tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33247126822874797902024-03-05T09:54:16.890-08:00Prime Requisite"Those characteristics of primary importance for a chosen archetype."
Exploring D&D through an 0e lens: 0e, Holmes Basic, Chainmail, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, DDG&H, & Swords & SpellsBobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-31065775806996066922020-06-15T12:51:00.002-07:002020-06-15T12:51:52.254-07:00Almost FOUR Years Since the Last PostIts been almost 4 years since, well, its in the post title...<br />
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A lot has gone down in that time, and, for those of you not paying attention, our world has changed in ways that has altered our perspectives permanently. But this blog isn't about politics. Its about D&D!<br />
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Four years ago, I switched to 5e because that was what my group was playing, and I wanted to share some content that I was creating. But now, that group has disbanded and I am no longer creating 5e content. I am back into my 0e ways, and hopefully I'll be able to post here more often than I used to.<br />
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I am not even certain that I have followers, but that's okay. A lot of water has gone over this washed out bridge, and we're back to using fords, ropes and ferries to cross this river. It might even be all dried up, who knows?<br />
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As far as created content, I've updated my Levels Beyond Basic rules, and it is now up to version 13. I haven't added anything new, but I've streamlined some bits, removed a useless section or two, changed the font from Liberation Sans to Trebuchet MS, and reformatted almost every page to make everything fit a bit better with the tools I have to work with.<br />
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Everything I create comes from Libre Office Writer, which is free and nice, and I can create PDFs with it. I am still able to use my old Linux OS laptop to create, but have a wonky transfer system to my new W10 laptop to publish to this blog and the Giggle Drive.<br />
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"What kind of 0e version is Levels Beyond Basic?" First off, I am not a professional writer, so I have little to no experience with copyright & content protections, misuse, or appropriations. Second, I intend that my little set of house rules here is NEVER for sale, and is free to view and use. They are house rules, gathering some of the best fitting rules from OD&D, the Supplements, Holmes, some pre-AD&D rules, Dragon magazine, Judges Guild, and later editions - most of which may be WotC property, and if not - property of other companies and individuals. These rules were never published with the intent of challenging their rights or properties, but in order to facilitate an ongoing, living game of D&D DM'd by me, and made available to my players via the internet.<br />
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I choose to share what I've done with the rules with others so show what you can do with the rules, and if you like it, you are free to use it. Version 13 (the latest version, as of this date) hopefully meets most of today's reading standards, but, as a non-professional writer, I will acknowledge ahead of time that as the standards change, I am most likely behind in keeping up with them, and anything you, kind reader finds does not meet with your approval, I assure you that it is not intentional.<br />
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In the spirit of the modularity of the rules, please feel free to make those changes yourself if I have fallen short of your expectations as a compiler and kitbasher of rules, I would not be offended in the least. These rules will never be presented in a "finished" state. They will forever be "a work in progress", to mirror the human state - as we all are a work in progress, so please be forgiving as I work to progress as a human and a writer.<br />
Thank you.Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-34265716121630659012016-11-21T10:33:00.002-08:002016-11-21T10:35:54.770-08:00A Slight change in blog definitionBetween online applications, I managed to figure out (again) how to edit the stuff that appears on my blog. I ain't no expert, so, yes, I am very happy to announce it in a post.<br />
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As for why? Simple. My focus has shifted from all things 0e to a more cosmopolitan collection of D&D; namely 5th. It is what my group wants to play, and in order to play, I must learn the rules. Rules that get in the way of the game get replaced, usually by something old-school, or something that facilitates the old school perspective.<br />
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<br />Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-15901745535163418332016-11-11T13:21:00.000-08:002016-11-11T13:21:20.254-08:00More 5e Material!<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Dyson Logos' "Lair of the Frogs" 04 pdf </div>
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Lair of the Frogs Monster Stat Blocks 5e 03 pdf</div>
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If you're strictly "old school", then you should <i><b>absolutely</b></i> continue reading this post. </div>
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Actually, I don't even know what "old school" really is, aside from basic descriptions and loose definitions, my play style is indeed - "Old School". I have a definite idea what should happen in any D&D session, whether its a one-shot, multiple session dungeon crawl, or even a years long campaign, and that is considered to be "old school". </div>
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I like to call it "Old Skull", since I like players who not only think, but think outside the box. Maybe that box has grown to the size of a trunk now, but that's besides the point. Onward!</div>
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The "more" 5e material I refer to in the title of this post is actually a revision and addition to Dyson Logos' excellent mini-dungeon "Lair of the Frogs". The first attempt was a hastily thrown together outline of ideas for what constitutes a dungeon full of frawgs. This attempt, (Lair of the Frogs-04) is a major revision in terms of nomenclature, but the basic dungeon key remains fairly unchanged. </div>
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The wonderful and dreadful thing about D&D is that it is constantly changing, updating, outdating, redundant, and evolving. That remains so for my beloved (by me only, it seems) "Lair of the Frogs" dungeon module. (Am I the only one who still calls these things "modules" and not "Adventures"?) </div>
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Actually, the only major change to inhabit this version of LoF is the inclusion of the Monster Stat Block 5e document. The stat block is derived from the beloved stat block of auld:</div>
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(AC, Spd, HD, hp, Special Abilities, #ATT, (type of attack(s), BAB, damage, +specials, etc), Save As, Morale (ML), Alignment (AL), Challenge Rating (CR), xp value, and Monster Manual page #)</div>
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Between the 03 and the 04 versions, you may also notice an increased page count, but this is not due to extra/added material, but increased font size, flailing eyesight, and possible old age. I've had to increase the font size in order to find & read the right sections on cue, a problem with my accursed yearly, and free VA glasses prescription - now invisaligned bifocal contraptions that only focuses on materials I want to read by throwing my head back as far as my neck will pinion, or lowering chin so far into my chest that beard and chest hairs are now contemplating a singles bar to easier facilitate mingling, intertwining, copulation, and possible multiplication,</div>
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However, the game of updating and revision is a never-ending one, much like a true game of D&D - I am already writing updates to this version, and within a few months, this one will be redundant, it is already lacking in my eyes, and once you look closely at it, you may consider labelling it so as well. </div>
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You may note the addition of an "old school" Saving Throw Table towards the end of this version of "Lair of the Frogs" (or was it already part of the 03 version?), and this is not for the players, but for the DM to find those pesky DC #'s that I have yet to find in the 5e versions of the DMG, PHB, or MM. This is NOT the same Saving Throw Table found in 0e, but one closely based on it. </div>
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This has already been superseded by my own version of the Saving Throw Table for monsters. This one is also loosely based on the 0e Saving Throw Table, but instead of class and level, the table goes straight for the monster types: Aberration, Beast, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Undead, etc., and assigns DC #'s based on the "old school" saving throw types: Spells, Staves, Rods, Wands, Poison, Death Magic, Polymorph, Paralysis, Petrification, and Dragon Breath, and also distinguishes between Enchantment and Charm spells separately from other types of Spells. </div>
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This gives me room to allocate saving throws based on 5e's Saving Throw types based on Ability Scores (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom AND Charisma). </div>
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One of these days, I'll take pictures of my hand-written copy of "Reference Booklet For Near-Sighted DM's" and post that as a PDF, but there are a lot of other materials that I can post links of before I ever get to this one. I only note this one item specifically because it has a clever little table in it that links the Abilities to the specific old school saving throws, as I understand them. 5e rules may indeed say that all Poison saves must be Constitution Saving Throws, but my table suggests that only MOST Poison & Death Magic saves are augmented by Constitution score bonuses and/or penalties. </div>
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My table does however go on to establish a link between all saves to a specific ability score: Poison & Death Magic to Con, Spells & Staves to Wisdom, Rods & Wands to Intelligence, Petrify, Paralysis & Polymorph to Strength, Breath Weapons to Dexterity, and Enchantment/Charms to Charisma.</div>
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However, this system is only used when the source of the magic is not specified within the context of 5e rules. These are for general saves, not specific saves, like the kind of sources that are rampant in 5e rules - namely the Player Characters themselves.</div>
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Yes, for those of you not familiar with 5e, all spellcasting PCs in 5e have their own source code for saving throws. Basically, spells are automatic, requiring no roll at all to activate, or require a successful attack on a target, or all targets must make a successful saving throw to avoid - totally nullify or halve the effects. </div>
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Player Characters, and by inference - NPC spellcasters set their own DC #'s (taking the place of the old school Saving Throw Table) by virtue of their spellcasting level, and spellcasting ability score bonus.</div>
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Spellcasting abilities are based on specific spell-casting classes: Clerics & Druids use Wisdom (thus they use their Wisdom score bonus as a modifier to their Spell Save DC), Wizards and Eldritch Knights use Intelligence (thus they use their Intelligence score bonus for their Spell Save DC), Sorcerers use I-don't-know-what, and Warlocks and Bards use Charisma (they use their Charisma score bonus for their DC).</div>
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So, if a monster must make a Saving Throw based on the PC's Spellcasting DC Saving Throw, that # would be used instead of the general Saving Throw Table DC #. </div>
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All of this is still under the design phase, and has not even been play-tested yet. As you can see in the "Lair of the Frogs Monster Stat Block-03 pdf, all monster saves are based on Character Class, as they were in old school Basic/Expert D&D rules. You may remember, alas - still PLAY under these honourable rules where Goblins save as Normal Men, Orcs save as Fighter 1, Hobs save as Fighter 2, Gnolls save as Fighter 3, and so on.</div>
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I want to take this a step further into 5e territory and have monsters save as their monster types: Aberration, Monstrosity, Beast, Humanoid, Undead, etc. I want to make them their own monsters, unbeholden to character classes meant for player characters. Its nice to be able to compare monster abilities to character abilities based on level, but this isn't really doable as easily as it was in earlier editions. </div>
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For one thing, the equation of Level = Hit Dice is no longer true. Monsters really don't have Hit Dice equatable to character level in 5e. The disparity between any monster's given HD, (with hit point kicker) and comparing that to it's Challenge Rating will boggle your old skull way of doing things.</div>
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So with all that explained, I sum up with: There is more 5e to come from me. If anyone thinks this shit is good enough for the official 5e DM's Guild, or whatever it's called, please contact me with an offer to help /guide me to convert it into whatever format the 5e DM's Guild material needs to be in for publication. Any kind of offer like: I do the primary writing & new rules ideas, you do the formatting, and final rules polishing is absolutely welcome. </div>
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Otherwise, I'll continue to (eventually) put this stuff up for everyone to read (for free), and risk someone copying & copyrighting it without my express consent, etc. I don't mind my stuff is for free for like - the rest of time, but I definitely do not want someone stealing an original kernel of an idea of mine and making money off of it. That's dirty buggery.</div>
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That, and, if you know of any Linux experts close to North Platte NE, send that person my way. I am completely computer illiterate, and deathly afraid of doing anything to my laptop lest I delete all my (half-assed) work done so far. If I could get my computer updated, that would go a long ways towards me being able to download & use stuff that would help me be a little more independent and copyrightable. </div>
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'K, Thanks-Bye!</div>
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Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-73113206312709730352016-05-23T14:01:00.001-07:002016-05-23T14:01:56.658-07:00At last! Compatible Mass Combat Rules for D&D5e!<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the last two most recent game sessions, our DM has played out two different scenarios involving large numbers of troops vs. our party. </div>
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He wound up using Warhammer 40k rules, which went really smoothly the first time, but it went kind of wonky last week. Ever since he announced the mass combat sessions, I've been frantically searching for any & all mass combat rules that I might have on my gaming shelves to use, and most importantly, compatible with 5e rules.</div>
