Death by Flute

I just ran across the story of the Fuke sect of Buddhism in Japan. The sect showed up during the Shogunate period. They were characterized by baskets that covered their faces and bamboo flutes called shakuhachi. The flutes were used to practice breathing meditation and to gain attention as they begged for food.

While the image of a flute-playing monk with a basket over his head is interesting enough, the story gets better. Travel in Shogunate Japan was illegal. In order to gain permission to travel from place to place, they forged a bunch of documents demonstrating a long provenance of master flute players. Despite the fiction, the forgeries were accepted as authentic and the Fuke monks had official permission to wander the entire country.

The real reason that the forgeries were accepted, however, probably had more to do with spy craft than with how authentic the tales of great flautists seemed. No one questions a monk who covers their face with a basket because it was an earnest attempt to erase the individuality of the monk — a necessary step on the way to Nirvana. No one questions a shakuhachi with a larger than normal end on it because these had, again, religious significance and use.

A covered face and a bamboo instrument that can double as a mace makes for a perfect cover for a spy. So much so, that in the repertoire of shakuhachi music are things called Test Pieces. They were extremely difficult songs that various entities used to test whether or not a Fuke monk was a spy or not. If you can’t play the piece, you are probably a spy. Additionally, both the sect and the instrument were banned by the Meiji Restoration for fear that the remnants of the Shogunate could spy their way back into power.

Not only is this fascinating stuff, but it makes me want to actually play two of my least favorite classes: the bard and the assassin just so I can have a character sketch like this:

...and the satisfaction of taking out monsters with a flute.

Saintly Saturday: St. Cosmas the Composer and Melodist

Today is the feast of St. Cosmas the Composer and Melodist who was not only a contemporary of St. John of Damascus (a famous 7th-8th century saint who wrote against iconoclasm) but was an adopted member of the family. He was elected bishop in the 8th century to a coastal city in Palestine. He was also an excellent hymnographer. Among his many compositions are two Canons that are still sung in the Orthodox Church today: the Canon of the Cross and the Canon for the Nativity of Christ.

Earlier this week, when I looked ahead to see who the saint was for today, I was left with a very tough question: What to do with a hymnographer? It is a reminder that D&D (and most RPGs, for that matter) don’t really have a place for someone like St. Cosmas. Yes, the argument can be made that he represents a Christian version of a Bard, but, not only do I not really like virtually any iteration of that class, I don’t think any version can easily be re-skinned to fit a St. Cosmas.

This leads me to a bit of Gamer ADD I have been suffering from lately. I’ve been distracted by Warhammer Fantasy RPG, the Mithgarthr “retro-clone” of 5e and Swords & Wizardry Continual Light. While absorbing so much awesome, my brain came up with an interesting challenge that I think answers the “problem” of St. Cosmas better than simply calling him a Bard:

Knowing what I know today in October 2017, what if I suddenly found myself back in the late 80s at the beginning of the end for TSR when my friends and I started drifting away from D&D? What would I do to modify D&D to make it enticing enough for my friends and I to continue to play realizing that I would have no access to the huge library of .pdfs and books that I have now? What resources could I use?

The first thing that came to mind is the idea of a 0-level character. Not only do I love this idea, but my friends probably would have as well because we reveled in the challenge of low-level play. I owned the 1st edition of Warhammer Fantasy RPG and it has an awesome list of careers that a potential 0-level character could come from.

Secondly, my friends did like the idea of the proficiency system that was being developed in books like Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures. Why not take some of the skills from the Thief class, some of the skills from WFRP and use them in the broad sense suggested by both WFRP and 5e where each characteristic gets several skills associated with it?

Finally, this all has to exist on a random table that also allows for some customization. Therefore, each career would have the ability to move around some ability scores and a choice of skills to specialize in.

Here is a rough draft of what that might look like (Roll a d12):

1. Alchemists’ Apprentice Skills: Craft, Medicine, Open Locks; Characteristic: INT
2. Entertainer Skills: Blather, Perform, Sleight of Hand; Characteristic: CHA
3. Herbalist Skills: Lore, Medicine, Sleight of Hand; Characteristic: WIS
4. Initiate Skills: Blather, Etiquette, Read Languages; Characteristic: CHA
5. Laborer Skills: Craft, Consume Alcohol, Open Locks; Characteristic: DEX
6. Outlaw Skills: Climb Walls, Intimidate, Stealth; Characteristic: STR
7. Rat-Catcher Skills: Animal Handling, Hunt, Swim; Characteristic: CON
8. Sailor Skills: Climb Walls, Navigate, Swim; Characteristic: STR
9. Scribe Skills: Lore, Read Languages, Stealth; Characteristic: INT
10. Soldier Skills: Consume Alcohol, Intimidate, Hear Noise; Characteristic: DEX
11. Squire Skills: Animal Handling, Etiquette, Perform; Characteristic: CON
12. Woodsman Skills: Hear Noise, Hunt, Navigate; Characteristic: WIS

