Foray into First Edition: Part 2

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Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp
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Foray into First Edition: Part 2

Post by Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp »

Since the original thread has gotten filled with junk. I'm posting the second session in a new thread.

In our second session which happened yesterday, the first part got skipped somehow. I'm not sure if we ever fought those giants and won, or if we never fought them at all. If we won, I would really like to know, as those giant corpses could all be animated from my Animate Dead Monsters spell.

Unearthed Arcana added a bunch of spells, new classes, etc. to first edition. 2 interesting 5th level spells of note are Animate Dead Monsters and Golem

Animate Dead Monsters turns corpses of large humanoids into zombies with 6 hitdice and 4-16 damage per attack. 1 corpse per 2 levels can be animated which means as an 11th level cleric, I can animate 5 dead giants to be meatshields and beatsticks.

The Golem spell requires 3 hours of expenditure, and a prayer spell. In return you get a 33 hp creature that lasts for 3 hours per level, or as an 11th level Cleric, 33 hours. The Golem is ideal for triggering traps and standing in harm's way while getting giant zombies simply increases the party's overall survival and damage capacity.

The party came across a big giant steel double door, with an elevated cave nearby it. I sent the Golem to smother itself around and on the double door to ferret out any possible traps. As soon as that happened 4 Dire Wolves came out of the cave, and it was initiative time.

I decided to cast Planeshift to potentially auto-kill one of the wolves, while the rangers and fighters fought, and another cleric decided to cast Silence 15' radius. I have to say I was pretty annoyed, that another party member would risk screwing over my spell because they were worried about "keeping quiet" and "stealth."

Everything from this DM's playing style tells me that he doesn't value stealth. Our Ranger and Thief who hid and sneaked ahead got caught by the Fog Giants. The Dire Wolves auto found the party when the Golem was checking out the door. So I truly don't expect Silence 15' radius to make a difference. Third, if we already fought giants, then we were already discovered, and they should already know we're there.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have used Plane Shift on the Dire Wolf. The DM described them as large canines, and I got worried thinking they were this awesomely powerful dogs for giants. The initial description was "shadowy figures" so I also thought they might be shadow dogs or something possibly quite nasty. Anywho, the dog was sent to the Elemental Plane of Water and was dead, no further risk of injury in any case.

It's interesting going back and looking at the 1E fighter after dealing with the 3E fighter for so long. Since fighters can have % strength, that 18/90, 18/91, and 18/00 strength is quite impressive. My lowly cleric only has a 16 Str and a +1 mace. So as far as beating down monsters quickly and efficiently, the Fighters are quite useful since a Cleric does not have many Save or Die Spells.

However, one of the fighters *claimed* the Gauntlets of Ogre Power when he had a 16 Str. Really though, with those gauntlets I'd kick almost as much butt as those fighters and still get to cast save or die spells and summon monsters for my side. Hand me a ring of invisibility too, and Voila! Suddenly both the Fighter and the Thief roles are unnecessary as I can cast Silence 15' radius to be silent and Find Traps to avoid nasty arbitrarium.

It should also be noted that many party members were given the option to use premade characters with especially high stats, which is why every Fighter-type character had exceptional strength (except 1 guy, but he was given gauntlets of ogre power for free).

The next part is interesting as the party wanted to investigate the cavern where the Dire Wolves came from, and rather than listening to me and sending out the golem to set off traps and take hits from hiding foes, the Ranger and the Fighter/Thief immediately wanted to go in and search for traps and sneak in.

I gotta say that if the Ranger and Fighter/Thief want to ignore my advice and spring a trap, I'm very disinclined to heal them. As far as knowing what's up ahead, there's a really neat spell called Divination that tells me what's up ahead with a good rate of success.

Anyway, the session ended after only two hours since East coast guys joined a game with a West Coast DM :mad: Which I really don't care, but when the party was down to a fighter, and 2 clerics, the DM stopped because he didn't think we could survive. :roll: Sheesh, Continual light blinds a giant for -4 AC and -4 to Hit. Protection from evil adds more penalties, and Prayer helps the party even more.

For the next session, I'll probably keep my mouth shut about the possibilities of using a golem to set off the traps as the Ranger and Thief want to play the Search for Traps and Sneak up on the Enemy Minigame. Which is fine really, I mean, if those 2 members can defeat the giants, there's little need for the rest of the party except for healing and raise dead.

Interesting tidbit: Ranged attacks in melee in 1E are random, meaning that you have an equal chance among all creatures nearby to hit. So, one really can't shoot into melee and aid the party. One has to run up to melee and start rolling away which makes me feel sorry for the 1st level newbie mage who probably took Magic Missile as his first level spell, and has nothing to do for the rest of the day as he can't throw missles into melee without risking hurting his friend and he can't get into melee and expect to survive.
Last edited by Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp on Mon Nov 30, 2009 4:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by mean_liar »

+STR races as clerics are win in 1e. Minotaurs come to mind immediately as a playable character race with +2 STR. The Player's Options books opened that all up even more.
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Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp
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Post by Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp »

I agree with you, however you'd need non PHB races to make that work. Half-Orcs in 1E get +1 Str and +1 Con. However, their maximum Str is 18/99 vs. the human's 18/00. As per the DMG, everyone gets age modifiers to their scores but age modifiers cannot increase scores above 18 except for Wisdom.

This topic was discussed at length here: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewt ... =1&t=39301

If I had rolled an 17 or 18, I might have 1 level in Fighter. Of course, since I only have a 16 and not a 17 in Wisdom, I don't get to cast a 6th level spell that I have a slot for. :bored:

Of course, when it comes to 2nd edition with the Complete Book of Humanoids (if the DM allows it) it's a whole different ball game.
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Post by Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp »

Part 3:

We played again this Saturday, and as usual it was very slow. An inordinate of time was spent drawing a map, getting the map to the characters and setting us up. The DM has a penchant for omniscient monsters which sneak up on the party and as such we got waylaid again.

Since I'm playing with a group of fighter-type characters who want to be in the action and not worried about setting off traps, I end up in the back of the party with my Rope Golem Behind me. Well, when we find a Kennel of Dire Wolves, two giants show up behind us and toss boulders at me and golem.

Because of the DM's houserule, Missiles automatically go first, then spells, then melee. As a result if a missile user attacks a spellcaster and hits, hat spell is gone every time so basically 1 segment vs. 9 segment make no difference. Since I got hit my spell auto-failed. One Fighter ran up and attacked the giant and aided my rope golem while the other party members took care of the wolves.

I must say that using Weapon Specialization and having percentile strength and having multiple attacks and having a magic weapon does impressive damage against giants, even moreso if that character is a Ranger.

It's funny reading the ending comments. The DM obviously does not like me having a Rope golem, nor the fact that I animated the 2 giants we killed into zombies (for later use). Funny how I'm guessing his real problem is having more characters and more meatshields against the giants (remember his rule of not bringing cohorts or followers into the dungeon);

Next session when we kill more giants, I will definitely cast Animate Dead Monsters more and get up 5 undead giants to aid the party.

Oh, the description for the Light Spell and its effects is hidden in the DMG. Did you know that that 1st level spell grants a creature -4 AC, -4 attacks, and -4 saving throws!

Anyway, it was a fun session, and for next session I'll strip away some of my current spells and just pack cure spells since this party probably won't get much use out of Divination.

--Bill
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"Real Sharpness Comes Without Effort"
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