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Post by foster1941 on Jun 20, 2008 16:28:41 GMT -6
Per my understanding (and I also wasn't around in those days -- I was born the same year OD&D was published) the idea was that most dungeon-adventuring would be in the same single large dungeon (rather than several such dungeons) but that this would be supplemented with various other sorts of "adventures" -- in town, in the wilderness (a very dangerous prospect for low-level characters), or in other smaller dungeon-like locations (caves, abandoned towers and monasteries, etc.) to provide both variety of experience and supplemental XP (since with multiple groups of players adventuring in the same dungeon simultaneously it's going to be hard for all of them to get enough XP (which is to say enough treasure) to advance in levels as quickly as the dungeon is being cleared out).
Regarding restocking of the dungeons, this is a GM judgment call based mostly on common sense -- if a group of adventurers clears out an area on Day 1 and then returns (or another group enters the dungeons) on Day 2 it isn't likely that the area will have been restocked (although if they left a lot of corpses lying around some carrion-eaters may well have moved in), but if a couple weeks have passed some new monsters could definitely have taken up residence in the area, especially if it's a desirable location -- defensible, off the main path but close enough to it to allow easy egress and ingress (or easy access to those trying to do so), and so on. Unintelligent monsters and those without treasure will tend to move around more, while intelligent monsters will tend to find a good, defensible lair and stick to it.
There's usually an implicit balance of power within the dungeon (the goblins in area A are being in kept in check by the bandits in area C who are in turn being kept in check by the orcs in areas F and G, who are being kept in check by the goblins, etc.) and if the adventurers mess that up by decimating or eliminating one group then the others will move in to fill the vacuum. Likewise, monsters who were met but not defeated will likely have taken steps to upgrade their defenses by setting traps and recruiting new allies (or perhaps they'll have realized their days are numbered and decided to leave the area).
There are all kinds of reasons for monsters to come and go in the dungeons, and as time passes the dungeon shouldn't be a static environment with the monsters that haven't been met yet hanging around their lairs waiting for somebody to come kill them and those rooms that have already been explored sitting empty. After each expedition the GM should take some time to consider what impact that will have on the monsters in the dungeon and how they will react, and adjust the matrices accordingly (which is one of the reasons it's so hard to do a detailed module-style write-up of a large dungeon, because the whole thing will necessarily only be applicable on the first party's first foray and thereafter will become less and less accurate as monsters move around, change tactics, etc.).
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 20, 2008 10:55:27 GMT -6
The 1" = 10 feet indoors, 10 yards outdoors is implicit (based on combining Tanks' citation from Vol. III with Chainmail) but AFAIK wasn't actually made explicit until an article by Gary Gygax in issue #15 of The Dragon. Per Chainmail, figures move their full move rate (in inches) per combat round, plus possible bonus for charging. It's specified somewhere in Chainmail (or perhaps only in Swords & Spells? EDIT: found it -- Chainmail p. 16; points 3 & 4 under Miscellaneous Melee Information; note also point 2 which establishes the 1" melee engagement range) that figures can move up to 1/2 (excluding charge) and engage in melee in the same round, but if they move over 1/2 they can only melee that round if they're charging. Swords & Spells specifies that you can't move and cast a spell in the same round. How movement affects missile fire varies widely depending on missile type (and troop type for elves and mounted archers). Philotomy lays it all out in a nice organized manner (much better than the actual rules themselves did) here.
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 19, 2008 10:47:53 GMT -6
Prices definitely all in one coin (with multiple items -- 6 torches, 12 iron spikes, etc. -- in a bunch to equal 1 GP where necessary). The equipment list should be fairly close to the OD&D list (closer than to the AD&D list) but there are a few items worth adding, both weapons (hammer, sling, javelin) and misc. gear (tinder box, grappling hook, etc.). The 1981 D&D Expert Set has a good list.
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 19, 2008 10:43:29 GMT -6
Magic-users: Levels 1-11 = adventuring levels Levels 12-16 = retired or NPC levels This is good if you're giving out 6th level spells at 11th level (like the 1981 Expert Set does), but if you're following the OD&D/AD&D pattern of granting 6th level spells at level 12 then you need to include it in the "adventuring levels" -- I don't like the idea of 6th levels spells being consigned (even implicitly) to NPC-only status.
