I love looking for fun classic art

Midjourney does a pretty good job at generating those I've found, though human made ones have that polish and underlying secret meaning which is more enticing of course

Indeed!

The concept of 0 lvl was something I loved back in the 70's and 80's. The reason was that the modules all had shopkeepers of immense power (judges guild city state for example.) The butcher was a 15th level MU, the scribe was a fighter lvl 4 etc. Annoyed the hell out of me, so I made most of them 0 lvl with a few ex fighters etc of lvl 1 or 2. I suppose judges guild and d&d modules made them so powerful was to stop PC murder hobos, but in my campaign, if the PC's indulged in such activity they would quickly learn about the constabulary, the militia and townspeople vigilante mobs, all chasing them down and putting a bounty on their heads. I even had a group offering their services to the city as 'detectives' or bounty hunters. If caught the PC's would then be thrown into the arena and forced to face a 15th lvl MU, (not the butcher).

Well, that is strange since in AD&D most humans are simply not capable of leveling, while PC and other great heroes / villain actually were special -- meanwhile even experienced battle-hardened soldiers were "0 level" "normal men." Even PCs reduced to level 0 through energy drain could no longer level up and needed to retire (unless someone cast restoration on them). Of course, basic doesn't have a "0 level" concept per se, instead just talking about normal humans, and soldiers were first level fighters (or a few levels higher for officers). It seems, though, that training and experience were not sufficient to be above level 0 in that system, so archery training (or fencing lessons, etc.) would make no difference.

@@MikeWhiskyTango That was a fun read, as for the .. scribe .. being a 4th-level fighter, well many retired European soldiers or landless knights became laymen of the church or monks if they survived to reach the age of forty or fifty years old. As for real world concepts, not everyone as a teenager let alone a 26yo man is capable of competing in high school level sports, let alone professional athlete sports, so in that a 0zero-level human is possible. Another view to take in effect from being raised by Great Depression era farmers and bigot azz hole homophobia c0ps. If you don't carry your own weight then someone or your local social group Will beat your backside till you man up.

@@krispalermo8133 There was series based on Ellis books in the UK. It was called 'Cadfael', he was a Benedictine monk who solved crimes. Prior to becoming a monk he had served in the crusades and then as a sailor.

@@BlackJar72 That you for the post. As a teenage during 1980's & 90's, I had to deal with too much .. specialness .. from teenagers and local adults along with the nonsense of the Satanic Panic. Also the other two rpg my peer group played was TMNT and WEG Star Wars which both those two was more of a skill base system. AD&D never was a skill base system in level growth. Other note, my peer group was a collection of construction and land scrapers. We as 14yo had better work ethic and knowledge set than the adults in their twenties cause our grand/parent force us to step up in life. So as teenagers we were overly engross in skill development. In short we drop out of school as soon as we could drive and worked construction jobs till we got our GED. 2.) As for AD&D2ndE, it was flexible and stating to play with your own house rules, also had a section in the DMG in creating your own character class. The DMG had a section which stated that the players' PCs were Superheroes of their campaign world. So take that as you will. Other hand we just made everyone rogues between 2d6 level, cause between mom or granny, they could Hear/ detect noise from anywhere in the house if you were bad mouthing them. Or trying to sneak out at night. Also being country children, playing hide & seek we were closer to being rogues than anything else. Not forgetting static ability scores which don't improve over leveling up or months/years of weight lifting. AD&D just had a lot of fun supplement books to read, but we house brew D&D with TMNT just to keep everything fun and fast pace.

Excellent!

As do I

That's a lot of pressure on the dungeon decorators and set dressers

Yes, just a coincidence - though I did play through that adventure (after publication)

On man, they missed out there!

For sure

Thank You!

Thank You! Welcome!

Thank You!

For sure

Cool, I have never heard of that book - do you recall when it was published?

@@BanditsKeep 2004. It cost $100 at the time.

Do you do that as milestones or put enough XP (gold or monsters) in each session?

