The Bruke's page

"In The Dungeons of the Slave Lords" is giving me real problems with EL, given that the PCs have no gear (and possibly few to no spells, either).

These are non-profit, done for my own enjoyment of that classic series and for practice working with 3/3.5e mechanics, but you're welcome to look at them if you'd like; if you post an email address here I'll send you the Word files.

Erik, I'll take a look at "In The Dungeons of the Slave Lords" tomorrow, and post some thoughts on it.

As for my email address, it's TheBruke@gmail.com and I would very much like to see what you've come up with... did you try to balance the overall treasure to the encounter levels? That required major tinkering in T1-4.

I almost forgot... are you familiar with GURPS?

I've been playing D&D for a long time, and I remember when the original T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil finally was published.... Maybe it's just nostalgia, but to me AD&D was at it's finest with the three big super-modules starting with Temple of Elemental Evil, progressing through Scourge of the Slavelords, and ending (?) with Queen of the Spiders. I won't dispute that many other cool modules came before and after, but for me those are the classics.

With that in mind, I've set out to faithfully update them for both D&D 3.5 and GURPS. I've seen attempts to do this before, and I'm not satisfied with the results... I'm starting from scratch, and I'd welcome some advice or comments.

This is a large board, and stuff tends to get buried here, so I've devoted a thread at my own messageboard to this topic, and I welcome anyone that wants to contribute ideas or playtest what I've got done so far. My board is at www.bruke.net/yabb

This project is entirely non-profit, and when I'm done I plan to submit the end product jointly to WOTC and SJG, with credit given to all who help contribute.

Salamat... Paalam

I'm sure it was just a localized thing, because down here in the Southwest, I've never heard of anything like that and I've been a LEO for 18 years.

If you have some professional interest, Send me an email at TheBruke@gmail.com, and I can send you scanned copies of the original articles. Or, you could try to track down some of the detectives involved; there were ten but the only one I remember is Ed Rusticus. Ed wasn't a gamer, but he was a good cop and a good person, and the first cop I ever met that I respected. I owe alot to him. The last I heard was that he's retired, but if you contact the homicide department at the Kent County Sheriff's in Grand Rapids, MI someone may be able to put you in contact with him.

I gotta say Dekko, from Scott McCloud's Zot! And a nod to Lord Foul (but when was he in a comic), Stormbringer (Elric's sword), Magneto, the Master, Doctor Doom, and Zen as Horobi (by Tagami). Oh yeah, also Tetsuo in Akira was cool.

My D&D games have always been fairly reasonable, but one time in GURPS my cousin dropped all 100 of his starting points plus 40 points from disadvantages in one skill, Guns(Pistol). In a system that rolls 3d6 and adds them to compare to a skill level, and in which the combat penalties are almost never worse than a -10 to skill, he had a final skill level of 29. He could snap shot a target in the left eye at a distance of 30 feet, with a roll of 16 or less on three dice. Of course, he couldn't do much else...

And how do I make quotes stand out on that gray background? I had to cut and paste, and I don't like the effect (or more precisely, the lack thereof). Is there some keyboard command I'm missing?

Timault Azal-Darkwarren wrote:
I heard that during the height of the gaming craze (early 80's) that many police officers were trained to pick up on D&D hints regarding a suspect because it may mean that they were unstable and more prone to violence - but that was a rumor as far as I know.

Back in 1991 I played D&D with a pretty rough crowd. In the end, one of my players killed another of my players over some drugs; it turned into a real media circus when it turned out that the dead kid's father was a cop (no one knew at the time, his parents were seperated). D&D was seriously considered as a possible motive, and this even got into the papers; I still have the clippings. It all blew over, and in the end D&D didn't factor into the trials, but it must have stuck in some officer's minds.

