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Post by foster1941 on May 14, 2008 14:23:11 GMT -6
Gaming musings and reviews by T. Foster. Alas, the formal and impersonal format of writing an article for publication causes my voice to freeze up. I function much better in the informal, personal, and interactive atmosphere of message-board postings. Feeling like I'm writing as part of a free-flowing conversation (directed at a specific audience, and expecting that audience to respond) frees me up whereas feeling like I'm writing something intended to be definitive and unidirectional clams me up, like I'm being overly presumptuous or something.
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Post by foster1941 on May 14, 2008 0:14:24 GMT -6
Really, you don't need anything else at all. That's one of the beautiful things about Original D&D. However, that said:
Chainmail is, I would say, the closest to a "must have" -- it's the pre-history of the game (and is referenced numerous times in the OD&D rules) and it's a more detailed and tactical combat system for those who want such a thing; even if you wind up not using it in your game I think it's worth taking a look at nonetheless
Greyhawk is, essentially, all the rules from later editions of A/D&D you're surprised aren't in the original set -- thieves and half-elves, AC bonus for high Dex and to hit and damage bonues for high Str, variable hit die types by class, variable damage by weapon type, spells like magic missile and silence, 15' radius, monsters like carrion crawlers, owl bears, rust monsters and gelatinous cubes, and magic items like vorpal swords, bags of devouring, rods of cancellation, portable holes, and the Deck of Many Things. Plus it's got a short section at the end of suggested tricks and traps for dungeons, most of which are lifted straight out of the original Greyhawk Castle. If you're running a dungeon-centric campaign these pages alone are probably worth the price of the book. Otherwise there's a lot of stuff in here to mix and match; if you use all of it your game will end up feeling a lot like AD&D (in which case why not just play AD&D?).
Eldritch Wizardry introduces druids, psionics, an alternative (and very complicated) initiative system for combat, psionic monsters (cerebral parasite, intellect devourer, etc.), demons (type I-VI + Orcus and Demogorgon), and the various artifacts and relics that were later included in the AD&D DMG (Heward's Mystical Organ, Machine of Lum the Mad, Mighty Servant of Leuk-o, Queen Ehlissa's Marvelous Nightingale, Ring of Gaxx, Rod of Seven Parts, Hand and Eye of Vecna, etc.). This was, I think, TSR's attempt to keep up with some of the more high-powered and "gonzo" stuff that was being developed by third parties (most famously Dave Hargrave's Arduin Grimoire) but IMO it wasn't really successful. This book is more highly recommended if you're an AD&D fan looking for the history and development of the game than if you're looking for stuff to actually use in an OD&D campaign.
Gods Demi-gods & Heroes is a bunch of combat stats for gods and heroes from various real world (Egyptian, Indian, Greek, Celtic, Norse, Finnish, Central American, Chinese) and fictional (Hyboria, Melnibone) pantheons. The latter sections are kinda cool (especially the Hyboria section since it wasn't reprinted in AD&D's Deities & Demigods), the former mainly worthless (unless you want to have your party fight Minions of Set, or to see if your badass high level fighter can really take out Odin).
Swords & Spells is billed as a revised version of Chainmail fully integrating D&D, but it's actually a different system (based on math calculations instead of die-rolling) that pretty much sucks. There are some useful references -- a clearer statement of the order of activity in a combat round than you'll find elsewhere, and a nice index of spells with range, duration, and area of effect -- but those don't really justify the price of the book.
If you can get a copy, Best of The Dragon vol. I is loaded with good stuff published from 1975-78, including lots of designer's notes from Gygax explaining stuff like the intent behind the magic system, alignments, how fast characters should advance, the other planes, etc., advice for running and playing the game (with a heavy focus on dungeon-designing), rules additions and variants (including new classes rangers, illusionists, bards, and witches (the later an uber-powerful NPC-only class) and the solo dungeon adventuring rules that later became the random dungeon design rules in the AD&D DMG), and even a smattering of joke/humor articles (which are all severely dated but give a great feel of "gamer culture" in the 70s -- a lot more drug references than you'd find in later years. Cheaper than buying either actual hardcopies of the early issues or the out-of-print Dragon CD-ROM collection.
