d4-hp-magic-user

[d4-hp-magic-user]

You're trapped in a room with the last character you posted about. How are you getting out?

add whatever options you want to add

[d4-hp-magic-user]

I have a lot of thoughts but my immediate gut reaction to the Skrmetti ruling is that it's a demonstration of the failure of transmedicalism

[d4-hp-magic-user]

Stocking a Hexcrawl in OSE:

I've tried a few times in the past to stock a hexcrawl for OSE or a similar game—but I've never managed to stick with it long enough to have something playable. I think part of my problem was trying to do it raw (not as in rules-as-written, as in no lube). No tools. All from scratch. Without a current campaign to give me a reason to stock it.

So I'm trying again! Having a current campaign gave me motivation so maybe I'll finish it this time!

I started it not as a hexcrawl, but as a back-of-the-napkin point crawl between settlements and (pre-written) adventure sites. Not a lot, 3 settlements and 4 or so adventures. I came up with some factions (which I am still hammering the details out for) and some NPCs (with the assistance of the 5e DMG and some random name generators).

Then I read Stocking Hexes with the B/X Dungeon-Stocking Procedure, which is pretty much exactly how it sounds. Monster hexes are lairs, traps can be natural hazards or man-made, etc. I then used the OSE wilderness encounter tables to decide what the monster is. Already just from using it to stock ~10-15 hexes I have realized just how much have *any* sort of procedure helps break up the analysis-paralysis of an empty hexmap.

So far some notable locations i have generated are:

- a bandit lair next to a "trap" in-between two of my "major" settlements I had pre-made, quite obviously the trapped hex is where the bandits ambush passers-by

- a treant lair adjacent to two "special" hexes: I'm imagining the two special hexes as sort of a mythical "deep wood". You know in LOTR how the old treants become a moving forest? Some sort of cross between that and Murkwood. Perhaps an extra chance of getting lost, and spending the night means an encounter with "angry trees" (stationary treants)

And neither of these locations require much in the way of extensive keying! Just a few bullet points. Most monster lairs can be simplified to "a few connected cave rooms" or similar. For intelligent creature lairs I plan to use Quick humanoid lair generator for wilderness stocking for inspiration. If the lair needs to be cave or dungeon-like I will probably use a random map generator, if its more settlement-like I think I'll keep it vague and only detail important buildings and locations.

I also recently read The Grand d666, which made me consider making some sort of spark-table of a similar variety. Or maybe I'll just steal borrow one from somewhere else...

Anyhow, once I make some more progress on the hexmap I might post some of it to give a bit of an example of how I'm going about it.

[d4-hp-magic-user]

Old School Essentials Play Report #1

Hi!

Recently I began running an OSE campaign for several of my friends, and after spending so many hours reading play reports on the rpg.net forums I thought I would start my own play reports. Previously for my Mothership campaign I wrote my own session summaries, though those were more written for my own record keeping than to be interesting in their own right I will be taking some slight descriptive liberties, since I of course do not have a perfect recounting of the events. Hopefully they are enjoyable!

As any DM, I just can't settle. I do love OSE, but there are quite a few things I will be changing for this campaign:

Generally speaking, skill checks such as "open locks" are repeatable, with each attempt taking one turn. (I find that without this a level 1 thief feels incredibly useless and just sort of feels bad.)

"Supernatural" thief interpretation. This has been explored many places, but generally means that if a normal person might have a 2-in-6 chance to sneak up quietly on an unaware enemy, then a thief would get that 2-in-6 plus their "move silently" chance. 

No non-humans (inspired by "I don't think I will allow playable elves anymore")

No clerics, no druids (Though this may be flexible in the future. I am just not a fan of large amounts of magical healing outside of single-use items. Also I don't like what clerics say about the theology of dnd. I like to think any cleric characters the party encounters are actually more like a 5e warlock than anything else.)

Acolyte, Mage, Necromancer classes included (because I love them so, and also to replace the Cleric)

Slot-based encumbrance from Carcass Crawler #2

Carousing from Downtime in Zyan (and possibly other portions in the future)

Silver-for-xp

The silver for xp takes a bit more explaining. I have always found it odd that in gaining enough xp to reach level two, an adventurer becomes so rich they never have to worry about the cost of equipment or manpower again. My hackey solution is to downgrade all treasure values from gold->silver and silver->copper, but leave equipment prices the same. I also left starting gold the same, though my players have opted to use Carcass Crawler #2's "quick equipment" rules. So far this has had it's intended effect, although there are a few things I may have to make cheaper in the future—most notably spell research and carousing.