Later, in 1999, while I was passing through a 12 year bit in Michigan's U.P., a couple of detectives from Kent County's cold case squad came to visit me. It seems someone had told them I'm an expert on D&D. I didn't get many vistors, and I was kinda curious, so I agreed to see them. They had an unsolved murder, and they were trying to determine a motive. Some idiot (and I use that generous term only because there might be sensitive readers here) gunned down a homeless lady for no obvious reason. The detective's working theory for the killing was that it was D&D players that were trying to earn experience points. Really. The cops had a copy of the old 1st edition DM's guide, and were asking me questions like, "How many experience points is a lady-of-the-night worth?" We talked for about a half-hour about experience awards and random encounters, and I tried to explain that their theory was crazy, but I don't know if I convinced them. In the end, they drew some blood (for DNA testing, apparently they didn't rule me out as a suspect) and went on their merry way. I never did hear what happened in the end.

As for me, I when I got out last October, I went back to playing with my old high-school buddies. It's a tamer scene, but I don't miss the crazy stuff at all. Oh, and I have to agree with one of the earlier posts, that there are definately some people that can't handle the game, but they're unstable and probably couldn't handle Monopoly either. The game shouldn't be scapegoated for what some crazies do.

I wasn't going to say this, but reading that last post kinda set me off. I've been DM'ing for years, and my players are the same guys I gamed with in the 80's. But, the Age of Worms is lethal. The whole party was killed by wolves in the Whispering Cairn. It was tragic, because everyone had made fun characters that they really liked, but now for the restart they all made characters that are optimized for combat, at the expense of personality and style. Hopefully something can still be salvaged, but after seeing the second adventure in the series, I don't have high hopes. I don't see how a party of four 3rd level characters can hope to survive in The Three Faces of Evil; I intend to run an adventure between the Whispering Cairn and The Three faces of Evil so that my players' characters can reach fourth level before starting. Supplemental adventures are, I think, the only way to avoid "total party kills".

Anyone looking for elves done "right" should check out Iron Crown Enterprise's old Middle Earth series. It is, as the series title suggests, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's novels. The books are out of print now, but should be available at used game stores and ebay. They use I.C.E.'s Rolemaster system, but it is a level-based system so conversion isn't too hard (for starters, multiply all levels by about 2/3). I own the whole series, and I'm slowly converting it all to the GURPS system now, having already converted much of it to 3.5 D&D.

And as for all those that don't like Tolkien's novels, I must admit that I didn't like them either the first time I read them. However, after re-reading them, along with the Lost Tales and the Unfinished Tales, and the Silmarilion (did I spell that right), I've come to respect Tolkien's ability as a crafter of worlds. To those who say his style is hard to read, it is; but have you read H.P. Lovecraft, or other older writers? Styles change with the times, and each work should be evaluated in the context that it was written in. To criticize a book simply because it does not appeal to ones' self is to imply that you are only a consumer, with no greater sense of aesthetic. With that type of logic, heroin use would be good because it makes you feel good, and eating vitamins would be a waste of time because they don't taste good. Life is more than the sum of its parts. (forgive me the cliche).

Hey Stebehil,
Vitality and Wound Points are covered on page 116 of the Unearthed Arcana book.

Oh yeah, and I've been using hex maps forever. Hexes are much better than squares; I just wish there were more poster-maps and such in hexes!!! It's frustrating to have lots of poster-maps and no way to use them without going back to squares!!

Just a quick thought -- I've used the Death at negative HP equal to Constitution before, and I like it. The idea of a Fortitude save at DC 15+(negative HP) seems brilliant to me, and I'm going to adopt it at my next session; why didn't I think of that?

I like realism. A good friend of mine once convinced me to play a game called "Pheonix Command", which is about modern small-arms combat. I spent several hours makeing my character; he died in the first round of the first fight, without ever getting a chance to fire a shot. Realistic? Certainly. Fun? Not really.

I've seen similar things with other "realistic" games; has anyone ever played rolemaster for more than a few years without seeing a new character die from a critical hit, without ever really getting a chance to act? And the list goes on...

I've played "realistic" games of GURPS, set in the modern day, with 25 point player characters (that's dead average, to those of you that don't know the system). And, sometimes it is even fun for awhile. But, ultimately it is frustrating.

My point is, these are supposed to be games. Sure, the more there is realism and real-world logic to the physics, then the easier it is suspend our disbelief and immerse ourselves in the game. But despite what we think, we don't really want realism.