Skills: Players can try to justify doing anything under the pretense of a skill. PCs can automatically succeed at the DM’s discretion. Any character can use any skill at a base success rate of 1 in 6. Each career offers three skills that can be specialized in. The player prioritizes these specializations at character creation. At 0-level these three skills have a base success rate of 9+, 12+ and 15+ on a d20. As a character gains levels, these chances improve by 1 per level (8+, 11+, 14+ at 1st level). A roll of ‘1’ always fails

Each specialization is associated with a characteristic. The bonus or penalty of that characteristic can be applied to a roll with a specialization (but not to the generic 1 in 6 chance):

STR: Climb Walls, Intimidate, Swim
INT: Craft, Lore, Read Languages
WIS: Hear Noise, Medicine, Navigate
CON: Animal Handling, Consume Alcohol, Hunt
DEX: Open Locks, Sleight of Hand, Stealth
CHA: Blather, Etiquette, Permform

Characteristic: Each career can rearrange their starting characteristics (rolled in order) by taking the highestt roll and switching with the Characteristic associated with the career. For example: an Initiate with STR 10, INT 7, WIS 15, DEX 17, CON 10, CHA 8 can switch out their DEX and CHA scores so that the characteristics look like this: STR 10, INT 7, WIS 15, DEX 8, CON 10, CHA 17
Once a character reaches 1st level and chooses a class, these characteristics may be further adjusted according to the rules in Basic D&D.

Each PC would fight as a 0-level human with d4 hit points. 1st-level would be attained after one adventure.

Saintly Saturday: St. Ephrem the Syrian

Today is the feast of St. Ephrem the Syrian. He was born in Nisibis about the year A.D. 306. In his youth he was a disciple of St. James, Bishop of Nisibis who was one of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council. Around A.D. 363 he was forced to flee his home in the wake of the death of Julian the Apostate. When the pagan emperor died fighting the Persians, they were able to conquer Nisibis. St. Ephrem settled in Edessa where he flowered as a poet and a hymnographer.

At the time, a form of Gnosticism preached by Bardaisan was very popular in Edessa. Much of this popularity was due to Bardaisan’s skill with hymns, which became very fashionable. St. Ephrem set about writing a multitude of hymns with correct Christian dogma to combat the gnosticism of Bardaisan. Interestingly, they were meant to be sung by women. His writing became so popular that it was translated into Greek from the original Syriac.

Eventually he came to be known as The Harp of the Holy Spirit. His prayers and hymns influenced later hymnographers and are still used today. The most readily recognizable prayer for Orthodox Christians is the following, because it is a central prayer in our Lenten services:

O Lord and Master of my life!

Take from me the spirit of sloth,
faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.

But give rather the spirit of chastity,
humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.

Yea, Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors
and not to judge my brother,
for Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.

There are two things that suggest themselves to me through St. Ephraim:

1. Firstly, he wrote in Syriac. This might surprise some, but Syriac is a very important language in Christianity, particularly in the East. In fact, it is arguable that it is as, if not more, influential than Latin. I mention this, because one of the things that has emerged from my Lost Colonies campaign is the relative importance of Goblin. Besides Common, there is no other language that has had a greater impact on the campaign — something not lost on my players. Intellectually, I might be tempted to have Elvish or (to borrow from the 3e era) Celestial, Draconic or even Abyssal a centrally important language. These (at least to me) are the fantasy equivalents of Greek and Latin. The importance of Syriac in Christianity, however, suggests that we can throw a curveball in our campaign worlds where languages like Goblin can be just as, if not more, important.
2. Secondly, St. Ephrem, being a hymnographer, brings up that old bug-a-boo the bard. Roger of Roles, Rules & Rolls has a very nice iteration of the bard as a hireling. This has me thinking. The influence of St. Ephrem was not in his singing or his performance. Rather, it was from other people learning and singing his hymns. To put it in another context, drinking songs and school fight songs do not depend upon their performance, but rather in the very strong emotions that they give those who know and participate in singing them (however badly). This suggests that mechanical effects normally associated with bards need not actually need a bard to be present. Rather, players can attempt to get their exploits popularized by song. Base price can be 50-100gp with a base chance of success derived from Charisma. Extra cash can be spent to increase the chance of success. That success represents the tune, the song and the exploit becoming popularized enough that anyone singing/reciting it will induce an emotional response. Mechanically, this can be played out as simple battle cries such as Remember the Alamo! or Spoon! When appropriate, the Referee can make something like a Morale Check for the party. If successful, the battle cry based upon the successful song can give the party a +1 to hit, AC or damage for the battle. Of course, this is entirely dependent upon the whim of the Referee — but this prevents such things from being overused or abused.

The Bard as a Prestige Class Old School Style

Interesting. Just this morning I went to look at Dragon #56 to remind myself about Jeff Goelz's iteration of the bard in the wake of the interesting discussion that ensued from my post on St. Romanos. In addition, I also reviewed several other versions because I am interested in trying to allow the germ of an idea to flower — allowing the bard to be a prestige class, old-school style.

