Tuesday, April 17, 2012

AD&D: What I'm looking to include next time!

GM'ed a dungeon (the one shown in previous posts) the other night! Ended up granting each player over 5K of experience! It was a level 3 dungeon.

Now I'd like to touch on areas I don't think I quite got to with it. Some ideas are
  1.  A difficulty option.
  2.  Rolling attacks outside the DM screen. Physically this is difficult - I still want to have a screen. Maybe I can cover the map, lift the screen and roll? That might work. Oh, that reminds me - in advance declare that I will make up, based on judging the situation, who goes first (or if it's simultanious) on tied iniative.
  3.  Work out some way of distributing attacks on PC's neatly. I've been using colour coded (to each player) dice. Kind of handy, but if I'm rolling outside I need some distribution method for attacks? Perhaps I could just roll on everyone, then roll another die (equal to group size) to determine which attack did or didn't happen?
  4. I'd like to try out making carrying weight matter! I guess this'll most likely tie in with #5. Maybe add some exhaustion modifiers to combat, if they just try for 'oh, we just do alot of draggin of sacks of gold'. I guess in the end really it's just a question of whether they leave any loot unguarded and if some monsters come across it.
  5. I'd like to make time passing matter, instead of a dungeon that just sits and waits for the PC's. I'm thinking perhaps monsters who have attack animals (giant centipedes in a cage?) that they release at the PC's. Or a group of archers who do a hit and run attack. I don't want these to be a full scale combat engagement - they wont have treasure and it'll just take time away from the detailing I've put into the dungeon. How can I have some archers attack, but without the PC's manically chasing them down and having to dispatch them all utterly? Perhaps a spell that creates etherial archers? Or a portable dart firing mechanism - the patrol detects the PC's, sets the dart gun near a corner, then they scuttle away and activate it remotely (or it's on a short timer - yeah, I'll go with that). The dart guns mechanism makes it roll around the corner, then fire a bunch of darts. I guess the problem is the rogue will then grab this thing and try and use it against monsters? Maybe just make it less accurate when those who didn't make it (ie, the PC's) try and use it, and thus it'll have some use, but not a substitute for combat.
  6. I'd like to really figure out how to handle fleeing players, instead of simply erring on the side of the players because I had nothing made up. Movement speeds will be crucial to this, perhaps even the decider. As is, if you have somewhere to run to, then it seems to be a matter of calculating how many times the monster catches up to you (if you happen to be faster, then no sweat). If you have nowhere to run to (no door to get behind and bar, for example), then you are doomed - the monster would just keep hen pecking at you till you die. This feels odd though - it feels like you should play it out with dice, but it's also a foregone conclusion that you'll die, so why bother?
  7. Finally I'd like rogue backstab or sneak opps to be more prevalent. I'm thinking of designating some as being special, where the rogue can use flash powder (cost: 25 gold) if he fails a sneak roll to perform a backstab in order to pass (but there's a negative to damage equal to his backstab multiplier, just to make it that a passing roll is still the best thing). This is because it just gets a little lame when the rogue flubs his chance 60% of the time (it's fine for fighters to miss over and over because they get lots of chances to hit. A rogue gets one chance at backstab and if they fail 60% of the time, then 60% of the time their backstab is irrelavent). I'm also thinking of having spots where the rogue can drink a 'skill potion' (ie, just cross off 25 gold from his sheet) to make a failing hide in shadows or move silent into a passing one.
Okay, so that's enough for now. I'm kind of realising how much expectations I pile onto myself!

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