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Well, well, well. Some of you may remember my adventures in making a Powers & Perils character. It turns out someone - using known errata and the author's partial draft - has made a Powers & Perils 2nd Edition I still loving love this game for no reason I can really understand, so I'm pretty goddamn pumped.
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Jan 30, 2017 00:08
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Doresh posted:Did I mention that I've found at least one WEG Star Wars adventure where the GM is actually supposed to hand the players a script with lines to say? Which serves no other purpose than the PCs explaining their mission to themselves? The saving grace of that, of course, is that it took place at the start of the adventure. For real, I am pretty okay with doing whatever it takes to set the scene at the beginning. Also, these 'quick combat' rolls are, by far, the most absurd mechanic I've seen in an adventure. There's not even a goal as such, like "They need to drop 50 zombies." It's just rolling for slightly different flavor text and maybe an injury of some kind.
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Jan 30, 2017 16:45
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theironjef posted:There's no doubt we'll get to it eventually (I'm pricing first edition right now), but incidentally I'm reading through Shadowrun Anarchy right now, just for fun. It is a weird book and I am of mixed opinion.
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Feb 3, 2017 18:23
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wiegieman posted:The problem with mature and challenging adventures for adults is that most people who spend their time writing RPG modules are not very mature.
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Feb 4, 2017 22:52
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If I was reliable and not lazy, I'd do a concurrent review of Shadowrun 1e.
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Feb 5, 2017 03:59
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Jerik posted:(content)  I dimly recall using it as a resource for research papers in middle school. 
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Jul 3, 2019 14:20
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I'm having the players roll their hit dice in my Dungeon Crawl Classics game because that's kind of the game's jam. However, I'm letting them choose between "roll only the new hit die" and "reroll all your hit dice, including that d4 you got at 0-level." So if they roll low they just need to survive a level.
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Jul 4, 2019 17:15
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kommy5 posted:Also, this should be in a different book. I mean, these are ostensibly Christian knights. They don't really fit into this unless... Oh dear. Are we going to see DnD trying to put in Abrahamic pantheons? I both dread that idea and look forward to it with morbid curiosity.
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Jul 4, 2019 23:22
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Halloween Jack posted:Why wasn't Earthdawn more successful over time? Also frankly the ED model of "let's release $15-20 books of middling fiction with like 3 pages of rules text and also there's a metaplot" died along with the 90's, thank goodness. There's a few years where it was wildly successful, when AD&D 2e was in a death spiral. I ran it for the better part of the 90's. I still miss it sometimes, and I'm never letting go of my books, but it's aged pretty poorly.
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Jul 9, 2019 04:40
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I vaguely remember getting a lot of mileage out of bits and pieces of the DDG's Celtic Mythos when I was running my elementary-school (A)D&D game. Like using the Torc of the Gods, and the sword that never missed but broke if you used it wrong. If I didn't mention it before, I think I used the DDG more than almost any other AD&D book of the time.
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Jul 18, 2019 17:53
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Jerik posted:Unfortunately, both Sutherland and Trampier passed away at relatively young ages (they were both in their fifties). He somehow ended up as a cab driver in Carbondale, IL and apparently never had an inkling of how valuable his original artwork would be. He was still incredibly angry at TSR, which had evidently led to him getting out of the art business entirely.
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Jul 18, 2019 19:41
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Xiahou Dun posted:Apparently he doesn't even know how to make a grilled cheese though. the secret to great grilled cheese
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Jul 26, 2019 04:06
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Xiahou Dun posted:everyone knows that. It's just what you do. The two jokers above me. 
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Jul 26, 2019 04:32
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Eoris: Essence feels like it has about a million words, and frankly seems unreviewable. It's dense, often boring, and impenetrable as hell. Art's gorgeous at least.
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Aug 2, 2019 23:14
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oh god the nibovian wives are still around, lmbo
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Aug 7, 2019 12:53
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Wait a drat minute. Has nobody done this amazing adventure yet? I didn't see it on the index. 
