Scribe's Work - OD&D-B/X Homebrew (Player) - Pt 1
PREVIOUSLY
I just joined a campaign online that's a mix of B/X and OD&D. As you can see I'm joining campaign ! Well let's say that I was players in 5th campaign that just ended as a player, so I decided to try and join now group that play OSR-related content.
Previously the dwarf had found a strange wizard tower with potential treasures and adventure !
PARTICIPANTS
PLAY REPORT
So we started by rounding up the group, introducing new characters, dealing with hirelings and so on. My character is an old gravedigger that's fed up of burrying people with loot: might as well die rich than die poor (at least for him).
We strated the travel to the Northwest with the promise of riches from a Wizard Tower that the dwarf had already gotten to. Travel took two days, and we saw ominous clouds in the distance that's part of the tower protection: lightning strikes those that travel through. Movement had to be timed in between storm burst. Cecilia unfortunaly got stroke as we ran and died by lightning ! Hector wasn't planning on wasting all that equipment, so he did a quick rescue mission to go get her body (new chainmail, sword and rations).
Now we were at the entrance of a strange towers. We knew, thanks to the dwarf, the door was trapped (her hand was still injured from last time). Last time, first two floors were normal and got looted. Third was ominous and left alone. Underground was full of art and stuff.
So we entered, doors were closed again. So we decided to recheck them for traps and open up what lays behind. One of the wall seemed off so I checked it, but to no avail.
We decided to go downstairs, where there was a bunch of boxes with collection of well kept bones (that the wizard took some). A locked door in the bottom gave us some trouble, but we forced it open.
Behind it we found some kind of autopsy room with a body, mirrors, and multiple tools. We heard noise from another room and I took a look at the tools. There was bunch of crap, a small bunch and strange liquid vials. I gave the vials to the wizard, he opened one and a vicious slime went out and attack Benny, the torchbearer ! We tried to catch it into a lantern, but it was too quick and inflict some damage on the wizard face before being caught.
We looted the rest of the tools and the small box (which was more microscope glasses). The mirrors were magical (and not good ! the dwarf took some kind of light blast that blinded and hurt her). We devised a plan to transport later the mirror with ropes to cross the lightning field.
For now the door was our concern. Sounds of undead or something was on the other side. We opened it to found strange creatures begging us to free them. So obviously we closed the door and stuck a spike in it to make sure nobody could get out. We took the mirrors, left back upstairs and put a statue on top of the trap to make sure nothing could get out of there.
We went down again, but through another trap on the ground. We opened up a closed portcullis. Behind it was two doors, a chasm and some false leads. One door was marked "Treasure room" (yeah right) and the other "Workshop". We started to listen at the Workshop door.
While we were busy a big spider jumped on us from above and managed to bring down the dwarf that barely survived. We fought it off (killed) but not before it attacked and injured Benny the hireling.
In the workshop was bunch of things. We found notably bocal to put the magical slime to make sure we could use the lantern. But bars shut down behind those that went it (not me !) so they were trapped in the workshop. We lifted the door and went to the treasury.
Old Hector knew better. He checked the handle and say it was like a claw. So he opened the door with a shovel and lo and behold, it was a trap that would have crushed the hand. Inside was 12 chest filled with "coppers": we considered their weight and it was not the same, so we didn't trust it and didn't take anything.
There was a last chest that was locked (and trapped, as I discovered by looking inside the lock hole). We jammed it open with iron spike. There was a strange bottle with a gargoyle inside it. We decided it was enough for today and start to plan our escape from the tower. We decided to ran the lightning field and drag the statue with ropes.
It hugely slowed us down back to the village, but at least we got an extra statue down the road. It slowed us down too much so we had to actually forage and hunt on the way for lack of food.
AFTERMATH
All and all we brought back:
790 GP worth of thing. With the modification to XP and the homebrew rules, I managed to level-up.
TLDR & COMMENTS
In a sentence, what happened: We looted a wizard tower and had to rely on non-GP for loot but managed to sell most of it at town.
What impact all of this will have: I'll be able to train and get to level 2.
What I take from this: Very nice and fun game with nice people. Very old school feeling !
I just joined a campaign online that's a mix of B/X and OD&D. As you can see I'm joining campaign ! Well let's say that I was players in 5th campaign that just ended as a player, so I decided to try and join now group that play OSR-related content.
Previously the dwarf had found a strange wizard tower with potential treasures and adventure !
PARTICIPANTS
- Aberdene (Dwarf cleric, Noforra) with two hireling (Cecilia, men-at-arms; Benny, torchbearer)
- Coates (Elf wizard, Ambrose)
- Myself (Fighter, Hector)
- Azer (DM)
PLAY REPORT
So we started by rounding up the group, introducing new characters, dealing with hirelings and so on. My character is an old gravedigger that's fed up of burrying people with loot: might as well die rich than die poor (at least for him).
