BECMI D&D

[Maximus]

So you pick either a race or class but not both?

[The Minsky Moment]

So you pick either a race or class but not both?

BECMI rules.

Meh.  It all went downhill after 1st edition.

[Pedrito]

QFT, although even 2nd ed was not bad

L.

[Jacob]

Will Morgan Ironwolf make an appearance?

Probably not, but Aleena might.

[Jacob]

Group 2 played Sunday evening. Four players showed up and rolled up: a Cleric, an Elf, a Fighter and a Dwarf.

Their starting situation was the same as group 1. The aspiring adventurers had ended up in the town of Penhaligon, at the Mark of the Swan. Several of them were financially embarassed as it were, so they were hoping to secure some sort of employment post-haste.

As the quartet was taking its evening meal (and the Fighter - who had only been able to afford leather armour and five arrows for her bow - was contemplating how she would pay for room and board tomorrow), a young woman dressed in dirty but otherwise high quality farmer's clothes. Blonde, fairly youthful and her eyes reddened from crying, she seemed uncertain of herself. Eventually, with a bit of encouragement from Severin Coldhand, she spoke her name and revealed her business.

Ilinka (that was her name) had come from her family homestead, not far from the village of Kaskas. A few nights ago she had been away and upon her return had found signs of combat and plundering at the homestead; everyone - her parents, her two brothers and extended family and farmhands (another 8 people)  - were gone.

Distraught, Ilinka eventually dug up the family savings (about 100 gp) and went to Penhaligon in the hope of finding help (the homestead was outside the borders of the barony or any other domain, so there was no help to be had from the authorities - the king is too far away and the local lords won't bother with someone outside of their protection). Some goblins have recently moved into a nearby gully, and Ilinka was certain that they were behind the attack. She wanted the adventurers to enter the gully and recover her kin. Without expressing any undue sympathy and setting the price at all her money (half up front), the party took the job (the fighter quickly buying some more arrows).

The next morning they set off down the road. By nightfall they were beyond the writ of the Baroness Penhaligon. As they set camp under some trees, five fellow travellers - men of a somewhat rough mien - asked to share their fire for the night. The men shared a small keg of very good wine with the party as they settled in; they also propositioned the women (Ilinka and the figher) somewhat crudely, but didn't push it too far; they also joked about joining forces with the party in banditry, but that wasn't particularly well received either.

In the middle of the night, the five men got up to attack the party, apparently hoping to get the drop on the adventurers. Being adventurers (green as they might be), the quartet were not too surprised and quickly got up to defend themselves.

The elf used his ventriliquism spell to shout "stop! you are surrounded!" from the darkness of the forest. This unnerved the bandits, and they turned to flee (failed morale check). Being a bit bloody minded, the adventurers set off in pursuit. The fighter caught up to one of the bandits (the advantage of wearing leather armour) and chopped him down. While searching the corpse, she noticed that he was wearing an iron bracelet too small to be removed. It appeared to have been riveted shut. When she brought the bloody bracelet back to the party, they recalled that each of the bandits had worn a similar bracelet.

The next day they arrived at the village of Kaskas and heard some rumours of the steamy hill across the river (where party #1 is adventuring). They also showed the bracelet to the innkeeper there - Leocas; it was noted that his eyebrow twitched, but nonetheless he claimed he'd never seen such a thing before. In reality, the bracelet is often worn by rank and file members of the Iron Ring a secret society that does a fair bit of kidnapping and slave trading (illegal in Karameikos). As it happens, Leocas is a member of the Iron Ring, so the party will have more trouble from them soon since they talked at some length with Leocas about their plans.

The next morning they went a few hours south to Ilinka's homestead. As they arrived they saw two wolves feasting on a corpse. Dispatching the wolves, they found the corpse to be that of a goblin; several crow feathered arrows were found stuck in various buildings further supporting the goblin attack hypothesis (though the Dwarf wasn't convinced). Upon further investigation they found the place completely looted to the point that every bit of furniture and crockery was missing.

At her suggestion, Ilinki led them to the nearby gully where the goblins had taken up residence. The gully itself was more of a ravine or possibly even a chasm (200' deep or so). Beneath a great big tree, a hole presumably led to their dwelling.

As the party approached, two well placed crow-feathered arrows hit the elf and the cleric square in the chests (4 hp damage each). Two goblins were hidden in the tree and objected the party's approach. Wasting no time, the quartet returned fire and the two goblins were soon riddled with arrows, falling out of the tree as a result.

... to be continued ...

[Josquius]

The fighter caught up to one of the bandits (the advantage of wearing leather armour) and chopped him down. While searching the corpse, she noticed that he was wearing an iron bracelet too small to be removed. It appeared to have been riveted shut. When she brought the bloody bracelet back to the party, they recalled that each of the bandits had worn a similar bracelet.

These things can be quite horrific if put a certain way .

[Solmyr]

How did I miss this thread? Mystara was my first D&D setting. You should put Bargle the Infamous against the adventurers, he's a classic villain.

[Razgovory]

Hehe.  I remember him.

[Jacob]

You know, I wasn't planning on using any of the iconic or classic characters but due to this thread I think I may put both Aleena and Bargle in there.

Also... should this thing make it into the part where the players have dominions to manage, I have this harebrained scheme that I want languish posters to be involved in some capacity to make decisions for nearby dominions. It's still probably years out, so I still rate it as "bloody unlikely" but it's a nice thought nonetheless.

[Jacob]

... to continue:

They entered the cave and after progressing through an empty room, surprised a group of goblins playing dice with a pair of gold dice. Some of the furniture they were sitting on was rather obviously looted from the homestead.

The party descended on them. It turned out that two more goblins with bows were in the room next door. Not only that, but they were armed with bows and were happy to shoot into the fight.

