D&D General Reviewing my Original D&D one-shot
- Thread starter JEB
- Start date
JEB
Legend
Indeed - I honestly dreaded a TPK in the first room. Fortunately they play smart.
What's funny is that's the smallest possible amount orcs you can encounter in 0e...
There's so much left unsaid in the rules! As you go forward it becomes defined as "encountered in the wilderness", and I really miss the B/X split of "Encountered in Lair or Wilderness" and "Encountered in Dungeon".
Although the OD&D rules do note that the numbers in Monsters & Treasure are used primarily for outdoor encounters, and are rather ambiguous about the number encountered in the dungeon.
Cheers,
Merric
JEB
Legend
So this is one place where running RAW got a bit frustrating. (Probably why I finally broke and made that single exception for recruiting hirelings in session 2.) I tried very hard to find a RAW excuse to lower the encounter numbers for orcs in the dungeon (and for other monsters the players never reached!). I did note what you mentioned above, in Book II, for Number Appearing:
That gave me hope, but they never provided alternative dungeon numbers. So I didn't have any RAW alternative but what was listed.
Then, the section you partially quoted above actually made it worse! Since I had a group of 5, and orcs were Monster Level 1 creatures, and this was Level Beneath Surface 1... I was obliged to double the resulting numbers. And then there's the rest of that passage:
Which forced me to conclude that yes, the number appearing should be used as provided, and you were just supposed to creatively fit them into the dungeon space. That did at least give me leeway to break the massive orc population (280 IIRC) into patrols of approximately 34 each scattered around the dungeon level (plus one lair with a larger number).
Sidenote: It would have been real interesting had their initial negotiations with the orc patrol worked out, and they'd secured safe passage through their territory. Very very different experience. Oh well.
JEB
Legend
Six months later, returned to "Castle Redcrown" with a new experiment... pitting a 5e party against it.
Rules: The players operated under D&D 5e (2014) rules, with access to all the material in the 2014 PHB. The monsters and obstacles, however, operated under OD&D rules as much as possible. So the 5e characters used 5e combat rules, and the OD&D monsters used OD&D combat rules, only converting when necessary to function. (For example, initiative, turns, and movement followed 5e rules, and all AC was ascending, but OD&D monsters still rolled on the OD&D table for attack rolls and saves.)
Players: Four total, all having played in the previous OD&D one-shots. (A fifth player didn't wind up participating.)
Characters: One human monk (variant, with the Lucky feat); one dwarf barbarian; one blue dragonborn fighter; and one human cleric (life domain). The monk later picked Way of the Open Hand; the barbarian later picked Totem Warrior; and the fighter later picked Champion. (The fifth player would have been a mountain dwarf sorcerer.)
Gameplay summary: They entered the dungeons of Castle Redcrown and immediately encountered a band of 34 orcs. Via the monk (who spoke Orcish) the party agreed to root out a band of gnolls that had been a thorn in the orcs' side, in exchange for safe passage and half the loot.
As the party approached the gnoll lair, the monk called out in Orcish, which prompted the gnolls to go inside and barricade the entrance. The party lit the door on fire with burning oil, pried it open with a crowbar, then smashed it in. (The gnolls improvised another barricade within their lair.) Meanwhile, two groups of gnolls tried to flank them from either side, having dispatched forces from two other exits further away. The right flank had been severely cut down by the time the left flank arrived, but seemingly rallied after the gnoll second-in-command emerged from the main entrance to join them.
The characters held out pretty well for a while (largely thanks to the cleric's Bless spell), even defeating the gnoll lieutenant. However, after the cleric went down (taking the Bless and heals with him), the fighter and monk followed. (All stabilized thanks to death saves.) And yet the barbarian eventually stood victorious, slaying the last attacking gnolls on the last round of her rage. She dragged her unconscious friends to the surface to recover, indicating as best she could to the orcs through the language barrier that they'd defeated most of the gnolls. (The gnoll leader and some others had opted not to attack, after losing so many.)
The party returned, after recovering and leveling up to 3rd. The orcs tried to argue that since they had to finish off the gnoll king and the rest themselves, they deserved more than half the loot, but they were persuaded otherwise. The players took their share (20 suits of chain mail, 20 generic swords, and 2000 copper) back to town, cashed them in, and upgraded their supplies (including potions of healing, more burning oil, and a mule). Then they returned for more.
The orcs suggested either taking out some skeletons on the first floor, or proceeding down to a deeper floor to deal with hobgoblins and dragons. The party chose the latter, encountering a small band of hobgoblins in the first room and charging in. The melee was soon joined by 10 giant beetles - which were tougher to kill than the hobgoblins. While they did briefly down the fighter, the beetles were eventually crushed. We stopped at that point, since one of the players had to go...
