ALIGNMENT: We get some more notes on Alignment, beginning with a chart that shows where many of the new monsters and character types fit. There's nothing out of the ordinary here, except to note that there are a lot of awesome monsters in this book. No surprises to be spoiled yet!
This is followed by a description of just what it means to be Chaotic, the general gist of which is that Chaotic characters and monsters don't work well together. Nothing earth-shattering here.
DETERMINATION OF ABILITIES:
Strength: In regular OD&D Strength gives no bonuses in combat. Greyhawk introduces a system where Fighters (and only Fighters) with a high score can gain bonuses to hit and damage, as well as carry more loot and smash doors more easily. Weaker characters have penalties to these, but they apply to every class.
And now we come to a most contentious rule: exceptional strength! Any fighter that rolls an 18 for Strength can then roll percentile dice to see if he is extra-super good. The score is then expressed as, for instance, 18(76). A character with a Strength of 18(00) gets +4 to hit and +6 to damage, which is just massive by OD&D standards - he'd automatically kill any normal man he struck. Exceptionally strong fighters can also knock down magically locked doors, which is an extra option I like.
Exceptional strength is one of those odd tacked on rules. It probably made sense at the time, but it sticks out now as a fairly awkward attempt to make the Fighter more viable in comparison to the Magic-User. Nevertheless, there's little cooler than having a Fighter with 18(00) - and I've seen a few in my day, regardless of the statistical improbability.
In campaign terms, the Adventurers Guild will start to include training that allows Fighters to better make use of their high Strength. However, intensified studies in other areas mean that weaker characters will now suffer penalties that they would not have before.
Intelligence: Magic-Users now get some limits imposed based on their Intelligence score. There's a maximum cap on the number of spells of each level that they can know, and also a minimum cap so that unlucky M-Us don't end up short-changed. There's a percentage chance to know any given spell, and I suppose that the M-U rolls this chance for each spell until he's tested for all of them and gotten over the minimum. In campaign terms it makes sense - as more spells come into common usage the M-Us can no longer be taught every one as their minds cannot handle the load. There's an element of luck to temper their power now, and I like that. Players might revolt, though...
There's also a minimum Intelligence score needed now to cast spells of 6th level or higher (as spells of level 7-9 are introduced later in the book). Again, the increased training areas at the Guild are taxing the teachers, and they can no longer take the extra time to teach the less intelligent students 6th level spells. The others weren't around before this rule came in, so no justification is necessary beyond them being too damn hard.
Dexterity is noted as the Prime Requisite for Thieves (and for those who've forgotten, that means a high score nets them an experience point bonus). They can swap 2 Int or 1 Wis for a point of Dex.
Fighters get another bonus that no-one else receives: they can use their Dexterity to dodge and parry, giving opponents a -1 penalty to hit rolls for each point of Dex over 14. Man, fighters are getting a good old boost here. It's too bad the Thief doesn't get these abilities as well, he could use them.
Wisdom: Clerics spells are noted as being divinely given, so they don't need to roll for spells known or any of that jazz. This confirms the existence of higher powers of some sort.
Constitution: We get a chart that shows hit point adjustments (they go up to +2 and +3 now), probability of surviving resurrection, and the probability of surviving spells like polymorph and being turned to stone. This replaces the system from OD&D, where a +1 to hit points was the best you could get, and there was a Chance of Surviving Adversity which was a bit more vague in its application. The upshot is that Greyhawk characters are bit hardier than their OD&D brethren.
We also get the classic limit on being raised from the dead - you can only do it as many times as you have Constitution points. This doesn't include being raised with a Wish, which I suppose is more potent magic than that of Clerics. In the unlikely event that it comes into play, the justification for the rules change will be that the gods will decree that mortals have been breaking the rules too much, and impose the limit.
There's nothing to note about Charisma, except that any Lawful Fighter with a score of 17 or above may opt to become a Paladin - but more on that below.
PALADINS: As noted earlier, any Lawful Fighter with a Charisma of 17 or higher may opt to be a Paladin when they create their character. They must always do Lawful deeds, because if they ever do anything Chaotic, that's it - the character isn't a Paladin any more, and he can never regain that status. It's tough being a champion of Law.
Paladins get a lot of goodies. Their ability to Lay on Hands once per day can either cure disease or heal 2 hit points per level, but only for others. And it doesn't really matter that they can't cure themselves, because they're immune to disease anyway. They get a +2 to all their saving throws, and as if that wasn't enough they can dispel evil once they hit 8th level. They also get detect evil at this level, and that's a much better thing than in later editions, where they get it from level 1. Detect evil can be a problematic spell, but it really only causes headaches at low level, I feel. By the time they hit 8th, the PCs have plenty of other ways to find out who the bad guys are.
The icing comes when your Paladin gets his sacred mitts on a Holy Sword, as it makes him virtually immune to magic. And it never stops for these lucky bastards - at any time they can get themselves an awesome horse with 5 Hit Dice that shares his abilities - if it dies, though, he has to wait ten years for another. But that's a 5 hit dice creature that you can take into combat with you. It would be a terror in a low level adventure, but thankfully horses can't be taken into dungeons.
And now the bad stuff - Paladins can only own four magic items (not counting armor, shield and up to four weapons), and they have to donate all the treasure they own save that necessary to pay upkeep on themselves, up to 200 troops and a "modest castle" worth no more than 200,000 gp. I can see those vague terms being stretched for sure, because a player's idea of supporting his own character can get pretty far out. And the Paladin has to give his gold to a legit charity or church - there's no passing his gold to the party cleric.
Paladins prefer to live with Lawful princes or patriarchs, trying to live in some Arthurian ideal I suppose. They only associate with Lawful characters, which could be a pain. Again, this may have worked in Gary's game with many players on tap who generally organised their own forays. In a modern game where it's the same bunch of guys meeting every week? Unfeasible. I won't drop it though - Paladins will be plenty rare, I feel.
Introducing Paladins to the game will be fun. I hope to do it when the first player rolls a Fighter with a 17 Charisma. That character will be approached in a dream by some great power of Law, and offered to become their champion in the mortal realm. If he accepts, then bam, we have the first Paladin in recent memory. If not, he goes about his business as a Fighter. It's likely, though, that this won't eventuate, and I will have to bestow the honour to an NPC.
Oh, and it ought to be noted that by the book, Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits can all be Paladins at this point. And Paladins advance at the same rate as regular Fighters.
NPCs: There's a quick note that retainers serving Chaotic characters all have lower Loyalty scores. It seems that they're all starting to subconsciously recognise the signs of a Chaotic now that the adventuring trade has been back in business for a while.
LEVELS AND XP REQUIRED: The XP table for Thieves is given, and as in later editions they advance really quickly. My gut feeling is that it won't be quickly enough to stop them being overshadowed.
Tomorrow we introduce new dice for rolling hit points, a new XP system, and a whole new upgrade of damage rolls.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
The Ultimate Sandbox: Supplement I - Greyhawk Part 1
And so we come to the first D&D supplement: Greyhawk. In many ways, this is where D&D becomes recognisably D&D. It sees the introduction of a lot of fiddly rules that would be carried forth into AD&D, as well as a whole host of new spells, new magic items, and new monsters, many of which were completely made up for Gary's home campaign. Whereas the OD&D boxed set was drawing on pulp fantasy literature and mythology for inspiration, this is where D&D begins drawing upon itself - the fruit of many hours of playing the game. It's one of the most historically significant additions, but it must be said that D&D before this supplement is a very different thing than it was after.
The cover, still in adorable beige, shows a warrior facing off against a somewhat stoned Beholder. Nevertheless, it's the innards of the book that are of more interest.
After a foreword by Gary explaining that you'll need the D&D boxed set to use this product, we delve right in with some additions to the existing classes, as well as a couple of new classes.
It's briefly noted that the Fighting Man now gets some melee bonuses from having high ability scores, and that certain Lawful fighters can become Paladins; but more on those later.
The Thief is introduced! The four iconic D&D classes are now here. I've always been a big fan of the thief, even though it's by far weaker than the other classes, with its class abilities always outstripped by magic. Doesn't matter, I love the archetype and find it the most fun class to play.
The first thing we discover is that Thieves can't be Lawful - and in such a profession this restriction is fair enough. Lawful characters can hire them, but only for one-off missions with a Lawful purpose.
In terms of abilities, Thieves can use magic daggers and swords, but no other weapons. They can only wear leather armor, and no shields are allowed. They can't cast spells like a Magic-User, but at 10th level they can cast those Magic-User spells found on scrolls. Spells of 7th level or above have a 10% chance of being reversed, and with spells that powerful some very nasty effects are bound to occur.
The thief abilities listed are a bit more specific than they would later become: open locks by picking or foiling magical enclosures, remove small trap devices, listen for noise behind closed doors, move with great stealth, filch items and pick pockets, hide in shadows, strike silently from behind, and climb nearly sheer surfaces. In addition, after 3rd level they can puzzle out written languages 80% of the time. I like the way these abilities are worded here - they give a better picture of what exactly was the intent of each ability, what they can be used for as well as what they cannot.
The backstab ability grants a thief +4 to hit and double damage when striking from behind. He gets an extra multiple for every 4 levels gained after the 1st - so at 5th level he's doing triple damage.
Climbing Walls has a percent chance to fail - 13% at 1st level, and 1% lower per level gained. Which makes this a genuinely useful ability with only a small chance of failure from the beginning. It's pretty much the same ability as it is in AD&D, but it's expressed in reverse - here you get the chance for failure, and there you get the chance for success.
The other abilities all have percentage chances to succeed that increase with levels gained, but the tables aren't shown until later. Many people think that these abilities preclude the other classes from performing these tasks, but that's not the case. Just because the Thief can Hide in Shadows doesn't mean that the Fighter can't try to hide as well - it just means that the Thief needs nothing more than a dark shadow to hide in, something beyond the Fighter's capabilities. It's best to think of these abilities as extra things the Thief can do, rather than abilities the other classes can't do.
Oh, and all the races can become thieves and advance without limit. I guess even Gary recognised how weak the class was, and figured this rule wouldn't unbalance the game. It also means that the Thieves' Guild in my campaign isn't so prejudiced against non-humans as the other guilds, which makes sense for such unscrupulous folk - they'll use whoever has the talent.
As for how i will introduce the class, after a few sessions I plan to drop some hints about the existence of a Thieves' Guild, and maybe have a few members start prying into the affairs of the PCs. The thieves will have heard that there's treasure to be had in Castle Greyhawk again, and eventually they will petition for membership in the Adventurer's Guild, possibly with some opposition from the Clerics of Law. Perhaps the Thieves will have to find the Crown, Orb or Sceptre of the Clerics to gain admittance? The PCs could come in here, but whether they accept the quest or not it will be fulfilled by somebody, as I really want Thieves in the game.
DWARVES: Gary must have realised that he never described the races in the original books, so now we get the physical details given to us - Dwarves are four feet tall, stocky with broad shoulders, they weigh about 150 pounds, and their skin is either tan, brown or grey. (Grey? That's a new one on me.) There are three types of Dwarves - Hill, Mountain, and Burrowers (which are actually Gnomes, which canonizes these as the same species).
Dwarves with a high Strength (17 or 18) can now progress to 7th or 8th level as Fighting-Men. I guess pressure from within the Adventurer's Guild is causing them to lessen some of the restrictions.
There are now Dwarven Clerics, though never as players. They can advance to 7th level, and heal and resurrect other Dwarves. They are also Fighters, which means the Dwarves have their very own religion based on kicking ass. I like to play Dwarven homelands as highly reclusive, so their Clerics not venturing out to foreign lands fits this nicely.
Dwarves can multiclass as Fighters and Thieves, splitting their XP between the two. It's stated that 'no bonuses for abilities above the normal are then given' - I take this to mean that they don't get the XP bonuses for having high stats. Otherwise the only restriction is that they have to wear leather armour when using their Thief abilities. This is a completely different system to that used by Elves in OD&D - at this point I will probably have Elves switch over to this new system.
Although Chainmail had given them the ability, Dwarves in D&D are now explicitly stated to be able to see in the dark with Infravision, being able to spot monsters up to 60 feet away. I'm still not going to let it work in Castle Greyhawk, though.
ELVES: Elves are at least 5 feet tall, and slim - they weigh about 120 pounds. Their skin is fair, and there are three types: wood, high, and meadow, with fairies being noted after - I believe this implies that Meadow Elves are the Fairies we have seen earlier. This synchs up pretty well with what's already been established, though I think that this is the first mention of High Elves - they'll start visiting the City of Greyhawk regularly at about this time.
Like Dwarves, Elves with high Strength can stretch the level limits by one or two as Fighters, and the same goes for high Intelligence and Magic-Users. There's pressure on those racists in the Adventurers Guild all round.
Elves also have their own Clerics, who can get to 6th level but only interact with their own kind (snobs). They're all Fighter/Cleric/Magic-Users, but are limited to 6th as M-Us. Still pretty nasty, though.
Elven Thieves can either be a single class Thief, or act as Fighter/Magic-User/Thieves. XP is split evenly, much like the Dwarven Fighter/Thief. Presumably the bonus XP from having high stats isn't gained, though it's not stated. They're also limited to leather armour when using Thief abilities.
Elves also have Infravision, and can see monsters in the dark up to 60 feet away.
HOBBITS: Not much to be said for good old Hobbits, I'm afraid - simply that they can be multi-class Fighter/Thieves.
HALF-ELVES: Half-elven and half-human, as the name suggests. They can act as Fighter/Magic-Users, limited to 6th level in each, though they are able to stretch the boundaries with high stats as noted above. Like elves they get a bonus to spot secret doors, but they don't get the elven combat bonuses against Orcs and the like. They speak the same languages as Elves. Half-Elves don't have their own group of Clerics, which is fair enough - they aren't really a numerous race unto themselves. However, if a Half-Elf has a Wisdom of 13 or higher he can add Cleric to his bag of tricks (limited to 4th level, with no going higher), getting the advantages of being a Fighter/Magic-User/Cleric.
Half-Elves can't be Chaotic, and they can't even associate with Chaotic creatures. Must be a boring old life, but it matches up with the alignment restrictions for Elves.
Tomorrow we take another quick look at alignment, see what fiddly bits get added to ability scores, and witness the introduction of the Paladin.
The cover, still in adorable beige, shows a warrior facing off against a somewhat stoned Beholder. Nevertheless, it's the innards of the book that are of more interest.
After a foreword by Gary explaining that you'll need the D&D boxed set to use this product, we delve right in with some additions to the existing classes, as well as a couple of new classes.
It's briefly noted that the Fighting Man now gets some melee bonuses from having high ability scores, and that certain Lawful fighters can become Paladins; but more on those later.
The Thief is introduced! The four iconic D&D classes are now here. I've always been a big fan of the thief, even though it's by far weaker than the other classes, with its class abilities always outstripped by magic. Doesn't matter, I love the archetype and find it the most fun class to play.
The first thing we discover is that Thieves can't be Lawful - and in such a profession this restriction is fair enough. Lawful characters can hire them, but only for one-off missions with a Lawful purpose.
In terms of abilities, Thieves can use magic daggers and swords, but no other weapons. They can only wear leather armor, and no shields are allowed. They can't cast spells like a Magic-User, but at 10th level they can cast those Magic-User spells found on scrolls. Spells of 7th level or above have a 10% chance of being reversed, and with spells that powerful some very nasty effects are bound to occur.
The thief abilities listed are a bit more specific than they would later become: open locks by picking or foiling magical enclosures, remove small trap devices, listen for noise behind closed doors, move with great stealth, filch items and pick pockets, hide in shadows, strike silently from behind, and climb nearly sheer surfaces. In addition, after 3rd level they can puzzle out written languages 80% of the time. I like the way these abilities are worded here - they give a better picture of what exactly was the intent of each ability, what they can be used for as well as what they cannot.
The backstab ability grants a thief +4 to hit and double damage when striking from behind. He gets an extra multiple for every 4 levels gained after the 1st - so at 5th level he's doing triple damage.
Climbing Walls has a percent chance to fail - 13% at 1st level, and 1% lower per level gained. Which makes this a genuinely useful ability with only a small chance of failure from the beginning. It's pretty much the same ability as it is in AD&D, but it's expressed in reverse - here you get the chance for failure, and there you get the chance for success.
The other abilities all have percentage chances to succeed that increase with levels gained, but the tables aren't shown until later. Many people think that these abilities preclude the other classes from performing these tasks, but that's not the case. Just because the Thief can Hide in Shadows doesn't mean that the Fighter can't try to hide as well - it just means that the Thief needs nothing more than a dark shadow to hide in, something beyond the Fighter's capabilities. It's best to think of these abilities as extra things the Thief can do, rather than abilities the other classes can't do.
Oh, and all the races can become thieves and advance without limit. I guess even Gary recognised how weak the class was, and figured this rule wouldn't unbalance the game. It also means that the Thieves' Guild in my campaign isn't so prejudiced against non-humans as the other guilds, which makes sense for such unscrupulous folk - they'll use whoever has the talent.
As for how i will introduce the class, after a few sessions I plan to drop some hints about the existence of a Thieves' Guild, and maybe have a few members start prying into the affairs of the PCs. The thieves will have heard that there's treasure to be had in Castle Greyhawk again, and eventually they will petition for membership in the Adventurer's Guild, possibly with some opposition from the Clerics of Law. Perhaps the Thieves will have to find the Crown, Orb or Sceptre of the Clerics to gain admittance? The PCs could come in here, but whether they accept the quest or not it will be fulfilled by somebody, as I really want Thieves in the game.
DWARVES: Gary must have realised that he never described the races in the original books, so now we get the physical details given to us - Dwarves are four feet tall, stocky with broad shoulders, they weigh about 150 pounds, and their skin is either tan, brown or grey. (Grey? That's a new one on me.) There are three types of Dwarves - Hill, Mountain, and Burrowers (which are actually Gnomes, which canonizes these as the same species).
Dwarves with a high Strength (17 or 18) can now progress to 7th or 8th level as Fighting-Men. I guess pressure from within the Adventurer's Guild is causing them to lessen some of the restrictions.
There are now Dwarven Clerics, though never as players. They can advance to 7th level, and heal and resurrect other Dwarves. They are also Fighters, which means the Dwarves have their very own religion based on kicking ass. I like to play Dwarven homelands as highly reclusive, so their Clerics not venturing out to foreign lands fits this nicely.
