White Dwarf #38: Khazad Dum

[tkdco2]

I ran the Khazad Dum adventure from White Dwarf #38 last night. Since there were only two players, I just used a character pool so the players work together and take on any role. I used 1e since the adventure was written for that edition, and the players are most familiar with it.

We had a good time. I'm working on the write-up, and I'll post it here when I'm done.

[tkdco2]

Some preliminary notes before the after action report:

The author made a few modifications to make the AD&D game fit in Middle-earth. Most notably, magic-users were mostly absent, magic being clerical in nature. Gandalf is therefore written up as a cleric rather than a magic-user. However, he is able to wield a sword and have access to a few spells and items normally available only to magic-users. Likewise, Aragorn is written up as a paladin-ranger, a class combination which the author states he does not normally allow.

Our group had a few house rules as well. I allowed maximum damage when a player rolled an unmodified 20 when attacking; I did not allow myself that when rolling the monsters' attacks. I was also very lenient about spells and their effects. My old group allowed instant kills on stunned opponents; I ruled that would work on orcs, but not on the Balrog.

Since there were only two players and nine characters, I allowed the Fellowship to be run by the players together, rather than splitting the characters between the players.

[tkdco2]

Here's a recap of the session. DM notes are in brackets.

The Fellowship went through a tunnel that ended in a large hall. They attempted to move across silently, but a group of five uruks heard them and charged from an adjacent room. Legolas wounded one with an arrow but failed to ring it down. Gimli charged the uruks. The next round saw some hand-to-hand combat. Legolas and Gimli were both wounded in the melee. Aragorn took down one orc, and Merry finished off another one with a backstab. The remaining uruks decided to retreat, but they were cut down as they fled. Of course, my players had the characters loot the bodies. They found 100 sp in all. Aragorn used his healing ability to heal Legolas and Gimli. 

The Fellowship entered another room and encountered a troll. Frodo's mail shirt saved him from the troll's claws. The Fellowship took the beast down within 3 rounds and found a sack with 500 gp.

The party went down another passage that split into several tunnels. The Fellowship took the path leading to the north. Ignoring a couple of side passages, they went to the end of the passageway, which led to another great hall. Legolas was sent to scout ahead; his infravision let him see two wolf-like figures that stirred when he approached. [These were actually werewolves, but the players never learned that fact.]

The Fellowship retreated to one of the side passages, which led to a room with a gigantic bubble floating in midair. [The party wisely left the bubble alone; it would have exploded with enough force to kill most of the Hobbits had it been touched.] The Fellowship heard the werewolves outside. Gandalf cast a Wall of Fire with his ring. [One player asked if Gandalf could cast it in the midst of the wolves instead of in front of them. I agreed as long as someone made a successful to-hit roll, since the spell was not meant to be used offensively.] The attack succeeded, badly singeing the werewolves. They retreated back to their lair, and the Fellowship backtracked and took another route.

The Fellowship went through a narrow passageway that forced the Fellowship to walk in single file. Boromir guarded the rear, along with the loot. The passage led to a circular room. Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli, Frodo, and Sam had entered when they were surprised by four cave trolls (actually ogres). One badly mauled Sam, leaving him with only 2 hit points. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas were also wounded, but they could take more damage. In the next round, Sam retreated back to the passageway, and the others fought the cave trolls. Frodo's mithril shirt saved him from a nasty blow. The Fellowship dispatched three of the trolls; the last one escaped through a door behind him. Legolas shot at it but missed.

The rest of the Fellowship entered the room after the battle. They found 200 gp in the lair. Gandalf used a Cure Light Wounds spell to heal Sam. Pippin was sent to scout ahead to see where the troll went. He spotted an orc patrol that also noticed him. Pippin retreated back to the room and told the others orcs were coming. Gandalf cast a Glyph of Warding on the door, which exploded once the orcs opened it. None of the orcs survived. The Fellowship found 20 gp on each of them.

The Fellowship made its way to a great chamber with several fire pits. A narrow bridge across a chasm was on the other side. The Balrog was waiting for them here. It had moved out of its lair and made its way to this chamber. Most of the Fellowship except for Gandalf, Sam, and Merry failed their saving throws vs fear (I used save vs paralyzation) and were paralyzed for one round. The Balrog attacked Sam and Merry, almost killing them. The next round, Boromir blew his horn, stunning the Balrog for one minute. The Fellowship made a run for the bridge. Frodo, Sam, and Gimli had crossed the bridge when the Balrog recovered. Gandalf lent his sword, Glamdring, to Boromir (since the Balrog could only be hit by magic weapons) and cast Protection from Evil on Aragorn. The two warriors engaged the Balrog in melee combat, while Gandalf cast Spiritual Hammer. After several rounds, the Balrog was killed, its body falling down the chasm.

