Dungeon Module T1: Moathouse Monsters and Mayhem

Looking over the old modules for clues on how the game was played back in the day I stumbled over some very interesting stuff. While reviewing the monsters as written in the module there were a number of discrepancies between their stats as listed in the Monster Manual and the creature listing. The Upper Ruins were pretty much by-the-book, but once you got to the Dungeon Level it was seemingly a mash of old school references and what I can only refer to as "screw the player" mentality at work.

SPOILER ALERT (for all 3 of you who have never run or played this module....)




Room#1 of the dungeon is a stairway with green slime over it to discourage investigation of the lower ruins. The AC of the slimes is listed as 7, but in the Monster Manual it is AC 9. Seems a trivial complaint or perhaps a transcription error (many times people have sloppy handwriting and I can see a 9 being mistaken for a 7). In any case, this monster makes no sense since it has a Move 0" and "drops on unwary targets." So how the hell does a new patch develop on a ceiling to continue attacking this way?? Does it get moved there by other creatures? Does it have a reproductive system that violently splatters itself on walls and ceiling?

In Room #4 of the dungeon, there are 12 zombies, all perfectly presented as any other undead zombie in the Monster Manual, except for the fact that these zombies take only 1 hp of damage from any piercing weapons. It was written in so casually that it seemed as if ALL zombies are like this. No mention of where this decision or ruling came from. It does not exist in the Monster Manual. Could Gary Gygax have been working on ways of modifying the basic monsters? Was he somehow confusing them with skeletons which take half damage from piercing and slashing weapons? Are the zombies so dessicated that they are becoming skeletal?? No explanation is given.

In Room #7 the ogre Lubash is listed with 5+1 HD. Normal ogres are 4+1 HD. His bardiche does 2-8 + 5 points of damage. Ogres using weapons do only +2 damage per the Monster Manual. Leader ogres have much higher HD and hp and do up to +4 damage. So where do these modifications come from? One would think that a beginner adventure would have more info on why this creature differs from the norm, or at least a rationalization. Could Gary have forgotten ogre HD? Possible. Was he developing a better damage system for ogres based on size and strength? Perhaps. Did he mention why he changed it? No! In fact, this is a TPK waiting to happen. No party of 1st (or even 2nd) level characters stand a chance against an ogre capable of causing 7-13 points of damage with a swing. They would need to be very lucky with their rolls or gain surprise. Note that sleep is useless against his HD, perhaps a reason for making them so high.

Room #14 has a pack of 4 ghouls, much stronger than ordinary ghouls in that they cause 1-4/1-4/1-8 damage instead of normal ghoul damage of 1-3/1-3/1-6 per the Monster Manual. Now it does say that the "Master" keeps them well fed, but giving them MORE damage is just cruel to the party. Granted, a cleric has a chance of turning them at this level, but it is more likely for them to gain surprise and paralyze their targets before they can do so. If the ghouls have surprise, then the party is doomed since they can then strike any paralyzed members automatically for double damage! The only godsend of this monster description is that Gary finally saw fit to give us duration on the paralysis!! For the first time in any module I can remember, the paralysis is listed as 3-12 turns! Since most combats last only a few rounds, this is rarely an issue. Imagine though that the poor PC rolls a 12 for duration. That's 2 hours of paralysis in game time. If they were paralyzed at the beginning of the combat, that character is either dead when the party TPKs or useless for the next 12 turns of game time (a long time indeed). It's not likely that they have any means of removing the paralysis either.

Room #17 contains 15 guards. Let me reiterate that - 15 GUARDS!!! This breaks down to 12 normal men (0-level humans), 2 2nd-level fighter sergeants, and a 4th level fighter lieutenant. A normal party size is 6-8 characters of levels 1 (or 2 by this point). Most of a party at this level consists of henchmen of 1st level max. Most spell casters are out of spells. Unless the party decides to hit this place last after rest and recuperation (likely requiring several days to heal everyone to full) the temple force is likely to realize that the party is on to them and has learned too much already. Then again they are led by a wise cleric with an intelligence of 9 so who knows!