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Aug 24, 2019 15:22
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Night10194 posted:Now is this adventure amazing because it's actually a well-made pre-made adventure that plays to the system's strengths and is fun to play, or is it amazing because it is ridiculous bullshit? And yes this is my well-loved personal copy complete with poster map.
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Aug 24, 2019 16:13
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Night10194 posted:I didn't know D&D went to level 100. Not sure if I should wait for the new post or just go for it later.
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Aug 24, 2019 16:20
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H4: Throne of Bloodstone, Part 1 Okay so let's review this piece of happy horse-poo poo, because somehow nobody has yet.  This is Throne of Bloodstone, which holds the dubious honor of being the highest-level adventure ever released for any edition of D&D. Zoom in real quick to that level range, why don't you.  Yeah, that's no typo. What, you didn't know AD&D had levels up to 100? Well ... it kinda doesn't, and the adventure will go to great lengths to reassure us of this fact. But have no fear, not only will we talk about how AD&D works at that level, we'll show some super-great pregenerated 100-level PCs as examples. This is the fourth adventure in the "H" series, better known as the "Bloodstone" series. It's not so much well-regarded as well-ignored; the entire series is for high-level adventurers and each installment has a significant BATTLESYSTEMTM component. And although this adventure proudly proclaims itself as part of the Forgotten Realms, that's at least half bullshit. Let's take this one at a time.  First, BATTLESYSTEMTM? (OK, I'll stop, but that's how it's referred to every single time.) That was a big ol' box set released in the mid-eighties as AD&D's solution to mass combat. I had a copy, way back when - it was a gigantic mass of about a million cardboard chits of various sizes, some instructions on how to paint minis, and a collection of fairly detailed rules about how one might run mass battles and/or involve AD&D characters into them. I can't really comment on how well the game worked - I never once ran a fight in it - but I remember the intense feeling of irony as a game which arose from a mass combat system itself generated a mass combat system. As for Bloodstone Pass and the Realms... The first Bloodstone adventure, H1 Bloodstone Pass (for Level 15+ characters) was released in 1985 alongside Battlesystem. It was a huge production - almost a box set - with a bunch of buildings and whatnot. It wasn't originally set in the Realms - it predates them, in fact, at least as far as official TSR publications go. The modules' generic setting of Vaasa and Damara (along with the titular pass through the Galena Mountains) was clumsily shoehorned in for the Realms' publication by melting a sizable glacier from Greenwood's setting. H3 was the first Bloodstone adventure to mention the Realms in any capacity, but this one - H4 - was the first Bloodstone adventure to bear the Realms' logo. Placing it in the Realms made no sense and no difference; nothing else in the adventures even pretends to be associated with that setting. I know vanishingly little about the other adventures; I never planned to run Battlesystem, so I never bothered getting them. One more note - this adventure was published in 1988, in the very waning days of AD&D 1e. So there's a lot of stuff here which just didn't carry over into 2e at all. Assassins, Demons, the Abyss ... yeah, it's an ugly, chaotic mess. In a few ways it's honestly kind of glorious - it has a killer second act, IMO - but it's also a huge nightmare. Next post, I'll go through the sizable introduction (tldr: "100th level characters aren't much stronger than 20th level, but be dicks to them") and probably skip straight to the pregens in the back. dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Aug 25, 2019 |
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Aug 25, 2019 01:45
