Dungeons & Dragons Through the Versions: Part 4

When we last left our players, most of them were unconscious or dead in the zombie chamber of T1: The Village of Hommlet under strict AD&D rules (referred to here as "dogma" AD&D). Unfortunately, after re-reading the section on hit points and death in the DMG, apparently everyone in the party (except Elmo) was dead at the end of the encounter. This was (essentially) the first encounter using these rules. Hmm, what's a DM to do?

I put it to a vote. I gave them the options of :

1. continuing using strict dogma rules (which would require re-rolling 1st level characters as replacements); since Elmo survived by retreated, all their gear was lost.
2. restarting the combat from the beginning and then continuing with dogma rules, or 
3. changing to 2nd edition and rolling new characters at 2nd level.

 They opted for the second option (a re-do). So we reset all the hit points to full and everything went back to the way it was when they descended the stairs. This time they opted to avoid the zombie chamber in favor of checking out the northeastern room off the cellar. Knowing that it was empty from the first run, they decided to check out what lay beyond the far door.

To recap, the party consisted of the following (all with similar XP amounts):

• Elana Barzan, 3rd level NG female human cleric of Pelor (16 hp)
• Gort Martin, 2nd/1st level LN male half-orc cleric/fighter of Wee Jas (19 hp)
• Trixalix, 1st/1st level N male gnome fighter/illusionist (hp: 3)
• Elmo, 4th level LG male human ranger (hp: 41)
• Marshall, 0-level militiaman (the widow's elder son) (hp: 3)
• William, 0-level militiaman (one of the brewer's apprentices) (hp: 4)
• Kevin, 0-level linkboy (the potboy from the Welcome Wench Inn) (hp: 3)
• Spugnoir, 2nd level CN male human magic-user (hp: 4)

As you can see, most of the party is in the low end of single digits for hit points. All the rules from the PHB and DMG were in play, as well as any rules given in the module itself. Therefore, Lubash the ogre, who was waiting behind the door, was 5+1 HD with a huge bardiche doing weapon damage + bonus for an 18/percentile strength (2d4+5). However, given the design of the doorway and the layout of the room, there was never going to be a way to swing that huge weapon! The players played it safe. The gnome listened at the door and heard the ogre muttering something to himself. Therefore the party was not surprised. They opened the door on the first shot but did not surprise the ogre. The half-orc shot his crossbow at the ogre at the same time that Lubash asked for the password (simultaneous initiative). The following round he advanced, weapon in hand while Gort and Elmo remained in the doorway to shield the others. The ogre tried twice to grab someone and drag them into the room, but he failed (using the grappling rules in the DMG - the first attempt flat out failed, the second was deflected by a weapon strike). The wounded ogre withdrew into the center of the room and waited for the party to approach him. A bardiche is a slashing weapon and there was not enough room to swing it through the doorway (assuming it was sized for an ogre, it would have been 10' long and required 10' space to use). So Elmo and Gort moved in with their battle axe and bastard sword. They made short work of the ogre while the others remained at the ready in the ante-chamber.

After slaying the ogre they examined the room and found his treasure chest. Although they poked around in the bedding on the floor, no one thought to cast detect magic, so the elven cloak went unnoticed among the other dirty rags and skins, carpet remnants, and tapestry scraps. They then went over to the barred southern door and found three prisoners (2 humans and a badly beaten gnome). The party opted to help them escape their imprisonment and helped them out. Elana healed the gnome with a cure light wounds spell and was given his iron ring as a reward (sign of a gnome-friend; better reaction rolls). On the way up the stairs they ran afoul of a pack of 5 giant rats, but Gort and his hunting dog Mort took them out in a few rounds while the others were stuck waiting in the stairwell.

They left the moathouse without further incident and made a litter to carry the gnome back while the mule was laden with the treasure chest and the party's packs. When they arrived in Hommlet they took the injured captives to the Temple of St. Cuthbert and donated 3 gp for the care they would receive from the resident cleric (a place to rest and be tended to, but no spells cast - cure light wounds was way too expensive for a 0-level human or 1st level gnome).

