Well, lacking any serious suggestions, I suppose I'll default to the standard non-LotFP modifiers and call it +7.

Thanks to some shenanigans in Death Frost Doom, I now have a player with a wisdom score of 25. The player wants to know what the modifier for that will be.

Behind the screen, I know the real answer is 10 demons in 4 weeks, which should be fun, as that character is the sole survivor of the team that ascended the mountain, and only got away thanks to a very well timed potion of transposition preceded by a "so long suckers!"

Bit late on the reply, but I kinda view every LotFP book as an art book, heh.

I've run both Hammers of the God and Tower of the Stargazer at conventions. For Hammers of the God I had 3 players show up, for Tower of the Stargazer I had 8 players show up. Didn't have any problems either time.

For home play, I tend to just go with whatever number of my friends are interested in playing. I don't really subscribe to there being a "right" number of players. If fun is being had, go for it!

5

(1 replies, posted in LotFP Webstore Forum)

Just in case anyone is having issues with the PDF download, as I noticed it's not really working quite right.

The download will be a file simple named "The" with no file extension. If you append ".pdf" on the end, it'll work just fine.

6

(1 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

One tip: somewhere, preferably where the players can't see it, keep a notebook. Every Damn Time a player makes an out of character joke about how something in the world works (the worse for the PCs the better), write that shit down and make it come true, eventually. Leave a decent gap of time between the joke and the coming true, to increase the chance they forget about it.

Second tip: as soon as they notice the pattern, and start trying to abuse it (they will), it goes wrong, VERY WRONG.

My favorite way to put in small treasure that I didn't have specific plans for is to just grab a handful of dice out of my dice bag, and drop em on the table. One d20 is gold pieces, 2-3 other dice are silver, the rest are coppers. If you wanna get fancy, one or more of the dice is a gem worth ten times the number shown.

1) I might have the party approached by a higher level character than them that wants to hire them on as henchmen to take down a foe slightly beyond his capabilities, and make a show of this guy hiring a whole expedition worth of people. Teamsters, animal handlers, a guide, a few mercenaries, maybe even a scholar for deciphering old ruins etc. When hiring the players, the higher level guy would negotiate terms of the contract and everything, including shares of any treasure found, wages for the expedition, expected duties, chain of command, all of it. Then I would make sure to include in the expedition enough treasure that everyone walks away with more than they expected. Not over the top, just a little extra.

2) Even though it makes no real sense, if you think about it from the point of view of the person hiding the treasure, there needs to be hints. Especially if your players are used to more modern games. You can wean them off the hints as you go, but definitely start out with plenty of hints whenever hidden things abound. You can also start using more un-hidden but perhaps less obvious treasure. An ornate tapestry used to hide a secret passage might just have some value on it's own. Three barrels of salted pork might not sound like treasure, but it will have some definite value in town. A dusty old cask of wine, if un-opened, could go to a collector or connoisseur for a hefty sum.

3) Personally, I do almost anything to get at least most of the players at my tables out of level 1 by the end of the first session, unless they're REALLY new to the hobby and need a little bit extra time with the training wheels on. Second session tops.  Make them feel like they earned it (tough guardians, difficult puzzles, etc), but definitely reward them enough to get them out of level 1.

generally, if there's a specific kind of behavior you want to encourage, the best way is to reward it immediately whenever it happens. If they've missed 3 hidden treasures in the last few rooms, and then in the room that has nothing they remember "oh yeah, I wanna search for hidden treasure!" just go ahead and let them find one of the ones they already missed. They'll never know the difference, and now they'll remember that sometimes there's hidden treasure! Hell, even if you didn't have any hidden treasure planned in a particular scenario, give them SOMETHING. A small bag of coins buried in the back corner of a cave; or they find a hidden compartment in a piece of furniture that only has one coin in it, but clearly USED to contain a goodly hoard. Hidden documents can be fun, especially if they are of a sensitive nature.

9

(7 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

My group, for pretty much any game we play, mostly ignores the existence of XP. When we hit some kind of milestone or turning point in our story, or if the general consensus is that we should level up, we level up.

10

(7 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Even playing newer games (like 5th edition D&D) me and my group tend not to use minis for anything more complicated than showing marching order or occasionally very rough-and-dirty fight layouts. Often we just arrange our dice on the table to get an idea across.

Yeah a lot of these modules remain lethal at most any level. And any of them that have madness or charming effects (Hammers of the God madness mold), might actually be WORSE at higher levels.. being forced to attack an ally as a 10th level fighter or magic user could get hilarious fast.

12

(8 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

As a GM, I try to always live by a kind of personal rule: once I put it in the game, it will behave as it should. So the only time I will ever "pull a punch" is by choosing not to put something in the game. And that usually manifests as placing 4 bandits instead of 6, if I think 6 would be unfair (unless they earned it!).

If you care about that sort of thing, possible spoilers. Maybe.

