New Player questions

[hugh]

Hi,
Ive decided to try Labyrinth lord for my first ever session as DM and I was just checking some things,I'm relatively new to older style rpg's so forgive me newbish questions:

1. so,the lower the AC number the better?
2. I don't quite get Demi humans being there own class,so Dwarves cant be a thief for instance? and what is its hit dice if it is? d8 or d4? a little more explanation would be great,

thanks in advance.

[gentleman john]

To answer your questions in order:

1. As far as LL is concerned, yes.
2. In standard LL, a dwarf is a dwarf is a dwarf. End of. They can never be a thief. This is because the original D&D rules (which LL is based on) were very humanocentric. It was strange enough to be a dwarf. If you get the AEC book for LL, then you can have dwarf thieves - in which case they use the thief HD. Of course, it being your campaign, there is nothing to stop you having a dwarf thief as a PC or a NPC if you want. In which case, it's up to you HD and abilities it has. But you will also have to compensate for this in the XP/level advancement.

[Blood axe]

1) Yes, the lower the AC the better. No armor is AC9 , platemail is AC3.
2) LL keeps it simple. Race is a class. A Dwarf is basicaklly like a Fighter. An Elf is a Fighter/magic-user- but harder to advance in.If you want a Dwarf Thief you need AEC.

Have you read through the books at all?? They are free downloads. Free.

[scadgrad]

Think of the "race as class" as being the iconic characters of the original inspirations for the game, primarily Tolkien in the case of demihumans. The dwarf class works like Gimli, halflings are Samwise, and the elves of middle earth or at least the heroes, are reasonably represented by the Elf class.

I've not played straight LL because I was always a fan of much of what 1st ed added to B/X. LL plus AEC gives me a nice set of rules that nearly perfectly matches the way that my groups played 1st from the late 70s through the release of 2nd ed. As has already been stated, if your campaign needs Elven thieves, then simply add AEC and make use of the optional hit dice rule. In doing so, your dwarven thief example would have a d6 for HPs.

[hugh]

Thanks for your quick replies,that clears those thing up,If I may be so bold as to ask a couple of follow up question,the Thief skills table on page 13,its not clear to me as to what die to roll to check if the thief is successful ,it doesn't state it in the book as far as I can tell.

Also,say a thief is sneaking up on a couple of Orks,I make a roll behind the screen and say something like "you sneak up behind the Ork and pounce" or "you stand on a twig and a snap noise makes the Ork turn and face you!" Is that what you do in your games?
Thanks again.

[austrodavicus]

Welcome to the forum Hugh and good luck with your game, I hope your group has lots of fun.

All the thief skills are rolled using % dice (2d10) except for the Hear Noise skill, which uses a 6-sided die.

Your descriptions of a successful vs. failed sneak attack sounds fine. Different referees handle things different ways, but one thing to remember is that a failed roll isn't necessarily a failure. For instance, if a thief fails his Move Silently roll, that means he wasn't silent. It doesn't necessarily mean he's noisy or not quiet. That's up to you the referee, a failed roll could mean he's scuffed his foot and made a noise, trod on a twig, or whatever, or it could mean that although he was more stealthy than a non-thief, he wasn't perfectly silent and may have been detected.

[petespahn]

Everything's been answered already. Just wanted to say good luck with your game and please post a recap when you get a chance. I enjoy seeing how other games go.

Pete

[connivingsumo]

I just wanted to say WELCOME hugh!