NA, % in Lair & Treasure Type

[Zulgyan]

I am finding this "stat trio" for monsters not very useful in many senses. % in Lair and Treasure Type are based in NA, a variable of numbers I never seem to be using. 30-300 Orcs? 1-6 Vampires? I can't see myself using that as guidelines for my games.

So... do you use this values and guidelines? How?

or do you totally ignore them? (my case now)

or do you have any alternative?

This caught my eye in another thread:

admin said:

Heck, the entire concept of treasure would probably be different in my homebrew. I probably would do something like d6*monster level*1000 GP for treasure.

Looks like an interesting start!

[busman]

I only ever used them as a measure of their commonality/social-economic structures.

Using Orcs vs Vampires (new game?), Orcs come in packs, are poor, and aren't afraid to set up a base of operations. This means you'll likely be taking the fight to them than stumbling upon them somewhere away from home. Comparatively, Vampires are probably solitary, if you can find their lair you'll be in good shape gold wise, but you'll most likely meet them away from home.

I never held myself to the actual numbers of just about anything other than the combat charts. It was all just inspiration in a compact form.

[coffee]

Number Appearing has a note which specifically states that it is primarily used in outdoor encounters. Then on the Treasure Type table, there's a note that such treasures are only found in the Lair.

So, if you're primarily running a dungeon, you can safely ignore these numbers. But if you want to put a lair in your dungeon, you have a place to go. Also, if you have an outdoor adventure (like the random wilderness adventures described, using the Outdoor Survival board), you can quickly roll up what the party finds.

At this point, part of me really wants to modify Jeff Rients's experience table so I can quickly create player characters of say 5th-10th level. Then run a wilderness adventure on the Outdoor Survival board, just like in the book. This would probably be at a convention or something, but it would show people that OD&D isn't just for dungeons.

Also, I think it would be a lot of fun. And after all, that's the whole point, isn't it?

[foster1941]

Coffee's got it right -- the number appearing, % in lair, and treasure type entries are all for wilderness encounters only: if an encounter with that type of monster comes up on the tables you roll to see how many of them there are, then you roll to see if the encounter occurs in/near their lair and if so you use the treasure type tables to see what goodies they have stored up there. If the encounter doesn't occur at the monster's lair then it's out wandering the wilderness (just like the players are) and doesn't have any treasure (in most cases; there are a few exceptions noted in the rules). Note that the wilderness encounter tables have no "balance" and even if you do encounter a weak monster it's likely to be in huge numbers (30-300 orcs, etc.), which makes the wilderness a very dangerous place for small parties of low to mid-level characters (and explains why there are such detailed rules for running away from stuff in the wilderness!).

In a dungeon environment none of this applies (which is why smart players will spend as much time in the dungeon and as little time in the wilderness as possible until they're high level and looking for suitable places to build their own castles).

[coffee]

foster1941 said:

(and explains why there are such detailed rules for running away from stuff in the wilderness!).

Something players seem to consistently ignore (at least in my experience...)

[Zulgyan]

So how would you rework this "stats" for the dungeon environment?

[ffilz]

What would be helpful for number appearing is the number that would constitute a reasonable random encounter for the level the creature is assumed to be. Of course it would be nice from my perspective to see creatures divided into levels that actually correspond to dungeon level, rather than groups of levels per the tables in the books.

%in lair could be used when creating a random dungeon population to decide if the monster lives in the room you are assigning it to, or if it's just passing through.

Treasure type could be nice to be more meaningful in a dungeon context.

Mostly though, I have always ignored these things. Oh, I guess sometimes we used them, but mostly ignored them.

Frank

[coffee]

zulgyan said:

So how would you rework this "stats" for the dungeon environment?

I wouldn't; it sounds like too much work. ;D

But if someone else wanted to, I'd suggest a sort of matrix for Number Appearing. Down the side could go the dungeon level (Monster's level -1, Level, Level +1, Level +2, that sort of thing). Across the top would be the number of characters in the party, as per the bottom of Vol III Page 11, which states:

A party of from 1-3 would draw the basic number of monsters, 4-6 would bring about twice as many, and so on.

Basically, if you have 8 characters you'd run into a different number of Goblins than if you had 4 characters.

You could then use the % in lair number as is, to determine if there is a lair nearby (assuming you are stocking the dungeon, and haven't already planned it all out). In a lair, the treasure type would be used.

And if they're not in a lair, then they'd only have incidental treasure, if any.


(Seems to me that Moldvay/Cook has a table like the one I'm describing here, but I can't swear to that. It's been a while since I've read them. At any rate, I can't take credit for the idea; I know I've seen it somewhere...)

[foster1941]

What TSR considered appropriate numbers appearing by monster type by dungeon level can be gleaned from the Monster and Treasure Assortments -- not a precise or exact formula but a general idea that's easy enough to interpolate and extrapolate from. See the big index I posted ages ago at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse.

Treasure by dungeon level is already in the rules (Vol. III, p. 7).

% in Lair in the dungeon is easy: if you've assigned a monster to a specific room that's its lair. If the monster is encountered as a wandering monster (or otherwise outside of its assigned room -- perhaps attracted by noise or a general alarm) then it's not in its lair

[busman]

Keep in mind that Gary expected LARGE groups of players (40-50!) to be playing in a single campaign, and expected a referee to player ratio of 1:20(!).

Plus henchmen and retainers!

[Zulgyan]

You should check out odd74.proboards76.com/index.c.cgi?board=adventures&action=display&thread=1203106304 for another interpretation of that.

[ffilz]

One thought I just had: I would not adjust the numbers of monsters in a random encounter for the number of PCs, though in writing up the dungeon and the encounter tables, I would try to determine what the expected party size is. If your party is too small, perhaps you should adventure on an easier level, or bring more henchmen.

I could see making the parts of level 1 that are closest to the entrance considerably easier.

Frank

[busman]

zulgyan said:

You should check out odd74.proboards76.com/index.c.cgi?board=adventures&action=display&thread=1203106304 for another interpretation of that.

I don't believe that they ran groups of 40 either, I do believe they most often ran groups larger than 5 (~5 has been my experience of group sizes of parties for 20 years now) and with henchmen and retainers for many people.

I mostly believe this because back when OD&D was first published this was still coming out of the miniatures/wargaming crowd. It is very common to see 20 people piled around a single miniatures wargaming sandtable at a con and everyone is participating in the same battle. I've done it myself.

Especially outdoors, which these numbers are geared towards, I would speculate it was a grand opportunity for these still wargamers to get their epic battles with dozens of troops to a side gaming needs fulfilled.

We know that a party as seen today would never dream to take on 300 Orcs, almost without consideration to their level. But, imagine a Lord and his retinue exiting from his small keep and taking on a field of Orcs? Yeah, I can totally see it.