A couple of goblins were quickly downed, but so was the Elf! And the Cleric! The Dwarf and the Fighter quickly dispatched the other two goblins in the room, causing the archer goblins to turn tail and flee. The Fighter, thinking quick, pulled out her longbow and shot one. The other goblin made it to the exit.

The doorway out of the room led to the gulley, to a suspension bridge across the gulley. For reference, I was using this map:



The fighter managed to peg the fleeing goblin just before it made it into the room on the other side. Breathing a sigh of relief, the two survivors returned to the corpses of their comrades; I explained the death house rule:

Characters reduced to 0 hp may recover in about a week if they are taken into care immediately (and if what reduced them to 0 hp didn't obviously kill them). They'll have to roll on a table to see if there are any permanent effects from the ordeal.

Ilinka had been waiting outside, and with her help they brought their comatose comrades back to the homestead. She was somewhat distraught at their fates, especially the Cleric who had been sort of nice to her. In any case, she vowed to do her utmost to restore them to health.

Conveniently enough, soon thereafter two other adventurers showed up at the homestead (everyone had rolled two sets of stats, to have a replacement character ready to go if necessary).

One was Andrei the Farmer (a fighter), a young man from a nearby homestead. While it hasn't come out yet, the reason that Ilinka wasn't at the farmstead when it was raided is that she was spending the night in arms of Andrei. Naturally, Andrei being a gallant man hurried to her side once he learned she'd returned from Penhaligon.

The other newcomer was a Magic-user, the somewhat snooty brother of the Fighter.

Encouraged by the reinforcement the party returned to the goblin gully the next day. The corpses of the slain goblins were gone, as were the gold dice the goblins had been playing with.

The rooms that had been cleared previously remained empty. Gingerly, the party crossed the suspension bridge. The room across the gully was empty, with a hole in the middle of the ceiling and a staircase at opposite end.

As the party made their way across the room, a pack of goblins - about six of them - jumped up from the staircase where they had been lying in ambush. Reacting quickly, the mage cast (his one spell) sleep. Every single one of the goblins sank to the floor ensorcelled.

In that exact moment of silence as everyone contemplated the sleeping goblins, the party heard a soft "thunk" behind them. Looking, they saw that a rope had been dropped through the hole in the ceiling; had combat been raging they would've absolutely missed it, but now it was obvious.

Thinking quickly again, the mage pulled out a flask of oil and poured it on the rope; fumbling with his lantern, he managed to light the hemp on fire. Soon thereafter four goblins plummeted screaming through the smoke above. Two of them broke their necks, and the other two were quickly dispatched. While the Dwarf and Fighters dealt with the goblins from above, the Magic-user started killing off the sleeping goblins; soon there were no goblins left alive in the gully.

Descending down the staircase, the party found more looted furniture and a barred (from this side) door. On the other side was a bound cleric who said he was named Dragomir. The goblins had, apparently, left him at the top of this deep pit to starve. Further down the pit, he said, were several undead which he'd managed to keep at bay with his prayers.

Going back upstairs, they climbed up the shaft to where the goblin leader had lived. Again, they found more items looted from the homestead and an untrapped chest containing a hoard of copper and electrum pieces, as well as Dragomir's gear. It included a cryptic note, with names, cities and a few comments next to each (it's a list of Iron Ring operatives that Dragomir have tried to win to his cause, he is a devotee of a destructive god - the Pearl Dragon (the immortal ruler of chaotic dragons) - and also dedicated the Traladarans throwing out or killing the Thyatians in their midst).

Having found no sign of any of Ilinka's kin, the party decided to deal with the undead in the pit. There were five (goblin) skeletons and three (bugbear) zombies. Using their bows to good effect and using the stairway to funnel the melee (which could've been avoided had the Dwarf not rolled a 1 to attack and knocked over a few people, allowing the zombies to close), the undead creatures were dispatched with no undue difficulty.

With that, the party returned to the homestead. There, the Dwarf gave the young woman a few encouraging words ("the harvest must be brought in"); it seems like they are going to do their best by her and stick around for a bit in the style of the Seven Samurai.

And that's where the story of Group #2 stood at the end of the first session.

Next session fro Group #2 is scheduled for the Sunday after next (with an additional player joining), though several of the guys have a history of flakery, so we'll see how it goes. Group #1 should be on next Saturday.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

great thread Jacob/ nice recaps....

[CountDeMoney]

What's BECMI mean, again?  Or did I miss it in the thread?

And did you guys see they're reissuing the 1st Edition Player's Handbook, DM Guide, and Monster Manual in April?  Collector's Edition covers, but with the original content and art.*










*Of course, not the Cthulhu-Monster Manual version.

[Solmyr]

Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal, referring to the succession of original D&D boxed sets that took you through the levels.

[CountDeMoney]

Ah, gotcha.

My AD&D experience time frame ended somewhere roughly after Oriental Adventures.

[The Minsky Moment]

What's BECMI mean, again?  Or did I miss it in the thread?

This is how I recall it.
Around the time the old 1E hardbacks were being sold in the late 70s, TSR (or whatever it was called back then) began to market a simple set of "basic" rules as an intro for new players, covering levels 1-3.  It came as a book with a blue cover.

The "blue book" sold pretty well and a few years later they made a revised version (red???)  That book sold even better, so well that an expansion was written to take the game to intermediate levels (4-8 or something like that) and then more books after that, until there was a whole parallel series of books with their own fan base.  That's "BECMI"  Hardcore guys and "old timers" (such as they were back then) stuck with the 1E hardbacks.  It is sort of like what is starting to go on now with ASL and ASL "Starter".

My AD&D experience time frame ended somewhere roughly after Oriental Adventures.

The same, but the BECMI series predates it (at least basic and intermediate).