Forgotten Realms Didn't Always Suck, Part 3

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

FR9 - The Bloodstone Lands

Full disclaimer, we spent years playing on this map in high school. There's a lot of nostalgia there, but also there was a lot of my DMs creativity that ran free during that time. The Bloodstone Lands allowed him to do it. You could own this and no other FR products and you get a 'here's a kingdom, there's these towns here, this barony there, and here's some influential shit that happened, now you fill in the rest'.

Historically, this takes place after the events of H1-H4, which you can happily ignore. Zhengyi's forces were overrunning Damara, the heroes defeated him, but the kingdom is left without a solid grasp on who the current king is. That's all you need to know.

The map is something I've run in my games plenty of times. I've converted into hexes, I've knitted together the surrounding kingdoms, and it saved me the trouble of naming a bunch of places and detailing every single city and town. While I've moved on from this recently, it gave me exactly what we needed for our groups in terms of: well-varied terrain, plenty of adventure rich locations, plenty of civilization and wilderness to explore, and it never once stepped on our nuts.

There is plenty of material inside that we never even got to. Like the adventures section, it gives you plenty of information to build on. 

There's even a suggestion on how to play a campaign out, that we never used.

What we used was simply the map, the town guild, the history, and the major NPCs. If you wanted a setting that, especially at the time, didn't have a dozen novel NPCs that players may or may not have read about, where expectations were pre-set, and you felt like you were in a campaign straight jacket, this was the place for you.

FR11 - Dwarves Deep

Dwarves Deep was printed during a time when the product line was starting to fall apart. The actual game usefulness for some of the FR series (I'm looking at you FR7, 8, and kind of 10) was questionable. It was fluff. NPCs from novels that might have been cool if you and the other 15 year olds were constantly arguing over who was tougher, Drizzt or Dragonbait... Elminster or Raistlin... Wulfgar or Caramon... we did this. I'm not sorry. I digress.

Most of the FR products coming out were really just not something that were helping people run games. The FR line was going the way of the rest of the TSR product line, even leading the way. However Dwarves Deep brought it back to usefulness.

Information about families, runic alphabets, brotherhoods, clans were all good to see examples of. And if you're like me, you're not going to weave an entire Dwarven Civilization from nothing. This can save you some time to inform your design decisions. Why is this abandoned dwarf mine like this? What kinds of stuff can players find evidence of? 

There's a lot of information on society and religion that can help that too, but you probably won't need it.

Too greedily and too deep?

However, Dwarves Deep gives us The Great Rift. This isn't an adventure. It's an overview where it could be expanded into it's own setting by itself.

There's a great section on The Lost Kingdoms which gives you just enough of a mental starter to form your own 'what remains of those lost Dwarven kingdoms?' What drove them out? Where did they go? What lives there now?

Finally, there is a dwarf name generator and information on Dwarven Runes (and Runestones, which is probably where Dwarrowdeep drew some inspiration). Seeing an example of the Runestone shows how the dwarves write in a wrapping spiral and how they express numerals. Little things like that help bring an old Dwarven ruin to feeling like one.

The Ruins of Undermountain

Often brought up in conversations about Megadungeons, Undermountain gets passed over. Why? Because it's not a full service Megadungeon. The boxed set just has three levels. And those three levels aren't even fully detailed. Over three massive, sprawling maps, there's 70 keyed locations. Some of them repeat too.

This thing requires patience to the degree of either 1) just taking stuff and moving it to your own dungeon or 2) sit down and key out a few hundred rooms yourself. Do you want to keep the ideas intact? Do you want to use the maps? 

Whatever the answer is, there's cool keyed areas in here. There's not that many compared to the scale of levels covered. While the room descriptions are almost Arden Vol in length, but they are usually worth absorbing. 

Fun fact about Undermountain. Portions of the maps were lifted from B1, B3, B5, and Empire of the Petal Throne.

If you ever found yourself looking for inspiration on how to set up some dungeon rooms, then flip this PDF open and pick a room at random. Most of the time you'll walk away with some pretty great ideas.

Forgotten Realms Didn't Always Suck, Part 2

If you haven't read part one yet, give that a read first. The Forgotten Realms line of products used to be useful and in this series, I talk about the ones worth pira... buying off eBay.

FR3 - Empire of the Sands

Empire of the Sands is a great supplement if you plan on introducing a desert-like kingdom to your game. It primarily details three major cities in the region, but does an admirable job providing ideas for desert raiders, social customs, and a lot of notes on climate and geography. Honestly, it's a weaker entry but not without value if this kind of setting is one you are looking to flesh out.

There's notes in here about certain slang phrases, which really can set apart an area in a very subtle way. Probably what has more heft is describing how the collective city mentality is. For example, "poverty is the ultimate sin."

FR4 - The Magister

How many of you AD&D guys use UA for basically just spells and/or magic items? This is a book of kick-ass new magic items. This really doesn't need to be a Forgotten Realms product. It just needed to be an AD&D product. If this had been expanded on scale, this would have been the best orange spine since Monster Manual II. It has a section that adds on to the DMG for magic item creation that might be useful to others. Additionally, it has new spells.

FR5 - The Savage Frontier

The cold north, the icy seas, barbarian tribes, and the settlements in between. Many of you will just be running games in a more centric area. However, there's the chance that your campaigns will grow to the icy howling winds of the north tundras. I love this shit. 

You get a snapshot of the people, how travelling in an chunky ice sea works, the mountains and rivers of the north, and a gazetteer style explanation of all of the areas which you can shamelessly borrow to flesh out your north. And it's well-written; look at who wrote it.

FR6 - Dreams of the Red Wizard

FR6... is awesome. Expansion of the world map, a unique nation based on... pretty fucked up wizards. A gazetteer of the area is well detailed, of course. But the politics in this area are very revealing. Giving this a read will really think about how you give wizards rulership roles in your world.