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 18, 2008 18:35:25 GMT -6
Add the extra 2nd & 3rd level cleric spells from Supp I, kick the extra MU spells to the curb (for the most part -- maybe add a few, but to me it just won't be "white box" if magic missile is on the list!)
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 18, 2008 18:30:47 GMT -6
The -3/+3 bonus chart is one of the things I most dislike about Moldvay+ Classic D&D so I absolutely wouldn't want to see it incorporated into S&W. If you want to go with a unified table (and I don't necessarily think you should" "unified" anything is horribly overrated and leads to sterile, formulaic games) I'd prefer something like the following:
3-6: major penalty 7-8: minor penalty 9-12: no adjustment 13-14: minor bonus 15-18: major bonus
With different bonuses and penalties for each stat (and no requirement that every stat have a full set of bonuses and penalties -- or any bonuses or penalties at all -- or that the bonuses and penalties necessarily mirror each other)
PRIME REQUISITE: MajP: -20% from earned XP MinP: -10% from earned XP MinB: +5% to earned XP MajB: +10% to earned XP
CONSTITUTION: MajP: -1 hit point per die (minimum 1) MinP: -- MinB: will withstand adversity MajB: +1 hit point per die
DEXTERITY: MajP: -- MinP: -1 to hit with missiles MinB: +1 to hit with missiles MajB: --
CHARISMA (the only one that doesn't track exactly from Vol. I): MajP: -1 reactions/loyalty MinP: -- MinB: +1 reactions/loyalty MajB: +2 reactions/loyalty
STRENGTH (my house rule, adapted from SuppI): MajP: -1 to open doors, -1 to hit in melee MinP: -- MinB: +1 to hit in melee (fighters only) MajB: +1 damage in melee (fighters only), +1 to open doors
I don't like giving extra bonuses for scores of 18 (and I know Vol. I did it for charisma): it's too big a reward for nothing other than being lucky (it's not like it takes real skill to roll 3 6s) and it encourages players to cheat and/or be dissatisfied with their characters if they don't have uber-scores. IMO the bonus for an 18 should be bragging rights and role-play based ("I'm not just smart/fast/strong, I'm as smart/fast/strong as it's humanly possible to get -- no one is smarter/faster/stronger than me!"), not mechanical.
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 13, 2008 13:23:10 GMT -6
It's absolutely germane because if you're not actually reducing those scores, if you're just harvesting bonus points from them, there'd be no question of "bringing them below" anything.
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 13, 2008 12:58:14 GMT -6
I prefer (and think the text of the books supports) that point trading is actual trading, so that if you roll 12, 14, 15 and use your Int and Wis to increase your Str to get the 10% XP bonus your scores will actually be 15, 12, 9 thenceforth. The note at the bottom of p. 11 is what seals it for me: "Units so indicated above may be used to increase prime requisite total insofar as this does not bring that category below average, i.e. below a score of 9." That said, I'm not going to condemn anybody who prefers it the other way in their own campaign (even though I think you're doing it wrong )
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 12, 2008 11:28:04 GMT -6
I recall crayon marking ours...and then getting finicky...you'd always see one of us sitting over in the corner (while their character was in suspended animation, er some crap) picking the color out of their d20 with a paperclip, getting ready to scribble on a new color. The old dice, if I recall, weren't engraved very deep either, or were uneven, which meant you spent a ton of time breaking crayons bearing down on the number and then wiping away! Yup, and there's always be that one guy way down at end of the table who'd refused to color in his dice so nobody but him and perhaps the person sitting next to him could tell what he'd rolled. Unsurprisingly, that guy always seemed to hit for lots of damage and make all his saving throws
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 12, 2008 11:17:16 GMT -6
By convention when you had a pair of 0-9 d20s the "darker" colored die represented the 10s, so if you had one of those TSR sets with a hot-pink die and a white die the former would normally be the 10s. If you were unscrupulous you'd use colors that were close to each other (green and blue or orange and tan or some such) and conveniently decide after rolling which was the 10s die
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 9, 2008 12:37:39 GMT -6
