D&D(Give it a read, at least)

[Morgoth]

D&D. Except over the internet! We could take turns being DM's. Like I could DM the first adventure in campaign, then someone else could DM the second, and so on. If you do want to join, we'll begin as first level characters. Post your characters here. Personally, I don't want to DM the first few adventures, but once we get up to like Level 7 or so, I would be glad too. Oh, by the way, 3rd Edition Rules if at all possible.

 

[Khadgar]

i would be interested, but theres one problem. no one in my area plays D&D, and so i don't know alot of the rules, or everything about chars. so.... if i could get some help on that, or a web site explaining what i need to know. then i'm in!

 

[MissVictoria]

Sounds fun..

 

[SpectralDragoon]

Hey Khadgar, I'm your 3rd Edition man (or 3E as we like to call it).

I'd be glad to work on a character with you d00d, I've got the books, and more importantly... the patience! Not that you'd piss me off, but the very nature of teaching D&D rules over the net *Shiver*.

PM me or somethin.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

I'm already doing too much one here, but perhaps you guys should consider getting a hold of Jeselynn, who's already got the Freeport Adventurers in progress. It isn't too far into it yet, and there's probably room for more. Just a suggestion.

 

[Morgoth]

Alright. I could use a few more takers, but this is okay. First order of business: Anyone up for DMing the first few? We'll post characters later.

 

[Snork Maiden]

DM

Hi Morgoth,

I happy to DM the first few scenarios, if you would like. I only have knowledge of 1st Ed though. I can also play some NPC's and PC if you want. Let me know, you can PM me or reach me on ICQ157681362.

Snork

 

[Snork Maiden]

OK,

I have agreed with Morgoth to be Dungeon Mistress for the start of this.

There are nearly no restrictions on the rules so its totally open to 1st, 2nd and 3rd Edition Players (My experience is with 1st Edition predominantly so patience please)

All I ask is that if you want to use something from 2nd or 3rd Edition is that you request it here in this thread and let me know as much about as possible so I can moderate it properly.

I don't play secretively, unless I specifically ask a character for a rersponse or action (which is rare) I will just referee.

Any information about your character should be known to the whole party.

If your character needs to do something subversive then PM me if I feel that would not be in the spirit of the game I will inform you by PM, if you still want to attempt it I will use my judgement as to whether the party 'detects' anything.

To help get the thread going I'm not going to start you all off as individuals roaming aimlessly looking for other adventurers etc etc. We'll take it as read that you all know each other or have come together through some previous recruitment.

I am not going to kick off with 1st level characters, you will all start at lvl 4, or lvl 3/3 for multiclassed characters. and that you all have your own equipment and horses if use choose to have them.

Horses are not armored, and must be role played also. That includes what you do with them during dungeoneering and how you get them over obstacles like rivers and chasms. So its up to the players to determine their individual attachment to these beasts.

Horses are not necessary for this adventure/thread beside which certain races can't ride them.

In addition to your normal equipment, I will permit each character to select 2 magic items each from the list provided.

+2 Ring of Protection
+1 Ring of Regeneration (+1 Protection Heals 1 HP per round)
+1 Ring of Invisibility
+1 Cloak of Protection
+1 Long Bow
+1 Sword
+2 Padded Armor
+1 Mace (+2 Damage vs. Undead)
+1 Axe
Wand of magic missiles (100 charges) recharageable (MU Only)
+2 Lock Picks (Thief Only)
Boots of Speed

As per AD&D restrictions only 2 rings may be worn at any one time

The party ideally should have a minimum of 4 players, I will role play NPC's to make up the party which will drop out as new players arrive or join in as required to keep the thread moving.

I am nearly always on daily - I will post as much or as little as is required. OOC stuff will be in this thread, game information will always be in the main thread, where it is relevant.

Fighter classes may fight two handed

I know some people have already posted characters here, as soon as we have a couple of players ready to start, post here and I will start up the main thread.

Morgoth, please feel free to jump in anytime and offer your input with regards to the thread or how you want it to progress.

