In regards of hit-point bookkeeping, you might want to take a look at the way that Savage Worlds handles extras. They have just a Toughness stat, and if the damage is above that treshold they are either momentarily stunned until they make a saving throw in a successive round (Shaken) or killed. This allows to run hordes of NPCs without any book-keeping and removes questions as "which skeleton was the one with only 3HP left, that one with the chipped color on the sword or that with the chipped color on the skull?"

Wild cards (PCs and important NPCs) use basically the same rules, but can take several wounds before they are dead.

The mook roll is intended much as the to hit, to wound, and armour save rolls in Warhammer.  If PCs are fighting something you'd probably wat to track their hit points.

Can I que the Laverne & Shirley theme music yet?

Too seventies for you?

Or perhaps Pink Floyd?

(See how that works?)

The Osmonds maybe...But I didn't get to the alignment system yet!

I'm thinking we could set up an alignment matrix with seventies bands.

Up in the upper left we could have The Osmonds, upper right The Jackson Five.  Lower Left Led Zepplin and Lower Right Alice Cooper.  In the middle we'd put David Bowie since nobody could figure him out anyhow.

On the weapon verses armour table I guess I should share my rationale. Each armour step generally increases the target number by one. But some weapons are lighter or simpler to use, like daggers and clubs, so against no armour they've got a lower base target number but work less well against heavier armours. Piercing weapons are given some advantage against armour but are no easier to hit with. Flails and weapons with funky heads are harder to hit with but deal with armour well, often ignoring light armour. A swung piercing weapon on a long haft like the beck de Corbin is really hard to hit with in general but punches through armour very well. There's also some fudging to avoid making any super weapons. Heavy crossbows are pretty powerful but they take two rounds to load.

Wow.  I think I'll be the first one to step in here and say I really like this.   It has some of the nice features to me of OD&D and what appear to be skill-like but still class based approaches.  

I never was a fan of the bonus v AC in 1e AD&D but see you system working fairly well since there are 6 categories.  In addition you've also streamlined weapons yet provided a nifty diffferentiation.

I really like the base class, racial class and class combo, very BD&D/OD&D yet updated.

I actually like how you treat attribute bonuses, for the very reasons you mention, plus others.

Also like the toned-down magic and "use more slots" approach.  Seems like a middle-ground between fire-and-forget and spell points.

Finally, it is elegant, a long post but very short for game rule length yet a surprising amount of usuable stuff.  This compactness reminds me of how you don't need 100's of pages of rules to describe a game.

I see a lot here that's in the same vein as the stuff I've been working on.

This bit:

Quote from: David JohansenBut some weapons are lighter or simpler to use, like daggers and clubs, so against no armour they've got a lower base target number but work less well against heavier armours. Piercing weapons are given some advantage against armour but are no easier to hit with.

what about a dagger though?  It's a lighter and simpler to use (lower base target number / work less well against heavier armours) but it's also a piercing weapon (some advantage against armour).  Historically, knights would often use a dagger in close combat (2 handed), or even hold their sword with one hand on the blade (they were dull like a a screwdriver head) to apply more force to the thrust and pierce the armour.

I'm making a distinction between 1 and 2 handed weapons for this reason, and you can always 2-hand something like a dagger or sword to get the extra advantage vs. armour.

I too really like what you've done here, and can easily envisage running some of the classic modules with your system. Personally I'd prefer to give all PC's the double whammy of class and race hit dice at 1st leve, but that's just me.

Regarding mooks -- The 'Damage Save' idea is quite nifty, and I could see it scaling upward for more heroically styled campaigns. Roll the monsters (hit die type + con bonus + level) vs. the attackers (damage die + str bonus + level) and you'll have a nice, clean way of taking on more powerful threats without resorting to constant hit point tracking. Just a thought.

Thanks

On consideration of daggers and unarmed attacks I'm adding a Corps a Corps rule allowing you to step in nice and close for a +2 to hit and -4 to be hit by larger weapons until the enemy breaks away and takes a step back.  I'll bump up the base to hit for these weapons by two and improve the armour penetration for daggers a bit.

Racial hit dice are stackable with class hit dice, but only fighters get two hitdice at first level.  Class hit dice are determined by race incidentally.  I'm not sure if that was totally clear.  Halfling fighters have 2d6 not 2d10.  Still I'll have to think about it.  As written at present one could argue that only fighters get one hitdice at first level.  That'd really make the mook rule brutal.

Incidentally, it should probably be called the mook verses mook rule.  I wouldn't use it with PCs as it puts them at a slight disadvantage.

Also, I'm going to give PCs 2d6+6 on their stats instead of integrating a complex counterbalancing talent system (like Hack Master has)

Okay, here's a pdf of the current state of the rules as well as my old Shadows game I mentioned previously. You'll notice I added a couple races and went a bit beyond just adding a gift for invective to thieves.

http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/Basic.pdf

http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/Shadows.pdf

Also, what about a name? Every project needs a title.

Castles and Crusades, OSRIC, Basic Fantasy, and several others are already taken.

I'm thinking PLATEMAIL: rules for medieval fantasy games with miniature figures

or perhaps

MAIL CLAD: rules for medieval fantasy games with miniature figures

or maybe

ADVANCED MEN AND MAGIC: rules for medieval fantasy games with miniature figures

or, of course

ADVANCED NOSTALGIA AND NEOPLAGERISM: the fantasy game that was ripped off from that other more famous one

I like AN&N, but note it's Neoplagiarism.

Warthogs & Weapons Tables.

Glaives & Guisarmes.

I got nothing.