The party headed to the Druid of the Grove and explained what they found. Jaroo urged them to continue their investigations with Elmo (who finally revealed that he was a ranger in service to the Viscount). We ended the session here, but the general mood was good and the players were eager to return to the adventure. I have to calculate XP for the monsters and treasure recovered, but I can assure them that it will not be much. They killed 2 green slimes, a huge ogre, and 5 giant rats. They walked out with 823 cp, 46 sp, and 3 gp. Not much of a haul given AD&D coin conversions (I think it comes out to a little over 9 gp in total). Even if they do manage to level, they are poor and don't have nearly enough to train at 1,500 gp/level!!

So far we have determined that turning is problematic, and that it's better to wait for a group of undead to come close BEFORE actually turning (not only to get the whole group in one shot, but also to allow fleeing "free attacks" for the fighters as they run away. We house ruled death at -10 hp so long ago that I forgot what the actual rule was. Apparently, if you go from positive hp to 0 hp (or optionally as low as -3), then you start to lose -1 hp each round thereafter until you die at -10 hp. However, if you go from positive hp to -4 or fewer hp, then your character is essentially dead. The negative hp rule only applies when hp drop to exactly 0 (or as low as -3 from the same hit). This differs slightly from death at 0 hp, but not by much, and makes more sense to me now. Don't know why it took so long for me to come to this conclusion! I opted to allow the optional 0 to -3 buffer for this version of dogma AD&D. For sticklers who don't like the "down to -3" addition, negative hit points only come into play when the character exactly reaches 0 hit points. This is just another of those special cases in the DMG that was given 3 paragraphs to explain something that (in my opinion) rarely happens. Regardless, there are no long, drawn out death scenes in AD&D where the hero keeps talking for several minutes while the others look on sadly. Such is only for the movies or sappy love novels and not for swords & sorcery adventure! Curiously enough, I looked up 2nd edition AD&D and they did away with this buffer - death occurs at 0 hp!

Dungeons & Dragons Through the Versions: Part 3

Well, last night was a dismal session. We sat down to finalize all the details on the player characters and work out any questions about the rules since we were using by-the-book ("dogma") rules for AD&D and this differs somewhat from my house-ruled AD&D campaign that we've been playing for the past 16 years. Everyone seemed OK with the rules so we just finished up some encumbrance accounting and then I had the players select their spells for the session.

The party, only three members strong with a guaranteed return of Spugnoir (NPC 2nd-level magic-user) realized that they would need some assistance (or meat shields, as they put it) in order to survive. They spent an extra day in Hommlet at the inn asking around to see if anyone was interested in joining their group. They got some interest from one of the potboys at the inn who agreed to hire on as the linkboy for the expedition. They also attracted one of the widow's sons, a farmer from down the road, who was an active militiaman. One of the brewer's apprentices, looking to make some extra coin, also applied for the position. He too was an active militiaman but without much training. The party offered them all standard wages per the DMG, and each rolled reactions and accepted the offers (basically 1 gp/month). Since two of the villagers were militiamen, Elmo, who was also at the inn, offered his services as a heavy footman. The party, impressed with his apparent strength, agreed on the condition that he "kept off the sauce" for the tenure of his employment. He agreed with a wink, and was hired at 2 gp/month (with a bonus of 1 gp if he survived). Little did the party suspect his true motives and abilities. Elmo wanted to keep an eye on the villagers to make sure they were fairly treated and kept safe - I ruled that his family was friendly with the widow and her sons, plus the brewer apprentice was a Cuthbertine, as I assume Elmo is as well. The party then purchased equipment for the men and sent them home to prepare for the next morning. Of course, Elmo switched out his equipment for his own adventuring gear, concealing his chain mail as best he could beneath a tabard of the village militia.

So the next morning the party was 8 members strong, plus a hunting dog and a pack mule to haul treasure back to town.