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H4: Throne of Bloodstone, Part 2 Okay, so why not dive straight loving into this thing. The Bloodstone series has an actually-admirable goal, and the clear-eyed intro to this adventure puts it front and center: Although AD&D is written with the assumption that high-level characters become rulers and get castles and whatnot, most players prefer to ignore all of that and keep on delving into ever-more-difficult dungeons. So these adventures try to make rulership exciting by um.... still giving them a lot of dungeons, but also tossing in mass battles on the regular. Ah well. And just so nobody worries that TSR has all of a sudden endorsed - gasp! - those dirty powergamers, Doug Niles reassures us... quote:This is the first module written for people who run super-high level characters. Although we do not endorse the so-called "Monty Haul" campaign, there's nothing wrong in sampling what really high-level play has to offer! Then the module proceeds to give us many  about the previous adventures in the series and the overall history of Vaasa and Damara. That is not what I am here for, and presumably not what you, gentle readers, are here for. We are here for bonkers extreme-level AD&D bullshit. Although I will note that H2 (Mines of Bloodstone) is apparently particularly loathsome, according to this stellar review from 1987. Have no fear, H4 is every bit as bullshit and then some. So without further ado, let's get straight to RUNNING 100th-LEVEL CHARACTERS First, they address the big ol' elephant in the room. Yes, the entire game line to this point - and the many words about running campaigns from Gygax and everyone else - told you to quash those munchkin impulses, kill that inner powergamer, and revel in the joy of moderately-powerful heroes. Mr. Niles provides a good rundown of why, which I will just go ahead and quote wholesale. quote:Heretofore, we've been encouraging you to moderate your lusts for power and play "ordinary" fantasy characters rather than the great heroes of myth and legend. There are, of course, quite good reasons for this. quote:In spite of these reasons, there are corresponding reasons why people want to play super-high characters legitimately. First, we believe, is the thrill of role playing great fantasy heroes - wizards with a seemingly endless arsenal of powerful spells, great fighters who can cleave an enemy from head to breastbone with a single blow, crafty thieves of ultimate skill and daring. There is also the desire to test the ultimate limits of the game system, to "max-out" a character with everything that the AD&D game can provide. And finally there is the desire to confront in battle those creatures in the various monster manuals that are beyond the reach of ordinary mortals. quote:100th-level characters are not 10 times more powerful than 10th-level characters; apply all the rules strictly; and never give a 100th-level character an even break. 1. 100th-level characters are not 10 times more powerful than 10th-level characters OK so those AD&D character progression tables? Even if you think you can extrapolate, those don't extend to infinity, so you shouldn't. Magic-Users don't get more spells past 29th level, Fighters cap out attack and saves at 17th, and Thieves cap out around there too (or at 23rd for the Thief-Acrobat). By and large - with one enormous exception - the difference between a 100th-level character and a 30th-level character is something like 70-210 hit points. That's it. (Note: This idiotic. More on this soon. And that exception? Here's a pop quiz. In AD&D, what's the damage cap when a high-level wizard casts a fireball?) Oh it also mentions magic items, but the easy solution there is to not use any homebrewed items and stick rigidly to what's been officially published (but not artifacts). Oh and there's encumbrance, don't forget that! (except for all the ways characters can ignore encumbrance of course). And yeah, there's ability scores to worry about - odds are they've pushed a lot of them really high. But wait! 25 is the cap for everything, and is 25 really that bad? Sure, Strength 25 is a lot, but really it's just +7 to-hit and +14 to damage. Yeah, Intelligence 25 gives you immunity to illusions, so just don't use illusions. Oh, Wisdom can make you immune to charm, so don't use that, either. And yeah, Constitution will give regeneration, but that's a paltry 144 hp per day if you think about it. And sure, with bonuses, some of those saving throws will get pushed below 0. Simple solution: give them saving throw penalties! Like, say, -10 or so. Bet you didn't think of that! So basically the way to deal with 100th-level characters is to not give them anything except extra HP, and avoid any challenges which play to their strengths. Great advice, guys, A+ Oh! And that exception. You probably guessed it just by the way I asked the question, but in AD&D 1e, there is no cap to the damage of fireball, lightning bolt, etc. None at all. That came about in 2nd edition and carried over to 3rd, so for a lot of players it's just always been that way. It's the one area of the AD&D where there's just a formula presented with no table. So here, the authors can't just dumbly point to a table and pretend "extrapolation" doesn't exist - that the tables are meant to end there instead of just getting cut off for space or layout reasons. A 100th-level wizard's fireball does 100d6 damage.  