tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
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Post by tog on May 21, 2016 8:05:48 GMT -6
The way you remember the proper order of stats in D&D is to recall the name of the old White Dwarf "Fiend Factory" monster - the Stinwicodech.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 15, 2014 17:51:55 GMT -6
I still have the original edition I bought back in 1977 for $3.11 (2.95 plus 7% tax).
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 14, 2014 9:01:05 GMT -6
The scariest traps for me in Dungeon Robber (based on Gygax's old solo D&D charts) have always been the elevator rooms and the slides down one or more levels, since while not directly damaging they expose you to threats you're not necessarily ready to face... especially, it seems, when you're injured and short on resources and trying to get back outdoors in a hurry. EDIT: My suggestion - make your players scared and complacent. Pressure plates that emit a loud *CLICK* but do nothing obvious, clearly lethal death traps on the 1st level that no longer work correctly (the falling block gets jammed, the poison has dried up on the spikes, the flame launcher just dribbles oil), traps set off but never re-set, billows of cheap perfume instead of poison gas. Make them think nothing's wrong, so they act complacent when the REAL deathtraps come out. And if they get enough false alarms, they might get tired of even checking for traps in the first place...
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 14, 2014 8:21:15 GMT -6
I also remember the ads in Dragon though which claimed that you got to determine the nature of the apocalypse that destroyed the world. That always sounded pretty cool. Yeah, IIRC there was a section on what the Aftermath! actually came after. Most people I knew just went with the limited nuclear war thing (hey, it was during the Cold War), but we also had fun with a game based on the premise of a Martian invasion. Not the original Wells story, but the version from the Marvel Star Wars comics which also had lots of mutants in it. Don't remember the name of the strip now. Killraven, if I remember correctly.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 6, 2014 17:01:45 GMT -6
In Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien does mentions a "Cold-drake" as opposed to the Urulók ("Fire-drakes"). However, he doesn't go into detail as to what it means to be a Cold-drake. One would assume this could mean that the dragon breathes rime or concentrated diamond dust. I seem to remember running somewhere into a commentary that specified that "cold-drakes" were dragons whose fires were cold, i.e. just big "lizards". It might have been in an unofficial source, a paperback encyclopedia of Middle Earth I picked up back in the early 80's; can't recall the title, unfortunately.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 4, 2014 16:15:16 GMT -6
Columbia, SC for a couple more weeks (hopefully less) then Rochester, NY where I grew up and discovered the dark arts of D&D back in 1977.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 4, 2014 10:57:15 GMT -6
BTW - some things I've come up with as a result of thinking about this subject:
WAND OF DIGGING: Each charge expended excavates a 5' X 5' hole 1d6x10' long through earth or stone. Will do 3d6 damage to Earth Elementals.
DIAMOND PICKAXE: Doubles mining rates. PICKAXE ENCHANTMENT - "EFFICIENCY": Doubles rates of mining for each plus of efficiency (1-3).
ROCK MOLE: MV 30 ft. / turn; HD 3; AC 0; TT nil; AL N; AT 1; DAM 2-12; Burrows at full movement rate even through solid rock.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 4, 2014 10:45:01 GMT -6
Totally off topic here, but this conversation makes me think about standard dungeon hallway dimensions. If you're slowly chipping your way underground, why make 10' wide hallways? I'd think that 3' to 5' would be a lot more realistic. I'm sitting in a bedroom typing on my computer, and the width of this room is around 10' or 11' and I'm trying to imagine someone digging something of this size ... just seems pretty huge, that's all. I wonder what passage widths were like for pyramids or for coal mines. Check out this post over at the Semper Initiativus Unum blog - all about a Roman limestone quarry repurposed into a MASSIVE NATO end-times bunker. Admittedly the tunnels had to be large enough to drive through, but they're easily 20'+ wide, as the linked flickr set shows.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 3, 2014 8:20:11 GMT -6
It was so much better than what we had seen in OD&D and pretty much every monster had actual art, whereas many OD&D monsters were "imagination only" things. It was supposed, I think, that you already knew what a chimera or dragon or roc looked like; there seems to be less grounding in myth and legend for today's players so they need pictures. Plus the whole "branding" thing, ptui ptui. Ironic you point out the color thing for the 2e MM, when the Gelatinous Cube there was clear instead of the lime-green it seems to have become. (I still doubt about the "surprise on a 1-3" invisibility thing when every illo I've ever seen has a significant amount of stuff floating in the middle; note that the OD&D 'cube was merely "semi-translucent", more like it's always been depicted.)
