Spes Magna Games

OSRIC starts the process of creating a character with ability scores. Some talk of methods for generating ability scores ensues. One can be “truly brutal” and roll 3d6 in order for the six scores. One can be less brutal, allowing scores to be arranged to suit player taste or allowing 4d6 (drop the lowest die result) instead of 3d6. Players familiar with AD&D likely recall the many different methods suggested in the rules.

As for me, I like players getting to play want they want to play. Once I joined a 2E AD&D group while stationed in Hawaii, and I really wanted to play a bard. I’d never played a 2E bard, and it looked interesting. So, I rolled the dice, and quickly realized that bard was not an option because I’d failed to generate a high enough Charisma. Bummer. So, I played a thief who wanted to be a bard, and spent his nonweapon proficiency slots accordingly. It was still fun, but it wasn’t really what I was looking for.

Should I decide to run OSRIC, this is the ability score method I’m leaning toward:

1. Pick a race and class. Note the minimum and maximum ability scores for both.
2. Roll 3d6 in order, assigning the results to the six ability scores.
3. Look at the race and class ability score notes. Anything that isn’t high enough, raise it to the minimum. Anything that is too high, lower it to the maximum.

So, what might this look like?

Well, let’s say I want to play a gnome illusionist, the illusionist part being a class notoriously hard to qualify for due to its high Dexterity and Intelligence minimums. I make note of the relevant mins and maxes:

Gnome Minimums/Maximums: STR 6/18, DEX 3/18, CON 8/18, INT 7/18, WIS 3/18, CHA 3/18
Illusionist Minimums: STR 6, DEX 16, INT 15, WIS 6, CHA 6

Next I roll 3d6 six times. These are the results:

Unadjusted Ability Scores: STR 12, DEX 10, CON 12, INT 8, WIS 7, CHA 8

I compare these results to the race and class requirements, changing them as indicated, to get these ability scores. I bold-faced the changes for ease of reference.

Adjusted Ability Scores: STR 12, DEX 16, CON 12, INT 15, WIS 7, CHA 8

Tada! I now have a gnome illusionist who, due to his Dexterity and Intelligence both being under 17, is currently limited to 5th level. Perhaps making him an illusionist/thief would be a good idea?

Tags: 1E AD&D, OSRIC

Well, once again, it’s been way too long since my last post. Pretend I’ve explained the usual excuses in the remainder of this paragraph.

Now check out the picture. Click to embiggen if you want.

That’s me gazing down in glee at my 386-page hardback copy of Black Blade Publishing‘s OSRIC, which stands for Old School Reference and Index Compilation. For the unwashed, OSRIC is 1E AD&D. Those 386 pages include 1E AD&D’s Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide reborn as an Old School ruleset that’s been cleaned up, clarified, and presented anew.

There’s a lot of nifty stuff in OSRIC. For example, consider OSRIC’s take on infravision:

“Infravision is the ability to see in the dark and is common to almost all subterranean creatures.”

Notice what infravision is not: It’s not the ability to detect gradations of heat. Notice also that in dungeons and caverns, infravision is pretty much ubiquitous among the monsters the heroes will encounter. Sound great if you’re a subterranean creature, but infravision has its limits:

“Infravision cannot be used within the ambit of any light source.”

I love that it says “within the ambit”. It’s not often a gamebook sends me toward a dictionary. I know enough Latin to recognize that “ambit” is almost certainly a Latin verb, and etymonline.com confirms my thoughts. “Ambit” derives from ambire, meaning “to go around, go about”. Its modern meaning tends toward “the bounds or limits of a place or district”.

In addition to a range limit (usually 60 feet), “Infravision does not detect colours and is of little help while searching or making minute examinations, so sapient creatures such as orcs may well prefer torchlight even if they possess infravision.”

On the run from orcs through a subterranean fungus forest? Well, if the orcs are tracking you, the orcs need torchlight. Searching for traps on that sarcophagus or reading your spellbook? You need torchlight as well.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the more recent idea related to infravision as darkvision is that torchlight, et cetera, becomes unnecessary for most non-human creatures. For humans especially, the lack of darkvision turns into a huge liability as the light sources necessary for exploring otherwise lightless caverns turns into a huge warning signal for any enemies the humans might approach.

OSRIC’s simple description of infravision ameliorates that issue as well as disposing on one of my 1E AD&D pet peeves, namely players and DMs wrangling over gradations of heat and what is visible versus invisible as a result. If I never hear another discussion about whether or not lurking zombies are the same temperature as their surroundings and, therefore, invisible to infravision….

I’m still digesting OSRIC, biting off a bit here and there. So far, I really like it. It stays true to its 1E AD&D roots while at the same time appearing fresh, as if it were very much its own thing. I have a feeling running OSRIC waits somewhere in the near future, especially since the school year ends this coming Friday.

Ah, blessed summer vacation!

Tags: 1E AD&D, OSRIC, reviews

It’s no secret I like making up new monsters or adding my own twists to classic creatures. Often, my inspiration comes from an illustration. Other times, I’ve taken inspiration from W. B. Yeats (Aengus Wandero’er in Chance Encounters III), wonderfully bad movies (the shark storm in Shallows & Sharks), and medieval bestiaries (the cinnamologus in Chance Encounters II and the bear-ape in Chance Encounters IV).