None of these players have played OSE or any other OSR-fantasy system. Two of them played in my previous Mothership campaign where I ran Gradient Descent, so they have some idea of how dungeon crawling and higher character lethality can be. One of my players has as far as I know only played 5e, but they caught on to the gist very quickly.

Now for the actual play report:

The campaign starts with the three PCs at the beginning of “Jeweler’s Sanctum” by Giuseppe Rotondo.. Our intrepid adventurers are as follows:

Nadezhda “Nadia” Hage*ga, Lvl 1 “Apprentice” Thief (Chaos) Str 4 Int 5 Wis 7 Dex 13 Con 11 Cha 4 HP 1 *Note: That is how the name looked like it was spelled on the character sheet. This player is a huge linguistics nerd.

Jan Peyon, Lvl 1 “Squire” Knight (Law) Str 8 Int 13 Wis 10 Dex 13 Con 16 Cha 11 HP 7

Onson Sweemey, Lvl 1 Acolyte (Law) Str 11 Int 8 Wis 16 Dex 14 Con 15 Cha 6 HP 7

All of my players are quite excited about rules-as-written OSE 3d6 down the line stat generation (as was I). As you can see, Nadia has absolutely awful stats but Nadia’s player was a good sport about it.

*Side note: My players all showed up to the first session with their characters already created (well, mostly. They needed some guidance to fix a few things). That's wild!

The party starts at the cellar of a dilapidated mansion. Jesem, a low-ranking noble with slick black hair and a modestly slimy demeanor informs them that he needs the basement cleared out before he can sell the mansion. It was his grandfather Draxas’s mansion and workshop where he created magical jewelry, but it seems to have been infested which greatly affects the retail value. The party is allowed to loot anything they get their hands on, and if they can completely clear it out he promises them a reward, though it will not be monetary (I also emphasize that it is not required to 100% the dungeon).

They file out the door and into the hallway and immediately spot two black carved stone faces on either side of the hallway. Nadia checks for traps while Onson detects magic and then detects alignment. They step forward, very paranoid, but nothing happens. When they see the second set of stone faces they do the same deal - taking a few extra turns to retry failed skill checks. They come upon a third set of stone faces, white this time, and Onson declares that “it would be really funny if these ones were trapped” and proceeds through.

The party stops short upon seeing several sections of checkered floor in front of them. The second set has a burnt rat carcass. Suspecting a trap, Jan pokes the black and white tiles with his lance and finds that depressing a white tile sends axes swinging through the section of hallway. They proceed by stepping on only the black tiles through the first section. They turn their attention away from the continuing tile section to look at a door to the south.

After spending a turn failing to bust the door, Jan finally slams it open. The party's torchlight illuminates a trashed bedroom of sorts. More importantly they spot three giant dog-sized rats under the bed, which seem to be eating a corpse of some sort. The party warily files into the room, unsure if they should engage the rats which are paying them no mind. Onson proposes there may be treasure under the bed; Jan, eager for honorous battle, takes this as permission to attempt to spear a rat with his sword. Jan's sword misses the rat, sending splinters flying off the bedpost. As he attempts to wrench it out of the rotted wood, Nadia spears through a rat with a well placed arrow and Onson bashes one with his mace, taking a small bite in the process. On his second strike Jan Peyon cleaves the remaining large rat in two.

Checking under the bed, the party finds a book entitled "Morlan's Spellbook". Finding it to be largely arcane gobbledygook (the spells light and sleep) Jan tosses it in his pack. Finding nothing else of value, the party leaves the room and inspects the section of tiles to the west. Onson Sweemey aptly notes that the rat corpse seems to be on a white tile. He hypothesizes that  the order of the stone faces applies to the checkered tiles—black tiles for the first two sections and white tiles on the third section. Jan takes the lead and crosses the second set of tiles with no issue.

To the north there is an archway leading to a library, on the floor of which are four giant centipedes chewing paper. The party quickly dispatches them—though Onson Sweemey is bit by one. They collapse in pain and can hardly stand to move. The party searches the library and finds nothing but moldy books. Despite the time elapsed, Onson seems to still be incapacitated by the pain. The party decides to proceed anyway, ignoring the western exit from the library and crossing the last set of checkered floors on only the white tiles. At that point they hear a voice call out to them from an entranceway just past the trapped floor.

"Helloo! Have loyal subjects come to pay me tribute?"