Dwarves can multiclass as Fighters and Thieves, splitting their XP between the two. It's stated that 'no bonuses for abilities above the normal are then given' - I take this to mean that they don't get the XP bonuses for having high stats. Otherwise the only restriction is that they have to wear leather armour when using their Thief abilities. This is a completely different system to that used by Elves in OD&D - at this point I will probably have Elves switch over to this new system.
Although Chainmail had given them the ability, Dwarves in D&D are now explicitly stated to be able to see in the dark with Infravision, being able to spot monsters up to 60 feet away. I'm still not going to let it work in Castle Greyhawk, though.
ELVES: Elves are at least 5 feet tall, and slim - they weigh about 120 pounds. Their skin is fair, and there are three types: wood, high, and meadow, with fairies being noted after - I believe this implies that Meadow Elves are the Fairies we have seen earlier. This synchs up pretty well with what's already been established, though I think that this is the first mention of High Elves - they'll start visiting the City of Greyhawk regularly at about this time.
Like Dwarves, Elves with high Strength can stretch the level limits by one or two as Fighters, and the same goes for high Intelligence and Magic-Users. There's pressure on those racists in the Adventurers Guild all round.
Elves also have their own Clerics, who can get to 6th level but only interact with their own kind (snobs). They're all Fighter/Cleric/Magic-Users, but are limited to 6th as M-Us. Still pretty nasty, though.
Elven Thieves can either be a single class Thief, or act as Fighter/Magic-User/Thieves. XP is split evenly, much like the Dwarven Fighter/Thief. Presumably the bonus XP from having high stats isn't gained, though it's not stated. They're also limited to leather armour when using Thief abilities.
Elves also have Infravision, and can see monsters in the dark up to 60 feet away.
HOBBITS: Not much to be said for good old Hobbits, I'm afraid - simply that they can be multi-class Fighter/Thieves.
HALF-ELVES: Half-elven and half-human, as the name suggests. They can act as Fighter/Magic-Users, limited to 6th level in each, though they are able to stretch the boundaries with high stats as noted above. Like elves they get a bonus to spot secret doors, but they don't get the elven combat bonuses against Orcs and the like. They speak the same languages as Elves. Half-Elves don't have their own group of Clerics, which is fair enough - they aren't really a numerous race unto themselves. However, if a Half-Elf has a Wisdom of 13 or higher he can add Cleric to his bag of tricks (limited to 4th level, with no going higher), getting the advantages of being a Fighter/Magic-User/Cleric.
Half-Elves can't be Chaotic, and they can't even associate with Chaotic creatures. Must be a boring old life, but it matches up with the alignment restrictions for Elves.
Tomorrow we take another quick look at alignment, see what fiddly bits get added to ability scores, and witness the introduction of the Paladin.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Ultimate Sandbox: The Strategic Review #1
This was the first magazine published by TSR, and the precursor to Dragon. It comes in at a whopping six pages, but they manage to pack a lot of stuff in. I'll be ignoring the articles that don't pertain to D&D and my campaign - for a more thorough treatment, check out this link.
TSR News notes that D&D supplement books are a high priority, and there will be at least one out before GenCon. They never would have believed how much stuff comes out these days.
CREATURE FEATURE: We get our first new monster: the Mind Flayer! It's a classic right off the bat. They are described as super-intelligent humanoids with tentacle mouths that eat brains. If a tentacle hits it will draw the victims brain out in a few rounds, leaving the victim very dead. On top of that there's the mind blast, which has a range of effects from death, insanity, stunning, and putting the victim in a coma. It's more effective against the very stupid and the very smart, less so against those with average Intelligence. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be exceptional! Magic-Users and Clerics are slightly more resistant than others.
It's also noted that the Helm of Telepathy provides some resistance to the Mind Blast, and can be used to stun the Mind Flayer in return.
You really can't beat Mind Flayers. They work as masterminds, and you can use them as arbitrary villains because they have that whole "unknowable alien" thing going on. It's easy to give them minions of the mind-controlled variety. Plus, they just look cool. And thankfully there's nothing here that's contradicted later on. They're the first new monster introduced for the game, and that means they'll be the first new monster to show up in the dungeons of my campaign as well.
CASTLE & CRUSADE: Gary gives us an article on Chainmail weapons, mostly explaining why the spear isn't all that effective in the game and in history. It ends with an ominous paragraph where Gary promises a complete run-down on the Pole Arm next issue. The first, and by no means the last...
SOLO DUNGEON ADVENTURES: This article is a series of charts and tables that can be used to create dungeons on the fly for solo play. It turned up later in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide with a few changes and more detail, but this one works perfectly well.
It's not much use to me as is, but I'm toying with the idea of a dungeon that is completely and utterly random. I'll call it The Pit of Ultimate Chaos, or something equally cheeseball. Every time the players enter it will be different than it was before. It'll be a bitch to run, but fun as well. The only constants will be a few special rooms on each level, but the locations of those will always be different for obvious reasons. I'm even toying with the idea of randomising the levels every time the PCs switch floors, so that if they go down to level 2, then back up to level 1 it will all be different and they'll be hopelessly lost... But probably not. It's a little too punishing.
Well, that was quick! (Consider it a gift after yesterday's behemoth.) Tomorrow, not so much, as I'll be starting with Supplement I: Greyhawk, and the many goodies and nasties contained therein.
TSR News notes that D&D supplement books are a high priority, and there will be at least one out before GenCon. They never would have believed how much stuff comes out these days.
CREATURE FEATURE: We get our first new monster: the Mind Flayer! It's a classic right off the bat. They are described as super-intelligent humanoids with tentacle mouths that eat brains. If a tentacle hits it will draw the victims brain out in a few rounds, leaving the victim very dead. On top of that there's the mind blast, which has a range of effects from death, insanity, stunning, and putting the victim in a coma. It's more effective against the very stupid and the very smart, less so against those with average Intelligence. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be exceptional! Magic-Users and Clerics are slightly more resistant than others.
It's also noted that the Helm of Telepathy provides some resistance to the Mind Blast, and can be used to stun the Mind Flayer in return.
You really can't beat Mind Flayers. They work as masterminds, and you can use them as arbitrary villains because they have that whole "unknowable alien" thing going on. It's easy to give them minions of the mind-controlled variety. Plus, they just look cool. And thankfully there's nothing here that's contradicted later on. They're the first new monster introduced for the game, and that means they'll be the first new monster to show up in the dungeons of my campaign as well.
CASTLE & CRUSADE: Gary gives us an article on Chainmail weapons, mostly explaining why the spear isn't all that effective in the game and in history. It ends with an ominous paragraph where Gary promises a complete run-down on the Pole Arm next issue. The first, and by no means the last...
SOLO DUNGEON ADVENTURES: This article is a series of charts and tables that can be used to create dungeons on the fly for solo play. It turned up later in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide with a few changes and more detail, but this one works perfectly well.
It's not much use to me as is, but I'm toying with the idea of a dungeon that is completely and utterly random. I'll call it The Pit of Ultimate Chaos, or something equally cheeseball. Every time the players enter it will be different than it was before. It'll be a bitch to run, but fun as well. The only constants will be a few special rooms on each level, but the locations of those will always be different for obvious reasons. I'm even toying with the idea of randomising the levels every time the PCs switch floors, so that if they go down to level 2, then back up to level 1 it will all be different and they'll be hopelessly lost... But probably not. It's a little too punishing.
Well, that was quick! (Consider it a gift after yesterday's behemoth.) Tomorrow, not so much, as I'll be starting with Supplement I: Greyhawk, and the many goodies and nasties contained therein.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Ultimate Sandbox: OD&D Round-Up
This post details how the campaign looks at the moment, after close scrutiny of the OD&D boxed set and Chainmail. Much of the stuff here is extrapolated from offhand comments in the rules. The only thing that has been completely made up by me is the Adventurers' Guild. If you see something and wonder where I got it from, feel free to ask, because I've got the answers.
Be warned, though - this is a lengthy one.
RULES:
The rules used will be straight from OD&D, the original three booklet set from 1974, with modifications from Chainmail. There are several things that are open to interpretation in these rules, and they are listed below:
Player characters reroll their hit points at the beginning of every session - some days they feel great, and other days awful.
Elves must pick what class they will play as at the start of every session, and abide by all the rules pertaining to that class. The only exception is that they can wear magic armor and still function as Magic-users.
The 'system shock' roll applies not only to the usual things such as resurrection and polymorph, but also to being paralyzed - there's a chance that such a trauma might stop the heart of weaker characters.
In addition, the following rules will be imported from Chainmail:
Turn Sequence
Movement Rules
Terrain Effects
Fatigue (but only for the first session in the campaign, until the characters become used to adventuring)
Specific Missile Fire rules
Morale
Catapults and cannons
Random Weather
First Strike rules for melee
Parrying
Mounted Combat
Jousting
Special abilities for Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits and other monsters
Special Abilities for Heroes and Superheroes, and Wizards. Mostly this involves various bonuses to morale.
WORLD OF GREYHAWK:
The World of Greyhawk is currently at a level of society and technology equivalent to the Middle Ages of Earth. It consists mainly of the Great Kingdom. In a bog nearby is the weird enclave of Blackmoor, lying between the Great Kingdom and the fearsome Egg of Coot. The City of Blackmoor is a small village, a one-horse town. The City of Greyhawk is much larger, and detailed further below.
The world is flat, and ships can sail off the edge. The wilderness is generally an unexplored land dotted with cities and castles. These castles may be inhabited by any number of creatures fell or fair, but are most always ruled by some powerful character. Somewhere in the world there is a primordial swamp filled with dinosaurs. Elsewhere there is a mountain range that is home to a number of prehistoric mammals. There is also at least one forest which is home to many magical creatures such as centaurs and unicorns.
There is a common language that is known and spoken by most humans throughout the continent. Every other race that can speak also has its own language, and 20% of them can also speak the common tongue. In addition to this there are alignment tongues, special languages that were passed down to mortals by the primal forces of the universe. A creature aligned with Law that is able to speak will possess inherent knowledge of this language, and the same is true for each of the other alignments. The alignment tongues are now mostly reserved for ritual and prayer, but they are also frequently used by secret cabals and sects, and religious extremists who would never sully their tongues with less divine speech.
An ancient civilization once spanned the continent. They are known to have embalmed their dead, and that is why mummies are so prevalent in dungeons the world over. Their language was once used to categorize monsters in a semi-scientific manner. That language survives in the name of the Red Dragon: Draco Conflagratio, or Draco Horribilis. It may also be the same language that gave us Chimera as a category of monster.
There is a group known as Rangers, descended from an ancient line of kings, who patrol the borders of civilization and protect it from evil monsters.
There are also Witches in the world. If a male character is captured by one, he will either be turned into a pig or kept as her lover, depending upon his Charisma. Some are ugly hags, and others are beautiful.
Somewhere in the world is a society of Amazon warriors whose traditional battle dress is little more than boots and a loincloth.
There is a thriving slave trade, fuelled by Bandits, Pirates, and others of their ilk.
Electrum is a valuable metal, but its exact value depends upon who you are dealing with. Most value it at half the price of gold, but there are others who believe it is sacred, and give the metal double gold's value.
CITY OF GREYHAWK:
The City of Greyhawk is large, with bazaars, inns, taverns, shops, temples, and a risky Thieves Quarter.
There is an Adventurer's Guild in the city, and this is the only place where the PCs may receive training. There are three sub-guilds that unite to form this organization: the Guild of Fighting-Men, the Guild of Magic-Users, and the Guild of Clerics. The Guild Elders claim that they are incapable of training demi-humans to the same level as humans, but there is a widespread belief that this is just a case of prejudice - the Guild is completely ruled by humans.
The Guild bestows specific titles to those that progress through their class. For example, Fighting-Men begin as Veterans, and when they progress to the next rank they become Swordsmen. Each of the classes has a unique progression of titles.
Beneath the Guild is a strange circular portal, surrounded by hundreds of empty slots. Each slot corresponds to a certain key, and when each is activated the portal has a different destination. Some of these destinations include Mars and Blackmoor, but the keys are all lost besides one or two.
The guild also runs a service whereby adventurers can name a beneficiary of their wealth and items, often a relative. The guild charges a fee of 10% of the goods transferred.
The following Guilds and occupations also operate in the city: Alchemists, Blacksmiths (including Armorers), Assassins, Animal Trainers, Engineers, Sages, Seamen (including Ship Captains), Spies and Men-at-Arms.
There is plenty of untamed wilderness near the city, and a large portion of it resembles the board from Outdoor Survival. This wilderness is ripe for conquest by the PCs, who may use it to build their own castles, but many areas have already been claimed by NPCs with castles of their own.
The lands around are lawless, and so the various humanoid types, especially Orcs, Ogres and Giants, are especially effective when they launch raids, possessing great hoards of treasure.
CASTLE GREYHAWK:
Castle Greyhawk is a huge ruined pile, a vast castle built by a mad wizard who is also an insane genius.
The dungeon beneath has over a dozen levels in succession downwards, with more than that branching off at various points. At least two levels are under construction at any time. Included within the dungeons are a museum from another age, an underground lake, a series of caverns filled with giant fungi, a bowling alley for 20' tall giants, an arena of evil and some crypts. In addition the tunnels often change their configuration from one visit to the next, and there are various teleporters and strange corridors that make mapping the place very difficult.
The castle and dungeon itself seems to hinder the PCs; monsters inside can always see in the dark, but the PCs and their allies cannot. In addition, doors that are always stuck for PCs, and always swing closed on them, open easily for monsters.
There's something down in the dungeons with a demonic bearded face on it.
OTHER DUNGEONS NEAR GREYHAWK:
Somewhere in a dungeon near Greyhawk there is a special iron golem that can only be killed by the very weapons that it guards. It has a fiery breath, a poison sword, and a whip of cockatrice feathers that can turn its victims to stone. Though many tales about it have been told, its location is unknown to most.
There is another dungeon near the City of Greyhawk. It has ten levels, and is six levels deep (as can be seen in the cross-section in D&D Vol. 3). The bottom level is dominated by a huge cavern. One of the 5th levels will include the sample dungeon level from Vol. 3. Level 1 will feature details from the sample of play in Vol. 3, notably a room with 6 gnolls guarding thousands of coins and a pair of Elven Boots.
RACES:
The most common civilised races are Men, Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits.
Dwarves and Gnomes share a great affinity, and may be different strains of the same species. Dwarves have a history of constant war with Goblins, and the same applies between Gnomes and Kobolds.
There are two general types of Elves that live in the world - wood elves and meadow elves. Though most Elves live on the same plane as the other races, many have retreated from the world to live in the Faerie Realm, and are known as Fairies. Elves share many of the same habitats as Orcs, Hobgoblins and Gnolls, and battle frequently with all of them. Elven warriors that remain in their homelands are all outfitted with Elven Cloaks and Boots. Those who leave to pursue a life of adventure are not openly shunned, but these traditional garments are denied them.
Elves are a race whose power is on the wane - they are a shadow of their former selves. Part of this waning means that they are now able to grow beards.
Dwarves and Elves each have their own homelands. Among humans they are referred to as "Dwarf-land" and "Elf-land".
MONSTERS:
Common Dungeon Monsters: As shown in the Monster Level Tables in Vol. 3.
Other Dungeon Monsters: These monsters are occasionally encountered in dungeons, though not very often. They are: Titans, Cyclopses, Juggernauts, Living Statues, Salamanders, Gelatinous Cubes, Golems, Giant Crabs, Giant Leeches, Giant Octopi, Crocodiles, Giant Squids, Pterodactyls, Cyborgs, Robots, Androids, Shadows and Dopplegangers. It is not known from where the Cyborgs, Robots and Androids come from.
Common Underwater Monsters: Mermen, Nixies, Dragon Turtles, Giant Leeches, Crocodiles, Giant Crocodiles, Giant Snakes, Giant Octopi, Giant Squids, Giant Crabs, Giant Fish
The following notes show how some monsters differ to what is in the rules:
Wraiths grow weaker when they venture forth from the dark demesnes; their level draining touch is reduced to that of paralysis, and this is how they act when fought in mass combat. Wights react in a similar fashion.
Zombies, regardless of whether they are encountered on the battlefield or in a dungeon, are immune to missile fire and can paralyze their opponents with a touch as cold as the grave.
The ghouls in dungeons occur naturally, though sages are as yet unsure how. Those found on the battlefield are created and strengthened with dark magic, and are immune to missile fire.
Spectres are also occasionally referred to as 'Nazgul', though the origin of this term is shrouded in mystery.
Trolls and Ogres are believed by sages to be a related species, though there is little evidence to support this supposition.
The dragons that venture forth to fight in mass combat are generally more vital than their dungeon dwelling brethren, who spend most of their days sleeping on piles of treasure. As such, they have no limit upon the number of times they can use their breath weapon. The current wave of dragons being encountered are the youngest generations, which age more quickly than did their ancestors, and are much less potent. Rumours persist that the ancient dragons yet live, slumbering in the bowels of the earth, and that they will awaken one day soon.
The Purple Worm is often called the Purple or Mottled Dragon. It is believed to be the result of a dragon that has no treasure hoard to sleep upon. They lurk everywhere, just below the surface of the earth.
Each type of Elemental can only be summoned once per day. This is a magical precaution against incursions from the elemental planes; the elemental summoning spell seals the plane behind the summoned elemental, and such is the strength of that seal that it cannot be opened again until the next day. Magic-Users are working to weaken it, but with little success so far.
The word Chimera was once used as a group name for strange monsters made up from parts of others - Manticores, Wyverns, etc. Eventually the creatures were given individual names, but the name Chimera stuck with the beast with three heads (lion, goat and dragon).
Every Goblin tribe has a King, who claims to be the one true king of the goblin race.
As strange as it may seem, the sorcerous interbreeding of Gnomes and Trolls resulted in the hyena-headed race known as Gnolls. Sages are still baffled.
Though Lycanthropy is a curse that can be passed to many humanoids, the various types of were-creatures are each a race unto themselves. How they feel about their cursed brethren is as yet undetermined.
Efreet reside in the fabled City of Brass.
Orcs are so common that they are freely available to hire as foot soldiers in large numbers.
Different kinds of Men can be found in any habitat. The same goes for all of the evil humanoids, including Trolls and Giants, as well as Demi-Humans and Ents.
Most cities in Greyhawk are built on the foundations of ancient ruins and graveyards, and as such encounters with undead may happen in certain city areas.