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No such luck, before game time. :P I did find all versions of AD&D Battlesystem rules, which included the large red boxed set for 1st edition, and both books for 2nd edition - the regular Battlesystem and Skirmishes rules, and I quickly read through them, thinking these would be fairly simple to convert into 5e to use for mass combat. </div>
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Well, I didn't really think so, after I finished going over them both. Ironically, the 2nd edition versions of Battlesystem was far more complicated than the 1st edition version. Of the two, I'd choose 1st edition, even though I used and ran several sessions BitD using 2nd edition's Skirmish rules for large PC/Monster encounters.</div>
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This weekend, days after our last Warhammer 40k rules laden session, I recalled (!) the original Chainmail rules, and got out the full sized copy I made out of (legal) PDFs a few years back. Wow. What a breath of fresh air! I'd completely forgotten this ancient system, but mainly because the last time I gave it a serious read-thru, the system completely baffled me. </div>
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Now, years later, and invariable 0e & Holmes house rule writing exercises, I look at Chainmail, break out Jason Vey's "Forbidden Lore; Supplement VI" and read that stem to stern alongside the Chainmail rules.</div>
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Holy chimi-cha-ching!-changas, Droogpool! It all makes sense! It all fits perfectly into 0e, sand-tables, and even freakin' 5e! </div>
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There is no conversion to be done at all from 5e to Chainmail rules. Simply look at the troop types, find the correlating chart, roll dice, cross-reference the results! </div>
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Yes, there are a lot of confusing charts & tables in Chainmail, but once you learn that each one serves a different purpose, according to who's attacking, and defending, the choices become much clearer. </div>
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Now, I was not going to post anything of real, physical teach-wise stuff about Chainmail here, at least not in this post, as I have another thing that I might post about shortly. The point is, I would be interested in posting more about Chainmail here, in the interest of clearing up the wonky/fuzzy rules bits that no one seems to understand, and I'm talking to those who have a copy of Chainmail and Jason Vey's excellent "Forbidden Lore" the so-called "Supplement VI", that used to be free, but these days I'm not so sure if its still available.</div>
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Anywhat, I'mma looking at my next post: 5e's Challenge Rating system for monsters and thinking what doucheable material this section of the DMG is, and what I'd love, love, lurrrrve to see in anyone's future monster supplement at the DM Guild - if anyone is interested in taking suggestions on what to put out there for 5e at the Guild. </div>
Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-79221707808706107702016-05-14T13:13:00.000-07:002016-05-14T13:13:14.350-07:00Google Drive Sucks<div style="text-align: justify;">
If you're a friend of mine on Facebook, you've seen my posts about trying to get Google Drive to work right - namely giving a preview of newly uploaded PDFs without having to download it to actually see it. </div>
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Isn't that the idea behind a preview? To look at something to see if its worth your time to actually download it? </div>
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Anyhooo, I'll be shopping for a new uploadable document storage facility, and I've already checked out Dropbox, which is a basement level soggy cardboard mess that may or may not charge non-virtual $$ for their crapulence. </div>
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Perhaps that's what Google Drive will do next: charge $$ for their shitty services. I guess that's the direction everything on the internet is going, and there's no use whinging about it: pay up or shut up. What's a poor fuck-up like me to do? Start charging for my stolen RPG ideas? </div>
Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-8097190026736577542016-05-13T10:59:00.004-07:002016-05-13T10:59:34.088-07:00More Provocative 5e Trash Talk<div style="text-align: justify;">
They called me in to work last night, so on the drive out and on the way
back, I had a lot to think about in my previous post; the actual fun
that the entire group had as we got to trash some really nasty, evil
NPCs, the way 5e works, and how it doesn't work, how much I like the
Warhammer system, but never have actually played it (until this last
session), and all the trash-talk.<br /><br />I did think of a work-around for the Warlock soul-sucking ability that doesn't totally nerf it. Instead of disallowing its use altogether when a Warlock casts a spell (See? That statement alone makes no sense! A Warlock power that doesn't work with spell-casting! <i>Wha???</i>), how about we only allow the Warlock to suck a soul once per round, and not allow multiple souls to get sucked with one major spell that kills multiple hostile creatures, like a Fireball in the middle of an attacking army. (By the way, this rule is on page 109 of the PHB. I meant to include that in yesterday's post, but I had to shut down because of... <i>work</i>.) :P</div>
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Now, even I think 180 temporary hit points is ricockulous, even if it is my favorite character evar, but the looks on everyone else's faces when I announced that she just acquired 180 temps - was priceless! I'll put this suggestion forth to the DM, and I hope he goes for it, as I'd really hate to see the ability totally nerfed in conjunction with spell-casting. </div>
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Now, I read a couple of comments via Facebook, and one from a friend who said that this play report pretty much sums up his opinion that 5e isn't for him, and I don't want to dissuade anyone from trying the system because of this skewed report. It was sloppy journalism. </div>
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<i>(What can I say? I don't have a degree in journalism, and only took one course in community college for English Comp.)</i></div>
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Now, to explain the philosophy behind the system in a little more depth, I should mention the Monster Manual for 5th edition. Showing what our super-heroic proportioned heroes are up against may begin to make a lot more sense. The monsters your daddy fought in the 70's & 80's are pussies compared to what they are these days. Thanks to Final Fantasy's version of Bahamut, we now have a super-powered dragon with a Disintegration Ray. Fu-hu-hu-hu-huuuuuuuuuck! Okay, maybe Bahamut back-in-the-day was pretty bad-ass too, but honestly, I never worked my players up to the level where they would encounter Bahamut, so the point is a bit moot. (<i>The Tiamat encounter doesn't count. THAT was a totally over-the-top encounter to begin with! Tiamat, asleep in her lair???? Shut up!</i>)</div>
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Okay, from the get-go, we beginning players & DMs (with 5e) were thinking that 5e had a lot of powerful character "builds", and ridonkulous monsters. However, please note two things about monsters in this edition: Their hit points are bloated, and their AC's never go above 20. This is a design "feature" (<i>I call it a drawback and a slap in the face to old school gaming...</i>) that WotC decided was of vital importance to "winning" the game of D&D.</div>
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It goes something like this: the toughness of monsters relies mostly in their hit points. That demon lord in 1e that was considered pretty bad-ass back-in-the-day with 90 hit points, is now a demon lord with 200+ hit points in 5e. Now he's mega-bad-ass. BUT, the 1e demon lord usually had an AC of -6, which for those of you who absolutely lose your shit when anyone mentions THAC0, a -6 AC is equal to AC 26 in today's game. (Just FYI...) In 5e, that demon lord with 280 hit points only has an AC of 19! (For those of you who haven't played since 1st edition, AC 19 is equal to our old school AC of 1. I know, it's inverted, but its cool, since what you roll to hit on the d20 is equal to the AC you need to hit. Want to hit AC 19? Roll a 19 or better on a d20! Easy-peasy, elves are sleazy...)</div>
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<i>"What does this mean? Why does this ultra-powerful, multiple-hyphenated, mega-bad-ass have such a sucky AC? A 1st level character could hit 'em, fer Cryin' Out Loud!"</i></div>
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Yes. That's it, exactly. Right on the nose in one shot! WotC designed 5th edition so that that your 1st level precious-snowflake-murder-hobo has a chance to hit the big-bad-douchebag-boss of your dungeon. It doesn't mean your 1st level character is going to have a chance to KILL the BBDBB of your dungeon, but you might be able to hit him/her/both/neither/it. </div>
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So, what happens when your characters start dealing a lot of damage every round? Against 5th edition monsters, it can only mean one thing: The combats take up much more game time, or we finish fights faster, and our characters have a better chance at living through it. Perhaps the monster Challenge Ratings are skewed a little to favor the PCs to make players feel as if they are accomplishing something "heroic", but this is what the game has been focusing on now for the last few editions. At least 5e took a step back in the right direction. Slightly. </div>
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180 hit points is still a lot to swallow, and, I've never said this before, but you shouldn't have to swallow that. (I know, I know, I'm a shameless thief, but for what it's worth, I am an amateur journalist with a blog, and if you're reading it, it proves that cheap shots & trash talk like that are worth it...)</div>
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A few months ago, our DM complained that we walked over everything he sent at us, with the thought that "This will challenge them!" Boy, was he wrong. We did walk over everything he sent at us in that session, and we were pretty damn happy about it. The DM has come to the conclusion that 5e is broken because we constantly beat stuff up, but I think that there is a lot more to this edition than combat. Here's the thing: Combat encounters shouldn't be the only thing on our plates, and we'd like a little more role-playing, puzzle-solving, and exploration. </div>
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(*A side note: I should also mention that it is possible to kill characters just as easily as it is to kill monsters in 5th edition. Gone are the "Save or Die!" and instant death rules, but characters are just as likely to die from bad player decisions as before, and this is a good thing. Our group has suffered casualties, and character death in the very first session, and we've lost a couple of players because they thought the DM was picking on them, but really, they made assumptions and bad decisions, and the DM had monsters respond accordingly.) </div>
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When a game is based solely on combat, we tend to see the game through combat lenses more. The DM and a few other players believe that 5e is a flawed system because combat is "broken". What they don't believe in, and I do, because I'm used to 0e, BX, Holmes and 1e, (but especially 0e) is that combats were designed to be quickly resolved to allow more time doing other things, more interesting things, that didn't get our characters killed, and give us players more opportunities to gain XP with relatively less danger involved.</div>
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The biggest mistake in D&D game design was doing away with the GP = XP rules, making combat the only major avenue of gaining XP in the game. Oh, there's the Story Award = XP, but that's just an arbitrary number of points awarded for something that may or may not have happened in the game. I could contest any Story Award given to PCs in any game I've ever played in because Story Awards don't correlate with anything the players or characters earned. </div>
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Oh, but they convinced NPC so-and-so to come to their aid! They rescued NPC so-and-so from Certain Death! Those are definitely worth Story Awards! </div>
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Okay, yeah. Whatever. But those are role-playing achievements that have been arbitrarily quantified to make you think that for some level of role-playing is superior somehow to other levels of role-playing and is worth something. </div>
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Bullshit. That's an unbalanced system of awards if I evar heard of one. Now GP = XP is equitable and totally quantifiable, and always has been from the get-go. Unfortunately, only Dave Arneson got it right in one by having GP = XP only if the PCs spent it on things in the game (that largely included role-playing). That was missing in 0e & 1e, and therefore missed by most mainstream D&D gamers. </div>
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Now we have a game that's over-balanced towards XP for combat only. That's not a skewed view at all, is it? Okay, maybe I'm in the extreme minority who believe in a totally different set of criteria that determines "balance", but my main point is that XP should be quantified by other quantifiable things like GP and combat. Not combat only.</div>
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But one thing that 5e seemed to do right is to make PCs just as powerful at certain levels, which allows them to finish fights faster and get on with other things in the game, and I think I've already mentioned that, so I'm writing in circles now. Lovely.</div>
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I had a point buried in here somewhere, and I know I was quickly closing in on making it, but here at the last intersection, I lost it, and now it eludes me altogether. Oh, here it is...</div>
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Don't be dissuaded from trying 5th edition. Its lighter than 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, 4th & definitely Pathfinder. It is still intricate and challenging, and still offers a lot of options for the players for their characters. It's challenging in ways that D&D should be challenging, and not quite as intimidating as other rules heavy editions are. It still needs work, however, and the kind of work you can only do by jumping in and doing yourself. There are a lot of other things I could talk about here, but this follow-up post has already gone on 10x longer than I thought it would. I guess there was a lot I just had to get off my chest. ;)</div>
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5th edition can be so much more than it appears to be. If you work at it, you can draw those things out, and, like a writer with nothing but a pen and a blank page, this game can help you design the kind of game you want to play. But you have to give it a chance, or, like the Lotto commercials would have you believe: <i>"You can't win if you don't play!" </i></div>
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;)</div>
Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-80492755904914375582016-05-12T11:56:00.000-07:002016-05-12T11:56:33.979-07:005e Play Report: Awesome & Unbalanced and 180 Temporary Hit Points!<div style="text-align: justify;">