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 2, 2014 15:17:00 GMT -6
Not very fan of the body-builded "crocodile dundee" kobold... Yeah, not scaly enough for a dog-man lizard guy. Don't you love the "HERP DERP" expression on the kuo-toa's face, though. (I dunno, maybe he's staring at Blibdoolpoolp's butt.) BTW what the heck is the deal with the "transparent" Gelatinous Cube NEVER BEING TRANSPARENT lately? And what happened to the beak on the owlbear?
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 2, 2014 13:21:49 GMT -6
That beholder is the first one since the original Monster Manual that I'd get the creeps from.
I want to see what they do with the xorn.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 2, 2014 13:01:27 GMT -6
Yep, you have to go to the Ready Ref Sheets for mining rates - they aren't covered in the OD&D rules, and not even in AD&D (much less the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, f'ghu's sake!). Now let's calculate how long it would take to excavate your typical megadungeon... (EDIT: Homer Simpson voice: "Oh, Ready Ref Sheets... is there anything you can't do?")
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 2, 2014 12:58:20 GMT -6
Found an old blog post that is of a mind with myself on a Chaotic "alignment tongue": I would go one step darker - merely hearing or reading Black Speech in its purest form has a chance of acting as a curse, changing one's alignment in the direction of Chaos.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 1, 2014 9:11:49 GMT -6
I'm sitting in a bedroom typing on my computer, and the width of this room is around 10' or 11' and I'm trying to imagine someone digging something of this size ... just seems pretty huge, that's all. Insane wizards and mad geniuses don't like feeling cramped.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 30, 2014 13:08:40 GMT -6
I've never understood why it's such a difficult thing to learn a new rules set. Some of us are old, and our brains are full.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 30, 2014 8:10:32 GMT -6
Two points: This post from the blog Dyvers got me to thinking about PCs grabbing pickaxes and making their own routes through the dungeon. BUT as usual I misremembered and there are no rules/tables for mining rates! Secondly, I'm greatly amused by the Greyhawk Construction Company, Ltd. and wish to hire their services in the future, which brings up the question of how quickly new areas can be excavated, though if I go the Mystic Underworld route I suppose it can be effectively instantaneous. And 'way too much Minecraft and Nethack. I blame them.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 29, 2014 21:51:50 GMT -6
I imagine the people on Carcosa eating a lot of arthropods. YES.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 29, 2014 20:42:12 GMT -6
Did this finally come out at some point & I missed it, as usual?
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 29, 2014 20:24:38 GMT -6
Dang - I just discovered this a couple weeks back on a link from the Frugal DM blog and have been having a blast with it - I had no idea there was a PDF of the rules! WOOT.
The Dungeon Robber "board game" would go great with Searchers Of The Unknown, you know.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 29, 2014 20:17:59 GMT -6
Is there anywhere in OD&D that I can find a reference for rates of tunneling?
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 29, 2014 19:58:38 GMT -6
Oh, the neat thing about bleeding tooth fungus - the "blood" seems to have anticoagulant properties! COOL.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 29, 2014 19:52:16 GMT -6
Which is a shame, because that would go well on an Carcosan buffet right next to raw Pyura. A more apt fruit for the deadly Carcosan world might well be manchineel: Ironically the people who have accidentally eaten manchineel apples say that they're very sweet and tasty. But then...!
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 29, 2014 8:25:15 GMT -6
Pyura chilensis - because, let's face it: The King In Yellow HAS to be behind something that looks like this:
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 28, 2014 21:54:15 GMT -6
Hanging out with monsters was a thing back when:
* Phoebus the lizard man and Talbot the centaur in The Rogue's Gallery listing of legendary characters * Most monsters in Tunnels & Trolls were also statted up as PC races, not to mention Monsters! Monsters! * Glorantha and their ducks * Even as staid a rules set as The Fantasy Trip allowed centaurs, goblins, orcs, kobolds, gargoyles, giants and lizard men as PCs * Most of the races in Arduin could be used as PCs * Not to mention the buffet of non-humans on Tekumel * And what SF rules set (beyond SPI's Universe) was complete without alien races?