All players please make sure that you describe your characters fully here. If its not described here please don't pull it out of the bag later, it won't count. That way everyone knows exactly what each person is and can do.

The monsters will be matched to your (average of the party) abilities so bare that in mind when posting your characters. Again bare in mind scores of 12 to 14 are the norm.

Comeliness and Awareness Abilities can be posted.

Snork

 

[MissVictoria]

I'm confused as to character creation... are we playing second or third edition, cuz it varies greatly.

http://www.madcoyote.com/kannik/rpg.html Heres some nice resources, if anyone wants them.

 

[Snork Maiden]

Confused?!!

I'm confused as to character creation... are we playing second or third edition, cuz it varies greatly.

http://www.madcoyote.com/kannik/rpg.html Heres some nice resources, if anyone wants them.

Hi MissVictoria,

Use which ever you are happy with.

Morgoth expressed a preference for 3rd Edition. I am happy with that, I know 1st Edition inside out and know 2nd Edit reasonably well but 3rd is a new fish as far as I am concerned, I can adapt as I am sure the players can an I am checking other resources. My preference would be first but so long as I can find the details which ever is best for you. In real terms the abilities are not going to be as important as your abilities to role play within their constraints, The plot is a bit of a detective / sleuthing scenario, plenty of PC/NPC interaction and lots of goodies to find.

I am flexible as long as everyone agrees with what ever is proposed I'm just here to referee. My NPC Characters and Monsters will however be governed by 1st Ed rules, that might just throw a few surprises to 2nd and 3rd Ed Players

Thanks for the Link BTW

Snork

 

[Snork Maiden]

OK some clarification

I just read briefly through the difference in the 1st and 3rd Edition and this is my stand point (which is a bit of a backdown on the last post but here goes)

In terms of Abilities

I will play the straight six.

Srength
Wisdom
Intelligence
Dexterity
Constitution
Charisma

---
Since the 3 remaining abilities are optional I will allow Comeliness which appeared in 1st Edition Arcana.


In terms of Classes These are groups I will allow (because I understand them and again they are covered by 1st Ed and Arcana those in Italics are disallowed.

I have removed the Psionicist Class!

Fighter
Barbarian, Fighter, Knight, Paladin, Ranger

Priest
Cleric, Druid, Minister, Monk, Shaman

Rogue
Acrobat, Assassin, Bard, Thief, Swindler

Wizard
Magic-User, Illusionist

I appreciate the 3rd Edition is a much simplified version of the original almost a reversion to the original D&D game. Since the skills and combat stats aren't likely to be as important as the inginuity and role playing I will continue to draw on the 1st Edition to give a better gaming environment - that is afterall the job of a DM, whilst minimising the impact of that on the actual game play.

for your own reference I do have a char race limitation page

http://www.geocities.com/snorkmaiden_usa/Players/character_race_tables.html

which can be used in conjunction with the above info.

Snork

 

[Khadgar]

alright, what about rolling though? maybe i should read your link first, but when rolling atributes and attacking points. how will we handle that?

 

[Khadgar]

alright, i'm getting some help on this from SD, but would apprieciate all the help i can get right now lol

oh, yeah, and i'm.... uh.... about 95% new to this. i HAVE played before, long time ago, but i was useing a char that was already set up and didn't REALLY know what was going on in terms of all the atributes and such

 

[Snork Maiden]

Rolling Dice

As bizarre as this is going to sound , according to the original AD&D Rules all dice rolls were / or were supposed to be made by the Dungeon Master. However that is really dull isn't because half the fun is being able to roll your own dice. But that really is what was written in the original rules

In addition to that the group of players was supposed to select a leader, it was the leader that passed the instructions on to the the Dungeon Master after all the characters had decided what they wanted to do. Now that would have been EXTREMELY DULL

Ok thats the history lesson.

I have mentioned before that making saving throws / melee THAC0 and Hit points is practically impossible to play in a distributed fashion such as on a bulletin boards and a lot of trust.
Also round based play becomes difficult - waiting for other characters.