Outside of TSR there's some good stuff: Judges Guild's Ready Ref Sheets (collection of charts & tables, variant rules additions, and play aids) is hugely useful and entertaining, and First Fantasy Campaign (essentially Dave Arneson's notebooks describing the Blackmoor campaign, what the TSR Blackmoor supplement should've been) is IMO perhaps the richest and most inspiring supplement ever published for D&D. The collection of issues 1-6 of The Dungeoneer (a fanzine by Paul Jaquays that was distributed by JG) has lots of good stuff -- some rules additions, a bunch of new monsters, some fiction, and several full adventures (including a couple really really good ones!). If you want more adventure-type stuff, City State of the Invincible Overlord, Tegel Manor, and The Caverns of Thracia are all first-rate.
Chaosium's All the World's Monsters vol. 1-3 are a lot of fun -- tons of new monsters, some good, some bad, that give a great feel of 70s-era fan culture before TSR attempted to force everything to conform to a single creative vision with AD&D. Plus, as an added bonus, vol. 2 includes Steve Perrin's D&D combat house-rules ("The Perrin Conventions") which are both highly usable (better organized and explained than the actual D&D combat rules) and are of historical interest as a direct predecessor of the RuneQuest system.
The aforementioned Arduin Grimoire by Dave Hargrave is well worth seeking out -- a high-powered completely gonzo take on D&D that Gygax and TSR hated, and which will seriously screw up the balance of your campaign if you allow it in as-is, but which is bursting with amateur enthusiasm that embodies the spirit of OD&D. OD&D isn't about conforming to someone else's predigested vision, it's about stretching your creativity and doing your own thing, and in that regard messy and amateurish but creative and enthusiastic products like this and First Fantasy Campaign are much more suitable -- as models and inspiration for doing it yourself, not things to pull of the shelf and play -- than the more "polished" products that became the norm in later eras and sucked all the life and passion out of the hobby.
There's plenty more even more obscure third-party stuff, but I'll leave the recommendations there to folks more familiar with it than I.
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Post by foster1941 on May 11, 2008 13:57:17 GMT -6
Nothing too spectacular here. I've revised the Underworld Encounter Tables to add in some missing monsters (why were gray ooze and black puddings not included?) and incorporate the monsters from Supplement I and the first 2 SRs on an optional basis (in a manner which will be obvious). And since I've already done the work and figured someone else out there might get some use out of it, I figured I might as well post it. Enjoy!
MONSTER LEVEL TABLES: Level 1 1 Kobolds 2 Goblins 3 Skeletons 4 Orcs 5 Giant Rats 6 Centipedes 7 Bandits 8 Spiders (9 Stirges) (0 Gelatinous Cube)
Level 2 1 Hobgoblins 2 Zombies 3 Lizards 4 Warriors 5 Conjurers 6 Gnolls 7 Ghouls 8 Toads 9 Berserkers 10 Theurgists (11 Bugbears) (12 Carrion Crawler) Level 3 1 Wights 2 Heroes 3 Giant Hogs 4 Giant Ants 5 Ochre Jelly 6 Thaumaturgists 7 Swashbucklers 8 Magicians 9 Giant Snakes 10 Giant Weasels (11 Harpies) (12 Wererats) Level 4 1 Wraiths 2 Ogres 3 Evil Priests 4 Myrmidons 5 Giant Beetles 6 Giant Scorpions 7 Lycanthropes 8 Gargoyles 9 White Apes 10 Enchanters (11 Gray Ooze) (12 Doppelgangers) (13 Shadows) (14 Owl Bears) (15 Displacer Beasts) (16 Blink Dogs) (17 Phase Spiders) (18 Giant Ticks) (19 Will O’ Wisps) (20 Rust Monsters)
Level 5 1 Trolls 2 Superheroes 3 Wyverns 4 Spectres 5 Mummies 6 Minotaurs 7 Manticores 8 Cockatrices 9 Sorcerers 10 Necromancers 11 Hydra (6-8 Heads) 12 Medusae (13 Ogre Magi) (14 Druids) (15 Hell Hounds) (16 Lammasu) (17 Invisible Stalkers) (18 Salamanders) (19 Umber Hulks) (20 Giant Slug)
Level 6 1 Giants 2 Hydra (9-12 Heads) 3 Dragons 4 Basilisks 5 Gorgons 6 Chimeras 7 Vampires 8 Lords 9 Balrogs 10 Wizards* 11 Evil High Priests* 12 Purple Worms (13 Titans) (14 Golems) (15 Fire-Breathing Hydra) (16 Ropers) (17 Beholders) (18 Black Pudding) (19 Lich) (20 Mind Flayers)
*Typically each will be accompanied by from 1 – 4 apprentices (Enchanters/ Evil Priests) and 1 – 6 body-guards (levels 4 – 6) fighter-type.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 30, 2008 19:21:33 GMT -6
I used the Probability Comparison chart in my Judges Guild modules and converted the d20 to the following rolls (it's close enough) All Wands Including Death Ray Polymorph or Dragon Staves & Class & Level or Poison Paralization Stone Breath Spells ---------------- --------- ------------ ----- ------ ------ Fighting-Men 1-3 7 7 8 8 9 Magic-User 1-5 7 8 7 9 8 Cleric 1-4 7 7 8 9 8
Fighting-Men 4-6 7 7 7 7 8 Magic-User 6-10 7 7 7 8 7 Cleric 5-8 7 7 7 8 7
Fighting-Men 7-9 7 7 7 7 7 Magic-User 11-15 7 7 7 7 7 Cleric 9-12 6 6 7 7 7
Fighting-Men 10-12 6 6 7 7 7 Magic-User 16+ 5 6 5 7 4 Cleric 13+ 4 5 6 7 6
Fighting-Men 13+ 5 5 5 5 7
