Fantasy Safari: Creature Catalogue (BECMI), Part 3

Phanaton
Phanaton

The Phanaton is described as a creature that looks like a cross between a racoon and a monkey and also a flying squirrel. They are about as big as halflings and only slightly less intelligent than most humanoids. They build their villages in the branches of large trees and as lawful creatures are usually friendly to most adventurers. They are also friends of elves, treants, and dryads. A normal phanaton is pretty weak and have only 3 hit points on average, but a village is usually led by a king with 8 HD and 50 hp who also has a bodyguard of warriors with 6 HD and 30 hp, which can easily be much tougher and stronger than players would expect.

Rakasta
Rakasta

Rakasta: All I have to say it Khajiit has wares, if you have coin.

Shark-kin
Shark-kin

Shark-kin seem very similar to sahuagin but with a few unusual differences. In their normal form, shark-kin are unable to walk or survive outside of water and their alignment is neutral. However, any time the king of a tribe dies the legs of the shark-kin grow stronger and they become able to breath air and they come to land for a ritual to select a new leader. During those times they are extremely hostile and agressive, seemingly behaving just the same way as sahuagin do.

Continue reading “Fantasy Safari: Creature Catalogue (BECMI), Part 3”

A total noob explores BECMI: Part 1 – Abilities and classes

About a week ago I stumbled on a forum thread in which some veteran fans went through all the setting material of the Known World/Mystara setting, which had been the default setting for the B/X and BECMI editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Knowing nothing about that world I took a peek out of curiosity and quickly got very much interested. I had some vague familiarity with some retroclones based on it, mostly Adventurer Conqueror King and Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and even though they looked very well made, they just seemed very weird. Very much unlike D&D as I had known it for the 10 or so years before I left it behind me.

But now I got myself really interested in that old game, mostly because it seemed pretty rules light, and the amount of complicated rules had always annoyed me the most about AD&D and made me leave behind 3rd Edition/Pathfinder and look for greener pastures. And I really hate the magic system so much that I never want to run any edition of D&D again and only play it if someone else is GM and wants to run it. But I am still very much interested in how that game really worked and what I can learn from it about running rules light games and how to make dungeon exploration as exciting as the tales I often read. So I got myself the original Basic and Expert rules as pdf and went ahead to really learn how that game actually works and was supposed to be played.

116578The first impression where so interesting that I thought about making this a series of post for other people like me, who really don’t know anything before 3rd Edition and perhaps a bit about AD&D.

Continue reading “A total noob explores BECMI: Part 1 – Abilities and classes”

Fantasy Safari: Creature Catalogue (BECMI), Part 2

Gator Man
Gator Man

A Gator Man is basically just a beefed up lizard man with the head of an aligator instead of a lzard. In actual combat, they are a lot meaner, though. Gator men stand well over 2 meters tall and at 7 Hit Dice really have a lot of hit points and good chances to hit which are well beyond what you usually get from humanoid monsters. They also swim 50% faster than human characters run, which can make them very mean ambushers. They attack with normal weapons, but these completely pale compared to their bite, which deals a massive 3d6 damage. Groups of them are usually lead by a chief, who is even bigger and meaner and has a bite that deals 4d6 damage. When encountered by low level characters, they probably simply bite their head off!

Haphaeston
Haphaeston

A Hephaeston is a giant for high level adventures. It’s 8 meters tall and has intimidating 25 Hit Dice, which should be well over 100 hit points. The skin of a hephaeston is like iron and gives him a very high armor class and can only be injured by magical weapons. It is completely immune to mind affecting magic, all spells of 1st and 2nd level, and fire. Though I think by the time a group of player characters has any chance to fight this guy, they probably wouldn’t attempt to hurt him with nonmagical weapons and low-level spells anyway. The amount of damage it can dish out is staggering. When attacking with a weapon, it deals 4d10 points of damage and it also has the option to attack with a free hand as well, which also deals impressive 3d10 points of damage. If that bitch slap from hell hits with an 18 or higher, the hephaeston grabs the character and smashes him into the ground for another 5d6 damage. This is so funny I wonder if anyone would ever make make a hephaeston fight with a shield. In addition, it also has the ability to levitate iron objects (to throw on people, I assume), make an iron object get red hot, or magically create a wall of solid iron. Fighting one of these guys really doesn’t sound fun. Or very fun, depending on how you look at it. Fortunately, hephaestons live alone.