Of course that works great for charisma, less so for intelligence and wisdom. But, you can still make use of intelligence and wisdom that way if you want. Pick out the players intent from his stated action, and use intelligence or wisdom to determine success. The way I'd use Int in this way would be, for instance, if the character was trying to remember some detail (somebody's name, or the relationship between two NPCs, or if a set of glyphs are familiar, etc.) that the player had forgotten. If the character has a high Int score I will, as GM, either give the player hints or outright tell him the answer, but if he has a low Int score it's up to the player to remember things (which means a smart player could "game" having a dumb character, but since I don't allow players to choose where their stats go, and since there are other tangible benefits to having a good Int (languages, XP for mages) I don't see this as too big a problem -- another way around this is that if the player with the 6 Int character remembers something or figures out the puzzle, I might declare that in-game it must have actually been a higher-Int character who did so). Wis is tougher because, unlike Int or Cha, it doesn't have any defined quantified in-game effect (except XP for clerics). Giving high Wis characters a bonus (and low-Wis characters a penalty) against mind-effecting spells (charm, delusion, etc.) is a common house rule (that of course became official in AD&D and Moldvay+ Classic D&D). I'll also occasionally use Wisdom to give hints or advice if a player with an ostensibly his-Wis character is about to do something that I as GM think is particularly foolish. The same thing about putting one player's words into another character's mouth mentioned above for Int might also apply here -- if a player with a Wis 4 character comes up with a good plan or makes a particularly cogent observation we'll "edit the mental scene" to put those words into the mouth of a higher-Wis character if possible & appropriate. And, leaving all of this aside, there's the non-mechanical "gentlemen's agreement" that the player should generally at least make an attempt to portray his character in keeping with that character's stats -- with low stats, but with high ones too -- if you've got a high-Int character you should probably take more notes and try to pay attention and think logically about things; if you've got a high-Wis character you should try to look at the bigger picture and not act rashly, if you've got a high-Cha character you should make at least some attempt to behave in an engaging manner. Yeah, there's nothing mechanical to mandate or reward this, but it's just "understood" as part of the game, just like if you're playing an elf you should try to act at least a little "elfy," if you're playing a mage you should act at least a little "wizardy," and so on.
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 7, 2008 10:42:54 GMT -6
Think of Int as mnemonic, Wis as willpower, and Cha as personal magnetism. Int determines how many languages (and spells, if you're using Supp I) you can learn and may provide a bonus when the character is trying to remember some detail that the player has forgotten, but logical thinking, problem-solving ability, and tactical acumen come from the player. Wis can provide a saving throw bonus (fairly common house-rule) and is an aid to clerics (representing the strength and conviction of their faith), but judgment, perspective, and strategic thinking come from the player. Cha determines how well others naturally tend to like the character based on non-verbal cues, but how he uses (or overcomes) that is up to the player.
I've never had any problem combining the character's charisma score with the player's speaking ability -- the player says what he says and the Cha score determines whether the audience views it through a positive or negative filter: a high-Cha character with a shy or verbally inept player still comes off as humble and sincere (think Gary Cooper as Sgt. York) whereas a low-Cha character with a slick and eloquent player still comes off as cloying or shifty (think of a stereotypical bad used-car salesman). This isn't hard to manage in-game at all, at least with a GM who knows what he's doing.
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 7, 2008 10:12:57 GMT -6
I'd assume that both "episodes" are based on the pre-existing material -- the Comeback Inn on the write-up from DA1, the dungeons of Castle Blackmoor on the maps & notes in FFC. Furthermore, I strongly suspect that any additions beyond that pre-existing material probably weren't written by DA...
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 5, 2008 11:44:29 GMT -6
Single rooms or small connected series of rooms that can be plugged modularly into an existing dungeon, containing interesting and unique encounters, puzzles, traps, enigmas, etc. -- the kind of stuff that requires actual creativity, not just stuff that anyone could roll off a table. For example, Rob Kuntz's "The Original Living Room," or the sample encounters in TSR's 3 Dungeon Geomorphs sets.
Anyone can draw level maps and fill in the basics (standard monsters, standard treasures, standard tricks and traps) but those "special" areas that require actual creativity and cleverness are harder to do, especially in bulk (coming up with 3 or 4 might not be so hard, but 20 or 30 is a lot more difficult). Personally speaking, logic puzzles, riddles, complicated Rube Goldberg-type setups, and such are especially hard for me to come up with on my own, which is frustrating because as a player, and when GMing modules, this tends to be my favorite kind of stuff, what really makes the game for me.
