Gygax Time Machine, Part 3: Player Skill and Character Death

Let me summarise what happened over the first few (amalgamated) sessions-worth of play. We’re playing T1-4. The characters mentioned in the previous post - Prince Perithil of the Amber Wood (High Elf Thief), Kurgan Ironbreath (Dwarf Cleric), Gilayra (Half-Elf Druid), Gragnak (Half-Orc Fighter), Throli (Dwarf Fighter), Eldarion (Half-Elf Magic-User), and Timtom (Human Thief) – arrived in Hommlet and looked for leads on the rumours of bandits. They picked up that they might be at Lance Rock (to the north; a location taken from the 5e ToEE-remake) or somewhere near Nulb, but no-one really knew.

So my wife decided to head to Nulb. After a quiet journey (using the T1 and T1-4 rough stated distances, rather than the bizarrely discrepant map), they arrived, and nosed around different buildings – the Waterside Hostel, the Smithy, and the Docks. At the Smithy, Otis the Smith (one of Luke Gygax’s characters, I believe) worked out they were a well-intentioned party, and without tipping his hand, received them courteously and advised them to offer their service to Burne or Jaroo back in Hommlet. They also were asked by the fisherman Doozle at the Docks to hunt down a Giant Gar and give it to him so he could pretend to have caught it. In return, he’d give them a Ring of Water Walking. (My wife wisely got him to demonstrate that it worked.)

Enchanted by the idea of hunting down a big fish, my wife chose to stay long enough to hunt the Giant Gar, and then have the party head back to Hommlet.

EXCURSUS ONE: I added “Side Trek” material to both Hommlet and Nulb – the most palpable lack in T1-4 is not, to me, the incomplete and messy Nodes, but material that will actually level characters up to, say, 3^rd level before they really storm the Temple depths. I drew this material chiefly from the ToEE video game, plus one location from 5e’s Princes of the Apocalypse, and one idea from a Dragonsfoot post.

EXCURSUS TWO: Though I have “my” character sheets in front of me for admin, my wife is making all the decisions; in that sense it’s a solo campaign, but with the admin of a normal-sized party split between us. I also took the liberty here of advising on a pre-combat plan.

The plan was this: take a day to rest to swap spells (well, 4 hours were needed, but it was early evening already), and then hire some boats to row down the Imryds Run. When approaching the wide side channel where the Giant Gar lived, the Druid would ping up Locate Animals and the Cleric would start casting Bless. Once the Gar was identified, the Druid would Faerie Fire the Gar and the Magic-User would cast Reduce, with the fighters protecting the casters. Then missile fire would begin.

It was a good plan, and it so nearly worked. The Gar had 40hp and did 5d4 damage, but losing 20% of that meant it had 32hp and did 4d4 damage (which is still horrendous vs 1^st Level characters, but theoretically a tough fighter can survive a median hit). The Faerie Fire and Bless meant the core damage-dealers were running at +3 to hit.

What got in the way was a comparatively predictable perfect storm of luck in the first combat round: Initiative was tied, the Gar got a hit in on the Half-Orc Fighter straight up and took him down – the PCs were waiting for Faerie Fire - and basically nobody did much damage (I think there was 1 out of 6 hits; the Gar is AC3, functionally AC6 from bonuses, so not unhittable, but the PCs hit the rear slope of the bell curve Round 1). Next round the Gar won initiative. I think the Magic-User went down, killed outright (counting a hit taking someone beyond -3 as instadeath, though there’s debate on the interpretation of that bit in the DMG). There was some more damage dealt, and the decision was made to stick in one more round. This time the PCs won initiative, a bit more damage was done, the Cleric was killed, and the retreat was sounded – the Thieves returned to rowing, guarded by the Dwarf Fighter and the Druid. In the final round, as the boat sought to get out of the channel, the Gar won the Initiative, took down the Dwarf Fighter (unconscious), but was reduced to 4hp.

Of course the PCs didn’t know that – they knew they had done 28hp of damage and the Gar looked weak, but also knew 2 of their cohort had died and another 2 were dying (at -1hp per round, dying at -10), so they reluctantly got out of Dodge.

I found running the combat fine, though realized I actually really wanted to run it on grid paper. I’ve since had some combat training from Anthony Huso (of The Blue Bard blog and Night Wolf Inn), which has made the timing issue clearer. Timing is plainly the fiddliest thing in 1e combat; most of the actions are simple enough, and even time *costs* aren’t too complicated in any situation, but administering the timing of a round, and identifying where potential “bonus” actions can come up, is more of a stretch.

I thought the combat told a good story – a very good plan nearly took down a beast much too powerful for the PCs, and with a tiny bit more luck (what if the Gar had done 4 damage vs Gragnak and the big Half-Orc had done 4 damage that first round?) they would have won a famous early victory. Alas, they have lost two friends and had to leave another two with Otis and his friend Mother Screng in Nulb, whilst they returned to Hommlet fairly chastened. 1e rewards good play, but it is ruthless. The result was not unfair, with the good planning merely mitigating the poor strategic decision made.

The PCs are going to need a bigger boat.

EXCURSUS THREE: I wasn’t overly gentle with the Gar, but I did decide to forego calculating if anyone fell out of the boat etc, for the sake of convenience whilst I was also learning rules. I also wasn’t sure if the Reduction (or indeed the Bless) would end when its caster went down – they’re not Concentration spells, to use a 5e term, where Chant is, so it seemed to me like they would continue, but it’s a niggle. Any errata appreciated.