Recent content by Fortunate Son

So you're criticizing him both ways? Seems a bit unfair. Some people just aren't allowed to win. The man's dead. Leave him alone.

Regardless of the adjective, what would make it feel satisfying to you? More combats before retreat? The denizens of the keep seeing them less often? Sorry if I'm being obtuse, I just feel like I don't understand the issue well enough to make a suggestion that's useful to you.

@DarkCrisis What is it that makes a module feel like an adventure to you? Being able to complete it without returning to a home base? I'm not trying to denigrate your displeasure with how your game is going, just trying to understand the cause.

Return to the Keep on the Borderlands is a sequel, not a reprinting. The caves are stocked differently, and many of the interactions between factions have been altered significantly. For instance, the bit you quoted about adventurers nearly wiping out the gobbos 20 years prior is referring to...

I don't think it's bad DMing to sit down with the players and explain the style of game you're running. Especially if it's young 5e players who've been trained to look for tactical solutions only in their PC's stat blocks.

Well, crits don't exist for just this reason, and going solo against a boss monster at 1st level is asking to die. Get rid of crits, and don't worry about trying to fix death by stupidity. Yes, as clerics don't get heals at 1st level, they need to return to the keep to heal slowly over a week...

Pretty much this. The name changes aren't even new names for the most part (other than Arn), they just changed the region names to what the inhabitants call themselves.

edited: oops, followed a link to an old thread and posted like it was current! where is the delete button?

Interesting, I've not seen this document. The Phantoms spell is a weird one. Giving a fragile non-melee class a melee spell that damages the caster is an odd design choice.

I could have sworn that it was a 1e thing as well, but a now that I'm home a quick perusal of my books didn't reveal anything. My memory may be faulty.

In 2e, at least, the large and huge spiders had type A poison.

Sure, but it still prevents a universal mechanic. And with some of those other saves (I'm looking at you, poison!) the severity of the effect increases with monster hit dice. I'm not saying such a mechanic is inherently bad, I'm just saying it's hard to implement in a system that isn't built...

It's not the DM's job to tell players how to run their characters. Allow them to make errors, it's part of the game.

What an evocative turn of phrase. Bravo!

Re: save modifiers for attack strength, they were included in the entry for the attacker rather than a generally applicable rule. The way that early editions scaled attacker power was through increased damage output rather than save modifiers. Once that is established, you can't reasonably add...