Minifigs pig-faced orc

 

Here's a Minifigs pig-faced orc I painted up in a sort of comic-book style (heavy blacklining in ink). I'm quite pleased with it; I see this style as the best way to get the most out of the wonderful old Minfigs ranges, which have quite spare and shallow detail. 

This fellow's not quite finished; I need to touch up some of the highlights on his jerkin and perhaps add a sigil of some sort to his chest and backplates. I may well change the base to a slightly less textured surface.

Orcs for Mordheim

 

These are the first figures for a Mordheim orc warband, for an all-day campaign next weekend. The crossbowman is the 'boss', an old Citadel C15 armoured orc tooled up with some extra armaments and a quiver of bolts for his crossbow. He's not the biggest or meanest of the C15 orcs, but he's one of the ugliest, which must count for something!

The smaller fellow is a Marauder orc. The first wave of Marauder orcs are pleasingly short and squat, which means that older Citadel orcs work well as leader types alongside them. Despite his short stature, this chap might see service as a 'big un', given his melee-focused gear and high-end armour. 

I'm painting this warband in a D&D or Gamorrean scheme: essentially the same thing. Citadel orcs were originally D&D orcs (and possibly even closer to Gary Gygax's vision than the Monster Manual illustration; Gygax said at one point that he'd envisaged upturned snouts rather than full-on pig heads), so it seems appropriate. I'm painting the orcs a variety of greens, greenish-blues and browns, with the pink snouts and ears the unifying constant. 

RAFM wizard

 Here's an old RAFM wizard from the 80s: part of the wonderfully characterful Wanderers and Warriors range. He's part of my 25mm megadungeon/old-school D&D project - the idea is to have a host of player-character types so that players can quickly pick a suitable miniature and get going once they're rolled up a character. I could see this fellow ('Nimrod the Bold Wizard', according to the catalogue) working well as a villain too.

I originally conceived this as a 1/72 project; I'm using the same monsters and even some of the same character figures (especially elves and dwarves). But there are just so many better character options in 25mm.

Speed-painted giant orc

 Here's a boardgame figure (from Massive Darkness, I think) speed-painted to act as some sort of giant orc or undernourished ogre in my 25mm megadungeon project. He was painted using contrast paints initially, which is why he's a bit glossy in the recesses. A coat of matt varnish should fix that. 

More Minfigs gnolls

 Here are a couple more Minifigs gnolls to go with the one I painted up last week. The new ones are from the 80s (?) Greyhawk range rather than the 70s D&D range and are somewhat more hyena-like. But I like the look of both types together - some more manlike, others bearing more heavily the Mark of the Beast.

A Minifigs gnoll

 

Here's an old Minifigs gnoll. This range is clearly based on the Tom Wham illustration from the Basic D&D set:

And the Wham drawing is based on Dave Sutherland's illustration in the Monster Manual, though the former seems to have lost some of the more hyena-ish elements along the way:

A later range of Minfigs gnolls (World of Greyhawk, below) make the creatures more hyena-like, but they still retain some similarities to the original range - especially in stature. 

I'll be fielding the two types together in games: it would be odd to expect creatures of chaos (which is what gnolls are in early D&D) to lack variety!

Scratch-built bulette

 

Here's the latest beastie from my son - a reimagining of the D&D bulette or landshark. And here's how he did it:

Scratch-built Beholder!

This is my son's latest. You can see how he designed and created it here:

A Hinchliffe/Broadsword goblin and some 25mm RPG miniatures

 

Here's a Hinchliffe goblin (now produced by Broadsword Miniatures). I really like these venerable orcs; were I to do the Battle of the Five Armies for Hordes of the Things or equivalent, these are the fellows I'd use for the goblin army. They might not be an exact match for JRRT's descriptions of orcs in The Lord of the Rings, but they contravene nothing in the text of The Hobbit. 

In our D&D games, these fellows will probably serve as hobgoblins, as they're fairly hefty next to the "true 25mm" figures that I'm painting up for RPGs. Below are a couple from Tin Soldier and a Julie Guthrie half-orc from Grenadier alongside the Hinchliffe goblin.

Playtesting house rules - and weapon-based initiative mods

 

My son and I ran a quick playtest of my D&D house rules tonight. We pitted two first-level fighters against each other. Each had 6 HP and added his level (1) and his opponent's AC to the 'target 20' roll. Initiative was rolled on D6 each round. 

The first fighter had a gambeson (AC 7), a sword (D6) and a shield (D6 absorption). The second had mail (AC 5) and a two-handed sword (2D6, take the best). I was originally going to have a shield reduce AC, but forgot all about it. I think I'll keep it that way - shields seem plenty powerful!

We initially played three combats. The shield-armed fighter won the first, so we added a second mail-clad fighter with a normal sword and no shield to help the chap with the two-handed sword. The shield-armed fighter won that too, albeit with a great stroke of luck in his first attack. And then shield guy won the third fight tool.

After my son went to bed, I ran a few more fights. Shield guy won most, but greatsword guy got a couple back. 

I was quite pleased with how this played out. A shield was very important - and that's just as it should be. 

The fellow with the greatsword was a bit unlucky, in that all of his best shots were met with solid shield parries, but there was also a sense that he was a bit green and lightly armoured to be putting all his trust in a big weapon. 