• Elana Barzan, 3rd level NG human cleric of Pelor (hp: 16)
• Gort Martin, 2nd/1st level LN half-orc cleric/fighter of Wee Jas (hp: 19)
• Trixalix, 1st/1st level N gnome fighter/illusionist (hp: 3)
• Spugnoir, 2nd level CN human magic-user (hp: 4)
• Marshall, 0-level NG human, light footman (hp: 4)
• William, 0-level LG human, light footman (hp: 3)
• Kevin, 0-level NG human, linkboy (hp: 4)
• Elmo, 4th level LG human ranger (hp: 41), posing as a heavy footman

They left in the morning of the next day after eating a hearty breakfast at the inn. It took them 2 hours to get to the ruins and they entered without encounter or opposition. Knowing that the green slime awaited them at the bottom of the stairs, they took two of the spears dropped by the dead bandits, wrapped them in cloth, soaked them with the pot of oil found on the stairway shelves, and used them to burn the pools of slime away at a safe distance (an excellent plan).

When they got to the bottom of the stairs they turned east and looked around. They noted the piles of debris to the west and opted instead to investigate the northeastern door. Gort opened the door easily (17 Str) and they looked in to see that the place was pretty much empty with another closed door to the northeast. Not wanting to leave potential danger at their backs, they then investigated the southern chamber with the columns. This would prove to be their undoing! First though, Elana tied off her mule to the eastern column of the entry cellar.

Since they boldly marched into the chamber and down towards the torture chamber opening on the east wall, they were in position to be attacked by the dozen zombies infesting this place! They were thankfully not surprised (benefiting from Elmo's ranger ability to reduce surprise chances). However, they were organized in such a way that Gort and Elmo at the front of the party were at the entrance to the torture chamber, and the back of the party (Spugnoir and Elana) were against the cubicle doors when they all opened. Now, I know that the module states that the zombies emerge in pairs, but I assumed that the sudden entrance of the entire party into the midst of the "trap" would cause all the zombies to activate at once and attack. They would still attempt to drive their prey into the torture chamber by cutting off escape to the north and south.

Now, we had to stop and re-read all the passages on turning undead (it's been a while for all of us). Apparently, the cleric has to boldly step forward and command the undead to begone. This implies that the undead have to see the holy symbol. Since most of the zombies were still in the cubicles (except the extra two I placed in the torture chamber) that meant that Gort could only affect two, while Elana could affect those at the openings of the cubicles that could see her. Both clerics of course opted to turn undead on the first round and since zombies go last, they got to go first. Both were successful! Meanwhile, Elmo moved into the torture chamber to attack one of the turned zombies and the rest of the party reorganized to better protect themselves from the oncoming undead. When the zombie ran, Elmo got a free attack and struck it (but didn't kill it). The two zombies in the torture chamber fled to the far corners and would remain thus for 6 rounds. Three zombies in the cubicles directly near Elana also fled to the rear of their rooms and would not emerge for 9 rounds. The rest came shambling forth to attack the party members. Poor rolls were already plaguing the party!

We kept the combat slow in order to make sure that we did not miss anything important. I had to make quite a few rulings on situations, like using a column for cover, switching weapons in combat, where characters could move and what situations would affect them during the combat. Relatively quickly, things went south for the party. The 3 hp gnome got his ass as far away from the melee as possible, ending up in the torture chamber with the two turned zombies. He decided to switch to his short bow and began plugging away (but missing terribly). Elmo was doing great against the zombies with his 18/43% strength and magic battle axe, but even he could not be everywhere. The rest of the party was holding its own at first - then the NPCs began dropping. First Spugnoir was knocked unconscious (down to 0 hp with one hit), then William slumped against the column from a zombie back-hand (also at 0 hp). Marshall hung in a good long while before he was felled with a mighty blow (down to -2 hp) and began bleeding out. Kevin the linkboy actually took out one zombie with his dagger before he fell to a massive blow (down to -3 hp and dying). Elmo was moving among the combat as he was able, slaying zombies as we went, but poor Gort had trouble hitting the damn undead things. Rolls of 1, 2, 5, 7, and 9 repeatedly stymied his chance to cleave the zombies. His dog, Mort, was terrified but was coerced to attack by the half-orc who was by this point surrounded by fallen comrades and advancing zombies. Elana and Trix fell as the turned zombies eventually shook off the fear and advanced (both reduced exactly to 0 hp). Healing spells were being used but the rolls simply were not high enough. Eventually, even the mighty Gort was felled (-3 hp), leaving Mort the hunting dog and Elmo to take out the remaining 3 zombies.