The presence of Cavemen suggests that the Men of Greyhawk evolved along similar lines to those of Earth.
MAGIC:
The Adventurers Guild supplies all of its students with spellbooks. They receive one per spell level, and each book contains all of the spells commonly in use. Magic-Users receive books full of magic spells, and Clerics receive Prayer Books with the sacred forms and rituals required to contact the forces of Law and Chaos. The only spells commonly available are those listed in Vol. 1 of the OD&D boxed set.
The only Magic Items that have so far been regularly discovered are those listed in Vol. 2 of the OD&D boxed set.
All Magic Swords possess some form of intelligence. In ancient times they were bound with the spirits of the living, and to this day they retain some sort of sentience. Some of these swords have minds that are slowly dying, while others are as vital as ever.
The following Artifacts are known to be somewhere in the vicinity of the City of Greyhawk: a Teleportation Machine (the portal beneath the Adventurers Guild); a Crown, Orb and Sceptre for each of the three classes (Fighting-Man, Magic-User and Cleric); and the Stone Crystalization Projector. The Crowns, Orbs and Sceptres were once held by the most powerful guild members of each class, but the Guild has dwindled of late, and these items were stolen by a thief and lost within the depths of Castle Greyhawk. The Stone Crystalization Projector fires a ray that will turn anyone it hits to stone (with no saving throw), but its whereabouts are unknown.
NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS:
Xylarthen would have been better suited as a Cleric, but became a Magic-User instead. He is a member of the Guild, and may be available for the PCs to adventure with.
His statistics are: Strength 6, Intelligence 11, Wisdom 13, Constitution 12, Dexterity 9, Charisma 8. He has 70 gold pieces and 0 experience points.
RELIGION:
Law and Chaos are the fundamental forces of reality, and most creatures are aligned with one or the other. Some are neutral, not caring which side wins the cosmic struggle.
Clerics do not serve specific deities, but devote themselves to either Law or Chaos. The cross is a potent symbol of Law used by its devotees.
Many Magic-Users believe that there are no great forces of Law or Chaos, and that Clerics have merely found some other method of tapping into the same arcane energies that they themselves use. Clerics grow heated at this suggestion, and as such there is a great rivalry between the Clerics' Guild and the Magic-Users' Guild, to the point where someone of one class will not be permitted to switch to the other.
On a similar note, the Guild of Sages is highly protective of the niche occupied by its members, and resents that Clerics and Magic-Users often encroach on that territory - especially as their divinations are usually more reliable. As such its members do not hire out to these classes.
THE PLANES and OTHER WORLDS:
There is a spell that Magic-Users can cast to obtain knowledge from beings on "higher planes". There are 8 planes so far accessible through this spell, numbered 3 to 10 (the first plane being the material, and the second the Astral). These planes are levels of Hell, and it is demons who answer the questions - the higher the plane contacted the more likely the answer will be correct, but the higher the chance that the caster will be driven insane by contact with things man was never meant to know.
Clerics can similarly contact "powers above" for answers - these are the Gods, Demi-gods, Demons and Devils, powerful forces of Law and Chaos.
There are realms of the dead, but very few have been delved with magic - only those of Men, Dwarves and Elves are so accessible, and thus only these races can be brought back via the Raise Dead spell. The Hobbit realm of the dead is as yet unknown.
There is an extraplanar "non-dimension" which is where Invisible Stalkers are summoned from.
Travel to Mars has been documented, though the means to do so is as yet unknown. It is believed that the portal beneath the Adventurers' Guild in Greyhawk may provide such a journey if the correct key is found. The following monsters are said to reside there: Apts, Banths, Thoats, Red Martians, Tharks, Black Martians, Yellow Martians, White Martians, Calots, White Apes, Orluks, Sith, and Darseen.
MASS COMBAT:
Once the player characters reach 4th level they will start to get offers to hire themselves out as mercenaries. Should they accept such an offer, the game session for that night will be a Chainmail scenario with their own characters as special troops.
Common Battlefield Monsters: Sprites and Pixies, Dwarves and Gnomes, Goblins and Kobolds, Hobgoblins, Elves (also include Fairies), Orcs, Heroes, Anti-Heroes, Rangers, Super-Heroes, Wizards, Wraiths, Werebears, Werewolves, Trolls, Ogres, Giants (probably Hill Giants), Ents, Red Dragons, Rocs, Wyverns, Griffons, Elemental (Water, Air, Earth and Fire), Djinn, Efreet, Basilisk, Cockatrice, Chimera, Giant Insects, Giant Spiders, Giant Wolves, Dire Wolves, Wights and Ghouls, Zombies, Balrogs
The following monsters are found on battlefields, but only very occasionally: Blue Dragons, White Dragons, Green Dragons, Black Dragons, Purple Worms, Hobbits
The Wizards found on battlefields are usually specialised Battle Mages. They can wield swords, and their magic is often more potent, though it takes longer to cast and cannot be used in regular adventuring situations. They are also able to attempt magic more powerful than their level would allow, though at some risk.
The following battlefield spells are available at the beginning of the campaign: Phantasmal Forces, Darkness, Wizard Light, Detection, Concealment, Conjuration of an Elemental. The second time the PCs get involved in mass combat, Moving Terrain and Protection From Evil will become available. The third time they become involved, the following spells will be there: Levitate, Slowness, Haste, Polymorph, Confusion, Hallucinatory Terrain, Cloudkill, and Anti-Magic Shell.
The armies of Law are often armed with Magic Swords crafted by the Elves. The armies of Chaos have no such means to produce these weapons on a large scale.
The Arquebus and the Horsebow are weapons that are generally only available in armies and mass copmbat situations. The scarcity of gunpowder guarantees that Arquebus's are difficult to obtain, and Horsebows are mostly used by Horse Nomads and so aren't in circulation in the City of Greyhawk and the surrounding lands.
* * *
And that's that. There's a wealth of detail there, and I'm sure much of what I have extrapolated will be contradicted later on - but it's a pretty solid foundation for a campaign, I feel. Tomorrow I'll be dealing with the first issue of The Strategic Review.
Be warned, though - this is a lengthy one.
RULES:
The rules used will be straight from OD&D, the original three booklet set from 1974, with modifications from Chainmail. There are several things that are open to interpretation in these rules, and they are listed below:
Player characters reroll their hit points at the beginning of every session - some days they feel great, and other days awful.
Elves must pick what class they will play as at the start of every session, and abide by all the rules pertaining to that class. The only exception is that they can wear magic armor and still function as Magic-users.
The 'system shock' roll applies not only to the usual things such as resurrection and polymorph, but also to being paralyzed - there's a chance that such a trauma might stop the heart of weaker characters.
In addition, the following rules will be imported from Chainmail:
Turn Sequence
Movement Rules
Terrain Effects
Fatigue (but only for the first session in the campaign, until the characters become used to adventuring)
Specific Missile Fire rules
Morale
Catapults and cannons
Random Weather
First Strike rules for melee
Parrying
Mounted Combat
Jousting
Special abilities for Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits and other monsters
Special Abilities for Heroes and Superheroes, and Wizards. Mostly this involves various bonuses to morale.
WORLD OF GREYHAWK:
The World of Greyhawk is currently at a level of society and technology equivalent to the Middle Ages of Earth. It consists mainly of the Great Kingdom. In a bog nearby is the weird enclave of Blackmoor, lying between the Great Kingdom and the fearsome Egg of Coot. The City of Blackmoor is a small village, a one-horse town. The City of Greyhawk is much larger, and detailed further below.
The world is flat, and ships can sail off the edge. The wilderness is generally an unexplored land dotted with cities and castles. These castles may be inhabited by any number of creatures fell or fair, but are most always ruled by some powerful character. Somewhere in the world there is a primordial swamp filled with dinosaurs. Elsewhere there is a mountain range that is home to a number of prehistoric mammals. There is also at least one forest which is home to many magical creatures such as centaurs and unicorns.
There is a common language that is known and spoken by most humans throughout the continent. Every other race that can speak also has its own language, and 20% of them can also speak the common tongue. In addition to this there are alignment tongues, special languages that were passed down to mortals by the primal forces of the universe. A creature aligned with Law that is able to speak will possess inherent knowledge of this language, and the same is true for each of the other alignments. The alignment tongues are now mostly reserved for ritual and prayer, but they are also frequently used by secret cabals and sects, and religious extremists who would never sully their tongues with less divine speech.
An ancient civilization once spanned the continent. They are known to have embalmed their dead, and that is why mummies are so prevalent in dungeons the world over. Their language was once used to categorize monsters in a semi-scientific manner. That language survives in the name of the Red Dragon: Draco Conflagratio, or Draco Horribilis. It may also be the same language that gave us Chimera as a category of monster.
There is a group known as Rangers, descended from an ancient line of kings, who patrol the borders of civilization and protect it from evil monsters.
There are also Witches in the world. If a male character is captured by one, he will either be turned into a pig or kept as her lover, depending upon his Charisma. Some are ugly hags, and others are beautiful.
Somewhere in the world is a society of Amazon warriors whose traditional battle dress is little more than boots and a loincloth.
There is a thriving slave trade, fuelled by Bandits, Pirates, and others of their ilk.
Electrum is a valuable metal, but its exact value depends upon who you are dealing with. Most value it at half the price of gold, but there are others who believe it is sacred, and give the metal double gold's value.
CITY OF GREYHAWK:
The City of Greyhawk is large, with bazaars, inns, taverns, shops, temples, and a risky Thieves Quarter.
There is an Adventurer's Guild in the city, and this is the only place where the PCs may receive training. There are three sub-guilds that unite to form this organization: the Guild of Fighting-Men, the Guild of Magic-Users, and the Guild of Clerics. The Guild Elders claim that they are incapable of training demi-humans to the same level as humans, but there is a widespread belief that this is just a case of prejudice - the Guild is completely ruled by humans.
The Guild bestows specific titles to those that progress through their class. For example, Fighting-Men begin as Veterans, and when they progress to the next rank they become Swordsmen. Each of the classes has a unique progression of titles.
Beneath the Guild is a strange circular portal, surrounded by hundreds of empty slots. Each slot corresponds to a certain key, and when each is activated the portal has a different destination. Some of these destinations include Mars and Blackmoor, but the keys are all lost besides one or two.
The guild also runs a service whereby adventurers can name a beneficiary of their wealth and items, often a relative. The guild charges a fee of 10% of the goods transferred.
The following Guilds and occupations also operate in the city: Alchemists, Blacksmiths (including Armorers), Assassins, Animal Trainers, Engineers, Sages, Seamen (including Ship Captains), Spies and Men-at-Arms.
There is plenty of untamed wilderness near the city, and a large portion of it resembles the board from Outdoor Survival. This wilderness is ripe for conquest by the PCs, who may use it to build their own castles, but many areas have already been claimed by NPCs with castles of their own.
The lands around are lawless, and so the various humanoid types, especially Orcs, Ogres and Giants, are especially effective when they launch raids, possessing great hoards of treasure.
CASTLE GREYHAWK:
Castle Greyhawk is a huge ruined pile, a vast castle built by a mad wizard who is also an insane genius.
The dungeon beneath has over a dozen levels in succession downwards, with more than that branching off at various points. At least two levels are under construction at any time. Included within the dungeons are a museum from another age, an underground lake, a series of caverns filled with giant fungi, a bowling alley for 20' tall giants, an arena of evil and some crypts. In addition the tunnels often change their configuration from one visit to the next, and there are various teleporters and strange corridors that make mapping the place very difficult.
The castle and dungeon itself seems to hinder the PCs; monsters inside can always see in the dark, but the PCs and their allies cannot. In addition, doors that are always stuck for PCs, and always swing closed on them, open easily for monsters.
There's something down in the dungeons with a demonic bearded face on it.
OTHER DUNGEONS NEAR GREYHAWK:
Somewhere in a dungeon near Greyhawk there is a special iron golem that can only be killed by the very weapons that it guards. It has a fiery breath, a poison sword, and a whip of cockatrice feathers that can turn its victims to stone. Though many tales about it have been told, its location is unknown to most.
There is another dungeon near the City of Greyhawk. It has ten levels, and is six levels deep (as can be seen in the cross-section in D&D Vol. 3). The bottom level is dominated by a huge cavern. One of the 5th levels will include the sample dungeon level from Vol. 3. Level 1 will feature details from the sample of play in Vol. 3, notably a room with 6 gnolls guarding thousands of coins and a pair of Elven Boots.
RACES:
The most common civilised races are Men, Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits.
Dwarves and Gnomes share a great affinity, and may be different strains of the same species. Dwarves have a history of constant war with Goblins, and the same applies between Gnomes and Kobolds.
There are two general types of Elves that live in the world - wood elves and meadow elves. Though most Elves live on the same plane as the other races, many have retreated from the world to live in the Faerie Realm, and are known as Fairies. Elves share many of the same habitats as Orcs, Hobgoblins and Gnolls, and battle frequently with all of them. Elven warriors that remain in their homelands are all outfitted with Elven Cloaks and Boots. Those who leave to pursue a life of adventure are not openly shunned, but these traditional garments are denied them.
Elves are a race whose power is on the wane - they are a shadow of their former selves. Part of this waning means that they are now able to grow beards.
Dwarves and Elves each have their own homelands. Among humans they are referred to as "Dwarf-land" and "Elf-land".
MONSTERS:
Common Dungeon Monsters: As shown in the Monster Level Tables in Vol. 3.
Other Dungeon Monsters: These monsters are occasionally encountered in dungeons, though not very often. They are: Titans, Cyclopses, Juggernauts, Living Statues, Salamanders, Gelatinous Cubes, Golems, Giant Crabs, Giant Leeches, Giant Octopi, Crocodiles, Giant Squids, Pterodactyls, Cyborgs, Robots, Androids, Shadows and Dopplegangers. It is not known from where the Cyborgs, Robots and Androids come from.
Common Underwater Monsters: Mermen, Nixies, Dragon Turtles, Giant Leeches, Crocodiles, Giant Crocodiles, Giant Snakes, Giant Octopi, Giant Squids, Giant Crabs, Giant Fish
The following notes show how some monsters differ to what is in the rules:
Wraiths grow weaker when they venture forth from the dark demesnes; their level draining touch is reduced to that of paralysis, and this is how they act when fought in mass combat. Wights react in a similar fashion.
Zombies, regardless of whether they are encountered on the battlefield or in a dungeon, are immune to missile fire and can paralyze their opponents with a touch as cold as the grave.
The ghouls in dungeons occur naturally, though sages are as yet unsure how. Those found on the battlefield are created and strengthened with dark magic, and are immune to missile fire.
Spectres are also occasionally referred to as 'Nazgul', though the origin of this term is shrouded in mystery.
Trolls and Ogres are believed by sages to be a related species, though there is little evidence to support this supposition.
The dragons that venture forth to fight in mass combat are generally more vital than their dungeon dwelling brethren, who spend most of their days sleeping on piles of treasure. As such, they have no limit upon the number of times they can use their breath weapon. The current wave of dragons being encountered are the youngest generations, which age more quickly than did their ancestors, and are much less potent. Rumours persist that the ancient dragons yet live, slumbering in the bowels of the earth, and that they will awaken one day soon.
The Purple Worm is often called the Purple or Mottled Dragon. It is believed to be the result of a dragon that has no treasure hoard to sleep upon. They lurk everywhere, just below the surface of the earth.
Each type of Elemental can only be summoned once per day. This is a magical precaution against incursions from the elemental planes; the elemental summoning spell seals the plane behind the summoned elemental, and such is the strength of that seal that it cannot be opened again until the next day. Magic-Users are working to weaken it, but with little success so far.
The word Chimera was once used as a group name for strange monsters made up from parts of others - Manticores, Wyverns, etc. Eventually the creatures were given individual names, but the name Chimera stuck with the beast with three heads (lion, goat and dragon).
Every Goblin tribe has a King, who claims to be the one true king of the goblin race.
As strange as it may seem, the sorcerous interbreeding of Gnomes and Trolls resulted in the hyena-headed race known as Gnolls. Sages are still baffled.
Though Lycanthropy is a curse that can be passed to many humanoids, the various types of were-creatures are each a race unto themselves. How they feel about their cursed brethren is as yet undetermined.
Efreet reside in the fabled City of Brass.
Orcs are so common that they are freely available to hire as foot soldiers in large numbers.
Different kinds of Men can be found in any habitat. The same goes for all of the evil humanoids, including Trolls and Giants, as well as Demi-Humans and Ents.
Most cities in Greyhawk are built on the foundations of ancient ruins and graveyards, and as such encounters with undead may happen in certain city areas.
The presence of Cavemen suggests that the Men of Greyhawk evolved along similar lines to those of Earth.
MAGIC:
The Adventurers Guild supplies all of its students with spellbooks. They receive one per spell level, and each book contains all of the spells commonly in use. Magic-Users receive books full of magic spells, and Clerics receive Prayer Books with the sacred forms and rituals required to contact the forces of Law and Chaos. The only spells commonly available are those listed in Vol. 1 of the OD&D boxed set.
The only Magic Items that have so far been regularly discovered are those listed in Vol. 2 of the OD&D boxed set.
All Magic Swords possess some form of intelligence. In ancient times they were bound with the spirits of the living, and to this day they retain some sort of sentience. Some of these swords have minds that are slowly dying, while others are as vital as ever.
The following Artifacts are known to be somewhere in the vicinity of the City of Greyhawk: a Teleportation Machine (the portal beneath the Adventurers Guild); a Crown, Orb and Sceptre for each of the three classes (Fighting-Man, Magic-User and Cleric); and the Stone Crystalization Projector. The Crowns, Orbs and Sceptres were once held by the most powerful guild members of each class, but the Guild has dwindled of late, and these items were stolen by a thief and lost within the depths of Castle Greyhawk. The Stone Crystalization Projector fires a ray that will turn anyone it hits to stone (with no saving throw), but its whereabouts are unknown.
NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS:
Xylarthen would have been better suited as a Cleric, but became a Magic-User instead. He is a member of the Guild, and may be available for the PCs to adventure with.
His statistics are: Strength 6, Intelligence 11, Wisdom 13, Constitution 12, Dexterity 9, Charisma 8. He has 70 gold pieces and 0 experience points.
RELIGION:
Law and Chaos are the fundamental forces of reality, and most creatures are aligned with one or the other. Some are neutral, not caring which side wins the cosmic struggle.
Clerics do not serve specific deities, but devote themselves to either Law or Chaos. The cross is a potent symbol of Law used by its devotees.