Of course, there are new spells. Nothing earth-shattering, but there are pages of them. Not everything in this book is original, reprinting spells and items that have been seen before in Dragon Magazine.

Finally, FR6 has a whole battery of adventure hooks to steal, rob, modify, or mangle. Multiple pages. Anecdotally, back in the day, we laid out all the FR maps from all the different products at the time and filled my living room. It was vast. Do you have an evil empire or kingdom? This has a ton of things to inspire you or let you steal from it.

FRE1 - The Haunted Halls of Eveningstar

Okay, okay. I know. The cover sucks all the dicks. The art has that 2e stink. It reeks even. Just ignore that because the inside is really nice. The only shameful thing about it is that TSR sucked ass at this point in time and made Ed Greenwood truncate this entry. There should be a kick-ass second level and more entries but we got just most of one level. But that level is solid.

Seriously, just ignore that 2e logo and art.

It opens up with some local flavor. You can ignore that. You won't be needing it. Just plop this bad boy in there somewhere and let her rip.

Now this module (as with most of TSR modules) is going to need a read through and some note-taking, but it's worth it. This thing is full of solid traps, kick-ass treasure, and proper exploration. It even has some new fuck-off monster that lives in locks just waiting for someone to peek through or try to pick it. 

You can expand upon the place easily by putting entrances downward at 14 and 31, near the crumbled areas. It also can fit in with an upper level that's a stronghold of at least 45 kobolds. Yeah, you gotta do the work. But maybe you already have a few maps that fit the bill and this can save you a whole floor of planning.

Drop some kobolds, traps, and treasure here.

There's also new magic items and the aforementioned locktrap monster and a winged cat. Cool shit.

Expand it or just run it by itself and it'll be a good time. Especially if you get them with the doppleganger.

Forgotten Realms Didn't Always Suck, Part 1

The Forgotten Realms. 

Toril.

Fantasy Seattle.

WotC's toilet paper.

It's a setting that the past 25-30 years have beaten the D&D consumers into an exhausted pulp. It's the home of 5e's fantasy Seattle. It's the place that just keeps changing to fit the times and new editions. It's been sanded down so hard and waterlogged for so long that any interesting aspects have been made flavorless. Something like 300, many disconnected, novels have only added to that. It became impossible to think of the Forgotten Realms without connecting it to Drizzt and Elminster. However, Forgotten Realms from it's bits in early Dragon magazines and the earliest published materials was very good. 

Greyhawk had a weaker setting, but some of the best adventures ever written and it was originally more conducive to applying exploration to. The Known World, later branded as Mystara, was... a world. To a lesser extent, a worse Greyhawk. Dragonlance should never be gamed in, as a setting that was built on the railroading DL series, then a failure to expand that into a gameable world. Other settings such as Spelljammer, Planescape, and Ravenloft existed in more of a 'other place' rather than a traditional D&D campaign. Birthright came after people stopped caring and revolved around resurrecting domain play.

But overall, anyone reading this blog doesn't want to use any of that except Greyhawk because running T1-4 and G1-3 make it look so attractive. However, I present the old Forgotten Realms material as a candidate. Not a candidate to run your own games in directly, but a candidate to look at the source material for your own worlds.

FR0 - Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Boxed Set (1e)

I had posted a review in 2006 on Dragonsfoot for FR0 (The 1e Campaign Setting Boxed Set). I honestly have very little recollection of writing the review, only that I did it. But you know what? I'm going to plagiarize myself.

The following parts set the stage for the rest of the products I am going to detail. The history of how and why are of minor importance, but it's useful context.

The Forgotten Realms existed in Ed Greenwoods mind and short stories since the sixties, but when D&D was created, he made it his campaign world in 1978. He had run a number of his campaigns in that world, which his players helped him shape. In some early issues of Dragon magazine, he had published a few pieces which were set in the Forgotten Realms. Jeff Grubb was charged with contacting Ed and seeing if there was a developed world. There was, so Ed and TSR began working on the campaign setting. Ed would be the go-to guy to make sure future Realms products wouldn't conflict with the overall scheme of the world.

Since this was to be the new quintessential TSR world, many projects were squeezed into Ed's original world. The Moonshea Isles was Celtic-flavored project that Douglas Niles had worked on, and now would have a home in the Forgotten Realms. The Bloodstone Lands, based off of Douglas Niles H-series of modules were included as well. A few other places (some better than others) were developed and shifted to fit other accessories and novels until the realms was complete in TSR's eyes.

What was written in the set was how the major gods, locations, NPCs, and cities looked like at a high level. It provided maps, most with areas that aren't detailed.

The boxed set as I hold it in my hands was the finished product for the original campaign setting. For intent and purposes, the boxed set detailed the western Faerun continent while leaving the peripheral areas to future accessories. This would give us a close up of what is known as the heartlands, while releasing separate accessories for the outlaying lands (FR1 - Waterdeep and the North, and FR2 - Moonshea were released at the same time as the boxed set).

The set came with two books, the first (Cyclopedia of the Realms) being more of a players sourcebook to the realms that touches on certain things a character in the realms may know. This detailed the Forgotten Realms gods, with a portfolio of what they stand for. This also gave information on towns, kingdoms, and races of the realms in alphabetical order. There is also some good city detailing. Not all cities and towns have complete maps with keys, but there are enough to flesh out some of the more important towns.

The second book (The DM's Sourcebook of the Realms) was a DM's book that contained NPC's of the realms, some spells (and the cryptic spellbooks that they were hidden within), as well as two adventures. The NPC's were displayed in a minimalist fashion, detailing only the basic information of class, level, and alignment. As with all entries in both books, everything is encyclopedic with three sub-sections for each entry. First you get your general information, then Elminster's* Notes, and finally game information. The general information is self-explanatory, while the Elminster's Notes are more knowledgeable and more first-hand information from the sage's point of view. The game information is where statistics of mechanic related notes were made.

So you have a big continent, a write up about how the kingdoms are set up, major cities, npcs, etc. But the main take away is that it provided a good canvas for adventures. 