And that, I think, is just as it should be too. Historically, two-handed cutting weapons tended to be the preserve of champions, bodyguards and forlorn-hope types (higher level!) - or else those with very effective armour. I ran three few fights in which greatsword guy had AC3, and he won two out of three of those. Better armour and a higher level would have swung things greatly in his favour. 

One thing I'm considering, though, is giving two-handed weapons +1 to initiative rolls. As two-handed swords, poleaxes and halberds are long, their users should probably get a higher chance of having first strike. My shield rules help here, as the fighter with the shorter weapon can trust in his shield until he closes.

Then there are spears. I'll probably give them +2 initiative. Halberdiers and billmen should be able to choose from round to round whether they want to use their weapon as a spear or a two-handed weapon - so +2 initiative or +1 and best of 2D6 damage. After all, what are halberds if not a combination of a spear and a two-handed axe?

All of that leads to a spear and shield combination being the best combination for the fighter who values his or her life. And guess what? If history's any guide, that's exactly as it should be too!

House rule for critical hits

 Here's a quick house rule for critical hits in my 'rethought' version of D&D (cooked up in response to a comment by Little Odo and this post on Grognardia). 

To recap: 

• shields absorb damage through an opposed D6 roll, unless damage is 6 to a shield roll of 1, in which case the attacker chooses whether to inflict full damage or break the shield; bucklers absorb D4;
• hit points are set at 6 for most first-level characters and monsters;
• All weapons do D6 damage unless the wielder is ogre-sized (D8) or (possibly) very strong;
• there are no damage bonuses (except for magical weapons);
• two-handed weapons allow the wielder's player to pick from the higher of two D6.

I like the balance of 6 HP vs D6 damage. But the problem is that rising HP (even if it's just one point per level) immediately take characters to a point where there's no risk of death from a single orc arrow. I don't want that!

Enter the critical hit. A straight critical on a roll of 20 on a D20 comes up far too often. So here's my rule:

• any unmodified attack roll of 20 allows an 'exploding' damage roll - that is, a roll of 6 on a D6 allows another damage die to be rolled and the total added together. Damage dice may explode infinitely, so long as the highest number on the die is rolled each time. Two-handed weapons explode when either of their 2D6 comes up with a 6. Note that an ogre doing D8 damage needs an 8 to 'explode'; likewise, a giant on D10 or D12 needs a roll of maximum damage. If a dragon hits you on a 20 and then rolls 20 damage, you're in for a short night ...

As a two-handed weapon essentially doubles the chance of exploding damage on a 20, there's a strong incentive to carry one - though at the cost of the D6 absorption that a shield offers. A critical is likely to overwhelm a shield; even if a 6 is rolled against a 6, the extra die will still get through.

Something I really like about this is that it (theoretically) allows even a first-level character to slay a dragon or a giant or similar sack of hit points. It means that the humble orc arrow still poses a risk - however unlikely - to the highest-level fighter. And it frees me up to allow higher-level characters to add hit dice rather than hit points with each level. 

More on my house rules for shields, hit points and damage

 

The other day, I set out my house rules for shields in D&D (BECMI, Swords and Wizardry, The White Hack, whatever ...). I want to expand on them a little, so here they are again:

Shields

A character equipped with a shield rolls 1D6 when hit in melee or missile combat for which he or she was prepared. The shield roll is deducted from the attacker's damage. If the attacker rolls a six and the shield-bearer rolls a 1, then the attacker can choose either to do the full 6 points of damage or to render the shield useless until repaired. 

Bucklers

Bucklers are small shields that are sufficiently small to be carried inconspicuously on a belt. They act as shields in all respects, but absorb only 1D4 points of damage. 

These are designed to work with the original D&D rules, in which all weapons do 1D6 damage (unless wielded by something like an ogre or a giant). So the best shield parry will stop all the damage from the most powerful (or most accurate) human blow, but may not be capable of stopping a heavy blow from a larger and more powerful foe. An ogre uses a d8 for damage (rather than the original D6 +2), so there's a 1 in 4 chance that an ogre's blow will cause damage through even the best-placed shield. 

As I set out in that post, I'm also tending towards a default 6 hit points for human-sized creatures (and first-level characters), although I might settle for a minimum score of 2 on a character's first hit die. 

The reason for this is simple. I want each combat to have plenty of elements of uncertainty. One thing I love about RuneQuest combat is the sense of danger. For all your character's armour, you never know when that humble trollkin is going to roll a critical or an impale.

But at the same time, I don't want well-armed first-level characters to be walking on eggshells all the time. I think well-armed men-at-arms (e.g. first-level fighters) should fancy their chances when faced with lightly armed brigands (or orcs, for that matter).

Giving first-level characters and their foes six hit points each means that combat is risky, but that better armour - and especially shields - are likely to greatly reduce that risk if only one side has them. So three men-at-arms in mail with shields can feel confident (though not safe) in taking on three unarmoured brigands with cudgels. 

With 6 HP apiece, D6 damage and a D6 absorption through a shield (unless the shield:damage ratio is 1:6), each attack has the potential to be deadly. But we're not in the situation where characters will inevitably fall if a blow connects. There's room for a little back and forth - with each wound received making the chance of a decisive attack more likely. And that ups the potential for derring-do, because a PC can take a calculated risk with their six HP in a way that's simply not possible when they only have 1.

