EB's Tyranny of Dragons - OOC (full)

I have been thinking this past week to break my 1e books out of their plastic and crack them once more for some fun. They aren't doing me any good where they are.

As I was thinking of what to run, looking through the old Dungeon magazines for ideas, I had a light bulb go off while I was flipping through my copy of Temple of Elemental Evil.

If I was running a 1e module using 5e rules, why not run a 5e adventure with 1e rules. So with that in mind I present an interest check:

Tyranny of Dragons (1e):

Character Creation:
Ability Scores: Players choice of Methods I - V, if method IV is used all leftover stats will be used for new characters
Race: PHB or UA
Class: PHB or UA
Starting Lvl : 1 for each class/classes
Starting HP: Page 74 UA, roll hp with a minimum as shown
Starting Equipment: Roll for Starting Wealth
Proficiency: Choose weapon Proficiencies
Profession: chose/roll for secondary skill: DMG pg.12
Alignment: any alignment that is fun for the whole group please
Hirelings: no henchman/hirelings to start
Cantrips: not allowed, will add more spell scrolls/ability to create, to compensate
Experience: Will use the milestone rules to level up. If you are multiclass this means you need to keep the two/three classes within one level of each other, as the adventure progresses. There are enough episodes to gain around 14 levels in the campaign. So use this info to think if a 7/7 (6/6/5?) level character is a goal you want to reach.

So that is the basics, I am interested in playing a little AD&D and as I can't get anyone IRL to play, I thought I might get 4-6 players from here.

LINKS:
RG
IC

Oooh, tempting. I'll have to find the rules from somewhere as mine got lost in various moves over the years.

Most likely to go for a BSF.

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A little bump to ask if anyone would be willing to play this if they didn't have to learn all the rules and figure out how to make characters?

I have some made up and am willing to work with everyone in the game to teach them all the oddball rules of old D&D

Characters:

[sblock=Filmark the Archer]
male human, fighter 1, CG

Method V:
STR: 15 (+200gp allowance, 1-2 open doors, 7% B.B./L.G.)
INT: 17 (6 additional languges)
WIS: 11
DEX: 17 (+2 reaction/attack adj., -3 AC)
CON: 15 (+1 hp adj., 91% System Shock Survival, 94% Resurrection Survival)
CHA: 13 (maximun # of henchmen: 5, Loyalty Base 0%, Reaction Adj. +19%)
COM: 14 (modified by CHA +1, fascinate women of 7 or lower WIS)

Armor: any
Shield: any
Weapons: any
Proficiencies: longbow (specialization), morning star
Languages: Common, Chaotic Good, Dwarf, Gnome, (can learn 4 more)
Oil: yes
poison: possible
money: 110gp
hp: 7
[/sblock]
[sblock=Saless the Dark]
female dark elf, cleric 1, LE

Special:
STR: 12 (+100gp allowance, 1-2 open doors, 4% B.B./L.G.)
INT: 17 (6 additional languges)
WIS: 14 (2 bonus 1st lvl spells)
DEX: 16 (+1 reaction/attack adj., -2 AC)
CON: 11 (75% System Shock Survival, 80% Resurrection Survival)
CHA: 15 (maximun # of henchmen: 7, Loyalty Base 15%, Reaction Adj. +15%)
COM: 10 (modified by CHA +1)

Armor: any
Shield: any
Weapons: club, flail, hammer, mace, staff, lasso, sap, staff sling
Proficiencies: flail, lasso
Languages: Common, Lawful Evil, Undercommon, Elf, Gnome, 'Silent Tonuge', Dwarf, Orc, Hobgoblin, Goblin, Ogre, Kobold
Oil: yes
poison: yes
money: 90gp
hp: 8
[/sblock]
[sblock=Rumdum the Small]
male halfling, thief 1, LN

Method II:
STR: 10 (1-2 open doors, 2% B.B./L.G.)
INT: 12 (3 additional languges)
WIS: 12
DEX: 16 (+1 reaction/attack adj., -2 AC)
CON: 14 (88% System Shock Survival, 92% Resurrection Survival)
CHA: 13 (maximun # of henchmen: 5, Loyalty Base 0%, Reaction Adj. +5%)
COM: 13 (modified by CHA +1)

Armor: leather, studded leather, padded, or elven chain
Shield: none
Weapons: bow(short), caltrop, club, crossbow(hand), dagger, dart, garrot, knife, sap, sling, sword(broad), sword(falchion), sword(long), sword(short)
Proficiencies: dagger, sling
Languages: Common, Lawful Neutral, Halfling, Orc, Goblin, Gnome, Elf, Dwarf
Oil: yes
poison: possible
money: 80gp
hp: 4
[/sblock]
[sblock=Wilgrak the Bold]
male human, wizard 1, LN