Bestiaries inspire today’s new monster. You can read a summary of the pard’s history by visting Atlas Obscura. If you want AD&D stats for the monster, they’re on my Google Drive. Enjoy!

The Pard

The pard bears a superficial resemblance to a great cat, such as a lion or leopard. From its whip-like tail to its almost-human face, from its sinuous neck to its curved talons on raptor’s feet, the pard’s unnatural origins cannot be missed. In the Nine Hells, pards roam in packs, hunting lesser creatures for sport. In the Material Plane, the pard uses its powers to mate with female great cats, especially lionnesses. Females cubs born from such a union are leopards; males are juvenile pards, which immediately abandon their mother and siblings. A juvenile pard reaches full maturity in a matter of days, at which time it plane shifts to the Nine Hells.

Medium fiend (devil), lawful evil

Armor Class 15 (natural)
Hit Points 52 (8d8+16)
Speed 50 feet

STR 19 (+4), DEX 15 (+2), CON 15 (+2), INT 10 (+0), WIS 14 (+2), CHA 14 (+2)

Saving Throws STR +6, CON +4, WIS +4
Skills Stealth +4, Perception +4
Damage Resistances cold, poison; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nomagical attacks not made with silvered weapons
Damage Immunities fire
Condition Immunities poisoned
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 14
Languages Infernal, telepathy 120 ft.
Challenge 4 (1,100)

Devil’s Sight. Magical darkness doesn’t impede the pard’s darkvision.

Innate Spellcasting. The pard’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 12). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components.

At will: animal friendship, detect evil and good, speak with animals
3/day each: charm person, phantasmal force, suggestion, teleport
1/day: animate dead, fear

Keen Smell. The pard has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.

Magic Resistance. The pard has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Pounce. If the pard moves at least 20 feet straight toward a creature and then hits it with a talons attack on the same turn, that target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the target is prone, the pard can make a talons attack against it as a bonus action.

Running Leap. With a 10-foot running start, the pard can long jump up to 25 feet.

Summon Devil (1/Day). The pard has a 20% to summon another pard.

Actions

Multiattack. The pard makes two attacks: one with its bite and one with its talons.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d8+4) piercing damage.

Talons. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6+4) slashing damage.

Tags: 1E AD&D, 5E D&D, monsters

I know I have more than what’s pictured. The “filing system” in my library is more of an art than a science. For example, I know I have S1. Somewhere.

I also used to have more AD&D modules than these. For example, I know I had EX1 when I was in high school. I remember staying up all night running a group of friends through it. While moving from home to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, and then back to Houston, Texas, some things got lost, left behind, or (ye gods!) stolen. Whatever. Things break. They get lost. C’est la vie.

My current gaming group has taken up 5E D&D. My son Christopher started us out in the village of Hommlet (not depicted but definitely in the library somewhere). It worked well enough. When Christopher got a part in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he had to slack off on the DMing, so I picked up the ball and am almost done running the group through Forest of Doom, an adventure published in one of the Dragon magazines I have stashed away.

Both Christopher and I worked on retooling the adventures for 5E, which uses different maths than AD&D. Lately, I’ve started wondering if that was necessary. Permit me to explain.

In The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, the DM is told that the “module is designed for 5-10 characters of experience levels 1-3.” Right there is a difference between 1E and 5E expectations. A party of 10 characters in a 5E adventure? The system isn’t built for that. The few official adventures for 5E I’ve read assume a party of 5 characters. The 5E DMG assumes “that you have a part consisting of three to five adventurers” (p. 83). Sinister Secret assumes twice as many characters.

5E has an encounter budget system designed to create so-called balanced encounters of varying difficulties suitable for the levels of the adventurers facing the challenges. I’m not a fan of encounter budget systems. I don’t balance my checkbook, which is certainly more important than D&D, so why should I have to balance encounters? That’s work, and I do enough work at work.

Turning to page 6 in Sinister Secret, I find the random encounter table. It has four entries: four goblins, a pair of giant rats with three of their young, a giant weasel, or six giant ants. Let’s crunch some numbers for the goblins:

AD&D Goblins (x4): AC 6, 4 hit points each (16 hit points total), THAC0 20. Translated into 5E terms, that’s AC 14, 4 hit points each, +0 attack bonus.

5E Goblins (x4): AC 15, 7 hit points each (28 hit points total), +4 to hit. Translated into 1E terms, that’s AC 5, 7 hit points each, THAC0 16 (equal to a 2 HD monster).

This might seem like 5E goblins are tougher, but not quite. 5E characters tend to have more hit points than 1E characters, and their attack and damage bonuses are better as well. The big difference, it seems to me, is the goblin’s attack bonus. 5E goblins are going to hit more often than 1E goblins. Likewise, 5E characters are going to hit more often than 1E characters, at least at 1st-level.