The two adventures that came with the book are set within Myth Drannor. Myth Drannor is an ancient elven city that has since fallen into ruin, which leaves endless possibilities for subterranean exploration. There were two dungeons that could be found there, which were solid.

One of the many dungeons spread around Myth Drannor

The set also comes with four maps. Two are larger scale maps of the continent, and two are more conventional closer-view maps of the heartlands in which the boxed set details. It also comes with hex overlays to give good measurement when parties are traveling across the continent.

Can it hexcrawl? Only if you re-draw the map as a hex map. Is it worth hexcrawling? Maybe. If you were going to redraw the entire area as a hexcrawl and then seed those keyed locations in with content, then you might as well start writing your own hexcrawl.

Let me reiterate: The Forgotten Realms can be stolen from with ease.

I've owned three copies of this in my life. The first, which I still have the 2 sourcebooks for, was bought with paper route money from a place called Toy City. The second, which was lost with most of my stuff was bought on eBay in the early 2000s to replace the absolutely decimated boxes and maps. And the third was bought in 2021 because it's something I felt I always wanted in my library.

Look at the gods, see which ones you can adapt, combine, and throw away for your own world. Look at the NPCs, is there someone like that you'd want in your game that might run a city, be a rival adventurer, or use as a blacksmith with a bit more history? Look at the gazetteer-styled entries and then look at your own. Did you forget something? 

FR1 - Waterdeep and the North

Waterdeep and the north came in a 64-page booklet, like a double-module, complete with a slip cover and fold out map of Waterdeep. Using this directly as Waterdeep could result in having a detailed city with movers and shakers spelled out ahead of time, but nobody who plays old school games wants to play in Waterdeep. However, the material goes beyond that, much like FR0.

There's more gazetteer-styled entries on the surrounding areas which might be valuable to mine. However, the usefulness comes with being able to model your own large cities. There's a sewer system to consider. Have you thought of one for your games? Would a history be beneficial to your game? What about the laws and government? Are the guards in your city heavily patrolling certain areas over the others? What if you got caught fencing stolen property? How long would that jail time be?

The booklet goes on to detail wards of the city, the households (noble and otherwise), temples, dress and mannerisms. Do the people of your major city have a certain way of acting? Does that matter to you? There is information, more importantly, for factions and guilds within the city. 

Chapter 9 gives seven adventure hooks to steal as well. If not steal, they do provide good inspiration for your own city-based adventures. Finally, there are common building floorplans included. Do your players get caught up in a breaking and entering situation in a grand residence and you need an idea of how the floorplan looks on the fly? Waterdeep and the North might have something for you.

FR2 - Moonshae

I mentioned above (and in my Dragonsfoot review 17 years ago) that the Moonshea Isles weren't originally part of the Forgotten Realms until it made it to TSR. Douglas Niles was working on a series that didn't yet have a home and it got placed off the Sword Coast originally.

Moonshae is a resource best used as mineable content for a Celtic area. The gazetteer for the islands, the conflicts that exist there politically, and environmental overviews that might be useful for one setting up a Celtic area, complete with random encounter tables. 

There's the legendary Leviathan provided as well. Do you have a Leviathan? There's the Kazgoroth, a 16 HD disruptor of balance (a big theme in Moonshae with lots of druidic influence and king unicorns and such) that can inflict lycanthopy with it's bite and summon up to 500 blood warriors. I don't know if you need THAT, but this book definitely has some cool monster entries.

Moonshae does include some adventure suggestions, as well, but the primary one is to play out the Moonshae novel trilogy and that is awful. However the new magic items section is pretty cool on it's own.

REF5 - Lords of Darkness

Forgotten Realms adventures don't have the best reputation, which is a sentiment well-deserved. However, there is still gold out there from the beforetime. I have precious few that I'd recommend and the first is Lords of Darkness. This 1988 anthology doesn't necessarily take place in any specific part of the Forgotten Realms, but does include some monsters that belong to it. 

Alternatives to level draining are introduced and the concept of non-evil undead is discussed. But this isn't what we're here for. We are here for the lairs of various undead types. This anthology gives lairs for skeletons, zombies, ghouls and ghasts, wights, shadows, mummies, vampires, ghosts, spectres, and a lich.

Not all of these are gold. I'd skip skeletons and zombies right away. The shadow adventure sucks. Deborah Christian wrote Skeletons, Shadows, and Spectres. And she did some Dungeon Magazine story gaming level shit for this. 

Jump to Jennell Jaquays Ghouls and Ghasts. It's a solid adventure as a hex entry and provides good opportunity for exploration, a reason for things happening, and challenging encounters to overcome. You'll have to ignore the introduction to the horror mechanic in the beginning, but if you read further into the ecology of ghouls you can get decent suggestions for running them such as them being able to track like a 7th level ranger using Unearthed Arcana.

Steve Perrin's Wight adventure is a little weak, but I was delighted to see a Wight Advancement table:

Jennell Jaquays Mummies is pretty fucking rad. Lizard men, Mummies, and Undead Dinosaurs? Hell yeah. This one alone is worth the cost of admission. The adventure itself is cool, but there is a bit of lore tie-ins with the Forgotten Realms, which are easily replaced by locations, factions, and the like. Nothing is specific. Steal this.

Fuckin' A

Jean Rabe's and Vince Garcia's Vampires is almost great. The first major strike against it no fucking map. There's a keyed area, and those keyed areas are solid, but there's no map. Such a shame. 

Vinca Garcia's Ghosts is decent. It's a haunted mansion adventure and has a decent map to explore. Like kind of a 'Mom, can we stop and get Tegel Manor?' 'We have Tegel Manor at home.' 

This is Tegel Manor at home.

Finally, we get to Liches. Bitches.

Ed Greenwood, some might think, didn't do good stuff. I'm here to fuck that up for you. In part 2 and 3, I'm gonna rip your nostril hairs out to make you sneeze so hard you fart.