We strated the travel to the Northwest with the promise of riches from a Wizard Tower that the dwarf had already gotten to. Travel took two days, and we saw ominous clouds in the distance that's part of the tower protection: lightning strikes those that travel through. Movement had to be timed in between storm burst. Cecilia unfortunaly got stroke as we ran and died by lightning ! Hector wasn't planning on wasting all that equipment, so he did a quick rescue mission to go get her body (new chainmail, sword and rations).
Now we were at the entrance of a strange towers. We knew, thanks to the dwarf, the door was trapped (her hand was still injured from last time). Last time, first two floors were normal and got looted. Third was ominous and left alone. Underground was full of art and stuff.
So we entered, doors were closed again. So we decided to recheck them for traps and open up what lays behind. One of the wall seemed off so I checked it, but to no avail.
We decided to go downstairs, where there was a bunch of boxes with collection of well kept bones (that the wizard took some). A locked door in the bottom gave us some trouble, but we forced it open.
Behind it we found some kind of autopsy room with a body, mirrors, and multiple tools. We heard noise from another room and I took a look at the tools. There was bunch of crap, a small bunch and strange liquid vials. I gave the vials to the wizard, he opened one and a vicious slime went out and attack Benny, the torchbearer ! We tried to catch it into a lantern, but it was too quick and inflict some damage on the wizard face before being caught.
We looted the rest of the tools and the small box (which was more microscope glasses). The mirrors were magical (and not good ! the dwarf took some kind of light blast that blinded and hurt her). We devised a plan to transport later the mirror with ropes to cross the lightning field.
For now the door was our concern. Sounds of undead or something was on the other side. We opened it to found strange creatures begging us to free them. So obviously we closed the door and stuck a spike in it to make sure nobody could get out. We took the mirrors, left back upstairs and put a statue on top of the trap to make sure nothing could get out of there.
We went down again, but through another trap on the ground. We opened up a closed portcullis. Behind it was two doors, a chasm and some false leads. One door was marked "Treasure room" (yeah right) and the other "Workshop". We started to listen at the Workshop door.
While we were busy a big spider jumped on us from above and managed to bring down the dwarf that barely survived. We fought it off (killed) but not before it attacked and injured Benny the hireling.
In the workshop was bunch of things. We found notably bocal to put the magical slime to make sure we could use the lantern. But bars shut down behind those that went it (not me !) so they were trapped in the workshop. We lifted the door and went to the treasury.
Old Hector knew better. He checked the handle and say it was like a claw. So he opened the door with a shovel and lo and behold, it was a trap that would have crushed the hand. Inside was 12 chest filled with "coppers": we considered their weight and it was not the same, so we didn't trust it and didn't take anything.
There was a last chest that was locked (and trapped, as I discovered by looking inside the lock hole). We jammed it open with iron spike. There was a strange bottle with a gargoyle inside it. We decided it was enough for today and start to plan our escape from the tower. We decided to ran the lightning field and drag the statue with ropes.
It hugely slowed us down back to the village, but at least we got an extra statue down the road. It slowed us down too much so we had to actually forage and hunt on the way for lack of food.
AFTERMATH
All and all we brought back:
- Some magic mirrors
- Some weird liquid that seems to be lived slimed
- A live slime
- A weird gargoyle in a bottle
- A huge statue
- Some microscope and glass
790 GP worth of thing. With the modification to XP and the homebrew rules, I managed to level-up.
TLDR & COMMENTS
In a sentence, what happened: We looted a wizard tower and had to rely on non-GP for loot but managed to sell most of it at town.
What impact all of this will have: I'll be able to train and get to level 2.
What I take from this: Very nice and fun game with nice people. Very old school feeling !
Where can I see the rules for this OD&D / BX mix?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I am not the Referee, so I only have a small portion of it. I think also a lot of it must be homebrewed and only in "Dm scribbling" format if I dare say so. I'll ask the Referee to come by the blog to see if he has something worth posting.
Deletecool, great
DeleteHi! David is correct that it's not a strictly codified set of rules, but here's a link to the PDF that I put together: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YUPc3W7h0XE2vAqI59arXaRNWlgOsgD6
DeleteI tried to mostly use OD&D as the basis, with B/X for spell lists and filling in rule gaps (like how combat actually works, turns vs. rounds, etc.), plus sprinkling in a few touches from other homebrews:
-feats for fighters, stone-based encumbrance, and Target20 in place of d20 attack/save charts from Original Edition Delta
-starting equipment packages inspired by Dungeon Crawl Classics
-turn undead-is-a-spell and magic item creation inspired by Lamentations of the Flame Princess
-carousing from Jeff Reints's Miscellaneum of Cinder PDF
-elf heartspells and investing/philanthropy from tenfootpolemic's houserules for LotFP
-personal ambitions and critical wounds at zero hit points from Ten Dead Rats
I think that covers most of what I ripped off lol
Thanks a lot for taking the trouble to post this. I really like your document!
Delete