I made a similar chart (I don't beleve the numbers matched those exactly, but I was creating it by hand so I probably made some errors) that was minimally serviceable, but which I eventually decided I didn't like because it didn't have enough granularity -- it glossed over too many of the little flavorful differences (like clerics having the best save chance against Death Ray or Poison at 1st level). My prefered method nowadays for recreating the D&D saving throw chart using 2d6 is the "percentiles on 2d6" chart that (from what I understand) was originally printed in Fight in the Skies and was reprinted in the article "What To Do When the Dog Eats Your Dice" in The Dragon. It involves 2 chart look-ups instead of 1 so it's clunky and slow, but it uses only d6s and maintains the granularity of the original charts.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 27, 2008 16:27:11 GMT -6
Gnoles (D&D bugbears, renamed) Foster, how do this look like? Like the hyena guys of regular D&D? They're from the Lord Dunsany story How Nuth Would have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles, which doesn't actually describe their physical appearance but establishes that they live in dark, forsaken woods, are very quiet and stealthy and attack suddenly from ambush, are merciless, and are greatly feared by normal folk (and also that they hoard treasure). This fantastic period illustration depicts the gnoles as fur-covered apelike creatures, armed with swords. The description of bugbears in Supplement I ("These monsters are of the 'giant class,' being great hairy goblin-giants. Despite their size and shambling gait, they move very quietly, thus increasing their chances to surprise a party by 16 2/3%") seems ideally suited to both the story and the illustration (as long as you disregard the pumpkin-headed illustration from later in the book). Credit where credit's due: I didn't come up with this on my own; Gene Weigel was actually the first one (that I know of) who suggested using D&D bugbears as Dunsany's gnoles.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 25, 2008 12:04:40 GMT -6
Very much open to house ruling, not locked tight. But, iirc, this turned into +1 for elves in our group. I remember looking at a dice roll to see if the party noticed a secret door and being 1 off and then noting there was an elf in the group and saying that the elf noticed the door, but the other's didn't. ... A perfect example from above. What's it take for people to note secret doors, let alone elves? It doesn't say. We had different chances based on different doors. Sometimes it was 1 in 6, sometimes it was 1 in 12, sometimes it was 3 in 8. It all depended upon how hard the DM decided a given door was to decide. FWIW this is addressed in Vol. III (top of p. 9):
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 24, 2008 17:38:41 GMT -6
Cool post. This would make for a fun and unique adventure-setting. From the title of the thread I was picturing that Lord Dunsany story (edit: "A Story of Land and Sea" from Tales of Wonder) about the pirate captain who had wheels installed onto his ship so, when pursuit across the Mediterranean gets too hairy they "sail" off into the Sahara desert and have all manner of adventures there.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 23, 2008 21:58:26 GMT -6
I like giant skeletons and zombies, I like banshees as the spirits of dead female elves, I like that drow vampire in D3, I like the skeletal dragon illustration in S2 (and in one of the Endless Quest books), and I love the ghoul-monkeys (inspired by the Sumatran rat-monkey from Peter Jackson's Dead-Alive) that we included in Monsters of Myth. I do agree, though, that undead demi-humans, especially undead gnomes and hobbits, are pretty lame.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 22, 2008 10:40:21 GMT -6
Will Niebling is another good choice for a later issue.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 20, 2008 20:53:04 GMT -6
Aces & Eights from KenzerCo feels like a time warp to 1979. I wouldn't count either BFRPG or Labyrinth Lord because they're both retro-clone games, which is something of a different category.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 18, 2008 15:50:37 GMT -6
Sounds good! Which are the stats for it? How do his abilities work? Have you written something up? They're a high-level monster so I've never used them in actual-play yet, so I haven't had the need yet to get specific on the stats. They've got around 7 HD, are fast (15 or 18"), have a low AC (and are immune or resistant to most attack forms), they can change their appearance, slide through narrow cracks, etc. Highly intelligent, strongly chaotic (my campaign-specific background is that they're actually invaders from either another dimension or another planet, but that wouldn't be necessary for anyone else). Small number appearing (no more than, say, 1-6). Low chance of being found in lair; small but rich treasure (Type I, IIRC -- the one that has gems, jewels, and magic but not tons of coins).