~squeak~

The party steps into the room and sees an even larger giant rat reclined on a rotting sofa, with a gold bowl of bones beside it. Flanking the couch are several rats curled up in rotting armchairs and other furniture. The rat introduces herself as Skiks the Rat Queen, and asks for a tribute. She states interest in both "shinies" and food. The party divulges their rations and Onson talks praise of her mighty domain. Jan Peyon has an internal crisis about whether the rodent royalty deserves his respect and where it belongs on the noble hierarchy. Skiks warns the party of "blobs" in the moat nearby and a "poisonous dust" in a nearby room across the corridor.

The party decides to check out the room with the poisonous dust, and leaves Skik's chamber to cross the corridor. Jan kicks down the door after several attempts (thats 8 strength for you) and the party sees a wrecked alchemical laboratory. Several rat corpses dot the floor, foam collected around their mouths. Nadia inspects a coat hung behind a desk—noticing an orange dust-like substance on the coat. Nadia very carefully reaches into the coats pockets and finds a jade medallion and a parchment of paper (50% chance to trigger the yellow mould—success!) While Onson continues to writhe in pain, Nadia (5 int, illiterate) hands the parchment to Jan, who finds it to be a scroll of fireball. Nadia joins in to listen to the door to the east, and after determining there is nothing on the other side, opens the door…revealing the library they were just in. The party decides they had better retreat and wait for Onson to recover from the centipede bite.

47 xp each.

one week later…

Onson Sweemey has fully recovered from the centipede bite and the party re-enters the workshop. They proceed through the tile traps and are seemingly not noticed by Skiks. They continue down the passageway which ends on a twenty foot moat with a door on the other side. Peering into the water the party spots several gray blobs floating beneath the surface, as well as the corpse of a dwarf on the bottom of the pool. The dwarf's armor is melted away and large burn-like wounds can be seen on the exposed skin. 

DM Note: The PCs got a bit stuck here. I hinted that since this was a workshop, the owner must have had some way to bypass the moat (there is a secret door they missed). After a bit more prodding I pointed out that Nadia, as a thief, has excellent climbing abilities. After a little bit more discussion I pointed out that at least one of them has rope and a mallet and stakes. I didn't want to try and force "my" solution down their throats but they were very stuck.

Nadia deftly climbs across the pit, hammering spikes into the wall as footholds and stringing a rope across as a handhold. The party follows, and after several turns of bashing the door (very poor open doors checks) the party exits into a hallway that runs to the east. Light spills down the hallway from the room at the east end, and the party hears the humming of a cheerful tune! Nadia snuffs the torch and they creep to the east, ignoring the other doors in the hallway for now. As they approach they see the room contains three large pits, most likely filled with spikes.

From the ceiling in the middle of the room drops a seven foot long hairy spider with a metal collar! (Tarantella, 4HD, poison causes jerking spasms that resemble a macabre dance) It hangs on a string of web and seems to be singing to itself. The party freezes in place, hoping the spider will not see them. It pays them no mind, until an arrow whizzes through the gap between two of its legs (failed sneak attack from Nadia). It climbs back up onto the ceiling, and Jan Peyon charges in after it.

Jan stabs with his sword, but the spider is too swift! The cheerful hum is interrupted as the spider attempts to bite Jan, but the spider cannot penetrate the metal armor. Nadia and Onson charge in, loosing an arrow and a sling-stone—the spider screeches in pain! Jan attempts another strike but is struck off-balance by a stray arrow that lodges into his shoulder. (2 hp remaining!) Fearing more friendly fire, Onson charges in with his mace and breaks through the spider's exoskeleton with a sickening crunch. Its legs curl up and it falls to the ground, lifeless. (125 xp)

The party pulls the gold collar off of the corpse (100s) and inspects the rest of the room. There are three other exits, three pits filled with spikes (one with a corpse), and 4 silver statuettes (250s each). The party decides to retreat due to Jan Peyon's wounds.

On the way past Skik's chamber, 4 rats block their path to the exit and motion towards the Rat Queen's chamber. The party obliges.

"Going so soon? squeak!" The rat queen will not let them leave without paying a tax. The party informs her of the delicious tarantella corpse they have left behind, and Onson procures more rations. Skiks immediately tears into the rations and dismisses them.

According to my (messy) notes, the pcs gained 343xp each from this first session. With Jan's -10% to xp from his 8 strength that turned out even worse for him…

My players were very excited though! Much discussion was had of what to do with the Rat Queen, which oscillated between "she's awesome! we should be her friend!" and "that gold bowl next to her looks pretty nice! so does that bracelet!" There was also much discussion of the very poor accuracy of Jan Peyon the squire. I made sure to point out the importance of armor class (Jan managed to avoid ever being bit by the spider!) as well as the potential danger of the tarantella had it landed a bite. In the next few sessions the players were in for a bit of a rude awakening on the lethality of OSE…