If you think you want realism in your game, then consider this: As height doubles, volume and weight increase by a factor of 8. This means that a giant of 18 feet, like a typical D&D cloud giant, would mass about 32 times as much as a normal man (around 5,000 pounds if proportional to a 156 pound man). A normal man with a Strength of 10 can lift roughly 2/3 of his bodyweight as a heavy load; a cloud giant with proportional strength should be able lift about 3333 pounds as a heavy load. So far, this matches the figures in the Player's Handbook rather well (c.f. page 162). Note that the x4 multiplier for the giant's size skews all this, making it proportional in lifting ability to a 156 pound human with a Strength of 20 (400 pounds, roughly 2.56 times his body weight). So, unless all cloud giants are massively thewed, this x4 multiplier for Size is not "realistic". But wait, there's more... Notice that the progression for damage is linear, but the progression for carrying capacity is not... a heavy load is roughly equal to the Strength attribute raised to the second power (squared), but even this progression is not stable. So, if damage is to be assigned in a linear way, and carrying capacity is to be indicative, then it follows that a cloud giant's actual Strength bonus, given the carrying capacity in the books, should be around +160. Even using the carrying capacity I've determined, it should be about +31, instead of the +12 given in the books. And, as for Hit points, consider that if a solid object doubles in thickness... well, trust me on this one that the HP should (realisticly) be about 336. But of course this would make giants into epic foes, and adventures like Against the Giants would become useless except for those players that run epic level characters (who, almost by definition, are not realistic).

At the end of the day, the only "realism" that matters is what drives the story forward and allows for the willing suspension of disbelief. No more, no less. Unless we want our games to devolve into an exercise in calculus, we would all do well to remember that.

Another idea for casting healing spells at a range can be found in Monte Cook's original Arcana Unearthed, and reprinted in his new Arcana Evolved. I don't usually use source material from other companies like Sword & Sorcery, but since Monte Cook is one of the writers of the Player's Handbook I gave these two books a read. If you haven't seen them, they are worth a look; just get the newer one as it reprints everything in the older one. Anyway...

In these books there are cermonial feats, one of which is called Blessed Mage. It allows healing spells to be cast at +1 effective caster level and allows the use of the "Blessed" template for any beneficial spell that would be cast on an ally. The blessed spell doubles the range of any beneficial spell cast on allies, and gives touch spells a range of 25 feet. The feat requires that the character has a truename to learn the feat, and to use the Blessed template requires that the target has a truename, that the caster knows this truename, and that the caster includes a specific verbal component.

Monte's Arcana books are not for everyone; I certainly didn't like them at first. However, they are well thought-out, and there are lots of interesting ideas in them. And, truenames and ceremonial feats have actually become a part of the regular rules, having been published in the Player's Handbook II and the Tome of Magic.

Actually, in addition to my d30 that I've never used, I've got a d7 that I've never used. It's a strange die to look at, but it does roll randomly

I think this problem requires a two-prong approach, one prong being realism and the other being game-balance.
Considering realism, I would think that any spell with a casting time equal to the time it takes to swing a sword should be fine; that would mean any spells with a casting time of 1 free action (or 1 immediate/swift action if you use those rules) should be realistic. This would include spells enhanced with the Quicken Spell feat and its variations. Any spell that requires 1 standard action would seem, to me, to take too long.
Considering game-balance, I look to the ability of a fighter to ready a standard attack, which includes a 5 foot step. This would seem to imply that the game-designers wanted the ready action to be very powerful, perhaps so that it will actually see use in the game. If a fighter can ready a 5 foot step and then make perhaps four attacks (considering bonus attacks triggered by feats such as Cleave and Improved Trip); and still get attacks of opportunity, it seems unbalanced to prevent a spell-caster from casting a 1 standard action spell.
After re-reading the section on readying in the PHB, I see that the Ready action to ready "a standard action, a move action, or a free action." --PHB, p.160 The PHB goes on to say, "You can ready an attack against a spellcaster..." and "You may ready a counterspell against a spellcaster...", c.f. the same source and page.
I would conclude that the rules permit any spell with a casting time of 1 standard action (or less) to be readied. If you can ready it as a counterspell, and you could ready it to cast in response to a trigger other than a spellcaster, then I would think you could ready it to "attack" a spellcaster to disrupt his concentration.
I still think this is unrealistic, and I would discourage it in my game with a house rule limiting it to only spells that require a free action (or a swift/immediate, of course. However, D&D is a game, not a simulation of reality, so I wouldn't fault anyone that allowed casters to ready spells with a standard action casting time.