Comments:
Rules: The players operated under D&D 5e (2014) rules, with access to all the material in the 2014 PHB. The monsters and obstacles, however, operated under OD&D rules as much as possible. So the 5e characters used 5e combat rules, and the OD&D monsters used OD&D combat rules, only converting when necessary to function. (For example, initiative, turns, and movement followed 5e rules, and all AC was ascending, but OD&D monsters still rolled on the OD&D table for attack rolls and saves.)
Players: Four total, all having played in the previous OD&D one-shots. (A fifth player didn't wind up participating.)
Characters: One human monk (variant, with the Lucky feat); one dwarf barbarian; one blue dragonborn fighter; and one human cleric (life domain). The monk later picked Way of the Open Hand; the barbarian later picked Totem Warrior; and the fighter later picked Champion. (The fifth player would have been a mountain dwarf sorcerer.)
Gameplay summary: They entered the dungeons of Castle Redcrown and immediately encountered a band of 34 orcs. Via the monk (who spoke Orcish) the party agreed to root out a band of gnolls that had been a thorn in the orcs' side, in exchange for safe passage and half the loot.
As the party approached the gnoll lair, the monk called out in Orcish, which prompted the gnolls to go inside and barricade the entrance. The party lit the door on fire with burning oil, pried it open with a crowbar, then smashed it in. (The gnolls improvised another barricade within their lair.) Meanwhile, two groups of gnolls tried to flank them from either side, having dispatched forces from two other exits further away. The right flank had been severely cut down by the time the left flank arrived, but seemingly rallied after the gnoll second-in-command emerged from the main entrance to join them.
The characters held out pretty well for a while (largely thanks to the cleric's Bless spell), even defeating the gnoll lieutenant. However, after the cleric went down (taking the Bless and heals with him), the fighter and monk followed. (All stabilized thanks to death saves.) And yet the barbarian eventually stood victorious, slaying the last attacking gnolls on the last round of her rage. She dragged her unconscious friends to the surface to recover, indicating as best she could to the orcs through the language barrier that they'd defeated most of the gnolls. (The gnoll leader and some others had opted not to attack, after losing so many.)
The party returned, after recovering and leveling up to 3rd. The orcs tried to argue that since they had to finish off the gnoll king and the rest themselves, they deserved more than half the loot, but they were persuaded otherwise. The players took their share (20 suits of chain mail, 20 generic swords, and 2000 copper) back to town, cashed them in, and upgraded their supplies (including potions of healing, more burning oil, and a mule). Then they returned for more.
The orcs suggested either taking out some skeletons on the first floor, or proceeding down to a deeper floor to deal with hobgoblins and dragons. The party chose the latter, encountering a small band of hobgoblins in the first room and charging in. The melee was soon joined by 10 giant beetles - which were tougher to kill than the hobgoblins. While they did briefly down the fighter, the beetles were eventually crushed. We stopped at that point, since one of the players had to go...
Comments:
- The dungeon was definitely less lethal for 5e characters than it was for OD&D characters, but it wasn't the cakewalk I expected. The higher starting HP and death saves made a difference, but the sheer quantity of foes still wore them down. I thought leveling up would make them practically gods, during the return trip, but it still took a while to overcome the OD&D giant beetles, even with the Totem Warrior's wolf power providing them with advantage on melee attacks. I suspect they would have had a much easier time with a dedicated caster as originally planned, though.
- The players also largely didn't employ any strategy, and just charged in every time. They admitted that they would have done better had they planned ahead. (Can't help but contrast this with the OD&D games, where having a caller - basically a team leader - pretty much forced some strategy.)
- Having gamified social skills helped a lot with their orc negotiations. Although it didn't manage to break the gnolls' morale (and I checked said morale a lot).
- Despite jokes about flooding the dungeon with burning oil, after the way the OD&D games went, it only saw use a few times during the session. I guess the players didn't think they needed it.
- One random quirk - 5e characters get attacks of opportunity, but OD&D monsters don't. (This helped the players out a few times.)
- The players earned enough XP during the return trip to level again, but doesn't appear to be any interest in further sessions. Can't really disagree, since the contrast wasn't as interesting as I'd hoped.
Last edited:
Similar Threads
- Locked
Trending content
-
-
-
-
-
Thread 'Wizards of the Coast Is Sunsetting Sigil's Active Development'
- Christian Hoffer
Replies: 155