Many Magic-Users believe that there are no great forces of Law or Chaos, and that Clerics have merely found some other method of tapping into the same arcane energies that they themselves use. Clerics grow heated at this suggestion, and as such there is a great rivalry between the Clerics' Guild and the Magic-Users' Guild, to the point where someone of one class will not be permitted to switch to the other.
On a similar note, the Guild of Sages is highly protective of the niche occupied by its members, and resents that Clerics and Magic-Users often encroach on that territory - especially as their divinations are usually more reliable. As such its members do not hire out to these classes.
THE PLANES and OTHER WORLDS:
There is a spell that Magic-Users can cast to obtain knowledge from beings on "higher planes". There are 8 planes so far accessible through this spell, numbered 3 to 10 (the first plane being the material, and the second the Astral). These planes are levels of Hell, and it is demons who answer the questions - the higher the plane contacted the more likely the answer will be correct, but the higher the chance that the caster will be driven insane by contact with things man was never meant to know.
Clerics can similarly contact "powers above" for answers - these are the Gods, Demi-gods, Demons and Devils, powerful forces of Law and Chaos.
There are realms of the dead, but very few have been delved with magic - only those of Men, Dwarves and Elves are so accessible, and thus only these races can be brought back via the Raise Dead spell. The Hobbit realm of the dead is as yet unknown.
There is an extraplanar "non-dimension" which is where Invisible Stalkers are summoned from.
Travel to Mars has been documented, though the means to do so is as yet unknown. It is believed that the portal beneath the Adventurers' Guild in Greyhawk may provide such a journey if the correct key is found. The following monsters are said to reside there: Apts, Banths, Thoats, Red Martians, Tharks, Black Martians, Yellow Martians, White Martians, Calots, White Apes, Orluks, Sith, and Darseen.
MASS COMBAT:
Once the player characters reach 4th level they will start to get offers to hire themselves out as mercenaries. Should they accept such an offer, the game session for that night will be a Chainmail scenario with their own characters as special troops.
Common Battlefield Monsters: Sprites and Pixies, Dwarves and Gnomes, Goblins and Kobolds, Hobgoblins, Elves (also include Fairies), Orcs, Heroes, Anti-Heroes, Rangers, Super-Heroes, Wizards, Wraiths, Werebears, Werewolves, Trolls, Ogres, Giants (probably Hill Giants), Ents, Red Dragons, Rocs, Wyverns, Griffons, Elemental (Water, Air, Earth and Fire), Djinn, Efreet, Basilisk, Cockatrice, Chimera, Giant Insects, Giant Spiders, Giant Wolves, Dire Wolves, Wights and Ghouls, Zombies, Balrogs
The following monsters are found on battlefields, but only very occasionally: Blue Dragons, White Dragons, Green Dragons, Black Dragons, Purple Worms, Hobbits
The Wizards found on battlefields are usually specialised Battle Mages. They can wield swords, and their magic is often more potent, though it takes longer to cast and cannot be used in regular adventuring situations. They are also able to attempt magic more powerful than their level would allow, though at some risk.
The following battlefield spells are available at the beginning of the campaign: Phantasmal Forces, Darkness, Wizard Light, Detection, Concealment, Conjuration of an Elemental. The second time the PCs get involved in mass combat, Moving Terrain and Protection From Evil will become available. The third time they become involved, the following spells will be there: Levitate, Slowness, Haste, Polymorph, Confusion, Hallucinatory Terrain, Cloudkill, and Anti-Magic Shell.
The armies of Law are often armed with Magic Swords crafted by the Elves. The armies of Chaos have no such means to produce these weapons on a large scale.
The Arquebus and the Horsebow are weapons that are generally only available in armies and mass copmbat situations. The scarcity of gunpowder guarantees that Arquebus's are difficult to obtain, and Horsebows are mostly used by Horse Nomads and so aren't in circulation in the City of Greyhawk and the surrounding lands.
* * *
And that's that. There's a wealth of detail there, and I'm sure much of what I have extrapolated will be contradicted later on - but it's a pretty solid foundation for a campaign, I feel. Tomorrow I'll be dealing with the first issue of The Strategic Review.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Ultimate Sandbox: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Part 3
LAND COMBAT: There's a brief section on combat, but the only new information that it has to impart is that when using the Chainmail combat system for D&D, a drive back or kill is only equal to a regular hit.
AERIAL COMBAT: Following that there's a much more detailed system for conducting fights in the air, which is entitled Battle in the Skies. Different creatures are more maneuverable - the more maneuverable it is the more turns it can make a round, and the less spaces it has to move between those turns. There are rules for diving and climbing, and again the more maneuverable creatures are better at both.
Missile fire is interesting, in that it includes a rudimentary critical hit system. There's a chart to determine where the flying creature is hit, and another chart to determine the effect of the attack. The creature might have its speed reduced, be forced to land or withdraw, or crash and fall to the ground.
There are also rules for bombing, where a hit is scored by rolling 7 on 2d6 - the further away from 7 you are, the further away from the target your bomb landed.
All told it's a nice set of basic rules for air combat, and a surprising inclusion in such a small set of rules. But flying is something that D&D sees a lot of, so it's certainly welcome. And it makes sense that the rules are different from regular attacks - when you're dropping boulders on a guy from 100 feet up, it doesn't matter if he's in robes or plate mail.
NAVAL COMBAT: This begins with a list of the various ship types, along with their speed when rowing and when sailing. Rowing incurs fatigue, so it can only be kept up for so long. There is a mention of Vikings here, which I take to mean Viking-equivalent sailors. While I doubt that there are genuine Vikings in the World of Greyhawk, I'd bet my house there are some Viking analogues in there somewhere. A quick check of the map shows Frost and Ice Barbarians in the far north, so it's probably them. Changing speed is also difficult when rowing, and it can only be done in increments (with a chart, naturally!).
The rules for sailing are next, and they even include random determination of wind direction.
I think my favourite section of these rules, though is ramming - I can't wait to have pirates ram a ship that the PCs are on. Shearing oars off is similarly cool - a ship passes alongside another and breaks all of its oars, killing a whole bunch of the rowers at the same time.
There are rules for grappling and boarding, and some combat notes as well. It's mostly as normal, but leaders have something called Command Control, which is the range at which they can issue orders to their troops.
And now we come to a genuinely important rule - swimming! This is something applicable to regular adventuring as well as naval combat. There's a lovely chart for determining the chance for an armored PC to drown - Plate Armor is 100%, which is a bit of a wakeup call to the tank who refuses to take it off. And just as an example of how arbitrary OD&D can be - there's no list of two-handed weapons, but there is a list of bouyant ones. We finish up with a list of typical crew numbers for each type of ship, and that's covered fighting over land, sea and air in just a couple of pages.
UNDERWATER MONSTERS: The naval section concludes with some suggestions for monsters - many of them not listed in Vol. II, which I find a bit odd.
Mermen are given the power to grapple ships better than anyone else.
Nixies are clarified as only operating in fresh water, and a lot of them are required to grapple a ship.
Dragon Turtles! This is a strong underwater monster that can swim under ships and lift them on its back, as well as breathing a cloud of steam with damage as a dragon. They're otherwise like Dragons, but can't fly. This is a distinctly D&D monster, and I remember that for some reason my friends and I went through a phase of thinking these things were the coolest monster ever.
Giant Leeches live in swamps and drain blood when they hit - mechanically it works like level drain, so look out for them.
Crocodiles and Giant Crocodiles live in swamps and warm rivers, do lots of damage with a bite, and can overturn small boats. Best of all, they can be rammed by ships!
Giant Snakes: Just when you think a fantasy staple hasn't made it in, it'll be found lurking in some obscure part of the rules. They attack as Purple Worms (!) and can wrap themselves around ships, which is cool.
Giant Octopi and Squids: Tentacles and squirting oil, you know the drill. Each arm gets an attack, too, so these things are deadly.
Giant Crabs: They can't swim, so they are usually only met on beaches. Pincers give them two attacks a round.
Giant Fish: Fast and seemingly hostile, as they attack swimmers, small craft, or other monsters. Some are big enough to ram ships.
There's a note that ships might sail off the edge of the world, so until further notice my World of Greyhawk is flat.
HEALING: Boy, they left this one late! It's noted that levels drained by undead can't be healed, and the levels regained only through earning more XP - harsh, but it makes undead more fearsome. The regular healing rules are probably familiar - you regain no hit points on the first day of rest, and 1 per day thereafter. That feels reasonable to me, and most characters will have the benefit of a Cleric or magic item anyhow.
TIME: The importance of keeping time is stressed, especially for DMs running multiple groups in the same area. A dungeon expedition takes 1 week (I suppose when all the planning goes into effect), wilderness adventures at a rate of 1 move per day, and when players are not adventuring (say, between game sessions) time passes for them at the same rate as for us.
And that's that, besides an afterword and a poorly disguised tracing of Nick Fury. I'm through the original D&D boxed set. All that remains is to go through some of the illustrations to see what can be gleaned from them.
I have noted that there are Witches in the World of Greyhawk. Though some are the stereotypical old hags, there are also beautiful witches as well, as shown in the picture in Vol. 1. Where they stand on the alignment scale is as yet indetermined.
As also shown on the same page, there must also be an Amazonian race or group, with a traditional dress that includes nothing but boots and a loincolth of some kind. God bless the 70s.
Elves in this time have beards! This is obviously not true in later editions, so I need to come up with an explanation here. I'm toying with the idea of Elves as a race on the wane - they're significantly less powerful than they once were. Part of that waning is that they can now grow facial hair - an innate loss of elfiness! In later editions they get a bit more powerful again, and will lose their ability to grow beards.
The Gnoll illustration shows a basic goblinoid figure, rather than the hyena-man we are used to. The face is kind of obscured by shadow, though... Close enough says I.
There's a shadowy winged picture that looks like a gargoyle, but there's already a Gargoyle illustration elsewhere. This must be a Balrog, which means that there's no wing debate so far as D&D Balrogs go.
Ooh, a spooky, hairy face! This is a mystery of some kind, but I'll probably attach it to something in Castle Greyhawk. I'm sure there'll be something in there with a demonic face attached.
The Basilisk only has four legs, as opposed to the six of later D&D. But such variation in Chaotic creatures shouldn't be uncommon.
There's a picture of a Nazgul with an awesome Musketeer hat riding a horse. I've already associated this with Spectres, so I guess some versions of that monster ride a horse when above-ground. Indeed, Wraiths in Chainmail are noted on the Reference Table as being mounted.
Other than those the illustrations match my expectations, as drummed into me by later versions of the game. Tomorrow will be an extra-long round-up, showing the state of the campaign to this point.
AERIAL COMBAT: Following that there's a much more detailed system for conducting fights in the air, which is entitled Battle in the Skies. Different creatures are more maneuverable - the more maneuverable it is the more turns it can make a round, and the less spaces it has to move between those turns. There are rules for diving and climbing, and again the more maneuverable creatures are better at both.
Missile fire is interesting, in that it includes a rudimentary critical hit system. There's a chart to determine where the flying creature is hit, and another chart to determine the effect of the attack. The creature might have its speed reduced, be forced to land or withdraw, or crash and fall to the ground.
There are also rules for bombing, where a hit is scored by rolling 7 on 2d6 - the further away from 7 you are, the further away from the target your bomb landed.
All told it's a nice set of basic rules for air combat, and a surprising inclusion in such a small set of rules. But flying is something that D&D sees a lot of, so it's certainly welcome. And it makes sense that the rules are different from regular attacks - when you're dropping boulders on a guy from 100 feet up, it doesn't matter if he's in robes or plate mail.
NAVAL COMBAT: This begins with a list of the various ship types, along with their speed when rowing and when sailing. Rowing incurs fatigue, so it can only be kept up for so long. There is a mention of Vikings here, which I take to mean Viking-equivalent sailors. While I doubt that there are genuine Vikings in the World of Greyhawk, I'd bet my house there are some Viking analogues in there somewhere. A quick check of the map shows Frost and Ice Barbarians in the far north, so it's probably them. Changing speed is also difficult when rowing, and it can only be done in increments (with a chart, naturally!).
The rules for sailing are next, and they even include random determination of wind direction.
I think my favourite section of these rules, though is ramming - I can't wait to have pirates ram a ship that the PCs are on. Shearing oars off is similarly cool - a ship passes alongside another and breaks all of its oars, killing a whole bunch of the rowers at the same time.
There are rules for grappling and boarding, and some combat notes as well. It's mostly as normal, but leaders have something called Command Control, which is the range at which they can issue orders to their troops.
And now we come to a genuinely important rule - swimming! This is something applicable to regular adventuring as well as naval combat. There's a lovely chart for determining the chance for an armored PC to drown - Plate Armor is 100%, which is a bit of a wakeup call to the tank who refuses to take it off. And just as an example of how arbitrary OD&D can be - there's no list of two-handed weapons, but there is a list of bouyant ones. We finish up with a list of typical crew numbers for each type of ship, and that's covered fighting over land, sea and air in just a couple of pages.
UNDERWATER MONSTERS: The naval section concludes with some suggestions for monsters - many of them not listed in Vol. II, which I find a bit odd.
Mermen are given the power to grapple ships better than anyone else.
Nixies are clarified as only operating in fresh water, and a lot of them are required to grapple a ship.
Dragon Turtles! This is a strong underwater monster that can swim under ships and lift them on its back, as well as breathing a cloud of steam with damage as a dragon. They're otherwise like Dragons, but can't fly. This is a distinctly D&D monster, and I remember that for some reason my friends and I went through a phase of thinking these things were the coolest monster ever.
Giant Leeches live in swamps and drain blood when they hit - mechanically it works like level drain, so look out for them.
Crocodiles and Giant Crocodiles live in swamps and warm rivers, do lots of damage with a bite, and can overturn small boats. Best of all, they can be rammed by ships!
Giant Snakes: Just when you think a fantasy staple hasn't made it in, it'll be found lurking in some obscure part of the rules. They attack as Purple Worms (!) and can wrap themselves around ships, which is cool.
Giant Octopi and Squids: Tentacles and squirting oil, you know the drill. Each arm gets an attack, too, so these things are deadly.
Giant Crabs: They can't swim, so they are usually only met on beaches. Pincers give them two attacks a round.
Giant Fish: Fast and seemingly hostile, as they attack swimmers, small craft, or other monsters. Some are big enough to ram ships.
There's a note that ships might sail off the edge of the world, so until further notice my World of Greyhawk is flat.
HEALING: Boy, they left this one late! It's noted that levels drained by undead can't be healed, and the levels regained only through earning more XP - harsh, but it makes undead more fearsome. The regular healing rules are probably familiar - you regain no hit points on the first day of rest, and 1 per day thereafter. That feels reasonable to me, and most characters will have the benefit of a Cleric or magic item anyhow.
TIME: The importance of keeping time is stressed, especially for DMs running multiple groups in the same area. A dungeon expedition takes 1 week (I suppose when all the planning goes into effect), wilderness adventures at a rate of 1 move per day, and when players are not adventuring (say, between game sessions) time passes for them at the same rate as for us.
And that's that, besides an afterword and a poorly disguised tracing of Nick Fury. I'm through the original D&D boxed set. All that remains is to go through some of the illustrations to see what can be gleaned from them.
I have noted that there are Witches in the World of Greyhawk. Though some are the stereotypical old hags, there are also beautiful witches as well, as shown in the picture in Vol. 1. Where they stand on the alignment scale is as yet indetermined.
As also shown on the same page, there must also be an Amazonian race or group, with a traditional dress that includes nothing but boots and a loincolth of some kind. God bless the 70s.
Elves in this time have beards! This is obviously not true in later editions, so I need to come up with an explanation here. I'm toying with the idea of Elves as a race on the wane - they're significantly less powerful than they once were. Part of that waning is that they can now grow facial hair - an innate loss of elfiness! In later editions they get a bit more powerful again, and will lose their ability to grow beards.
The Gnoll illustration shows a basic goblinoid figure, rather than the hyena-man we are used to. The face is kind of obscured by shadow, though... Close enough says I.
There's a shadowy winged picture that looks like a gargoyle, but there's already a Gargoyle illustration elsewhere. This must be a Balrog, which means that there's no wing debate so far as D&D Balrogs go.
Ooh, a spooky, hairy face! This is a mystery of some kind, but I'll probably attach it to something in Castle Greyhawk. I'm sure there'll be something in there with a demonic face attached.
The Basilisk only has four legs, as opposed to the six of later D&D. But such variation in Chaotic creatures shouldn't be uncommon.
There's a picture of a Nazgul with an awesome Musketeer hat riding a horse. I've already associated this with Spectres, so I guess some versions of that monster ride a horse when above-ground. Indeed, Wraiths in Chainmail are noted on the Reference Table as being mounted.
Other than those the illustrations match my expectations, as drummed into me by later versions of the game. Tomorrow will be an extra-long round-up, showing the state of the campaign to this point.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
The Ultimate Sandbox: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Part 2
THE WILDERNESS: This section begins with a brief outline of the prototypical D&D wilderness - unexplored land, cities and castles, and the area immediately surrounding the dungeon. Like I said, brief. The ref is supposed to do a couple of things before the game starts - make a map of the ground level of the dungeon, a map of the area surrounding this, and a map of the town nearby. After that there are short descriptions of the two major campaign cities currently in existence - Blackmoor is said to be a small village (a one-horse town, apparently!) while Greyhawk is a large city with bazaars, inns, taverns, shops, temples, and a risky Thieves Quarter. I've no doubt that Greyhawk as officially released has all of this stuff. But is Blackmoor truly as small as is said here? It certainly doesn't sound right to me, but I don't know a lot about that campaign. Nevertheless I plan to include it in my version of Greyhawk, and have a few other ideas about it that are tied to some other places it has been linked to.
Then we get a note about off-hand wilderness adventures being made using the board from Outdoor Survival. Thankfully it's pretty easy to find on the internet - like here for example. I'll be using this map as an area very close to the City of Greyhawk.
Castles: The ponds on the Outdoor Survival board indicate Castles in D&D, and the inhabitants of those castles are determined randomly. The head of the castle is always an NPC with class levels, and he could have servants including anything from Balrogs to Manticores to White Apes - and that's not even including the soldiers that should be present. Taking on an unknown castle will certainly be risky business.
A Fighting-Man in charge of a castle will demand a joust from other fighters, and if he wins he takes the loser's armour. This is where the Jousting rules from Chainmail come into things. I just hope the players won't balk at a ruleset that doesn't take their character's stats into account.