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 18, 2008 13:16:38 GMT -6
Cave men Gremlins White apes Devil children (see "Monsters of Myth") Trolls (D&D ogres, renamed) Gnoles (D&D bugbears, renamed) Androids (white, blue, black, red) Mutants Men of Bronze (see "Monsters of Myth") Men of Quicksilver (T-1000 from "Terminator 2," more or less) Men of Stone (living statues) Red Weavers (see Merritt's "Face in the Abyss," and "Monsters of Myth") etc.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 15, 2008 11:10:44 GMT -6
Cool report. It's refreshing to see a player making pragmatic low-key use of wishes, which I think is the way they were intended to be used and that the "aura" which has grown up around them in later years (that they're only suitable for very high level games, that they should be used to create world-changing effects, and that you should spend hours agonizing over every word like a legal contract because otherwise the DM will screw you) has been detrimental to the game. The point about the players being over-deliberate mirrors some of my own recent experiences (see here for a bit of it) and adds additional anecdotal evidence to a theory of mine (not sure if I've ever actually posted it before) that modern players have been spoiled by CRPGs that don't have time-limits and reward an ultra-meticulous approach. The smaller size and more linear nature of most modern dungeons is also a factor here, but I'm not sure of the cause-effect relationship -- did players become slower and more deliberative because the dungeons are smaller, or did the dungeons become smaller because the players were becoming slower and more deliberative (the latter seems more likely). This is something that I think is worthy of further exploration (in its own thread, not as an adjunct to a session write-up).
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 14, 2008 17:50:08 GMT -6
Yeah, S4 is an expanded/AD&D-ized version of this module -- the dungeon-maps and some of the key encounters (particularly the finale) are the same but many of the minor encounters are different (both versions heavily feature "new" monsters, but the monsters that were new in the OD&D version -- things like water weirds, troglodytes, and neo-otyughs -- were no longer new by the time the AD&D version was published, so they created a whole new set -- bodaks, behirs, dracolisks, etc.). Plus the AD&D version has much more fleshed out descriptions and boxed text, a lot more illustrations, and a whole preliminary wilderness adventure which is completely absent from the tournament version. Grodog has a detailed comparison of the encounters between the two versions on his site.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 14, 2008 13:52:16 GMT -6
Yup, Remo Williams. Shick? Influenced AD&D enough to have it called Shick flavored, or whatever? News to me, and to a whole lot of other people, too, I'm willing to bet. Someone should ask Frank to list the points of LS's influence. What, did he interrupt Gary's hasty, stream of conscious writing of the main volumes of AD&D? I don't even think Kuntz knew Shick in any way other than in passing. And didn't Gary disdain that same production department LS was running? The AD&D-as-Lawrence Schick's D&D meme originated (AFAICT) with Steve Marsh, who worked at TSR for a brief period in the summer of 1980 (after corresponding with Gary for several years prior) and reflects the situation as he saw it at that time (i.e. a year after the DMG was published) -- Schick was in charge of the AD&D line at that time and was, I guess, a hardliner about rules and flavor conformity (which is consistent with what the AD&D rulebooks actually say even if no one else but Schick ever took those statements seriously).