see? it says X, assholes, not X as long as it's 10 or under 2. Apply all the rules strictly quote:The AD&D(R) game is very carefully balanced. It may sometimes seem to you (and has sometimes seemed to us) that some tiny little rules are unimportant nuisances, but we have discovered that those ostensibly unimportant rules turn out to be extremely important after all. Especially when running high-level characters, it becomes vital to apply all the Oh, and don't forget spell memorization/prep time; a max-level Wizard would need to spend 70 hours to get back their spells if they cast all of them. So this is unquestionably more balanced, but balance through obnoxious bookkeeping is pretty lovely balance. This section is short, and it repeats stuff I've already harped on, so that's all I have to say about this. 3. Never give a 100th-level character an even break Be a dick. If your godlike PCs get dropped in a vat of acid or hit by a fireball, make them make item saving throws for all their magic gear! Spellbooks in particular can melt real easily! Give monsters rings of spell turning (note: there is indeed a monster in here with a ring of spell turning.) Put them in places like, say, the Abyss where they will be a lot weaker! (note: The bulk of this adventure takes place in the Abyss.) This is honestly mostly repetitive with the other two sections; it all comes down to "be super ruthless and put them in their place." So yeah, that's the advice. "100th level may sound big, but it's mostly just more hp, and make sure your players never forget it." I bet you could have predicted all of that, eh? I will try and post the 100th-level example characters, but I am tired for tonight. I just have to note that the 100th-level Thief is a perfect encapsulation of this adventure's philosophy. He's a Deep Gnome (svirfneblin!) who has also attained the formidable 7th-level as an illusionist. Why is he only 7th level as an Illusionist while he's 100th level as a Thief? Because 7th level is the cap for Deep Gnome progression as an illusionist in AD&D 1e. The characters may be 100th-level but there's rules dammit. dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Aug 25, 2019 |
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Aug 25, 2019 04:21
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The transported person with an exact duplicate mind or memory would be indistinguishable from the old, and would experience no break in continuity or consciousness. It's only a "new" person to an outside observer, and who's to say that the outside observer's perspective has more weight than the transported person's experience of continuity?
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Aug 25, 2019 22:15
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H4: Throne of Bloodstone, Part 3: What's a 100th-level character look like, anyway? So yeah. Last time (it's been a spell) we looked at Doug Niles's advice about 100th-level characters. Fortunately, the adventure gives us 4 of them right off the bat! These are named after various figures from Greek myth, but they are not those same figures. We can even compare and contrast the two, maybe! First off - Perseus!  So yeah. That's powerful, in AD&D terms, but not really absolute bullshit. He's got a selection of items (limited by a paladin's code, lmao) which certainly includes a Holy Avenger +5. I am just about positive he's got some variety of armor +5, and a Shield +5. So here's what we're looking at, in derived statistics... AC -10 (the cap - with his dexterity he only really needs Chain if I am doing my math right). With his 25 Strength (+7), a +5 longsword, and double-specialization in that longsword (+3), he hits AC 0 at -11 on a d20 or so. This means he hits AC -10 on anything but a natural 1. Damage-wise, he's dealing 1d8+22 (32 if the target is chaotic) with each of 2.5 attacks per round (2, then 3, then 2, then 3 - it's bullshit). So yeah basically he's doing a whole 50-75 damage per round. Also, importantly, with his Holy Sword he continually casts dispel magic at 100th-level which is frankly really great. And if he's somehow fighting kobolds or whatever, he can attack 100 of them per round. Quick Note: If you're familiar with AD&D you might be wondering why he wouldn't go with the Dart-Master. Well. As a high-level paladin, the whole Dart-Master shtick will probably not work so well for him. He's got a cap on magic items, plus there are no magical darts in the DMG whatsoever - and non-magic weapons aren't useful at all at this level. He's also got some spells I guess, but eh. Against Greek Myth Perseus, he's expected to crush the 15th-level Paladin and 5th-level Bard in about 2 rounds. So let's get to the main event - Circe!  Circe is amazing bullshit Spell-wise it gets nuts from the word go because - like I mentioned in the last post, AD&D 1e doesn't cap magic-user spells at all. Let's look at some examples!