But what about stat bonuses? After all, some people are tougher than others - or hit harder. I don't want to use STR-based damage bonuses, because those raise the minimum damage above 1. The strongest character can still cause just a scratch when they swing a sword.

Might an exceptionally strong character use the common 2D6-and-take-the-higher house rule (normally reserved for two-handed weapons) and roll an ogre-sized D8 when using a two-handed weapon? I quite like the sound of that - but it would have to be for very strong characters. There is a way of gradating this, though: characters with 16  or 17 STR might do a D8 with a two-handed weapon, and those with 18 might get the 2D6/take-the-higher rule with one-handed weapons and the D8 for two-handers.

I don't much like CON as a stat - and especially not as one that affects HP. It seems to me that strength (as reflected in muscle and bone size and density) is the physical characteristic that would boost HP; CON, as a nebulous measure of disease resistance, stamina and fitness, doesn't have an obvious role to play here.

But here's the thing. If HP are set at 6 for a first-level character (or NPC), then any bonus takes the character out of the danger zone for at least one round. If you have 7 HP, you're not going to be killed by that orc arrow or guardsman's crossbow bolt. 

Perhaps, then, 6 shouldn't be the starting point. What if we make 3 or 4 the starting HP and have bonuses to HP from STR? A starting score of 4 with STR 13-15 +1 and 16-18 +2? Or a starting score of 3 with STR 13-15 +1, 16-17 +2 and 18 +3?

In that case, monster HP can be altered slightly by type. If one is separating goblins from orcs in the (distinctly un-Tolkien) D&D style, then perhaps goblins have 3, orcs have 4 and orc leaders and hobgoblins have 5 or 6?

We could also have character-class penalties for HP. Perhaps magicians, withered by study and unnatural practices, have starting HP of 2 or 3 against 3 or 4. And creatures smaller than human size could be reduced to HP 2 or 3 (though not 1).

There's something satisfying, though, about the symmetry of 6 HP and D6 damage. And if we're assuming that 6 is a lethal blow for most people, we might assume that it's a blow that would be lethal for almost anyone. 

What, then, do we do with levelling up? The 6 HP/D6 damage symmetry immediately makes anyone with even 7 HP exceptional. So perhaps the increment is 1 hit point per level rather than 1 hit die. Or perhaps fighters get 2 HP while other classes get 1. That way, the second-level fighter is immediately a more awe-inspiring figure - one who can risk an arrow or a sword stroke without fearing death. And by fourth level, even a full-on hit from an ogre won't kill at a stroke.

Decisions, decisions ...

Careful with that axe! Damage in D&D and RuneQuest - and a new house rule for shields

In the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons (1974), all player-character attacks did D6 damage. Strength bonuses were yet to be dreamed up - unless you were an ogre, in which case you did D6 + 2 damage, or a giant (2D6).

In many ways, this way of handling damage is superior to all that came afterwards, including the STR bonuses and varying weapon damages that came in later supplements and versions of the game - and in later games such as RuneQuest. And I'd argue that the rot had set in even with ogres and giants in 1974.

Why? Well, a single die of damage always allows the possibility of just a single point of damage being done - a light wound, in other words. And that's important. Even an ogre should be capable of just grazing someone as it swings its club. 

One thing I've noticed as our campaign has progressed through its Gloranthan phase is that many characters are incapable of not maiming the average unarmoured foe with a single hit. If you're armed with a dagger in RuneQuest, you do 1d4 +2 damage to start with. If you're only a bit bigger and stronger than average (STR and SIZ averaging 13), you'll be doing 2d4 +2. But the average human character has just 3 hit points in each arm. So the minimum damage from a normal human wielding a dagger will incapacitate that limb. A stronger-than-average character armed with a dagger or club can't fail to maim the average human's leg or abdomen with a single blow. And woe betide anyone in the path of a great axe (2d6 +2 damage).

Despite RuneQuest's reputation for lethality, these high minima get lost in the welter of huge damage totals that can result from impales and other specials hits. That's because RuneQuest characters tend to be heavily armoured and loaded up on protective magic. But for all the game's vaunted realism, something has slipped. Two unarmoured men in a knife fight could keep going through numerous light wounds before something more dangerous or deadly occurred - at least if Borges is any guide. D6 is better damage for a dagger than D4 +2.

For D&D house rules - or for a substantially rethought versions of the game - I'd be tempted to stick with 1D6 damage as the norm, with no strength bonuses (those I'd apply to the attack roll). But what about two-handed weapons? Well, I've seen house rules around that go with 'advantage' - roll 2D6 and pick the best. That's an elegant set-up - it increases the average damage without ruling out the possibility of a 1. 

Another option would be to use a D8. I'd probably keep that for ogres, though. Giants could deal out D10 or even D12, depending on their size. And D20 might be the preserve of dragons and their ilk. The important point is that all damage should have a minimum of 1. A single die is always preferable to multiple dice or single die plus bonus. 

Now, if two-handed weapons offer an advantage, shields need to offer a different advantage too. As many have acknowledged, a single point of armour class isn't much compensation. Trollsmyth's Shields Shall Be Splintered rule is great, but it does give PCs the knowledge that they can always avoid lethal blows when carrying an intact shield.