Hutaakans
Hutaakans

The Hutaakans are probably one of the most iconic creatures of the Known World. Which means that most of you have probably never heard of them. Hutaakans are humanoids with jackal-like heads but are otherwise very similar to humans or elves. In the ancient past, they ruled over a small empire but have almost disappeard by now, with only a few groups remaining in remote mountain cities. They are not particulary strong and have no real special abilities other than being able to see in the dark and being quite sneaky. They are highly civilized and ruled by a caste of priests. Overall, they are really very similar to stereotypical elves with dog heads and priests instead of wizards. It’s mostly their place in the Known World setting that makes them popular, but as generic monster for games in other worlds there really isn’t anything remarkable about them. Continue reading “Fantasy Safari: Creature Catalogue (BECMI), Part 2”

Why clerics in D&D can use heavy armor

This is something that I always thought to be somewhat odd, and I think many of the people I played with did too. Why are clerics in D&D the third best frontline fighters? (Excluding self-buffing shananigans from 3rd edition which simply make them the very best.) Heavy armor is not something one would usually expect from a priest. Shouldn’t he be dressed in robes like a wizard? In 3rd edition, only three of the standard classes get proficiency with heavy armor, the other two being fighters and paldins. Why do clerics get it?

clericarmorI’ve been reading and dabbling in the old Basic Rules these past days, and considering the whole design paradigm of the game, I think it makes perfect sense. Clerics can fight in heavy armor not because it’s their speciality, but because there is no reason for them not to wear it. The way armor proficiency works in 3rd edition is the opposite of how it originally was. The older editions worked by a logic that all characters can do everything unless there is a reason why they could not. Wizards don’t wear any armor because it interferes with their spells, and thieves don’t wear heavy armor because it limits the mobility they need for sneaking and climbing. Cleric spells are not restriced by armor and they usually don’t try to be extra stealthy or do any fancy acrobatics. So why shouldn’t they be wearing the best protection they can get?

When later wearing armor became something that needs a speical ability to use, clerics got that ability simply because they always had been wearing heavy armor. Even though under the new logic of the game it didn’t really make any sense anymore.

Fantasy Safari: Creature Catalogue (BECMI), Part 1

The Creature Catalogue seems a rather strange monster book for Dungeons & Dragons at the first look. When I first saw it, it seemed even weirder than the Fiend Folio. During the 80s, there were to similar but also different games being published; one being called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the other just Dungeons & Dragons. The smaller, and less known line had no Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual, but instead came in five Box Sets named Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal, and is now most usually called BECMI for that reason. (There is also an earlier edition called B/X, because it only had the Basic and Expert rules.) AD&D became much more popular and famous, because who would want to play a light version of a game if you can also have the hardcore rules version? Also, AD&D got Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and later Planescape, Dark Sun, and Ravenloft. The design teams for both product lines were almost completely separated and worked independent from each other, and their games developed in quite different directions. And the split happened very early back in 1978, only four years after the very first, and very bare bones edition of D&D had been released. When D&D 3rd edition came around (which really was the 8th edition of a game called D&D and we’re now at the 12th), it was based pretty much entirely on AD&D and went on where the 2nd Edition had left off.

The monsters that were created for BECMI went almost entirely ignored when there was once again only a single line of D&D books. The aranea made a few appearances, but never got a really big presence. While the nightwalker got a really cool picture in the 3rd ed. Monster Manual, it was just so incredibly powerful that I imagine it saw only very limited use. The atach and belker were put into the MM but to my knowledge never again, and the korpu made it into the MM2 with similar popularity. When you read the Fiend Folio, there are lots of weird monsters, but also a lot of well known and familiar monsters. The Creature Catalogue is a collection of most BECMI monsters that appeared in adventure modules and other supplements up to that date and I think none of them would be recognized by anyone who never played this particular line of D&D.

Dungeons & Dragons - Creature Catalogue
Dungeons & Dragons – Creature Catalogue

Creature Catalogue for Dungeons & Dragons (BECMI) by TSR, 1986; 63 pages of monsters.

Remember the Juggernaut from the 3rd ed. MM2? Some kind of massive tank/siege-tower golem on wheels? That one is in this book too. However, old fans of the game have told me that it really only appeared in a single adventure and was never used or mentioned anywhere else. Not sure what is the greater mystery: Why they put it into the CC in the first place, or why they later thought it was one of the best things in the book that needs to go into the MM2?