There was one more obstacle for the Fellowship. A patrol of orcs was between them and the exit. Legolas took down one orc with his bow, but the other orcs moved to attack. The players decided to end the encounter quickly. Another blast of Boromir's horn stunned the orcs as they charged, and the Fellowship made short work of them. Then they found the exit and left Moria.

[tkdco2]

The most notable differences between the book and the adventure were:

Gandalf survived the encounter with the Balrog. Note that in AD&D, Aragorn and Boromir were more capable of taking on the Balrog than Gandalf.

The Fellowship never found the Tomb of Balin in the adventure. They did find a lot more coins, however. But they missed some magic items that may have come in handy.

Gollum should have been following the Fellowship through Moria. I forgot about him, so he never made an appearance.

Frodo and Pippin were the only characters who avoided injury. Sam almost died twice, and Merry was close to dying after the Balrog's attack. Boromir avoided injury until the fight with the Balrog.

[Finarvyn]

Man, it's been a long time since I ran that one. I love to find old stuff in WHITE DWARF (and in DRAGON) to remind myself just how free-wheeling D&D articles were back in the day. They'd just take a topic, toss in a tweak or so, and play.

Nice recap of your adventure, by the way!

[Deleted]

I'd be interested in hearing how your players generally reacted to the replay/famous game environment.

I've tried similar stuff, but the players always handled scenarios they knew from books or movies rather poorly.

[Falconer]

I ran that Khazad-dûm twice, for one-shots. It’s great!

[kesher]

Glamdring wasn't statted up as a magic sword? That seems weird...

On the other hand, it's completely awesome that Sam and Merry survived a direct balrog attack!

[tkdco2]

Glad you folks enjoyed it.

The players enjoyed the game. They were a bit skeptical about pooling the characters, but it worked out okay. They tended to roll the dice for certain characters more often, however. Gandalf stocked up on healing spells, which proved quite useful.

I have another adventure set in Middle-earth: The Dawn of Unlight in White Dwarf #64. This one deals with a cult trying to resurrect Ungoliant. Maybe I'll allow the players to use the Fellowship for this adventure as well. It wasn't in the books, but why not?

[tkdco2]

Dec 30, 2014 16:02:18 GMT -6 kesher said:

Glamdring wasn't statted up as a magic sword? That seems weird...

On the other hand, it's completely awesome that Sam and Merry survived a direct balrog attack!

Just to clarify, Glamdring was a +1 sword, +2 vs orcs and goblins. Boromir's sword was not enchanted, so he couldn't hurt the Balrog without borrowing Glamdring from Gandalf. The players reasoned that Aragorn wouldn't lend Anduril, since that was part of his heritage. Boromir was originally going to guard the rear alone, as Aragorn was already wounded. But I reminded the players they had a better chance of defeating the Balrog if they double-teamed it.

Sam was left with 5 hp, Merry with 2 hp. Lucky for them I rolled badly for damage (1d12 for sword/3d6 for whip). I should have concentrated all the attacks on Frodo and perhaps ended the quest prematurely.

I have written notes for a Middle Earth campaign using different editions of D&D/AD&D. But I'm sorely tempted to use this adventure as the source material for the monsters. Maybe I'll post the notes here. I'm also thinking of statting Radagast as a druid.

[tkdco2]

I made some notes that expanded on Lew Pulsipher's article. It can use some editing, but maybe I can get some feedback. Enjoy!

Expansion.txt (6.73 KB)

[Falconer]

I like a lot of what you’ve done and will surely swipe some of it. Actually, the parts I like least are the Pulsipher-inspired ideas that you have kept.

[tkdco2]

Thanks. In all fairness I got a lot of ideas from other folk as well, including geoffrey's post about clerics and anti-clerics being separate classes (hence the healer/sorcerer names). I may try a Pulsipher-version Middle-earth game and see how it goes; but I don't think it's the only way to interpret Middle-earth. I was just using his ideas as a guidelines. Maybe I should do the version where Gandalf is a 5th-level magic user.

I remember reading an article (I can't seem to find it right now) about removing magic-users from the game. It also described Gandalf as "more cleric than magic-user."

Edit: I did use Lew Pulsipher's ideas when writing out my Middle-earth using 5e. That's why there are no wizards in my article.

[tkdco2]

Since I couldn't get this idea out of my head, I wrote up Radagast and Faramir. Here are my versions of them.

Radagast
Level 7 Druid
STR 9 INT 13 WIS 17 DEX 13 CON 10 CHR 15
HP 40 AC 10 (no armor)
Equipment: Robe of Blending, Staff of the Woodlands +2
Spells: 6/6/4/1 per day. Radagast may learn the Change Self spell from the Illusionist spell list in place of one of his 1st-level Druid spells.

Faramir
Level 5 Ranger
STR 16 INT 13 WIS 14 DEX 15 CON 15 CHR 12
HP 44 AC 6
+5 damage vs. giants, goblins, orcs, and trolls
Equipment: leather armor, long sword, long bow and quiver of 20 arrows