That's just scratching the surface with some of the best-known spells in the game; this straight-up breaks the game. Or would if this adventure didn't poo poo on all of this hilariously in the final chapter. Versus Greek Myth Circe, it's not even a contest. I think that's all my brain can handle tonight. Next time, maybe the other two characters? 100th-level Cleric/23rd Level Druid is also hilarious. And Hermes the Thief is just sad.
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Sep 1, 2019 01:20
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Night10194 posted:My first ever PC in anything was a D&D Thief. (And holy poo poo, this specific Thief is just completely out of place, next to 100d6 fireball Circe up there.) I'll try to finish this part off tomorrow and then get into the bullshit that is this adventure.
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Sep 1, 2019 04:31
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H4: Throne of Bloodstone, Part 4: The Saddest 100th-Level Character Okay so last time we saw one perfectly serviceable 100th-level character, plus a completely ridiculous 100th-level character. This time, well.... it's sad. Let's do Artemis first.  So as a spellcaster, Artemis is likewise gonna be a bit on the ridiculous side, but not to the same extent as Circe up there. Let's start with the 100th-level Cleric stuff. On the plus side, because AD&D gives bonus spells for high Wisdom, she can cast a ridiculous number of spells every day. On the minus side, most Cleric spells just have level-based ranges and durations; the damage and whatnot tend to be set by the spell itself and unrelated to caster level. Oh, and the spells themselves aren't anywhere near as spectacular Still, she can cast 12 Harm spells every day, which will drop an enemy down to 1d4 hit points no matter where they were, and that's not bad. It's just not particularly better than any normal, non-100th-level Cleric with 25 Wisdom. The only weird bit is that her god is probably like 20th-30th level.  And then there's the Druid side of her stat block. This is where everything starts falling the gently caress apart. Why is she 23rd level? Because that's the maximum for a Druid, and still just absurd for normal AD&D play. Just like 1e Monks, Druids are level-capped and get wacky abilities at every level. As the highest-level Hierophant possible, Artemis can (or is)...
So that's a neat list of cool poo poo anyways, which is a lot more than poor old Hermes gets.  Poor, poor Hermes. So look, I already went on my little rant about this but I want to reiterate. Everyone else is like some ungodly dual-classed monstrosity like a Paladin/Fighter or whatever, but Hermes is a loving 7th level illusionist. Why? Because he's a gnome and he multi-classed, and that's the loving level limit for gnome illusionists. I have no idea why someone thought 7th-level Illusionist powers would matter at all in this adventure, but ... Yeah, the guy can cast a few lovely spells at low level. He didn't even max out his Intelligence to let him exceed the level cap much more. It's complete nonsense, and showcases how this poo poo is broken from the word go. He's also a 100th-level Thief.  When your buddies can cast all the Detect Traps and Knock spells you could ever need, and the Fighter could just bash down anything resembling a barrier, this is rather less impressive than you might expect. He can hear noise two-thirds of the time. He can climb walls 85% of the time. If he uses a spell from a scroll, he still has a 1 in four chance of failure. This is a perfect showcase of how nonsense AD&D Thieves are; even at the top of his game, he's still really bad at some stuff. And - taking the adventure's advice - even the poo poo with >100% chances will still end up failing a bunch.Ah, but what about his backstab? Well the adventure fucks with us a bit here. It says he gets 5x damage - but the PHB says it should be 1x extra damage for each 4 levels of experience. So Hermes should get a sweet 25x Backstab, but ... the text examples (it's not even a table) max out at 5x, so 5x it is. This makes me unreasonably angry, because it's not like his weapon damage is even that impressive. His Strength is a modest 18 (+1 to-hit/+2 damage) and with a +5, say, shortsword, he's dealing 1d6+7 whole damage.  Don't get me wrong, brosef here will still end up with a -10 AC and be quite capable of bullshitting through and around a bunch of stuff, but he just doesn't belong in the same party as the rest of these people. So with that....  