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Post by foster1941 on May 28, 2008 23:00:23 GMT -6
From what I gather Mike Carr was part of the Twin Cities contingent and moved to LG to work for TSR around the time that they acquired rights to his game Fight in the Skies, which is by some accounts the first rpg (since each player had a specific pilot "character" who they retained from session to session and who gradually improved with experience, so long as they survived) and also, as of the mid-90s, bore the distinction of being the only game to have been on the event schedule at every single GenCon since the first in 1968 (I don't know if they've managed to keep that streak up in the years since, especially after the move to Indianapolis, but I hope they have).
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Post by foster1941 on May 28, 2008 21:33:05 GMT -6
Hope you like it. Lest anyone hold me responsible after spending $ on this module and hating it (or, even worse, being indifferent towards it) I want to stress that my (and EGG's) opinion of this module's quality is by no means universally shared. The structure is completely linear (there's literally only one entrance to and one exit from* each of the major encounter areas, and you have to go through all of them in order), the contents are very whimsical (including a talking goldfish, an NPC with a lisp who gets offended if you mispronounce his name, and the Gnax Family portrait gallery (Agnax, Bignax, Cygnax, Dognax, Eggnax, f*gnax, Gygnax, and Hognax)), and there is absolutely no verisimilitude or logic (except for the internal logic described in the spoiler-block above), so if any of those bother you you're probably not going to like this module. For many people this module (alongside White Plume Mountain and The Ghost Tower of Inverness, but even moreso) would probably encapsulate everything they think was "wrong" with D&D in its early/primitive days before Tracy Hickman/Ed Greenwood/Monte Cook/whoever came along and saved it from itself. If you're the kind of person who thinks "how did the BBEG possibly have the resources to build this place, and even if he did, why would he use them in this way?" or who wonders what all these monsters are actually doing when they're not waiting for the PCs to show up, this module is almost certainly not for you. It meshes with my preferred approach to play almost perfectly (and even helped define it), but if there's one thing I've learned in my years of online D&D fandom it's that not everybody shares my preferred approach to play...
*actually a couple rooms do have 2 exits, but even in those cases both of them still lead to the next major encounter area
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Post by foster1941 on May 28, 2008 19:10:14 GMT -6
There's a copy up for auction on ebay, right now. Somebody from this site should buy it. Better yet, somebody from this site should buy the rights to it and republish it. I asked Gary a couple years back if he knew who currently owned the rights and he didn't, but suspected it was probably the original authors (since New Infinities didn't get bought out by another company, it simply folded).
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Post by foster1941 on May 28, 2008 11:27:50 GMT -6
The Abduction of Good King Despot is an old tournament module from the 70s, written by Will & Schar Niebling and Russ Stambaugh of the Metro Detroit Gamers (who were instrumental in early D&D fandom -- they ran their own annual convention (Wintercon) and also organized the D&D tournaments at the early Origins cons, commissioned the "Lost Caverns of Tsojconth" adventure from Gary Gygax and published the OD&D version of that module in 1976, published the original version of "Quest for the Fazzle Wood" (which TSR later re-released as module O1: The Gem and the Staff); Will Niebling worked at TSR for awhile, and in later years was CEO of Mayfair Games, a position he just retired from within the last year or so) that is a total fun-house non-ecologized dungeon. Released in 1988, AFAICT this was the first rpg product to be explicitly marketed as "retro" or "old-school," long before Hackmaster, Dungeon Crawl Classics, or OSRIC. Spoilers follow:
The idea is that the insane wizard Ignax has set the dungeon up as a test (there's a fairly detailed backstory about the long-standing rivalry between Ignax and another wizard, Candelabra; with both Despot and the PCs caught in the middle). The structure of the dungeon is a straight-line gauntlet with twelve major encounter areas, each tied thematically to one of the signs of the zodiac, and either 3 or 6 red-herring rooms for each major room (some are helpful, some dangerous, most are just time-wasters); there's a pattern on the floor (each 10' square is a different color -- red, green, blue, white) that if the players are paying attention tells which rooms lead to the major encounters and which don't (the pattern is too complex to detail here, but it's tied to which classical element goes with each sign). The treasure in each of the major encounters is a single huge gem of the stone tied to that zodiac sign. The challenges run the gamut of old-school D&D, starting out as straight combat (Ares = a group of berserkers, Taurus = evil witch and 2 gorgons, Gemini = 2 twin brother frost giants) and becoming more complex and problem-solving-oriented. The final room (after the obligatory false-ending in which if the PCs aren't careful they'll end up fighting Orcus!) is a huge set-piece which requires the PCs to figure out how to use 6 of the gems to free King Despot and which, if they're not careful, can lead to (1) losing the other 6 gems (which are supposed to be their treasure), (2) having to re-fight some (or all, or all several times!) of the previous 12 opponents, and (3) getting teleported back into previous rooms and having to work their way through again.
