Mixing Sine Nomine's games

[Frey]

I will start soon a sandbox Red Tide campaign, but unfortunately there is no "normal" core book yet: Ret Tide is a Labyrinth Lord supplement, and Scarlet Heroes is aimed to 1&1 play. But since I own almost all Sine Nomine books, I thought I could mix their rules. This is what I have now:

a) I love Scarlet Heroes' trait system, so I'm using that, plus the 2d8 core rule. The only difference with LL and other OSR games is that saving throws escalate with the caster's level, but I don't think it will be a big deal at lower levels.

b) Magic-users and clerics get spells, thieves extra traits... and fighters? Just getting more hit points and a better attack progression is a bit boring, so I'm using the warrior class Idahuns from Spears of the Dawn. And of coure magic classes will be taken from The Crimson Pandect.

c) I like gritty campaigns, so I may use Silent Legion's Slaughter die (all normal weapons using a d6), but I'm not so sure about that. Or maybe the optional critical rules from Dark Albion would be better.

So what do you think? Will it work? Any imbalances? I ask specially because Kevin Crawford posts here often

[SineNomine]

That all ought to work without much fuss, though one difference from Labyrinth Lord is that the HD mods on saving throws mean that high-level PCs won't get the progressively harder-to-affect-with-spells effect that LL grants. An 8th level LL halfling is extremely hard for anybody to hex, no matter how powerful they are. A comparable Scarlet Heroes hero has a significantly easier or harder time resisting effects depending on their creator's hit dice.

I'd also be leery of slaughter dice, or only grant them to fighters or backstabbing thieves. Anything that kicks up the randomness of a fight implicitly benefits the NPCs more than the PCs, because the former only need to win one fight while the PCs need to win- or at least survive- all of them.

[Eric Diaz]

Or maybe the optional critical rules from Dark Albion would be better.

How does that work, if I may ask?

If you're using only d6s, maybe a 6s can explode.

[Spinachcat]

I like the slaughter dice concept for PCs and Named NPCs (including key monsters). Even at 1st level, it makes hunting Gore Eater the Orc and his band of wanker goblins more challenging and dangerous as Gore Eater could potentially drop hammer on PCs.

[Frey]

How does that work, if I may ask?

If you get a natural 20, you roll on a table for extra damage and other effects (scars, decapitation...). Very WFRP1. A nice idea is that fighters, and only fighters add their character level to the roll.

[Eric Diaz]

If you get a natural 20, you roll on a table for extra damage and other effects (scars, decapitation...). Very WFRP1. A nice idea is that fighters, and only fighters add their character level to the roll.

Thanks! Sounds like a good idea, indeed.

[RPGPundit]

A more interesting mix would be any of those with Stars Without Number.