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 14, 2008 12:18:39 GMT -6
Got together with the guys from my former game group (plus one player who's a new member of the current (sans me) incarnation of the group) to play an old-school D&D one-off as a tribute to Gary Gygax. This happened now rather than in March because it took us a month to plan and organize it enough to get a full house (6 players + me as DM). Since it was a Gygax Tribute I ran one of his modules, and thought it fitting to run his first published one -- "The Lost Caverns of Tsojconth" (Wintercon V tournament dungeon, published by the Metro Detroit Gamers in 1976). Since it was a one-off I skipped ahead to the second round of the tournament (the Greater Caverns) since I think that's the more fun of the two levels. We used the full tournament rules (except that I let the players roll their own damage rather than relying on averaged values) and the tournament pre-gen characters (which is something of a necessity in this module because instead of providing statblocks for the monsters it includes a chart showing every character's chance to hit every monster with each of their weapons and vice versa -- if you're not using the pre-gen characters you'd have to reverse-engineer the monsters' ACs and HD which isn't impossible (most of the monsters come out of the various books) but would require extra effort). The module assumes all of the supplements (all of the rules from Supp I, a couple monsters apiece from Supps II & III) + material from The Strategic Review (various monsters, 2-axis alignments) so it really feels more like de facto AD&D than hardcore OD&D, but for a Gygax Tribute game that feel is appropriate so I wasn't complaining too much. Character sheets + appropriate rules excerpts (magic item & spell descriptions) were emailed to the players in advance -- aside from me only 1 other player had any OD&D experience (though they've all played 1E AD&D and Classic D&D so it's not like they were totally out in the cold). To start with and help set the mood I showed them the map of the Lesser Caverns and described what likely would've happened had we played through them. Then the party read the Graven Glyphs and began the long descent (900 steps) to the Greater Caverns. Things started out slowly because the players devoted a lot of attention to mapping (which is particularly hard in this dungeon, since it's a natural cavern with lots of dead-ends and irregular angles) and managed to unintentionally bypass several encounters -- they'd made it all the way to the south edge of the map and had taken an hour or more before they had their first actual encounter, with a group of shriekers. These summoned their keepers, a pair of fire giants, whom the party immediately attacked. They did pretty well (the lead giant wasted a lot of attacks on the dwarf, who both had a super-low AC (+2 plate & +3 shield) and only took half damage from hits) and managed to drop one giant and severely wound the second, who surrendered and offered to show the party where his hidden treasure was. The party didn't take him up on the offer and finished him off (which meant they lost out on the opportunity to find a +3 war hammer; oh well...). One of the fun aspects of the module is that 2 of the pre-gen characters have extremely powerful (but also extremely ego-heavy) intelligent magic swords who both argue with their owners and especially each other at any opportunity. This allowed me to have some fun role-playing even in a heavily exploration and hack&slash-based dungeon. One of the players was able to mollify his sword by giving it jewels from the giants, the other continued bickering with his off and on for the entire session. More slow exploration finally brought the party to the iron doors they'd heard about from the Graven Glyphs and they found themselves teleported to someplace else. Once again they devoted a lot of effort to careful mapping and made directional choices that kept missing encounters (except for a brief interlude with some green slime) so they'd wandered across almost the entire left side of the map and taken another hour+ before they came to the Dimension Shift room (one of my favorite locations in the module -- a cave with two entrances; depending on which one the party enters by they'll either encounter a group of 4 fighters or 2 mages; the room then shifts back and forth between the two every 3rd round -- the inhabitants know about the shift and will react in anticipation, but the party will be confused and disoriented). They managed to kill off both the mages and one of the fighters before fleeing. More exploration finally brought them to another iron door and another teleport. By virtue of their careful mapping they were actually fairly quickly able to line themselves up (which could be argued means all the mapping was worth the effort, but I don't buy it -- I think a sketch or trailing map would've served just as well and allowed the game to progress a lot faster) and thought they had figured out the puzzle of the iron doors. They fairly quickly found a 3rd set, but decided not to open them until they'd found all the sets (they were expecting 7; there were actually only 6 because you have to open one of them twice). Alas, by this point we were almost out of time -- I had someplace to be in the evening ( Hotel Cafe Tour) and we were playing tournament-style, so I had set a firm end-time (which we still managed to go over by about 20 minutes). A detour took the party into the lair of a Type II Demon and things were looking dicey for a bit (had the demon succeeded in his attempt to Gate in a friend it would've been a lot dicier) but the party won through in the end and picked up 2 cursed magic items (a loadstone and a crystal hypnosis ball) for their trouble. We chose to end it there; I showed the players the map and pointed out all the encounters they'd missed and what would've happened at the finale had they gotten there. All in all an enjoyable time seemed to be had by everyone (one unlucky player managed to get his character rendered immediately hors de combat in 2 of the 3 big fights -- held by the mages, feared by the demon -- so he probably didn't have as much fun as the rest of us). The tactical play by the players wasn't too great -- they wasted way too much time mapping and exploring around the edges of the level which meant that by the time they figured out the pattern it was too late to really do anything about it, plus they didn't make very good use of their spells and items, leaving a lot of "rounds in the chamber" even when it became clear that we were up against the deadline and there was no reason to save things for later -- plus they blamed their relative failure on the module (scoffing at the notion that it was intended to be completed in 4 hours) rather than their own choices, which bugged me a bit, but those are minor quibbles in the face of a fun afternoon of classic old-school-style play. The effort of DMing pretty much wore me out, and reminded me that I don't have the fortitude to DM a regular (or even semi-regular) campaign -- I think once a year or so is more my speed.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 13, 2008 0:17:13 GMT -6
Dave Arneson mentions in First Fantasy Campaign that they used the OS map south of the main Blackmoor map, and that's been corroborated by one or more of the players.