Why not just have shield-wielders roll to reduce damage? Opposed rolls don't slow the game down, as they can be rolled simultaneously.

So how about this for shields in old-school D&D games? 

Shields

A character equipped with a shield rolls 1D6 when hit in melee or missile combat for which he or she was prepared. The shield roll is deducted from the attacker's damage. If the attacker rolls a six and the shield-bearer rolls a 1, then the attacker can choose either to do the full 6 points of damage or to render the shield useless until repaired. 

Bucklers

Bucklers are small shields that are sufficiently small to be carried inconspicuously on a belt. They act as shields in all respects, but absorb only 1D4 points of damage. 

This rule should ensure that shields are valuable, but should also avoid characters benefiting from extra lives through their use. As the shattering of the shield is the attacker's option on the 6:1 roll, it's likely that most will go for full damage instead. So shields will break, but in considerably fewer than 1 in 36 cases. 

One more thing: hit points. There's no point in worrying about keeping minimum damage to 1 if lots of people are running around with only 1 hit point. Perhaps the minimum score for the first hit die of almost any creature should be 2. But a simpler solution might be that most people and humanoid monsters (and certainly all PCs) just have 6 hit points as the default.

There's a nice symmetry about all this. Most ordinary humans (orcs, dwarves, whatever) will survive a single melee attack. And a shield will improve their chances of survival considerably. But there's still chance that any single combat round could prove lethal - whether that's because someone slips a dagger through your visor or pulls off a perfect sword-stroke.

A quick method for resolving mass combats in RPGs

I've been running our party through the famous Cradle scenario from Pavis and the Big Rubble. We've been playing D&D (Rules Cyclopedia) between four and seven times a week for the past couple of years; a few months ago, the players found themselves dispatched to Glorantha upon a sorceress's errand. I converted all of their stats to RuneQuest; you can imagine the cries of dismay as 54 hit points dwindled to 14 - and only 4 in each arm!

For the second of the three tasks the sorceress set them, they had to defend the titular cradle. As of tonight, they're locked in battle with Lunars, water snakes and wyverns while the Watchdog of Corflu holds the Cradle fast in its fangs.

The battle pits the assorted defenders of the Cradle against dozens if not hundreds of Lunar troops. The player-characters form only a small portion of the defenders as the fight rages on the Cradle's deck (and potentially in the air and water too).

Now, resolving the combat involving the players is easy enough. But what about the battle all around?

What I've been doing is just using the combat factors from the marvellous fantasy wargame Hordes of the Things to resolve each of the various group fights with a single opposed die roll. When massed Lunar hoplites are fighting assorted Orlanthi, Storm Bull and Zola Fel cultists, I treat the Lunars as spears (with rear-rank support bonus) and the defenders as warband. So the roll is D6+5 for the Lunars vs D6+3 for the defenders. If the Lunars double the defenders' total, they destroy that block of defenders. If they merely beat them, they push them back. As warband, the defenders are weaker, but they do have the advantage (from the HOTT rules) of destroying spears if they beat them at all.

Obviously, all of the troop types from HOTT (or its parent game DBA) can be used as the situation demands. The water snakes count as behemoths, and when the wyvern riders attack, they'll be aerial heroes (+5!). The dark trolls, who have just emerged from the lower decks of the cradle, will fight as blades (+5).

So how does this interact with the PCs and their RuneQuest combat? Well, I resolve those fights individually first and then factor their outcomes into the surrounding battle. For example, the Lunars, coming down the Watchdog's head and shoulders onto the deck, have formed up three HOTT elements wide (in my head - we aren't using miniatures for this). Each element is supported by another, giving them the +1 for rear support. I'm assuming that each element consists of six hoplites (as in the scenario). If the PCs have taken out foes in their combat round, I give the defenders in that point of the line a +1 bonus.

Tonight, it worked like this. Our dwarves each laid low a Lunar hoplite in the middle of the line. So for that combat, I gave the defending warband element +4 rather than +3. They rolled 6 against the Lunars' 4, giving 10 against 9, so the defenders destroyed the front Lunar spear element and were now pushing up through to the rear rank.

Unlike in HOTT, I didn't have the supporting element destroyed too; I want the battle to last longer, and for the players to feel the advantage as they thin the Lunar ranks. And by swiftly resolving the combats to left and right of the engaged members of the party, I was able to describe what was happening on the deck without having to either make it up or resolve it through long periods of dice-rolling that didn't involve the players.

Earlier in the campaign, we did something similar using HOTT miniatures to simulate an attack on a caravan. The players cast their spells and rolled their attacks, and these influenced the HOTT game around them. It wasn't quite a full game of HOTT (for one thing, I had to stream it over Zoom via a document camera for those not in the room), but I think a full-on game of HOTT with RPG mechanics providing bonuses for the relevant combats would work perfectly. So, in a round in which the players killed all their foes, I'd give a +2 bonus to the element with which they're associated (or perhaps a -2 penalty to their foes, which makes the latter easier to double). That way, the players get to make all their usual combat rolls but still get to have an influence on the more abstracted battle taking place on the tabletop.

Foil and Fimo demons

 

As the party's sojourn in Hell continued, these scratch-built demons made their debut today. All three were very quickly built from tin foil, Fimo and green stuff. 