Magen
Magen

The Magen (majen?) looks like an ordinary human, but is indeed a magical and alchemical creation. As magical constructs they need no sleep, food, water, or even air to survive and they do not age either. While not great thinkers, they are amazingly intelligent for constructs and can function among humans without supervision by their master without any problems. Though they are not particularly powerful creatures, at least compared to golems, this makes them extremely useful and valuable. There are four different types of magen, which each have their own unique powers. The hypnos is using a permanent charm effect which should make them absolutely perfect for spying or kidnapping. All they have to do is ask and most guards and officials will be perfectly fine with doing anything asked of them. The demos is made for combat and can use use all weapons and armor. It usually is encountered in groups up to a dozen. A caldron can stretch its limbs to lengths of 6 meters and uses them to hold victims and kill them with acid that comes from their skin. The galvan is the strongest type and can use weapons and shot three lightning bolts per day. Magen are very expensive and difficult to make, so they are quite rare. When they are killed, the magic that animates them ends and they crumble into ash with a flash of flame, which might be the first indication that the PCs are not dealing with ordinary humans at all. The first idea I got was to use them as guards in some wizards castle that the PCs are supposed to quietly sneak into and then see how far they will have made it into the catacombs before they realize that none of the guards and servants they’ve sneaked past are humans but something entirely else and unnatural. I am sure there’s a lot of other cool things that could be done with them.

Also, remember the Belker? It’s in the 3rd ed. Monster Manual. That evil cloud of smole that attacks with two clawed hands. Another really lame thing that also comes from the Creature Catalogue. Should have stayed there. Continue reading “Fantasy Safari: Creature Catalogue (BECMI), Part 1”

Why I love published adventures. And why I don’t use them.

I’ve recently found an old piece on Hill Cantons about an exchange with Rob Kuntz, who was among the people who working on Dungeons & Dragons in the early years. In it, Kuntz is quite outspoken against published modules, which he regards as clearly a step into the completely wrong direction which turned the game into something very different from what they had thought to be the spirit of D&D.

I have always thought that the DM’s route to any fantastic achievement in such literature was through a very personal course, most certainly inspired by reading and study or other such related matter, but not actually “implanted” or done for them.

I first thought of this as a highly negative and overly criticizing view bordering on being elitist and snobbery, even though I am not really a fan of published adventures myself. But that had me wondering how I actually have been using modules over the 15 years that I’ve been running games. I am one of those rare and elusive people who actually got into RPGs without anyone to introduce me to it and teach me how it works, and worked myself through the rules the hard way. There was an introductory scenario which I used for the first shaky steps and then tried to start a real campaign with The Sword of the Dales using the 3rd edition rules which had just been released a few weeks before. Some years later I did run City of the Spider Queen, which we thought was very cool (because we were young and stupid), and was the only time I’ve ever seen characters of 11th level or higher. But as far as I can remember, that really was it as far as running published adventures went.

However, I did use a lot of other adventures. The last game that I ran was based on Flight of the Red Raven by Paizo, using a different rulesset, being set in a homebrew setting, there was no winter and ice, I made my own dungeon, created my own encounters, the jinn was an oni, and the Red Raven was a completely different guy. But the idea why the party went to that dungeon and what situation they were encountering there, that was pretty straight up taken from Flight of the Red Raven. I started that campaign with an adaptation of The Automatic Hound and Depths of Rage from Dungeon magazine. A blend of The Disappearance of Harold the Hedge Mage and Raiders of the Black Ice was plannes for later. I also did Escape from Meenlock Prison with an earlier group, which I think that was the best game I’ve ever ran. So yeah, I do love them and get a lot of use from them.

But I think this approach actually matches very well with what Kuntz said. “Inspired by reading and study or other such related matter, but not actually “implanted” or done for them.” That the related matter was a published RPG adventure and not a novel or book doesn’t really change anything in my view. There are plenty of other published adventures I very much love. Master of the Desert Nomads, Rahasia, Night’s Dark Terror, and Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, and The Styes, to name a few. And Savage Tide has just full awesome all over it. But I never use the floorplans. I don’t use the NPC stats and I rebuild all the encounters from scratch using creatures that fit my setting and are of a difficulty that works well for the particular group of PCs I am currently playing with. Most of the time I actually use a different game edition or even an entirely different game.

So yeah, I think I am kind of in agreement with Kuntz here. Published adventures, as they are, are pretty much unusable for the kind of games that I run and I wouldn’t advice any new GM to run them out of the book. What I am getting out of them is really the description of adventuring sites, the motivation and goal of the antagonists, and the outline of their plans to achieve their goal. Everything else I can do myself, and even though I don’t consider myself a great GM, I can do it better myself. Not because the writers of published adventures are all total hacks who don’t know anything, but because only I know the level and composition of the party and the setting in which the campaign takes place. Publish adventures cannot account for this. And what I really would love to see is adventures that don’t even try. Just give me the setup, the location, and the antagonists plan. That is really the most difficult part of creating a good adventure for a group. Leave all that number stuff to me, that part is easy once you know what you’re trying to do.