The point about characters with strongholds being able to keep a 20 mile radius free of monsters (and the implication that oher strongholds and settlements do the same) is well made, and answers the question of how low-level characters in D&D can survive travel in the wilderness: they don't venture more than 20 miles (about a day's walk) from settlements except as part of large (100+ person) caravans under heavy guard (see the Vol. II descriptions of nomads and dervishes, and the AD&D MM descriptions of merchants and pilgrims). Note that in both of the original campaigns the central "megadungeon" was located well within this 20 mile radius -- Castle Blackmoor is literally right in town, and Castle Greyhawk is seemingly only a few miles away, an hour or two's walk at most.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 12, 2008 11:55:49 GMT -6
I give hobbits +3 to hit and +3" range with slings. EDIT: which I just realized I'd already posted earlier in the thread (the bonus to hit, but not the range bonus, since I just came up with that fairly recently). Foster, out of curiosity, why did you decide to increase the range? It seems like a good idea since the hobbit caps at 4th level and could use some subtle front loading to make it more attractive. Chainmail says hobbits can fire a stone as far as an archer shoots. Max. range for a short bow is 15" (which is also the listed missile range for hobbits on the Fantasy Reference Table). Max. range for a sling stone (per Swords & Spells, slings aren't on the weapon-lists in Chainmail or Supplement I) is 12". So to get from 12" to 15" is +3" range. FWIW I also give elves +3" range with bows for the same reason (the Fantasy Reference Table shows their missile range as 18", which could mean elf-bows count as "horse bows" (i.e. short composite bows) but I liked the idea of +3" range better -- as a balance to that I forbade them use of long bows, on the grounds they're too short (4 1/2 - 5' max.)).
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 10, 2008 19:19:45 GMT -6
I give hobbits +3 to hit and +3" range with slings.
EDIT: which I just realized I'd already posted earlier in the thread (the bonus to hit, but not the range bonus, since I just came up with that fairly recently).
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 10, 2008 19:10:03 GMT -6
Oh yeah, I'm definably hunting down a 4th edition in hard copy now!Why stop there? Go for a 1st and join TheGreatHierophant's club
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 10, 2008 18:42:42 GMT -6
1. Wizard chart goes from Hero + 1 to Wizard (level 9 to level 10). The only mention I've seen is that Wizard is equal to 2 Armored Foot. a. So, I'm assuming it means I would use Wizard on the Fantasy Table, Yes Yes, which means from level 9 to 10 a magic-user actually decreases in non-Fantasy combat capability a bit (going from 4 light foot with +1 on one of the rolls to 2 armored foot). In one on one combat this means that the wizard gets 2 rolls on the man-to-man combat table (p. 41) for the appropriate weapon type (dagger, presumably). In 1:20 scale combat it means you count the wizard as 2 figures of armored foot (i.e. 40 men) for attack and defense. So, if he were attacking a unit of light foot he would get 2 rolls with a result of 4-6 = a kill; against a unit of medium horse he'd get 1 die roll and need a 6 for a kill. Defense-wise, if he was being attacked by a unit of light foot they'd get 1 attack for every 3 men (read: figures) attacking and need a 6 for a kill and need to score at least 2 kills in the same round to take him out; if he was being attacked by a unit of medium horse each figure would get 2 rolls, need a 6 for a kill, and need 2 kills to take him out. Yes Yes. Type depends on armor (no armor or leather = light, chain = heavy, plate = armored) or mount-size, as applicable. In man-to-man combat he'd get 5 rolls on the appropriate weapon-type; in 1:20 scale he'd function like the wizard above but count as 5 figures of the appropriate type instead of 2 armored foot (meaning that a swashbuckler on a heavy warhorse could probably take out an entire units of light foot single-handedly -- 20 dice (5x4) with a 5 or 6 for a kill = an average of 6 figures (120 men) killed per round. Defense-wise, opponents would need to score 5 or more simultaneous hits to take him out. Yes. In man-to-man combat you roll your 2d6 and add +1 to try to get the target number by weapon and opponent's armor type. In 1:20 combat you roll the appropriate number of dice by your type and the type you're fighting (so if you're in plate armor (armored foot) and fighting opponents who count as light foot you roll 1 die, add 1 to the result, and try to get 4-6 for a kill). That +1 doesn't mean anything defense-wise. See this thread. No problem; hope it helped (and curious to see if anyone else posts different answers!).
