Staying Classy in the Stone Age 1

Originally published May 5th 2024

Last September my long time friend Ciara mentioned the idea of running a stone age fantasy game, and in a discord server I am in, someone started a thread about paleolithic hex crawling so I decided to revisit this idea.

Classes such as the fighter need no real adaptations, all that is needed is a change of equipment list and you have someone who is capable of fighting. A magic users would be only slightly more difficult, eschewing the spellbook for various artifacts of power but again very reasonable. After that there is the thief, most skills are broadly applicable such as a backstabing or a climbing sheer surface even in the stone age, however picking locks and reading languages are not skills someone needs at that time.

There is also the cleric and despite interfacing with divinity being a very important part of the game the cleric as presented is more focused on presenting a very medieval christian understanding of what interfacing with the divine means. A major rework of the cleric would be needed for proper stone age play but that is a blog post for another day[1].

Below are rules for making thieves more appropriately stone age in osr style games by changing the skills they have access to. The following are the skills found in bx/ad&d, and what I would do to make them more befitting of the stone age, all probabilities remain the same.

Pick Pockets -> Delicate Work

Even without pockets, sleight of hand is still important, it’s just the same skill at the end of the day.

Open Locks -> Identify Plant

A thief is able to determine the uses of a plant by inexplicable instinct. An unsuccessful attempt means the thief is unable to retry until they reach a new level.

(If using these skills with DCC the thief additionally adds their Intelligence Modifier)

Find/Remove Traps -> Detect/Conceal Tracks

(If using these skills with DCC the thief additionally adds their Intelligence Modifier to Detect Tracks checks and their Dexterity to Conceal Tracks checks)

Move Silently: No change

Hear Noise: No change

Climb Walls No change

Read Language -> Commune With Animal

A thief gains the ability to speak to animals in a limited manner. Observations of the surrounding world, and general emotional states such as contention or fear can be communicated; however the human condition remains the domain of hominids. An unsuccessful attempt means the thief is unable to retry until they reach a new level.

(If using these skills with DCC the thief additionally adds their Personality Modifier)

[1] I often find myself thinking ah I just need a rewrite of the cleric class in a lot of my pondering of doing d&d in different settings, particularly in regards to people doing d&d but japanese as many people try and do. They are always like no the ninja should be a totally different class than the assassin for some reason. Like it’s really only the cleric that needs to be changed, being hit by a warrior with a maul is fundamentally not that different from being hit by a warrior with a kanabō.

Also I am not sure yet if my stone age cleric analog would have stuff related to undeath as I am not sure if elves were yet to create the curse of undeath in the stone age or if that was a copper age invention. Regardless, more elf research is needed in this regard.