The lich, The Dread Lair of Alokkair, is a 10th level adventure. This is set in the Area of Shadowdale in a haunted cave. We can just yoink that and drop it into our own. We start off with some mild resource expending encounters into a really nasty trap. I should steal it. It introduces a new monster, the Ghost Spider, which isn't so much for a 10th level party to handle, but they would make mean low-level encounters.

That's going to be par for the course on the first half. Cool traps, mild encounters, but plenty of exploration and interaction. Once you get to the back half of the dungeon, you get more challenging encounters. The environmental hazards are sure to bring of wear and tear on the adventurers, as is the thieving Gargoyles who try to snatch magical items and the animated weapons. 

Throughout the whole thing, the Lich is using illusionary magic to keep the PCs from retreating, which is given plenty of suggestions of what to employ. The lich itself is nasty, clearly written by someone who is no stranger to higher-level spell battles. The spell list almost feels like cheating. Solid stuff.

Changes from AD&D to AD&D 2e

This is going to be another one of those posts that keeps getting updated and referred to about once a month. As I think of more changes, I will update this blog post.

Changes from AD&D1e to AD&D2e

Bolded are the most impactful to how the two systems result in play.

Macro changes

• Multi-classed characters were weakened (multi-class clerics limited to cleric weapons, multi-class magic-users limited to non-metal armor)
• Stronghold construction, particularly for magic-users? So less emphasis on potential domain play.
• Weird standardization of 10's of yards which resulted in 10's of feet in 1e on spell ranges being 10's of yards. A 10th level fireball can travel 200 feet in 1e. A 10th level fireball can travel 330 feet (or 110 yards).
• Spell lists conflated into just wizard and priest spells, divided up by school. This changes the effective level certain classes gain access to some spells.
• Demi-human movement rates are 6 for Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings in AD&D2e.
• Demons renamed to Tanar'ri, Devil's renamed to Baatezu, etc
• Many monsters changed between editions (example: Dragons are beefier)
• XP for gold replaced by a more fiat (quest, roleplaying, etc) XP reward system, a raised monster XP award, while keeping magic item XP.
• (Optional) Although nonweapon proficiencies were mentioned to be optional, it's worth mentioning that they were brought forward into the core game as most 2e products released after the core books referred back to NWPs. It's noted that the Rangers tracking ability directly refers to the Tracking NWP.
• 2e introduced size categories above Large
• In addition to spells being moved around to accommodate two lists, which changed level thresholds, some spells would change in an insidious way. Example: Command being almost exactly the same but the range increasing from 10 feet to 30 yards.
• Many spells have a cap on potential. For example, Fireball being capped at 10 dice.

Misc. Changes

• Ability score tables now list scores from 1 to 25.
• Minor ability scores changed slightly, such as weight allowance for scores less than 10, open doors changed to a d20, and % chance to learn spells for scores from 10 to 16.
• Silver is 1/10th of a gold

Race changes

• Racial level limits are significantly higher
• More multi-class options
• Removal of Half-Orcs
• Gnomes now get -1 wisdom, +1 intelligence
• Elves can be resurrected
• Halfings ranged bonus lessened (counting 1e MM as a source for racial bonuses)
• Many minor changes (such as halfings only having a change to have infravision)

Dwarf Feet

Class changes

• Fighters get specialization
• Ranger is completely different, opting for a lighter armored scout in 2e.
• Specialty wizards for all schools of magic
• Illusionist replaced with specialty wizard of the Illusion school
• Specialty priests for all spheres
• Druid replaced as a specialty priest
• Bard as a 'prestige' class now is a subclass of Rogue
• Assassin removed
• Monk removed
• Removal of name-levels, which meant also the implications such as druids only being able to have 3 archdruids, as an example.
• Adjustable thief skills

Equipment

• Addition of UA armor (Field Plate, Bronze Plate, Full Plate) to the core equipment list.
• Addition of UA weapons (Examples: Whip, Hook Fauchard, Garrot) to the core equipment list.

Combat system

• Surprise is no longer in segments, but in an entire surprise round.
• (Side-eye) The surprise mechanic isn't even in the combat section of the book. This was an often overlooked mechanic.
• Surprise from 1 or 2 on a d6 to a 1, 2, or 3 on a d10.
• You can move half movement and attack (melee and missile), no more engage in melee lessening the impact of charge.
• You can target which melee combatant to hit
• Initiative is done a d10 vs a d6 with no round 'spillover'. (example: spells always complete mostly)
• Casting time is straight additive to initiative
• Weapon speeds are now additive to initiative
• (Optional) Death at -10 HP is now an optional rule, though most every group used it.
• To hit tables now flattened into THAC0
• Specific small modifiers to initiative, called shots, etc
• (Optional) Weapon vs Armor type tables have been flattened out to three categories and the math of that consideration changed. Most groups didn't use this.
• (Optional) Initiative modifiers were flatted for magical items. A wand in 1e might have specific segment costs, but it's presented that all wands cost +3 segments. (example: Wand of Fear is specified to cost 1 segment in the 1e DMG, the segment cost is omitted in the 2e DMG)
• Unarmed combat is completely different.
• Turn Undead affects 2d6 instead of 1d12

Explaining the bolded changes, in order...

Spell lists flattening. The entire casting system has been combined into two lists, partitioned by schools of magic. This has a few median effects:

1. Spells for Druids or Illusionists no longer being in their own lists results in a certain amount of spells that are now attainable at different levels of spellcasting. (example: Dispel Magic)
2. The resulting specialty wizards were pretty popular, but the real effect came when priests could opt into being a specialty priest. Though, this was largely controlled by what splatbooks or house rules were allowed.

XP for gold being replaced resulting a lot lower money campaigns. However the massive change that this brought was the direction of motivations in AD&D. The adventures were now more geared towards story-focused, overland travel rather than exploration in the wilderness and seeking out dungeons and other adventure sites for monetary reward.

