Crazy Initiative Idea

Cool chart by Telecanter - http://recedingrules.blogspot.com/2010/10/visual-weapon-chart.html

A single caveat --

• This idea is completely untested.  Sometimes you have to get ideas out of your head to see if they work...  :)

How I actually do things --

• When I do initiative, I roll a d6 for the monsters and the players roll a d6 for the party.
• High roll goes first.
• If the dice match, it all happens simultaneously.
• I have a deck of cards that I use to randomize the order of the PCs and the monsters within their initiative roll.

OK, now for the idea.

• High rolls are best.
• You get to add your DEX bonus (if any) to your roll.
• If you have a polearm, and are in position to use it, roll the better of 2d12
• If you have a fast/nimble weapon (rapier, whip, throwing daggers, arrows, darts, loaded crossbow, etc.) roll d12
• If your weapon is long (like a spear or 2h-sword,) and you are in a good position to use it, roll d12
• If you have an "average"melee weapon (sword, axe, flail, etc.) roll d10
• If you have a short melee weapon (dagger, shortsword, fist, shield bash, mace, crossbow that needs to be loaded, etc.) roll d8
• If you have a spear or 2h-sword up close where it's difficult to use, roll d6
• If you have a polearm up close, but there is still room to maneuver, roll d4
• If you have a polearm, spear or 2h-sword and you can't maneuver.  Drop your weapon and use something else.

Whatcha think?

Undead Enhancements

I was over at Wizardawn generating a couple adventures for my sandbox --

As an aside, I love using random stuff because I enjoy IMPROVISING around it.  I don't enjoy drawing maps anymore and I find a "blank canvas" a lot harder to run than one with "ideas" on it that I can use or not.  

-- when I discovered something that's kind of a bummer.  For low-level adventures, in Swords & Wizardry, the monsters are exclusively skeletons and zombies.

That's all fine and good, but what about a little variety?  So, I thought, why not make up a chart of little "enhancements" that can be tacked onto the beastie for a few extra XP?

I'm purposely NOT searching for this.  Someone may have already had this idea.  Hopefully I'm not subconsciously channeling your work.  :)

So, here's my chart and a "guesstimate" of how much more XP it should add to the creature.  YMMV.

d20	Enhancement	XP Bonus (Skeleton/Zombie)
1	Re-animates:  It falls down and then gets back up at full HP after 1d4 rounds.  It must be hacked apart and/or burned to stay down	Full XP each time it is killed
2	Shoots arcane energy (like magic missile) or finger bones (like crossbow)	+15/+30
3	Barfs up … goo that is sticky like web	+15/+30
4	… that bursts into flame for 1d4 if it hits	+15/+30
5	… that is slippery, target must save or fall down	+15/+30
6	Invisible	+15/+30
7	Explodes when killed, sending sharp shards of bone nearby for 1d6 damage (save for none)	+15/+30
8	Uses two swords for an extra attack!
9	Has four arms and four attacks!
10	Has a gaze that works like charm person.  Save or fight with the undead rather than against them
11	Can fly	+15/+30
12	Shrouded in darkness	+15/+30
13	Is covered in biting insects.  If it hits in combat, one of these little buggers climbs onto the defender.  It will do 1pt of damage each round.  Defender must lose her attack to squash it	+15/+30
14	Is not human, but is humanoid (dwarf, orc, elf, etc.)  Cosmetic change only for flavor	0
15	… but is an animal (wolf, bear, lion, etc.)  Gains additional attacks	+15/+30
16	… but is larger than human (ogre, troll, bugbear, owlbear, etc.)  Gaining 1d8 additional HPs	+15/+30
17	Is protected … from magic of all kinds	+15/+30
18	… from fire.  It is fireproof	+15/+30
19	… from attack due to enhanced armor.  +2 to AC	0
20	… from turning.  It cannot be turned due to evil glyphs tattooed onto its skin and/or carved onto its bones	+15/+30

DM Prep Page [6 of 9]

Page 6 is a page tied exclusively to the random encounter tables in CotMA.