Room #18 contains the leader of this band of evil, Lareth the Beautiful, whom I suspect was originally a drow cleric converted to be a human. This cleric is a powerhouse! He has three stats at 18 (Strength, Wisdom, and Charisma), the best possible armor and weapons for his class, a nearly impossible to hit Armor Class of -1 (any character requires a 20 to hit), and a full complement of spells to use against the party. They are very unlikely to kill him if he is played correctly. His staff of striking can eliminate any target with a single swing while he is immune to "hold" spells due to his phylactery of action, and sleep will not affect him. Burning hands will likely not work if he has cast his resist fire spell, and neither will burning oil (another useful tactic used by old schoolers). Shocking grasp has a good chance of affecting him though as would some of the illusionist spells. He can take out a party of fully rested characters by himself, but add to this the 15 guards in the prior room (one of which is a 4th level fighter) and the tables are definitely turned. The party will NEVER gain surprise on them because there are 7 guards in the hallway BEFORE they even get this far! Tight quarters and defensive tactics ensures that Lareth will be triumphant. If anyone escapes he would assume that his agents could track them down and kill them before they reached Hommlet. If not he could also send word to the Temple to send reinforcements. The moathouse would likely be able to restock monsters faster than Furyondian troops could organize. If the Hommlet militia is called in, they may be able to overwhelm the men, but only if the secret exit is blocked. It's not likely that Lareth would go quietly but he is Chaotic Evil and would likely surrender to capture than die (given his high Wisdom). It might be better for him to leave the moathouse entirely, perhaps leaving deathtraps for future explorers (likes glyphs of warding at all the secret entrances). He could return later with a larger force of gnolls or bugbears from the Temple, or perhaps wait out any retaliation in a nearby shack or wilderness camp. The bogs around the moathouse are likely to be easy to hide in. If all else fails he can head to Nulb, but reporting failure to his superiors in the Temple would likely get him killed.

These are the only problems I can see with the module. It is otherwise a classic example of how to start a campaign and establish a base town. There are three factions (Good - St. Cuthbert, Neutral - Old Faith, and Evil - Temple forces) and many NPCs to interact with here. There does seem to be a lack of trainers for all the classes, but the major ones are represented (except for thieves). It is likely that training would occur in Verbobonc, necessitating a day trip away from Hommlet and at least a week of time otherwise in training. This is not likely to happen more than twice for each character, and likely but once for most of them during T1. Since the group is assumed to be mostly good or neutral in alignment, training in Verbobonc is possible for all (except assassins). Thieves, clerics, and druids would advance the fastest, followed by fighters. More characters = less XP per person = slower advancement.

It might be fun to run this adventure in reverse - have the party be a group of evil adventuring mercenaries based at the Temple of Elemental Evil and hired on to cause trouble in the region. They could make strikes against the forces of good and use Nulb as a base of operations. Perhaps they are needed to locate other former holdings of the Temple, clear them out, and recruit new forces to the mix. I could see encountering gnolls in the Gnarley and fighting them to prove supremacy and strength. Perhaps they hire bandits as henchmen and raid farms (most of the farmers in or near Hommlet have militia training and could be a match if they have enough fighting men). The end goal here would be an attack on Hommlet itself to gain control of the village and cripple all trade through the region. In order to do this the evil party would have to run interference to keep the major powers of good (Celene, Ostverk, Verbobonc, and Furyondy) from finding out until it was too late. This would include intercepting messengers, rooting out spies, and attacking strongholds of elves, gnomes, and humans nearby. Naturally many NPC parties would be engaged in combat as well. Turning on their leaders in the Temple might also be considered in a bid of power to gain control. Perhaps they ally themselves with one of the elemental temples vying for dominance. Or they could be manipulated into freeing the demon trapped within.

