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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9716085" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Sorry to hear that none of your DMs knew how to make it work.  :/1. That perfectly cromulent house rule does fix this issue, though honestly I don't think it's needed.  Priests start with two spells and wizards start with three.  In general the odds that you never get a spell off are comparable to or lower than you cast your one (or zero) spell for the day in B/X and the enemy makes their save. Luck tokens also substantially mitigate spell failure.  Your third level Wizard knew 5 spells, had better than 50/50 odds to cast, and on average talent rolls (or if he just chose Magic Missile as one) he probably had Advantage to cast at least one of them.2. This is a reasonably common complaint in 3d6 down the line systems.  I had one player in my longterm 5 Torches Deep game need to roll something like 4 or 5 sets because he just rolled terribly a few times.  My usual fix is the "mirror/flip" option.  Have players roll 3d6 down the line, but they may optionally subtract every score, in order, from 21.  This completely eliminates ever needing to roll a second set.  It does inflate the average a bit, makes very low scores rarer and high ones substantially more common, but I don't mind that.3) Yeah, strictly adhering to turn order when it slows the game is bad GMing.  The point is to make sure the spotlight is shared and it's not just one or two talkative people constantly driving.4. I agree with your two caveats.  Which means the adventure shouldn't have swarms of monsters if the PCs have no alternative ways to deal with them, and the GM should be using the reaction rules (as Kelsey models in her APs).  I can also get behind max HP at first level to give a little padding, but the death rules for SD are more forgiving than, say, baseline B/X, so going to zero HP also isn't automatic death.5. Mundane tasks you shouldn't normally be rolling for.6. This is a matter of taste, and totally understandable if it's not to yours. Doing it this way deliberately keeps the power curve flatter and characters fragile enough at high levels that fear remains, and they can't be as cavalier about damage and danger as higher level PCs are in editions with more HP inflation.While CoT is a gold classic, it is not actually designed for a 1st level party, never mind one of only 5 characters like Justin's group had.  A number of their problems with the module derive from playing it much more on hard mode than it was meant to be. 2nd or 3rd level would be more appropriate, and usually a group of twice that many characters (whether all PCs or a mix of PCs and hirelings).That was also back in 2009 and Justin deliberately disregarded a number of OSR best practices which were already known even then, in the name of trying to make his experiment fit the test conditions he arbitrarily decided to employ, at the expense of fun and playability."Combat is a Fail State" is a classic maxim of the OSR which was never meant to be taken 100% literally.  Gus wrote a good analysis and explication of it on his blog, along with six other major OSR maxims.  Some combat is expected.  Trying other approaches before fighting where possible and using smart tactics to stack the odds in your favor are also expected.[URL unfurl="true"]https://alldeadgenerations.blogspot.com/2023/08/maxims-of-osr.html[/URL]</blockquote>

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