Though I have always hated the actual application of the 1ed AD&D bard, it is one of the first examples of a prestige class in D&D. I also appreciate the concept — after traveling the world, a bard has accumulated enough stories, tales, songs and information to be able to do all the things a bard does.

Thus, at 4th level a character may choose to become a bard (and this choice must be made at 4th level) — any character. This helps account for such diverse bard-like concepts as St. Romanos, Gandalf, King Henry V as well as the fast-talking, puffy sleeved fop.

In order to gain the abilities of a bard, the character must sacrifice all of the abilities they would have gained for that level from their own class, save hit dice. Thus, fighters would continue to fight as a 3rd level fighter, magic users and clerics would cast spells as at 3rd level, thief skill would remain at 3rd level, etc. Once a character becomes a bard, they advance according to the x.p. requirements of their original class. At each level they may choose to either improve their old class skills or their bard abilities by one level.

I realize that this is unbalanced in that it is much more expensive in x.p. to gain bard abilities for a magic user than a thief. I made this choice for ease of implementation — there need not be any kind of complicated X.P. chart, etc. The differences can be explained by class affinity to the bardic abilities — thieves are more naturally good at being bards than are magic users.

In thinking about how to do a bard (in a way that I'd be interested in playing one), I personally think three abilities are more-or-less universal in everyone's concept of the class:

• Legend Lore
• Charm
• Battlefield Morale Bonus

Legend Lore is the ability to attach a story or piece of history to places and things found while adventuring. I would begin with a simple 1 in 6 chance to know something interesting. This chance goes up by 1 for every level taken in bard abilities.

Charm is potentially the most powerful and therefore abusive ability of the bard. As I see it there are three ways to limit this potential power:

1. Understand it as a spell and therefore limit the number of uses per day. This could be either a static number (3/day) or a number based on level (1/every three levels).
2. Limit its potency by allowing two saving throws — one based on the level of the bard (some kind of skill check) and another based on the level/HD of the target (normal save vs. spells). I would start this skill check at 1 in 6. This chance goes up by 1 for every level taken in bard abilities.
3. Remove the spell effects and tie it to monster reactions. On a successful skill check (again, beginning at 1 in 6, but with the understanding that this can be mitigated through good roleplaying) allows the bard to move a reaction check one or more categories up or down the reaction table.

Personally, I am inclined to choose the second, but include the other options for the purpose of discussion and allowing some flexibility for both Referees and players.

Battlefield Morale Bonus is normally emulated by a simple bonus to various combat rolls. Personally, I never liked this choice. It becomes necessary, however, if this ability is to have a positive effect upon PCs, who never have to check morale. In order to make the mechanism more interesting and unique, I would offer a negative effect — one per combat, a bard can force opposing monsters within 30 feet to make a morale check. This check would suffer a penalty for each subsequent improvement in bard ability. A morale check of '2' always succeeds and monsters with a morale of '12' are unaffected.

Any thoughts?

Saintly Saturday: St. Romanos the Melodist

Today is the feast of St. Romanos the Melodist, one of the Orthodox Church's most celebrated hymnodists. He was born in Syria in the 5th century to Jewish parents. He later moved to Constantinople, where he became a sacristan (someone with the duty of upkeep and care of a church building) at Hagia Sophia.

Romanos was not born with a good singing voice nor was he a talented reader. In fact, on one Christmas Eve during services he read so badly that another reader had to take his place. He was devastated.

The next day, grief-stricken, he went before an icon of the Mother of God. He was then granted a vision, where the Virgin gave him a scroll which he was commanded to eat. Thus, he was given the gift of understanding, composition and hymnography as well as a gorgeous singing voice. That evening he sang his first hymn (called a kontakia, in reference to the Virgin's scroll). We still sing this hymn in the Orthodox Church every Christmas:

On this day the Virgin beareth the Transcendent in Essence; to the Unapproachable, the earth doth offer a small cave; Angels join in choir with shepherds in giving glory; with a star the Magi travel upon their journey; for our sakes is born a young Child, He that existed before the ages as God.

This is a reminder that there is one historical/literary archetype that the three/four core classes of D&D don't necessarily do very well — the bard. One could argue that a bard can be accomplished by simply re-skinning any of those core classes. St. Romanos himself seems to be a model for re-skinning the cleric, for example.

Personally, the bard is one of those class concepts that really intrigues me. There is a lot of potential here — well beyond the poofy-sleeved-lyre-playing-fop. For example, I would argue that King Henry V, as portrayed by Shakespeare, is a bard. His oratory prowess inspires his small, rag-tag band of an army to smash the superior French force despite being vastly outnumbered. I have always been interested in playing a bard in a similar light.

Unfortunately, I have never been satisfied with any version of the bard in any version of D&D or its derivatives. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something in the concept, the mechanics or just the way D&D does combat just doesn't do the bard justice. Rather than have fun with the character (which I have managed to do with virtually every other class in the game), I always seem to feel that something just doesn't work.

Therefore, I am going to end with a pair of questions:

1. What is your favorite version of the bard class and why?
2. Is there another class concept that you feel D&D has never done justice?