When I started DMing in the 80s I had my players use the old 4d6 (take the best 3) for six rolls, in any order, and it worked fine for first and second edition. However, it was a different game then; a strength of 9 had the same bonus to hit and damage as a strength of 15. Players needed a few high numbers just to get real bonuses; a character with all 14s would have pretty much the same adjustments as a character with all 9s. Of course, there were things like spells known and encumberance that were different from a 9 to a 14, but for combat adjustments anything under a 15 was meaningless. I still DM for the same guys that were my players in the 80's, and only recently have I convinced them to try the point-buy. I started using the point-buy (25 points) in 2002, when I ran a few games for some newer players. I always liked the GURPS system for its point-buy system, and I had high hopes for the D&D version. It is not perfect, but I knew when I saw my old-school players rolling characters recently that the time for rolling dice for characters in over. My old-school players had the equivalent of between 42 and 50 points, and expected to receive the same XP and treasure awards for the creatures they encountered. But, I couldn't justify giving a 1st level fighter (in a party of five) an award of 30 XP for killing an orc (CR 1/2) when the orc simply presented no challenge to the uber-characters; to do such would be equal to simply giving away experience. And, to select more difficult encounters (i.e. higher CR monsters) would simply propel the characters up in levels even faster. It is obvious that the designers spent quite a bit of time trying to balance the game; I think that balance should not be quickly dismissed. The designers set the standard at 25 points for a reason, and my own experience has shown it to be fair and workable. Of course, in my campaigns I make most of my NPCs using the actual NPC classes, and I reserve the PC classes for only the most special of villians. I design almost all of my NPCs with the non-elite array, or with 15 points. Done this way, 25 points is fine. It forces the players to rely on cleverness and skill at play rather than on huge bonuses. I've seen players with the equivalent to 40 or 50 points; they rarely need to really think. And, in all fairness, there are exceptions to every rule... but I wouldn't make exceptions often lest they become the rule. Having made my feelings known, I would add in closing that random dice rolls could be OK, if they are done for flavor instead of for unbalanced power. Two old 1st edition methods that worked well then and would still work well today are to roll 3d6 twice for each attribute, taking the better of the two rolls but keeping the scores assigned to the attribute rolled, or to roll 3d6 twelve times and take the best six, assigned in any order. Both of these work well when used in conjunction with rolling 3d6 (in order) for NPC attributes but treating any rolls of "6" as a "4" and any rolls of a "1" as a "3" for non-special NPCs.

I've never seen the cards. I was moderately interested in them, because the idea sounded good. Now I find that they will be sold in randomized boosters. I won't buy randomized boosters. It really is that simple.

Some great stuff has been mentioned already, and I don't want to take anything away from that! In particular, the slavelords series and the queen of the demonweb pits are excellent. The old Dungeonland adventures (available free at the WOTC site) have a few tidbits about some of Greyhawk's quasi-deities, and the assassin's knot is a good mystery that features some details about obscure Greyhawk deities (Xerbo among others, if memory serves me).
On the web, check out Maldin's Greyhawk (http://melkot.com/), and www.greyhawkonline.com. Also worth a look is http://www.carp-mi.net/RPGA/LivingGreyhawk.
However, to me, the single most perfect example of Greyhawk is the original Village of Homlet, or it's more recent incarnation as The Temple of Elemental Evil supermodule (T1-4). It has it's flaws, and it's critics, and some of those complaints are valid, but still it is unmatched for atmosphere. It features Iuz, Prince Thrommel of Furyondy, and other names that any old-school Greyhawk player will remember fondly. It is firmly entrenched in 1st edition, and if converted directly to 3rd edition it is unbalanced and ultimately lethal, but I highly recommend the download. I've been working on conversions to 3.5 for this for about five months now, playtesting different ideas to find a balance. Anyone that is interested in a further discussion about converting Temple to 3.5 can email me directly at TheBruke@gmail.com.

