Gambits for Into the Odd
I like to crawl, and I like Into the Odd. It captures a lot of what makes OD&D fun to play: it deemphasises ability scores and encourages players to engage creatively with the game world itself.
I like the combat system. In all of the odd-games you roll damage directly: No attack roll necessary. In Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland, you roll your damage die, subtract the target's armor and deal the remainder as damage. No ability scores that decide the effectiveness of the attack.
I also like that all of the Odd games include manoeuvres. They add little complexity but a lot of flavour and interesting choices. Manoeuvres, however, require a saving throw, and saving throws are tied to ability scores.
Here's the wording from Electric Bastionland:
Combat Manoeuvres: If the players want to do something like disarm or trip someone in combat, the side most at risk makes a SAVE to avoid consequences1
Into the Odd has the exact same rule just worded differently. Odd games only have three ability scores, but I still prefer to limit them to situations where characters have already fucked up, so to speak.
Mythic Bastionland changes the manoeuvre rules and introduces gambits. Unlike the older games, you roll multiple dice for damage, depending on your arms. A 4 or higher on one of the dice lets you chose one of the following gambits:
• Bolster the Attack for +1 total Damage
• Move after the Attack, even if you already moved or are unable to move
• Repel a foe away from you
• Stop a foe from moving next turn
• Impair a weapon on their next turn
• Trap a shield until your next turn
• Dismount a foe
• Other effect of a similar level of impact
On a result of 8 or more, you can improve your gambit in the following ways:
• No Save is granted to the target
• Greater effect such as disarming an item, breaking a wooden shield or weapon, or removing a helm.2
What I like about this way of handling manoeuvres is that the success is not tied to ability scores. Rolling well at character creation does not influence your chances of some derring-do. With a d6 weapon, your chance for a gambit is 50%. With a d8 weapon, it's 62.5%, including a 12.5% chance of a guaranteed gambit.
Now, in Into the Odd, the only d10 weapons are heavy ranged weapons. I'll think and write about gambits and ranged weapons on another day.
However, a favourable fictional position can enhance your damage, letting you roll a d12 instead of the weapon's damage die. A d12 weapon die gives you a 75% chance of a gambit, including a 41.6% chance of a guaranteed one. Good fictional positioning doesn't just increase your damage. It also makes combat manoeuvres dramatically more reliable.
All in all, those are pretty good chances, even if you rolled low on your ability scores. But ability scores still matter. Just not yours. Unless you roll an 8 or higher, the target gets to save against your gambit. Tough enemies are therefore still difficult to outmanoeuvre.
What I like about gambits is that there is an actual trade-off. You sacrifice damage for a guaranteed gambit. And in Electric Bastionland and Into the Odd, you only get to roll one damage die. Will you try to down your enemy with a well-placed cut, or do you prefer to play it safe and impair their damage in the next round?
Possible modifications
Careful readers will have noticed something by now. There's the "bolster attack" gambit. Doesn't really work if you only roll one die, right? Well, it doesn't work for you, but it works for other players. In Into the Odd, characters take turns to attack. Now you could just rule that characters can bolster the attacks of other players that take their turn after them. But I think there is a more elegant option.
Multiple attackers targeting the same opponent roll their DAMAGE together and keep only the highest single die.3
This is a rule from Electric Bastionland. Here, characters that gang up on an enemy keep only the highest single die. This rule is rad if you like your game to be more like a survival horror dungeon crawl. It's also rad if you want to have gambits in Into the Odd. Why not port this rule from Electric Bastionland and modify it to account for actual teamwork? This is my phrasing for a future home game:
Multiple attackers targeting the same opponent roll their damage die together. Each eligible die for a gambit may be spent on one. Of the remaining dice, only one can be used for dealing damage.
I'm no Chris McDowall when it comes to concise phrasing, but I think it'll do the trick.
I'm still not sure how to handle gambits for ranged weapons. Some gambits work perfectly well with a crossbow: dismounting foes, stopping them from moving by pinning them to something and moving after an attack. Others, like impairing a weapon, make less sense.
I'll think about that and make a post if I get kissed by a dungeon muse.
PS: I still think Into the Odd is suited perfectly for a Baker Street Campaign.