Method I
STR: 11 (1-2 open doors, 2% B.B./L.G.)
INT: 17 (6 additional languges, 75% chance to know, minimum # spells/level: 8, maximum # spells/level 14)
WIS: 12
DEX: 16 (+1 reaction/attack adj., -2 AC)
CON: 15 (+1 hp adj., 91% System Shock Survival, 94% Resurrection Survival)
CHA: 14 (maximun # of henchmen: 6, Loyalty Base 5%, Reaction Adj. +10%)
COM: 12 (modified by CHA +1)

Armor: none
Shield: none
Weapons: caltrop, dagger, dart, knife, sling, staff
Proficiencies: dagger
Languages: Common, Lawful Neutral, Elf, Halfling, Ogre (plus 3 addition)
Oil: yes
poison: possible
money: 60gp
hp: 4
[/sblock]
[sblock=Bearkiller]
human, ranger 1, CG

Method V:
STR: 14 (+200gp allowance, 1-2 open doors, 7% B.B./L.G.)
INT: 12 (3 additional languges)
WIS: 17 (+3 magical atk adj.)
DEX: 18 (+3 reaction/attack adj., -4 AC)
CON: 17 (+3 hp adj., 97% System Shock Survival, 98% Resurrection Survival)
CHA: 13 (maximun # of henchmen: 5, Loyalty Base 0%, Reaction Adj. +5%)
COM: 13 (modified by CHA +1)

Armor: any
Shield: any
Weapons: any
Proficiencies: heavy crossbow, bardiche (specialization)
Languages: Common, Chaotic Good, Orc, Kobold, Goblin
Oil: yes
poison: never
money: 100gp
hp: 12[/sblock]

What do you all think?

You didn't pick Wilgrak's spellbook? And his one lonely spell?

This is 1st ed. With descending AC and incomprehensible initiative system? I haven't played a 1st ed game in 15 years. (And I was a 12th level psionicist in that game.)

If I were going to play a 1st ed game, I would play a multiclass character as I miss leveling both classes simultaneously. 3rd ed ruined multiclassing to me, who had played just about the legal and half the non-book legal multiclasses out there. (Ah, Flynn, the half-elf druid-bard of 2nd ed. I hope your tavern still survives in Silverymoon. retired in 2001 or so when we switched to 3e.)

So, yes, I'm nostalgic enough to do this but none of the characters thrill me. Where's the Elf ftr-mu?

EDIT: Milestone leveling? What is that? The whole point of 1e is that the thief is just about always 2 levels higher than the mage and the ftr-mage elf is 7/7 or 7/8 when the cleric reaches 10th level, not 14th. The game is just not balanced for everyone to be the same level at the same time. You can't do 1e with multiclasses being nerfed as you intend. a 7/7 ftr/mu has at most 180,000 xp split 90/90. (two more xp and his mu goes to 8th level.) 14th level is at a minimum 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 xp. That's just not fair to the multiclasser. At 1,500,000 xp a the ftr-mu would be levels 10/11 and 2 xp away from levels 11/12. Oh, and a thief with 1,500,000 xp is level 16th level.

If anyone wanted to make up their own characters I won't argue with that. Half the fun, and in AD&D you almost always needed a back up.

I was thinking set XP (unknown to the players) per milestone and then bonus xp sort of based on the books, although I hated handing out 1xp for each 1gp to rogues. But you are correct you need to vary it so will find a way.

Well that may be 2 players interested - two more And I will NPC a fifth party member and we can go off to face Tiamat.

Instead of milestone levels, just do milestone xp. End of the first chapter 2500 xp or 5000 xp (depending on the size of the chapter.

My other thought, and I don't know if I really want to do it. But 1e Bard, could be fun. 6 levels of Fight, 7 levels of Thief, and a few levels of bard by the end. Probably not worth the pain of gaining 7 levels of thief when everyone is already 6th level or so.

You really have to want it to slough through all the way. But maybe in this hitting bard after the game is 3/4 done may not be worth it. You would have an epic tale to tell though.

I am excited about running Tyranny of Dragons as 1e, you get to face some classic monsters and dragons of course. There is enough RP to keep it out of the hack your way through everything style game. I hope we can get a few more players.

Actually, thinking about the bard. It's 35,0001 to 6th level Fighter and 42,501 to 7th level Thief. 2nd level bard is only 2,001 xp. With 1,500,000 xp potentially to receive to get most characters to 14th level or so, that still reaches 16th level in bard. But, only if you give out xp at a steady rate.

Of course, I'll never roll the required minimums: 15s in Str, Dex, Wis, and Cha, 12 in Int and 10 in Con; unless there's method V array for Bard:
str 8d6, int 5d6, wis 8d6, dex 8d6, con 8d6, cha 4d6. Perhaps a bit ridiculous even though the bard is probably suboptimal over all. Oh well. Back to ftr-mu or some such.

Are we rolling for psionics? A psionic bard would be awesome.

Bard does have the distinction of being the first Prestige Class in the game...

EarlyBird said:

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To face this Tiamat, doesn't it take a party of 6? Ranger, Cavalier, Barbarian, Magician, Thief and Acrobat?