Last night was the first session of our DM's 'end-game' wherein he is winding up everything he had prepared for his campaign, so, it was destined to be an epic battle. We'd been playing together as a group for 7-8 months now, ever since forming at the FLGS (Friendly, Local, Game Store) for weekly D&D Encounters, although now, we were so much more than that.</div>
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<b>A 5th edition Campaign World is Born</b></div>
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I wasn't there for the first few sessions, but I joined up relatively early enough to be considered one of the "founding members", and that's a stretch, in my own mind anyhoo. It is a great group, and I am very happy to have been a part of it, and with luck will continue to be a part of it for as long as we can keep filling up the gas tank on this behemoth of a vehicle.</div>
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Originally, we were supposed to be playing D&D Encounters, but for one reason and another, the DM never got the material from WotC to carry out the campaign. After a few failed attempts to communicate with, and correct the situation with the store manager, we all gave up and just continued in the only direction we could - we kept playing completely off-the-cuff, making stuff up every week to keep our group entertained, if not a little bewildered and directionless.</div>
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I talked to the other players and the DM as soon as they'd enter the door to game, either barely in time to start, or just after the DM started, or if they stuck around for any amount of time after the session ended and the store closed it's doors and shut down the register. Talking to them all took a bit of effort. Eventually, another player got smart and started taking down names, email addresses, and phone numbers. I finally got the questions out that I wanted: </div>
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"What kind of campaign are we playing?" "Where are we?" Since I already knew the when & where (Wednesday night at FLGS - otherwise known as "D&D Encounter Night"), I bulldozed right on through to the meat of the matter: "Do we have a campaign world?" When the DM told me that he did not have a camapign world in mind, but he did not want any campaigns previously associated with D&D - such as Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Nentir Vale, etc., so I asked the $ shot question: "Would you like to have a brand new one?"</div>
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After talking with the DM about what worlds he didn't want, I talked to the other players, and with all the input I received, I put together a world that everyone could claim as their own. It was only a framework, and all the borders were open for expansion, although the DM's initial political-world view was limiting (humanocentric, continental sized human controlled government, with more in common with Joel Rosenberg's "Guardians of the Flame" series than a free-wheeling D&D world...), but with room for expansion, at least I'd nailed down the topography and geo-political regions of where we were.</div>
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With more input from the DM & other players, we had a brief description of the movers & shakers of this new campaign world, and a rough proximity of where our characters originated from, but most of the non-human characters wound up coming from quite a ways away in this human controlled kingdom. </div>
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<b>The Blades of Mercia Campaign</b> </div>
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After a few sessions, we realized that D&D Encounter material would not be coming forth from WotC or the FLGS manager*, the DM commenced with a campaign of his own, a leftover plot from his old D&D 3.5 edition campaign - and pitted us against a group of technologically advanced humans bent on taking over every world they landed on, and they were called "The Blades". </div>
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Initially encountered in heavily armored and armed pairs - one knight and one mage, it took <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wD5tamhwXo" target="_blank">maximum effort</a> of the entire group to fell these asshats, but we did it, and the DM was surprised we actually did. We also levelled an entire village doing it, so we had to go on the run. Levelling that particular village was okay, since the Blades had somehow convinced all the medieval minded & human only population to have cookies on their side, so they were all against us and yelped for help whenever our non-human PCs made their presence known. </div>
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Due to the shifting and chaotic nature of game-store gaming, we had a fairly fluid, and often-times large group of players every week. However, once we determined who the regulars were always going to be (roughly - even I got called in to work on game night once in awhile...), and by large, I mean 10-12 players each night*. </div>
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(*Segue for a bit here...) As far as I understand D&D Encounters, each of the Encounters planned by WotC and implemented by associated game-stores is supposed to support a DM and up to 6 players in a session. If there are more players, an extra DM is supposed to be available to run more players through WotC approved Encounters material. Now, I'm not blaming the game store, manager, or the DM, but more than one person has admitted to not wanting to initiate a full-blown confrontation, so we left the store for greener pastures.</div>
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For months, we endured new players (who, coincidently always wanted to play Dragonborn characters...) who have never played D&D before, or were so rusty that they hadn't played since 2nd edition (1989) days, so getting them up to speed for the night was a challenge for all of us. In many cases, this was a pleasant experience, but there were a few players who just never got the concept, or didn't realize that D&D is always a cooperative gaming experience and one little Dragonborn sorcerer always tried to kill off the other players...</div>
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Eventually, we moved out of the game-store, and into the DM's house, and since there were only 7 regulars now, and we'd lost a couple of key characters (we had a cleric, two thieves, a monk, a ranger, a gnomish wizard, and a barbarian dwarf) - I talked the DM into letting everyone have two characters, since we needed tanks if we were going to continue fighting the Blades. He allowed it, with the caveat that we no longer had PC XP, but PLAYER XP - each players' XP determined the level of both of our characters, and we had to pick which character to play, singly, each session.</div>
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<b>Party Make Up</b> </div>
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Now, we had THREE clerics, a ranger, a gnomish wizard, two thieves, a paladin, a monk (ninja), two barbarians, a <a href="http://stuffershack.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/tiefling.jpg" target="_blank">Hellgirl</a> (female Tiefling Warlock - Infernal Weapon Pact), and finally a FIGHTER! Of course, we only played one character apiece, (one player still only controlled a single character), and I missed a lot of sessions in the last two months thanks to work, but here we all are now at the end of the DM's Blades campaign.</div>
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He's burned out and really wants to just be a player from here on out. So, we're allowed to bring both of our characters into play if we want to, and sometimes we do. Sometimes, it just gets too crowded, so we only play one or the other, so this varies.</div>
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Our group is incredibly strong, and I mean, Avengers + Deadpool & Negasonic Teenage Warhead strong. And its all "by-the-book". The Paladin gets several extra dice of damage. The Ranger, after he hits his target, does extra dice of damage. The Monk (Ninja) can instantly move by jumping through his shadow - every round. The Thieves cause extra dice of damage via their Sneak Attacks. Hellgirl...</div>
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...requires her own paragraph (...and because she's my character, correction: one of my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f_d8XvyHaE" target="_blank">favorite characters</a> I've evar played in any edition of D&D). Not only does she do an insane amount of damage every round with her Eldritch Blast cantrips, the Warlock rules allow her to augment them with Infernal Evocations, so they cause extra damage, and at higher levels, she can fire off more than one every round. She can attack twice per round with her pact weapon (now a +1 longsword), and, thanks to being a Warlock, every time she reduces a hostile creature down to 0 hit points, she "swallows souls" and gains temporary hit points based on her level and Charisma modifier. He Charisma is 20 (+5) and she's 7th level, for a total of 12 temporary hit points that last until she is hit for damage, or a long rest. This comes from any source of damage that she can cause, i.e., a spell that can cause 8d6 damage, (like a fireball) could possibly net her hundreds of temporary hit points! </div>
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...and this is exactly what happened in last night's session. </div>
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<b>The End Game</b></div>
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We received word that the Blades were amassing an army of just over one thousand non-Blades, with a squad of Blade knights and mages in overall command on the march to attack our friend/benefactor/my thief's uncle Baron "Bear" DeSilva's little keep in the mountains, affectionately called "The Rookery". Bear DeSilva, played by none other than <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1zjeYhJs7o" target="_blank">Brian Blessed</a> in my mind, had a few hundred troops, and thanks to our efforts to rid the Realm of the Blades' human-only racism, we'd amassed an army of our own. </div>
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In the last few months, our group sought out and recruited some NPCs that had also become very big PITA for the Blades. One of the most powerful of them is "Kevin", a young boy who also happens to be a very powerful werewolf. </div>
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We prepared ambushes and deadfalls throughout the hills on the trail to the Rookery, and along with a successful assassination (ninja'd!) of the leader of the army (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt3eyeO0R94" target="_blank">non-Blade noble poof</a>), we were only faced with a demoralized army, not a fully competent one.</div>
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We had the army bottle-necked and ambushed them with only a portion of our total forces. In retrospect, if we had our entire army there to do battle in that pass, we could have wiped them all out, but the logistics of getting (maybe) 500 troops in place to ambush 1,000 was a little dicey, so we chose to use only 50 to assault the vanguard. </div>
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Once the Blade army came to the wall of thorns blockade in the pass, we sprung our trap, with Kevin & Hellgirl attacking the "rear" (not the true rear, where the siege engines were, unfortunately...) along with many archers, spearmen & light cavalry.</div>
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Hellgirl cast a fireball spell into the midst of the army and killed 15 troops immediately. At 12 temporary hit points per, that's 180 hit points gained. Flush with the souls of the dead, she waded into battle with <i>Thurston Howl</i> (her +1 longsword pact weapon), taking on and killing a Blade knight in 3-4 rounds. Kevin, meanwhile, took out a LOT of troops and a couple of Blades on his own. </div>
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The paladin, barbarian, human cleric, and one of the dwarven clerics were at the front, directing the full-frontal ambush. (We had the choice of devoting some, all or none of our heroes to this fight, and so these are the characters we chose to run; the player controlling the gnomish wizard and the party's only fighter couldn't make it...) </div>
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The player with the dwarven barbarian chose not to devote his character to this fight at all, saving him for the main fight at the Rookery, so he was chosen to roll all the dice for our army forces. </div>
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I have to back up to the start of the session where the DM announced that due to the complexities of D&D rules, he'd be using Warhammer 40k rules to run the battle. I am vaguely familiar with Warhammer rules, and since the mass combat rules are the same for the WFRP (Warhammer Fantasy Role Play) and 40k (futuristic sci-fantasy/horror) settings, everything went smoothly, and our DM was quite capable of translating our D&D character's abilities to WFRP/40k rules on the battlefield on the fly. No one else was familiar with the rules at all, but suffice to say that all we had to roll for an attack is roll 4+ on 1d6, and roll again for damage - and hope not to roll any 1's. D&D hit points translated to W40k Wounds at a rate of 20 to 1. Hellgirl, before temporary hit points had 3 Wounds. Plus temporary = 9!</div>
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Although we lost some men (army), by the end of the engagement, we'd managed to obtain our objective, which was to kill or demoralize the enemy forces, make them retreat, and kill some Blades while we were at it. The army retreated, (I won't even go into detail about the avalanche that buried hundreds or Bahamut's avatar showing up to disintegrate a large portion of the Blade's army...) and we beat feet back to the Rookery to prepare for the main engagement. This was the fortified position, and we had a lot of battlement defenses set up here. </div>
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The Blades lost about half of their forces. We lost about 40 men. Them's good odds in WFRP/40k rules, or D&D rules. However, the DM also said that he would put a house rule into effect limiting the Warlock from gaining temporary hit points from damage caused by spells, which was the only sour note for me.</div>
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Granted, we hashed out the Monk (ninja!) ability to shadow-step by ruling that a shadow must be in dimly lit environments - ruling out any shadow-stepping during the daytime, indoor or outdoor, unless in a dungeon with no light at all, or a building with no windows, etc. </div>
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By rule-parsing, we also determined that the Ranger was NOT doing enough damage per round, but the Paladin was doing too much. The thieves could use their Sneak Attack ability (and extra damage) simply by being within 5 feet of a friendly combatant fighting the same opponent - they weren't required to Flank an enemy to cause Sneak Attack damage! These were all handled "by-the-book", or IOW, carefully reading the rules, so I will be a bit sore if this is handled with a straight-up houserule that nerfs this Warlock ability. </div>
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By-the-book, Warlock's get the fewest amount of spells to cast. Far fewer than the wizard, and, even though the Sorcerer only gets half as many as the wizard does, the Sorcerer still gets at least twice as many spells per day than the Warlock. The Warlock's "swallow your soul!" power is only available to warlocks taking the Infernal Pact (one of three pacts available), and is not contingent on the warlock choosing another pact feature - weapon, chain or tome. </div>