Magic-Users are likely to Geas passersby and send them after treasure, which would fill a session or two, I guess. If I know players though, they hate being forced on missions. That Magic-User would be signing himself a death warrant, I'd wager.
Clerics require a tithe, or otherwise they'll use a Quest spell to send the PCs on a crusade of some sort. Again, I doubt the players will be amenable - but making their characters do unpleasant things is half the DM's fun.
Following this is a list of overland movement rates for various creatures and vehicles - the speeds are in hexes, each one being 5 miles across. A man on foot moves 3 hexes in a day, while the Roc and Pegasus are the fastest at 48. Most of the monsters seem to be faster than men, so fleeing will be problematic. Larger groups move slower, and there are the usual terrain penalties as well.
WILDERNESS MONSTERS: The rules for sighting and surprise are pretty much the same as in the dungeon, except that the distances are greater. Parties can get lost depending on terrain - and when 1-in-6 is your best odds, getting lost seems mighty easy. Lost parties get moved in a random direction, but it says they can make one direction change. I have no idea what that means, or the note that DMs should indicate which direction the party is lost in. Colour me confused as to the intent of these rules.
Wandering Monsters: These are checked for at the end of each day, with different odds for terrain. The monsters are split into categories: Men, Flyers, Undead, Giants, Lycanthropes, Animals, Swimmers, and Dragons. There are some oddities, such as the many creatures listed under Dragon, but mostly it's a solid list of random monster encounters. A few interesting things: there's a random chart for the Mars of the John Carter stories, which means I'll have to provide the players with a means of getting there. I know TSR produced a ruleset for John Carter in the mid-70s - how compatible with D&D is it? I might have to try and find a copy, if it isn't too rare.
The optional swamp chart has a whole load of dinosaurs, several of which I'm sure weren't native to swamplands - but more excuses to use dinosaurs are always welcome. The optional arid plains chart has more monsters like Tharks, Banths, Thoats, etc. I think that's more stuff from Mars. And finally there is an optional Mountains chart with prehistoric mammals such as cave bears and sabre-tooth tigers. So not only do I need Mars, I need one "lost world" swamp full of dinosaurs, and a mountain range with prehistoric mammals.
This section finishes up with the rules for pursuit. The most important factor here is the relative sizes of the two groups - it seems like smaller groups have a better chance of evading larger groups, and terrain plays into it, as does speed. It's another little subsystem of Gary's devising, but it's simple and it looks to work well. He even makes sure to remind the ref to roll for wandering monsters while the party is recovering from pursuit, just in case things are getting too easy for them!
CONSTRUCTION OF CASTLES AND STRONGHOLDS: Here are a set of guidelines for when a PC wants to build his own castle. The prices are given along with illustrations - for example, next to a picture of a Bastion is the price 3,000 gold pieces. So you pick exactly what bits you want on your castle, and total up the price. It would work pretty well, if it wasn't for the pricing confusion. Next to the top-down view of the Barbican, it says 14,000; next to the side-on view, it says 20,000. Which is it? That's not the only ambiguous thing on this page. I'm all for players building castles, but a price list that's easier to use would be handy.
SPECIALISTS: A number of NPC types that the PCs might employ are detailed in this section.
Alchemist: They have the ability to duplicate potions, as long as they have a formula. They can also research poisons, but it's majorly expensive.
Armorer: A player needs to have Armorers if he has soldiers in his employ, as their armor needs to be maintained. They're cheap though, and anyone high-level enough to have over 50 followers won't feel the expense. He can make armor as well (natch), but the output is pretty slow unless he has a raft of assistants.
Assassin: Not a PC class yet, and the rules here are very much up to DM fiat as to whether these guys succeed in their mission. The DM is also encouraged to limit the numbers of assassins used - a wise move I feel, as overuse of assassination could really play havoc with the campaign, especially if inter-PC rivalries start up.
Animal Trainer: You need one of these guys to train anything other than a horse or mule. You want to ride a Hippogriff? Animal Trainer is your man.
Engineer: You need one for tunneling and major construction. No consequences are listed, but presumably your castle won't stand up properly if an engineer isn't there.
Sage: Sages are there to answer questions. For some reason they can only be employed by Fighters - it must be an inter-guild rivalry thing, with Magic-Users and Clerics intruding into the Sage's areas of expertise. Again, DM fiat rules the day for sages.
Seaman: You need them to sail a ship. If you want ones that can fight, they cost extra.
Ship Captain: Gary just says it's a self-expanatory role, and leaves it at that. Surely it wouldn't have been too hard for him to squeeze out a sentence or two? It's not like he was ever short of words.
Smith: They can assist armorers, and you need them to maintain your horses.
Spy: Spies can be hired, and sent to infiltrate the desired force. Or they can be corrupted - that is, the player can bribe an enemy to become a spy. Chances of successful spying are again left to the DM to decide. It's much like that with the whole NPC list, really - it's just there to let the DM know what types of character players might like to hire, rather than giving concrete rules for their use.
MEN-AT-ARMS: Hired fighters get a section all their own. They can be men, dwarves or elves, but Chaotic characters get the super-awesome option of hiring Orcs, and they cost half as much. Elves on the other hand are fruity tree-huggers, and cost more than anyone else. It only costs 2 gp per month to hire a Light Foot soldier! This differs greatly from the guidelines in Vol. 1 - I gather those are the costs for characters you want to take into the dungeon and on adventures, and these are for the guys who man your castle or fight in your army.
Hiring Men-at-Arms and Specialists is a matter of posting notices and getting the word out, which costs 100-600 gold per week. This seems awfully expensive for a few posters, but there you go. The ref gets to decide how successful the offer is, and should also note that Dwarves, Elves and Specialists are all pretty rare.
RUMORS, INFORMATION & LEGENDS: Hiring a lot of people isn't something that goes unnoticed, and even leaving town may be noteworthy - in other words, don't expect the local Lord to sit idle while you raise an army, and don't be surprised if the local thieves ambush you for treasure on the way back from the dungeon. Jammed in here we get the price of a round of drinks - 10-60 gp! Presumably this is for when you shout the whole bar.
PLAYER CHARACTER SUPPORT AND UPKEEP: PCs have to pay an amount in gold equal to 1% of their XP (how often it doesn't say, but I guess once a month). So basically that means that the more powerful they get, the more they start to demand the good life. Once they build their own castles this is over, but I guess it gets replaced by paying the upkeep on troops and such.
BARONIES: Before a character can have a Barony, he has to clear out all the monsters in the nearby countryside. Once he's done that, just sitting in his castle is enough to make the place safe for 20 miles. Making it automatic robs it of the fun a bit, I feel. But anyway, there are a number of villages within the Barony, and the Baron can tax them for 10 gp per head. This could net him anywhere from 2,000 to 32,000 gp a month, so it's worth doing. There's a list of things the player might invest in to increase his profits, as if high-level adventurers needed more money.
ANGRY VILLAGER RULE: The gist of this rule is that if a certain character gets out of line, NPCs will harass him endlessly - thieves, the city watch, militia, even the possible insertion of a character like Conan to knock some heads in!
OTHER WORLDS: All this section says is that the D&D world doesn't have to follow the same rules as ours. Maybe characters can breathe in space? I'm taking these as examples, and not part of canon. Whether or not players can breathe in space will probably get answered when I make it to Spelljammer.
Tomorrow, I take a look at Land Combat, Sea Combat, and Aerial Combat, as well as some underwater monsters, time, and healing. That will finish up Volume 3, bringing me to the end of the original D&D boxed set.
Then we get a note about off-hand wilderness adventures being made using the board from Outdoor Survival. Thankfully it's pretty easy to find on the internet - like here for example. I'll be using this map as an area very close to the City of Greyhawk.
Castles: The ponds on the Outdoor Survival board indicate Castles in D&D, and the inhabitants of those castles are determined randomly. The head of the castle is always an NPC with class levels, and he could have servants including anything from Balrogs to Manticores to White Apes - and that's not even including the soldiers that should be present. Taking on an unknown castle will certainly be risky business.
A Fighting-Man in charge of a castle will demand a joust from other fighters, and if he wins he takes the loser's armour. This is where the Jousting rules from Chainmail come into things. I just hope the players won't balk at a ruleset that doesn't take their character's stats into account.
Magic-Users are likely to Geas passersby and send them after treasure, which would fill a session or two, I guess. If I know players though, they hate being forced on missions. That Magic-User would be signing himself a death warrant, I'd wager.
Clerics require a tithe, or otherwise they'll use a Quest spell to send the PCs on a crusade of some sort. Again, I doubt the players will be amenable - but making their characters do unpleasant things is half the DM's fun.
Following this is a list of overland movement rates for various creatures and vehicles - the speeds are in hexes, each one being 5 miles across. A man on foot moves 3 hexes in a day, while the Roc and Pegasus are the fastest at 48. Most of the monsters seem to be faster than men, so fleeing will be problematic. Larger groups move slower, and there are the usual terrain penalties as well.
WILDERNESS MONSTERS: The rules for sighting and surprise are pretty much the same as in the dungeon, except that the distances are greater. Parties can get lost depending on terrain - and when 1-in-6 is your best odds, getting lost seems mighty easy. Lost parties get moved in a random direction, but it says they can make one direction change. I have no idea what that means, or the note that DMs should indicate which direction the party is lost in. Colour me confused as to the intent of these rules.
Wandering Monsters: These are checked for at the end of each day, with different odds for terrain. The monsters are split into categories: Men, Flyers, Undead, Giants, Lycanthropes, Animals, Swimmers, and Dragons. There are some oddities, such as the many creatures listed under Dragon, but mostly it's a solid list of random monster encounters. A few interesting things: there's a random chart for the Mars of the John Carter stories, which means I'll have to provide the players with a means of getting there. I know TSR produced a ruleset for John Carter in the mid-70s - how compatible with D&D is it? I might have to try and find a copy, if it isn't too rare.
The optional swamp chart has a whole load of dinosaurs, several of which I'm sure weren't native to swamplands - but more excuses to use dinosaurs are always welcome. The optional arid plains chart has more monsters like Tharks, Banths, Thoats, etc. I think that's more stuff from Mars. And finally there is an optional Mountains chart with prehistoric mammals such as cave bears and sabre-tooth tigers. So not only do I need Mars, I need one "lost world" swamp full of dinosaurs, and a mountain range with prehistoric mammals.
This section finishes up with the rules for pursuit. The most important factor here is the relative sizes of the two groups - it seems like smaller groups have a better chance of evading larger groups, and terrain plays into it, as does speed. It's another little subsystem of Gary's devising, but it's simple and it looks to work well. He even makes sure to remind the ref to roll for wandering monsters while the party is recovering from pursuit, just in case things are getting too easy for them!
CONSTRUCTION OF CASTLES AND STRONGHOLDS: Here are a set of guidelines for when a PC wants to build his own castle. The prices are given along with illustrations - for example, next to a picture of a Bastion is the price 3,000 gold pieces. So you pick exactly what bits you want on your castle, and total up the price. It would work pretty well, if it wasn't for the pricing confusion. Next to the top-down view of the Barbican, it says 14,000; next to the side-on view, it says 20,000. Which is it? That's not the only ambiguous thing on this page. I'm all for players building castles, but a price list that's easier to use would be handy.
SPECIALISTS: A number of NPC types that the PCs might employ are detailed in this section.
Alchemist: They have the ability to duplicate potions, as long as they have a formula. They can also research poisons, but it's majorly expensive.
Armorer: A player needs to have Armorers if he has soldiers in his employ, as their armor needs to be maintained. They're cheap though, and anyone high-level enough to have over 50 followers won't feel the expense. He can make armor as well (natch), but the output is pretty slow unless he has a raft of assistants.
Assassin: Not a PC class yet, and the rules here are very much up to DM fiat as to whether these guys succeed in their mission. The DM is also encouraged to limit the numbers of assassins used - a wise move I feel, as overuse of assassination could really play havoc with the campaign, especially if inter-PC rivalries start up.
Animal Trainer: You need one of these guys to train anything other than a horse or mule. You want to ride a Hippogriff? Animal Trainer is your man.
Engineer: You need one for tunneling and major construction. No consequences are listed, but presumably your castle won't stand up properly if an engineer isn't there.
Sage: Sages are there to answer questions. For some reason they can only be employed by Fighters - it must be an inter-guild rivalry thing, with Magic-Users and Clerics intruding into the Sage's areas of expertise. Again, DM fiat rules the day for sages.
Seaman: You need them to sail a ship. If you want ones that can fight, they cost extra.
Ship Captain: Gary just says it's a self-expanatory role, and leaves it at that. Surely it wouldn't have been too hard for him to squeeze out a sentence or two? It's not like he was ever short of words.
Smith: They can assist armorers, and you need them to maintain your horses.
Spy: Spies can be hired, and sent to infiltrate the desired force. Or they can be corrupted - that is, the player can bribe an enemy to become a spy. Chances of successful spying are again left to the DM to decide. It's much like that with the whole NPC list, really - it's just there to let the DM know what types of character players might like to hire, rather than giving concrete rules for their use.
MEN-AT-ARMS: Hired fighters get a section all their own. They can be men, dwarves or elves, but Chaotic characters get the super-awesome option of hiring Orcs, and they cost half as much. Elves on the other hand are fruity tree-huggers, and cost more than anyone else. It only costs 2 gp per month to hire a Light Foot soldier! This differs greatly from the guidelines in Vol. 1 - I gather those are the costs for characters you want to take into the dungeon and on adventures, and these are for the guys who man your castle or fight in your army.
Hiring Men-at-Arms and Specialists is a matter of posting notices and getting the word out, which costs 100-600 gold per week. This seems awfully expensive for a few posters, but there you go. The ref gets to decide how successful the offer is, and should also note that Dwarves, Elves and Specialists are all pretty rare.
RUMORS, INFORMATION & LEGENDS: Hiring a lot of people isn't something that goes unnoticed, and even leaving town may be noteworthy - in other words, don't expect the local Lord to sit idle while you raise an army, and don't be surprised if the local thieves ambush you for treasure on the way back from the dungeon. Jammed in here we get the price of a round of drinks - 10-60 gp! Presumably this is for when you shout the whole bar.
PLAYER CHARACTER SUPPORT AND UPKEEP: PCs have to pay an amount in gold equal to 1% of their XP (how often it doesn't say, but I guess once a month). So basically that means that the more powerful they get, the more they start to demand the good life. Once they build their own castles this is over, but I guess it gets replaced by paying the upkeep on troops and such.
BARONIES: Before a character can have a Barony, he has to clear out all the monsters in the nearby countryside. Once he's done that, just sitting in his castle is enough to make the place safe for 20 miles. Making it automatic robs it of the fun a bit, I feel. But anyway, there are a number of villages within the Barony, and the Baron can tax them for 10 gp per head. This could net him anywhere from 2,000 to 32,000 gp a month, so it's worth doing. There's a list of things the player might invest in to increase his profits, as if high-level adventurers needed more money.
ANGRY VILLAGER RULE: The gist of this rule is that if a certain character gets out of line, NPCs will harass him endlessly - thieves, the city watch, militia, even the possible insertion of a character like Conan to knock some heads in!
OTHER WORLDS: All this section says is that the D&D world doesn't have to follow the same rules as ours. Maybe characters can breathe in space? I'm taking these as examples, and not part of canon. Whether or not players can breathe in space will probably get answered when I make it to Spelljammer.
Tomorrow, I take a look at Land Combat, Sea Combat, and Aerial Combat, as well as some underwater monsters, time, and healing. That will finish up Volume 3, bringing me to the end of the original D&D boxed set.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
The Ultimate Sandbox: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Part 1
We're finally here at Volume III - The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures. This is the book that tells the referee how to run the game, with a focus on the dungeon and the outdoors. It's the Dungeon Master's Guide, really, but much more condensed and without the random hooker tables.
THE UNDERWORLD: This book kicks off by getting right to the heart of the matter - the ref needs to design a Honkin' Big Dungeon before play begins. A sample cross-section is given, with ten levels in all (though with funky numbering like 5, 5-1/2 and 5-3/4, the bottom cavern level is only level 6. Anyway, I'll be using this cross-section as the basis for a dungeon somewhere near the City of Greyhawk.
We follow that with some tips on dungeon design, and we get some tidbits about Greyhawk Castle in the bargain - it has over a dozen levels in succession downwards, and more than that branching off, with at least two levels being worked on at a time. Included here are a museum from another age, an underground lake (The Black Reservoir, I believe it's called), a series of caverns filled with giant fungi, a bowling alley for 20' tall giants, an arena of evil, and some crypts. I'm filing these notes away, and will compare them to Castle Zagyg when I get my hands on it - needless to say, if all of those aren't in there I'll be making some additions of my own.
Then we get a sample level designed to showcase a lot of Gary's simplest tricks, things like slanting passages, rooms that revolve, and just about anything else that would make mapping hard. This isn't really a design to be played through, but more of an example of how these kinds of things can work. Nevertheless I'm going to include it as a part of the sample dungeon anyway, probably on one of the 4th or 5th levels.
A list of tricks and traps follows, and it's the standard stuff for messing up maps and trapping players further into the dungeon than they want to go. I'll be incorporating all of these into the sample dungeon, of course, and there ought to be some in Castle Greyhawk as well.
There are tips for stocking the dungeon and keeping it fresh, and it's interesting to note that Gary advocates leaving large areas basically empty. I suppose when games use a lot of wandering monsters, the ones placed specifically by the DM ought to be a bit more of a rarity. He also advises changing the layout of the dungeon with little regard for verisimilitude. I can buy that in the Underworld - the megadungeon is a weird place, where logic does not necessarily apply, and its twisting tunnels may not always be the way you remembered...
THE MOVE/TURN IN THE UNDERWORLD: It's noted that every inch (") in a dungeon equals 10 feet, not the ten yards of Chainmail. A double move takes ten minutes, also called a turn - except when fleeing, where movement is doubled (and you can't map while running either!).
One turn every hour must be spent motionless, as characters need rest! The gnashing of teeth when I enforce this rule will be mighty.
There are ten rounds of combat per turn, which makes a combat round 1 minute. Gary notes that combat is 'fast and furious' - is he taking the piss?
Secret passages can be found by rolling 1-2 on 1d6, or 1-4 for elves. There's even an optional rule for elves to sense them automatically on 1-2, and this one becomes core later on.