Greyhawk Pre 1980

I came into Dungeons & Dragons a little later than I would have liked. The sad truth of the matter is that I was born too late to actually be involved in the initial printing (I was 4 years old in 1974) and in the wrong place (most of the D&D stuff was in the midwest, I live on the east coast). By the time that AD&D came along I was still too young (8 years old), but well on my way of becoming more interested in that sort of gaming. I had loved Greek Mythology as a child and continued to love sci-fi and fantasy well into my early teens. My father taking me to see Conan the Barbarian (starring Arnold Schwartzenegger) really charged me up for sword and sorcery gaming. So, in 1980, when I had a slight taste of Basic D&D for all of 2 weeks before the game was returned and DUNGEON! purchased, I began my journey into RPGs. At the age of 13 I learned about RPGs and AD&D through a school club. I later joined a group of my own, a bunch of teenage boys bored and looking to have some summer fun. It was the summer of 1983 that introduced me to the World of Greyhawk Boxed set, and the love affair bloomed!

The maps were incredible, the setting so deep and filled with a multitude of possibilities, many of which were beyond my young and inexperienced mind to realize. Sure, we played the initial adventures in a Greyhawk that was only loosely considered to be part of that world (mostly in name only), but simply using the maps was magical to me.

It wasn't until college that I learned about D&D that existed BEFORE AD&D. I had no idea that anything was produced prior to the hardcovers. Learning about Greyhawk Supplement I and the Folio were something of an eye-opener. I had no idea how the game had evolved. What mysteries lay in this booklet? Not many, I can assure you...

The Greyhawk supplement was little more than "new" rules for the game, rules that later saw print in standard AD&D. There were no maps, no explanations of cultures or background, and no secrets to be revealed. It wasn't until I started re-reading the old modules that I realized that Greyhawk as Gary ran it was NOT the published version from the Folio and later sets. Gary's Greyhawk was wide open and little explained, only some information given as pertained to the adventure at hand. If you don't believe me, try reading the intro to T1: Village of Hommlet and try to rectify it with the wilderness map provided - it does not fit. Forum discussions with Gygax revealed that his Greyhawk was a version of North America with a few pieces enlarged or reduced. The Nyr Dyv IS Lake Superior - the shape is nearly identical. The Hellfurnace and Crystalmist Mountains are the Rocky Mountains. The Scarlet Brotherhood apparently resides in Florida, and the Great Kingdom was once the American Colonies with the Malachite Throne situated either in New York or Washington D.C.

Oh well, I may never get to experience the original Greyhawk, but knowing its origins, a new one can be re-created by using my map experiences.

Updating Keep on the Borderlands

I spent a better part of this weekend going over Dungeon Module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands in an effort to see how it could be brought forward and used as an introductory module for D&D 3.5. I was amazed how much of the advice given in the DM section is still relevant to modern gaming. Gygax's "writing voice" came through clearly in every paragraph.

The style of the module is similar to Gygax's own campaign - lots of different monsters in a small area existing in some sort of chaotic ecosystem without rhyme or reason, but close enough to civilization to be considered a threat. I've always assumed that evil congregates as the result of a summons, sort of a calling from some master planner or ultimate villain. Evil creatures would rather attack each other than cooperate, but if some "master" villain calls them together for a purpose, then they may fight but remain obedient to their master out of fear. Such was my assumption with the Caves of Chaos, but the details were never actually placed in the module itself.

I've read on other gaming blogs how people think that B2 is hokey and makes no logical sense. Well, you really do have to take a few things into consideration. First off is game mechanics. You simply can't have a game that relies on experience points and treasure for advancement and NOT have some dungeon-like adventure; gamist adventures work in the system, novelist approaches fail. If you go into the adventure with the idea that the dungeon accommodates the game mechanics, then its much more enjoyable. Secondly, over-thinking and rationalizing why things are the way they are detracts from the adventure and causes it to fail or blow up in one's face. I've seen people slam the module for the concepts - that's odd, because it was an instructional module on how to play the game, not some opus written to win awards or change the face of gaming. The fact that it DID revolutionize gaming is amazing! In essence, though, it was a one shot adventure, a throwaway used to show people how to play and DM the game, then make their own campaigns. In that way it was one of the best teaching tools ever made, and is still relevant today.