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 10, 2008 17:32:09 GMT -6
Look at the encumbrance table (vol. I, p. 15) for Chainmail equivalents based on armor type: enc. 0-750 (no armor or leather armor) = light foot; enc. 751-1000 (chain-mail) = heavy foot; enc. 1001+ (plate armor) = armored foot. If you're mounted the type of horse you're riding determines whether you count as light (light horse), medium (medium warhorse), or heavy (heavy warhorse) horse. Melee weapon types and shields only matter if you're using the more detailed Man-to-Man combat rules (the different types of bows and crossbows matter because they have different ranges and ROFs).
For monsters' fighting ability, see Vol. II, p. 5: monsters count as one man-type for each hit die, with any bonuses added to one (not all) of the rolls. Which type of man (light, heavy, or armored) presumably following the same guideline as above: AC 9-6 = light, AC 5-4 = heavy, AC 3-2 = armored.
Any successful hit (a "kill" in Chainmail) inflicts 1-6 hit points worth of damage. This is noted at the bottom of Vol. I, p. 19 in the later printings and is actually missing from your copy (assuming the text of the 2nd & 4th printings is identical).
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 10, 2008 15:58:52 GMT -6
Hey Trent- How different was the write up of the two dungeons? Because the maps are definitely different in their quality. The write-ups are exactly word-for-word the same (to the point that, IIRC, there's a reference in the text to something on the map that was changed so that the reference doesn't make sense in the 5th+ printing version). (Looks at the text): Yeah, the description of area 1 mentions that the "stairs down lead through blind passages..." The earlier map shows the stairs, but the later version doesn't, so this reference makes no sense. Also the refence in 8 to the pit being an X (when on the later map it's a P in a circle) and the map key having a symbol for "Under Floor Passage" that is used in the earlier version (in area 8) but not the later one, but those are pretty minor -- the missing staircase is what I was thinking of.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 10, 2008 11:27:06 GMT -6
I think that's exactly right regarding the dynamic of play, but the point (at least as I understood it) was that korgoth is looking to create that dynamic of play at the power-levels associated with lower-level characters -- where a single ogre or troll is a tough challenge, a dragon a likely TPK, clerics can't raise dead characters or speak directly to the gods at will, mages can't just teleport the party wherever they need to go, etc.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 10, 2008 10:47:29 GMT -6
I think the best way to do such a game in D&D (as opposed to, say, just playing RuneQuest) would be to eliminate levels and XP altogether. Characters in the sagas don't generally seem to change much in power and fighting ability over the course of the saga (except with age). The standard character would be a Hero and have the ability to acquire a household/barony/entourage like a Lord. Optionally, the character could be a Superhero but not have the ability to be a baron or gather an entourage -- trading concentrated personal power for the combined power of the community (a very HeroQuest-y idea). Clerics would be Bishops with the bonuses of Patrirachs regarding strongholds and followers. In fitting with the lower-magic feel of the sagas I'd suggest that the clerics' spells only be usable on a weekly, monthly, or even yearly basis rather than daily. Magic-users probably don't really fit into such a game at all; if they do they are the one exception where some sort of advancement scheme is probably still in order (though not the BtB killing-things-and-stuff-taking D&D one; perhaps a system based structly on age -- 1 year to go from 1st to 2nd level, 2 more years to go from 2nd to 3rd, then 3 more to go from 3rd to 4th, etc. -- meaning that all high-level mages would be very old (and likely dependant on age-retarding magic of some kind)). Dwarfs would be Heroes without the Lord abilities, elves would be Hero/Theurgists without the Lord abilities or advancement potential of human mages. You'd want to create some sort of system (perhaps inspired by Pendragon) for large-scale time passing, to reflect that there will rarely be more than one adventure in a year, and very well might be several years between adventures, during which time the Heroes and Bishops will tend their steads and raise families (who will eventually supplant them), the Superheroes will remain legendary outsiders who grow older and more dangerous (think Pratchett's Cohen the Barbarian ) but leave nothing permanent behind, the Mages will grow stranger and more inscrutable, and the non-humans will always remain exactly the same. I would totally play in such a campaign!
