Post by doc on Apr 24, 2010 16:07:11 GMT -6
I ran D@D this afternoon. Instead of the Blackmoor setting I ran a Thundarr the Barbarian game. Three players ran the Thundarr characters with a fourth player creating a brand new character. We played with the basic rules (two classes) and the characters were set at mid-level of experience (Hero).
The set-up was simple; the heroes had to brave a swamp full of mutated creatures and ratlike swamp folk to get to the tower of an evil sorcerer who is holding children of the local town's ruling class hostage. Inside they have to brave all sorts of traps, robots, and weird mutants to find the kids and escape before they attract the notice of the sorcerer.
I set it up so that there were a lot of stat tests (saving rolls) and chances or combat, but also so that they could sneak around and avoid combat when they could. Some things I found out:
Head-on combat can be very deadly, even for mid-level characters. It was very common for the characters to be overwhelmed by lesser creatures, even if they were only outnumbering the party by 2-1. Hit points tend to disappear very quickly and even a brief melee can be costly: Wear armor and fight at a distance!
Skills gained due to edcuation points can be easily abused by players. You have to keep an eye out to make sure that players don't choose a skill that could give them an unfair advantage if used over and over. That said, such skills turned out to be a great way to customize characters where there were only two classes available.
Magic is a fickle mistriss and ailing an endurance test is going to hurt a spellcaster of ANY level. The Ariel in our game failed her first save and was unconscious for an entire battle. She awoke just in time for the next fight, and promptly failed her save yet again.
Most importantly of all, never trust a smiling mok.
The game ran very smoothly and quickly with little need to check anythining but the combat matrix. It kind of reminded me of Talislanta more than anything else. In the end, the players freed the children but decided that rather than sneak out unnoticed they wanted to confront the sorcerer in his lair. Sadly they all were wiped out. There is no mercy in horse-shoes or Thundarr.
Doc
The set-up was simple; the heroes had to brave a swamp full of mutated creatures and ratlike swamp folk to get to the tower of an evil sorcerer who is holding children of the local town's ruling class hostage. Inside they have to brave all sorts of traps, robots, and weird mutants to find the kids and escape before they attract the notice of the sorcerer.
I set it up so that there were a lot of stat tests (saving rolls) and chances or combat, but also so that they could sneak around and avoid combat when they could. Some things I found out:
Head-on combat can be very deadly, even for mid-level characters. It was very common for the characters to be overwhelmed by lesser creatures, even if they were only outnumbering the party by 2-1. Hit points tend to disappear very quickly and even a brief melee can be costly: Wear armor and fight at a distance!
Skills gained due to edcuation points can be easily abused by players. You have to keep an eye out to make sure that players don't choose a skill that could give them an unfair advantage if used over and over. That said, such skills turned out to be a great way to customize characters where there were only two classes available.
Magic is a fickle mistriss and ailing an endurance test is going to hurt a spellcaster of ANY level. The Ariel in our game failed her first save and was unconscious for an entire battle. She awoke just in time for the next fight, and promptly failed her save yet again.
Most importantly of all, never trust a smiling mok.
The game ran very smoothly and quickly with little need to check anythining but the combat matrix. It kind of reminded me of Talislanta more than anything else. In the end, the players freed the children but decided that rather than sneak out unnoticed they wanted to confront the sorcerer in his lair. Sadly they all were wiped out. There is no mercy in horse-shoes or Thundarr.
Doc