All in all, it seems like the two editions are close in expectations. I probably don’t need to bother adjusting this wandering monster encounter. But what about one of the more difficult combats?

In the caves beneath the haunted house in Sinister Secret, the adventurers likely encounter, all at once, these creatures: a 4th-level illusionist, a human smuggler (equal to a 1st-level fighter), and five gnolls. In 5E terms, that’s a deadly encounter for five 1st-level characters, and that’s fine. It’s supposed to be a tough fight.

But what about the hit points?

The illusionist in AD&D terms has 11 hit points. In 5E, he could have between 20-30, depending on Constitution. The 5E smuggler would likely have about the same hit points as a 1st-level fighter. The five gnolls in AD&D terms have 60 hit points total versus 110 hit points total in 5E. Assuming all five gnolls hit in a round, they’ll average 25 to 30 points of damage. In 5E? 25 points of damage. Interesting coincidence. The THAC0 of a 1E gnoll and a 5E gnoll are comparable, as are the the AC. In short, it seems that the major difference between 1E and 5E might be the hit points. (Compare, for another example, 12 hit points each for lizard men versus 22 hit points each for lizardfolk.)

So, what happens if I run a 1E adventure for 5E characters, but don’t do anything in terms of trying to balance encounters?

I’m not sure, but I’d like to find out.

Tags: 1E AD&D, 5E D&D

Today, I take a break from my AD&D Deities & Demigods-to-5E conversions because I got distracted by the critter in the video above. If you’ve not seen this critter in action, check it out, and then read on to meet it statted out for three versions of D&D.

The tethydida is a monstrous marine predator that inhabits warm, tropical waters near reefs. It has a green, semi-transparent hide of thick, spongy tissue encasing thousands of gallons of viscous slime in which float various organelles. The tethydid is voracious and aggressive. It reaches lengths of 30 feet.

For B/X D&D:

Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 9*
Move: 30′ (10′), Swimming: 60′ (20′)
Attacks: 1 bite
Damage: 3-18
No. Appearing: 1-2 (1-4)
Save As: Fighter: 5
Morale: 10
Treasure Type: Nil
Alignment: Neutral

The tethydida attacks by expanding its bulbous head and biting at everything in a 10-foot radius. Make a “to hit” roll against all targets in the area of effect. If a “to hit” roll for the bite is 4 or more than the number required (or a 20, in any case), creatures of man-size or smaller will be swallowed whole and absorbed by a digestive organelle, taking 3-12 (3d4) points of damage each round thereafter.

For AD&D:

Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing: 1-4
Armor Class: 6
Move: 3″//6″
Hit Dice: 9
% in Lair: Nil
Treasure Type: Nil
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: 3-18
Special Attacks: Swallow whole
Special Defenses: Nil
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Animal
Alignment: Neutral
Size: L (30′ long)
Psionic Ability: Nil
Attack/Defense Modes: Nil
Level/XP Value: VII/1,300 + 12/hp

The tethydid attacks by biting. Its bite affects a 10-foot radius. Any hit 20% over the required score (that is 4 or more over the required number) or a 100% (die roll of 20) score in any case indicates the tethydid has engulfed its victim. A mature tethydid can swallow, whole, a creature as large as 6′ or so tall and up to 4′ wide, or vice versa. Any creature swallowed whole is absorbed by a digestive organelle and will be dead in 6 melee rounds. The tethydid will digest its meal in 12 turns, and that time the victim is totally gone and cannot be raised from the dead. Note, however, that a creature swallowed can try to cut its way out of the tethydid. The inner armor class of the tethydid is 9, but each round the creature is in the tethydid, subtract 1 from the damage each attack against the tethydid’s interior. This subtraction is cumulative (-2 on the second round, -3 on the third round, et cetera).

For 5E:

Huge beast, unaligned

Armor Class 14 (natural armor)
Hit Points 85 (9d12+27)
Speed 10 ft., swim 20 ft.
Ability Scores STR 22 (+6), DEX 9 (-1), CON 17 (+3), INT 2 (-4), WIS 11 (+0), CHA 5 (-3)

Saving Throws CON +6, WIS +3
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages —
Challenge 5 (1,800 XP)

Hold Breath. While out of water, the tethydid can hold its breath for 1 hour.

Water Breathing. The tethydid can breathe only underwater.

Actions

Massive Bite. The tethydid targets a point it can see within 10 feet. Each target within 10 feet of that point must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 16 (3d6+6) piercing damage on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one. If the target that fails its saving throw is a Medium or smaller creature, the target is also swallowed by the tethydid. A swallowed creature is blinded and restrained, it has total cover against attacks and other effects outside the tethydid, and it takes 15 (6d4) acid damage at the start of the tethydid’s turn.

If the tethydid takes 18 damage or more on a single turn from a creature inside it, the tethydid must succeed on a DC 16 saving throw at the end of that turn or regurgitate all swallowed creatures, which fall prone in a space within 10 feet of the tethydid. If the tethydid dies, a swallowed creature is no longer restrained by it and can escape from the corpse by using 10 feet of movement, exiting prone.

Tags: 1E AD&D, 5E D&D, B/X D&D, monsters