This past Sunday afternoon I ran Hammers of the God as a convention game at GottaCon, and though the player turnout was not huge (such is the curse of the Last Day of the Con), the players that did show really enjoyed it!

I decided to be generous when making my pre-generated characters (mostly for reasons of hit points), and started every character with 10,000 xp, which puts all classes at level 4, except the elves at level 3.

After a brief intro about the system (none had played it before, or anything else OSR, afaik), they selected characters: one dwarf, one magic user, and two specialists. The player with the magic user looked at the spell sheet I handed her and asked "what does summon do?"

I gave her some assigned reading and got the rest of them started. Fifteen minutes later, in response to endless giggles and downright maniacal laughter from the MU, her boyfriend the dwarf took his turn reading the Summon description, with much more subdued and possibly intimidated reactions.

Anyways, they marveled at the front door that they could see and their retainers could not, and then damn near called it a successful adventure and went home after they found the coat check. With some prodding, they ventured further, slowly uncovering the madness of the great hall, and the mind-boggling details therein. The dwarf appraised the bronze armor of the human corpses and nearly lost his shit at the discrepancy of soldiers in 2500 year old armor covered in fresh, as in 5 minutes ago fresh, blood.

Being strange-minded folk (I'm good friends with the MU and dwarf, and they definitely fit that description. especially her. you'll see), they managed to figure out the meteorite and secret door before ever even looking at the two CLEARLY VISIBLE doors. They found the fountains. They clearly expected more of the fountains, as they spent ~30 minutes examining and cautiously testing the waters of each fountain while trying to suss out the meanings of the phrases. Eventually they moved on.

The next room ate more than an hour of real time, and damn near the whole party! Along with the expected time spent exploring this oddity, there was also the first encounter with the sentinels, and of course the submarines themselves. The encounter went as you'd expect, mostly, with the dwarf making an exception by trying to make friends with fellow dwarves. Naturally that cost him a few hit points. At about this point, the two specialists had to vanish into the shadows due to a prior engagement at another game table, so they were converted into mindless crank-turners. It was at this point that they decided to check out the submarines. The first one was determined to be inoperable due to a fatal case of broken crank. The second one was also deemed inoperable due to an infestation of NOPE (sentinels). They sealed the hatch on the zombie sub and sent it down the tunnel (~100' down). They then decided to examine the middle crank, with its spooled out cable.

This is roughly the time when the zombie sub started to come back out of the water of it's own accord. The level of panic created with that realization was very satisfying. They quickly cranked it down another couple hundred feet, then started trying to bring up the middle sub. This went ok for a while, but ran into a bit of a snag when the middle sub jammed up underneath the zombie sub. Steeling themselves against imminent combat, they cranked the zombie sub back up, only to find it opened and the zombies replaced with water (yeah, the zombies climbed out and were waiting on the beach below big_smile ).

Once the way was clear, they brought up the middle sub, and popped the hatch to check inside and FOOM! Spores all up in their business! Some hilariously bad saving throws later, the dwarf and MU are stuck with 6 and 3 rounds of madness mold effects, respectively. Even better, the third round of the MU's madness was "dive in for more mold"... with torch in hand. Cue explosion and fire damage and EVEN MORE MADNESS!

So, nearly dead from friendly fire (literally), and completely naked after breaking all of their own equipment, they decided to retire back to camp for a day or three to recuperate and hire a cleric and a fighter.

On the return visit, they decided to finally check out the western, then eastern doors from the great hall. When they found the smouldering seeds, they assumed they had some inhibiting effect on the undead and decided to carry all three seeds with them at all times, making sure not to smother them. I was mildly disappointed. Then they found the ritual shaving room, and the dwarf completely lost his shit. It's still missing. At this time, my own girlfriend joined the table to play McPain the fighter.

The library sent the magic user into fits of academic orgasm, and the rune walls had a similar effect on the dwarf. Then they found the pool of "gems". I had known, about three hours prior to them entering this room, that my friend the MU would be utterly incapable of resisting the urge to grab at the "gems" in the pool, and had high hopes for this discovery. I was not disappointed.

