An Impromptu B/X Game Report

My current 2nd edition campaign group was going to meet last night but due to some scheduling difficulties we had to scrap the plans. Two of the players still came over and instead we decided to play an off the cuff session of B/X.

I had each player roll up two 3rd level characters using 3d6 in order. What resulted was great fun. One player rolled up two dwarves - brothers - named Ping and Pong. The other player rolled up Blorg the Fighter with an Intelligence of 4 and Seth the Cleric with a Wisdom of 7.

While they were rolling up their characters I was quickly trying to find a suitable adventure for the evening. I grabbed a handful of Judges Guild modules and started flipping through them for some inspiration.

After the characters were created, I had each player roll a d20 a number of times to determine if the characters had any magic item. I usually have them try to roll under their level (3 in this case) for each of the magic item categories. They actually rolled a number of 2's and had a handful of magic items.

One of the items rolled was a treasure map! This made me quickly abandon my flipping through adventures and I grabbed Judges Guild's Book of Treasure Maps. A few rolls later to determine with Wilderlands map and hex location and the group of four brave adventures were off in pursuit of the legendary Jewel of Kallapath (I just made up the name).

Alas, the adventure was short lived. After coming upon an old keep populated with goblins and ogres, the party spent a number of days travelling with few rolls on the Ravaged Ruins table to give some flavour and a few wandering monster rolls which came up negative.

Finally, I rolled up a wandering monster which led me to the Dragon subtable. Thinking to myself, "Oh, oh...", I quickly rolled up an encounter with two fire salamanders (AC 2, HD 8, 3 Attacks and fire damage to anyone nearby) which surprised the party. Seeing as this was a oneshot and I wanted to see what the players would do, I decided to just spring the encounter on them and see what happened. A roll on the monster reaction table gave the party an opportunity to try to evade. Unfortunately, the PCs decided to charge the fiery lizards and soon thereafter we had a dead party.

What Worked Well:
1. Rolling for magic items gave a great hook for the adventure with the treasure map.
2. Rolling to figure out where in the Wilderlands the adventure would be located was quick and fun.
3. Judges Guild's Book of Treasure Maps was a great help.
4. Rolling up four 3rd level characters with B/X was fast and led to some fun characters (not a surprise here!).

What Didn't Work as Well:
1. I discovered I am rusty at running a hex crawl. Being unprepared for an impromptu B/X one shot definitely contributed to this as did the fact that we randomly determined that the party started in hex 0914 of map one of the Wilderlands. However, it has been a while since I have run a hex crawl. I would like to play in someone else's game for a hex crawl just to see how others do it.
2. It being a oneshot definitely impacted the players' decisions. Four 3rd level adventures with no offensive magic going up against two fire salamanders was a definite mistake, but it didn't really matter because it was a oneshot.

All-in-all a good time and a great way to spend the evening.

Sans Armour - the S&S Trope in B/X

Three posts in one morning! After this I might have to go lay down.

One thing that is often seen in the sword & sorcery literature and artwork that is not directly included in B/X - or any other version of D&D - is the loin-skin wearing barbarian or chainmail bikini clad amazon wading into battle.

Now the argument could be made, and quite convincingly I think, that the increase in hit points each level actually does reflect the ability for an unarmoured character to avoid getting hit. But, an idea I have been considering to accommodate for this standard S&S trope in a way in which players might be happier with than just the increase in hit points every level is that a character's Armour Class can improve as they go up in levels as long as they are not wearing any armour.

DRAFT ONLY
Unarmoured AC is adjusted by Dexterity Armour Class Adjustment.

The idea behind it is that Fighters can hit an unarmoured opponent Fighter of the same level 50% of the time and the unarmoured AC progresses at the same rate as the improvement in the Fighter's "to hit". So as per the Attack tables on page X26, a level 1-3 Fighter hits AC 8 50% of the time, level 4-6 hits AC 6 50% of the time, level 7-9 hits AC 3 50% of the time...

From this base line assumption all of the other classes are worse and improve slower. I would also strongly consider not allowing this ability for any other classes besides fighters.

The key is that they must be unarmoured - wearing any armour including as shield makes the character use the standard AC system.

Art Used Without Permission

Ghosts in the Darkness

Somewhat related to my previous post about Normal Humans...

I read the the recent article from AP, Study: Man-eating lions consumed 35 people in 1898

When I was flipping through the Monster section from the Basic Rulebook I stopped at the Lion entry under Cat, Great (pg B32).

A Lion has 5 HD (average of about 23 hit points), an Armour Class of 6, and (the real kicker) three attacks: 2 claws (2-5 damage each) and 1 bite (1-10 damage).

I can easily see 2 lions killing 35 Normal Humans (AC 9 and 1-4 hit points) in B/X D&D - and not over nine months, all at once!

The Effects of Leading an Unsavoury Life

I was reading though some of the Basic rulebook and I came across something which reflects the nature of hit points as more than just a measure of physical damage that can be sustained but instead also reflects intangibles in combat such as morale, luck, skill, etc.

The entry for Normal Humans in the Monster section reads:

A Normal Human is a human who does not seek dangerous adventure. A normal human does not have a class. Normal humans have their own saving throws and "to hit" numbers. They have from 1 to 4 hit points (depending on their age, health, and profession). EXAMPLE: An adult blacksmith would have 4 hp, but a young child or sickly beggar would have 1 hp.

In contrast, the entry for Bandit assigns 1 HD and better saving throws for those who band together for the purpose of robbing others.