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I could understand if the soul-sucking ability could be contingent on the weapon pact, but it is not; the soul-sucking ability is granted at 1st level, the pact weapon comes in at 2nd or 3rd. So, the only way the warlock could gain temporary hit points at 1st level is only by casting cantrips, or fighting with a weapon in melee combat, which at lower levels is pretty risky, even for a warlock...</div>
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On the positive side, when Hellgirl cast Fireball, I had the (NSFW) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGOGpbY2fvw" target="_blank">verbal component</a> ready, and when the Blade knight climbed up the hill to attack Hellgirl face-to-face, she told him the (NSFSJW (not safe for Social Justice Warriors)) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLggFs8i8Eg" target="_blank">three biggest lies</a> in the world. ;)</div>
Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-50118719954588690282016-03-01T14:23:00.001-08:002016-03-01T14:47:52.974-08:00Leap a Day, Miss a Year!<div style="text-align: justify;">
Lest this old skull's blog fall by the wayside and be forgotten, I'd better post something, even if it doesn't have any 0e or Holmes content. (sigh)</div>
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I'd rather report that I have a healthy following of 0e &/or Holmes enthusiasts, or at least some new blood willing to give the ol' rules a go, but it just ain't so.</div>
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I am still heavily invested in a game store 5e campaign that has, quite frankly done so well, it is heading off the WotC rails! And by rails, I specifically mean the "Encounters" weekly programmed sessions.</div>
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The players who're involved almost from the beginning are definitely ready to move this campaign to someone's house. This is beneficial in many ways. The first thing will be an increased amount of time to play and plan sessions, and will allow for greater variety of session content. The weekly D&D Encounters program is designed to give players a 'snapshot' of what typically happens in a D&D game that is overly focused on combat.</div>
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A home campaign will give the players time to role-play, and, most importantly (for me) a relaxed atmosphere more conductive to exploration and explanation of details that are glossed over in WotC's version of the beloved game.</div>
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Of our stalwart group, three of the players are "old schoolers" (although I claim to just have an old skull...); I trace my roots back to 0e & 1e, as the True Believers here are already aware. But of the other two, I know one also goes back to the mid-70's and prefers 2e/3e most, and the third wants to run a Hackmaster game once a month. (Praise be to the Gawds!) Most of the rest are 3e era D&Ders, which, in today's accelerated standards is also "Old School", but overall what matters most to me is that we are having a blast with this campaign, no matter what the accepted rules/houserules are. </div>
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In our weekly game-store sessions, there were also many a discussion based on what 5e is doing that is different than all other editions that came before, and I had an answer for that, which is, basically and politely: "...5e is a game system that is focused on combat and levelling up players as quickly and convenient for them in order to facilitate instant gratification..." insofar as the game store weekly Encounters sessions are concerned. </div>
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Yes, the rule books have a lot to offer in the way of exploration and tidbits to help players examine the roles they choose as characters in order to advise them on role-playing, but it has been a constant bone-picking exercise in certain debates that NONE of the rules explain how to role-play. We get lots of ancillary advice on alignments, archetypal roles, and even manner of appropriate dress-codes for different classes, even modes of speech and names that each major race uses, but there are no actual rules on role-playing.</div>
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Anything that veers too close to role-playing is akin to breaking out a script of "that awful D&D movie" or the Cliffnotes version of "A Midsummer's Night's Dream", and that over-acting might even prompt the DM to advise such players to "<i>...take it to community theatre, we don't do that here...</i>"</div>
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So, the one thing that every set of D&D rules, any edition ever published totally misses the mark on is "How to Role-Play" using these rules to set up and play through a game session/campaign. Now this little bit will piss off those players who insist there be a rule for every little thing, and this is a tenant of the game that goes back to pre-0e: There isn't any rules, you have to wing it.</div>
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<i>(Uh oh. Here he goes into rant mode again...)</i></div>
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That's right, there is no right or wrong way to role-play, although some players love to push the boundaries so far as to make everyone else at the table squirm in discomfort, and some do it on purpose, and yet others are made out to be the bad-guys for telling the over-actors to 'take it to community theatre'. There is only one major rule in role-playing, and that is keeping it all at a level that everyone can appreciate and have fun with. I'd like to add 'challenging' to that rule, but role-playing, ...rather - acceptance of escalated levels of role-playing may be more of a non-gaming challenge to others than it is for some.</div>
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That physical/emotional/spiritual inability to accept those levels of challenge will make or break a group. Moving out of the game store may be the easiest of challenge levels of our "successful" group, and I am confident we will overcome that challenge and move on to others, but beyond that, the group should not expect a series of more and more difficult challenges every session, as that is just pushing the envelope of 'this easy space' that we all look forward to every week. </div>
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Y'know, we game because we want to escape from the pressures of everyday stress, not add to it by tackling the problems that deal with everyday life. Catharsis - yes! Political statements - GTFO. Our overall purpose for gaming is not to present a lesson in tolerance at the cost of anyone's comfort. This is not a platform for politics, but rather a social contract to just get along, and that means not violating the least common denominators amongst the group.</div>
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If a couple of players want to come in costume, fine, but please be aware of perceived tastes: sensible Tommy Hilfiger elf-wear is fine, emulating your barbarian's "sexy armor bonus" is not, unless your daytime job <b>is</b> being a supermodel. Dressing like Frankenfurter is expected at a local showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", but not in someone's home where there be children watching TV/viddy games in the next room over.</div>
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Wait.... When did I get so fucking preachy? Heh. I believe I left my main point a few paragraphs back, but I'm not deleting what I've got so far, because this is just an example of where role-playing can lead - down paths we feel pretty strongly about that has nothing to do with D&D or the group sitting at the table, and sometimes subjects that we'd rather not deal with while we're rolling dice for in our escapist elf-games... ...or maybe your grope is into that, which is fine - do what you feel, just keep your feet on the wheel.</div>
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Until next time,</div>
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Make Mine Marvel.</div>
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Oh, PS: The main reason I wanted to post this was to also announce that I'll be making another blog in a week or so, but I get side-tracked easy. The blog has no name yet, but its content will be 5e based, or rather - how the grope I'm in (yes, that's the second time I've spelled it that way - that was on purpose) is fairing with the 5e rules, as we are all coming into 5e as noobs from different editions - and in the case of a few players - as first time gamers, period. I hope Blogger allows a user to have more than one blog at a time, it'd be a pain in the arse for me to learn another blogging service when I've just about got this one down pat.</div>
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I for one, intend to take our 5e group down the "Old Skull" path just a lot - when its my turn at the DM screen. Bwa-Hahahaa!</div>
Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-67783814488586464182016-02-01T12:34:00.002-08:002016-02-01T12:34:57.737-08:00My first 5e Dungeon is complete!Technically, its a dungeon by Dyson Logos, but I took his dungeon idea and ran with it. The dungeon is complete, but far from finished. If you edit your own material, you'll notice things you missed or wished you'd changed before making it public. I just did that with "Lair of the Frogs".<br />
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Its up, there to the right at the bottom of the downloadables, in all its error-riddled glory. I should have spent another week on editing it again, but instead I had to sit on it and scrape my way through another gruelling workweek and work on the gamestore campaign world.<br />
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As to the gamestore campaign, I must ask if anyone else has ever had to submit work for someone else's campaign world. So... have you?<br />
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This is a first for me, and I was very tempted to say that the DM was simply lazy and didn't want to develop a world to run his game in, but after several conversations with him, I realize that he's very open towards fitting every player into the campaign (as this is a public game - anyone who walks in must be allowed to play - according to the gamestore's manager), instead of forcing the players to fit their characters into a pre-made campaign world, he'd rather us create our characters' backgrounds and histories. And this includes the campaign world's background and history.<br />
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It definitely has the potential to be a very interactive, collaborative world, although I have no idea if any of the other players have even approached the amount of material I've already typed up in just a couple of weeks, and that reminds me: I have most of the other players' emails, and I need to spend my last remaining hours on the interwebz today by contacting them and hammering out what site we're going to use to share materials. I'm hoping the rest of them vote for Google docs/Google Drive, since I've FINALLY learned how to navigate that system and use it effectively.<br />
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I'll post my Dakan Mar campaign prospectus and house rules for 5e later on this week. I have two more days before going back to work, so I hope I get something productive done. Of course, the thought crossed my mind that if I really wanted to be productive, I'd post something Holmes or 0e related. But with living in a town this size, and having limited access to D&D players of any edition, one cannot afford to be too choosy in game systems. Yes, I'd prefer to be running an 0e/Holmes game, but I'll settle for a gamestore 5e game if that's the only game that fits my nutso work schedule. <br /><br />Besides, 5e is not a terrible game system. Is it flawed? Yes, but what game isn't? That's what house rules are for. ;)Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-59350336312418217632016-01-19T12:43:00.002-08:002016-01-19T12:43:55.308-08:00The Dormant BlogIts still in the midst of winter in south-western Nebraska, albeit not a lot of snow. I had hoped for a lot more, so I might get out of going to work for an extra day or two, in order to allow me a few extra hours to finish up a few D&D projects. <br /><br />What, praytell, am I working on now? Well, there has been a fundamental shift in my gaming focus, as I've joined a 5e group at the FLGS, and I am having a lot of fun just being a player. However, there have been a few sessions when the DM never even bothered to call ahead and say he was unable to run the game, due to family obligations or coming down with the crud. <br /><br />It fell on my shoulders to do something about it, to no one's total satisfaction. In one session, we played Three Dragon Ante, a passable 3e era card-game with some mechanics to allow the game to be played as part of the D&D game, and the other session, I bought the Temple of Elemental Evil board-game & we spent the whole session attempting to play the game while we learned the rules at the same time. That was an expensive solution on my part, so I decided to start my own 5e campaign setting; totally separate from the regular DM's campaign. <br /><br />What I've 'thrown' together in the last 2 months is incredible, and far much more than I've ever created for Holmes or 0e; Yeah, I don't get it either...<br /><br />Thankfully, the new campaign setting is mostly edition neutral, except for a few additional race & class additions, house rules to make it more "Old Skull", and some additional 5e crunch, so when it's all laid out, one could ostensibly use it for any edition. <br /><br />I'll post a bit about it in the next few months. Yes, there's that much of it. The biggest challenge will be how to present it, when to cut it off and leave y'all hanging for the next installment, etc., including the appropriate time to post the nearly complete "Lair of the Frogs", a dungeon design by Dyson Logos, stocked for a 5e game by moiself. However, I won't be putting any 5e monster stat-blocks in it, so it'll be easy-peasy to add your favorite edition/clone stat-blocks. The treasures are all randomly rolled by the referee/DM before running the adventure, so simply use the monster treasure types from your favored edition to fill in the blanks. <br /><br />So until I get that finished, there is this teaser post. ;)<br /><br /><i>"But, Bob!"</i> I hear at least one of you wail, <i>"Why 5e? Why have you turned your back on Holmes & 0e?" </i><br /><br />All I can say in my defense is that while I was under the impression that I'd never run anything but 0e/1e/Holmes/BX, etc., I'd gladly play in any game that came my way, because I haven't been able to find group for so long now.<br />
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It turns out that after reading the 5e rules, this version of D&D isn't so bad, and is at least as easy to run as 0e/1e/Holmes/BX! ...and if you're hearing that from my mouth, that outta mean <i>something</i>. Besides, I know you've been quietly thumbing through your son's Pathfinder rules, and you've even admitted that 3e isn't a bad system 'by itself' (meaning no splat-books), so you have your conceits, I have mine. 5e will be mine. In fact, I mean to own it.<br />
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<i>'I'll have her, and I'll keep her, but I'll not keep her long!'</i><br />
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<i> </i>Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-22015325204669701622015-12-10T09:45:00.001-08:002015-12-10T09:45:43.620-08:00The Marrowbeast of Portown, Parts One & TwoThe Marrowbeast of Portown, Part One is the same as the previous version, with a title change. The new name is better in every way. Buy it today! (It's free!)<br />
