Dungeon23: the Bandits Corral

The Corral

The bandits improvised a corral here inside the ruins of a large building.  

• Strong smell of horse and oats.

• Repaired ruin walls.

• Wooden fences to mark the edges of the corral.

• An undyed canvas tarp stretched out over the corral to give the animals shade.

• Inside the corral are:

• 2 warhorses.

• Outside the corral and in front of the ziggurat, hobbled, are:

• 16 riding horses.

• 21 mules.

• The animals are well taken care of (peasants know a thing or two about caring for animals) but are also worked hard.  

• The barrels hold oats and water.  The hay pile is on the other side of the wall from the barrels. 

• There are always at least 2 bandits here during the day standing guard, and 3 at night with the campfire out front lit up, if the horses are here.  If the horses are out on a raid, there might be only 1 guard here if some horses or mules got left behind, or no guards at all if the beasts are all out.  

• The tack for the horses is piled up near the wall and includes blankets, halters, and saddles for the horses, and halters, blankets, and pack saddles for the mules.  

• Early in the morning, just after dawn, one of the youngest of the bandits will be in here mucking out the corral.  In the early afternoon, three or more bandits will be here caring for the tack.

• The dung from the horses and mules is allowed to dry and then used in the bandits’ campfires.

Map made with Inkarnate and GIMP.  Each square is 5’ across.

Dungeon23: the Ziggurat of Potent Waters

The Barrow of the Egg is a megadungeon that someone built a ziggurat on top of.  That Ziggurat of Potent Waters was long known as a place of power, coveted by wizards and priests alike until an earthquake diverted the river that ran past it, leaving the land to dry up into a barren, rocky desert.  Over the centuries, the ziggurat was forgotten.

Until recently.

A priest has moved into the ziggurat and is attempting to uncover its forgotten secrets.  (I’m describing him as a castrated priest of Hekate, but any Chaotic/Neutral Evil deity willing to countenance human sacrifice will do).  To aid him in his work, he’s hired a few mercenaries who have themselves gathered a group of disaffected peasants they’ve armed and trained.  The mercenaries, backed up by the peasants, have been hitting desert caravans.  The primary goal has been collecting water and sacrificial victims, though the mercenaries have been happy to appropriate for themselves any portable loot.  The rest, including the bodies of men and beasts, has been buried in the desert.  They prefer to hit caravans leaving from a nearby fortified caravansary, as these will have the most water to steal and will take the longest to be missed. 

While the priest has taken up residence himself inside the Ziggurat of Potent Waters, the mercenaries and their newly-minted bandits live in tents in the ruins outside the ziggurat.  

There are 32 peasant bandits:

PEASANT BANDIT: AC 10; HD <1; HP 2; #ATT 1; DMG by dagger or heavy crossbow; ML 6; XP 5.

Art made with Stable Diffusion and GIMP.

Mad Mashup: Barbarians

I'll be honest, I have no idea what the idea is behind WotC-era barbarians.  Some sort of mystic nature warrior who isn't the ranger mystic-nature-warrior?  

My idea for a barbarian is based on Howard's Conan: physically and mentally tough, able to endure what would break a softer, more civilized man.  So here's my concept of the barbarian for my TSR-era, mostly B/X mashup:

Barbarian

The Barbarian hails from a distant and uncivilized land.  They are ignorant of the ways of magic and the manners of the glittering courts of civilized nations.  However, their rough and rude upbringing grants them exceptional hardiness and endurance.  

Requirements

• Barbarians roll d8 for their hit points.  However, they start at 1st level with 16 hit points.

• They may use any armor, shields, and weapons.

• Barbarians save as Dwarves.

• A Barbarian must have a STR of at least 9 and a CON of at least 13.  If a Barbarian has at least 15 in both, they enjoy a 5% bonus to all earned EXP.  If they also have a DEX of at least 13, that bonus goes up to 10%.

Abilities

• A group that includes at least one Barbarian is surprised only on a roll of 1 on a 1d8.  

• Barbarians enjoy Advantage on saving throws against illusions and only suffer a -1 when attacking foes who are invisible or otherwise can’t be seen.

• When resting, a Barbarian adds half their level to the hit points they regain (minimum of 1).

• When a Barbarian deals a foe a killing blow, they may immediately make another attack on a target that is within 5’.

• When a Barbarian’s melee attack roll totals 20 or more, they may perform a Feat of Arms.  This can be things like moving an enemy 5’, disarming their foe, hurling their target into another foe, etc.  Be creative!

• Barbarians are expert climbers and hunters.  For every 4 hours they spend foraging or hunting, they produce 1d4 rations.  Environment can heavily influence this, however.

Brian’s Notes

Conan was my model here.  You’re hard to take down, so if you want to be a living brick wall, this is the class for you.  You probably won’t be performing Feats of Arms quite as often as a Fighter, but you’ll still enjoy this class more if you enjoy coming up with cool things on the spur of the moment.

Illustration made with Stable Diffusion and GIMP.

Mad Mashup: Rangers

Here's the Ranger class I'm using for my B/X-with-other-stuff-tossed in campaign. The idea here was something more Aragorn and Robin Hood than whatever the heck the WotC-era rangers are supposed to be. Right now I'm using the same advancement chart as Fighters, but that's because I've changed the Fighter as well. Good synergies with what I've done to Elves here.

Rangers do their work in the wild places of the world.  This often leads to them being outnumbered and needing to punch above their weight class.  They most often spend their time being stealthy, keeping an eye on monster populations and hunting down threats to crops and livestock.  

Requirements

• Rangers roll their hit points with a d8.

• They may use any weapons and shields, and wear any armour except plate.

• They use the Fighter’s saving throws.