I've cut and pasted and interlocked the encounter tables from within the module.  I've also used my "how long until a random encounter" matrix to fill in the dots on the left.

The characters explore the dungeon.  Each turn, I mark a dot.  When I run out of dots, I cross-reference the row I'm on with the column for the level they are currently exploring.

Presto!  Instant random encounter.

Here's a pic --

Here's a scan of a page with marked off dots -- (PS: this page is before I expanded the page to Level 8, but you'll get the idea...)

Another added benefit to this method is the way it sort of "outlines" the adventure...

For example, looking at the page above, the adventurers began on Level 1 and very quickly (1 turn) they encountered some Grimlocks.

They defeated them and over the course of an hour, the descended to Level 4 where they encountered a glowing bubble.

Shortly thereafter, they were attacked by a Flind warparty.

A couple of Gelatinous Cubes were encountered (something happened with one... maybe it was frozen or something...) but when the party hunkered down to rest in the dungeon, a group of Giant Centipedes skittered by.

Later on, they encountered some Black Puddings, found a room filled with damp pipes, and some more Black Puddings.  (With all these Black Puddings around, this might be the expedition when the Frostbrand of Errol was destroyed... that led to another series of quests...)

On their way out of the dungeon, they happened upon some Carrion Crawlers and then the Grinning Skull Orc Tribe.

Bottom line, this page allows for random encounters to happen automatically without any constraints on the players.  They just explore and as time passes, the random encounters happen.

An additional benefit I've just though of now would be to use what's happening on the unexplored levels as ideas for how the dungeon is evolving over time.

For example, The Grinning Skull Orcs appear once and Troglodytes appear three times during the expedition.  IF I WANTED to explain what might be happening on Level 1 during the time the adventurers were exploring, I might say that the Orcs and the Trogs had a confrontation.  Perhaps, even when the party was leaving the dungeon, the conflict might still have been raging.

Here's another pic:

Just an idea...

DM Prep Page [5 of 9]

This is a simple page -- I use this page to track damage on monsters that the characters fight.

Each line is one (1) random d8.  The script draws a number of "0"s equal to the number.  If a monster is 3 HD, I just bracket the first three lines.  As damage is done, I mark off the circles.

Simple enough.

Here's one with a few marks on it --

This sheet represents six giant apes.  I think they attacked the characters in and around some pits.  Their jumping was useful to keep the characters off balance.

Two minotaurs were also fought.  Also five wereboars.  I use MageKnight figures, so they are often marked with Blue, Red and Yellow; hence the notes.

Oh, and a cockatrice.  :)

This particular episode marked the death of Karn, a human that was transformed into an ogre and subsequently rescued by the party.  He was killed a short time later before they could escort him to the surface.

RIP Knand

DnD is a funny game.  I know, I know, I'm currently playing Labyrinth Lord, but this game will always be DnD to me.

Anyway, it's a funny game.

If you allow the dice to be "oracles," you never know what will happen and that's the beauty of it all.  The game can still surprise you.

The randomness of the dice allow for an "emergent narrative" that just happens.  It's not a railroad.  It's not a fixed plot-line.  Events transpire and the dice help determine what takes place.

Well, last night, a loyal henchman died.  Sometimes those surprises can be bittersweet.

Trouble is, he didn't die at the hands of a vicious enemy.  He wasn't incinerated by a dragon.  He wasn't killed by fell magic.

He died at the hands of a trusted ally; victim to a fumble.  A random accident.  A one in 2400 chance.

Knand was an NPC that entered our game as the result of a draw from a Deck of Many Things.  You can read a bit about that episode here.   Hanuman was lost to the Donjon and ended up in a cage, suspended above a cavern, with his loyal 4th level fighter Knand.

They adventured together and escaped back into the world and were inseparable.  Knand owed Hanuman his life.

Hanuman grumbled a bit about how fat Knand was, but they relied on each other.

Today, Hanuman, in the heat of battle, accidentally snapped Knand's neck.  He died.

RIP Knand.  You will be missed.

UPDATE:  Here's a link to a remembrance of Knand.  