LABOR DAY BONUS CONTENT!...But can they solo Cthulhu? This is something of an unlicensed tie-in to Jerik's extremely fun Deities & Demigods write-ups. Can any of these 100th-level characters solo Cthulhu itself, one of the meanest bastards in the game? First things first, here's Cthulhu.  Cthulhu is one bad motherfucker. He attacks as a "16+ HD creature" but has a 25 Strength. So, even though this is nowhere near a sure thing in AD&D's monster math, I'll put his THAC0 at 0 instead of at 7. His 30 attacks deal 1d10 damage each, and he can cast spells as a 20th-level Wizard. I'll keep things incredibly simple here, mostly looking at math, so this is no kind of a simulation. Perseus is a 100th-level Paladin with a Holy Avenger fighting a Chaotic Evil entity. So he's off to a good start already. He's got an always-on Protection from Evil spell, and automatically dispels all magic in a 10' radius as a 100th-level caster. Each of his attacks will deal an average of 36.5 damage, and he attacks 5 times every 2 rounds, missing only on a natural 1. On odd rounds, he'll do an average of 73 damage, and on even rounds an average of 109.5 damage. All things being equal, he drops Cthulhu's 400 hp in 11 attacks, or 5 rounds - but all things are not equal because Cthulhu regenerates 10 hp per round. So in those four rounds before the killing blow, Cthulhu heals back 40 hit points. Another 36.5 on the second attack in this odd-numbered round will leave Cthulhu hanging on for dear ... life or whatever ... with less than 10 hp. It will take a 6th round to vanquish the Great Old One. Cthulhu, on the other hand, hits Perseus on a 10 or higher ... but gets a -2 to his attack rolls on account of the paladin's protection from evil aura. His spells can do jack poo poo, so tentacley death it will have to be. He'll hit an average of 13.5 times every round, doing a paltry 5.5 damage per attack ... but that poo poo adds up! He'll deal 74.5 damage per round, against Perseus's 390 hit points. It takes 6 rounds for Cthulhu to kill Perseus. So yeah, it comes down to initiative, and that's basically bonkers. Circe wipes the floor with Cthulhu from over a half-mile away, while flying. I mean, yeah, Cthulhu has what looks like a big, bad 80% magic resistance, but that works weird in AD&D 1e. You see, magic resistance is based on an 11th-level spellcaster. For every level below 11, the target's effective spell resistance goes up by 5%. For every level above, it goes down by 5%. Against a 100th-level caster, Cthulhu has an effective magic resistance of -365%. Fortunately, all its saving throws are set at 2, but unfortunately it will only take three 100d6 fireballs or three 50-missile Magic Missile volleys to off the Great Old One. Artemis ... Well, creeping doom will probably not work, because you need +2 weapons to hit Cthulhu. This is a shame, because it would easily one-shot him, or really almost anything else in the game. And I can't see Cthulhu sitting back and letting her cast harm for the full round. So my gut tells me that Artemis is toast without support, and her best bet is trying to gate in her god. (who is weaker than she is but probably better in a fight, at least.) Hermes gets killed quickly, and it's not close. There's just no way he's got the damage output to knock 400 hp off Cthulhu, even if we gave him x5 backstabs every single round (which we could frankly not do). Thank you for this exciting episode of bonus content. Have a happy labor day.
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Sep 2, 2019 01:55
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in that 70's new-agey kind of way.
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PurpleXVI posted:I've had GM's who could not understand why thieves felt like dogshit in "OSR" stuff for the most part. "But you've got a whole 25% chance to do something that's core to your concept!!!!! Why aren't you excited??????" I think it's because they seemed so unique - they have their own special set of rules, never mind how poo poo it is. I don't think we fully grasped how utter poo poo they were until we started playing other games. Jerik posted:Regarding the 100th-level D&D characters' abilities, I suspect that any players who did play to ridiculously high levels kind of... weren't too scrupulous about sticking by the letter of the rules.
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Sep 2, 2019 04:37
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