Speaking of Tegel Manor, look at the Rump clan - full of (now) undead, a lot of which aren't specified as hostile. The original even has a polite Balrog ghost butler! (As well as the balrog butler mentioned in Joe Fischer's article on developing towns in one of the early Dragon issues.)
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 28, 2014 14:07:08 GMT -6
Now that I actually check it, the CSIO isn't as crazy with monsters as I thought it was. Maybe I was thinking of somewhere different. There are at least two inns there run by Trolls, though, as well as trolls working for the bureaucracy (what a surprise, I know).
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 28, 2014 12:29:57 GMT -6
This just serves to illustrate the differences between old and new RPG products. Older products were short and to the point. Newer products tend to be much thicker and wordier. Older products often mixed high and low level monsters together. You had to be wary and maybe run, or you die. Newer products tend to concentrate more on balance and offering an adventure that characters of a certain level ought to be able to survive. TEGEL MANOR is an excellent example of old school. Judges Guild packed something like a hundred rooms into a product that was only a few pages in length. It also shows a different attitude towards monsters; Judges Guild often had monsters just showing up, as a regular thing in their societies (look at the number of monster references in CSIO), not always bent on slaughter and pillage and not always there to kill/be killed. (Notice too how "evil" NPCs got similar treatment; the Imperial Overlord himself is LE with Good tendencies!) It's often a whole different kettle of Floating Eyes from the "how many XP do I get for killing this" attitude you get from later editions. Sometimes monsters are just THERE, y'know?
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 25, 2014 19:18:23 GMT -6
I THINK the double-direction arrows show mutual exchange; thus Common probably has loan words from both Elvish & Dwarvish and vice-versa. Elvish is obviously derives from Ent-Speech and Goblin is a degenerate Dwarvish. (Thus you'd have a, say, 50% chance to understand goblins if you spoke Dwarf.)
I have no idea about alignment tongues; I've grown into the idea that they're not something I want to mess with and don't make a heck of a lot of sense. I DO though like the idea of a Dark Speech, used as an equivalent of Common among creatures of Chaos/evil.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 25, 2014 11:51:26 GMT -6
I have to speak in favor of the HP 2133; I have one a friend gave to me that boots Linux off a SD card and it works beautifully for typing stuff; the small screen is definitely a drawback for net-surfing so that's a built-in disincentive (not a bug, a feature!). Not spectacular on battery life, mind you; I only get an hour and a half or so (but that may be partly being an old battery). Turning off the wireless card would likely increase battery life; there's also a Bluetooth communicator in case you want to go that route for a keyboard, as well as two USB ports. All in all, a nice little machine.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 25, 2014 11:44:07 GMT -6
...I wish I myslef could roll a d20 everytime I encountered ANOTHER language to learn. Ain't that the case, though! My feelings on languages in D&D are colored mightily by the old Dragon article "LANGUAGES or, Could you repeat that in Auld Wormish?" by Lee Gold, from the Best Of The Dragon #1 (aka Supplement #5 ). Lots of options for new languages and new purposes for learning languages, like the guy who cursed in Balrog or the one who learned Mule so he could calm his pack animal in the dungeon. Or Wall: One of the ideas brought out in that article is the relationship between languages: In that line I went a while back and looked at the various speaking races from D&D and assembled a chart of linguistic relationships (see attachment). I have no idea now what I was thinking with the arrows; maybe influences between races? Attachments:
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 19, 2014 17:42:25 GMT -6
I really do dig the the whole "Now I shall stab you to death, Dracula" vibe, though. And those puritan hats are too cool to pass up. Witch-Hunter class, maybe? Someone with knowledge of the occult and mysterious but non-religious; might want a different name but I can't think of one right now. If you eliminate Clerics, does that automatically eliniate Druids as well? I've been entertaining thoughts off and on about letting Druids turn undead, on the theory that the Druid's link to nature allows them to turn/destroy unnatural things such as undead.
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