The larger two are based on HotT 60mm bases so that they can be roped in as behemoths or gods for that game when required. 

As with my other scratch-build efforts, there's no finesse involved in these. But while they're crude, they were very quick to make and paint.

Another scratch-built beastie

 

I'm increasingly fond of scratch-building big monsters for RPG encounters. This fellow - Gurakeel, Lord of Manticores and deposed king of the Seventh Hell (since you ask) - took a couple of hours to build from tinfoil, Fimo and greenstuff and maybe another couple of hours to paint. 

He was the result of a Friday-night decision after that evening's online session ended with an unknown monster crawling up the side of the ruin in which the party were sheltering. Some post-dinner fiddling with tin foil and Fimo produced the base. After baking him, I added some green stuff to the face and then finished off the feet and fur in the morning. Once he was dry, a suitably swift paintjob finished him off.

My son obliged by constructing the ruins in the morning, so we had a suitable stage for an epic slice of action.

The great thing about scratch-built and - frankly - rushed monsters like this is that there's no need to take much time with the painting. Base colours, a wash, some impressionistic highlights, stripes with a Posca pen and then a tiny bit of care with the eyes, and he was done. And he produced the requisite gasps on his debut - more than I'd have got by taking hours and hours over an expensive miniature.

A first stab at the megadungeon campaign

 

A couple of weeks ago, some of our regular players couldn't make our daily D&D session. I decided that this was an opportunity to start up the episodic megadungeon campaign. This is my long-planned set-up for spontaneous play on just such occasions. There was just one problem: I hadn't yet designed the dungeon. 

That, I decided, need not detain us. I procured a highly rated free adventure from the web (I won't give its name here as we aren't yet done with it, but it might concern a sepulchre of sibilant segmented slitherers ...). And off we went.

This gave me the opportunity to test out some of the mechanics I've plotted out for episodic games - notably the last lantern-bearer. I had every player roll up three characters each beforehand, but instructed them to equip only one with the conventional 3d6 x 10 gp. 

That was the only time that a gold piece was a gold piece. Taking a tip from Little Odo, I've rebased the currency to silver for the purposes of treasure and XP - so that equipment is much more expensive after the initial kitting out of a character. I don't mind a starting character showing up in plate armour - but I want it to be worth prying from his corpse if he comes to harm. 

Players also have to choose between spending silver pieces looted from the dungeon or using them for XP. I've made the same switch in our regular D&D campaign (still on the gold standard), and I like it. The advantage for higher-level characters is that all living and travel expenses are hand-waved as "in the XP" - but the players are still left hungry for loot. 

Anyway, the first session went nicely. We were using the Swords and Wizardry rules, which I really like. We had four players, and the party consisted of an assassin, an elf fighter, an elf thief and a magic-user. They decided to hire some extra muscle, so recruited two additional fighters - one first level and the other second. That meant that treasure would be split seven ways, with Carla the Clumsy (the second-level fighter) taking two of those shares. 

For this adventure, I decided that the mules and porters/lantern-bearers would remain outside the 'dungeon'. My megadungeon will chiefly consist of spacious hallways and wide subterranean roads, but this outing involved caves and a tomb. The map, however, allowed me the conceit of having the porters within earshot at first, so that potential reinforcements were at hand. 

The players advanced cautiously and overheard some orcs talking. The elf thief realised that the party had been overheard. During a period of indecision, one of the orcs crept round to the party's rear using other tunnels and began shooting arrows. They drove him off with missiles and managed to make short work of his two comrades. But when they were beginning a rope descent into a lower level, the orc archer returned and shot dead one of the NPC fighters holding the rope. That led to chaos, with some of the party getting into trouble on the lower level while one was left on the upper level to deal with the orc. A well-placed arrow eventually did for him, but two of the party had died below and Carla the Clumsy was badly wounded (0 HP). The lantern-bearers were summoned from outside, the wounded Carla was carried out, and two new PCs replaced the fallen from the ranks of the hired help. These two were unequipped, of course, so they had to scavenge gear from the fallen - less than ideal given the mismatch of character classes. 

Two players had to go at that point, so one original PC left with the wounded, but one of the original characters and a replacement made their way a little deeper into the lower level. Only one came back - but with a fair bit of XP and a little loot for her pains. Next time, the two surviving starting PCs and their new comrades can aim to get further in and deeper down. 

All in all, the game went as I'd hoped. After the higher-level escapades of the regular campaign (approaching its first anniversary this weekend after what must be around 340 sessions), it was nice to be cause fear with a single orc arrow out of the darkness. And I was happy with the lethality level (three survivors out of a total of seven adventurers, starting and recruited during the session). 

What I liked most was the feeling that the adventure was a raid on a dangerous locale - and a fairly unrewarding one at that, especially when the recovered Carla claimed her share. That sets the stage for a second expedition next time - and perhaps this time, the players will recruit all the NPCs they can!

Hooooo! A kitbashed 1/72 troll

 

Progress on my megadungeon project has stalled in recent weeks (thanks to that toad), but I've been beavering away on miniatures for the game. Some of these will be used in our regular D&D campaign, which will be switching to 1/72 scale when more epic encounters demand it.