End Spoliers As I've said many times before, this is probably my #1 favorite D&D module, both for the cleverness and variety of its challenges, and because of its unapologetically fun-house nature (it makes dungeons like White Plume Mountain and The Ghost Tower of Inverness seem downright naturalistic by comparison). It's got a very light and whimsical tone and verges in parts on being a comedy module (especially the various points at which Ignax appears and taunts the party in assorted guises) but, like the classic Dungeonland modules, players who let the whimsical nature get them off-guard won't last long, because the dungeon is also filled with very tough combat and puzzles. I've run this module twice, but neither time did the players make it more than halfway through (which was disappointing to me because IMO the second half of the module is more interesting than the first -- less combat, more puzzles).
As part of the "Fantasy Master" line the module doesn't have traditional statblocks, but rather has generic stats based on the ratios of the monsters' abilities to the party's abilities -- the monster has an x% chance to hit the average party member, is y% likely to be hit by the average party member, and can take damage equal to z% of the average party member's hit points. This theoretically makes the module usable both with any game system and at any level, but since almost all of the monsters actually come straight out of various D&D books I just use their standard D&D stats (which ends up balancing the module for a 9th level party). The treasures are similarly generic -- "something that will heal damage," "a weapon with a minor combat bonus," "something powerful that can't be properly used within the context of this adventure," etc. so this module can't really be run straight off the shelf -- the prospective DM is going to have to spend a couple hours filling in details (but that isn't too much of a burden, since the complexity of some of the encounters means that the DM should devote some time to studying them in advance anyway -- if the DM is trying to read the module for the first time as the players are going through it he's going to be in big trouble in some of the more complicated set-piece areas (think of, for example, Rob Kuntz's modules where a single "room" might have 3 or 4 different things going on at the same time).
One last note on The Abduction of Good King Despot: Gary Gygax used to cite this as probably his favorite D&D module that he didn't write, and it was his favorite to run at conventions (though from what I understand he ran an abbreviated version that could be completed in a single session, whereas the published version, unless the players are really good, is likely to take at least 2 or 3 sessions, possibly even more (cf. the group on dragonsfoot who recently took 7 sessions to get through the ostensibly single-session Tomb of Horrors)). He ran it most recently at a con in Canada, about 2 years ago.
This is the only module in the Fantasy Master line I actually own. Of the others, I've heard mostly good things about The Town of Baldemar (designed by the late Bob Blake, who used to run the D&D Open tournament at GenCon) and mixed things about AEsheba: Greek Africa and The Convert (both by Frank Mentzer; the latter was originally an RPGA tournament module and TSR tried to sue to prevent New Infinities from publishing it). There were at least 2 more titles announced for the Fantasy Master line that weren't published before New Infinities folded in late 1988 -- Those Darn Dwarves (which AFAIK has still never been published) and Epic of Yarth: Necropolis and The Tomb of Rahotep (which was later adapted to and published as part of the Dangerous Journeys: Mythus game in 1992 (and then adapted again to d20 and republished by Necromancer Games in 2002)).
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Post by foster1941 on May 27, 2008 12:18:47 GMT -6
Hey Fin,
Time to mark Dave Arneson as one of the folks who's now a member of this board, no?