Then we note that most doors won't open by turning the handle, but need to be forced (by rolling 1-2 on 1d6, seemingly regardless of Strength). Doors also automatically close, just for added inconvenience, though they can be wedged open with spikes. Monsters ignore all of these rules and open doors whenever they like, which is so biased and arbitrary that it comes out awesome. Again, I'll be playing that as a special rule for megadungeons, their inherently chaotic nature always working against the PCs.
Characters can listen at doors, with demi-humans all better at it than men. Undead maintain their awesomeness by being utterly silent.
Light sources get some lip service, and we get another arbitrary doozy: "Monsters are assumed to have permanent infravision as long as they are not serving some character". Once again, the megadungeon did it.
We finish up with a note on fire balls and lightning bolts - more specifically, the tendency of fire balls to expand to their maximum volume, and lightning bolts to rebound from walls. I've always rebounded lightning bolts, but could never be bothered working out the volume for fireballs. I suppose I'll just eyeball it from now on.
UNDERWORLD MONSTERS: This section first deals with how far away monsters are when the players spot them, and whether either side has surprise or not. Surprise is a strange one for me in D&D. It's a pretty simple rule as presented here, but for one reason or another we never used it. Basic, 1e, 2e, the rule is there in each version, but it never made it into my games, where surprise was pretty much a case of DM fiat. Looking at it now, it's the sort of thing that can turn a battle one way or the other, and that's as it should be. It's a very nice rule that I'll be implementing with pleasure. I'm not too certain about the example with the Wyvern, though - it seems to me that it gets two surprise rounds, but I could be wrong.
Wandering Monsters: Wandering monsters are checked for at the end of every turn, with a 1-in-6 chance of appearing - to me that sounds like a lot of random encounters, but that's probably a symptom of me mostly playing in plot-driven games. In those, wandering monsters are a hindrance - in a sandbox, they're another random element for the PCs to deal with as they try to survive in the dungeon.
One thing I love about the Wandering Monster tables is that there's a big chance for monsters of varying power levels. Just because you're on Dungeon Level 1, that doesn't mean you'll only encounter 1st level monsters - if the dice go against you, you could be staring down the barrel of a random encounter with Wraiths or something equally deadly.
The level 2 chart has an entry for Thouls. I remember those in the D&D Basic Set, but they aren't detailed in OD&D. Are they a typo that got turned into a monster? Or a genuine monster that got left out by mistake?
A lot of giant animals that aren't statted up also get entries. Giant Hogs would be my favourite of these. There are also White Apes, again not detailed here. And given the game draws so heavily on Conan, the lack of Ape stats is criminal.
We then get a list of alternate monsters, some of which are mentioned for the first time ever: Giant Crabs, Giant Leeches, Giant Octopi, Crocodiles, Giant Squids, Pterodactyls, Cyborgs, Robots, Androids, Shadows and Dopplegangers. It's obvious here that Gary had far more ideas than he could squeeze into the booklets.
The numbers for wandering monsters appearing is pretty vague - some are solitary, some might have more or less depending on the relative dungeon level, and bigger parties attract more monsters (so much for safety in numbers).
Avoiding Monsters: Role-playing in D&D? Forget it - monsters always attack unless they're smart enough to avoid an obviously superior force. Says so right there in the rules. There are some nice simple rules for pursuit, as well as for dropping items to distract your pursuers. It's a nice touch that low intelligence monsters are more likely to stop for food, and high intelligence monsters are more likely to stop for treasure.
Random Actions by Monsters: In contradiction to what was stated above, intelligent monsters have a reaction chart to roll on for their actions, which can be negative, uncertain or positive. So I guess that means intelligent monsters don't always attack - or maybe they always attack unless the players do something first that might cause a roll on this chart. Sounds fair enough to me.
EXAMPLE OF PLAY: And now, halfway through the third booklet (by which time I imagine a lot of confused people had given up) there's an example of how the game is played. It's all quite terse and lacking in excitement, with a focus on exact distances for mapping accuracy. The players use a Caller, which is something I utterly despise - here's a rule I will cheerfully ignore. Basically the players enter the dungeon, fight some Gnolls, and find some treasure containing thousands of coins and a pair of elven boots. I'll be converting the details of this example into part of the first level of the Sample Dungeon mentioned yesterday. Those six gnolls will be wreaking havoc on a whole bunch of 1st level characters, I imagine.
Tomorrow I'll be looking at adventures in the wilderness, castles, specialists - and the ever-awesome Angry Villager Rule!
THE UNDERWORLD: This book kicks off by getting right to the heart of the matter - the ref needs to design a Honkin' Big Dungeon before play begins. A sample cross-section is given, with ten levels in all (though with funky numbering like 5, 5-1/2 and 5-3/4, the bottom cavern level is only level 6. Anyway, I'll be using this cross-section as the basis for a dungeon somewhere near the City of Greyhawk.
We follow that with some tips on dungeon design, and we get some tidbits about Greyhawk Castle in the bargain - it has over a dozen levels in succession downwards, and more than that branching off, with at least two levels being worked on at a time. Included here are a museum from another age, an underground lake (The Black Reservoir, I believe it's called), a series of caverns filled with giant fungi, a bowling alley for 20' tall giants, an arena of evil, and some crypts. I'm filing these notes away, and will compare them to Castle Zagyg when I get my hands on it - needless to say, if all of those aren't in there I'll be making some additions of my own.
Then we get a sample level designed to showcase a lot of Gary's simplest tricks, things like slanting passages, rooms that revolve, and just about anything else that would make mapping hard. This isn't really a design to be played through, but more of an example of how these kinds of things can work. Nevertheless I'm going to include it as a part of the sample dungeon anyway, probably on one of the 4th or 5th levels.
A list of tricks and traps follows, and it's the standard stuff for messing up maps and trapping players further into the dungeon than they want to go. I'll be incorporating all of these into the sample dungeon, of course, and there ought to be some in Castle Greyhawk as well.
There are tips for stocking the dungeon and keeping it fresh, and it's interesting to note that Gary advocates leaving large areas basically empty. I suppose when games use a lot of wandering monsters, the ones placed specifically by the DM ought to be a bit more of a rarity. He also advises changing the layout of the dungeon with little regard for verisimilitude. I can buy that in the Underworld - the megadungeon is a weird place, where logic does not necessarily apply, and its twisting tunnels may not always be the way you remembered...
THE MOVE/TURN IN THE UNDERWORLD: It's noted that every inch (") in a dungeon equals 10 feet, not the ten yards of Chainmail. A double move takes ten minutes, also called a turn - except when fleeing, where movement is doubled (and you can't map while running either!).
One turn every hour must be spent motionless, as characters need rest! The gnashing of teeth when I enforce this rule will be mighty.
There are ten rounds of combat per turn, which makes a combat round 1 minute. Gary notes that combat is 'fast and furious' - is he taking the piss?
Secret passages can be found by rolling 1-2 on 1d6, or 1-4 for elves. There's even an optional rule for elves to sense them automatically on 1-2, and this one becomes core later on.
Then we note that most doors won't open by turning the handle, but need to be forced (by rolling 1-2 on 1d6, seemingly regardless of Strength). Doors also automatically close, just for added inconvenience, though they can be wedged open with spikes. Monsters ignore all of these rules and open doors whenever they like, which is so biased and arbitrary that it comes out awesome. Again, I'll be playing that as a special rule for megadungeons, their inherently chaotic nature always working against the PCs.
Characters can listen at doors, with demi-humans all better at it than men. Undead maintain their awesomeness by being utterly silent.
Light sources get some lip service, and we get another arbitrary doozy: "Monsters are assumed to have permanent infravision as long as they are not serving some character". Once again, the megadungeon did it.
We finish up with a note on fire balls and lightning bolts - more specifically, the tendency of fire balls to expand to their maximum volume, and lightning bolts to rebound from walls. I've always rebounded lightning bolts, but could never be bothered working out the volume for fireballs. I suppose I'll just eyeball it from now on.
UNDERWORLD MONSTERS: This section first deals with how far away monsters are when the players spot them, and whether either side has surprise or not. Surprise is a strange one for me in D&D. It's a pretty simple rule as presented here, but for one reason or another we never used it. Basic, 1e, 2e, the rule is there in each version, but it never made it into my games, where surprise was pretty much a case of DM fiat. Looking at it now, it's the sort of thing that can turn a battle one way or the other, and that's as it should be. It's a very nice rule that I'll be implementing with pleasure. I'm not too certain about the example with the Wyvern, though - it seems to me that it gets two surprise rounds, but I could be wrong.
Wandering Monsters: Wandering monsters are checked for at the end of every turn, with a 1-in-6 chance of appearing - to me that sounds like a lot of random encounters, but that's probably a symptom of me mostly playing in plot-driven games. In those, wandering monsters are a hindrance - in a sandbox, they're another random element for the PCs to deal with as they try to survive in the dungeon.
One thing I love about the Wandering Monster tables is that there's a big chance for monsters of varying power levels. Just because you're on Dungeon Level 1, that doesn't mean you'll only encounter 1st level monsters - if the dice go against you, you could be staring down the barrel of a random encounter with Wraiths or something equally deadly.
The level 2 chart has an entry for Thouls. I remember those in the D&D Basic Set, but they aren't detailed in OD&D. Are they a typo that got turned into a monster? Or a genuine monster that got left out by mistake?
A lot of giant animals that aren't statted up also get entries. Giant Hogs would be my favourite of these. There are also White Apes, again not detailed here. And given the game draws so heavily on Conan, the lack of Ape stats is criminal.
We then get a list of alternate monsters, some of which are mentioned for the first time ever: Giant Crabs, Giant Leeches, Giant Octopi, Crocodiles, Giant Squids, Pterodactyls, Cyborgs, Robots, Androids, Shadows and Dopplegangers. It's obvious here that Gary had far more ideas than he could squeeze into the booklets.
The numbers for wandering monsters appearing is pretty vague - some are solitary, some might have more or less depending on the relative dungeon level, and bigger parties attract more monsters (so much for safety in numbers).
Avoiding Monsters: Role-playing in D&D? Forget it - monsters always attack unless they're smart enough to avoid an obviously superior force. Says so right there in the rules. There are some nice simple rules for pursuit, as well as for dropping items to distract your pursuers. It's a nice touch that low intelligence monsters are more likely to stop for food, and high intelligence monsters are more likely to stop for treasure.
Random Actions by Monsters: In contradiction to what was stated above, intelligent monsters have a reaction chart to roll on for their actions, which can be negative, uncertain or positive. So I guess that means intelligent monsters don't always attack - or maybe they always attack unless the players do something first that might cause a roll on this chart. Sounds fair enough to me.
EXAMPLE OF PLAY: And now, halfway through the third booklet (by which time I imagine a lot of confused people had given up) there's an example of how the game is played. It's all quite terse and lacking in excitement, with a focus on exact distances for mapping accuracy. The players use a Caller, which is something I utterly despise - here's a rule I will cheerfully ignore. Basically the players enter the dungeon, fight some Gnolls, and find some treasure containing thousands of coins and a pair of elven boots. I'll be converting the details of this example into part of the first level of the Sample Dungeon mentioned yesterday. Those six gnolls will be wreaking havoc on a whole bunch of 1st level characters, I imagine.
Tomorrow I'll be looking at adventures in the wilderness, castles, specialists - and the ever-awesome Angry Villager Rule!
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
The Ultimate Sandbox: Monsters & Treasure Part 7
More magic items today - wands, staves, and miscellaneous bits and bobs.
WANDS AND STAVES: Before 3e came along and reclassified them, wands and staves weren't quite so rigidly defined power-wise. The main difference between them was that staves were longer, and had more powers.
The wands are all pretty basic stuff, and only usable by Magic-Users: Metal Detection (for the old days when getting treasure was everything), Enemy Detection, Magic Detection, Secret Door and Trap Detection, Illusion, Fear, Cold, Paralization, Fire Balls, Lightning Bolts, Polymorph and the most interesting - the Wand of Negation, which can be used to negate the effects of a single other wand or staff.
The Staves are more potent, with a few exceptions like the Staff of Healing which just does Cure Light Wounds (and only once per day to any one person! Harsh, Gary.). The Staff of Commanding works on Animals, Plants and Humans, so that's nifty - not monsters though! The Snake Staff is killer - it's +1 normally, and can turn into a snake that entwines the victim. The Staff of Striking deals 2d6 damage, and the Staff of Withering ages the victim 10 years! And here Gary makes things super-ambiguous - first he says that the life span is shortened by 10 years, and that the victim is not matured - then he says a man struck 4 times will be doddering! So which is it? I go with proper aging - makes things a bit more dramatic.
The Staff of Power is the mother-lode, though. It's got Cold, Striking, Fire Ball, Lightning Bolt, Continual Light, and Telekenesis - all very handy, but the real attraction is the Final Strike - break that staff and every creature in range takes 8 points of damage multiplied by the number of charges left. It's like a tactical nuke disguised as a walking stick.
The Staff of Wizardry is even more uber - it has all of the above powers, Final Strike included, and packs Paralization, Pass-Wall, Invisibility, Whirlwind, Wall of Fire, Web, and it can summon 1d4 Elementals!!! Do I even need to comment? All I will say is that the Web here is the first instance of that spell effect in D&D - the actual spell of the same name doesn't come until a little later.
MISCELLANEOUS MAGIC: The random stuff. This is usually where all of the weird effects and groovy cursed items reside, so this ought to be fun. They're arranged in loose categories, so I'll try to hit everything in that manner.
CRYSTAL BALL: The ubiquitous Crystal Ball, which allows Magic-Users to scry on people. It's not so good over long distances, it can't see through lead, and if you use it too long you have to rest. And Gary has already foreseen the PC abuse of this item - if you use it more than three times a day, you go mad. Super.
MEDALLIONS: One gives ESP, there's an amulet that protects from ESP and Crystal Balls, and the ultra-specific Scarab of Protection from Evil High Priests, which covers the glaring hole in the Ring of Spell Turning by granting immunity to the Finger of Death.
BAG OF HOLDING: Standard bag that holds more than it should. None of the funky extra-planar stuff gets mentioned yet, alas.
ELEMENTAL ITEMS: There are four items for summoning Elementals - a brazier for fire elementals, a bowl for water, a censer for air and a stone for earth. There's also the Efreet bottle, which houses an Efreet that will serve the finder of the bottle for 1,001 days, for that Aladdin's Lamp feel.
CLOAKS: The Displacer Cloak is here, somewhat before the Beast of the same name. As usual, it makes you appear a bit to the side of where you actually are, which can be handy. The other cloak is of the elven variety, and it makes you near-invisible; it's handily packaged with elven boots that make you silent.
BOOTS: Boots of Speed give you the speed of a Light Horse for a day before you have to rest, so they seem more applicable to overland travel than anything. Boots of Levitation are just like the spell with no limits on duration. Boots of Traveling and Leaping just let you walk further in a day - ho hum.
BROOM OF FLYING: What it says - a flying broom so you can have proper Witches and such.
HELMS: One lets you read magic or any language, another grants telepathy (with a suggestion power thrown in on top), and another teleportation. The teleportation one is interesting. The wearer can teleport "endlessly around the universe"(!) so long as he's got a Teleport spell in his memory, and the standard danger of landing half in the floor isn't there. Then we get our first cursed item - the Helm of Chaos (or Law if you prefer) - which reverses the character's alignment. Ya gotta love the classics.
The great thing about these helms is that they're specifically called out as not being suitable for combat - try and protect your head with one, and there's every chance it's going to get ruined (the helm that is, and your head as well probably).
FLYING CARPET: The Arabian cousin to the flying broom, I guess. It carries more people.
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS: The Drums of Panic cause fear, and might make all sorts of weaklings flee the battlefield. The Horn of Blasting is pretty nasty, dealing 2d6 damage, and it can blow down walls as well.
STRENGTH-BOOSTERS: Every fighter's best mates - the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, and the Girdle of Giant Strength. Given that Strength plays such a minimal role in OD&D combat, though, they aren't the bee's knees just yet. The Gauntlets just let you strike as an Ogre (+2 to damage?), and the Girdle bestows the strength and hit probability of a Hill Giant.
MIRROR OF LIFE-TRAPPING: If you look in it, you're trapped inside until the owner lets you out - it's basically just a very nasty trap. And whatever you do DMs, don't let one of these bad boys get in the hands of your players! They'll be carting it around and trapping everything in sight, maybe letting them out and picking them off one by one. Not pretty...
And we're through the magic items - the list is a lot smaller than I was expecting! It's still a good sampling of essential D&D magic items though - you could survive with nothing but these in your game for a long while.
ITEM SAVING THROWS: Ah, a lovely obscure rule that is most hated by players! How it works here is, if your character is killed by a magical attack like a fire ball (or an untended item is hit), it has to make a saving throw or get destroyed. Leaving it for the times when your character is killed seems fair, until you check out this cracker of a line: "Those items not listed should be assumed automatically destroyed." And what's listed? The Staff of Power, Staff of Wizardry, Fire Ball Wand, Lightning Bolt Wand, Ring of Fire Resistance, Ring of Protection, Magic Weapons, Armor, and Shields. Anything else? Destroyed no save. Ah-hahahahahaha. Gary is my hero.
ARTIFACTS: Artifacts here are defined as powerful items of Law or Chaos - which cements those two as the primary forces of the OD&D universe in my mind. There are some examples named, but not described, and I don't recall seeing them in later products - they may be fodder for me to expand upon myself. The list is: Teleportation Machine; Fighter's Crown, Orb and Sceptre; Magic-User's Crown, Orb and Sceptre; Cleric's yada yada yada; Stone Crystalization Projector. Some example effects are given that may have seemed powerful in 1973, but for artifacts are pretty weaksauce. "Instant Death" has a ring to it, though.
If I do have to figure these out myself, the Teleportation Machine will be the portal I'm placing under the campaign's Adventurer's Guild. The various crowns, orbs and sceptres will be linked to the head of each class within the Guild, though they'll probably be lost in Greyhawk Castle. I'm not sure what a Stone Crystalization Projector is, but my guess is that it turns it's victims to stone? Doesn't grab my fancy, really.
COINS: And finally! At the back of Volume II! We get the exchange rates for the different coins - there's 10 silver to a gold, as I'm used to. There's five copper to a silver, which makes 50 copper to a gold - copper is more valuable here than in later editions it seems. Electrum is an optional coinage, and it's worth either half or double the value of gold. I'm taking that literally - some salesmen/merchants/shopkeeps will prize it highly, and others not so much. Platinum is also there, worth five times as much as gold.
