Experience Penalties for Quasi-Men Under the Dying Sun

I have wrestled with how to handle Quasi-Men in Dying Sun for a while.  I think my rules for them have improved immensely over time.  But, I just realized that my shiny new, smallinated XP rules create a problem in this area.  I previously had Desert Men suffer a -5% penalty on earned experience and Scorpion Men suffer -15%.  That doesn't work so much when we have reduced the XP awards down to units of 1.

I've never liked level limits and won't use them here.  So, here's an idea I am playing with and I'd love some feedback:

Desert Men need 1 extra points of experience to advance to 2nd level (i.e., need 21 XP to get to 2nd level); thereafter, the required extra experience doubles (i.e., need 42 for 3rd; need 84 for 4th, etc.)

Scorpion Men need 3 extra points of experience per level to advance (i.e., need 23 XP to get to 2nd level; need 46 for 3rd; need 92 for 4th, etc.)

This accurately preserves the -5% and -15% penalties without us needing to have fractions.  I think it's pretty clean.

Places under the Dying Sun: The Floating Garden of Unearthly Delights

The Floating Garden of Unearthly Delights (200 XP on view; 800 XP on entering)

The Floating Garden is a popular traveler’s tale of paradise and horror.  It is rumoured to lie in various places over the centuries, much like the equally fabulous Black Ziggaraut.  That is because the Garden manifests as a hyper-spatial anomaly on this world and can appear literally anywhere.

When it manifests, it appears as an oasis of stunningly large and succulent plants.  This would be recognized as a jungle on our world, but such a thing is unknown under the Dying Sun.  The anomaly appears as a circular manifestation of 1 mile in diameter. Once it appears, it will remain for 1D hours before vanishing.

If the Floating Garden is entered, travelers will immediately note the humid air, filled with the sounds of birds and humming of insects.  The sky is a royal blue with a golden orb hanging there, giving pleasing warmth.  Rivulets of clean water are almost everywhere and even a large party can quickly fill up its water-bags.  The place is home to a vast profusion of animals and plants and the Referee is encouraged to include anything he likes, such as dinosaurs or reptile folk.

As long as the hyper-spatial anomaly persists, travelers may emerge from the Garden as easily as they entered.  However, once this trans-dimensional extrusion vanishes, the traveler will be unable to exit.  Wherever the traveler goes, he will simply find more jungle.  The Garden of Unearthly Delights is, in fact, a closed-loop universe like a globe covering some 100 square miles. There is no edge or end to the Garden; anyone travelling in any one direction for more than 50 miles will simply find himself back where he started, having circled the globe.

At any time, there is a chance (11+) of finding other stranded travelers within the Garden.  These may be human or not, may come from the character’s world or from ultra-terrene realities.  As with the animal inhabitants, the Referee is free to let his imagination run wild here. A  Lord of the Flies scenario is certainly plausible, with the stranded folk having become wild barbarians, as is the classic Lost World set-up, with a colony of antique Mycenaeans, for example, having survived in this pocket-cosmos. The inhabitants may have formed a new society; is it one that welcomes new additions to widen the gene pool or is it homicidally xenophobic?

A new trans-dimensional extrusion is formed every 2D days, although whether or not the trapped travelers are there to see it is up to chance.  This extrusion might appear anywhere and not necessarily under the Dying Sun.

Reactions Under the Dying Sun

I am a late convert to the use of the Reaction Roll.  I never, ever used Reactions Rolls or Morale or the Hireling Reaction roll during my first phase of gaming (aka the 1980’s).  Back then, I scoffed at the idea of having the dice tell me how monsters and npc’s would reaction to things; was I not the Dungeon Master?  I knew what would happen.

It is only recently that I have come to see the usefulness of these things.  And, much more recently, I realized that while Spellcraft & Swordplay does have Morale rules, it does not have Monster or Hireling Reaction rolls.  What appears below is meant to add those back into Under the Dying Sun.

Alert, imaginary readers will note that none of these mechanics are exactly what have been presented in other iterations of the game.  I was, however, guided by the versions that appeared in Tom Moldvay’s Basic Rules. Somewhere (and I can’t recall where; feel free to remind me), I saw the suggestion that if you look at Moldvay’s Monster and Hireling reaction tables, you can see what looks like two specific expressions of an implied, underlying, universal mechanic.  The mechanic is, in essence:

Roll 2d6

• 2 is terrible
• 3-5 is bad
• 6-8 is neutral
• 9-11 is good
• 12 is fantastic.

Granted, the Morale rules don’t follow that - being a simple binary mechanic of flight or fight - but nevertheless, that idea struck a chord within me.  I had long played with the idea that Basic/Expert D&D had certain strivings toward being a 2d6 system; a striving I wanted to tease out.  That was, in fact, one of the reasons S&S so appeals to me.

So, taking the idea of an underlying, universal reaction mechanic based on 2d6, I present the following:

REACTION ROLLS

Players usually have full control over their reactions and behavior.  But, the attitudes of non-player characters may be more randomly determined. Whenever the characters encounter someone else, human or otherwise, the Referee may wish to make a Reaction Roll.  If the creature met is mindless or would obviously be disposed in some way toward the characters, the Reaction Roll can be eliminated.

The Referee may add modifiers as seem appropriate. The lead character’s CHA is the most common modifier. The Reaction Roll is compared to the table below: find the Difficulty Condition modifier required to make the roll a success (11+). This gives the nature of the reaction. A roll of boxcars is automatically an “Extremely Positive” result.

The interpretation of the Reaction Result is made by the Referee based upon the circumstances. Some guidelines are given below.

Encountering Hostiles

If the encounter is between potential hostiles, including predatory beasts, the following results:

Morale

Non-player characters will usually make morale rolls at two points in combat: first, when they suffer their first casualty; second, when the force is reduced to half it’s initial strength. Retainers make Morale Rolls just as any other non-player character.

Hiring Retainers

The players may wish to hire the services of mercenaries, porters, guides, and so on. Once such individuals are found, the player may make an offer and roll: