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Post by Harbinger on Nov 21, 2022 20:36:59 GMT -6
The thing I like most from Outdoor Survival that unfortunately didn't make it into later D&D is OD&D used their rules for becoming lost:
"Lost Parties: There is a chance of being lost, the chance depending on the type of terrain the party begins its turn upon. A lost party must move in the direction indicated by the die roll (1-6, as shown in the OUTDOOR SURVIVAL rules and on that board) and may make only one direction change from that direction. When exploring the referee should indicate which direction the party is lost in."
So the procedure for becoming lost is that the DM rolls at the start of the day, and if the players are lost, they move in a randomly determined direction, with only one 'hex face' turn allowed. I also force them to move their full movement for the day, which is part of the Outdoor Survival rules, but not mentioned in OD&D.
I feel this procedure is so much simpler than the later rules that required the DM to keep it secret that the players were traveling in the wrong direction and mentally rotate everything they are telling them.
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Post by Harbinger on Nov 12, 2021 13:15:32 GMT -6
Not quite on topic, but I love how the gem table is its own little mini-game when the party is counting their loot. You roll a d6 and on a 1, the gem is more valuable than thought.
10% chance of it being 1000 gp, then if you roll 6 1s in a row, it's worth 500,000 GP!
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Post by Harbinger on Jan 29, 2017 17:21:06 GMT -6
I'm pretty certain saving throws come from miniature war gaming and thus pre-date ability checks and such. There are a lot of effects that are save-or-die in miniature war gaming (catapults, cannon, etc). So when chain mail added wizards, dragons, medusa and such it was natural to have them use save-or-die attacks. The types of units would then determine the 'save-vs' type (breath, wands, petrify). When hero and super-heros are added, they naturally had to have different saving throw scores. So when this was brought into OD&D, it was natural to have save or die tables with target scores per level.
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Post by Harbinger on Dec 29, 2015 22:30:45 GMT -6
Player rolls, adds their class/level BAB number and tells DM total. DM mentally adds target's (descending) AC and if the sum is 20 or less, they hit. 20 or more, you mean ? Whoops. Was typing this while being pressured to finish up so the family could go out. 20 or more. Simple example: A fighter is +1 per level, so a 3rd level fighter is +3. A 3rd level fighter is trying to hit AC 5. Player rolls 11, 11+3 = 14, player tells DM "14" DM calculates 14 + AC 5 = 19. A miss. Player just has to remember to add 3 to every combat roll, DM just has to add the AC value. Very easy to use.
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Post by Harbinger on Dec 29, 2015 15:37:19 GMT -6
For me, the best system by far is Delta's Target 20. Player rolls, adds their class/level BAB number and tells DM total. DM mentally adds target's (descending) AC and if the sum is 20 or less more, they hit. Requires no mental gymnastics and you never have to add a number larger than 9. Really fast at the table. It is close enough to the OD&D attack matrix values that no one would really notice. www.superdan.net/gaming/oed/target20/Target20.pdf
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Post by Harbinger on Dec 29, 2015 15:19:44 GMT -6
All of the aforementioned modules are excellent, and I personally love B1 and B2.
For something in the 'modern' era, I highly recommend "Red Hand of Doom" (3.5e) as a great example of how to put together an 'big-bad invasion is coming' game. The campaign timeline moves forward whether the players act or not and there are a number of sub-adventures they can have before the attack. Their effectiveness in the sub-adventures affects how hard the city assault is. During the assault itself, there are a number of set scenes they can play out which again vary in difficulty depending on their actions previously.
It's all outrageously overpowered being 3.5e, but I'd use it as a template for how this type of campaign can be run.
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Post by Harbinger on Sept 29, 2015 12:34:05 GMT -6
Jumping very late into this discussion. This was the horrible mistake that D&D 4e made. To-hit, HP and AC all scaled with level. It required that all monsters had to have different versions to fight at different levels and combat tended to devolve into a slog-fest. As a nice side-effect, I convinced my group to abandon 4e for B/X and we haven't looked back. Now I look at 5e and think - nice system, but I'd never want to run it - too fiddly.
Keep AC capped so monsters are still dangerous at a large range of PC levels. HP increases to increase PC's staying power.
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Post by Harbinger on Jun 15, 2014 6:42:25 GMT -6
So, who says Orcs are green? Certainly not Tolkien. Or the cover of B2 and the Monster Manual. Orcs are most certainly not green.
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Post by Harbinger on Jun 11, 2014 22:14:22 GMT -6
All, I'm gearing up to start a domain establishment campaign and am going to use the map from Outdoor Survival. On a game-related note, can you tell us more about the campaign? Will it be along the lines described in the Underworld and Wilderness Adventures? I'd like to hear more about the campaign. It's going to be an adjunct to an existing monthly sandbox campaign that's been going on for 6 years. It's a little hard to describe the existing campaign as that has truly been a whirlwind of events through many different DMs and included armies of baphomet, ancient mysteries, a zombie apocalypse, a mega dungeon and high jinks on and under the sea and much much more. What I'm going to set up is a high-level exploration and domain management and war game using the ACKS and Domains at War rules. The players will also have lower level vassals with which they can do traditional hero stuff if they wish. I'm not good at making overland maps, and then I realized I had OS just sitting around. It's the perfect scale for an army campaign. I'll let you know how it goes.
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Post by Harbinger on Jun 10, 2014 14:54:01 GMT -6
Thanks folks! I live in an area where rivers flow mostly North to South, so this seemed unnatural. So I will have this untamed wilderness offer the river as an easy way to float goods downstream back to civilization.
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Post by Harbinger on Jun 9, 2014 13:31:49 GMT -6
All,
I'm gearing up to start a domain establishment campaign and am going to use the map from Outdoor Survival. One thing that I've always wondered on that map is - what way does the river flow? It seemed to me it's from the larger river to the North East of the map, which then splits in two and meanders SE and SW. The outdoor survival rules don't mention (plus, you're gonna die, so why bother?) But it could also be read as flowing in the opposite directions I normally wouldn't care much, but it has implications for the wider context into which I place the map.
Have you always read it the way I have?
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Post by Harbinger on Apr 10, 2014 21:13:06 GMT -6
d**n! I missed it. The blog is gone... time to go googling...
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Post by Harbinger on Apr 8, 2014 18:43:40 GMT -6
It's nice to see James posting again.
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Post by Harbinger on Mar 29, 2014 21:31:54 GMT -6
Hi, just wanted to check if anyone could say how far through shipping orders are things now? I'm not sure if I was a pre-order - I ordered a box set Dec 9th, 2012 and am still waiting to get my hands on it.
Thanks - Rob
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Post by Harbinger on Sept 14, 2013 21:59:57 GMT -6
I feel like this is being over-analyzed. Character ability varied by name level (hero, super-hero, magician, wizard, etc). There was a need to keep score to know when a player had enough points to increase a level. Hence experience points. They didn't have anything mechanical attached to them because level already did that, and was the right 'granularity' for associating abilities. XP is too fine grained to attach mechanics (ie. what needs 10000s of incremental differences)? Though maintenance costs - that's something that could use that level of granularity - and lo-and-behold, it's used for that! Just opinion.
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Post by Harbinger on Mar 29, 2013 14:42:13 GMT -6
I am genuinely interested in hearing from people who have tried re-starting from 1st level and found it didn't work for them. From my experience playing roughly 50 sessions or so with new characters required to start at 1st level, it has never actually become a problem. We've talked about having to change things when higher levels are reached, but it just keeps working.
I sometime feel that this is a problem that only exists in theory. In actual play XP-doubling makes it easy for characters to catch up, and your chance of surviving is better when there are higher level characters around.
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Post by Harbinger on Mar 28, 2013 18:11:59 GMT -6
If you're simply going to go to the woods and kill boars* to bump your new 1st level characters up to par with the rest of the party, why not just start them off at a higher level? Just in view of gaming time alone (of which I don't have much) this seems a waste. As I said I've tried this plenty of times, and any way I've seen this in action, it's not satisfying. The high-level players get bored, or new 1st level characters keep dying and never catch up, or the low-level characters stay away from trouble and leech XP while the rest of the party protects them (and the they get bored). If you want to prove your D&D player credentials then just have the whole party adventure in higher-level dungeons. It's not the starting level that I object to, it's level disparity in the party. I don't mind how players acquire appropriate level PCs, whether they make them up from scratch or take over henchmen. But I would never run games where new PCs are 3 or more levels behind the rest of the group. I still don't see why you would do this. * South Park WoW episode.I think perhaps it hasn't been an issue for our group because the higher level characters enjoy feeling powerful as they plow through lower level monsters. In fact the 6th level player tends to cower if he feels his character is in genuine danger - part of the reason he's stayed alive so long. Also the 'danger' of the level doesn't correlate with 'boredom' in our group. They don't really care what level they're on as long as there are interesting things to poke and prod. Obviously different groups have different dynamics. We enjoy the 'character building' aspects of being so vulnerable at 1st level. We find it makes for many memorable moments in the game.
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Post by Harbinger on Mar 24, 2013 12:20:49 GMT -6
The exponential increase of XP requirements to level mean that, for all intents and purposes, a low-level character adventuring with a high-level group will gain a level every session till he is caught up to within one level of the group. The overall effect of character death, then, is to slightly reduce the average level of the party. As it should, I would say. Yes, this is exactly what we've found. We have two 5th\6th level characters and the rest have died and are leveling up every 1 or 2 sessions and very quickly got to 3rd and 4th levels. I really would suggest trying 'start at 1st' sometime and see how it works at your table.
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Post by Harbinger on Feb 22, 2013 12:27:09 GMT -6
Hmmm. We play with characters starting at 1st level after death, but don't award XP based on 'share of treasure owned'. XP gets awarded equally when the PCs make it back to town regardless of how the physical treasure is divided. So the 'giving the 1st-level guy all the loot' hasn't ever come up.
Honestly, if you haven't tried having people restart at 1st level, I'd suggest giving it a try some time. In practice with our group it just hasn't been a problem - the party is hauling in so much XP per expedition that the 1st level guys are leveling up every 1-2 sessions, while everyone else stays at their current level.
However, we play a complete sandbox, so there are no real plot lines running that require a certain level of character. So your experience may differ.
Has anyone else tried the 're-start at 1st level' and found it didn't work? What were the reasons?
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Post by Harbinger on Feb 21, 2013 8:56:55 GMT -6
For our once-monthly campaign, we've been having characters re-start at level 1.
I've found that it's upsetting at the time the character dies, and for the first level. Once they get to 2nd level, they've done enough with their new character that they don't mind the lower level. I also hand out 100 XP per HD, as well as 1XP per GP, so advancement is pretty fast when you have a 1st level character traipsing around with 4th to 6th level characters.
And with the XP doubling each level, the character's levels smooth out pretty quickly.
I think perhaps it helps that the mid-level characters don't seem to be in any hurry to find bigger challenges, they just mow through lower-level stuff. In my mega-dungeon, they've only explored the 1st and 2nd level so far.
We've been talking about changing things levels get up higher that our current max which is 6th.
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Post by Harbinger on Aug 12, 2012 14:10:09 GMT -6
After deeply immersing myself in the OSR and gorging on all the fabulous rulesets and blog posts that tweak the rules one way or another, I broke through into a zen-like state where all the rules fell away and what I was left with was "The Campaign". All my focus is on running the campaign and rules are only introduced if the campaign requires it.
It's been really nice.
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Post by Harbinger on Aug 9, 2012 7:57:08 GMT -6
As an aside - one interesting take on the number appearing I've seen suggested is to use the wilderness number and apply it to the whole HD-appropriate dungeon level.
So if you encounter hobgoblins on wandering, you'll encounter a 'party and level appropriate' quantity, but then the DM can also create a lair on the HD equivalent level that has the wilderness amount of hobgoblins scattered about the level in groups of varying sizes to be encountered. Of course they will coordinate to defend their lair.
I use this on levels I haven't fleshed out yet to help me populate them - once the PCs encounter something on the wandering monster table, I build out the lair on the right level.
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Post by Harbinger on Apr 11, 2012 8:50:41 GMT -6
...I have one of those, and that's a brilliant idea. I'm going to try that next week and see how it works! I'd like to think that is why 10% was chosen. BTW, I tried this with my group and now everyone wears a helmet.
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Post by Harbinger on Apr 10, 2012 12:43:11 GMT -6
It's too bad I don't have my old 0-9,0-9 d20s anymore. Then if one of the PCs is not wearing a helm, I just roll two d20s, with one of them the designated 'helmet hit' roll. If it comes up '0' then I resolve the second die against AC9.
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Post by Harbinger on Mar 27, 2012 11:30:20 GMT -6
I like that there's a good mix here of 'OD&D scholars' who parse the text and debate semantics and intent, and 'old-school DMs' who patiently show everyone why the 3LBBs are actually very refined works of gaming and any rule has a reason for existing.
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Post by Harbinger on Feb 29, 2012 15:52:05 GMT -6
I personally will buy a set for no other reason than to tell WoTC there is demand for the old material.
But I'm with the rest of you. Through the OSR I've found 0e and that's the edition for me. I use the 1e DMG for all the cool stuff in the tables.
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Post by Harbinger on Feb 22, 2012 20:57:51 GMT -6
In Chainmail, the Wizard's fire ball or lightning bolt spells would kill any men or creatures which are struck by them, with the following exceptions:
Hero-types - Saved by a dice roll of 9 or better Super Hero - Saved by a dice roll of 6 or better Wraith - Saved by a dice roll of 7 or better Balrog - Saved by a dice roll of 6 or better
(Giants and Dragons come next and they are pushed back and cannot be killed by the spells)
Unstated by the rules but pretty obvious from the target numbers is that you roll 2d6.
As with most miniature games, every unit has its own special rules. So you won't find a generic rule for saving throws. That's probably why the categories for D&D's saving throws are so arbitrary - they just happened to be the types of instant death effects that Dave Arneson had in his campaign.
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Post by Harbinger on Feb 22, 2012 18:00:36 GMT -6
From reading Chainmail I gather that it a game without hit points, it provides a way for more powerful units to avoid death. And in D&D it ended up playing the same role but only for specific instant-death effects.
But I'd also be interested in hearing from those who 'was there'
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Post by Harbinger on Feb 21, 2012 8:20:44 GMT -6
Okay, so I have been running more numbers and I stumbled across something really interesting! As we all know the average result of rolling 1d6 is 3.5. Likewise the average result on 1d4 is 2.5 and on 1d8 it is 4.5. So here's the thing: the average when rolling 2d6 and keeping the highest is 4.47 or ~4.5. And the average result when rolling 2d6 and keeping the lowest is 2.52. So basically, averaged over time, you get almost identical results from forcing a player to roll 1d6 twice and take the max or min as you would from scaling the die type. Which I think is cool. Welcome to the world of neat'o mechanics! I've always liked using: - Magic User - take min of 2d6 - Cleric - d6 - Fighter - take max of 2d6 Or you could say 'light', 'medium', 'martial' weapon.
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Post by Harbinger on Feb 18, 2012 19:01:27 GMT -6
I still think we'll get an OD&D reprint for the 40th anniversary in 2014. I also think the base 5e game will look a lot like B/X so OSR material will be compatible.
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