[Finish It Friday] Varlets and Vermin - a review

(Dear Reader, I'm looking at my DRAFTS folder in blogger and I'm trying to finish posts that I began some time ago.  This is the first in that effort!)

Back in May (of 2010 or 2011?  I don't remember now...) Roger the GS at his blog, Roles, Rules, and Rolls, posted a great low-level monster book called "Varlets and Vermin".  I didn't see it back in May (don't know why) but I stumbled upon it a week or two ago.  Since then, I've printed it out and turned it into a booklet.  I've really enjoyed reading through it and I think it has some great monsters in there that can add real excitement to an adventure.

Roger sets the book up with the following sections (I think they are fairly self explanatory):

• At the Entrance
• Rat Variations
• Oh Garbage Dump
• The Underdim
• Three Feet of Water
• Adversarial Gamemaster's Bullpen
• Pauper's Cemetary
• Poor Wizard's Almanack
• Appendix A: Half Man, Half Amazing
• Appendix B: Ten Tamed Titans

At the beginning of each section, he sets the stage with a brief paragraph that lets you know what kind of monsters to expect.  I found this one to be quite amusing:

ADVERSARIAL GAMEMASTER’S BULLPEN 

In a world with ear seekers, throat leeches, trappers, lurkers, mimics and all the other deceptive tricks of the dungeon, the fantasy world hardly needs any more annoying critters to throw at players. And yet, here they are.

Each monster is statted out  for Swords and Wizardry (but they are easily translatable to other OSR games) and he writes a short description that gives you a bit of background about the origin or nature of the beast.  

Each of the monsters has something new or clever to offer.  If the monster has new mechanics associated with it, they are clearly described and explained.  As I read, I found myself thinking about my bi-weekly CotMA game and how I might strategically place some of these beauties into the dungeon.  In the bottom half of this post, I have added some notes about how some of Roger's monsters did in play this week.  :)

Appendix A: Half Man, Half Amazing offers seven different combat tactics that you can use to differentiate between hordes of monsters.  Roger offers this advice:

The secret to making groups of humanoid warriors memorable is to treat them as military cultures, not species. Give each race a different tactic, a different motive.

He gives useful descriptions of Rabble, Warbands, Fanatics, etc.  This Appendix could see some serious use as I make different tribes of orcs, hobgoblins and other humanoids behave differently in CotMA.

In Appendix B: Ten Tamed Titans, Roger takes ten dangerous challenges and brings them down to a level that beginning adventurers can handle.  Some of the challenges start off tame but become more dangerous with time.  Others become more like tricks or traps than monsters to defeat.  My personal favorite is the "Mimicking Golem".  Great stuff!

I couldn't recommend this little book more.  Click on this link immediately and visit Roger's RRR blog.  The link for V&V is on the right hand side of his page.

4e, The "Delve Format" and Good Advice

Over at the Fearless DM, the FDM writes about 4e and "what its really about".  Character Optimization.  Fine.  Tried that in 3e and Exalted (ugh).  Not my bag -- probably why I don't play 4e.

Anyway, within his post he gives this bit of advice --

The real lesson of the Delve Format (and my experience at Origins) is this: no matter what the delve format was trying to do- the battles don’t play themselves. And Good DMing has to do with more than just knowing the rules. 

1. If you want to do weak Dms a favor, give them less crap to worry about.Because they can’t manage it. 

2. And if you want to do great Dms a favor, give them less crap to deal with. Because they can do a better job just by being free from the restrictions.  

Either way, less, less, less.  (emphasis mine)

Good advice.

Which would you rather run?  This --

Chaos Scar adventure

 Or this?

A6 80'x110'x40' H Overrun with 20 spriders (sic - or is it?). 1/2 HD 1-3-2-2-4-1-2-3-3-1 HTK,AC 4 non-poisonous 1/bite. Cobwebs slow movement 1/2 normal. Six Zombies;2 HD, 8-4-7-13-15-6 HTK, AC 8, 1-8/hit, thumping on dead rat.

Or even this?

