Today we're celebrating his 70th birthday.
Thinking about that, I pulled down his gaming binder off of my shelf - this one, covered with Monster Manual rub-on stickers:
Plus Snoopy, of course.
In it are the Basic Set, the Expert Set, a few choice pages and tables from the Holmes Basic Set, and chart after chart from Arm Law by Iron Crown Enterprises.
I don't recall using them that often, but I know he did use them.
I also found this neatly printed sheet:
It has some very interesting rules. First, the Dexterity in Melee rules. Instead of applying your Dex bonus to AC, you can apply some or all of it to offense. Second, you can apply some of your levels to apply a penalty to hit you, but then you attack at a lower level.
Second, you have a D&D-compatible way to use Arms Law.
I have no idea where these are from. My copy of Arms Law/Claw Law doesn't have it, and I'm not sure where he got his - they're copies, not originals. Maybe it was in the first edition.
Does anyone know? I copied them clearly enough to use them, but I have no idea where they're from. I'd really like to know. They're very clever rules, especially the Dexterity in Melee rules . . .
My guess is the source is the Warlock variant of D&D that was popular on the West Coast and influenced Runequest and the Holmes Basic D&D set (Dexterity set initiative in it). However, my PDF of it dates from 2000, and by that time it was not only so filled with optional rules, but Agility had been split off from Dexterity, so I can't say for sure.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping someone will know the source for sure.
DeleteIf I recall, Arms Law started out as a replacement/augmentation for D&D.
ReplyDeleteThat's I understand, too. By the time I got to it, it was already Rolemaster, a complete game. I don't know if this is from the 1980 Arms Law or not, though.
DeleteThis sounds like a question for Jon Peterson.
ReplyDeleteI shared this post with him privately, we'll see if he knows.
Deletewhen i started dnd in 84 about half the older guy campaigns used hybrid adnd with arms law books
ReplyDeleteMERP and rolemaster came into own right later but I do remember waiting for GM to go through many folders which was tedious - a phone app with all tables would be nice
Interesting. When I played Rolemaster, table flips and lookups were both easy and the most fun thing at the table ("I shot the arrow in one ear and out the other! Awesome!") I don't really remember how it played when my uncle mixed them, except for the occasional person getting bashed apart with a morninstar or a limb getting cut off a monster. Or a PC - with 5-6 HP and level 1, does it really matter if you also lose an arm when you take 6 HP from an orc's axe?
DeleteYes, yes it does. Because it's even worse that way. :)