-First grab: 19. The grasping character pulls out a rose with a caterpillar on it. The caterpillar is eating the rose. If the caterpillar is killed or removed from the rose, anything the rose is touching (such as the hand of the character holding it) grows to twice its size, permanently.
-MU watches the rose for about 8 seconds then tosses it aside.
-Second grab: 10. The essence of an alien sorcerer blasts through the hole and merges with the grasping character. Reroll all of the character’s ability scores, 3d6 down the line, except a random ability score will be 5d6, drop the best 2, and a different random ability score will be 5d6, drop the worst two.
-MU gets some hilariously bad new stats (but AWESOME strength, so not all bad eh?)
-Third grab: 5. A glowing butterfly comes through the wormhole and flutters about the PCs. It will remain with them until they return to the surface and until they meet a living being other than themselves after leaving this complex. At this point the butterfly will fly directly into the chest of the being and explode, killing the creature or person instantly. (this is my favorite one of all)
-Fourth grab: 12. A black hole comes through the portal. It is about a foot in diameter, floats at just about eye level, and destroys everything it touches. It will follow the PCs at half the normal speed of an unencumbered human.
-MU throws the rose and caterpillar into the black hole. Black hole doubles in size.
-MU gives in to the near-constant insisting of the dwarf to PLEASE STOP!
-McPain starts grabbing "gems"
-First grab: 10. The essence of an alien sorcerer blasts through the hole and merges with the grasping character. Reroll all of the character’s ability scores, 3d6 down the line, except a random ability score will be 5d6, drop the best 2, and a different random ability score will be 5d6, drop the worst two.
-McPain gets some hilariously bad new stats (but decent intelligence)
-Second grab: 11. A small pocket-size star comes through the wormhole. It is worth 1000gp.
-Third grab: 18. The character reaching through the wormhole grasps his own hand as in a mirror dimension he is reaching through the wormhole trying to get at a gem. The opening is too small to pull the arm further than the wrist. Any harm that comes to that hand also happens to the grasping character’s hand.
-McPain tries to cut off his own hand, but chickens out, whines at the dwarf to help.
-MU decides she's bored of the black hole following her around, decides to try and get the black hole to break McPain's grasp on himself.
-MU rethinks her plans and declares she wants to cast Summon at the black hole. Dwarf barely restrains himself from diving over the table, contents himself with yelling "NOOOOOO!!".
-MU rethinks her plans and casts Magic Missile at the darkness. In an effort to save time, I declare that the magic overloads the black hole and causes an explosion, everyone takes 3d8 damage and the rune walls in the pool room are completely destroyed.
-Dwarf yells "NOOOOOO!!" again and weeps quietly to himself, banning the MU or McPain from following him into other rune wall rooms.

Then we sorta ran out of time (we were 15 minutes PAST the official closing time of the convention at this point), so I quickly narrated a tour of the most likely places they would die in the unexplored areas of the temple. Gave one of my spare Rules & Magic books to MU and Dwarf, and they pledged their love of the system and declared intentions to buy many adventure modules!

14

(5 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

What level is it for? I can't tell from the book but seems like 1-3 or possibly any.

It is for characters of levels!

15

(2 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

A shield just adds a modifier to armor class (+1 in melee, +2 vs missiles), so you add that to whatever your armor class is, and enemy attacks are rolled against the total.

The basic rule for when you can use a shield is pretty much any time you are not surprised or in some way hindered from using it (maybe an enemy pikeman just lodged his pike into your shield and you can't swing it around to block the arrows coming from the other side).

If you want to get REALLY fussy and unreasonably 'realistic', you could say stuff like an attack coming from the right hand side (if your shield is in your left hand) ignores your shield because you just can't get it around fast enough, you could. But I don't think you should.

Noble Knight occasionally has it, but be prepared to pay $75+ from them.

I don't know of anywhere to get the Deluxe Edition anymore (aside from occasionally Noble Knight Games), but I still have my copy, and while I wont distribute the whole thing without permission from James, I figured it'd be OK to cut out the price lists and share them for ya.

Link to it on my google drive here.

Every campaign should have R&PL.

If you want proper historical accuracy, there is no incarnation of the game that's going to do it justice. tongue

Personally, if a player was trying to stack every kind of armor, I'd start adding bonus encumbrance points. The reason you can wear every armor on the list at the same time is the same reason why you can't wear 5 layers of pads in a football game: you would be slow and clumsy, which in combat terms means dead.

A MU could cast in plate armor, so long as it had no other encumbrance points (plate armor is 2 points, MU must not be more than Lightly Encumbered, which is 2 points). Elves must not be more than Heavily Encumbered (3 points) to cast.

The other difference is hands: MU must have both free (or one free and a wand/staff in the other), elves just need one free.

Or, if you wanna be a hilarious jerk about it, don't worry about time, and instead force anyone carrying both an extinguished seed AND a torch to keep making Dexterity checks to avoid re-lighting said seed. big_smile

I'm gonna be running it using the LotFP rules at GottaCon in Victoria at the end of feb. The best shortcut for making it quicker that I can think of is reduce the amount of combats. Some of weirder encounters (the screaming thing on the lower level, for instance) aren't really necessary to keep it interesting at weird. You can also get away with a lot less of the undead dwarf sentinels, if time is an issue.

23

(7 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

A group that's used to modern incarnations of the game (especially 3.5/PF) might have a few "learning experiences" (aka horribly hilarious deaths), but once they get the hang of it, they'll be (mostly) ok.

Shockwave wrote:

It's a win-win situation.

There's typically at LEAST one loser. At least at the character level. big_smile

25

(5 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

I would toss in a vote for NSFW, as well.