This fellow is a troll of the Poul Anderson/D&D sort, quickly kitbashed from a Reaper Bones ghast and a spare Otherworld troll head. He'll be one of the bigger sorts; I have others underway kitbashed from Games Workshop ghouls. There are plenty of trolls around that work in 1/72 scale, but the D&D/Anderson sort should be armed only with their teeth and claws, which is more of a challenge.

Earlier, I made a couple of smaller ones out of GW ur-ghuls and gnoblar/goblin heads. These are less canonical in appearance, but I want plenty of variety among my trolls - not least so I can tell them apart on the tabletop when tracking hit points and regeneration.

The important thing is that they're unarmed. I'm planning to create reusable sheets with troll stats on them, assigning those with higher hit points to the bigger ones and noting special features (extra arms, heads, etc.) as I go. The idea is that I can print out the troll sheet whenever there's a troll encounter and have extra details (names, quirks of personality, possessions, etc.) and specific hit points ready to go. If the party kill a troll whose name they know, that stat block will be renamed on the sheet. It's a simple trick, but it'll make tracking combat easier and lend the encounters more character and precision from the get-go. 

I'll do the same for all the major monster types in the megadungeon - so that the two orcs you meet wandering down the corridor aren't just faceless 1HD drones but Sharguz and Bagtuth, two cowardly grifters on the fringers of the tribe with some information they think the PCs might be willing to pay for ...

Megadungeon mechanics part five: the joys of one hit die and the implications of what has gone before

I mentioned in the previous post in this series that my forthcoming megadungeon campaign will be more like a wargame than our main D&D campaign. That could be  misleading, though, as I mean it in only one very specific sense: that combats will mostly be of the one-hit variety. This is going to be - for most players - a low-level campaign. A character that gets to level two will be cherished. And one that gets to level three will be prized. 

In part, this limited advancement will come down to player decisions. As I've noted before, I'm using gold for XP - but only if that gold is spent on unspecified advancement-related stuff: training, study, sacrifices, etc. I'm also going to make equipment - notably armour - much more expensive than it is in the common iterations of D&D. I want a mail hauberk to be a significant treasure item in its own right. Full plate harness might cost as much as levelling up. And then there's the process of hiring mercenaries that I've set out: the common way to do this is to have them fight for an equal (or double or triple) share of the expedition's loot, which will cut down the amount of gold available to PC. When they can be hired for a day-rate, that day-rate will be high. All of this means that the players will be constantly choosing between advancement, equipment and assistance. 

It also means that most PCs will be on a solitary hit die for much of the time. I'm toying with the idea of having PCs roll their hit dice for each expedition, although that might prompt a mutiny. But as monsters will be doing fighter weapon damage (d8/d10) for the most part, even second-level fighters will be vulnerable to a lucky stroke from a hobgoblin poleaxe (d10).

So characters will be more like Balin (taken out by one orc-arrow) than Boromir (pin-cushioned by countless arrows and still fighting to the last). This has three main implications.

1. Big battles can be handled easily. If the players hire 20 mercenaries to raid a goblin lair, we might conceivably have 50 or more miniatures on the table. But if we know that most of the goblins will be killed in a single attack and that many of the mercenaries (and PCs) will be too, we can look forward to an initial frenzy of d20 rolls and then a rapid clearing of the battlefield. Mass combat won't involve much more book-keeping than a typical skirmish wargame, and the deadliness should keep it exciting. I expect a lot of traditional PC activity (sneaking, stealing, trickery) to take place during large-scale combats as well as as an alternative to them.

2. Shields shan't be splintered. Because I want highly dangerous encounters, I won't be using Trollsmyth's excellent "shields shall be splintered" rule. We use that in our regular D&D campaign, and it's great. But in the megadungeon game of fully equipped expeditions, it will just lead to mules being burdened with umpteen spare shields. What I'll probably do to compensate is have larger shields modify AC by 2 or 3 rather than 1, which will be reserved for bucklers. So a tower/kite/buckler hierarchy of 3/2/1 modifiers is probably the way to go - although I'll be thinking about this a bit more. 

3. Tactical retreats will be common. When running our main D&D group through the Caves of Chaos last year, I though that one of the most satisfying sessions was when a raid on the hobgoblin caves utterly failed. It ended with some PCs badly wounded and the hobgoblins hunting for them with hounds in the forest. And of course, the PCs swore revenge - which was all the more satisfying when it was eventually achieved. If your characters have only one hit die apiece, you're going to be very sensitive to the turning of the battle's tide. And that leads on to the next point.

4. Game sessions may involve multiple expeditions. I really like this concept: that three or four hours of play might not be confined to a single raid, but could feature two or three. In running our 250+-session lockdown campaign, I've observed that the joy of the game comes as much from the story that emerges between the sessions as from the sessions themselves. I want to reproduce that even in an episodic and occasional campaign, so that grudges can form, vengeance can be taken and best-laid plans can gang aft aglae. And the best way of doing that is to have more story in a single session. For that reason, downtime will be almost instant. Once the PCs are out of the dungeon, we move straight on to preparing the next expedition: "Two months pass, and your wounds are healed. Assemble your new party! What's the plan now?". As the megadungeon will have many entrances, there should always be a different approach worth trying - whether that's launching a diplomatic mission to attempt to recruit another faction to your current cause, attacking from a different direction or hiring a squadron of stone-masons to block up some of the entrances of the dungeon altogether.

With the lights out, it's more dangerous ...