I hope I can gain everyones respect here as a fair and hopefully knowledgeable DM

These are resolutions to 'DICE' Play in the roleplaying environment.

1) I need to know your Armor Type, Shielded and Unshielded, Weapon Type etc So I can determin if you get smacked or not

2) There is no round based melee !
What I here you say, how does that work then.?

It works like this,

Each player can write his or her description of what they do -

Here's an example.

Taking my long sword and raising my shield, I charge at the not insubstantial group of Kobolds, that stand snarling and spitting in front of me. Bringing my sword swiftly around I slash at the nearest Kobold causing it to fall backwards. In a second I check another with my shield before bringing my sword back up in a swiping motion to injure another. It reels away from me as I ready myself for my next attack.

Ok whats happening here 2 sword attacks and one body check with shield (all of which are apparently successful)

Infact again this is what is described in the Original series as a successful / unsucessful hit. It is realistic that you could hit an opponent and not actually damage them at all.

If you want you can actually roll the dice yourself to determine whether or not you think you actually hit or miss but it occured to me that not everyone has the rules the THAC0 tables and modifiers and most importantly the dice to do this.

Everybody help me out here if you think I am going astray.

The whole point of the adventure is to have fun, not get bogged down with technicalities, I am happy for players to write multiple attacks on creatures, I will respond with equal counters attacks (if the creature is still standing) thats fair isn't it?

Scenario 2 - Based on the first example but with a little more realism (using Dice)

Taking my long sword and raising my shield, I charge at the not insubstantial group of Kobolds, that stand snarling and spitting in front of me. Bringing my sword swiftly around I slash at the nearest Kobold it glances across it armor but is ineffective other than causing the creature to recoil slighty, snarling. In a second, I thrust my sheild forward into the face of another Kobold, it's nose splinter's in an instant and it staggers back just before I bring my sword back up in a swiping motion to catching a third squarely in the groin. It reels away from me as I ready myself for my next attack.

So you see the dice aren't that important. As a measure of strength, lvl I can realistically guage (from experience) how effective a 4 , 5 or 6th lvl character will be against a monster. If I feel a character is being unrealistic in his attacks and damage then the creatures will be particularly more sucessful themselves. The point is to be honest play fair, that make the game much more enjoyable.

There isn't going to be a huge requirement to make dice rolls, (I will obviously make them as DM in respect of monsters, but as all DM's know how many times have your monsters killed the party 3 times over and still lost )

The DM isn't out to kill the party, but if it plays suicide missions then a couple of raise dead and ressurection scrolls may be useful

Please feel free to comment on any of this, as long as we can all reach an agreed form then there shouldn't be a problem.

Kindest Regards

Snork

 

[Khadgar]

i'm fine with it, but if thats how it's going, i'm not exactly going to need to know as much about char and dice roll and such as i though i would, will i? (probably a good thing LOL)

 

[Snork Maiden]

That's the idea Khadger , I'll do all the Game work and descriptive stuff, all you guys have to do is have fun

(Don't worry about making mistakes either, if you do you won't get hammered for it. I'll just point out that you UNSUCCESSFULLY attempt to scale a 15 foot wall in plate mail sliding gracefully to the bottom of the 10' deep moat where you discover to your dismay the thief has rifled your pack and stolen your ring of water breathing )

Snork

 

[SpectralDragoon]

Good luck on this.

Playing with characters from all three editions could prove to be a bitch.

 

[Snork Maiden]

3 Editions

Thankyou Spectral, I have no doubts it is going to be difficult , no more difficult though than for a newbie starting out a 1st Edition Veteran like myself learning 3rd Edition or a 3rd Edition Veteran learning 1st Edition.

As long as everyone has fun and gets some enjoyment out of it I think the effort will be worth while.

You gonna join us - I could do with a 3rd Ed Guru for pointers

Whisper (10% XP bonus and all that )
ooo. did I say that

Snork

 

[SpectralDragoon]

*grins and strokes his chin*

hmmmm

3rd edition is a breeze no matter what you know. Trust me!