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The Marrowbeast of Portown, Part Two is finally finished! ...at least finished enough for a first publishable draft.<br />
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This one features a lot of monsters from Grenadier's "Monster Manuscript", but don't worry, I included the MM entries for them in the body of the text. They are not very clean pics, and eventually it'd be nice to get some clean pics, re-typed with new formatting, etc. but this is hobbyist gaming at it's electronic finest! -- A hodge-podge of rules from more than one book, more than one system, and exactly the kind of thing to expect at my table!<br />
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Is it perfect? Not by a long shot. There are several loose ends that need to be tied up, and there are a lot of tied up ends that could be loosened up to make this dungeon run better. As it stands, none of this is a problem, or even a negative view against it. Its always been my experience as a referee that any module I run, no matter how carefully kept to the written word, always deviates. Players are unpredictable and will choose courses you never thought of, or rather... they'll make choices you never would, because its a horrible idea to begin with.<br />
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Yep. They went there...<br />
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So, for whatever reason you want to run this, even with changes here or there, or scrap the whole thing & use the map only (the map is one of my very own, created with Kolourpaint -- an MSPaint knock-off for Linux...), keep in mind that I did the same thing every time I bought a D&D/AD&D module back in the day. ;)<br />
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So, after making you read all of this trivial BS, here's the links:<br />
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Part One (932kb) : <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B959vbM0xzS2ZW1FNU1zNElZS2M/view?usp=sharing">https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B959vbM0xzS2ZW1FNU1zNElZS2M/view?usp=sharing</a><br />
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Part Two (10.2 MB) : <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B959vbM0xzS2WWVkUktlVE5IT2c/view?usp=sharing">https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B959vbM0xzS2WWVkUktlVE5IT2c/view?usp=sharing</a><br />
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Let me know if there are any problems with the links.Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-14867051169828374492015-11-06T13:42:00.000-08:002015-11-06T13:44:39.145-08:00A Random Wilderness GeneratorA recent topic at the Holmes G+ community...<br />
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<a href="https://plus.google.com/103773207604442865149/posts/dTWV57S7wyu">https://plus.google.com/103773207604442865149/posts/dTWV57S7wyu</a><br />
<br />
reminded me that I had created a document for my own use based on Erin Smale's essay on designing wilderness areas for D&D. I immediately recognized this as a very coherent version of the wilderness generation system in 0e, and later - from the DMG.<br />
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I added very little, except for a tiny bit of re-worded material from the DMG regarding setting up the terrain at the beginning, and castle inhabitants at the end. Erin's essay comprises the bulk of the material presented in the middle, the meat & potatoes, as it were.<br />
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However, there is an area of wilderness design that I've always thought should have been more developed was the random generation of waterways and roads. Easy enough, [<i>woof</i>] here it is, also towards the end. <br />
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With Erin's permission, I have posted the finished PDF here.Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-63790699836748128452015-10-17T07:37:00.000-07:002015-10-17T07:42:12.041-07:00Roleplaying Tips Mega Dice Bag Giveaway; or My First Attempt at Blogging Commercialism (In a way...) Here's the link:<br />
<a href="https://roleplayingtips.com/giveaways/mega-dice-giveaway/?lucky=5504">https://roleplayingtips.com/giveaways/mega-dice-giveaway/?lucky=5504</a><br />
<br />
Here's the pitch: This guy (Johnn Four) has some pretty awesome gaming tips that even I don't totally ignore because it isn't aimed directly at Holmes or 0e games, and he's got 5 extra bags of dice to give away, (Mega Dice Bag from Easy Roller Dice Co. 15 complete sets of polyhedral dice in a velvet lined dice bag) so he made a contest, or a drawing, or raffle, or whatever...<br />
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Anywha, I really could use some more dice, and so could you. Yes, I admit it, so its safe for you to admit it too: you're a dice snob, and you have specific dice 'rituals' and 'superstitions' when it comes to operating them during a game. When all is said and done, and your usual dice fail you time after time, its time to get new ones, acclimate them to your environment and keep on gaming, cause its what we do.<br />
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Now, I'm not an accountant or a mathematician, but I understand the theory that every time I, or anyone else spreads the word about this contest, my name (or your name, if you choose to do so) gets entered 10 more times, thus, my (and it could be yours too!) chances of winning go up quite a bit!<br />
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So, click on that link above and enter your name to win a bag of dice too. I did!Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-24947905245160598322015-10-14T14:26:00.000-07:002015-10-14T14:26:59.202-07:00Portown in 3D, The Marrowbeast of Portown Quincunx, and an Impromptu Skill System(?)<b>Mapping Portown in 3D</b> <br />
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Work is continuing to show slow improvement on "The Crypt of the Marrowbeast", and the new local Hobby Lobby carries a LOT of art supplies, including pads of isometric graph paper, lighted drawing platforms, art projectors and drafting tables! Affordable, although I'll have to budget the big items and pay on them a bit every month before taking them home. </div>
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No, the Crypt will not be rendered into 3D, but I will eventually attempt to convert my existing 2D map of Portown into a very large 3D mapping project. I am having a bit of organization difficulty just trying to schedule the actual work, because I want to highlight the special features of Portown first, and then work my way out from those few central points. However, my main concern is that I arrange a consistent height range for all buildings and cliff elevations and still have the maps be internally accurate when tracking from one elevation to another, and from map to map. </div>
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At least I've decided on which angle of the view I want to operate with for all future iso-maps of Portown. The view I've selected manages to capture the best 3D features of the town's natural terrain, but it is an angle I just don't feel comfortable with. I have to juggle it a bit between each eye and my brain to make it work. Y'know the 3D art pieces in the Mall with the dolphins and the submarine? Yeah, that effect.</div>
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But I won't be locked into one view only, because I know I'll have to feature a view from the north looking south on the docks and the outer cliff wall, just because of the detail that has already been described about it, I have to fulfill this angle in art to realize it's full potential. I might as well work on other angles as the opportunities present themselves. I may wind up using all 100 sheets in that pad when this is all done!</div>
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I can easily see doing multiple view iso-maps for the following areas of Portown: </div>
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- North and South views of Cliffside</div>
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- the Docks/Dockside</div>
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- the Mayor's Tower</div>
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- The Salty Seahorse Inn</div>
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- The Green Dragon Inn</div>
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- the Quarries</div>
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- the Crab Shack District</div>
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- and of course, the Ruins of Zenopus and the Cemetery </div>
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These are, in my opinion the most interesting features of Portown, but there are also the Merchant, Garden, and Temple Districts (the cleanest parts of town - which are individually just narrow strips of well-lighted and patrolled streets), and the Aqueduct system. I don't know a lot about aqueducts aside from what I've seen in pictures and read about in Ancient Rome, so this will require a bit of research on my part to get them completely integrated into the whole. </div>
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<b>The Marrowbeast of Portown Quincunx</b><br />
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The Crypt of the Marrowbeast is turning out to be a bit larger than "Lair", which I uploaded a couple weeks ago, and this is good. This means that my creative impulses are not totally dead and forgotten, but if I don't stay continually focused on it, I'll lose track of it and start forgetting it more often, and sigh in resignation as yet another unfinished project finds itself on the backburner ("Stone Mountain", "The Green Dragon Inn", and "The Assassin's Game" are the Big Backburner Three...).</div>
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The Crypt came about as I searched my files for a usable prototype for a dungeon, and any other adventure scenarios I might have collected regarding shape-changers. I ran across a randomly generated dungeon by Wizardawn that I'd saved a couple years ago that was promising, but needed a lot of tweaking. The only thing holding me back from doing the tweaking was setting a theme to it. Well, the Marrowbeast theme is strong with this one, so armed with that, I've managed to make this dungeon my own, based on a lot of randomly generated stuff via Wizardawn's online generator. </div>
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Wizardawn also has a random map generator that combines several sets of dungeon geomorphs, including Dyson's geomorphs, and makes a nice, solid playground of dungeon fun in the blink of an eye. I used the random dungeon as a blueprint for my own take on the Crypt, and designed it to better fit what I had in mind, but the multiple level features of the random geomorphs is not as pronounced as I want it, I am having a hard time designing multiple levels on one 2D map. With a bit more experience/practice at drawing dungeons digitally and stocking them, I'll probably make a good one eventually, but not for "Crypt".</div>
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Now that "Part Two" is entering the first part of the formatting phase while I still iron out exact details, finish whole-cloth room descriptions, and assemble the M&T style stat-blocs, I know for a fact that I'll eventually change the sub-title name of Part One to match Part Two, or "The Lair of the Marrowbeast -- The Marrowbeast of Portown, Part One" and "The Crypt of the Marrowbeast -- The Marrowbeast of Portown, Part Two". </div>
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One the things I have the most trouble with in designing a semi-published module (okay, I'm not publishing it, but I am uploading it for everyone's download for free, etc...) is designating a character level range. I assume it'll be suitable for levels 3 to 7, but then again, I assume ALL of the dungeons I design will eventually fall into this range by default. What there is in this dungeon is quite a bit more treasure than I expected to place, and this is mostly due to Wizardawn's online generator, but I am assuming that the treasure will still fall short of awarding the characters enough XP to level up. I hope to remedy this in future draft revisions, because I still have yet to place any magical treasures, and I believe that Wizardawn's generator did not have magical items in its treasure generator, or I set the generator to NOT generate any at all. </div>
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I'm waffling on inserting whole monster descriptions, as they would appear in Hordes & Hoards, or simply doing M&T style stat-blocs. There will be 'new' monsters that some of you faithful readers will never have heard of before, although they were published in a one-shot deal by Grenadier Miniatures called the "Monster Manuscript". These critters ain't nothin' too special, but they are just different enough to shake up a standard game of D&D, and since Wizardawn had them programmed into his generator, along with AD&D1e, OSRIC, Basic and Expert, and Pathfinder/3.5 monsters, I chose to add 1e, OSRIC, and Grenadier to this particular dungeon. </div>
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So, do I add just the stat-blocs, or do I also add the MM style paragraph description of the Grenadier Monster Manuscript? </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkKyeBeRMMt6TxbugzbRz-MPjPHx-8Ej_tG742WdXk9r5UbwTwy7ZBq7X_Dg7YjEAIyEqjWiM8mLV-El_zELss3R1S9Zq7UC5sQP37jIkPDhVgsKv8tTxcrahYKC5033Sfn12d5vee-qA/s1600/APE-CRYPT-01-Grenadier%2527s-Monster-Manuscript-p2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkKyeBeRMMt6TxbugzbRz-MPjPHx-8Ej_tG742WdXk9r5UbwTwy7ZBq7X_Dg7YjEAIyEqjWiM8mLV-El_zELss3R1S9Zq7UC5sQP37jIkPDhVgsKv8tTxcrahYKC5033Sfn12d5vee-qA/s320/APE-CRYPT-01-Grenadier%2527s-Monster-Manuscript-p2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDse29pOWTujhgApPFvG2NMYPCxyOHm7-83Bgakj-GriqcaeKDu18GuU2ddj-XRTZ2fGCJLAXB2YnAkSfnEcmK2-rYqaBlPwNDnyB19DpYQurheIwAZ8NIc8KVtFayvuNECmCTqE3iXUo/s1600/APE-CRYPT-02-Grenadier%2527s-Monster-Manuscript-p2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDse29pOWTujhgApPFvG2NMYPCxyOHm7-83Bgakj-GriqcaeKDu18GuU2ddj-XRTZ2fGCJLAXB2YnAkSfnEcmK2-rYqaBlPwNDnyB19DpYQurheIwAZ8NIc8KVtFayvuNECmCTqE3iXUo/s320/APE-CRYPT-02-Grenadier%2527s-Monster-Manuscript-p2.png" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Crypt Ape from Grenadier's "Monster Manuscript"</td></tr>
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There will also be a table of hand-picked special traps from my own collection of Undermountain Traps and others I've created or found along the way. This table will not have every trap ever, but just the ones that suit this particular dungeon.</div>
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There will be more Outdoor Random Encounter Tables to supplement the cliffside, seaside, and forest terrain near Portown. I might upload Part Two before these encounters are fully fleshed out, but one of the goals I usually strive for when designing dungeons and adventures for my campaign is to make each encounter unique. Sure, the Wandering Monster check might indicate a random roll be made on a specific table, and that's all very much plug-n-play mentality, but the monsters on the table were chosen for specific reasons (usually because they're the types found in a specific terrain and climate), but the role-playing potential beyond hack-n-slash is highly exploitable. I like to add reasons why the monster rolled is encountered, aside from a simple reaction roll, which usually guides the reason they act the way they do.</div>
