#d&d 2e

[oldschoolfrp]

Drow supplicants summon the avatar of Lolth (Terry Dykstra, "Gods of the Underdark" chapter of DMGR4: Monster Mythology, supplement for AD&D 2e, TSR, 1992)

[lawful-evil-novelist]

Some of the cooler stuff found while going through the d&d stuff my dad gave me

[probablyfunrpgideas]

Planescape Creature Idea: Referearch

These wispy and striped spirits hail from the Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia. There, they preside over polished courts or neatly mowed and painted fields, allowing creatures to visit for a wholesome competition - as long as they can follow the rules. Sometimes they visit other planes as well, to learn new games and update their knowledge. From the gory contests of battle on Acheron to the psychic art duels of Limbo, there is not much that can harm the incorporeal Referearch. They do clash with the Valkyries of Ysgard, who love competition but are more concerned with style than with regulations.

If a Referearch witnesses someone cheating, fighting unfairly, or using unsportsmanlike language, they usually give them a Yellow Token of Dishonor, which is a cursed item preventing them from taking hostile actions or moving more than half their speed for one minute. A repeated offense or serious infraction invokes the Red Token of Banishment, which sends the creature to its home plane (or a random location about 100 miles away, if it is on its home plane.)

Some mortals have seen a vision of a Referearch and decided to follow their example, wearing a striped shirt and blowing a whistle to imitate their trademark screech.

[inbarfink]

[universe-in-the-void-in-the-cube]

D&D and Pathfinder RPers tell me what you think.

[missrosiewolf]

Found the elf life stage chart

[badragonplays]

DragonFinds I got a real DND treasure today. I found the original Council of Wyrms DND2e boxset today. this complete box is one I have fond memories of though we had the book instead.

[probablyfunrpgideas]

“We’re here interviewing the people of Falkovnia, who seem to have only great things to say about their ruler. So, friends, who do you think burned down the Mistral farmhouse with the Mistral family locked inside? A freak gust of wind you say…”

Idea: be the first people in Ravenloft to invent Chicago style citation format! Wait.

Idea: a Ravenloft Domain of Dread based on the gangsters of 1920s Chicago!

New D&D party - True Crime podcasters who are trying to make episodes on the various Dark Lords

[oldschoolfrp]

Mellifleur, the Lich-Lord, accidentally ascended to the status of Lesser God due to a magical backlash during his final ritual of immortality. From his lair in Gehenna he guides evil wizards and priests to become liches. (Terry Dykstra, AD&D 2e supplement DMGR4: Monster Mythology, TSR, 1992)

[theshunbun]

Kani, my level 5 Ban Lung (Earth Dragon) Geisha/Pirate from my AD&D 2e Kara-Tur game 💕

[missrosiewolf]

Shout out to the time Corellon taught a guy a lesson…by making him suffer and miserable

[oldschoolfrp]

Great discussion about an AD&D 2e megadungeon campaign, examining the interplay of architecture design, random encounter rolls, and player choices

Since I've had a few people asking about megadungeon stuff recently, and I am an avowed megadungeon megafan, I thought it might be fun to walk through an actual example of megadungeon play that exemplifies what I like best about it.

This post is going to be the first in a series talking about a room from a megadungeon that I ran over 20 years ago (brushing past that fact quickly lest the horrors set in.) It was a major room, probably the most complex and important in the dungeon, and the players passed through it frequently throughout the campaign. In this post I'll introduce you to the room, and then in later posts I'll talk about what it does well and how to use that lesson more generally. Below the cut is a reproduction of the map as I remember it.

Without getting into The Lore too deeply, some dwarves accidentally dug into hell, as one does. Classic trope, nothing wrong with using them. They quite sensibly shut the mine down and sealed if off, but word got out. A human king heard about this, and took over the mine, expanding it into a temple complex to curry favour / barter with hell. It went badly, as such things do.

This concourse connects several wings of the dungeon, spanning several floors. An enormous devil face statue emerges from the northern wall, above the second floor balcony and below the fourth, and a column of light shines through a hole in the ceiling onto the center of the floor. Several floors of balconies overlook the chamber, though the stairs to the fourth floor balcony have long since collapsed.

This chamber was not too far from the main entrance, with the party first encountering it on their second delve into the dungeon, though it would take two more delves for them to gather the courage to enter it. At the time they first encountered it, it was swarming with imps and other little devils worshipping the big face.

I'll summarize the key:

A. Hallway from the Entry Chambers, the first and easiest section of the dungeon.

B. Doorway to the Pilgrim's City.

C. Doorway to the Unholiest of Unholies. Sealed and warded against simple spells.

D. Doorway to the Old Dwarven Quarters.

E. Doorway to the Nobles' Section. Barred from the far side.

F. Portcullis to the Pilgrim's City. The mechanism has rusted out and no longer functions.

G. Doorway to the Halls of the Clergy.

H. Doorway from the King's Inner Sanctum.

I. Doorway to the Archive.

J. Doorway to the King's Inner Sanctum, locked.

K. Doorway to The Indulgences.

Stairway from floor 1 to floor 2.