190. BADGERS. The gnomes in #189 have trained thesebadgers as pets and will use them in combat ifnecessary. Three badgers (6, 8, 10 h.p.). 

OSR Dragonbone

Years and years ago, I saw this ad in The Dragon...

I always wanted one, but I never did buy one.  Too expensive for my high school student budget.  Of course, I could use my programmable calculator to generate random numbers as well, so...

This past weekend, I was at the Dollar Store and I saw this:

It's a large, plastic "take your pill" reminder case.  I had an idea...

You can put a set of dice in there just fine.  There's plenty of room to shake them around.

You can see the dice very easily through the clear bottom of the container.  I plan to make one with 7d20 (of different colors) in it to rapidly generate "to hit" and "saving throws" for multiple monsters at once -- or to roll multiple attacks at once.

I'll let you know how it turns out!

Partial Party Kill (PPK)

Earlier this year, I blogged about using a Deck of Many Things in my CotMA game.  I believed at the time (and I still do) that that little "one off" adventure was a big success.

One of the draws was the Sun card:

Sun

KD

Gain beneficial miscellaneous magic item and 50,000 experience points.

Xavier the Marked (a cleric of Mesha) drew the card and was catapulted to 7th level.  I randomly rolled in the LL AEC for the magic item and it was a "Helm of Brilliance."

I've never played with one of these before.  When I announced that Xavier had found this, I didn't fully realize what it could do.  See below.

Wow.  This thing is practically an artifact.  

Upon reflection, I had an epiphany (1) about this kind of powerful magic item (at least with regard to my campaign.)

Xavier became the heart of the party.  I know the group felt that there was no foe too powerful to handle if Xavier was around.  DB was excellent at using the gems on the helm to maximum benefit and he also used the flametongue and detect undead powers to maximum effect. 

Xavier became the party leader, the party powerhouse and the party savior, time and time again.

DB made a special card (I hope to get a scan of it) to keep track of all the things Xavier could do with the helm.  It was excellent.

We all knew in our heart of hearts, however, that that little clause (I highlighted in blue above) would be the death of him (eventually...)

Well, it happened.  

It was awhile ago now, but I feel I had to memorialize Xavier with this post.  Writing nothing about it just doesn't seem right.

The party was completing their exploration of the second level of CotMA.  They came upon a somewhat isolated room and the monster description said that there was a "worry hag" in the room.  I'm sure that Joseph had a perfectly fine description of this monster in Appendix III, but I decided to wing it.

The party listened at the door and they heard a creaky voice... "Oh, I hope they don't come in here...  Oh, I hope they go away....  Oh no...."  I decided that this was a suitable warning that something nasty lurked beyond...  

The adventurers took this as an invite to go in.  Funny lot those adventurer types...

Well, the party was split.  Half of the group was checking out an adjacent room and the other half was listening to the hag worry away.  The hag group included the Sir Owyn the Paladin, Vera Diamondtree the Wizard, Kalen the Wizard and Xavier.

The party knocked on the door.

In a hushed voice, "Oh no, oh no...  I hope they don't come in..." Then a louder voice, "Who is it?"  Quieter again, "Oh no, why did I say that..."

Sir Owyn asks, "Is there evil on the other side of the door?"  Yes I say.  It reeks of evil...

I'm still hoping to creep the party out and hoping they'll just go away.  I've decided that this hag has some serious claw attacks (3d6x2) and that her claws will turn you to stone if you don't save.  She's got a crystal ball and a couple of cat familars.  One cat familiar has accidentally been turned to stone by an errant scratch under the chin.  She has a potion that can be used to cure petrification of one victim.  She keeps it around to cure her cats...

The party goes in through the door.

Xavier and Sir Owyn close in on the hag who erupts from her quiet repose with a blood curdling shriek.  She leaps over the table she's seated at (with her crystal ball) and tears into the party.  

The battle is joined.  Sir Owyn loses his protection from evil ability because he's attacking her directly (but he's still AC -4).  Xavier is AC 0.  They both begin to wail on the hag, who has considerable HPs, 8 HD, but a low AC of 5.  