But apparently, the dice were being malicious. This combat had dragged on for about 15 rounds at this point and I forgot to roll for wandering monsters. Wouldn't you know it - I rolled a 1! A curious small ogre came out of the northern door to see what all the commotion was about and spotted Elmo fighting a zombie by the column to the south. He advanced, bellowing in rage about intruders....

Elmo and Mort were able to defeat the remaining zombies, then the dog ran from the fierce ogre since his master had fallen. Elmo alone remained to tackle the ogre while several of the party members lay unconscious or dying on the floor nearby. Several rounds passed with both Elmo and the ogre swinging wildly (missed on both sides for about 8 rounds). Then Elmo scored a hit and did max damage, essentially a one-shot kill! Unfortunately, it was too late for Marshall, Kevin, and poor Gort, all of whom bled out from their wounds. Trixalix, Elana, Spugnoir and William were still unconscious and Elmo had no way to revive them. The terrified dog licked its wounds and whined in the other room. And this is where the session ended after nearly 4 hours of gaming....

If the clerics simply waited for the zombies to all emerge before turning, they would have been able to affect more of them. Of course, their rolls for number affected were not very good, so who knows. Having the zombies emerge in pairs might have affected the combat too, since it may have forced the turning to occur prematurely. A cleric can only turn once per group of undead if they are all of the same type (per the rules). The fighter/illusionist had no offensive spells; he also was too scared of dying to enter the fray as a melee combatant. The party really planned their attacks well, but the rolls were just pitiful (on both sides, since I was also rolling pathetically for the zombie). The combat lasted well over 20 rounds, but should not have in my opinion. All rolls were made openly and no punches were pulled on my part. My opinion of the T1 dungeons remains the same - the module is a meat-grinder!! Given the amount of XP likely to be accumulated by a group of 6-8 1st level characters, there is no way they could survive this level. Even these 2nd to 3rd level characters had trouble with a bunch of hirelings and NPCs helping.

Now, we intend to continue the experiment, but since the half-orc is not viable for raising from the dead, that player must now roll another character. Unfortunately, I see no easy way for these characters to be saved. Elmo has no chance of rescuing all the characters involved by himself, and to leave them here after such a combat (after the ogre yelled out) would mean that Lubash would eat well for his next meal. Unconsciousness in the dungeon pretty much means death in this case. The frequency of encounter checks is 1 in 6 every turn! An encounter of giant rats, bugbears, or gnolls would result in the removal of the fallen characters to stew pots or death by rat scavenging. With only one mule, and help 2 hours away, that's a LOT of encounter checks. Now Elmo is also wounded (down to half his hit points), so meetings with multiple creatures could also spell his doom. I can see no good outcome of this if the logical paths are followed. Elmo could retreat to an upper room, barricade himself inside with the survivors, and rest until they are able to recover their hit points and revive. This seems the best option, since the encounter rolls above are only 1 in 12 per turn and the worst that could be encountered would be giant rats and brigands. I think this is what will have to happen. Elmo could not, in good conscience, leave the fallen to die horribly while he goes for help. Besides, if Elana can be revived, she can use her healing to bolster the others and increase their chance of survival. The dead should be taken back and given a decent burial. Elmo will also reveal himself as a ranger in service to the Viscount, and a defender of Hommlet. I'm certain that the Cuthbertine clerics or the druid would approve of healing if Elmo spoke on their behalf. Elmo could also urge the party to return to the ruins in order to eliminate any other threats therein, since it is obvious that some evil force is working to strengthen the forces of Elemental Evil once more!

Dungeons & Dragons Through the Versions: Part 2

Last weekend we sat down to make new characters for the AD&D Dogma phase of the experiment. Dogma rules basically use the rules as written - no house rules, adaptations, or additions. Anything in the books is fair game. Only the Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual were being used. Some supplemental information had to be incorporated since we are using the World of Greyhawk as the campaign world - none of this impacted the characters at all, and adds more flavor than crunch.