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Post by foster1941 on May 23, 2008 15:18:48 GMT -6
I am legally bouind forever. Arneson That truly sucks. But at least you're here and willing to talk about those things you're able to talk about
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Post by foster1941 on May 22, 2008 14:15:27 GMT -6
I own the rights to FFC. And the artwork is mine too. WOTC ha s no rights except the word BLACKMOOR. Dave Arneson If you could be persuaded to do a re-release of this (ideally in print, but probably more realistically as a pdf) that would be way beyond awesome. I'm on record stating that FFC is probably my #1 favorite D&D supplement of all-time. P.S. ZOMG! Dave Arneson just registered and posted at our site! <geek-swoon>
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Post by foster1941 on May 20, 2008 15:25:40 GMT -6
Hero, Wizard, and 6 Heavy Foot against a balrog. Men attack first.
Straight Chainmail: (this part I'm sure of)
Hero rolls on Fantasy Combat table (p. 44) and needs 11 on 2d6 to drive back the balrog and 12 to kill it. If the Wizard chooses to attach instead of casting a spell he rolls on Fantasy Combat table and needs 7 to drive back or 8+ to kill. The 6 Heavy Foot cannot harm the balrog.
Assuming it survived the attacks from the Hero and Wizard, the balrog counter-attacks. If he chooses to attack the Hero he rolls on the Fantasy Combat Table and needs a 4 to drive back the Hero or 5+ for a kill. If he chooses to attack the Wizard he rolls on the Fantasy Combat Table for 8 to drive back, 9+ to kill. If he chooses to attack the Heavy Foot he attacks on the Combat Tables (p. 40) as 2 Heavy Horse -- roll 6d6, any roll of 5-6 is a kill (so theoretically he could kill all 6 of them in 1 round).
Chainmail + D&D: (this part I'm guessing at and more-or-less making up as I go along)
Ignore the Combat Tables and Fantasy Combat Table. Wizard casts his lightning bolt. Balrog takes 11d6 damage (save vs. spells for 1/2 damage). The hero attacks 4 times on the Man-to-Man Melee Table (p. 41) comparing his weapon to the balrog's AC (2). Each successful hit inflicts 1d6 hp damage. The heavy foot attack on the same table, one roll apiece by weapon type adding +1 to their total. Successful hits inflict 1d6 hp damage.
Assuming the balrog survives, it counterattacks, with either its sword or its whip. In the former case it makes 10 attacks on the Man-to-Man Melee Table at +1 (for its magic sword), two-handed sword vs. appropriate AC, each hit inflicting 1d6 hp damage. Presumably these attacks can be split among any number of different targets within melee range (i.e. he could attack each of the Heavy Foot once and the Hero 4 times). In the latter case it makes 1 attack (rolled how? I'd say the Monsters Attacking table from the Alternative Combat system) and if successful the target is drawn into the flames for 2d6, 3d6, or 4d6 damage (depending on the balrog's size).
Note that neither of these is how I'd actually handle this situation. In D&D I use the Chainmail rules for movement, order of activities, missile rates of fire, morale, situational adjustments to hit, and so on, but not the actual combat tables (I use either the standard "alternative" tables from vol. I or the 2d6 vs AC formula I've mentioned before). The only exception to this would be a largish-scale combat between mundane forces -- for a hero and 20 men-at-arms fighting against 40 orcs or something similar.
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Post by foster1941 on May 20, 2008 14:08:44 GMT -6
What are you using for this? Jeff's tables? Yep. These cards were originally written up for use in conventions or other one-off games (directly inspired by Jeff's blog entry). In a campaign-game I'd (probably) skip this step and start everybody with 0 XP.
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Post by foster1941 on May 19, 2008 23:56:35 GMT -6
House-ruled race (inspired by the vague mentions in Chainmail): like elves but shorter (4 1/2' instead of 5') and with wings (fly 18" per turn but only 3 turns in a row before landing); magic-users only (max. 9th level) but can use short bows and wear elfin mail (as per AD&D); suffer double damage from iron weapons; otherwise as elves (languages, detecting secret doors, split-move-and-fire, etc.).