No thaco to count backwards with, everything just goes up. Sooooo easy.


Err... Ahem, not THAT easy, you'd definitely need a 3E Guru around, uh huh, certainly would...

I dunno, I may join in. If you have any questions lemme know, I'm around here alot.

Khad man, I'm still willing to help ya with that character, although I don't think she's going to allow the cause serious wounds 20 times a day like you wanted, nor that little ability where you point at the guy and he has a coronary.

 

[Khadgar]

cornary? lol yeah, maybe. or what about making a fist and the demon's testicals explode?


and yeah, i still need help on that char, like what my stats should be, and spell lists and other sorts....

BTW, what does THAC0 mean?

 

[MissVictoria]

to hit armor class zero

 

[SpectralDragoon]

THACO

To
Hit
Armor
Class
O (zero)


Well, as Snork said up above somewhere, you get 100 points to divide between your six abilities.

Normal abbreviations of them:

str
dex
con
int
wis
char

after you figure out what numbers you want in those.. i can help out further. plus, you need to decide what class you're gonna be lol.

 

[SpectralDragoon]

As if that explains everything right?

Every character had a THACO score.

Fighters THACO's went down 1 point every level i think. I'm rusty on old D&D rules.

Having an Armor Class (AC) of Zero is a great score. It means the guy is probably decked out in Plate armor or has some magical items. So if your THACO was 10, you'd only need to roll a 10 on a twenty sider to hit him. Wizards THACO's went down reaaally slow. Clerics went up a little faster, and thiefs went down okay. But fighters zipped down there. Maybe it was one point every two levels or soemthing.


Hopefully I did that some justice.

As I said, it's been a WHILE since AD&D.

 

[Snork Maiden]

To Hit Armor Class Zero

I don't understand why everyone (not you guys) but generally never really understood the AD&D THAC0 it really was quite simple.

A little aside but it might demistify some stuff for newbies

Armor To Hit Roll
Class on a 1d20 (20 sided dice)
AC 0 20
AC 1 19
AC 2 18
AC 3 17
AC 4 16
AC 5 15
AC 6 14
AC 7 13
AC 8 12
AC 9 11
AC10 10

This is basically the matrix for To Hits for all 0 lvl Fighters

If you subtract the AC from 20 it gives you the dice score you need to roll equal to or above to hit at lvl 0


Now for first level characters

For 1st level characters

Armor To Hit Roll
Class on a 1d20 (20 sided dice)
AC 0 20 (natural 20 always hits - the perfect blow)
AC 1 20
AC 2 19
AC 3 18
AC 4 17
AC 5 16
AC 6 15
AC 7 14
AC 8 13
AC 9 12
AC10 11

What does this mean? 1st lvl characters need 21 - AC to hit

Simple isn't it

Ok next complication
Here is the matrix for Lvl 3 - 4 Fighters

Armor To Hit Roll
Class on a 1d20 (20 sided dice)
AC 0 18
AC 1 17
AC 2 16
AC 3 15
AC 4 14
AC 5 13
AC 6 12
AC 7 11
AC 8 10
AC 9 9
AC10 8

So how does this equate ? 18 - AC to hit

In fact in general for fighters it is
21 - LVL of Fighter - AC = Hit Roll Needed

Example 4th Lvl Fighter against AC 4

21 - 4 - 4 = 13 to hit AC 4

In fact this it is better and fairer to calculate on lvl not from the table as the table give the values for the lvl 3 Fighter

Example 3rd Lvl Fighter against AC 4

21 - 3 - 4 = 14 to hit AC 4

So you shouldn't need tables to determine that

A lvl 11 fighter against AC 1

21 - 11 - 1 = 9 to hit AC 1

If you don't believe it check it

Remember this rule applies to Fighters. Thieves, Clerics etc have slightly different calculations

Snork

 

[SpectralDragoon]

There is no THACO in 3E!

Each class gets a base attack and a chart, every couple levels it goes up.

yay!