So I finally got folks together to run through a quick D&D module, give the old 3.5 vehicle a nice test drive.  It was fun.  It was a little goofy, but that ... well, that had a lot to do with dump stats.

We rolled 4d6-best-3, free ordering (and I groused at them about how in my day it was "3d6-best-3 in the order you rolled 'em!") and three out of four players ended up with pairs (at least) of stats eight or lower.  So they were looking around for dump stats.  The dump stats they chose, universally, were INT and WIS.  Two of the players decided to play half-orcs on top of that, which really drove their brain-power down.  They adopted a "Me smash ... yes, smash good!" orc 'accent' which helped to underline their comparative lack of smarts, and generally just had a terrific good time with it.

We had stooges.  We even had three of them.  This was not destined to be a high-brow party, nope.

Worked real well for the scenario we were running through, though.  I used A dark and stormy knight, which is a very straight-line smash-and-loot scenario with little-to-no subtlety.  The half-orcs wanted "go in, see if there anything good inside, maybe good to eat," and that's what we did.  I'll take whatever motivation folks choose to bring to the table.

Overall, the party severely kicked ass ... I was embarrassed for the monsters.  I think there are several factors involved there:  First, the party of four decided (quite optimally) that at first level they neither wanted nor needed a magic-user, so our half-orcs were a barbarian and a ranger.  That's a lot of extra fire-power at first level, and it made a pretty thorough hash out of the monsters presented.  Also, though, I think the CRs on this adventure must have been adjusted toward the low end of the scale.  Some of the encounters (two hobgoblins against a party of four?) were just instantaneous splatter-fests.

One of the things I really liked about the adventure, however, was that the main thread has such a nice progression from the mundane up to the utterly terrifying.  First we fought a swarm of rats.  Next we fought a pair of hobgoblin brigands.  Then we fought a gigantic spider (man, EEEW!), and then we hit our peak fighting a long-dead zombie bugbear knight from some ancient empire built on ritual sacrifice of the lesser races, and OH MY GOD, people were aware of that critter as incredibly creepy and very much a threat.

Nice little rules thing that underlined the creepiness:  The half-orc ranger gets a natural 20 on the zombie-knight, and then rolls another natural 20 to confirm the crit ... and still doesn't do enough damage to take the creature down.  So I describe how he swings his battle-ax and rips open the thing's chest, bones and dried organs and dust flying everywhere ... and then the zombie keeps coming.  And then we remember the rules that undead are immune to critical hits, so we all go "Yep, having his spleen ripped out didn't even hurt him particularly," and I revise the hitpoints back up and we continue the fight.

The players applied some pretty solid tactics, given the limits of the (as I mentioned) very linear dungeon.  Our cleric saved Enlarge in his strength-domain slot, and burned it on the half-orc barbarian in the battle against the zombie.  A barbarian with 21 strength and a giant-sized great-axe ... does a lot of damage, very quickly.  Hooo-eee.  I loved the look on their faces when this titan of testosterone swung, did eighteen HP of damage, and I nodded and said "And then the zombie moves forward..." and they were all like "OH SHIT!  It's STILL MOVING!"  But even a zombie can't take too many hits like that.

The zombie came within one point of confirming a critical on the barbarian in return, though ... even after the AC modifiers for the enlarge (which had everyone worried) the confirm was 11 to the 12 needed.  Which was, y'know, good for the barbarian as she barely survived that one normal shot, and would have been (in her words) "salsa" if it had been twice as much damage.

I was amused and vaguely horrified (though not surprised) that the party, rather than "risk" travelling back out to the outside in order to rest, half-barricaded the open door-way and hunkered down in the unholy tomb with the dessicated remains of the zombie in order to pass the night (and let the cleric recharge his Shiny-God-hands).  It was getting late (real-world), but I did want to point out how strange and counter-intuitive that was ... and I happened to have a vargouille, recently freed from long captivity, still in the dungeon somewhere.  So I had it drop by to visit the thief on his watch.  It actually got the drop on him, so he goes from "Hey, I don't remember that hideous head-sculpture on the table barricading the doorway" directly to "OH GOD IT'S ALIVE!  SWEET GOD GET IT OFF OF ME!" (which was gratifying).  Still ... AC12, 5HP, and everybody saved against its paralyzing shriek.  Vargouille salsa.