We rolled stats using Method I (4d6, drop the lowest, arrange as desired). I set the beginning XP as the minimum amount to bring a fighter to the beginning of 2nd level (2,001) plus the amount of XP the party would have received from all the adventuring they did with their previous basic characters (preserving a feeling of accomplishment and reward). The total was roughly 2950 xp. Those characters with 10% would increase this amount. The players settled on a half-orc cleric/fighter 2nd/1st level (Gort), gnome fighter/illusionist 1st/1st level (Trixalix), and a human cleric 3rd level (with an 18 Wis!)(Elana). We adjusted stats by age categories (as mentioned in the DMG) and the half-orc turned into a brute! Starting money was as rolled in the PHB + any of the treasures they recovered in the Basic phase. They used that to outfit themselves. Up for grabs were the 4 +1 magic arrows from the bandit treasure. Using the charts in the back of the DMG, I allowed them to roll for possible magic items. The half-orc got a battle axe +1, the gnome took the magic arrows since he missed all his percentages, and the cleric received a spell scroll of snake charm. Numerous charts were consulted to develop the height, weight, secondary skills, saving throws, etc. The poor gnome got the raw deal when he rolled for hit points - only 3! The other two rolled really well for hp (the cleric had 3 HD and rolled 16 total, the half-orc with his amazing constitution has 19 hp!

We sat down at 7:30 pm to begin making characters and never got to play. It took over 4 hours to roll up all the information we needed to make the characters by the book. The gnome rolled for his spellbook randomly, but I had to take pity on him and allowed one reroll since he really had nothing of much use. He got detect invisibility, change self, and gaze reflection. He opted to reroll the gaze reflection and took dancing lights instead; much more useful! They equipped themselves and then we went over the encumbrance rules....again.... We have a house rule in my regular AD&D campaign, but we opted to use the value in the back of the PHB for current encumbrance values. We then went over everyone's characters to make sure all the math was correct. I had to point out that the encumbrance rules would be strictly adhered to. The half-orc bought a hunting dog (he rolled hunter for secondary skill). The gnome wants a mule to carry all his stuff - but I kept pointing out that if the party comes to a ladder, chasm, or had to climb using ropes, they would have to leave the mule someplace untended. I might have to do some henchmen and hirelings to supplement the party on this one. Knowing what exists in the lower levels of the moathouse, that gnome may not live much past the first encounter!

Some of the rules that will be in play are the helm rule from the DMG, the -10 death rule from the DMG, the cleric/deity rules from DDG, and all the rules from the PHB. Psionics were checked for the human but the roll failed (thank goodness). They have decided to keep Spugnoir on for his sleep spell. I might argue that they should look for others to join their group (in fact, they suspect that there is something going on with Elmo, but they have no idea what). The party alignments are NG (cleric of Pelor), LN (half-orc cleric/fighter of Wee Jas), and True Neutral (gnome). Spugnoir makes a good fit, and Elmo would also be a decent fit, but might see the half-orc as a problem. They have no thief, so perhaps Furnok would also be a good fit. Kobort and Turuko are already slain, so no worries there. My concern is the large number of humanoids in the dungeons - the ogre in particular - and the large number of guards protecting Lareth. Without an elf, their chance of locating secret doors just became that much harder. Without Unearthed Arcana, they lack some spells common to illusionists and clerics. The fighter/illusionist is going to have a hard time of it - his strength is not too good although his Dex is a 17. I suggested he remain at range and support the others instead of wading into combat - at least until he can increase his level and hit points. The cleric has 10% xp bonus, and so does the half-orc, but the gnome has no bonus and will be lagging behind the others in power.

