DM Miscellany - a word of comment and a minor correction

Dear Guests,

One serious deviation from the original AD&D2E rules I use in my game is the duration of the combat round.
The PHB clearly states 1 round = 1 minute. This is surprising in the face of the fact, that D&D has always assumed it to be 10 seconds. Now, I am not really sure about the 1E but why 1 minute?
In combat situation this is hell of a long time. In one minute the fight can easily be over and with much more that one swing of a sword.
Also, such solution is impractical to my mind. Given the pace of action in a combat round, extending it to 1 minute doesn't really serve any logical purpose.
So, for the slightly modified combat system I assume 1 round is equal to 6 seconds. Thus, 1 turn equals 10 rounds. This should also solve the movement problem. If a character can pass 12 yards in 1 round, then do the authors imply that the character is dragging 12 yards in 1 minute?
Take 6 seconds and start ahead in a brisk pace. How far have you've gone? 12 yards is a quite probable result. Even more maybe.
Of course in close combat situation you are forced to slow down unless you want to expose yourself to the enemy. I give it a 1/2 penalty. Obviously this is arbitrary.
It just makes much more sense to me, feels more natural.

Then I stumbled upon the issue of ROF (rate of fire) of shooting weapons. Given my direct experience with archery I thought that a skilled bowman can fire much more rapidly that normally you'd imagine. Remember the famous English bowmen from Agincourt.
However, not as fast as to fire 2 arrows in 6 seconds (which was implied by the initial version of DM miscellany). Bows fire a standard one arrow (1 attack) per round, though specialisation bonuses should apply (I bet Robin Hood could fire 2 accurate arrows in 6 seconds, heh).
There is a disadvantage for the crossbow, true. But it balances the severe damage it makes and if you have it loaded on the spot, you're at a definite advantage over the bow.

With this short comment, please help yourself with a corrected DM miscellany file.

Until then!

Doom of Daggerdale - module review

Dear Friends,

In July I finally managed to start up my great project which is actively running a AD&D 2e Forgotten Realms campaign. Those of you who occasionally visit my humble abode already know that I have a soft spot for the 2E (hmmpf). And the Realms are for me what Greyhawk was for the 1E veterans. The classic and core setting. Since I have to divide my spare time between various activities and also because of mostly sentimental reasons I decided to recall that "good ol'times" feeling and base my campaign on published material only.
And so I took all the modules at hand and connected them with one superior plot. As some of my players happen to visit this site I cannot disclose too much details in advance.
However, our adventure began with the module "Doom of Daggerdale".
And here are my thoughts on it.

The plot

As one of my players concluded, "it is a very cliche premise but there is a certain charm to it".
The heroes are called to visit Dagger Falls in order to investigate a strange disease that torments the local folk, both honest farmers and Zhentish lackeys alike.
As it however often happens, it is not the general idea that matters. The devil is in the details.
There is some serious backstory, several sub-plots and options for the players, though the dungeon is always the same.
We are given an opportunity to familiarise the heroes with the Freedom Raiders and their cause.
Some interesting NPC can be introduced with just a bit of GM effort and creativity (Kessla for instance).
The story itself can develop in several interesting directions.
Altogether a solid, albeit not particularly original work.
My players had some fun with it. It worked as an introductory ("10 years after" kind of introduction) adventure. They chased some shadows in the dark, pursued some false traces, underwent some lethal family drama and finished the plot without actually having discovered most of the plot details. All the better for the GM as their past actions will haunt them in the future in the most unexpected way. (Muahahahaha)

The text editing

This is were the nightmare begins :)

First of all, particular parts of the module are "a bit mixed up". It results in the GM feverishly leafing through the module in order to find a particular information which apparently is not where it logically should be.

Whenever some details are not included - it is not stated clearly. So you find yourself at times in a situation where you don't know whether you "just can't find it" or it was left "up to the GM to decide".

Also, several elements of the plot stand in contradiction (not major though) and this might puzzle those less experienced gamers.