Light from the hole in the ceiling.

Broken stairs from floor 2 to floor 4.

Big ole devil face. Its eyes are a one-way illusion, allowing anyone within the face to view the room below.

Okay that's a lot, thanks for sticking it out. While I don't want to wander too far off topic into the rest of the dungeon, I'll just briefly note that the Pilgrim's City and Old Dwarven Quarters are easier sections of the dungeon, the Nobles Section and Halls of the Clergy are slightly more difficult, the King's Inner Sanctum, Archive, and Indulgences are very dangerous, and the Unholiest of Unholies is, as one might expect, where the worst things (and best loot) in the dungeon are. This was 2nd edition AD&D, so there was not a presumption of fights being balanced, and traipsing through more dangerous sections of the dungeon at lower levels wasn't uncommon. The players also understood the varying levels of danger fairly implicitly, since the custom at the time was that any time you went a level further away from whatever the ground floor was, things got more dangerous. The only exception to this is the Unholiest of Unholies and I think we can agree that when it's beyond a magically sealed door under a giant devil head the danger is telegraphed.

Next post I'll start talking about what made this room work so well in practice.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Question about deathbed: i havent seen much about it yet but what ive seen doesnt make it sound very...fun to be alive in that world and that its like influenced by practices of the christian church during the middle ages and stuff like that, so im wondering how that would affect being able to even really play a woman being badass in that game?

Is it basically hardmode difficulty if you wanna play a woman?

I have two answers to this.

First is that in Death Bed, a woman can be badass. I’ll demonstrate by making Herr Rike, an old literary and AD&D character of mine, in Death Bed. @thepleasuregoblin @ashweather and @umbraldame can attest that she is just about the most believably badass person there is. (Despite the title of “Herr,” she is a woman and always has been. Well she’s female, technically she isn’t human and in her setting “woman” is a human-specific term while other sapient species have their own terms for genders but you get the point.)

(art by @chaospyromancy)

I’m not gonna go through this very granularly because in Death Bed most stats are rolled, start out very low, and then are upgraded one at a time by level-ups. But over the course of building her stats up to where they should be to represent her I would focus on Agility, Scripture, Dexterity, Vigor, Strength, Endurance, Arcane, and Attunement from highest to lowest in that order.

For Traits, I would get her

(this is a men-only Trait, and also one I will probably nerf before final release, but a female character can still take it, at a price.)

(she isn't actually humble, but the effect of this Trait fits her personality.)

(note the sidebars in this one)

(in no particular order)

I might also consider giving her Gentleman (Men only.) but at the moment in the game’s unfinished state that Trait has an unclear interaction with Lady.

Yes, she does have both men-only and women-only Traits, that’s allowed, it just reduces her Social Status. I rolled it and at the end of all those Traits she still has a Social Status of 27, which is fairly high.

Social Status is a stat representing how respectable the character is by the standards of 1400s society. It determines who gets to talk down to and degrade who. What the higher Social Status character says goes, and if this pecking order is challenged, that tends to distress people.

Characters who have Traits which fall outside their perceived gender suffer a debuff to Social Status, because that’s just how it was back then. Hell, that’s how it is today.

So she could kill monsters and shit with a sword just fine, the worst she would get is maybe the occasional weird look, especially since, in the Middle Ages, it was irregular but not strictly forbidden for women to practice martial arts. The super strict sex-segregation of martial arts was way more of a Renaissance and onward thing.

Now for the second answer.

A lot of what our cultural idea of what is “cool” and “badass” is extremely masculine-favoring. And while yes, swords and armor and violence are cool and badass, (I’m not immune to thinking that the things knights do is cooler than the things their wives do.) a lot of “feminist” or “egalitarian” or otherwise “pro-women” media that is historically set ends up having the message “This woman is badass and cool because she’s.. like a man, unlike those other lameass women who are like women.”

It ends up being the medieval version of that action movie trope that goes like

Male Lead: (pleasantly surprised) “You know how to fight and be badass?”

Female Lead: *racks shotgun* “I grew up with 7 brothers and so I had to learn how to play rough and played army instead of Barbie dolls and I didn’t have a mother and my ex-special-forces dad taught me how to fight starting at a young age. All that masculinity helped me grow up to be cool and tough woman instead of a boring helpless stupid woman.”

instead of, like, celebrating the other 99% of women in that time period who just did woman stuff.

Death Bed allows you to make a character that is a woman but effectively fills the social roles of a man such as killing stuff with a sword*(which is something just about every other TTRPG on the planet also allows), and it allows you to make a character that is a woman and fills all the more normal social roles of a woman while still being a very valuable asset to the party both in and out of combat (and Death Bed has a lot of “out of combat” stuff going on. It’s a classic dungeon crawler, which involves a good amount of combat, but is not purely combat and a party needs plenty of characters who are focused on other things if they want to survive.)