Racial limits being significantly higher resulted in a lot more demi-human play. In fact, humans were hardly ever played compared to AD&D. Even though they had level limits, those limits were often so high that it wasn't at all a decision point for players.

The class discussion is a branching web of a ton of minor deviances. The removal of Monk, Assassin, and the traditional Bard weren't as huge. The change to Rangers elevated them up even higher than they were, but the Bard was a fast leveling caster which often made it an extremely attractive choice.

Being able to move half-movement and still attack, on top of being able to choose your melee target, is one of the biggest differences between AD&D and any other game. 2e, in this regard, opted for the B/X combat methods which de-emphasized positioning, movement utilization, and the impact that charge has. In other words, combat became less tactical and more 'I hit the one who was already hurt' on repeat.

Further reading: Melan's take on 2e as an old school game

Dragonsfoot thread

AD&D Combat Example 2

 AD&D/OSRIC Combat Example

The party:

Level 3 Magic-User: 10 HP, AC: 8, Dagger: 1d4/1d3, (2/1: Sleep, Magic Missile, Mirror Image and a scroll of Fireball)

Level 3 Fighter: 21 HP, AC: 2, Long Sword+1: 1d8+1/1d12+1

Level 3 Ranger: 20 HP, AC: 4, Spear +1: 1d6+1/1d8+1

The monsters:

A Cultist Priest served by his two cultists and the ghouls in their service.

Level 5 Cultist High Priest: 24 HP, AC: 2, Mace +1: 1d6+2/1d6+1, (3/3/1: Light, Cure Light Wounds, Command, Chant, Hold Person, Silence 15' Radius, Dispel Magic)

Level 1 Cultist Guard with long sword: (HP: 6, AC:4, Long Swords: 1d8)

Level 1 Cultist Guard short bow and short sword: (HP: 6, AC:5, Short sword or bow: 1d6)

Ghouls (HP: 13, 11) AC: 6, Move 9", HD 2; 3 attacks for 1d3/1d3/1d6 damage, SA: paralyzation

Distance is rolled as this is not a set encounter: The result on a D6 is 1+4 = 50 feet away.

Surprise is rolled: Players get a 5, Monsters get a 4. Nobody is surprised.

Round 1:

Declarations:

The monsters are going to attack, the High Priest is going to cast Command on the Fighter to 'Die!' which will cause him to drop to the ground for one round if he doesn't save vs magic.

The ranger and fighter are going to charge the ghouls while the Magic-user, in a panic, casts Mirror Image on himself.

Initiative is rolled: 

The players roll a 6, the monsters roll a 4. The players act first on segment 4, the monsters act on segment 6.

However charge operates outside of initiative considerations. The only segment consideration for charging is covering a distance. The fighter has a movement rate of 6 (plate mail) and the ranger has a movement rate of 9 (chain mail).

Here is how the segment order would be broken up:

Resolution

It will take 3 segments for the ranger to charge to his target (moving twice the movement speed of 9" for 18' per segment for 54' feet). 

It will take 4 segments (moving twice the movement speed of 6" for 12' per segment gets him 48 feet) for the fighters charge to terminate within 10' of his target. 

Casting will take 2 segments for the Magic-user which starts casting at the start segment 4, and finishes at the end of segment 5. (Casting means <initative roll> + <casting time> -1 = end of that segment)

The ghouls will be able to return attacks on segment 6 from the charging characters as they weren't engaged in combat.

The cultist guard swordsman has been ordered to defend the High Priest, so he holds his action.

The cultist guard archer will shoot the magic-user, his first shot happens on segment 6 and again at the end of the round.

The High Priests Command spell happens at the end of segment 6 as it has a casting time of one segment (so using the above quick math: 6+1-1= end of segment 6)

End of the round second shot from the bowman (while I allow my ROF shots to happen all at once, many people do additional shots later in the round).

The ranger charges and rolls a 5, modified with +1 from the magic spear, +2 from charging and he hits AC 10 which is a miss but will still be 1 AC worse when attacked this round.

The fighter charges and rolls a 11, modified with +1 from the magic sword, +2 from charging and he hits AC 4 which is a hit. The fighter does 4 damage to the ghoul bringing it to 7 hp.

The Magic-user's spell completes and (rolling for Mirror Image copies) 4 copies of him appear.

The fighters ghoul makes three attacks, claw, claw, bite. Rolling a 10 (miss), 18 (hit), 19 (hit). The ghoul did a total of 6 damage, bringing the fighter to 15 hp. The fighter rolls a 15 on a needed 13 for his saving throw vs paralysis and succeeds. Charging penalty was irrelevant.

The rangers ghoul makes three attacks, claw, claw, bite. Rolling a 2 (miss), 1 (miss), and 4 (miss). Charging penalty was irrelevant.

The archer shoots at the mob of magic-user images. The archer rolls a 12, which would normally be enough to hit. However he only has a 1-in-5 chance of hitting the Magic-user. The random determination is rolled and one of the 'clones' is destroyed.

The High Priest commands the fighter to 'Die!' and the fighter is allowed a save vs. spell. He succeeds.

At the end of the round, the bowman fires at the magic-user posse, rolling a 10 and missing.

Round 2:

Declarations:

The magic-user is going to attempt to cast his fireball scroll (perhaps not realizing that the fireball will cook his friends too, or not caring). The rest are continuing to fight.

The priest is going to dispel magic on the group of magic-user images. The ghouls and the archer are going to continue their attacks. The swordsman cultist is going to run through the doors to the east to go raise the alarms for the rest of the cult.

The players roll a 2, the monsters roll a 6. The monsters act first on segment 2, the players act on segment 6.

Here is how the segment order would be broken up:

The cultist swordsman is not being contested so operates out of initiative order, simply just running (using charging) at the start of the round. His movement is 9, so he's covering 18 feet by the time segment 2 starts. He has 45 feet total to go, so he'll get there (and well away from the fight) before the end of the round.