So now I'm looking at this adventure and I'd like to update it to D&D 3.5 stats. Doing so unmakes the very reasons why it was such a strong adventure in the first place. Simple, elegant, and quick to adjust on the fly, updating this module would require an added complexity that doesn't work well in instructional writing. The entire ruleset of D&D Basic was easily fit within a few pages of the rulebook. In most instances, you could add rules in as you went, so long as the basics were covered. In order to run an 3.5 game, one has to explain how the modifiers all work together, stat blocks become longer than a line of text, and detailed explanations of why things work in a certain way need to be explained. One cannot have a generic stat block when all the creatures are using different weapons (which affects what feats they have), or they use special gear which has a situational modifier, or when special attacks depend on size and HD categories. It was rather depressing to see that simply detailing the Keep itself was going to be a major hassle - and an unnecessary one according to D&D 3.5 rules. Other than a short paragraph and stat block for the Keep, all the details on buildings and treasure troves within the keep could be eliminated. The focus of the adventure, the Caves of Chaos, becomes the meat of the module. In essence, this is how it should have been, but then again it was an INSTRUCTIONAL module. It's easy to pick and choose details once you have the basics understood. A base town, in my opinion, should be not only a source of rumors and training, but also of adventures within the town walls and interactions in the ways that most novelist gamers would desire.

D&D 3.5 with its myriad of choices and preferences complicates the simplicity of B2 with unnecessary clutter. Perhaps running the adventure as simple B2: The Caves of Chaos would make it a more palatable experience. Also breaking up the adventure by eliminating some of the caves or spreading them out along the northern hills also makes more sense for an instructional adventure. I found from DMing novices that their attention span wavers after a few rooms. They also need closure. By separating the lower level caves and placing them near to each other but not on top of each other makes for an easier and neater game experience. Placing some evil idol in the Caves of the Unknown as a unifying force to gather nearby evil makes it seem like the whole is more cohesive. Perhaps some psionic entity is trapped within the idol (some interdimensional prison) and is summoning a force of evil to free it from its bounds. The clerics of chaos could be working to save their master (hence the tunnel leading out from their cave, probably towards the Caves of the Unknown). The evil emanations have twisted those in the region to evil, hence the reason why the lizardfolk in the fens are Neutral Evil in alignment. The old hermit (perhaps once a druid) is now driven mad as the unnatural entity corrupts his mind - or he could simply be a Neutral Evil druid wanting to be left alone. The fact that he has a mountain lion companion fortifies this assumption.

Some of the caves could include clues that link the whole together - missives from the cleric to the more intelligent tribes in the region, shamans and witchdoctors bearing fetishes with the idol's image, treasures from the ancient Caves of the Unknown paid to the humanoids by the cleric for their continued allegiances, etc. The entity would likely need to be Neutral Evil in alignment to account for all the various alignments congregating under one Evil being. Surely, the Lawful and Chaotic bands of evil humanoids would fight each other for top position (especially goblinoids vs. orcs), but outright tribal warfare would be kept to a minimum. The Keep obviously is strong enough to resist assault from the various humanoids, but a force of evil sweeping through may cause widespread destruction and the Borderlands are vast and unprotected except near the road. Keep forces sent to quell rebellion in one area would mean leaving the roads defenseless to other tribes. Perhaps a necessary artifact is in the hands of the Castellan of the Keep, some artifact necessary for the idol to be released or defeated (or both). Convincing the Castellan of the necessity of this action would require proof and thus the characters have a region to explore, follow clues, and investigate all the caves in the region! Failure may mean that evil forces will continue to arrive in the region until the clerics have enough force to overwhelm even the Keep's defenses.