Funny moment:  So the thief says "That's it, I've been on watch enough," and the ranger says "Me watch.  You sleep."  And then, because the ranger (being a half-orc) has darkvision he promptly douses the lantern.  We realize that we've got the thief, who just had this strange vargouille thing all up in his face, and he's suddenly plunged into pitch darkness and told "Get some rest."  The player did a very good job of curling into a fetal ball in his chair and shuddering as he said "Oh yeah, I'm gonna sleep REAL WELL."

In the "morning" they were sitting there (the three stooges, with the unseeing (but wise!) cleric trying to guide them) trying to get the half-orcs who could see the lantern to get it into the hands of the thief who could light it.  We decided (by unanimous consensus) that the ranger would play a "joke" on the thief by saying "Okay, here lantern" and then handing him the splattered vargouille head instead.

The thief doesn't want to adventure with half-orcs any more.  Was good joke.  Very funny.  Him just got no sense humor.

That's pretty good!

If you didn't like rolling for stats (which some people really like) the rules for point buy is in the DMG.

I liked rolling for stats fine, I just thought that 4d6-take-best-3 plus letting people assign the stats the places they wanted was incredibly permissive.

I mean ... these people were figuring out what kind of character they wanted to play before they rolled stats, totally confident that they'd be able to make it all work out no matter what they rolled.  Nobody rolling up and saying "Oh.  Well.  Guess I'm a rogue, not a barbarian like I was planning."

Am I a grognard if I think there's something sorta unmacho about that?

Quote from: TonyLBI liked rolling for stats fine, I just thought that 4d6-take-best-3 plus letting people assign the stats the places they wanted was incredibly permissive.

I mean ... these people were figuring out what kind of character they wanted to play before they rolled stats, totally confident that they'd be able to make it all work out no matter what they rolled.  Nobody rolling up and saying "Oh.  Well.  Guess I'm a rogue, not a barbarian like I was planning."

Am I a grognard if I think there's something sorta unmacho about that?

No, but your thinking is stuck in a previous edition of the game. This assign-as-desired/give-the-players-what-they-want principle is the way it has been for years, and underlies the entire player culture of modern D&D.

The difference in pride of ownership between "here's what I ended up with" and "here's what I designed" is staggering.

Okay.  Anyway, it wasn't a big deal.  Just grist for a few faux-surly moments of "Kids these days, with their crazy dice systems ... why in my day we were lucky to have a handful of 6s and 7s ... and we rolled our dice uphill, both ways, and were grateful!"

Thaks for the link to the adventure, bro!  That will go very well in my C&C game...

Quote from: TonyLBOkay.  Anyway, it wasn't a big deal.  Just grist for a few faux-surly moments of "Kids these days, with their crazy dice systems ... why in my day we were lucky to have a handful of 6s and 7s ... and we rolled our dice uphill, both ways, and were grateful!"

But isn't it illustrative of why we always end up in conflict when we try to discuss this? Prior to this game last night, I am willing to bet that your last significant experience with actual for reals how-we-do-it-now-for-the-last-decade D&D culture took place some time in the 1990s.  Hangups like that little tiny one about how stats work (which are a philosophical feature of the entire edition) completely negate your ability to discuss it. Not mine.

And if the discussion is about things like "who has brain damage" or "is a sociopath" or "can't tell a story" or "has damaged the hobby by having a GM centric" whatever, then, your inexperience counts against you double. Not that you are personally responsible for any of that, but you know what I'm talking about.

It's ironic that D&D is often treated as this hoary old "old school" notion, but in reality,  THIS is what is happening now, and it's you guys who live in the 1990s.

Quote from: Abyssal MawHangups like that little tiny one about how stats work (which are a philosophical feature of the entire edition) completely negate your ability to discuss it. Not mine.

I'm the one who is discussing it.  You're discussing your theory that I'm unable to discuss it.  Don't you have better things to do?

Quote from: TonyLBI'm the one who is discussing it.  You're discussing your theory that I'm unable to discuss it.  Don't you have better things to do?

No, I think your'e doing a good thing, Tony. But I'm hopefully making it clear to you why previous attempts have not gone over that well.

So, Enlarge sure does kick ass, huh?

With a weapon that's already as big as a great-axe, then enlarged, I started thinking "Hey, does she even have space to swing that thing in here?"  I don't really want to be tracking ceiling heights or any of that fol-de-rol, but the notion occurred to me.  Same thing came up when she wanted to swing the great axe in the confines of that 5-foot corridor down to the spider's nest.  Is there somewhere in the rules I should be checking on the matter?