GEMS: Specific gem types aren't given, just some base values rolled on a random chart. If you roll well enough (and the odds are pretty slim) you might end up with one worth 500,000 gold pieces.
JEWELRY: Jewelry value is done much like Gems, but the base rates are a bit higher - there doesn't seem to be as much potential for astronomical figures here, though. Shame.
And we end with the note that fire and lightning melts coins, just to discourage those trigger-happy Magic-Users. Yea, verily Gary giveth with one hand, and he taketh with the other.
AND BY GOD THAT'S VOLUME II DONE! Vol. III, which I'll be starting tomorrow, will be a lot quicker, I can assure you of this - and then it starts to get a bit more interesting with regards to fitting stuff together as we delve into the Supplements, The Strategic Review, and later The Dragon.
WANDS AND STAVES: Before 3e came along and reclassified them, wands and staves weren't quite so rigidly defined power-wise. The main difference between them was that staves were longer, and had more powers.
The wands are all pretty basic stuff, and only usable by Magic-Users: Metal Detection (for the old days when getting treasure was everything), Enemy Detection, Magic Detection, Secret Door and Trap Detection, Illusion, Fear, Cold, Paralization, Fire Balls, Lightning Bolts, Polymorph and the most interesting - the Wand of Negation, which can be used to negate the effects of a single other wand or staff.
The Staves are more potent, with a few exceptions like the Staff of Healing which just does Cure Light Wounds (and only once per day to any one person! Harsh, Gary.). The Staff of Commanding works on Animals, Plants and Humans, so that's nifty - not monsters though! The Snake Staff is killer - it's +1 normally, and can turn into a snake that entwines the victim. The Staff of Striking deals 2d6 damage, and the Staff of Withering ages the victim 10 years! And here Gary makes things super-ambiguous - first he says that the life span is shortened by 10 years, and that the victim is not matured - then he says a man struck 4 times will be doddering! So which is it? I go with proper aging - makes things a bit more dramatic.
The Staff of Power is the mother-lode, though. It's got Cold, Striking, Fire Ball, Lightning Bolt, Continual Light, and Telekenesis - all very handy, but the real attraction is the Final Strike - break that staff and every creature in range takes 8 points of damage multiplied by the number of charges left. It's like a tactical nuke disguised as a walking stick.
The Staff of Wizardry is even more uber - it has all of the above powers, Final Strike included, and packs Paralization, Pass-Wall, Invisibility, Whirlwind, Wall of Fire, Web, and it can summon 1d4 Elementals!!! Do I even need to comment? All I will say is that the Web here is the first instance of that spell effect in D&D - the actual spell of the same name doesn't come until a little later.
MISCELLANEOUS MAGIC: The random stuff. This is usually where all of the weird effects and groovy cursed items reside, so this ought to be fun. They're arranged in loose categories, so I'll try to hit everything in that manner.
CRYSTAL BALL: The ubiquitous Crystal Ball, which allows Magic-Users to scry on people. It's not so good over long distances, it can't see through lead, and if you use it too long you have to rest. And Gary has already foreseen the PC abuse of this item - if you use it more than three times a day, you go mad. Super.
MEDALLIONS: One gives ESP, there's an amulet that protects from ESP and Crystal Balls, and the ultra-specific Scarab of Protection from Evil High Priests, which covers the glaring hole in the Ring of Spell Turning by granting immunity to the Finger of Death.
BAG OF HOLDING: Standard bag that holds more than it should. None of the funky extra-planar stuff gets mentioned yet, alas.
ELEMENTAL ITEMS: There are four items for summoning Elementals - a brazier for fire elementals, a bowl for water, a censer for air and a stone for earth. There's also the Efreet bottle, which houses an Efreet that will serve the finder of the bottle for 1,001 days, for that Aladdin's Lamp feel.
CLOAKS: The Displacer Cloak is here, somewhat before the Beast of the same name. As usual, it makes you appear a bit to the side of where you actually are, which can be handy. The other cloak is of the elven variety, and it makes you near-invisible; it's handily packaged with elven boots that make you silent.
BOOTS: Boots of Speed give you the speed of a Light Horse for a day before you have to rest, so they seem more applicable to overland travel than anything. Boots of Levitation are just like the spell with no limits on duration. Boots of Traveling and Leaping just let you walk further in a day - ho hum.
BROOM OF FLYING: What it says - a flying broom so you can have proper Witches and such.
HELMS: One lets you read magic or any language, another grants telepathy (with a suggestion power thrown in on top), and another teleportation. The teleportation one is interesting. The wearer can teleport "endlessly around the universe"(!) so long as he's got a Teleport spell in his memory, and the standard danger of landing half in the floor isn't there. Then we get our first cursed item - the Helm of Chaos (or Law if you prefer) - which reverses the character's alignment. Ya gotta love the classics.
The great thing about these helms is that they're specifically called out as not being suitable for combat - try and protect your head with one, and there's every chance it's going to get ruined (the helm that is, and your head as well probably).
FLYING CARPET: The Arabian cousin to the flying broom, I guess. It carries more people.
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS: The Drums of Panic cause fear, and might make all sorts of weaklings flee the battlefield. The Horn of Blasting is pretty nasty, dealing 2d6 damage, and it can blow down walls as well.
STRENGTH-BOOSTERS: Every fighter's best mates - the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, and the Girdle of Giant Strength. Given that Strength plays such a minimal role in OD&D combat, though, they aren't the bee's knees just yet. The Gauntlets just let you strike as an Ogre (+2 to damage?), and the Girdle bestows the strength and hit probability of a Hill Giant.
MIRROR OF LIFE-TRAPPING: If you look in it, you're trapped inside until the owner lets you out - it's basically just a very nasty trap. And whatever you do DMs, don't let one of these bad boys get in the hands of your players! They'll be carting it around and trapping everything in sight, maybe letting them out and picking them off one by one. Not pretty...
And we're through the magic items - the list is a lot smaller than I was expecting! It's still a good sampling of essential D&D magic items though - you could survive with nothing but these in your game for a long while.
ITEM SAVING THROWS: Ah, a lovely obscure rule that is most hated by players! How it works here is, if your character is killed by a magical attack like a fire ball (or an untended item is hit), it has to make a saving throw or get destroyed. Leaving it for the times when your character is killed seems fair, until you check out this cracker of a line: "Those items not listed should be assumed automatically destroyed." And what's listed? The Staff of Power, Staff of Wizardry, Fire Ball Wand, Lightning Bolt Wand, Ring of Fire Resistance, Ring of Protection, Magic Weapons, Armor, and Shields. Anything else? Destroyed no save. Ah-hahahahahaha. Gary is my hero.
ARTIFACTS: Artifacts here are defined as powerful items of Law or Chaos - which cements those two as the primary forces of the OD&D universe in my mind. There are some examples named, but not described, and I don't recall seeing them in later products - they may be fodder for me to expand upon myself. The list is: Teleportation Machine; Fighter's Crown, Orb and Sceptre; Magic-User's Crown, Orb and Sceptre; Cleric's yada yada yada; Stone Crystalization Projector. Some example effects are given that may have seemed powerful in 1973, but for artifacts are pretty weaksauce. "Instant Death" has a ring to it, though.
If I do have to figure these out myself, the Teleportation Machine will be the portal I'm placing under the campaign's Adventurer's Guild. The various crowns, orbs and sceptres will be linked to the head of each class within the Guild, though they'll probably be lost in Greyhawk Castle. I'm not sure what a Stone Crystalization Projector is, but my guess is that it turns it's victims to stone? Doesn't grab my fancy, really.
COINS: And finally! At the back of Volume II! We get the exchange rates for the different coins - there's 10 silver to a gold, as I'm used to. There's five copper to a silver, which makes 50 copper to a gold - copper is more valuable here than in later editions it seems. Electrum is an optional coinage, and it's worth either half or double the value of gold. I'm taking that literally - some salesmen/merchants/shopkeeps will prize it highly, and others not so much. Platinum is also there, worth five times as much as gold.
GEMS: Specific gem types aren't given, just some base values rolled on a random chart. If you roll well enough (and the odds are pretty slim) you might end up with one worth 500,000 gold pieces.
JEWELRY: Jewelry value is done much like Gems, but the base rates are a bit higher - there doesn't seem to be as much potential for astronomical figures here, though. Shame.
And we end with the note that fire and lightning melts coins, just to discourage those trigger-happy Magic-Users. Yea, verily Gary giveth with one hand, and he taketh with the other.
AND BY GOD THAT'S VOLUME II DONE! Vol. III, which I'll be starting tomorrow, will be a lot quicker, I can assure you of this - and then it starts to get a bit more interesting with regards to fitting stuff together as we delve into the Supplements, The Strategic Review, and later The Dragon.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
The Ultimate Sandbox: Monsters & Treasure Part 6
TREASURE TABLES: As some of you may remember, there are no wealth by level guidelines OD&D. What you get instead are alphabetical Treasure Types. Each monster has a Treasure Type, and each of these has a percentage chance of containing copper, silver, gold, gems or magic. Each type has its own purpose - Type I is for monsters that only carry gems and magic, Type H is for monsters with vast hoards, and so on. They result in large hauls of treasure, but they're only rolled on when you encounter the monster in its lair.
I much prefer Treasure Types over the uniform tables in 3e. It gives a lot more scope for individualising monster hoards, at least so far as random determination goes.
Beneath the tables are some footnotes about humans keeping slaves - Brigands, Bandits, Nomads, Pirates, and Buccaneers all keep slaves or prisoners. So the slave trade is rife in Greyhawk already by this point, though probably not so organised as it will later become under the Slavers of modules A1-4.
The random magic item tables follow, but we need not discuss those, except to say that we have the following types - Maps, Swords, Armor, Miscellaneous Weapons, Potions, Scrolls, Rings, Wands/Staves, and Miscellaneous Magic.
MAPS: Treasure maps are cool, and haven't featured in my games nearly enough. There are random maps here that lead to treasure, those that lead to magic items, and those that lead to a combination of both. All appropriately guarded, of course!
I should also note just how common these things are - 25% of all randomly rolled magic items will be maps.
SWORDS: Swords in OD&D are pretty special - each and every one is intelligent! This ties into Chainmail's assertion that they are 'entities in themselves'. Every one has an alignment, Intelligence, and an Egoism that determines how well it can take over the mind of its wielder. Some have a special purpose as well, and those are the ones to watch out for. A character picking up a sword of a different alignment to himself will be damaged, but NPCs directed to pick swords up by PCs only take half damage - apparently because they're not acting as free agents. I guess the swords can sense this or something, and it's a neat way to keep the PCs guessing. Gary also gives a few options for using the times when PCs use NPCs as guinea pigs to screw over the players, such as alignment changes and power gains.
Intelligent swords have special powers, as well as empathy, speech or telepathy. The powers are usually those of detection, so your sword might be able to sense traps or secret doors or Detect Meal (which I assume is meant to say Detect Metal). There's a table for extraordinary abilities, and these are the good ones - flying, healing, x-ray vision, that kind of thing.
If a sword manages to take contol of its wielder all sorts of amusing things can result. It might lead him into great danger so it can enjoy the combat, allow itself to be captured by someone more powerful, surrender itself to someone weaker that they can control better, or (my favourite) demand its scabbard get encrusted with gemstones.
Ten percent of these swords have a special purpose, which is usually to defeat a certain alignment or type of creature. Lawful swords paralyze their chosen foes, while Chaotic swords disintegrate (man, evil is always cooler) Neutral swords just give a boring but handy +1 to all saves. But these swords always want to be at their tasks, so they'll be harder to control.
The bonuses that magic swords get apply only to attack rolls. Only those swords with bonuses against certain creatures get to add it to damage as well - this will be a bitch to remember after years of applying it to both.
So if all Magic Swords are intelligent in OD&D, I have to rationalise why they aren't in later editions of the game. What I come up with is this: to make an intelligent magic sword, a living being's soul must be bound into it. Eventually these souls will die or pass on to the afterlife, leaving many formerly intelligent swords as merely magical. I also like the way it gives some potential personality and history to the intelligence of the sword - it's not just a sword, because it used to be a real person.
The specific swords are a mixed bunch. There's the standard +1, +2 and +3 - that's as high as the bonuses go at this stage. There are other swords that get an extra bonus versus specific creatures - lycanthropes, magic-users and enchanted monsters, trolls (or Clerics if the sword is Chaotic), and Dragons. There's a Flaming Sword, and everyone wants one of those - it's extra good against trolls and undead, or Pegasi, Hippogriffs, Rocs and Treants if it's a Chaotic sword. The Sword that grants 2-8 Wishes is pretty sweet, but that's nothing compared to a ring that's coming up later. There's another that can cast Charm Person. There's a cursed one that gives a -2 penalty. And finally there's the Energy Draining sword, which would guarantee that your fellow players would live in eternal fear of you (or conspire to do you in, as the case may be). That nightmare can get to the point where it drains 9 levels in a single hit!
MAGIC ARMOR: Much like Magic Swords in OD&D, the bonuses here are smaller ones - Armor has a maximum of +2, and Shields go to +3. There's not much else to note, except that the armor's bonus doesn't affect the wearer's Armor Class - instead, it is subtracted from the attackers "hit dice" (which I take to mean their attack roll). I guess this would make the Weapon vs. Armor table a bit easier to use (once it gets introduced), but mathematically it's the same thing. Shields also don't always get their bonus - it only comes into play if it's higher than that of the armor, and even then there is only a one-third chance of that happening. It's a much less power-gamey world we live in...
MISCELLANEOUS WEAPONS: There are a number of weapons here with set bonuses. They aren't intelligent like swords, but more often than not they get their magic bonus to damage as well as to attack. It's all pretty standard fare, such as arrows, bows, axes, maces and spears. The only special weapons are a couple of daggers that are stronger against goblins, kobolds, and orcs, and the +3 War Hammer. This thing is +2 normally, but when a dwarf wields it it goes to +3, always returns when thrown, deals 2-12 damage, and 5-15 damage against giants. All told, it's a pretty fearsome thing.
POTIONS: These are the standard type - you drink them and get a magical boost. You can sip them to get an idea of what they do, which I like. Otherwise it's the usual list of D&D potions. Growth, Diminuation (not Diminution as it would later become), Speed, Healing, Longevity, Animal Control, Undead Control, Plant Control, Human Control (otherwise known as the 'potion of date rape'), Giant Control, Dragon Control, Invulnerability, Treasure Finding, and Heroism. There is also a potion of Gaseous Form, and it's interesting that here when you use it your equipment gets left behind! That's a massive departure from current D&D game design, and makes it a real last resort as far as using it to escape goes. There is also the Potion of Delusion, which makes the user believe it is another potion entirely. Making it seem like a Potion of Dragon Control has interesting possibilities.
SCROLLS: These contain spells, anywhere from 1 to 7, which is a hell of a lot more than I'm used to. There are no provisions mentioned for scribing these spells into your spell book, but since casters get every spell for nothing already it doesn't matter. There are also a number of Protection scrolls, which protect against the named creature and can be read by any class. One of these things saved our whole party once, so I love them - we were getting decimated by wererats, and I was the only character left. I decided to scour my character sheet, and there (forgotten by myself and the DM) was the Scroll of Protection from Lycanthropes. I'll be glad to use them in the game again.
RINGS: The classic D&D restriction is in place here: only one ring per hand! Again, the list is concise but classic: Mammal Control, Protection (only a +1 bonus at this point), Three Wishes, Delusion, Regeneration, Djinn Summoning, Telekenesis (consistently spelled this way throughout OD&D), X-Ray Vision, Spell Turning (which is hilariously ineffective against the Finger of Death), and Spell Storing.
Tomorrow I'll be finishing up OD&D Vol. 2, with some notes on Miscellaneous Magic, coins and gems, and artifacts.
I much prefer Treasure Types over the uniform tables in 3e. It gives a lot more scope for individualising monster hoards, at least so far as random determination goes.
Beneath the tables are some footnotes about humans keeping slaves - Brigands, Bandits, Nomads, Pirates, and Buccaneers all keep slaves or prisoners. So the slave trade is rife in Greyhawk already by this point, though probably not so organised as it will later become under the Slavers of modules A1-4.
The random magic item tables follow, but we need not discuss those, except to say that we have the following types - Maps, Swords, Armor, Miscellaneous Weapons, Potions, Scrolls, Rings, Wands/Staves, and Miscellaneous Magic.
MAPS: Treasure maps are cool, and haven't featured in my games nearly enough. There are random maps here that lead to treasure, those that lead to magic items, and those that lead to a combination of both. All appropriately guarded, of course!
I should also note just how common these things are - 25% of all randomly rolled magic items will be maps.
SWORDS: Swords in OD&D are pretty special - each and every one is intelligent! This ties into Chainmail's assertion that they are 'entities in themselves'. Every one has an alignment, Intelligence, and an Egoism that determines how well it can take over the mind of its wielder. Some have a special purpose as well, and those are the ones to watch out for. A character picking up a sword of a different alignment to himself will be damaged, but NPCs directed to pick swords up by PCs only take half damage - apparently because they're not acting as free agents. I guess the swords can sense this or something, and it's a neat way to keep the PCs guessing. Gary also gives a few options for using the times when PCs use NPCs as guinea pigs to screw over the players, such as alignment changes and power gains.
Intelligent swords have special powers, as well as empathy, speech or telepathy. The powers are usually those of detection, so your sword might be able to sense traps or secret doors or Detect Meal (which I assume is meant to say Detect Metal). There's a table for extraordinary abilities, and these are the good ones - flying, healing, x-ray vision, that kind of thing.
If a sword manages to take contol of its wielder all sorts of amusing things can result. It might lead him into great danger so it can enjoy the combat, allow itself to be captured by someone more powerful, surrender itself to someone weaker that they can control better, or (my favourite) demand its scabbard get encrusted with gemstones.
Ten percent of these swords have a special purpose, which is usually to defeat a certain alignment or type of creature. Lawful swords paralyze their chosen foes, while Chaotic swords disintegrate (man, evil is always cooler) Neutral swords just give a boring but handy +1 to all saves. But these swords always want to be at their tasks, so they'll be harder to control.
The bonuses that magic swords get apply only to attack rolls. Only those swords with bonuses against certain creatures get to add it to damage as well - this will be a bitch to remember after years of applying it to both.