@@BanditsKeep previously I used a milestone style system but am moving back towards a simplistic xp table (xp for loot, exploration, combat and social). Which would mean leveling quickly at low level, but increasingly slower as you get higher (like traditional dnd)

Thanks

Good topic! I did do a video on random monsters in general a while back.

Very fun!

Thanks!

Thank You!

Excellent I shall put something together

Will do!

Thank You!

Thank You!

Yes!

Which book? I think you have to look at the encounter as a process - that is you roll all that stuff at once and announce to the PCs the situation. You don’t fight 80 orcs then check to see if that was their Lair. Also, in most case the game expects you to evade and come back prepared - thus the rules for that.

The Adnd dungeon masters guide. I’m quoting from the explanatory notes on page 5. Under % in lair “Whether or not an encounter is occurring in the monster’s lair might be totally unknown to the person or persons involved until after the outcome of the encounter is resolved.” The purpose seems to be mostly on the type of treasure. %lair was also intended to be used during overworld exploration when people were assumed by gygax to have an army. I assume he’d describe some den or cave for a wild animal and would make up camps or cave complex on the fly for other creatures. I’m sure he had a go to goblin camp design he could use if needed. I also agree with your process. Roll everything ahead of time. Lets you smooth out bits that don’t make sense and in general make it best and not stopping to roll and consult tables. I really do think war gaming with armies is intended to happen rather than dungeon delving because that’s kinda what’s described in the dungeon master’s guide. But after having looked in a bunch of places trying to find the process used(not in the best edition for that because it was assumed you already knew. Maybe BX or 0dnd might have the intended process). I think that quote is there so you don’t give the existence of the lair away. It’s kinda how gygax seems to have been. His players were savy and would not engage in the fight if it was not a lair encounter. Orcs have underground lairs 75% of the time. With this in mind, the orc king and bodyguards would be reserved for the small scale battle after the war. Their presence would tip your hand and he doesn’t get more soldiers. Under ‘number appearing’ in the “monster manual” it says “it is not GENERALLY recommended for use in establishing the population of dungeon levels.” Under ‘treasure type’ “the use of treasure type is not GENERALLY recommended.” I quote those only to show the intended encounters ie not dungeon. I emphasized generally because I know you have done it in the past but took the necessary actions to balance the numbers of monsters and treasure and wanted to note it wasn’t explicitly disallowed.(although what is really?) In the 1adnd dungeon master’s guide ‘the campaign’ section under ‘territory development by player characters’: “the player character and his henchmen and VARIOUS RETAINERS must now go to the construction site, explore and map it, and have construction commence” Later on it talks about patrols, which the player could do but would be better to send armed troops on patrols. I’m pretty sure older books did similar things with the wilderness exploration stuff but I don’t have those books handy.(Adnd doesn’t actually describe exploration of the wilderness outside building a stronghold). This to say, you raised an army and cleared the surrounding area. Then became a baron or something. Maybe I missed something else in the books. The organization isn’t always the best(which is partly why your content is helpful) I think you were supposed to prepare for the exploration and take all comers. However, the book also note things stay there so, prepare and come back is also in play. They also suggest making the treasure so bulky as to require wagons and lots of people. Then when the unprepared come back prepared there’s a chance it’s gone in part or whole. I don’t think it’s too different from dungeon exploration though. You prepare before the trip for everything you think you might encounter. If you’re surprised, you leave and come back later or improvise. I’d also say that lots of creatures would have their lair in the area wether or not the encounter was there. But, most people’s play doesn’t use armies so it’d be useless to limit it to that. Instead making chunks of encounters is valid but I’d also suggest not feeling beholden to the book on numbers and treasure because that wasn’t the original intention.

@@jeremymullens7167 for sure. I mean, you’d still roll to know if it was a lair, you just won’t necessarily tell the players that. i’m not 100% sure about the army thing, I wasn’t there, of course. But in ODD again it kind of expects you are going to evade if you are encountering a large force. You may come back with an army though!

That has not been my experience - but I’m also not yelling 😉

@@BanditsKeep U.R. MORE FORTUNATE THAN I. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!

Thank You!

😊