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The last bit of random goodness I am thinking of exploiting in "Crypt" is to add magic items in a unique, but nor original way. Remember the way the main NPCs and magic items were placed in the original Ravenloft module? Yeah, I liked that idea, although finding a suitable Tarot deck to use to place each NPC/item is a task that not every referee may be willing to do, or find. I prefer a basic table and dice rolling. The trick for this to really work well in this module is to make a random table for the important items without it feeling like it was a totally random die roll. </div>
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<b>Impromptu Skills</b><br />
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Part One featured a bit of game design I like to call an 'impromptu skill system' for 0e/Holmes. If you read it, you may have noticed a couple of Intelligence table for Magic-Users and Thieves on very unique pieces of information in the module. I like to feature this kind of class-related knowledge, especially because it is campaign specific, and not rules specific, and thus not something easily obtainable by players who role-play information gathering the "old school" way, although, interplay between experienced referees and players may allow this info to be gained, the Intelligence table is an easy way to impart campaign specific information. </div>
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Sometimes the tables focus on a single ability, usually the Prime Requisite or the Level of the character Class or Race that the table is aimed at. Each instance where I use this system, a specific piece of campaign information is a secret, unless the character has any bit of knowledge in the realm of that info, say alchemy, Thieves' Guild business, rumors, or the like. Each bit of information is unique and un-quantifiable in a general sense, which renders a total breakdown of each instance of this system working highly unwieldy, and thus not conducive to codifying. With a bit of work and practice, referees could use this impromtu system to handle swimming, rope use, riding, rope use, etc., but otherwise, I am totally against adding any kind of skill system to the game, because it would take up hundreds of pages and not worth the time. </div>
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A simple formula can be easily house-ruled however: Character Class Prime Requisite Ability Table -- Below Average score = less than general knowledge known, Average = general knowledge, each higher than Average score point = an additional bit of info known. </div>
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In some cases, I replace Prime Req. with Class Level, or even another Ability that may be completely unrelated to class, race or level, based solely on esoteric reasons of game-play. </div>
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<br /></div>
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From "The Crypt of the Marrowbeast" (Part Two of the Marrowbeast of Portown): </div>
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<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">If the cracked
granite chair is examined, it shows no signs of wear, but the crack
appears to have not split it apart completely. The chair is high
backed, and has armrests, suggesting a rather formal setting that
belies the rest of the room. Intricate designs are carved into it,
and appear to be of an ancient Elven design that only an elf could
possibly identify.(Elf's Charisma 10 or less = this is an ancient
elvish design; 11-12 = these are designs of the Seelie and Unseelie
court; 13-14 = this chair was hand carved for a Lord of the Unseelie
Court; 15-16 = this line of Unseelie Lords was abruptly ended without
warning 500 years ago; 17 = That Unseelie Lord was named Dordon
Gaith, and he disappeared without a trace and without progeny to
continue the family line; 18 = Lord Gaith wore the Sapphire Crown,
signifying that he was the High Lord of Shadows. </span></span>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In almost all cases, no die roll is needed, the score itself is indicative of the character's knowledge in that one unique instance of knowledge. This is the best part of the system, and the worst part, simultaneously; the rules are self contained in a paragraph and a table (good), but each table must be hand-crafted from scratch (bad, and that really takes the meaning of "impromptu" and throws it out the window...) - there is only the basic formula given above, but it is highly mutable to suit the situation (good, again). But, because each situation requires a unique approach and the system is highly adjustable, its great for adventure/scenario/module design. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In almost every game of D&D that I referee, I like to make things like this as simple as possible to keep the game moving (good), and in either/or situations, the easiest thing to do is roll a die, and this 'system' gets rid of the die roll altogether. Of course, those of you who LIKE to have any excuse to roll dice, simply add some kind of die roll to the system and add a scalable DL to beat, and it'll be almost like the D20 skill system. ;)</div>
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<style type="text/css">The P { margin-bottom: 0.08</style>Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-46207962889820301942015-10-09T13:55:00.001-07:002015-10-09T13:55:13.504-07:00Bobjester's Portown<div style="text-align: justify;">
I had originally posted to Zenopus' Google+ group about how differently each Holmes' Rules Portown setting was, mainly according to size, since size was one of the only determining factor in Holmes' description. Many of the posters are of the opinion that Portown shouldn't be any bigger than needed, which I agree with on the surface, but I also believe it should be designed with campaign growth as well; as the campaign advances, more of those unexplored places in Portown become more relevant in time. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Since that post was created and posted via 'dumb' phone, I truncated most of it and decided to make a better presentation here, via laptop/coffee shop wi-fi, when I had more leisure time. As I get more comfortable with how Blogger works, I find that I am a lot more open to honesty and creativity here than I am on other forums or email lists. Call it creator control via Blogger, or whatever, I just feel that blogs can be designed to be a lot more open to exposition than other sites & fora. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Anywha...</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is a side-trek from my Marrowbeast series of adventures, but related, since I've finally thought about getting serious with my version of Portown. Now, don't get me wrong, I loved Paleologos' version of Portown, but it wasn't big enough for my tastes, and didn't feature as much terrain as I had originally envisioned. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, I designed my version of Portown with a series of random city design tables I created a few years back, with a few caveat decisions. (I might release that in PDF here in the future.) The result is an original interpretation of an ancient "small town" that is older than recorded history, and generally fits in with Holmes' description in the Basic rules. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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Some of Portown's features:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
- the town sits on a solid bedrock foundation, which shields the rest of the surface world from an ancient evil (or several shirt-tail related evils),</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
- a river channel that bisects the town (think Venice-style channel as a major thoroughfare), </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
- an aqueduct and water storage system,</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
- a stone quarry (a natural extension of an earlier campaign that features a quarry; I added a quarry to Portown...) riddled with ancient natural caverns with buried treasures and evils, </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
- Greek style temples, shrines, gardens and bath houses (hot & cold running natural steam baths), </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
- Portown is protected from the violent sea and the strong tides by 'guardian cliffs', with a natural arch that allows smaller ship traffic up the city channel,</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
- the ruins of Zenopus' tower and cemetery sit atop the cliffs on the west side of the arch.</div>
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- "Dockside", almost a pirate and assassin infested town its own right,</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
- a large structure called the Green Dragon Inn, a small village, HQ, and sanctuary for PCs, and a source of rumors and the starting place of adventures within and without Portown.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff49/bobjester/My%20art/Portown-02.jpg~original" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff49/bobjester/My%20art/Portown-02.jpg~original" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Bobjester's Portown</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I may go into other aspects of my Portown later (especially upon request), but for now, I'll just leave you with what's here now. One of the major influences for Portown is a city called Hortown in an animated film called "Tales of Earthsea". The multi-level aspects of Hortown really inspired me to create something comparable; so the high cliffs to the north of the town serve as a shield from the raging sea weather and strong tides, and also provide a natural, cavernous "arch" that allows river traffic to travel inland up river safely, instead of traveling through the shallow, natural river to the west. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The cliffs are riddled with countless caves and tunnels, some of them labyrinthine and unstable, but most of the ones close to the surface are inhabitable, and used for storage and businesses, legal and immoral alike. A perfect hodge-podge of business and illicit pleasures can be found here, with respectable merchants and ship captains often walking hand-in-hand with pirates, smugglers, and real monsters of the underworld. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Everything between any and/or all of these interesting points <i>should be</i> ignored until needed, and even the extra stuff could be safely ignored if it doesn't have a direct impact on the game (like the aqueduct, which I'm having second thoughts about...). Ironically, the "Lair of the Marrowbeast, Part One" is meant to supplement an area of the Docks by giving the referee an encounter table that is good for the short adventure and the Western Docks. The Eastern Docks will have a slightly different encounter table, and eventually, each entry on the table will have its own unique description, even unique NPC encounters if a "special" encounter is rolled. This is what I love about modular settings, and the concept of old school "modules". It all fits together to form a whole, or a very detailed frame for the sandbox campaign. </div>
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<br /></div>
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If my version of Portown needs anything, it is an isometric map view, which I'll manage eventually, in lieu of a 3D/aerial view of Portown (because I suck at aerial view art!), eventually replacing this boring two-dimensional map with an engaging and exciting isometric map, and some much needed place-name changes (C'mon.... "Stairway to Heaven" Street??? WTF was I smoking at the time?), and possibly incorporating the 1800's era Marblehead peninsula map posted at Zenopus' Archives.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
General design theory and specific Portown discussion and questions are welcome, including your own versions. :)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Alrighty then - I'm off to find some isometric graph paper, and off to the next stage of the Marrowbeast quincunx and the continued evolution of Portown! :)</div>
Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-35338595444092295672015-10-05T20:14:00.000-07:002015-10-05T20:14:56.898-07:00Lair of the Marrowbeast, Part Two Update!I just wanted to take a moment to let you know that I am working on Part Two. I hope it won't take more than two weeks from now, but I'll be ooc for the next few days for the duration of the current unpleasantness that is the bane of middle aged men: colonoscopy. :-P<br />
<br />
. There, I said it. Done! Next: I also would like to say that this post is via my new stupid "smart" phone, so if the diction or the idiom brings out the grammar Nazis, so be it. Its the kind of world where sacrifices are made in the name of: "I want it frelling NOW, Daddy!"<br />
<br />
Let's put it this way: the onscreen keyboard takes up all the screen, so obviously I cannot see what I'm typing. ;-)<br />
<br />
Back to Part Two: it will be titled "Crypt of the Marrowbeast " and will feature a recently discovered ancient tomb in the heart of Portown. The dungeon will be sandbox with optional npc intrigue (side plots) that the ref can use or not, depending on how much your players ignore plot devices in your elfgames. The baddies aren't standard, so their stats & descriptions will be included.<br />
<br />
A disclaimer: the original dungeon was randomly generated using Wizardawn's random dungeon generator set on his "kitchen sink " setting ; so the range of monsters include 1e, Holmes, OSRIC and a special surprise source, which you are free to guess at, but I reveal nothing until it is up.<br />
<br />
I am currently in the middle of revising the text, actual encounters, room descriptions, etc. to make it's random origins less obvious, but the heart of any good module, IMO is the monster stats in an appendix, separate from the meat and potatoes of the module ; the last thing I like... or rather, the first thing I hate about modules are the monster stat blocs on every damn page, interrupting the flow of the adventure.<br />
<br />
On the plus side, side plots are presented but not forced on your players. They may or may not discover who or what the Marrowbeast really is, or they may come to a false conclusion. Its all up to you. I hope this turns out to be a useful and versatile module.Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-55988704506886854182015-09-28T13:47:00.002-07:002015-09-28T13:47:46.903-07:00The OGL and other STDs and you!I am of the opinion that I do want to acknowledge the true authors and artists of the D&D game, and I want to point out that I am a hobbyist gamer who loves to kit-bash rules and make the game my own, but by sharing the kit-bashed stuff on the internet, someone might force me to take it down or worse: try to get blood out of a stone and actually sue me for money. In either case, I'm afraid that if I don't post the following crap, I'll be sitting my ass in a trebuchet sling. But on the other hand, I'm afraid that if I DO post this crap, I'll be cutting the rope that stays the sling every time I post something game-related. <br />
<br />
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I'm going to post something here in a
half-assed attempt to <strike>cover</strike> sling my ass. Maybe I'd be better off wadding it
up and stuffing it in my mouth or my ass, since I talk out of that orifice a
lot. <br />
This post, is no exception, but the fine print is actual, the Fool's Errand stuff is meant to be light-hearted and sarcastic, yet true.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>OPEN
GAME LICENSE</b> Version 1.0a</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">The
following text is the property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and is
Copyright 2000 Wizards of the Coast, Inc ("Wizards"). All
Rights Reserved.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">1.