Eventually Owyn is hit and he (amazingly) fails his save.  Instant Paladin statue.  JW is bummed that his Paladin is petrified.  

Things start to go sideways.  Kalen casts protection from evil on himself.  He uses his Wand of Illusion to simulate a Blur spell, making Xavier harder to hit.  The group retreats to the doorway and slams it shut.  The hag is on the other side.

The rest of the group joins the fray and there is some discussion about how they will finish the hag off.  Will they use a web?  Magic missiles?  Lightning?  Will they fireball the hag?

They decide that Xavier will fireball the hag and that he'll do it at close range because he has fire resistance from the helm.  Collen Redsides has a frostbrand that likewise confers fire resistance so he'll stick around as backup.  The idea is to throw the fireball into the room and slam the door shut.

A few other party members, Thannor the Ranger and Larot the Warrior linger in the immediate area...  The rest run to minimum safe distance...

The hag is ready and when the door is opened, she fights to get through...  The fireball goes off...

Xavier rolls a "1" on his save.  

The helm detonates.

We took the time to roll the Prismatic Sprays to see if any of the characters were sent to another dimension.  Nope.

The minimum damage from all the fireballs and walls of fire was hundreds of points.  

We rolled saves for all their magic items.  Only a couple survived.  Here's a scan of everything that was destroyed in the conflagration:

All that was left was a statue of a Paladin.  JW is now happy that his Paladin is petrified...  :)

RIP -- Collen Redsides, barbarian warrior of the North; Thannor, Ranger of the Deep Woods; Larot, grim Warrior (we hardly knew ye...) and Xavier the Marked.

You will all be missed.

---

(1) A magic item of this magnitude just couldn't be made by a single wizard.  Either these things are made by a cabal or, I've decided, they are made by the gods.  You see,  the gods put items of chance, like the Deck of Many Things into the world and then if an adventurer is lucky enough, they bestow items like The Helm of Brilliance upon them.  That's how items of this power make it in to the world at large...  at least in Queston.

"Coolness" Bonuses

Saw this post over at Tower of Zenopus about City of Heroes and it got me thinking.

I used to like to give out FATE points, Fudge points, Bennies, etc. to players when they did something "cool."  When they took a risk or made everyone laugh or caused a roar from the crowd.

Awhile back, I bought these Old School Bonus Cards at RPGNow.  I haven't used them yet.  Mostly because I don't have any thieves in my game.  That's not really a good excuse, but it eliminates 25% of the deck...

Here's my idea.  (This is untested, but I think I'll be trying it out ASAP)

Get out a deck of cards.

Spades = Combat

Hearts = Healing

Diamonds = Treasure/Certain Skills (lockpicking, find traps, find secret doors)

Clubs = Social/Reaction/All Other Skills

Take out the face cards, leaving just the Ace through 10's.

Anytime a player does something cool with their character, give them a card.  They can have as many cards as they want, but there's only one deck.  If all the cards are in the hands of the players, no one else can get one.

I'd let players trade cards anytime during the game.  If they are in the middle of something, like combat or a social encounter, I'd make them explain HOW they use one of their cards to help their buddy.

I probably will only allow the use of two cards MAX per action; one of yours and one from a buddy (to encourage teamwork).

So, here's how the cards work.  You give the DM the card you want to use and you roll a d12.

• If you roll LESS THAN BUT NOT EQUAL TO the number on your card, you get a +1 or +5% bonus to what you are doing.
• If you roll EXACTLY THE NUMBER ON YOUR CARD you get a +2 or 10% bonus to what you are doing.
• If you ROLL A 12 you get a +3 or 15% bonus.
• If you ROLL AN 11 (Snake Eyes) you get nothing.

For Hearts, I might allow the use of the bonus as extra dice or rerolls --

• +1 = reroll the healing attempt and take the better result OR roll an extra d6
• +2 = reroll the healing attempt OR roll an extra d8
• +3 = reroll the healing attempt OR roll an extra d12

I plan to implement this system right away in my CotMA game.  We'll see how it goes.