The ghouls will attack on segment 2.

The archer will first attack on segment 2.

The High Priest will begin casting dispel magic on segment 2.

The fighter would attack on segment 6 (tie breaker on weapon speed if you want to get granular).

The ranger would attack on segment 6.

The magic-user would start reading his scroll on segment 6.

The end of segment 7, dispel magic will complete. 2+6-1= end of segment 7)

The end of segment 8, fireball will complete. 6+3-1= end of segment 8)

The archers last shot.

Resolution

The fighters ghoul makes three attacks, claw, claw, bite. Rolling a 15 (hit), 4 (miss), and 7 (miss). He does another 2 damage to the fighter. The fighter also rolled an 18 on his saving through and is not paralyzed.

The rangers ghoul makes three attacks, claw, claw, bite. Rolling a 12 (barely a hit), 6 (miss), and a 11 (barely a miss). He does 1 damage to the ranger who rolls a 3 on his saving throw and is now paralyzed.

The archer shoots the magic-user and rolls a 5, hitting nothing.

The High Priest begins casting.

The fighter attacks and rolls a 14, which is a hit. He does 8 points of damage, killing the ghoul.

The ranger is paralyzed.

The magic-user begins reading the scroll.

The High Priest completes his dispel magic. The mirror images disappear and the Fireball is cancelled.

The archer takes aim and hits AC7, dealing 4 damage to the Magic-user.

Reinforcements for the cult will be arriving soon. The magic-user is exposed. The fighter will try to save the ranger from the ravenous ghoul.

Round 3:

Declarations:

The magic user is going to cast sleep, aiming to eliminate the archer. The fighter has to engage the ghoul which may pounce on the paralyzed ranger.

Three cultists soldiers will run into the room to assist their leader. The ghoul will attack, hoping to kill the paralyzed ranger. The High Priest will cast Hold Person on the fighter.

The players roll a 6. The monsters roll a 4. The party begins on segment 4, the monsters on segment 6. 

Resolution

The reinforcements are simply moving and before segment 4 are able to get just at the doorway.

The magic-user's sleep spell completes at the end of segment 4. The Magic-user's sleep spell completes and rolls a 2 and a 2 on 2d4 for 1 Hit Dice creatures. The area of effect coincides with the cultists at the doorway. All four fall asleep, including the archer.

The fighter attacks and rolls a 14, modified with +1 from the magic sword and he hits AC 3 which is a hit. The fighter does 9 damage to the ghoul, killing it.

The archer will fire his first arrow on the magic user on segment 6.

The High Priest casts Hold Person starting on segment 6 (6+5-1= end of segment 10)

The High Priest completes Hold Person. Unfortunately, the fighter rolls a 10 on his save with a -2 penalty and has been held. 

Round 4:

Declarations:

The magic-user runs (movement of 12).

The High Priest cannot catch him, so decides to wake the archer.

Initiative is pointless here, so the magic-user simply runs away. 

AD&D Combat Example 1

Many people are intimidated at worst, confused at best with how AD&D combat works assuming the OSRIC end of how rulings go. There are a ton of interpretations out there based on some confusing or contradictory passages in the DMG for 1e. OSRIC does a decent job at codifying some of those interpretations. I've done some combat examples to help people learn on my discord. If these seem to be helpful to people, I can post more.

AD&D/OSRIC Combat Example

The party:

Level 1 Magic-User: 3 HP, AC: 10, Dagger: 1d4/1d3, Sleep spell)

Level 1 Fighter: 11 HP, AC 4, Long Sword: 1d8/1d12)

Level 1 Ranger: 13 HP, AC: 6, Spear: 1d6/1d8)

The enemies:

5 Goblins - Two with Slings (HP: 4 each, AC:6, Sling stones: 1d4/1d4) , Three with Short swords (HP 5 each, AC: 6, Short sword 1d6/1d8)

Party rolls a 4 and Goblins roll a 3.

Nobody is surprised

Note that the party would have had to roll a 1 because of the ranger. Without the ranger, a 1 or a 2 would have been a surprise. 

Declare actions

At this point both groups are aware of each other. The goblins will only see one party member at first and go on the offensive. One with a shortsword will charge, the remaining two sword-goblins will engage in melee, the two with slings will move behind the other two sword-goblins and attack.

The party declares that the ranger will set to receive charge, the fighter will hold action in front of the wizard. The wizard declares that he will be ready to throw a dagger.

Initiative is rolled: The party rolls a 4 for the goblins. The goblins roll a 5 for the party. The goblins have initiative. 

Round 1

The round segments count upward. The first two segments are used in charging movement allowing the charging goblins a movement of 24 feet. (movement rate of 6 = 6 feet per segment, charging doubles this).

Then the charge attack happens outside of melee initiative. So segment two the first charging goblin comes in and instantly would attack. However, the ranger's spear is set to receive charge and will impale if hit for double damage.

The Ranger rolls a 15 to hit. The goblin has AC6 normally. However, as it is charging "Creatures with no dexterity bonus become 1 armor class lower", making this an AC7. The spear strikes the goblin and does double damage. This does 8 points of damage to the charging goblin who has 5 and it is impaled and out of the fight.

The two other sword goblins run into the tight corridor and one is engaged in melee. Note that merely engaging in melee does not grant an attack.

The two with slings fire at the ranger. Since the ranger and the goblin are locked in melee, each slinger has a 66% chance of hitting the intended target as the engaged goblin is small and the ranger is medium.

The goblin rolls a 52 and at least shoots the right target.

The sling goblin rolls a 17 to hit. The rangers armor class is 6, so it hits.

Damage is rolled as 3 damage, bringing the ranger down to 10 hp.

The second sling goblins goes for the same, rolling a 27 to miss his goblin friend and attempt to hit the ranger. The to hit roll is an 11 and misses the ranger.