I've also been considering some other implications of my previous posts. Most obviously, the continuity conceit of the last lantern-bearer won't work if many of the PCs have infravision. So perhaps all PCs should be humans. That frees up dwarfs and elves to be villains, which is just as it should be. 

Then there's the presence of pack animals. I want these to be essential for expeditions to the megadungeon, for realism (food, blankets, water), to simplify encumbrance considerations and to allow for the removal of large items of treasure. They do, of course, make the party more visible, noisy and exposed - but I think that can be turned to the party's - and the game's - advantage too. If you're pursued by angry dire wolves, you might think about hobbling your mules and abandoning them to their awful fate so that you can get away. That's one option that the last lantern-bearer often has - and it's one reason that he always gets away.

The danger to mules also means that it's not only monsters that move around the dungeon, but treasure too. That provides a great boost to emergent narrative, I think. If the dire wolves dragged down your mules outside the hobgoblin stronghold, what has happened to the golden idol you looted from the troglodytes? The hobgoblins probably have it - but what have they done with it? Could you somehow play the vengeful trogs off against them? Or have they returned it to the trogs and forged an alliance with them as a result? Does that mean that their lair will now be guarded by chameleon-like stink lizards that you won't see until they're upon you? Or has a drooling ogre rescued the statue from the dire wolves' leavings and dragged it to his cave where he's now attempting to woo it by piling severed heads in front of it each day? 

That's for the players to find out ...

Megadungeon mechanics part four: a universal table of wandering monsters

I started writing this a few months back, in response to some interesting posts on wandering monsters from Lich Van Wrinkle and noisms. As so often, I failed to finish the post off - but I'm now incorporating its substance into my series on the megadungeon.

In their respective posts, Lich describes mixed results in his first experience of using wandering monsters 'properly' while noisms takes against them somewhat, especially in the dungeon:

In the artificial and enclosed 'dungeon' environment, though, I've always thought that something stinks about random encounters. Unless the encounter is with a being that already exists within the dungeon key, and is assumed to be moving around (that is, if the encounter is with a being that is extraneous to what is already plotted), then one is forced to simply put out of one's mind the question of where it came from. Why is this giant slug, which the random encounter table just threw up, suddenly here? Where was it before? And why is it that it it does not appear to have had a material effect on its dungeon surroundings prior to this point? 

Like Lich, I didn't use wandering monsters much or at all in my first incarnation as a GM. In part, that was because I started out with RuneQuest, which lacked the concept of the procedural dungeon crawl. And in part, it was because my adventures tended to be sketchy affairs in which a complete map was a bonus and there was never enough prep time for extras such as wandering-monster tables. 

That's not to say that I didn't use dynamic encounters - but they tended to be of the "some guards come round the corner" variety when things started to lag. 

I've still got plenty of time for that approach. But since I've been using Basic D&D for the nine months and running of our daily lockdown campaign, I've used wandering monsters a lot, and I like them. So, I think, do the players. Wandering monsters formed the basis of whole sessions on the Isle of Dread; as noisms notes, "the wilderness is all random encounters". 

A good table of fauna offers lots of instant adventure, especially when two or more rolls are used together. One highlight in our campaign involved the PCs glimpsing a roc on the wing from atop the Isle of Dread's volcano; when they descended onto the plateau and encountered a mastodon, I had the big bird swoop down and snatch it - much to the players' horror and delight.

But what about the dungeon? Wandering monsters are the quintessence of the dungeon crawl, I think, because they communicate to the players that dungeon-crawling is a dangerous business and that they should be quick, quiet and careful. And they also bring the setting to life. 

So where do these monsters come from? Noisms argues that the "only reasonable answer as to where randomly encountered monsters in the dungeon come from is: outside, or from further down". I don't think that's quite right - or at least, I think that these and other answers are easy to rationalise even in an "naturalistic" dungeon.

Now, I agree that wandering monsters should fit the environment. Each dungeon - and probably each dungeon level - should have its own tailored table. But I'm thinking about universally applicable categories that can be intuitively filled in for a given area of the megadungeon. Let's consider eight of these.

Patrols

This is the easiest and most obvious sort: patrols of humanoids (or similar) that live in the dungeon. You can divide these into 'home' and 'hostile'. So, if a dungeon level has mutually antagonistic orcs and gnolls in it, a home roll in orc territory brings orcs while a hostile roll brings gnolls - and vice versa. How do the hostiles get there? Most likely by following the PCs, hoping to exploit the carnage that they've created - and perhaps to pick off the depleted adventurers. Rationalising their route should be easy, presuming that the PCs have come through no-man's land to get to the orc section. The gnolls have simply followed in their (bloody) footsteps.

Stalkers

While patrols probably want to prey on weakened foes and parties alike, other creatures might be specifically interested in the party. They might be predatory, or they might be looking for security, company or even friendship. So, this category can include scavengers hungry for fresh corpses, beings that want protection in the dungeon (and what better escort than a bloody-handed bunch of murder-hobos?) or those interested in something the party has: past owners of treasure, perhaps, or their minions. If Moria is the ur-dungeon, then Gollum is the ur-stalker. 