• A Ranger must have a DEX of at least 13 and a WIS of at least 9.  If either of those is 15+, the Ranger enjoys a 5% bonus to earned EXP.  If both are 15+, the bonus is 10%.

Abilities

• Any attack roll made by a Ranger that totals 18+ allows the Ranger to perform a Feat of Arms.  This includes ranged weapon attacks!

• A Ranger may fight with a melee weapon in each hand.

• At 1st level, this allows the Ranger to roll a second attack which does 1d4 damage, or add +1 to their AC.

• At 5th level, this allows the ranger to roll a second attack that does 1d6 on a successful roll, or double their DEX bonus on their AC.

• Rangers are experts at surviving in the wilderness.  In addition to being expert survivalists and trackers:

• A Ranger can gather 1d4 + the Ranger’s level in rations for every 8 hours spent foraging or hunting.

• Any character convalescing under a Ranger’s care adds 1d2 additional hit points to their natural healing.

• If a group with a Ranger rolls a Friendly reaction with a monster of bestial intelligence whose Hit Dice are equal to or less than the Ranger’s level, the Ranger may befriend the creature and add it to the Ranger’s retainers.  This takes up a retainer slot as normal.  If the animal dies in the Ranger’s service, the Ranger permanently loses that retainer slot.  

Art made with Stable Diffusion.

Mad Mashup: Weapons

I’ve decided to start my dive into my mad mashup of various D&D and OSR sources with weapons because they may give the broadest range of examples of rules I’m pulling from.  The goal was to keep the math simple but also give reasons for picking one weapon over another.  The inspiration was the fact that weapons are, in fact, tools for getting various jobs done.

 

Every weapon is designed to allow you to kill that guy over there, when that guy over there has done things to keep from getting killed.  Maybe they’ve got their own weapons, or they’re mounted on a horse, or they’ve wrapped themselves in protective metal.  Western Europe during the Middle Ages saw an amazing flowering in the design of weapons and armour.  And every single one of them was designed to solve the problem of doing unto the others before they had a chance to do unto you.

 

(If you want a deeper look into what I’m talking about here, check out this guy’s videos.  He does a great job discussing the historical uses of weapons and spends a lot of time talking about the context that lead to the individual designs.)

 

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what I did for my B/X mashup game. 

 

(This just didn't want to upload properly. If it's as unreadable for you as it is for me, go here for a Google Docs version.)

In original B/X, all weapons did 1d6 damage.  That keeps things simple, but utterly flies in the face of my “a tool for every job” philosophy on weapons.  Still, I like that simplicity, and just giving weapons different ranges in damage doesn’t really get where I want to go either.  So I compromised.

 

If you’re wielding a weapon in one hand, it does 1d6 damage.  If you’re using two hands, it does 2d4 damage.  Some weapons can be used either way.

 

The next column is Oversized.  This is for the LotFP encumbrance system, where a single oversized item gives you a point of Encumbrance straight off the bat.

 

The prices I’m pretty sure were taken from 2e D&D.  I love 2e’s equipment lists as they’re just huge across the board.

 

Notes is where the magic happens.  I gave most weapons a special ability.  Under “arrows,” for instance, bodkin arrowheads (narrow, stiletto-like heads designed for armour penetration) give you a +1 to hit if the target is wearing armour or has a thick hide.  Broadhead arrows, conversely, add +1 damage per arrow shot.

 

And that brings up a thing with arrows.  In traditional D&D, a round of combat can range in length from 6 seconds to a full minute.  And in all of that time, an archer can only get off one or two shots.  This is supported by assuming that the targets are moving around defensively, so the archer has to take their time lining up their shots.  I’ve always been meh on this.  So instead, I allow the archer to fire up to four arrows in my 6 second rounds.  All arrows are fired at the same target, and every arrow after the first increases the likelihood of landing a telling shot.  So instead of doing more damage, every arrow after the first gives the archer an unmagical +1 on the attack roll (for a total of +3 from the arrows). 

 

You still only roll one d20 for all for arrows to see if the target loses hit points, and you still roll a single d6 or d8 to see how many hit points are lost.

 

And so we can go down the list to see how weapons differ.  The bill, for instance, is good at unhorsing opponents.  Flails ignore shields, hammers and maces give you a +1 on your attack roll if your foe is wearing armour, shuriken only do a single point of damage but the target suffers Disadvantage on whatever their next attack roll (because shuriken are traditionally more about distracting people than killing them).

 

Advantage/Disadvantage is what I ported over from 5e, and it works the same here: you roll an extra d20 and you take the higher if you have Advantage and the lower if you have Disadvantage.  You can’t stack multiple Advantages or Disadvantages on top of each other, and if you have one of each they cancel out.

 

The special abilities of the two-handed sword are based on the montante bodyguard techniques.

 

And that’s all there is to say there.  None of these are terribly complex and each has its role.  Also, since they are individual to weapons, I can leave it up to the players to remind me of what special thing their weapon of choice does during the fight.

 

 

Why BX is the Best!

Got a copy of Moldvay's Basic D&D? Turn to page B16 and check out the Charm Person spell:

Any commands given will usually be obeyed, except that orders against its nature (alignment and habits) may be resisted, and an order to kill itself will be refused.

Emphasis added for what I hope are obvious reasons. This, I tell the young'ens, is how we differentiated between two fighters back in the day. If your character was a mercenary who'd gut his own grannie for a shaved copper, or a paragon of virtue who never raised a hand against the defenseless and the weak, mattered mechanically, and was specifically called out in the rules.

(Compare this to the rules in Gygax's AD&D Players Handbook, which do not reference habits or personality at all in resisting Charm Person or Mammal.)