Also, would enlarge ever make a character or weapon large enough that it gets that beautiful two-square reach thing for over-sized attackers?  I do love the notion of having a field around you that gives you an AoO just from people trying to get inside your range to attack, and if I intend to use it for my big monsters (which I do) I feel like I should be scrupulous about knowing whether the PCs can also take advantage.

Quote from: TonyLBSo, Enlarge sure does kick ass, huh?

With a weapon that's already as big as a great-axe, then enlarged, I started thinking "Hey, does she even have space to swing that thing in here?"  I don't really want to be tracking ceiling heights or any of that fol-de-rol, but the notion occurred to me.  Same thing came up when she wanted to swing the great axe in the confines of that 5-foot corridor down to the spider's nest.  Is there somewhere in the rules I should be checking on the matter?

Also, would enlarge ever make a character or weapon large enough that it gets that beautiful two-square reach thing for over-sized attackers?  I do love the notion of having a field around you that gives you an AoO just from people trying to get inside your range to attack, and if I intend to use it for my big monsters (which I do) I feel like I should be scrupulous about knowing whether the PCs can also take advantage.

Enlarge is great and has only one drawback, and thats the full round casting time. It's an encounter-beating spell. I have a sorcerer who loads Enlarge Person and Fist of Stone as his 1st level spells. This turns my (second level) sorcerer into a melee fighter who can deal 1d8+10 slam attacks with 10' reach.

And yes, it does give you the reach advantage. It essentially makes a medium character into a large one, so the rules for 'large' apply. With a normal great axe or weapon, the enlarged figure get 10' reach (just like an Ogre would). If this same character were carrying a longspear, it gets enlarged right along with him, and that sets up a 20' threat zone.

Yup. Not as cool if you cast it on a size small guy, though. They just get to be medium.

You should never track stuff like ceiling heights or corridor widths unless that's part of the encounter, really. (and it's not in the rules so if you put it there, it's on you). None of that's in the rules, and it just seems like punishing the players for using their spells and stuff.

Quote from: Abyssal MawAnd yes, it does give you the reach advantage. It essentially makes a medium character into a large one, so the rules for 'large' apply. With a normal great axe or weapon, the enlarged figure get 10' reach (just like an Ogre would). If this same character were carrying a longspear, it gets enlarged right along with him, and that sets up a 20' threat zone.

Frickin' sweet.

Happily, it wasn't an issue for us this time through (the players were coming to the zombie, rather than it coming to them) but I can imagine plenty of situations in which that threat zone would be a powerful tactical tool.

Sounds like fun Tony. A few things i would comment on, that might help you out in future.

I don't know how you and your group normally run your games, but generally, modules aren't run in isolation to an ongoing game. IE, you put them in a campaign (unless of course you've agreed to play it as a one-shot). As such, the module and the events within it aren't written in stone. You adapt it to your group, the players preferences and the events of the campaign. If there are no hooks that work for your group to get them to explore the module, place ones that will get their interest. In this case, it could be as simple as a local legend or rumour that a Bugbear chieftain renowned for his high quality axe is buried there, or the characters need to find the chieftain's body for something related to the campaign. The hooks might be personal goals of the characters or anything that might be of interest. The thing to remember is that it isn't 'just there' and so must be explored. It should both serve the play groups' goals in some way and fit into the game that you have going. Otherwise, why bother? Even in a one shot, some reason can be supplied to get the players to invest in the adventure in some way. Otherwise you're just going through the motions aren't you?

Some modules may well include things that either don't make sense or 'break' the rules of the game in some way. In a lot of cases this can be an attempt to build atmosphere. To make the players go "Oh shit, what just happened there!?" rather than a metagame 'cheat'. It's worth bearing this in mind when reading pre-written modules.

Most modules don't survive conatact with the play group because of the reasons i mentioned above.

Hope that helps.

Quote from: One Horse TownThe thing to remember is that it isn't 'just there' and so must be explored.

Frankly, "We explore it because it's there" worked just fine for us.

Quote from: TonyLBFrankly, "We explore it because it's there" worked just fine for us.

Really?

There was a big hill that gave us no real reason to investigate it...except that it was "the module".

Edit: Actually, that sounded a bit wank. Just trying to give advice based on what i've read. Ignore or carry on as you decide!