Joined: Oct 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 1,224 Location: Argentina Karma: 51
A method you may find useful « Thread Started on Feb 22, 2008, 12:14pm »
When I run OD&D, I generally have at least 20 d6s or more behind my screen. I don't pre-roll monster hit points. I always roll HD on the spot.
When a monster is encountered, I roll it's hit dice. And I don't count the result. I just leave the dice pile there, toguether, the dice side by side, knowing that, that pile represents that monster. I don't count the total result, because that can take time, and slows down the game. I keep the dice just as they are, not rerolling them for other uses.
As the monter is beign hit, I just take dice away from the pile as needed. For example: If it's a 3 HD creature, and I rolled 3, 4, and 6, and the monster is hit by 3 points of damage, I just remove from the pile the die with 3 as the result, leaving the other two. If the monster is later hit for 2 points of damage, I can change the 6 for a 4, leaving two die with 4 as result.
d**n, I hope my english is making this barely understandable.
This method also works wonder if the fight involves multiple creauters. More so if the are 1 HD creatures. Each dice represents 1 creature. You just remove the dice as they are beign killed.
What's cool about this method is that you don't need to do any paper work in order to manage creature hit points. You just roll and leave the dice as is. Then you just remove the dice as needed. No need of making any anotations.
Joined: Jun 2007 Posts: 432 Location: Hollywood, California, USA Karma: 40
Re: A method you may find useful « Reply #2 on Feb 22, 2008, 12:29pm »
Quote:
That is a great idea!
Agreed -- this is really cool and cuts way down on the paperwork and/or memory burden. Makes me want to go out and buy a bunch more six-sided dice (I've currently got 12 in my "active dice" set).
Joined: Jul 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,503 Karma: 57
Re: A method you may find useful « Reply #4 on Feb 22, 2008, 12:36pm »
It sounds good.
My problem is that if I don't write things down, I get confused.
What I do is put each encounter on a 3x5 index card, with creature movement, ac, xp, and hit points (pre-rolled or assigned, depending). I also include any treasure they're carrying.
I can mark off hp on the card, and when the encounter's over I put it in the "dead" pile. Calculating XP is easy; I just go through the dead pile and add up, both creature hit dice and treasure.
And I don't need a wandering monster table; I just grab the deck of wandering encounters and shuffle them and take whatever comes up. This way I can tailor-make different areas of the dungeon (near the goblin lair, there will be more goblin encounters, etc.)
Joined: Oct 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 1,224 Location: Argentina Karma: 51
Re: A method you may find useful « Reply #5 on Feb 22, 2008, 12:38pm »
Random encounter card deck...
hmmm... that looks pretty cool too!
EDIT:
The thing is... with pre-rolled hit points on the cards, you still gotta make annotations and paperwork. I try to avoid that. If I get to use cards like the ones you use, I would still roll HD on the spot.
Joined: Jul 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,503 Karma: 57
Re: A method you may find useful « Reply #6 on Feb 22, 2008, 2:02pm »
Quote:
Random encounter card deck...
hmmm... that looks pretty cool too!
Thanks, I'm kind of proud of it!
Quote:
The thing is... with pre-rolled hit points on the cards, you still gotta make annotations and paperwork. I try to avoid that. If I get to use cards like the ones you use, I would still roll HD on the spot.
And that's perfectly fine for you.
As I mentioned, I have trouble working with such things (I desperately need to have stuff written down.) But I also realize that my way of doing things is not 'the only way.'
Actually, if you wanted to use a random encounter deck, it would be easier for you than for me, because you'd only need one card for each critter type. When you pulled the Ogre, or whatever, you'd go ahead and roll his hit points as you've described.
Me, I have a few of each, because each is a separate encounter with hp and treasure already on the card; that's just how I do it.
The important thing is that we each have our method, and we're both happy to share with whoever can make use of it.
Joined: Jul 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,503 Karma: 57
Re: A method you may find useful « Reply #8 on Feb 22, 2008, 2:11pm »
And I wasn't trying to imply that you meant 'the only way.'
I just sometimes go on a bit when I've already made my point. Sorry. (Also, I didn't get enough sleep last night, but that's really not your problem...)
A man may do both. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day! —J.R.R. Tolkien
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 137 Location: New Jersey Karma: 7
Re: A method you may find useful « Reply #13 on Feb 25, 2008, 10:28am »
I have used the dice indicator method for hit points on occasion in the past. It works especially well with miniatures, where you just place the die next to the mini and change the face value as the HP total diminishes. This is great cause you can track the battle without writting anything down. If doing this, be sure to buy yourself different colors and/or sizes of d6's to better differentiate creatures and characters. The ONLY problem with this is, if you are a tad bit clumsy like me, and you knock the dice out of wack by accident, you might not remember the last value of the HP total.
I like the idea of a random encounter deck. AD&D 2nd ed. had a product called the "Deck of Encounters" which was basically an adventure seed with a monster, or encounter, or lair, or some such. I don't know if I would go that far in making my own deck, but I should would set such a thing up for "wandering monsters" to be drawn from using the tables in Vol I-III.
Ernest Gary Gygax 1938 - 2008 "How many people could say that they impacted the lives of millions without bloodshed, political power or a global marketing machine - just a small game of gelatinous cubes, strange dice and 10' corridors? Gary did it just like this, and he did it out of his humble game room in Wisconsin. The context makes it all the more remarkable." - Melan
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