The goblins are done, the ranger is done. The fighter has nothing he can do for now. The Magic-User throws a dagger. His math is inverse to hitting his target (the goblin in front of the ranger) so that he only has a 33% chance of not hitting his friend. He rolls a 27, avoids hitting his friend, and rolls the attack. The roll is a 12.

That would be a miss. The round is now over.

Declare actions… again!

At this point both groups are not only aware of each other, but can see each other.. The sling goblins see the other two party members in the back and decide that the goofy looking guy in a robe has to be dealt with. The remaining two sword-goblins will push melee if able.

The party declares that the ranger will attack with his spear, the fighter will stand in front of the mage hoping to draw some of the missile fire. The Magic-User declares that this will be a good time to use the sleep spell.

Round 2: Fight!

The party rolls a 4 for the Goblins. The goblins roll a 1 for the party. The party has initiative.

Segment 1 - The ranger attacks the goblin in front of him. He rolls an 18 to hit. It’s a hit!

Damage is rolled… damn, a 4. This goblin has 5 hp so it lives with 1 hp. Just kidding. Rangers get a bonus to the damage against Goblins and it is taken down.

The Magic-user begins casting sleep. It has a casting time of one, which means it’ll happen at the end of the segment (segment 1). (Note that people used to AD&D2e, the casting time segment is ADDED to init in 2e, so it happens a full segment later, In 1e, it starts counting at the top of the acting segment)

Segment 1 is now over. Sleep goes off and instantly knocks the remaining goblins out and are murdered quickly after.

Part of my AD&D House Rules, Part 1

AD&D is a system that grows with you. It has rules for most edge cases that you'll encounter and all of  the common ones. It's the game you won't get right, but by virtue of practice you will be allowed to bring yourself back in line with the game. Being in line with the game isn't following every single rule to the letter, it means keeping the rules ecosystem intact. There's nuanced layers to what the game has written that give you the long term game outcome that other systems fail to provide, there's generally always a way to handle most situations even if you don't remember it all, and there is an ecosystem that says from beginning to end: we want you to see the entire game.

With that said, there are a few deviant and divergent rules that AD&D DM's have from table to table. It was always like this and every experienced DM has their reasons. I think those reasons are generally very interesting because it illustrates what that DM is looking to manifest at the table.

There's some big collections of house rules out there to consider. I'd suggest starting with Trent Fosters The Heroic Legendarium. Kellri's blog has some useful tools for house ruling and RAW alike. EOTB's OSRICrpg.net has a collection from many areas of the net that serves as a great jumping point to head down the rabbit hole.

 

For my game, I'll start with a few rules on missile weapons.

• Crossbows that are already loaded always fire off first at the beginning of a proper combat round, barring spending segments on movement. 
• Thieves can use short bows.
• Clerics can use slings.
• Since I am operating off of OSRIC, there are interpretations that I choose to ignore such as surprise granting ranged weapons TRIPLE the rate (second example of DMG page 62). One could extrapolate that a bows rate is 2/1, a surprise segment could allow a round of actions, therefore two surprise segments (12 seconds) could see 6 fired bow shots.
  

The crossbow is nerfed enough.

 

Crossbows

Crossbows in AD&D are generally not as advantageous as a bow of any kind. OSRIC takes a step in addressing this by increasing the damage.

You can google the subject and find countless conversations on it. Where I landed is that first I thought about what I wanted crossbows to be in my game. You always see them like a gun, in that they are loaded, a trigger needs to be pulled, and that's it. It's supposed to be a threat and that threat is that this crossbow bolt is going to fly at you faster than you'll draw a bow, close into melee, or even throw a dagger.

So, I kept both the OSRIC increased damage and the ability to have a pre-loaded crossbow fire first. In terms of fulfilling the role of a gun, once characters stop having 3 hit points, it becomes a lot less threatening. But as a game consideration, it's quite valuable. 

In a surprise situation, a pre-cocked crossbow is going to get it's shot in anyway for a 1 segment surprise. For a 2 segment surprise, they are actually able to re-load and fire. The effect isn't really seen there, other than moderately better per-hit damage, but still at half the rate of a bow. 

However, most combat doesn't start with surprise segments. The first melee round will start and this is where a pre-loaded crossbow shines. You can take aim at the casting magic-user, you can shoot the orc charging you as it crosses it's double-speed distance.

Bows fire at double the rate, which still makes them the generally more attractive option. However, I did do what I set out to do: If someone uses a crossbow in my game, it doesn't feel like it's completely worse than the other options.

Thieves with Shortbows

I admit that two nonsense reason went into this house rule. Firstly, I got used to how UA and AD&D2e handled thieves with shortbows. There, I admitted it. Secondly, probably less nonsensical, is that I always equate a lot of bandits, robin hood, and the like as thieves in the AD&D world. You may disagree, but I always see them using a shortbow as thematic. 

The mechanical reason is that thieves don't usually get a whole lot to do in a fight. There's not always room for backstab and if there is, all these rolls need to be made to get there, and then you have to ask yourself if it's worth it. A level 4 party encountering 5 orcs? Just wait and let the fighters and cleric chew through them up front or the magic-user to skip the encounter with sleep or turn it into an opportunity with charm person.

Next, bows just aren't that hard to use at shorter ranges. Sure, a longbow man will have to arc their shots more and that takes skill and practice. A short bow while shooting down a 40' hallway is not something I'd limit to Fighter/Ranger/Paladins.

Clerics with Slings

Clerics can use hurled rocks. I don't care. They hardly ever will anyway, but it's nice for them to have that option. Clerics are not paladins, they don't have the same sort of honor code about missile weapons being cowardly. Go ahead, let them use a 1d4+1 sling that fires once per round.

