Deathbringer vs Dark Fantasy X

Because I'm strongly considering expanding the list of attributes in Dark Fantasy X from three to six: Strength, Dexterity and Mind would now be the standard D&D array of Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma, I thought it worthwhile to have a look at some other OSR adjacent games that play very similarly to see how they're done. I already have Deathbringer, for instance, so I looked specifically at that one right away.

Yes, I know that Deathbringer and the Death Dealer are not exactly the same. Close enough, though.

First off, Deathbringer has no skills, proficiencies or anything like that; the ability score is all the bonus you get. Perhaps because of this, the ability score range is a little higher; at character creation, you can jack it up to as high as +6, and it can rise as high as +10. In Dark Fantasy X, the ability score bonuses are going to be about half that, although the skill bonus, at higher levels, can be that high or even a bit more. (Of course, that's kind of moot; I doubt I'd ever play higher than 5th or 6th level.) The math works out pretty well at the Deathbringer level, but I like the granularity of having skills. I'll probably keep my ability score generation very similar to what I'm doing now (just with more abilities) but change the skill increase to only happening on odd numbered levels rather than every level, which will effectively cut the increase in half and make it slower as well. Even levels will be where characters get a "class" boost, or feat, although if I dismantle the classes and make them simply be an a la carte menu of "class abilities", I'll have plenty to choose from there too.

I've never been clear why OSR and many OSR adjacent people are so down on skills. I've heard their explanation, but I don't think that they are correct. People don't assume that you can't do something if you don't have the skill noted on your sheet. Plus, in m20 (and d20, for that matter) anyone could attempt anything and you had a skill bonus whether you had the skill or not, because you had an ability bonus that was part of the cumulative skill bonus. Clearly if you didn't put ranks in a skill, you weren't going to have as high a bonus as someone who did. But that hardly meant that you couldn't do it. The rationale just wasn't there. 

However, I think if I'm expanding my abilities from three to six, I should probably expand my list of skills from five to... I dunno. Still less than ten. Today, Dark Fantasy X has Athletics, Communication, Knowledge, Subterfuge and Survival. I'm thinking of deleting renaming Knowledge to Investigate, renaming Subterfuge to Stealth, and adding Tinkering for all of your "disable device" needs. I've looked over some more OSR and OSR adjacent games that do have skills (like Lamentations of the Flame Princess) and I think that a big part of the problem with the list is that its still really just "Thief Dungeoneering proficiencies." Given that I have little interest in that paradigm, much of the specialization that that game has that mine lacks is specialization that I'm not interested in. The latter game also has Bushcraft, which I think may well be a better name than Survival, although that'd also just be a name swap only—everything else about it would remain the same. I'm thinking of a few other potential new or split skills, but honestly, I'll probably leave it at that and keep the skill list down to six as well. But then I'll have a nice symmetry; six abilities and six skills, and you mix one of each for every check of pretty much every kind that you make. That'll also certainly make modifying my character sheet easier, for whatever that's worth.

Otherwise; I note that my spellcasting critical failure rates are harsher than in Deathbringer. In that game, the spell merely fizzles half of the time. In Dark Fantasy X, a natural 1 is always a more serious failure than that.

I've also talked about rejiggering some stuff with the monsters. This won't be a huge deal in terms of what it will make different, but it will probably be a more time-consuming process than I'd like. Other than that; it's just a question of spending the time to do it and making sure that I don't leave any leftover references to things that changed. Unfortunately, my schedule is a little bit overly complicated lately, so I won't have time on the weeknights this week, and at least the next two weekends will probably be too busy too. But I should be able to make time within the next three weeks tops to finally make all of these updates to the rules (assuming, again, that I don't change my mind at the last minute and not make some of them. I'm pretty sure that I won't, but I'm not 100% sold on this change still.) Then, it's draw the new map, and close the book on CHAOS IN WAYCHESTER until such time as I either run it, or use it as an outline to start up a book or two.