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Post by foster1941 on May 19, 2008 23:33:45 GMT -6
Character Creation Checklist:1. Roll three 6-sided dice (total 3-18) six times for ability scores (in order): strength, intelligence, wisdom, constitution, dexterity, charisma 2. Choose race: 3. Choose class: - fighting man (human, dwarf, elf*, or hobbit)
- magic-user (human, elf*, or fairy)
- cleric (human only)
- barbarian (human only)
Note: all elves are both fighting men and magic-users 4. Trade points between ability scores (if desired): fighting man or barbarian - decrease intelligence by 2 to increase strength by 1
- decrease wisdom by 3 to increase strength by 1
magic-user - decrease wisdom by 2 to increase intelligence by 1
cleric - decrease strength by 3 to increase wisdom by 1
- decrease intelligence by 2 to increase wisdom by 1
Note: point-trading may never bring an ability score below 9 5. Roll experience points and determine character level 6. Roll hit points (by class and level) 7. Choose alignment: 8. Roll three 6-sided dice (multiplied x10 for levels 1-2, x100 for levels 3-4, x250 for level 5 or higher) for gold 9. Purchase equipment
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Post by foster1941 on May 19, 2008 22:19:59 GMT -6
A couple months back I created a series of handouts for players -- LBB-sized cardstock sheets: 1 with a summary of the char-gen procedure on the front and the combined ability score bonuses and penalties chart on the back, 1 with the equipment lists (standard equipment on front, magic items (for pre-experienced characters) on the back), 1 for each race (shamelessly ripped off from those summaries Zulgyan posted) and 1 for each class (bullet-point list of class characteristics, XP & hit dice table, and (for clerics and mages) spell lists on the back).
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Post by foster1941 on May 19, 2008 21:26:23 GMT -6
This suggests to me troubling questions. As I understand it, one purpose of copyright (and, more importantly, patent) law is to get the fruits of creativity eventually into the public domain. I think copyright duration now is author's life plus 50 years. What if the "author" is a corporation? Are we in (or slipping into) a situation in which trademarks can be used to defeat that purpose? In cases of "works for hire" current term of copyright is 95 years from date of publication.
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Post by foster1941 on May 15, 2008 14:31:10 GMT -6
I've been using that site for years -- it's how I'm able to pull direct quotes from the books while posting from work -- and don't feel guilty about it because I have legitimately purchased hardcopies of all of them on my bookshelf at home, but I don't direct others to it (at least in public) because 1) I think people should buy actual copies (including legitimate pdfs) of the books rather than relying on this free site, and 2) I don't want to be directly (or even indirectly) responsible for this site getting pulled down, and thus me losing it as a convenient reference.
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Post by foster1941 on May 15, 2008 13:53:51 GMT -6
The art in Greyhawk is of the same quality as the white-box (it's all by Greg Bell, who was also one of the main artists of the original set); Eldritch Wizardry is about the same as Blackmoor, perhaps a little better (including a couple of good pieces by Sutherland); Gods Demi-gods & Heroes barely has any art at all (only the cover illo and a picture of Odin that looks to me like a piece of public domain clip-art); all of the art in Swords & Spells is by David Sutherland, and thus has nice continuity of style with the AD&D art (pig-faced orcs, etc.) but he pretty clearly threw all this stuff out in a hurry so it's sloppier and not as good as most of his other work.
For me, the best OD&D art is found in the Monster & Treasure Assortments from 1977-78, drawn by Sutherland, Trampier, and Tom Wham -- the same trio who illustrated the Holmes Basic Set and AD&D MM, PH, and early modules (G series, D series, B1, S1, T1). IMO this is the gold standard of TSR art and it was never better than at the hands of these three (with an honorable mention to Erol Otus, who joined TSR a year or so later, along with several other artists whose work I don't like nearly as much).
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Post by foster1941 on May 14, 2008 18:03:35 GMT -6
I think you'd need to rule on how the saving throw and the gaze attack interact in your game, for the specific monster. The key question is whether the saving throw is to avoid meeting the gaze, or whether the saving throw is resisting the effect after the gaze is already met. If the saving throw is gaze avoidance, and meeting the gaze spells certain disaster, then the saving throw becomes your basic mechanic, and you'd modify the saving throw based on factors like surprise, etc. You might call for a saving throw each round, with modifiers like: PC Surprised: No modifier Normal Attack: +3 bonus Avoiding Gaze: +7 bonus Blindfold/Eyes Closed: No save required, but combat penalties apply (e.g. -4 to hit, +4 to be hit) I'd go with this, or something similar to it. To me, successful saving throw vs. turn to stone = avoided the gaze, so deliberately attempting to avoid the gaze = better chance of making the saving throw. The idea of meeting the monster's gaze but being so badass that you can just shake it off has no place in my D&D.
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