*and again, this wasn’t even something women were strictly barred from doing at the time.

Fencing Master: (Men only. +1 Social Status.) This struggler has +1 Scripture, +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, and +1 Agility. Additionally, upon gaining this Trait, give him any three Weapon Special Attribute Masteries, selected at random from those he does not already have. Additionally, reduce his Hollowness by 1 each time he gains a new Special Weapon Attribute Mastery. However, this struggler must make a Despair roll any time his martial technique is called into question or disrespected, unless he proves himself. If he attempts to prove himself and fails, he must take an added instance of disadvantage to this Despair roll. He must also make a Despair roll each time his weapon is reduced in Maintenance Rating as a result of a failed attack roll. 

Additionally, this struggler gains 2x the EXP from engagements in which he fights alone without allies. 

Frightening Demeanor: (+1 Social Status.) So long as this struggler is not a non-combatant, apply a -1 to this struggler’s Attention each time their Attention is increased. However, apply an added instance of disadvantage to their reaction rolls. 

Humble: (+0 Social Status.) This struggler’s good nature is a bulwark to disrespect. They gain an added instance of Advantage to any despair rolls related to disrespect. They gain an additional added instance of advantage to any despair roll related to disrespect from characters of lower Social Status. 

Lady: (Women only. +3 Social Status.) This struggler has an added +3 to Scripture,[1] and an instance of advantage on reaction rolls. However, she must take an added instance of disadvantage to any Despair roll resulting from being disrespected by a man or woman of lower social standing, and must make a Despair roll up to once per Scene in which she is not wearing fine women’s clothing.[2][3]

[1. Sidebar] Literacy was considered the domain of noblewomen, clergy, and scribes.

[2. Sidebar] This Trait does not require the struggler to be a non-combatant. Though it was unorthodox for them to participate directly in battle, women of noble standing were not barred from martial training. In fact, a nobleman’s wife was expected to command his levies in battle should their home be attacked while he is away.

[3. Sidebar] Wearing fine women’s clothing does not preclude the wearing of most armor, so long as the visibly feminine elements are preserved.

Additionally, up to once per Scene, this struggler gains 100 EXP if she goes the entire Scene without getting her shoes or dress muddy, wet, or otherwise dirty. [gains EXP from reading literature or eating fine food and drinking fine wine? Figure this out.]

Paranoid: (-1 Social Status.) This struggler has an added instance of advantage to Agility rolls to avoid triggered traps, and, once per Hourglass, the player of this struggler can ask that the Narrator reveal to their struggler any and all traps in a room or general surrounding area and the Narrator will do so. However, they must make a Despair roll if they ever accidentally trigger a trap, or if anyone ever startles them such as by walking up behind them or waking them from their sleep.

Also, when the Narrator makes a wandering monster roll, the player of this struggler may ask that the result be revealed to them, but if they do so, this struggler makes a Despair roll.

Up to once per Scene, this struggler gains 10 EXP for being right about the dangers that lurk nearby.

Sharp Tongue: (+0 Social Status.) This struggler’s quick tongue and quicker wit allow them to wind around any social slight with the agility of a skilled fencer. At this struggler’s choice, they can cause the object of their ridicule either an added instance of advantage or an added instance of disadvantage to any Despair rolls related to disrespect from this struggler. Either advantage or disadvantage is doubled if their words are actually said in dialogue or at least summarized and the Narrator deems their remark sufficiently clever.

Tactician: (+1 Social Status.) Once per engagement, this struggler can bark out a specific order to an ally with a Social Status up to 3 degrees higher than their own, or any degree lower.[1] If the ally they are ordering complies, that ally gains an instance of Advantage to the next 3 rolls that carrying out that order may entail. However, if the ally refuses or fails to carry out this order, then this struggler must make a Despair roll. If the ally dies as a result of attempting to carry out this order, then this struggler must make a Despair roll with an instance of Disadvantage.

[1. Sidebar] This can be done even if this struggler is a non-combatant.

Additionally, this struggler gains 5 EXP for each successful roll on the aforementioned next 3 rolls made by their ally complying with their orders. 

[2dmax]

jaguarundi catgirl catfolk swashbuckler/former gladiator for a pathfinder 2e westmarches i may jump into

[fantastictalesofadventure]

IT'ᔕ ᒍᑌᔕT ᗩ ᗪOOᖇ!

[internetreferenceibrary]

I played a pixie in a 2e campaign and they remain one of my favorite characters at all time. Yeah monster races weren't what you'd call "balanced" or "fair" but they had cool abilities that felt properly inhuman. Polymorph at will Invisible at will Three cantrips a day That's the 2e pixie ability set. I can still recite it over a dozen years later. Fuck yeah 2e.

yes it is true i have been dungeons and dragons DM for over three decades and still only play second edition. had great time talkin to RASCAL NEWS about the big time campaign i run and my thoughts on what makes a good role playing trot