So if all Magic Swords are intelligent in OD&D, I have to rationalise why they aren't in later editions of the game. What I come up with is this: to make an intelligent magic sword, a living being's soul must be bound into it. Eventually these souls will die or pass on to the afterlife, leaving many formerly intelligent swords as merely magical. I also like the way it gives some potential personality and history to the intelligence of the sword - it's not just a sword, because it used to be a real person.
The specific swords are a mixed bunch. There's the standard +1, +2 and +3 - that's as high as the bonuses go at this stage. There are other swords that get an extra bonus versus specific creatures - lycanthropes, magic-users and enchanted monsters, trolls (or Clerics if the sword is Chaotic), and Dragons. There's a Flaming Sword, and everyone wants one of those - it's extra good against trolls and undead, or Pegasi, Hippogriffs, Rocs and Treants if it's a Chaotic sword. The Sword that grants 2-8 Wishes is pretty sweet, but that's nothing compared to a ring that's coming up later. There's another that can cast Charm Person. There's a cursed one that gives a -2 penalty. And finally there's the Energy Draining sword, which would guarantee that your fellow players would live in eternal fear of you (or conspire to do you in, as the case may be). That nightmare can get to the point where it drains 9 levels in a single hit!
MAGIC ARMOR: Much like Magic Swords in OD&D, the bonuses here are smaller ones - Armor has a maximum of +2, and Shields go to +3. There's not much else to note, except that the armor's bonus doesn't affect the wearer's Armor Class - instead, it is subtracted from the attackers "hit dice" (which I take to mean their attack roll). I guess this would make the Weapon vs. Armor table a bit easier to use (once it gets introduced), but mathematically it's the same thing. Shields also don't always get their bonus - it only comes into play if it's higher than that of the armor, and even then there is only a one-third chance of that happening. It's a much less power-gamey world we live in...
MISCELLANEOUS WEAPONS: There are a number of weapons here with set bonuses. They aren't intelligent like swords, but more often than not they get their magic bonus to damage as well as to attack. It's all pretty standard fare, such as arrows, bows, axes, maces and spears. The only special weapons are a couple of daggers that are stronger against goblins, kobolds, and orcs, and the +3 War Hammer. This thing is +2 normally, but when a dwarf wields it it goes to +3, always returns when thrown, deals 2-12 damage, and 5-15 damage against giants. All told, it's a pretty fearsome thing.
POTIONS: These are the standard type - you drink them and get a magical boost. You can sip them to get an idea of what they do, which I like. Otherwise it's the usual list of D&D potions. Growth, Diminuation (not Diminution as it would later become), Speed, Healing, Longevity, Animal Control, Undead Control, Plant Control, Human Control (otherwise known as the 'potion of date rape'), Giant Control, Dragon Control, Invulnerability, Treasure Finding, and Heroism. There is also a potion of Gaseous Form, and it's interesting that here when you use it your equipment gets left behind! That's a massive departure from current D&D game design, and makes it a real last resort as far as using it to escape goes. There is also the Potion of Delusion, which makes the user believe it is another potion entirely. Making it seem like a Potion of Dragon Control has interesting possibilities.
SCROLLS: These contain spells, anywhere from 1 to 7, which is a hell of a lot more than I'm used to. There are no provisions mentioned for scribing these spells into your spell book, but since casters get every spell for nothing already it doesn't matter. There are also a number of Protection scrolls, which protect against the named creature and can be read by any class. One of these things saved our whole party once, so I love them - we were getting decimated by wererats, and I was the only character left. I decided to scour my character sheet, and there (forgotten by myself and the DM) was the Scroll of Protection from Lycanthropes. I'll be glad to use them in the game again.
RINGS: The classic D&D restriction is in place here: only one ring per hand! Again, the list is concise but classic: Mammal Control, Protection (only a +1 bonus at this point), Three Wishes, Delusion, Regeneration, Djinn Summoning, Telekenesis (consistently spelled this way throughout OD&D), X-Ray Vision, Spell Turning (which is hilariously ineffective against the Finger of Death), and Spell Storing.
Tomorrow I'll be finishing up OD&D Vol. 2, with some notes on Miscellaneous Magic, coins and gems, and artifacts.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Ultimate Sandbox: Monsters & Treasure Part 5
We begin today with a number of magical creatures, generally those that are summoned intpo the game by magic.
INVISIBLE STALKERS: These are invisible creatures created by the spell of the same name, that obey the orders of the caster. They're faultless trackers and pursue their mission to the exclusion of all else. When that's done they return to their "non-dimension" - canonically this is the Elemental Plane of Air. The only way to stop them is to kill them, but you can do it with a Dispell Magic as well - which is odd, because the spell description specifically said they can't be dispelled. I'm going to rule it like this - the Invisible Stalker can be sent home with a Dispell Magic spell; the reference in D&D Vol. 1 means that it can't be dismissed by the caster, which can have consequences as detailed below.
If the Stalker is made to perform tasks that take a long time, they'll try to pervert the mission to screw their master over. There's even a possibility that the caster will be whisked off to the Stalker's own plane and held in suspended animation. So use these guys wisely!
ELEMENTALS: As would be expected, the four classics are here: air, earth, fire and water. The strength of an elemental depends on the method used to summon it, and strangely enough it's the spell that summons the strongest - I thought it would be the other way around, since the spell is the most easily accessible of the three methods.
Only one of each type can be conjured in a day - and that goes for everyone in the game. If your opponent summons a Fire Elemental, you won't be able to do the same until tomorrow. This makes me wonder what happens if some guy on the other side of the planet summons a Fire Elemental - is it a global thing? Of course not - we'll call it a localised phenomenon, and chalk it up to either fickle elementals or a magical limitation due to the unknowns of piercing dimensional barriers.
Air Elementals fly all the time, get a damage bonus in the air, and can turn into a whirlwind. This will sweep those under 2 hit dice away - but there's nothing said on its effect on stronger creatures.
Earth Elementals can't cross water, but they deal 3d6 damage per hit on those touching the ground, which is pretty brutal. They can also batter down walls, so they're handy in a siege.
Fire Elementals score more damage against non-fire users, cannot cross water, but can set stuff on fire. You need a large body of flame to summon one.
Water elementals generally don't leave the water, and deal more damage when in it. Like Fire Elementals, you need a lot of water to summon one.
A summoned elemental has to be mentally controlled by the summoner at all times, or it'll go berserk and try to kill him. And they can only be hit by magic weapons, so good luck to your M-U if this happens to him.
Elementals are in Chainmail. It states that fire-breathing dragons can't affect Fire and Earth Elementals, which is fair enough. Otherwise there are no changes.
DJINN: Ah, the spelling. Noobs never know what this thing is until you tell them it's a Genie. But they have a load of special abilities - they fight as giants, can carry a lot, create food and drinks and items of wood or softer, create temporary metal items, cast illusions, form whirlwinds, turn invisible and become gaseous. It's not a lot of offensive power, but they'd rock as henchmen.
Djinn are in Chainmail, briefly noted as a type of Air Elemental, which fits well enough.
EFREET: Like the Djinn, but fiery, and Djinn are their enemies. Their home is said to be the City of Brass, and so we have our first D&D extra-planar location named. Otherwise they do a bit more damage than a Djinn, can carry more, and can create a Wall of Fire. They also serve for 1,001 days, though how you get one to serve you isn't spelled out.
Efreet are in Chainmail, briefly noted as a type of Fire Elemental.
OCHRE JELLY: Oozes! There's little that's more D&D than the various oozes and molds and fungi monsters. Each one has its gimmicky immunities and vulnerabilities, and because the oozes aren't specifically memorable the players can get them mixed up a bit. The Ochre Jelly is an amoeba, immune to weapons and lightning but vulnerable to fire and cold. Hits split them into smaller versions. They also dissolve wood and flesh, and can seep through small cracks.
BLACK PUDDING: There are also apparently Gray Puddings. It's said to be a nuisance monster, but with 10 hit dice and a damage output of 3d6 they're nothing to sneeze at. They're immune to cold, split by weapons and lightning, but killed by fire. And just because they weren't deadly enough they dissolve metal (which means weapons and armor), they can seep through cracks and they can travel on the walls and ceiling. A great monster for harassing PCs wherever they hole up (so long as it's not an extradimensional space).
GREEN SLIME: Getting your character killed by Green Slime is a kind of old-school initiation rite, I think. Fire and cold can kill it, but it's immune to weapons and lightning. It eats wood and metal, and sticks to flesh - and after one turn the victim is turned to green slime himself! It can be scraped off or burned off or healed by Cure Disease, but it's still awesome.
GRAY OOZE: The Gray Ooze resembles stone, so it's hard to see in a dungeon, as well as being immune to fire and cold. It corrodes metal, so when you accidentally step in one your leg armor will probably dissolve. It also eats flesh, as if that was ever in doubt.
YELLOW MOLD: Underground fungus that can be killed only by fire. Touching it deals damage to you, and it also has spores of the save-or-die variety. It's probably the most potentially deadly of the ooze/fungi group - try putting one at the bottom of your goblin's 10-foot pit, and watch your players wail.
HORSES: You know what they are. Their carrying capacities get listed, and it's noted that those not trained for battle are spooked by fire and strange smells. Also, Mules are great because they can go in dungeons. I already have a Mule pencilled in for my next character.
INSECTS OR SMALL ANIMALS: A vague guide for making stats up yourself. Which is fair enough - devote the space to monsters, not animals!
LARGE INSECTS OR ANIMALS: Again it's more of a guide, but it mentions giant ants and Tyrannosaurus Rex, so it gets bonus points. We also get our first glimpse at the Warrior of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs influence, with Martian creatures such as Apts, Banths, and Thoats being mentioned under this category. The original Greyhawk campaign had at least one character venture to Mars, so I must have it as a possibility, probably via a portal in Castle Greyhawk or the one I'm placing under the Adventurer's Guild (see earlier posts for more on that).
And to finalize the monster section (at last!) there are a number of other creatures that get very small descriptions. Most of these monsters showed up in later supplements, much as they are described here. Titans are said to be giants with magical abilities (correct!), Cyclopses are stronger giants with poor depth perception (who knows, they were never in AD&D to my experience), juggernauts are huge statues on wheels that roll over their enemies under guidance from an unearthly force (correct!), Living Statues are stone or iron beings that come alive to attack trespassers (correct in Basic D&D, but called Golems in AD&D), Salamanders are free-willed reptilian fire elementals (correct), and Gelatinous Cubes as transparent creatures that fit exactly the dimensions of the dungeon corridor that absorb items and may have metal ones floating in them. They even describe the infamous iron golem encountered by Gary's characters that was immune to everything but the weapons it guarded, had fire breath, a poison sword, and a whip of cockatrice feathers to turn its victims to stone. This was encountered in Castle Maure, as shown in the module Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure - that module will be part of the original elements I'll be mixing into the sandbox.
Robots, Golems and Androids also get briefly mentioned as self-explanatory. The second were rolled into Living Statues above, and the other two never really got further developed in D&D - I'll be throwing them in somewhere, possibly when the PCs jaunt off to other worlds. I certainly won't be neglecting the sci-fi/fantasy mash-up at the heart early D&D.
That's it for monsters, and it's heartening to see that the majority of them appear in the form they would keep in later editions of the game. On Monday I'll tackle the Treasure Tables, as well as a host of magical items - Swords, Armor, Weapons, Potions, Scrolls and Rings.
INVISIBLE STALKERS: These are invisible creatures created by the spell of the same name, that obey the orders of the caster. They're faultless trackers and pursue their mission to the exclusion of all else. When that's done they return to their "non-dimension" - canonically this is the Elemental Plane of Air. The only way to stop them is to kill them, but you can do it with a Dispell Magic as well - which is odd, because the spell description specifically said they can't be dispelled. I'm going to rule it like this - the Invisible Stalker can be sent home with a Dispell Magic spell; the reference in D&D Vol. 1 means that it can't be dismissed by the caster, which can have consequences as detailed below.
If the Stalker is made to perform tasks that take a long time, they'll try to pervert the mission to screw their master over. There's even a possibility that the caster will be whisked off to the Stalker's own plane and held in suspended animation. So use these guys wisely!
ELEMENTALS: As would be expected, the four classics are here: air, earth, fire and water. The strength of an elemental depends on the method used to summon it, and strangely enough it's the spell that summons the strongest - I thought it would be the other way around, since the spell is the most easily accessible of the three methods.
Only one of each type can be conjured in a day - and that goes for everyone in the game. If your opponent summons a Fire Elemental, you won't be able to do the same until tomorrow. This makes me wonder what happens if some guy on the other side of the planet summons a Fire Elemental - is it a global thing? Of course not - we'll call it a localised phenomenon, and chalk it up to either fickle elementals or a magical limitation due to the unknowns of piercing dimensional barriers.
Air Elementals fly all the time, get a damage bonus in the air, and can turn into a whirlwind. This will sweep those under 2 hit dice away - but there's nothing said on its effect on stronger creatures.
Earth Elementals can't cross water, but they deal 3d6 damage per hit on those touching the ground, which is pretty brutal. They can also batter down walls, so they're handy in a siege.
Fire Elementals score more damage against non-fire users, cannot cross water, but can set stuff on fire. You need a large body of flame to summon one.
Water elementals generally don't leave the water, and deal more damage when in it. Like Fire Elementals, you need a lot of water to summon one.
A summoned elemental has to be mentally controlled by the summoner at all times, or it'll go berserk and try to kill him. And they can only be hit by magic weapons, so good luck to your M-U if this happens to him.
Elementals are in Chainmail. It states that fire-breathing dragons can't affect Fire and Earth Elementals, which is fair enough. Otherwise there are no changes.
DJINN: Ah, the spelling. Noobs never know what this thing is until you tell them it's a Genie. But they have a load of special abilities - they fight as giants, can carry a lot, create food and drinks and items of wood or softer, create temporary metal items, cast illusions, form whirlwinds, turn invisible and become gaseous. It's not a lot of offensive power, but they'd rock as henchmen.
Djinn are in Chainmail, briefly noted as a type of Air Elemental, which fits well enough.
EFREET: Like the Djinn, but fiery, and Djinn are their enemies. Their home is said to be the City of Brass, and so we have our first D&D extra-planar location named. Otherwise they do a bit more damage than a Djinn, can carry more, and can create a Wall of Fire. They also serve for 1,001 days, though how you get one to serve you isn't spelled out.
Efreet are in Chainmail, briefly noted as a type of Fire Elemental.
OCHRE JELLY: Oozes! There's little that's more D&D than the various oozes and molds and fungi monsters. Each one has its gimmicky immunities and vulnerabilities, and because the oozes aren't specifically memorable the players can get them mixed up a bit. The Ochre Jelly is an amoeba, immune to weapons and lightning but vulnerable to fire and cold. Hits split them into smaller versions. They also dissolve wood and flesh, and can seep through small cracks.
BLACK PUDDING: There are also apparently Gray Puddings. It's said to be a nuisance monster, but with 10 hit dice and a damage output of 3d6 they're nothing to sneeze at. They're immune to cold, split by weapons and lightning, but killed by fire. And just because they weren't deadly enough they dissolve metal (which means weapons and armor), they can seep through cracks and they can travel on the walls and ceiling. A great monster for harassing PCs wherever they hole up (so long as it's not an extradimensional space).
GREEN SLIME: Getting your character killed by Green Slime is a kind of old-school initiation rite, I think. Fire and cold can kill it, but it's immune to weapons and lightning. It eats wood and metal, and sticks to flesh - and after one turn the victim is turned to green slime himself! It can be scraped off or burned off or healed by Cure Disease, but it's still awesome.
GRAY OOZE: The Gray Ooze resembles stone, so it's hard to see in a dungeon, as well as being immune to fire and cold. It corrodes metal, so when you accidentally step in one your leg armor will probably dissolve. It also eats flesh, as if that was ever in doubt.
YELLOW MOLD: Underground fungus that can be killed only by fire. Touching it deals damage to you, and it also has spores of the save-or-die variety. It's probably the most potentially deadly of the ooze/fungi group - try putting one at the bottom of your goblin's 10-foot pit, and watch your players wail.
HORSES: You know what they are. Their carrying capacities get listed, and it's noted that those not trained for battle are spooked by fire and strange smells. Also, Mules are great because they can go in dungeons. I already have a Mule pencilled in for my next character.
INSECTS OR SMALL ANIMALS: A vague guide for making stats up yourself. Which is fair enough - devote the space to monsters, not animals!
LARGE INSECTS OR ANIMALS: Again it's more of a guide, but it mentions giant ants and Tyrannosaurus Rex, so it gets bonus points. We also get our first glimpse at the Warrior of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs influence, with Martian creatures such as Apts, Banths, and Thoats being mentioned under this category. The original Greyhawk campaign had at least one character venture to Mars, so I must have it as a possibility, probably via a portal in Castle Greyhawk or the one I'm placing under the Adventurer's Guild (see earlier posts for more on that).
And to finalize the monster section (at last!) there are a number of other creatures that get very small descriptions. Most of these monsters showed up in later supplements, much as they are described here. Titans are said to be giants with magical abilities (correct!), Cyclopses are stronger giants with poor depth perception (who knows, they were never in AD&D to my experience), juggernauts are huge statues on wheels that roll over their enemies under guidance from an unearthly force (correct!), Living Statues are stone or iron beings that come alive to attack trespassers (correct in Basic D&D, but called Golems in AD&D), Salamanders are free-willed reptilian fire elementals (correct), and Gelatinous Cubes as transparent creatures that fit exactly the dimensions of the dungeon corridor that absorb items and may have metal ones floating in them. They even describe the infamous iron golem encountered by Gary's characters that was immune to everything but the weapons it guarded, had fire breath, a poison sword, and a whip of cockatrice feathers to turn its victims to stone. This was encountered in Castle Maure, as shown in the module Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure - that module will be part of the original elements I'll be mixing into the sandbox.
Robots, Golems and Androids also get briefly mentioned as self-explanatory. The second were rolled into Living Statues above, and the other two never really got further developed in D&D - I'll be throwing them in somewhere, possibly when the PCs jaunt off to other worlds. I certainly won't be neglecting the sci-fi/fantasy mash-up at the heart early D&D.
That's it for monsters, and it's heartening to see that the majority of them appear in the form they would keep in later editions of the game. On Monday I'll tackle the Treasure Tables, as well as a host of magical items - Swords, Armor, Weapons, Potions, Scrolls and Rings.
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