So far we have seen that character creation takes much longer. The gnome player is creating another character in anticipation of his gnome meeting an untimely end. He has decided to do this with me during the week. Multi-class options in AD&D, given the same amount of XP, leads to a lag in power that more than makes up for the increase in ability options. For the benefit of gaining a single utilitarian spell, the gnome sacrificed a whole level of fighter and lost out on hit points as well. The player with the human cleric only chose that class because she could not decide what she wanted to be. Instead she took the scores in the order rolled and this led her to be a cleric! So more options does not mean a better character unless you know what you want ahead of time. Our first stumbling block was encumbrance, which was never clearly explained in the PHB, and not at all in the DMG. We are following the rules as written but I reserve the right to make a ruling based on common sense when necessary. We also had a problem with the equipment in some cases. The game is written with an understanding that adventuring is the only thing the characters will be doing. Clothing, for example, is not listed for sale, although accessories such as boots, cloaks, belts, etc, are listed. Helms are important when the "braining rule" is included and the details of the armor types are vague as to what type of head covering is provided! It's going to be interesting running with the old initiative rules again. It might end with me ditching the system early in favor of 2nd edition rules! We'll have to see how twitchy I get after the first combat session....

Dungeons & Dragons Through the Versions: Part 1

My gaming group has graciously agreed to help me perform an experiment. We've been playing AD&D 1st Edition now for over 15 years - we've seen the best of the rules and the various inconsistencies in the books. I've also exposed them to 2nd edition and 3rd edition on occasion, but we all come back to playing 1st edition. I have a 4-5 page house rules document that I've updated continuously as new problems arise. So we decided to deconstruct the rules and see how they can be changed without significantly altering the "flavor" of the system.

In order to conduct this experiment, I converted the classic module T1: Village of Hommlet into Basic (Moldvay) D&D, AD&D by-the-book (or "Dogma" AD&D), 2nd edition AD&D, 3rd edition D&D, 4th edition D&D, and 5th edition D&D. I also converted the module to Pathfinder rules (which are just about the same as 3rd edition with some exceptions) and will be trying to convert to Hackmaster as well.

We've already completed phase 1 of the experiment. Phase 1 consisted of Basic D&D in the upper ruins of the moathouse. We spent quite a lot of time role-playing in the village before actually getting to the moathouse, but that's more of the party's style than a failure of the module (besides, half the module is concerned with detailing the village anyway - why not use it?). All the characters were set at 3rd level (although I should have instead used XP totals to determine level....live and learn). The players rolled up a lackluster, dimwitted Thief named Allawishas, a Cleric of Fharlanghn named Axil, and a female Elf named Elquis. They were decently geared and each rolled a single magic item to begin (to simulate prior adventure). The Thief rolled a hand axe +1, the cleric rolled a potion of healing, and the elf rolled a wand of paralysis with 4 charges. The thief had very low scores (6 Int, 5 Wis, 8 Str) but a decent Dex (15). The Elf was mediocre at best. The Cleric had a 7 Int, but a decent Wis (14). They entered Hommlet and immediately encountered the NPCs in the inn. They shuffled around the village a while, gaining rumors and shopping in the various stores along the main road. Then they were approached by a jittery Spugnoir (magic-user NPC) who was curious to see if he could join them to explore the Moathouse. He only desired first pick of any scrolls found and in exchange would use his potent sleep spell to help the party. They agreed (begrudgingly) and after 4 sessions headed out to the moathouse.

Their first encounter with the giant frogs out front was a nail-biter! Lackluster stats and the first time they ran under Basic rules led to a lot of page-flipping and questions. I took things slowly, explaining why certain things were happening when questioned. We used ONLY those rules written into the basic rulebook (so no charging into combat) and followed the order of combat listed in the charts. They took a beating from the frogs but killed all but one of the smaller frogs who jumped off into the moat to escape death. That combat took about a half-hour but was only about 10 rounds long. We took so long because of having to explain things and going slowly to get used to the system. The players liked quite a few aspects of the combat system since it was so much easier to do than AD&D. All the characters survived, but the cleric was grievously bitten by a large frog. They healed up as well as they could and proceeded inside on the next session.