Definitions: (a)"Contributors" means the copyright and/or
trademark owners who have contributed Open Game Content;
(b)"Derivative Material" means copyrighted material
including derivative works and translations (including into other
computer languages), potation, modification, correction, addition,</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">extension,
upgrade, improvement, compilation, abridgment or other form in which
an existing work may be recast, transformed or adapted; (c)
"Distribute" means to reproduce, license, rent, lease,
sell, broadcast, publicly display, transmit or otherwise distribute;
(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic and
includes the methods, procedures, processes and routines to the
extent such content does not embody the Product Identity and is an
enhancement over the prior art and any additional content clearly
identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor, and means any
work covered by this License, including translations and derivative
works under copyright law, but specifically excludes Product
Identity. (e) "Product Identity" means product and product
line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress;
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"Trademark" means the logos, names, mark, sign, motto,
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License by the Contributor (g) "Use", "Used" or
"Using" means to use, Distribute, copy, edit, format,
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2.
The License: This License applies to any Open Game Content that
contains a notice indicating that the Open Game Content may only be
Used under and in terms of this License. You must affix such a
notice to any Open Game Content that you Use. No terms may be added
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">3.Offer
and Acceptance: By Using the Open Game Content You indicate Your
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Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this
License, the Contributors grant You a perpetual, worldwide,
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">5.Representation
of Authority to Contribute: If You are contributing original
material as Open Game Content, You represent that Your Contributions
are Your original creation and/or You have sufficient rights to
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">6.Notice
of License Copyright: You must update the COPYRIGHT NOTICE portion
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except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with
the owner of such Trademark or Registered Trademark. The use of any
Product Identity in Open Game Content does not constitute a
challenge to the ownership of that Product Identity. The owner of
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Open Game Content.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">9.
Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish
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originally distributed under any version of this License.</span></div>
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Copy of this License: You MUST include a copy of this License with
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of the terms of this License with respect to some or all of the Open
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regulation then You may not Use any Open Game Material so affected.</span></div>
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Termination: This License will terminate automatically if You fail
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">15
COPYRIGHT NOTICE</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Open
Game License v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Fool's
Errand Enterprises is copyright 2015, Robert G. Weber. <i>Levels
Beyond Basic house rules,</i> <i>Hordes & Hoards house rules, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and
</span><i>Lair of the Marrowbeast</i> titles are copyright 2015, and are
trademarks of Fool's Errand Enterprises, but the original works of
<i>Dungeons & Dragons, 'Holmes'' Basic D&D, Advanced D&D,
Monster Manual, Dungeon Master's Guide</i>, <i>Player's Handbook</i>,
et. al. found in these hacked titles remain the properties of the original authors and artists; no
copyright infringements were intended, besides the hacks to make
these house rules and campaign settings, adventures, scenarios and/or
modules. Fool's Errand Enterprises trademarks acknowledge that we are standing
on the shoulders of giants because none of this is terribly original anyway at
<a href="http://primereq.blogspot.com/">http://primereq.blogspot.com/</a>,
with posted links to hacked rules and scenarios."</span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Should I be putting this blurb on the PDFs I make and post here and other places, or should I just let a sleeping giant un-prodded?<br />
</div>
Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-89121925167744463762015-09-28T08:21:00.001-07:002015-09-28T08:21:53.694-07:00The Lair of the Marrowbeast, Part OneDuring the recent illness, I got a wild hair, and followed up on it. It started out with a simple map sketch of the dungeon located within the cliffs at Dockside, Portown. There isn't an exact location picked yet, just a general location, but that's good enough to get it off the ground and flying.<br />
<br />
That's the first rule in gonzo Holmes D&D: Learn to fly before you walk, or run. That may be the only rule... Hrmmm.<br />
<br />
The result is a 7 page 10 locale dungeon worthy of uploading. Well, <i>my</i> sole criteria for worthiness is simply that I finished it. I dunno if its any good, but I finished it, with a caveat that there may be more, once I find another angle to present the "Marrowbeast of Portown". I may have wrapped things up a bit too neatly in Part One, and that's just fine for me and for other refs who don't like to rely on 2 or 3 parters. Wrap it up and move on, I like that too. Pulp novels with famous characters did that a lot. That could be why I'm such a fan of the short story format, and I think more dungeons could benefit from that philosophy.<br />
<br />
Of course, these ten rooms aren't going to offer enough XP by way of monsters or treasure to level up even a first level thief, (well, maybe...) but that's not the point. The point is to enjoy the setting, implied or spoon-fed, its in here, it's pulpy, it's sloppy, and it's incomplete, which calls for at least "Part Two"....Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-39034889136550002212015-09-21T11:40:00.003-07:002015-09-21T11:40:50.222-07:00Campaign Journal: The Exploration of the Djangorün Depths: Part Eight through Part Ten is uploaded!Part Eight through Ten is uploaded at Dragonsfoot, at this link:<br />
<a href="http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=65248&p=1674997#p1674991">http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=65248&p=1674997#p1674991</a><br />
<br />
...and I hope that link works. These last three installments wraps up what I've written for the Djangorün Depths, unfortunately. Part Ten is the denouement and prologue for the next chapter in our intrepid campaigners' adventures.<br />
<br />
Truth be told, I hadn't written more than this, or even speculated what the elements of a supposed next chapter be; I had a simple idea in mind about the Druids in my world, and I wanted to exposition them at some point. The idea isn't all mine, as it came from many phone conversations with Katkin Kalvin concerning druids in 0e and 1e, among a lot of other 0e and 1e things we talk about once a month or so. <br />
<br />
Now that I've exhausted all that I've written so far concerning this tale, I can concentrate on where to go next, or possibly focus on Rindo Rissun's exploits in the Djangorün Depths, but, as glory hungry as this NPC is, I'm actually surprised he didn't hire a Bard to tell his tale.<br />
<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }</style>Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-1298234390637875872015-09-02T14:08:00.002-07:002015-09-02T14:08:44.538-07:00Campaign Journal: The Exploration of the Djangorün Depths Part SevenI finally posted the next instalment of my intrepid party's foray into the Djangorun Depths over at Dragonsfoot. Here's the url: <a href="http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=65248&p=1669595#p1669595">http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=65248&p=1669595#p1669595</a><br />
<br />
I think I may have promised to post another new monster here, but I find my time is running short today, and I have a doozy of a Non-Standard Dragon post scheduled for later on this week or early next, so that'll have to wait.<br />
Stay tooned! ;)<br />
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Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-79052980450728243022015-08-26T09:19:00.001-07:002015-08-26T09:19:17.456-07:00Hordes & Hoards: The Dagonites<div style="text-align: justify;">
Its been years since I've actively tried to write a "module", and even longer still since I've tried to write a series of encounters that you might either call "adventures" or "modules". Its been so long since I've played, the old noodle is rusty. :P</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Thankfully, I am keeping part of the creative process from going completely dull by working on LBB & H&H. Occasionally, a flash of genius lights up my brain-pan, and I get an idea for a really cool encounter, or even a series of encounters. The trick is to write it down before I forget it all.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
That happened to me again last night. My problem probably lays in where to start. There are over a million good ideas rattling around in here, and I mostly write in story-teller mode, so its very difficult for me to set up an encounter for a 'module. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Editing the monsters for Hordes & Hoards might help me curb my desire to overwrite everything, and simply put in relevant details without boring the reader. (Yes, I have a tendency to bore myself when I overwrite, in fact, I'm sure I'm doing it now...) (yawn) </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The trick to good dungeon/encounter design is to pick a monster (or treasure, or trap, or any combo) that will be interesting, challenging, and playable for the referee. Nevermind if the players think, or don't think these things for the moment; its the ref's job to MAKE the encounter these things. If you can sell the encounter to the referee, you got a game!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To accommodate the referee in this task, the ref needs tools, and not just any ol' tool, although the simplest tools are often the best for creating stuff from near-scratch. (What I'd call "scratch" is a copy of Holmes Basic, dice, pencil & a couple sheets of blank paper; "near-scratch" is adding a copy of the MTA, DMG, MM, B2, graph paper, & a protractor!)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
LBB & H&H are supposed to be the tools for my game, so I am taking a lot of time & TLC to make sure that I front-load it with everything I can possibly think of, to a reasonable degree. For H&H I could just as easily use the Monster Manual, as it has nearly all the monsters from 0e, GH, BM, EW, HB and a plethora of monsters from the Strategic Review & The Dragon that many players never saw if their ref didn't a copy of SR or TD. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I am also convinced that I am not breaking any new ground here that others haven't already thought of as far as cataloguing monsters in a format most usable to the ref on the fly; Al Krombach's "Monsterless Manual" comes to mind first, as does Zenopus' series of one-page reference sheets, and other worthies in this area. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, I know I'm not doing anything new, as most of us are gamers first, designers second (or last, in my case), and I know I am definitely standing on the shoulders of some other giant. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But occasionally, even this old dog can come up with something new, if heavily inspired by one of the First Giants in the genre. Zenopus has already admitted that his "Ancient Builder" monster is an analogue of the Old Ones, and suggests that the Dagonites in Holmes' "Maze of Peril" is an analogue of The Deep Ones. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Since I've never had the chance to read Maze of Peril, I had to guess at a lot of details when I decided to this evil race of deep subterranean frog-men, and I had no idea that "Dagonite" was possibly used as an alternate name for the Deep Ones. I guessed at a lot of it, and after comparing my version of the Dagonites with the (TD#12) Old Ones, I'm glad I did make those guesses!</div>
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<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>DAGONITE
(Lovecraftian Frogmen)</b></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Number
Appearing: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="165">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2-5/10-100</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Armor
Class: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="165">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Variable,
7 to 3</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Move
in Feet:</span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="165">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">60/180
swimming</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hit
Dice: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="165">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2-5</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dexterity:</span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="165">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10-14</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Alignment:</span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="165">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Chaos</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Number
of Attacks: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="165">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2
claws/1 bite/1 tongue</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Damage
per Attack: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="165">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1-4/claw,
1-6/bite,</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">grapple/tongue</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">%
in Lair: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="165">
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">50%</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Treasure
Type: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="165">
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">D</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" style="border: none; padding: 0in;" valign="TOP" width="299">
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Source:
MP, HH</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><br />
Dagonites are commonly mistaken for Deep Ones out of ignorance; but let it not be said that it is unfortunate, for actively searching out any knowledge of the Old Ones eventually leads to madness and everlasting death.<br />
<br />
Dagonites are bipedal humanoids that stand 3 to 6 feet tall with most of the amphibian features of frogs. Their coloring varies from mottled brown, rust, red, gray, blue and green.