Vermin (a.k.a dwellers in the wainscotting or the Wolves in the Walls)

One obvious way to have dungeon vermin suddenly appear is simply to have them come out of the walls. I've often used kobolds in this way: their tunnels riddle the dungeon but are too small for (most) adventurers to get down - and too dangerous even if they could. Yes, your halfling might squeeze into a kobold crawlspace, but the excursion probably wouldn't end well. 

This gives a nice rationale for why weak creatures like kobolds survive and even thrive in the underworld. Rather than inhabiting large and easily invaded caverns, they live in twisting tunnels; their communal spaces are almost impossible to access. And it also explains why they can crop up at almost any time or place in the dungeon. They tunnel and burrow constantly, the entrances to their crawlways are cunningly concealed, and they're always creating new ones. 

Kobolds are just one example of creatures in this class, of course. Giant rats, giant beetles and many other smallish, burrowing beasts fit here nicely, as do stirges that roost in the recesses of the dungeon but fly through its corridors when on the hunt. 

Squeezers (through cracks)

Monstrous oozes and jellies are pretty much a D&D invention (drawing on shoggoths and the Blob, of course), and they provide another easily explainable source of monsters. Where did that thing come from? It dripped through the ceiling. Oozes gonna ooze.

Raiders

Now, these are typically from the outside (or above or below). I'd differentiate these from patrols, above, in that they're not on regular duty or simply being opportunistic, but have mounted an attack against the area of the dungeon in which they're encountered. So, while these could be the orcs/gnolls from across no-man's land on the same level, they'd appear in far greater numbers than a patrol. But they could be hobgoblins from a nearby stronghold or bugbears from the surrounding hills. They might signal their attack with drums or horns, and the party might initially just encounter their scouts or vanguard - giving the PCs the opportunity to make something of the situation. Repeated rolls in a single session would typically indicate encounters with different elements of the raiding party. Raiders could also be other adventurers, of course.

Rampagers

Another dangerous category, this: big monsters on the hunt, whether from nearby caverns or from deep within the earth. This might include trolls, landsharks and umber hulks. If these creatures exist on the dungeon level, their coming will prompt other inhabitants to bar their doors and retreat to their fastnesses. And it could be signalled by howls, heavy footsteps or trembling in the earth.

Haunters

Given that most dungeons have witnessed many scenes of slaughter, you'd expect a few ghosts to be clanking their chains. Different bestiaries assign specific roles to synonyms for ghost, but we can usefully divide this class into apparitions: harmless but disturbing visions that merely show something that happened in the past - from a march of doomed troops to a murder; unquiet spirits: ghosts that want the party to do something for them - bury their bones, avenge their death or return some object to their grave; and evil spirits: hostile ethereal undead of the D&D spectre or wraith sort.

Apparitions are perhaps the most interesting class. In a science-fantasy setting, they might be fragmented holograms (as in Serenity or Prometheus). In any setting, they can be used to hint at some tragedy from the past. Perhaps the PCs see grim-faced warriors in bronze armour march down the corridor - and then encounter animated skeletons wearing that same armour elsewhere. And perhaps these apparitions aren't visible to everyone. You can have the whole party make a save vs spells; if everyone passes, they'll still be spooked.

Personalities

An easy way to bring the dungeon to life is to ensure that its most celebrated inhabitants don't simply sit in their room waiting for adventurers to arrive. There are two obvious categories here - the 'home' encounter, which might be the orc chief visiting his lieutenants or interrogating prisoners; and the rarer 'hostile' encounter, in which an eminence from another part of the dungeon has arrived. A 'hostile' result could actually be a welcomed guest - what matters is that it's someone or something who's not on their home turf. Previous random encounters might give clues to this. If you've had a 'hostile' raiders encounter previously, a subsequent personality might be the hobgoblin commander striding in like Darth Vader in the Hoth base. If you haven't, he might be here with his bodyguards to plot mischief in alliance with the orc chief. 

So, those eight categories might give us a table like this:

D8                    Category                        Encounter (D4)

1                        Patrols                           1-2. Home (2d3)   3. Hostile (2d4)   4. Outsiders (2d6)

2                        Stalkers                         1-2. Ghouls    3. Protection-seekers 4. Treasure-seekers

3                        Vermin                          1-2. Kobolds (2d6)  3. Giant rats (2d6)   4. Stirges (2d8)

4                        Squeezers                      1. Gelatinous cube (1)  2-3 Black pudding (1-2) 4 Grey ooze (1-3)

5                        Raiders                          1 Home (4d6)  2. Hostile (4d6)  3. Outsiders (4d6) 4. NPCs (2d4)

6                        Rampagers                    1. Umber hulk  2. Trolls (d3) 3. Landshark 4. Purple worm

7                        Haunters                        1-2. Apparitions 3. Unquiet spirits 4. Evil spirits

8.                       Personalities                   1-3. Home        4. Hostile

Over a session or two, rolls on this table should illustrate the dungeon's history, politics and ecology. 

And while they should challenge the players, they should also provide them with opportunities. A hostile patrol offers the prospect of a temporary alliance. A treasure-seeker might obtain its goal in return for local knowledge. If a 'home raid' takes 4d6 of the bugbear warriors out of the complex, PCs who have snuffed their torches and concealed their pack animals may have the chance to fall upon a lightly defended bugbear lair. If the hobgoblin chief is talking to the orcs, then he and his bodyguards won't be at home if the PCs come knocking.