This session had them exploring exactly as I thought they would. They headed to the open tower door to the left of the main gate. They looked around from the doorway using a lantern and decided to explore inside. The Elf went in first and luckily was not surprised by the crab spider lurking therein. The party entered combat with the spider and triumphed after a few rounds. No one was poisoned but the elf did suffer a bite. They searched the tower very thoroughly and took the treasure in the pile at the center of the floor (some coins and an ivory box). The Thief climbed to the ledge above and looked out over the courtyard from the doorway above leading to the parapets. From this they determined that the upper floors were a ruined mess and not accessible to the party. They then climbed the stairs and entered the main building. They opted to go to the western corridor first. They had some luck forcing open doors after a few tries but found nothing of interest. The kitchen door was very stuck and they gave up after a few tries. They encountered a giant gecko lizard in the barracks at the end of the corridor and were not surprised. They took some damage during the fight but were able to successfully kill the creature. Wounded, out of spells, and now laden with a chest of treasure, they decided to head back to town. On their way back to the road, they were ambushed by Turuko and Kobort who had followed them to the moathouse! The elf was easily able to take them out using her wand of paralysis (the party won initiative and were not surprised), and the possibly TPK turned into a windfall for the party. They were able to kill the paralyzed opponents without ruining their gear! They stripped them down and then left the bodies in the marsh grass along the road (the entire party was of Neutral alignment). Back in town they sold their valuables at the moneychangers and pawned off the gear they found at the Traders (for 40-60% of value). No one made a level (no big surprise there), but they were all looking forward to more.

The next session had them splitting treasure, buying new gear, and talking to the druid in Hommlet. They then returned to the moathouse to explore the southern section of the main building. After finding very little in the side rooms, they entered the large southern dining hall and encountered the giant snake lairing inside. They were not surprised and engaged the creature with missiles and spells before closing in for the kill. The thief located the jeweled dagger (a good find at 850 gp value)! They then headed north again to investigate the storage area/stairway. They were attacked by a horde of normal rats that jumped and scrambled at them from the shelves. It took some time but they managed to kill all the rats off. They investigated the shelves and found the jug of lantern oil. Then the thief checked the stairs for traps. While searching he came upon the gold ring on the third step (and pocketed it). They descended and were narrowly missed by one of the green slimes on the ceiling. They decided to head back up the stairs since they had no fire to destroy the thing and could see another blob on the lower ceiling. They ended the night at the top of the stairs..

The final session had the party hearing noise in the main chamber. The bandits had snuck out to see what all the commotion was about in the place. The crossbowmen crept forth, their only illumination being torchlight from the room behind them. The party detected them and doused their lantern. Then they used the cover of the shadows to begin assaulting the visible bandits with missiles! The bandits began to fire back! The party thought there were only 4 of them, but the ones that survived the initial missile assault called for help from the room and over the next few rounds all the remaining bandits entered the fray! The party was trapped in the little alcove in the dark (two being human, and only the elf being able to see in the dark). They could not go down the stairs because of the green slime, and could not flee the building for fear of being taken out by a crossbow, javelin, or spear. They decided to fight it out and it took several rounds of fighting to win. A lot of lucky (and unlucky rolls) dragged the combat on and two of the party members (the thief and the elf) were severely hurt (death at 0 hp is very final in this game). The cleric and Spugnoir leapt to their defense and ended up facing the bandit leader for their efforts. Spugnoir took out the last two remaining bandits with his sleep spell which he almost lost but for a winning initiative roll! The party looted the bodies and the elf snuck into the chamber using her invisibility spell. She found a lone bandit at the back exit (hole in the wall) trying to dig out the chest to grab the spoils for himself and escape. She killed the bandit and summoned the others into the room. They ended up with quite a bit of treasure. They loaded it all in the chest and carried it back to the village.

The players enjoyed themselves and did not mind the limited options. They had a good time role-playing their flawed characters, playing up the low intelligence (perhaps a bit too much). They liked the fast pace of combat and the quickness of rolling characters. They did miss some of the options of AD&D, but given their ability scores, they would not have been able to play very different characters. As a side note, the ability scores were generated using 3d6 in order which is the method presented in the rulebook. The ability score adjustment table was also appreciated since it gave bonuses for lower scores (but also had penalties for scores of 8 or lower). All in all it was a success. We ended the Basic phase there and the players were instructed that the next session would continue the adventure, but with different characters and using 1st edition AD&D "dogma" rules.