Ignoring the 3x Surprise Interpretation

I shouldn't have to justify why having a 2-in-6 chance to get 1 or more surprise segments at THREE times the rate of fire is ridiculous. It would function just like critical hits and fumbles; Sure, it sounds cool that your players are going to be able to pin-cushion 24 arrows before the first proper round starts. But how good is it for your campaign if your characters of 6 months get 24 arrows shot into them with no counter play? It's too swingy

Overall, missile weapons are balanced in AD&D in that they are extremely good while range and the complexities of melee aren't a factor. They become near useless when your fighter, paladin, and cleric are wading through a melee with five possible targets and even if there's targets behind them, shooting over your party is often a mistake as well. It's okay to tweak them a little, it won't hurt your AD&D game as long as cover rules and firing into melee are there to keep it in check.

 

The Ping Pong Heart Beat Part 2: The Combat Slog

The Combat Slog

Combat is likely the easiest way for you to maintain heartbeats. D&D combat doesn't carry itself well if it's at a snail's pace. What I've often seen is:

"Ok, roll for initiative... ok, the monsters go first. This one hits Becky, that one hits Joe, this one misses Dick. Becky you take 3 points of damage from a goblin arrow. Joe you get slashed across the shoulder for 5 damage from the Orc. Ok, you guys go now..."

Then there's often silence. Some of the players are wondering, 'Oh, should I go? Nobody else is going.' After a pause, someone goes, then another pause, then someone else goes, then another somehow longer pause. The DM isn't tracking who has gone for whatever reason. Then either one of two things happen:

"So that's the end of the round I think? Right?" A pause until one player decides to use their vocal chords, "Okay, roll initiative." Then a player chimes in who has been quiet for the past 10 minutes, "Wait, I didn't get my attack!"

or

The DM is silent. Nobody is saying anything for like 10 seconds until a player says, "So that's the end of the round, right?" The DM looks around a bit, discovers that he agrees, and we carry on.
 

People want to use loose rules systems but don't take care to give them a framework. Or even it's that there is a desire for individual initiative, but it's not tracked diligently. Execute it in order and know who is next, you might even warn them they are next. Go around the table, clockwise, and ask what the players are doing. If you know your players, you know which ones will struggle with decisions, so suggest obvious lines of play. Your players are up? Prompt them. Execute your monsters as quickly as possible, rolling to hit and damage together in larger fights can shave off a little time which gets back to an individual player a little faster.

Uhh, which one already took damage?

"Okay, Becky is casting Magic Missile, Joe is using his crossbow, and Dick? Are you going to rush to engage the ogre or are you going to try to hold the hallway so the goblins don't rush in?" A person who might have been paralyzed with options or confused about the situation now has a crutch to lean on, they can just accept the play and snap back into attention or look at his character sheet to see if he still has the potion of heroism for the next round.

Ping, Pong, Ping, Pong, Ping, Pong around the table. You're interacting with them, they're interacting with you, they're on the spot. They know the game will halt without them giving their action and then they are locked in. The turn simply executes and we're on to the next one in a timely manner.

To be continued in Part 3 - The Chokepoint

The Ping Pong Heartbeat Part 1

 

The Ping Pong Heartbeat

Many discussions, youtube videos, and blogs write about DM'ing as a fine art. They write about their respective leanings towards play that often repeat time-tested methods. It's always good to have these fundamentals, but it's also reductive in thinking critically in terms of running a good session. Conventional wisdom replaces careful consideration and our hobby becomes echoes of an echo. The first topic I'd like to tackle leads toward pacing.

This Ping Pong Heartbeat is not a new idea except in perhaps its name. It's an idea that doesn't get talked about despite being one of the most critical elements of practical DM'ing and, to a lesser extent, adventure design. In most heartbeat based software protocols in software an incremental request and response is required to consider a heartbeat of a connection to stay alive. In play, there should be a steady flow of information back and forth. This is the heartbeat that tells you that your game is alive. 

Do You Suck At Getting Started?

Let's imagine that you're in a typical 4 hour session as a DM running five players through a basic town and nearby adventure location session. Starting them in a place where they can gather information is the best way to get use out of session time short of just starting them at the dungeon itself. Announcing to the players where they are, why they are there, and what they know is a good and commonly practiced start. Usually the players will be prompted to talk to each other a bit and ask you some qualifying questions. You let them get information from each other, they gather rumors/hooks, and you've responded to their inquiries. Then the session goes silent. You prompt them with a question of how they proceed. A few people mutter and sputter until an hour past the session start time they finally decide to embark on the adventure.

You already fucked up. 

Introductions, getting people situated, and getting through inconsequential in-town play has eaten 1/4th of the session already. You stoked the fire and let it smolder to embers, then you tried to breathe on it until it lit again. Once the players stop ping/ponging information to each other and yourself, this is the time to look for the silence to begin to settle. You could have been offering suggestions to facilitate play. You could be calling on players individually to appeal to their senses. You could have been driving it forward. If characters are rolled up, hooks/rumors are handled, supplies purchased, and hirelings hired - get them to move. They are here to play, so remind them of options to do so.

"I need to know, if you plan on adventuring, what direction you plan on leaving. North east? Okay, so this will take you 1/4 of the day... and no encounters. You estimate another few hours before you reach the Abandoned Monastery, I assume you proceed?"

You may have heard of the 'Orcs attack!' method of motivating players, but this is the 'Yes/No' method. The players might have gotten texted to by their spouse, a dog might have thrown up on the carpet, someone talked over someone else, or maybe while you were giving too long of an exposition they were looking up how Mirror Image works in this edition. Hit them with the suggestive 'Yes/No' and we're back in business.

Now that we're at the adventure site, you describe their scouting information. You know the options they've been presented with, but again they settle into meandering. Unsure of what’s expected of them, unless they have a proactive player who can help carry the game for you, they hope that someone else will drive the game forward. If you have a player that is adept at calling for the group, this will usually be their job to keep things moving forward. Unfortunately, I've seen many games where there is no such suited player. How does a DM spark the fire in their place?

"You can go through the heavily guarded front gates, try to sneak in through that broken part of the wall, or see if that nearby cave entrance provides a way in. Or does the party have a different idea? Which would you like to do?"

 To be continued in part 2 - The Combat Slog