My favourite bit was with the sleepers (necormancer's hostages in a magic slumber). They are once mentioned to be in the same chamber as the necromancer's tomb, then suggested to be in "the chamber of the sleepers" which is a separate room altogether. 

I also scratched my head seeing a "beastman" monster which is actually a native of 1E Greyhawk and cannot be found in any 2E Monstrous Manuals (well, maybe in the annual appendices published later on).

All in all, it does make the impression of being messy and poorly edited. They're details, but I had some hard time with them and because of them.

Summary

This is a module aimed at low level heroes. An introduction to Forgotten Realms. I like the idea of a short module in contrast to the long campaigns like "The Haunted Halls of Evening Star" or "Ruins of Adventure".

It is a good choice for GMs who prefer to come up with their own ideas and particularly ones that are fond of the Dales. For obvious reasons they could work like magic with the later published Randall Morn module trilogy. We will see what the future brings :)

Favourite Moment

In a small abandoned dwarven factory which is one of the subplots the heroes find a magic sword - Magekiller. It was crafted by the dwarves to fight with the evil Lord Mage Calderan. They did not have the opportunity to use it though as Calderan killed them all beforehand.

It did keep all of its qualities which is, among others, harming any magic-using character on touch. My players had all the bad luck when the first hero to touch it was a mage. They immediately judged the sword to be cursed. And obviously would not use it against Calderan's wraith form spell.

He escaped unharmed to the Underdark.

As he disappeared in the dark corridors the cave echo carried his words of warning: "I'll be back!"

A few words on Encounter Tables pt.2

In the earlier post I have praised the usefulness of encounter tables. After years of deliberate ignorance I embraced the idea completely. And it is quite understandable assuming that we allow to bring back the "game" aspect to the "roleplaying game".
The 90/Y2K European school of playing emphasised the storytelling and roleplaying aspect bringing in some interesting development to the genre at best, decreasing the general amount of easygoing 'fun" at worst.
Trust me, been there, done that. Actually I stopped playing rpg's at one time as the sessions became too heavy to bear - emotionally mostly. And it wasn't easy anymore to play an impromptu session, as in confrontation the players' expectations it lacked depth etc.
GMs were less and less to pick up the challenge of running a "decent" game.
Ambitious? Perhaps, but bad for the hobby in general as slowly the players played less and less.

Anyhow, in my current Forgotten Realms campaign I decided to use Encounter Tables to ease my mind and provide some instant and random fun for my players.
This simple procedure helped me focus on the main plot and main encounters, populated the world with fantastic monsters (who knows the complete Monstrous Manual by heart anyway???) which I would otherwise overlook and teaches the players that Faerun is a dangerous place and cross-country travels can be lethal.

One outcome of this pleases me particularly. By taking some time to prepare a diverse encounter tables for each terrain type you create the unique feel of each area. After all, it is the denizens of the place that make the unique atmosphere and help to bring the game to life (rise, Frankenstein, rise!).

Now, getting down to the tech specs. In my DM miscellany sheets I enclosed a random encounter table directly from the DMG 2E. In the same chapter of the manual the authors also provided 2 methods of creating the detailed tables for generating particular encoutners (what's it gonna be this time? Bugbear or Basilisk?) Since the first table covers the chance of encounter in the particular terrain and the particular day/night time, what we need now is the table to draw a monster encounter sorted by appearance frequency (so to speak). I must admit that the d8+d12 appeals to me. For one, it is not a common dice set in my experience. Then, it already delivers a random result table with weighted results. Bingo!
Now, basing on the 2 previous table sets with beasts and intelligent races I drew from the Monstrous Manual I put up a collection of tables that should be quick and easy to use and spice up your game with interesting encounters whenever you need them. Feel free to review them in the Bibliotheca:

AD&D Encounter Tables - Complete

And remember, Encounter Tables should only be used when you need such solution, not as a rule. Tomes have been written about it. Maybe a topic for another post...

Yours Sincerely,

Yarivandel