The difference between the two monster entries, I believe, highlights the impact that leading a dangerous life has on the game mechanics. Why would a Bandit potentially have more hit points than an active and fit blacksmith? Not because of any ability to sustain more physical damage but instead, the bandit's dangerous lifestyle has prepared him better for surviving a fight through skill, luck, etc.

The relative power levels between PCs and Normal Humans also shows that, even though low level PCs in B/X are not of heroic power levels, they are still a definite cut above 98% of the population. The fact that magic-users also have d4 for hit points makes sense as they also do not have the martial abilities of the other classes so their hit points being the same as a Normal Human makes sense. The Thieves d4 hit dice is a bit of a puzzler, however. If Bandits have d8 HD why does a Thief only have a d4? My take would be that Bandits are not "skilled" thieves but instead ruffians and other highwaymen that rob through brutishness instead of the more specialized skills of a thief - Bandits would instead be more like the Bandit Hillmen of the Conan sagas.

This also brings to mind a very sword & sorcery type scenario that low level PCs could survive - a village of evil Normal Humans, led by an vile priest or adept who is aided by degenerate snake men (use Lizard Men stats).

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My Tunnels & Trolls

I have often heard/read that if you haven't houseruled T&T you're not actually playing in the spirit of T&T.

As such, if I were to run a T&T campaign right now here are the rules I would use:

1. The base would be 5th edition (but I could easily be talked into 4th due to the lower numbers involved - I find it funny that T&T has some of the "bloat" and "inflation" that D&D players complain about).

2. Add Speed Attribute - useful for fleeing monsters, chase scenes, etc.

3. Wizards - do not get to use any combat adds from strength but could use any weapon. They would still use strength for their spells.

4. Kindreds - I would adopt the 6th edition mechanics for generating attributes so humans get 4d6 and drop lowest. Instead of using the Peters-McAllister chart with attribute multipliers for other kindreds, the number of dice rolled for each attribute changes. For example, the number of 6-sided dice rolled for a dwarf are: Strength 5, IQ 3, Luck 2+1, Constitution 5, Dexterity 3 Charisma 3, Speed 2+2.

5. Talents - All human characters begin play with one talent. The talent should be a word or short phrase that encapsulates an ability, skill or knowledge (or all three).As long as the player can make a logical, interesting or amusing connection between his character’s talent and the task currently being attempted, add + 5 to the relevant Saving Roll (effectively reducing the difficulty level by 1).

6. Combat - I would use Special Damage such as Spite Damage and other monster abilities triggered by rolling 6's.

6a. Combat - I would use the base assumption that the losing side of a round of combat would split the damage taken evenly but I would also allow a SR to try to either protect a party member and therefore take their damage on yourself or to try to force your damage onto another party member (with or without their consent).

My Current RPG Landscape

My 2nd edition AD&D campaign has been a lot of fun so far. I have to say that the new group made up of a couple of players from my old group and a few new players appears to be lots of fun. But, of course, I can never seem to get enough RPGs. A few other things I am thinking about right now:

1. Getting the B/X Online game going again. There seems to be enough interest so it is just a matter of getting schedules lined up. Based on my previous experience I am putting bigger limitations on it this time. My plan is to stick closely to the B/X paradigm of dungeon exploration for levels 1-3, wilderness exploration for levels 4-8, and establishing strongholds after that. Also, not withstanding my recent post on magic items, I am planning on sticking to the rulebooks for treasure and magic items except for new magic items in any published adventures I use.

2. The previously mentioned 2nd edition game is set in Paizo's Golarion. It is a pretty standard D&D-esque setting with all of the usual fantasy tropes. While I really like Golarion, using a standard fantasy setting has made me ponder using other settings for other games. The B/X Online game is set in the Wilderlands. I have also been thinking about using either B/X, T&T, or OD&D for two very different campaign settings.

I have had a sweet spot for the weird fantasy of Scott Driver's old blogs about his World of Thool (which I have archived and his wiki is still available) and his OD&D WIlderlands blog (which I wish I had archived). I would love to play a campaign inspired by Thool, Athanor, Carcosa , Under the Dying Sun, and the writings of Brackett, Dunsany, Hodgson, Merritt, Shaver and Wells.

The second is Middle Earth. Not the Middle Earth of the Lord of the Rings but instead the Wilderlands of the Hobbit. Gandalf is actually Bladorthin and is just some magic-user not some godly-spirit. The Necromancer is just that - an evil wizard with a tower in the forest. Who knows - Blackmoor might be to the north of the Grey Mountains and the Great Kingdom to the south of Mirkwood or maybe to the west of the Edge of the Wild line.

3. I have also been toying with starting a play-by-post game. I have had limited exposure to this type of gaming and only as a player. We will see if I do anything about this one.

Variable Magic Items

I am not a huge fan of static bonus magic items - the sword +1.

A simple formula I work with when developing a magic item is:

1. What benefit does the item provide?

2. When does it provide this benefit?

3. What does this benefit cost?

Some examples:

- The Sword of Final Death - This sword has a +3 bonus to attack rolls against undead. It also always does maximum sword damage (8 + any strength bonus) against undead. However, the wielder of the sword also takes the same amount of damage when an undead creature is hit as the negative life force of the undead creature is absorbed into the wielder's body.

- The Night Helm - Anyone wearing this helm has a 99% chance of hiding in shadows and moving silently when outside at night and the command word is spoken. However, each time it is used the wearer must make a Constitution check with a penalty equal to the cumulative number of times the Helm has been previously used by the wearer. If the Con check is failed the wearer is turned into a Shadow.

Both of these magic items give the user a benefit under certain circumstances but also introduce an element of risk.