I took a quick look at my back-issues and didn't see the article you're describing, but you might want to look at "The Saga of Westeros" in Dragon magazine issue #307 (pages 79 to 96). It is a description of a low-magic world based on the books by George R.R. Martin. I've never read Martin's books, but the game-materials in the articles seem good. Even if you are not interested in Martin's world, it is a good source to see what a low-magic world would be like. Oh, and the issue has a poster map.

I think you are looking for the spellcraft section of Dragon magazine's issue #336, which is titled "The Demonomicon of Iggwilv". I am not sure if this is the first or only such entry on the topic, but I think it is the only recent article that fits your description. Hope this helps.

Interesting debate. Honestly, I've never had a problem with the silence spell over the course of my 25 years of DMing, but if I did then I think Magagumo's idea of treating those in the area as being deafened would be a balanced solution to abusive players (or DMs). Admittedly the rules clearly state the effects of the spell, and for most cases it shouldn't be necessary to change the given rules, but D&D has a long tradition of house rules that individual DMs have adopted to solve problems unique to their games (or players). Just remember, any rule that can be and is consistently applied equally to all participants is a fair rule.

I think I may have solved the download problem--

Yeah, that must have been it, because it is working fine now. As soon as direcway finished their system maintenance, everything worked fine.

I think I may have solved the download problem--
I have had a similar problem at 2 other sites, which I know were fine five or six hours ago.
I checked my ISP, which is direcway, and they are doing some kind of scheduled maintenance on their system. They have an advisory up that this may cause some connection problems, and sure enough I am having some problems with links everywhere.
If you also have direcway as an ISP, then I think we have an answer. The good news is that it is scheduled to end at 6 am, so it won't be long now. I hope...

There's an auction on ebay right now that features the Night Below box set at $15, ending in 20 hours; there's two more sets listed at about $4 and $8, ending in 2 and 4 days. Check out
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&ht=1 &shortcut=0&from=R41&query=%22Night+Below%22&category0=& ;Submit=Search

Shanghai? Cool. You aren't too far from my fiancee, she's in Hong Kong right now. Anyway, the originals are selling on e-bay, but at about $45. I think a few of the ebay stores are selling it for slightly less as "buy it now". If you don't have your heart set on Temple, another good starter module (if you can find it) is the "Night Below" box set, which fits into just about any campaign world and is comparable to Temple (but less famous and thus cheaper...). It came out in 1995, has three books, 2 huge fold-up maps, and several 8 1/2 by 11 stat cards/aids. If I had a scanner, I'd send you a scanned copy; alas I have no scanner and just wasted all my money on a new video card.

If you are looking for D&D adventures, you might want to check the free downlosds at the Wizards of the Coast web site. Right now they have revised 3.5 editions of the classics, "Tomb of Horrors" and "White Plume Mountain", and the original 1st edition versions of Ravenloft II, The Palace of the Silver Princess, Dungeonland, and The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror. It's worth a look while paizo is fixing their site. Try http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/downloads

Thanks, Bruke. I tried, but it didn't work for me...

Yeah, I tried it too, and it didn't work. I even switched back to my old browser, and that didn't work either. I think it must be a problem on paizo's side, either hardware or (more likely) software. Lucky for me I have my old hard copy of the Temple of Elemental Evil, so I don't need my download right away... But it would have been nice to have.

Hey, all this has happened before. Check out the posted messages for November 2nd of 2005, and they came up with a solution that worked (that time). The header mentions having trouble with assets. I'm about to try it, but I have to relaunch my browser to do it. Here's hoping it works...

To Erin Murray--
I got my copy today, in Michigan (49316 area code). It is coming.. It's got 12 new monsters from the older campaign settings (Greyhawk, Ravenloft, and Mystara). The death's head tree and the suel lich seem decent, at a glance. Also has an ecology of the draconian article and some new Ravenloft spells.

To Mirko Bordiga, regarding downloads-
I've never tried to download stuff from here before, and I've also never used a message board (anywhere), but I wanted to let you know that I have almost the same problem, I also can't access downloads I just bought. You're ahead of me, I don't even get an error message; I get nothing at all. My browser runs for about 3 seconds, then says it's done without doing anything else. Could it be a problem with the company's server?