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 8, 2008 23:00:21 GMT -6
Heh, guess I did miss that note.
Looking at my various monster creations, I only use alignment and/or intelligence when they matter -- an animal isn't going to have either listed. I also list # of attacks and/or damage (together on 1 line) if they are outside of the ordinary (i.e. 1 attack for 1-6 damage).
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 8, 2008 22:19:23 GMT -6
Not to derail your initial premise (I use the all of the stats from vol. II plus alignment and intelligence (non-, semi-, intelligent, or highly intelligent), but what sort of morale rules are you using? Those from Chainmail?
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 8, 2008 17:39:03 GMT -6
Otherwise, how about the armor only granting the next lower benefit? In that case, Leather Armor becomes AC8, Chain Mail AC6, and Plate Mail AC4. That's what Philotomy Jurament does, and it seems a reasonable enough house-rule (though in proper OD&D fashion, to retain backwards compatability with the Chainmail Man-to-Man Combat chart, it should be +1 on the attacker's roll to hit rather than +1 to the target's AC).
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 8, 2008 17:01:53 GMT -6
CHARACTER: ____________________________ CHARACTER: ____________________________ CLASS: ____________ RACE: ________ CLASS: ____________ RACE: ________ EXP: _____________ ALIGN: __________ EXP: _____________ ALIGN: __________ MAX HP: __ WEIGHT: _____ MAX HP: __ WEIGHT: _____ STR: __ CON: __ LANGUAGES TREASURE STR: __ CON: __ LANGUAGES TREASURE | | | | | | INT: __ DEX: __ | | | INT: __ DEX: __ | | | | | | | | | WIS: __ CHA: __ | | | WIS: __ CHA: __ | | | EQUIPMENT MAGIC ITEMS SPELLS EQUIPMENT MAGIC ITEMS SPELLS | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | CHARACTER: ____________________________ CHARACTER: ____________________________ CLASS: ____________ RACE: ________ CLASS: ____________ RACE: ________ EXP: _____________ ALIGN: __________ EXP: _____________ ALIGN: __________ MAX HP: __ WEIGHT: _____ MAX HP: __ WEIGHT: _____ STR: __ CON: __ LANGUAGES TREASURE STR: __ CON: __ LANGUAGES TREASURE | | | | | | INT: __ DEX: __ | | | INT: __ DEX: __ | | | | | | | | | WIS: __ CHA: __ | | | WIS: __ CHA: __ | | | EQUIPMENT MAGIC ITEMS SPELLS EQUIPMENT MAGIC ITEMS SPELLS | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
These statistics are the vital ones that are not likely to change from game to game. Suggestion: move the "Weight" entry to the bottom of the "Equipment" column, since that's what it's referring to (the total weight of the character's gear, for encumbrance purposes). The way this sheet is set up I assumed this was a space for the character's weight (and wondered why you didn't have an entry for height as well) and it wasn't until I saw the filled-in sheets in the other thread that I figured out what you meant (and even then I did a double-take at first when I thought you had the first character listed as weighing 800+ lbs.)
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 8, 2008 16:10:52 GMT -6
No one has a helmet because I could not see any designated advantage in having one. What if a spider drops on your head? Or a green slime? Or you're riding on your horse and there's a branch hanging at exactly head-height? Beyond that, buying helmets is the same idea as buying weapons other than daggers or a silver cross instead of a wooden one -- it's more about the way you picture the character than any actual quantified in-game advantage. Add up the values of the armor, weapons, and gold carried, then add another 80 for everything else (unless you judge that the character is carrying substantially more than a standard load in which case add more). So Ulf is carrying 789 (500 for chain + 150 for shield + 50 for sword + 9 for gold + 80 for everything else), Vernash is carrying 213 (20 for dagger + 113 for gold + 80 for everything else) and so on. It looks like you're adding an extra 30 for the wineskins? I don't think you need to do that unless they pick up extra wineskins (or, more likely, potions) as treasure.
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