They hunt in packs of 2-5, but their lair will have 10-100 members.<br />
<br />
Their lairs are 'cities' built in large natural caverns, or a large constructed chamber, with a running water source, and an area for many still, stagnate ponds to lay eggs in and provide a suitable environment for their growing young. The structures of their buildings are mud-daubed and hut-like, but on a large scale, if the cavern or chamber size will accommodate them.<br />
<br />
Their round or oblong huts and buildings are rarely spaced apart -- built close together with common walls, ceilings, floors join at the oddest angles to create many nooks & crannies, and support for a neighboring structure. Huts and other structures are built on others, forming a lump-shaped hive of sorts. When interior walls, floors or ceilings collapse due to stress, the area is cleared out, and the new, larger interior is used instead.<br />
<br />
Dagonites are intelligent and have a language of their own, consisting of croaks and groans typical of frogs, but rarely attempt to communication with other races, let alone any who trespass in their territory. However, there is a 10% chance per hit die of any dagonite to understand the common tongue and half that percentage to actually be able to speak it, with modified croaks and groans.<br />
<br />
Dagonites will attempt to capture intruders and hold them in cells to await their fate: either sacrificed to their evil tentacled gods or to be thrown into one of the shallow, stagnant ponds and eaten, raw and alive in a mass feeding frenzy of just hatched, young Dagonites.<br />
<br />
Their clawed and webbed hands and feet are capable of wielding weapons as true hands, but they prefer to make attacks by leaping up to 20 feet onto an opponent and striking with both claws and bite.
They can strike with their tongue in melee, as it is coated with a natural, sticky substance and has an innate strength rating of 12-15, capable of disarming armed opponents or grappling an opponent's limb or appendage up to 10 feet away to prevent escape. The tongue, however, when exposed can only take 2-5 hits, separate from the total Hit Dice of the creature.<br />
<br />
The leader of a city will have 8 Hit Dice and the ability to spit acid up to 20 feet 3 times per day. The acid does 1-6 hits per round unless scraped off, taking one round and taking 1-3 hits. This acid is water resistant and takes twice as long to wash off.<br />
<br />
One of the ponds in the city will have a structure built near it, with one end opening up and covering one corner of the pond, like an indoor/outdoor swimming pool. The pond will always be jet black and opaque. This is a temple to the Dagonites' foul, dark god, C'thulhu. Such temples are safe for the Dagonites to come in and perform rites and rituals, but intruders will always attract the attention of the temple guardians: 4-7 Cthulhic Elementals.</div>
Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-85603111307539324932015-08-18T12:12:00.000-07:002015-08-18T12:12:12.888-07:00Hordes & Hoards work continues... haltingly...I'm beginning to sound like a broken record when I say things like "I don't have internet at home!" "I'm overworked and underpaid!" "I live in third world country conditions!" /whinging.<br />
<br />
Its the way of the min/wage world, but before I leave to put in another application for a higher paying job, I just wanted to put two things out there in the 0e/Holmes blogosphere: I really am sorry I did not devote as much time as I wanted to Michael Thomas' Blueholme drafts, and I am positively sure that there were a lot of other volunteers out there who did take up the challenge of proofreading & playtesting. I have a lot of irons in a few different fires, so...<br />
<br />
The second thing I wanted to put out here is that work on my own "Hordes & Hoards" (volume II for my own "Levels Beyond Basic" houserules) continues with many stops & starts, bad ideas, and the general cajoling from a dedicated few that work should even continue on this project, or anything else I've been schlumping around on.<br />
<br />
I still don't have a unique view of "Hordes & Hoards", although I've thought of a couple angles that require far too much work on my already overloaded schedule. The first of these 'bad ideas' was to arrange H&H like the Monster & Treasure Assortments, but instead of a single or double line entry for each die roll, each entry would be the MM style entry for the monster, plus a good portion of the entry also describing the monster's lair or locale where encountered (if randomly determined -- most likely a hallway or wilderness setting...) and the Treasure Type written out, not just A, B, or C.<br />
<br />
The second idea was to break the Hordes section of H&H into leveled sections of monsters. The 1st to 3rd level "Wandering Monster/Random Encounter" tables would dictate which monsters would be described in section 1-3, the 4th to 6th levels dictating which monsters would be in section 4-6, etc..<br />
<br />
My overall feelings towards H&H is that I want a go-to Monster Manual for LBB, but I don't want another boring Monster Manual. Even collating the monsters from 0e & Holmes for LBB to create a MM doppelgänger is a formidable task (for me and my time limitations) that requires a lot of motivation and focus. If I'm not focused in the few hours each week that I have available to work on this, I get nothing done. Not one monster collated into the collection.<br />
<br />
So when I say that I have a couple of 'unique' ideas for H&H's presentation, they are just ideas, and are in no way easy to implement -- at least until I get all the collating done. So, for now, just the collating will continue.<br />
<br />
What, exactly do I mean by "collating"? I find a basic monster entry from 0e, Holmes, C'thulhu, or any other source, and I reformat it into the stat-block I have currently come to use, which is halfway between Holmes and AD&D's monster stat block:<br />
<br />
MONSTER NAME<br />
Number Appearing:<br />
Armor Class:<br />
Move in Feet:<br />
Hit Dice:<br />
Dexterity:<br />
Alignment:<br />
Number of Attacks:<br />
Damage per Attack:<br />
% in Lair:<br />
Treasure Type:<br />
Source:<br />
<br />
Other special abilities, especially innate powers, psionics, etc., are largely handled in the description that traditionally follows the stat-block, and if a monster is unintelligent & unaligned, the Alignment entry will not even be present. <br />
<br />
Collecting all these monsters from several different sources takes up most of my time. Even the eventual arrival of getting the monsters named set up in alphabetical order was (and still is) an enormous task, but that much is largely done. So now, I go through the listings, and 'spruce up' each entry, making sure that all the versions of each monster from multiple sources jive, or at least do not generally contradict each other, and in some cases, I've added my own grey box text, or changed the wording to it just enough so it does make sense, significantly to give the monster a new direction, or just thought the original text was awful enough to discard it all and make it a wholly new creation -- OR it is a wholly new creation of my own!<br />
<br />
Many of the other sources for H&H are Lovecraftian in origin, as that would naturally follow for a Holmes-centric set of house rules. Most of these monsters were penned by Holmes, Kuntz, or Ward, but I've tried to maintain the original entries from Dragon #12 as much as possible from the C'thulhu Mythos Expurgated, adding only what was necessary to make the monster as complete as I think it needs to be for LBB.<br />
<br />
A few are analogous creations by a few people here 'n there.<br />
<br />
For example, I'm adding Zach Howard's (Zenopus, of Zenopus Archives) wonderful "Ancient Builder" monster, (<a href="http://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2013/01/ancient-builder-new-monster.html">http://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2013/01/ancient-builder-new-monster.html</a>) and as of right now, it's the first one alphabetically in Hordes & Hoards. <br />
Here is one of my own (see below), that can easily be partnered with another of my monsters, the Dagonites (analogous to the Deep Ones). I'll post that one next week, if I remember to do so, if/when I get online.<br />
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<div style="font-style: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>C'THULHIC
ELEMENTAL (TENTACULA NEVESTA)</b></span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Number
Appearing: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="175">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2-5</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Armor
Class: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="175">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">6</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Move
in Feet:</span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="175">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">90
for 30 to 180 feet</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hit
Dice: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="175">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">3-8</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dexterity:</span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="175">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">14</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Alignment:</span></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="175">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Chaos</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Number
of Attacks: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="175">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1-3
+ per round</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Damage
per Attack: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="175">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2-12
if dragged into jaws</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">%
in Lair: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="175">
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">100%</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="122">
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Treasure
Type: </span></span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="175">
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">D</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" style="border: none; padding: 0in;" valign="TOP" width="308">
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Source:
HH</span></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> It is rumored that these slimy horrors were first summoned from the elemental plane of evil (if such a place exists) by ancient priests of Nyarlathotep, and these conjured horrors destroyed their temple and spread under the world via the temple's underworld gates. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Living in holes, crevices, or tight spaces no bigger than 10'x10' in total darkness and alerted to any source of light, anyone approaching will always be surprised as 2-5 30' to 180' long green tentacles lash out and attempt to encircle a target. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> If it misses, the tentacle will try again next round and be joined by a second tentacle, and the third round by a third tentacle, and so on. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> If the tentacle makes a successful grab attack, the victim must make a dexterity throw to maintain control of his weapons, otherwise his arms and any weapons held are also wrapped tight to the victim's body and will be unable to make any attacks. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The tentacles do no damage, but they drag the victim to the hole the round after a successful attack. The next round, the victim is dragged down into gnashing jaws that do 2 – 12 per round.</span></span></div>
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Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-51704320289680884422015-08-03T01:09:00.001-07:002015-08-03T01:09:14.704-07:00Work on "Hordes & Hoards"I've wound down work on LBB "Characters & Combat" and "Magic", for the time being, and have started developing Hordes & Hoards, the Monsters & Treasure volume for the LBB house rules. <br />
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I want something functional yet modelled after what I will use at my table, but as far as releasing it into the wild internet public, its ho-hum, just another fucking monster manual, so I've been thinking of other functional bits & pieces to add to it to give it just that li'l something that would make it stand apart.<br />
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So far, I've decided to add a line of randomly determined treasure according to the Treasure Type of each monster (no big whup there, Bob...) and either a piece of art from ancient D&D times (hello, Greg Bell & C.Corey!), something a bit more modern (who are these pieces by???), or a bit of random dungeon lair (map & 1pd) that features said monster made by yours truly.<br />
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The write-up for the bit of dungeon won't even be a quarter of a 1pd (one-page dungeon), but just enough to get the referee something to jump start the ol' creative process when the decision is made to use one of these standard critters.<br />
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So far, the sources of monsters for H&H range from 0e (The Single Volume Edition), Holmes Basic, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, and a few from here & there - early issues of The Dragon & the Strategic Review, one mash-up from Classic D&D (that I recall), one from Metamorphosis Alpha, and another (maybe more) from Classic Traveller.<br />
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More later (so much for doing blogwork at work...)Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-12090989269493180112015-07-20T15:54:00.001-07:002015-07-20T15:54:13.420-07:00Version 11 is up!A very short note to let you all know that I've completely skipped versions 9 & 10, and have gone straight for ELEVEN.<br />
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"Our versions go up to eleven!"<br />
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So much for the obligatory Spinal Tap reference.<br />
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A bit more added here & there, a bit more clear formatting, more shaded boxes, Zenopus' Random Character Backgrounds added (without his permission, of course...), and the reasons keep adding up as to why these PDFs are unregulated house-rules for playing D&D, and not an official OSR marketable product with PI, IP, copyrights or copylefts.<br />
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Its a total hack. Always was, always will be.<br />
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There are some other things about version 11 I was probably going to mention, but I'm guerilla internetting and my coffee shop is about to close for the evening.<br />
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Just download 11 (if googledocs will let you) and find those easter eggy changes for yourself! I dare ya!<br />
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:D<br />
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<br />Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324712682287479790.post-67642078515090370252015-07-13T13:05:00.000-07:002015-07-13T13:11:05.173-07:00Examples of Play<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is a short, preliminary post that I hope will lead to an ongoing concern for my rules updates. Eventually I want to post actual examples of play and combat using LBB rules, but I haven't really had the time to actually roll up some characters and inflict a dungeon on them, let alone doing a step-by-step diary of the action and finishing it off with a written piece that highlights these obscure rules in an entertaining and illuminating way.</div>
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I mean, I do have a group of characters that I rolled up using the basic 0e rules, and I posted a short, but entertaining (to me, anyway) journal at Dragonsfoot, [0e/Holmes] Exploring the Djangorun Depths (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=65248) but I haven't really had the time to do this for LBB rules. </div>
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Perhaps a bit of re-tooling is in order, so I can cull a few worthy examples of play and combat that fits in the context of LBB rules.</div>
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Of course, the best way to go about this is to actually playtest the rules, which I have not the time to write up a new dungeon scenario, nor do I have any players that would be interested in anything but Pathfinder rules, let alone a Holmes expansion like LBB. </div>
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Ah well, I tell myself that this is why this is my hobby, not a business model! ;) </div>
Bobjesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13694236042744847270noreply@blogger.com0