearing Chain or Plate armour Fighters ignore the roll penalty.

e.g. You decided you just HAD to pry that last golden lion from the alter, but after stuffing it into your backpack you’re carrying so many things that you’re Lightly Encumbered, and now scuttering sounds are rushing across the ceiling. Until you lose some items you’ll only be able to explore 90′ every 10 minutes, and you’ll be at -1 to hit if you have to fight. (Of course, you can dump your backpack before starting to fight, but heaven knows who might try to take it while your back is turned…)



  • Everyone can wear leather armour, carry a normal weapon, and carry 6 (modified by Strength/Dexterity bonus) Significant Items on their person for their first point of encumbrance. Tell me where they are.
  • Additional Significant Items carried on your person incur a -1 penalty to physical rolls.
  • Everyone can carry any number of Insignificant Items on their person. Tell me where they are.
  • Everyone can carry 4 (modified by Strength/Constitution bonus) different items as dead weight in a pack on their back before gaining another point of encumbrance.
  • Levels of encumbrance incur a cumulative -1 penalty to physical rolls in addition to movement penalties.
  • Chain and Plate armour decrease Significant Items by 1 and 2 respectively. Fighters ignore both this and encumbrance physical roll penalties caused by armour.



Bonus rule: Wardrobe Malfunction


Like Shields Shall Be Splintered! or Oh Crap, My Hat! but for everybody.



If your explanation is stupid or you take too long not only do you lose the item but you still get stabbed.



Always Carry Protection

First of all, Gus L has mentioned getting rid of leather, chainmail, and plate in favour of Light, Medium, and Heavy armour over at Dungeon of Signs a few times now. Which happens to be one of the things I really liked in the one game of Gamma World I played. I’d much prefer players to make up exactly what they’re wearing and apply an appropriate armour class than say they’re wearing chainmail and leave it at that. It also links in well aesthetically with LotFP’s existing weapon list.


Speaking of, in general I’m pretty happy with the LotFP weapon list, being that it consists of a few specific weapons and then Minor Medium Large Great make up what it is it does this much damage okay. No fuss, no muss. But. I’d still kind of like for the choice about what your Medium weapon actually is to make a difference beyond flavouring, without turning the weapon list into a 10-page section.


So, the size categories stay, that’s your damage, but depending on what the weapon actually is you also get this..


Sword: If you haven’t been hit this round roll twice for damage, take the best.


Hammer: When you attack choose +1 vs. Medium or better, or a normal attack which

reduces Heavy AC by 1 but deals half damage.


Axe: Minimum half damage vs. Light or less.


Flail: +1 vs. Medium or better, ignores shields. Can choose to attack weapon, Strength check



The reasoning being that swords are versatile, hammers can punch through with spikes or crush joints to reduce mobility, axes are built for chopping right into things (my thumb can attest), and flails.. well flails is flails.


[Edit: these and the Notch rules have been updated in The House of Rules]



That’s Not A Knife..


I use group Initiative, but would also like characters who have an Initiative bonus to get some kind of benefit from that. So, different kinds of weapons have benefits in different situations.

At this point I’d like to mention that this and the weapon categories were inspired by a couple of things mentioned by Brendan Strejcek, now of Necropraxis. In fact the dagger part is stolen directly from him and Gus L.

  •  If you successfully hit someone with a dagger you can choose to grab hold and keep stabbing, automatically hitting Flesh in subsequent rounds every time you win a wrestling roll (contested d20 + AB and Strength modifier). Anyone wielding a Medium or larger weapon will need to kick you away before attacking with their weapon.
    (Daggers should be deadly and useful, if you manage to get in close to someone you can cut straight to the meat, bypassing Grit and damaging Flesh. Finesse isn’t worth a damn when someone has a knife to your belly)
  • While wielding a Medium or larger weapon you may make a contested Initiative roll to attack first when someone with a Minor weapon closes into melee range.
  • While wielding a weapon with reach you may make a contested Initiative roll to attack first when someone with a smaller weapon closes into melee range, and automatically attack first and cause double damage to anyone that actually charges you.


Another Notch on the Axehaft


I find it really boring for characters to be able to pick a weapon when they start out and then hold onto it forever unless they find something magic or wake up naked in a pit. I mean sure, it’s nice to have a weapon with history, but don’t you want that history to actually mean something? I also want some kind of indication that all this murdering necessitates equipment maintenance, but I don’t want that to be a gaping pain in the arse.


So, Notches.


Every time you roll a 1 or 2 to hit in combat your weapon takes a Notch, this doesn’t necessarily mean it was damaged just then, more a simple way of quantifying wear and tear.


Each weapon can take Notches equal to its damage die (so a dagger can take 4 Notches, a long sword can take 8, Lumpy Space Princess’s knifemace can take 10).

Once the weapon has 2 Notches, roll 2 of the weapon’s damage die after every attack, if the roll is equal to or less than the number of Notches, the weapon breaks. So you might embarrassingly break your axe with a wild swing against the wall, or you might snap your dagger off in the merchant priest’s chest.



Now, armour makes it harder to hurt your squishy parts, fair enough, but what about the armour? Every time an attack against you rolls 19 or 20 your armour is damaged, reducing your AC by 1.



Prices are subject to review and gouging.



[Edit: Go read Brush of Fumbling’s excellent post that works weapon quality into Notches if you’re tired of brooms being as durable as battleaxes and all of your blacksmiths being the same guy with a different moustache. I’m using it effective right now.]



If You Liked It Then You Should Have Put a Pistol On It


When you have to walk around with everything strapped to your back, economy of utility can become pretty important, and getting hold of something that actually performs more than one function may just make you fall to your knees for a bit of an ugly joy cry. Credit for sparking this particular thought fire goes to Tom at Middenmurk.

Fuck your +1 sword, give me a shield with a lantern in it and big spikes sticking out of it.


Basically, coveted equipment doesn’t have to have some bullshit charm on it, it just needs to be uncommonly useful for the kind of foolish things you’ve chosen to run around doing.


I’d rather carry an iron cresset than a torch, it burns just as long, using pitch, rosin, or pine knots, and if someone jumps out of the dark I can beat them with it for d6 damage. As a bonus on 18-20 they also catch fire.

10′ poles are useful but DAMN are they unwieldy to just lug around. Why not carry a 10′ spear or polearm instead, with several interlocking foot long sections at the end that can be easily removed if damaged? Hell, while we’re at it let’s make the top section removable as well so that it can be used as a weapon in close-quarters. Like Tom said, “As is often the case with historical reality, similar business ends are applied to different lengths of wood for different purposes.”

Check Tom’s other article and follow the link to My Armory at the end for more examples. Sure, a lot of them are just things with pistols jammed onto them, but you get the point.


For seriously though, fuck your +1 sword.