Monsters & Treasure Examination Final

Monsters
Allowing for what I've already said, there really isn't too much more to report on M&T. Some highlights and oddities:

• Mermen are armed with darts. Excuse me, darts? How does one learn to throw darts while living underwater?
• The "numbers appearing" are brutal.
• There are quite a few references to the fantasy section of Chainmail. I mean references to the point that without it you would be clueless. Obviously, with the benefit of almost 40 years of D&D, that isn't the case now. I bet it caused a lot of teeth gnashing back in the day, though.

I very briefly toyed with the notion of varying the damage output of some monsters. I didn't want to go full-on Greyhawk variable damage, but I was starting to think that monsters were getting a little bland. I kept seeing references to "fights as heavy foot" and so forth, and thought that might be a decent yardstick to measure damage output. In the end I decided against it. If the monsters do more damage, then the characters have to, as well. The characters will also need more HP so they can have a chance to live long enough to outlast the monsters. At that moment I glimpsed the genesis of power creep. No, no, resist the urge. Make monsters special through game-play and the occasional special ability. Leave it so that a monster that metes out 2d6 per hit is a mighty foe, the stuff of legend.

& Treasure
There weren't many surprises here. I've already talked about magic swords in my post on OD&D Fighting-Men. There were three things that especially caught my eye.

I had forgotten the premium that was placed on maps as treasure items. 25% of treasure from the treasure-type table will end up being a map of some sort. I guess that makes those treasure map booklets from Judge's Guild very handy.

There are a lot of wishes going around. There's the Ring of Many Wishes (4-24) and a magic sword that comes with 2-8 wishes. There's only a 1% chance for the ring, but 5% for the sword. Not very great chances, to be sure, but when they hit, they hit big.

Scrolls are fucking dangerous. Pardon my language, but this is serious business here. Prospective referees are instructed to try to screw players over with scrolls. To whit:

*The referee must take extreme care in handling all Scrolls with an eye towards duping the players when a Curse Scroll is found. The curse takes effect  immediately upon reading the Scroll; therefore having non-Curse Scrolls  disappear on occasion if not identified will help to force reading of Curse Scrolls. To determine the type of curse use the table below:

Die Roll Curse: (Range 3" diameter)
1 or 2 Any monster of the referee's choice
3 or 4 Disease, fatal in 3 turns unless healed
5 or 6 Polymorph to insect of referee's choice
    7     Transportation 1,000 miles, random direction

    8     Transportation to another planet

Why?!?! It's not scrolls were game-breakers that had to be disseminated with utmost caution. And how about those curses? A 25% chance of a fatal disease because you read the wrong scroll. Nice move, dumbass. Reading's overrated anyway.

So, there you have it, Monsters & Treasures. Next stop, Underworld & Wilderness Adventures.

Monsters & Treasure Examination Dragons

So iconic as to be part of the title of the game, dragons have undergone quite a transformation over the years. They started off as being a threat, one might even say a grave threat, but a threat that could be pursued without shitting yourself in the planning. Sure, they were dangerous and deadly, but they could be beaten.

For purposes of comparison I'll be looking at 100 year old red dragons from Monsters & Treasure and the SRD3.5. That age is Old for an OD&D dragon, Young Adult for the 3.5 variety.

OD&D dragons all had AC2. Since there is no mention of multiple attacks or damage bonuses, it may be inferred that all dragons had one attack for d6 damage, apart from their breath attack. Other than that, they were each different. Reds had 9-11 HD, with Old Reds getting 5 points per hit die. That was also the amount of damage done by their breath weapon. They were able to breath 3 times per day. They hit AC2 on a 7 or better.

Their OD&D adversary, a Fighting-Man of similar 10th level, would likely have fewer hit points. With the average roll of a d6 being 3.5, he would have 36 points, compared to the dragon's 45-55. Of course, if the F-M had a +1 CON bonus his average HP jump up to 46, with a max of 71. His Saving Throw vs the dragon's breath is 8, which means he will save 65% of the time, for half damage. The bitch of it is, even if he saves, the dragon's 3 breath attacks per day are more than enough to roast our F-M without some sort of magical aid. That's ok, though, because he only needs a 10 to hit the dragon. Hopefully by the time a 10th level fighter tangles with a dragon he will have a pretty potent magic sword, some armor, maybe a Potion of Heroism. In other words, he should have a chance, even if he wandered up on the beast accidentally.

In comparison, the 3.5 dragon is almost a demigod. I'm not going to completely break down a Fighter's chances against this beast because I'm not really versed in 3.5-speak. I'll compare things that are obvious, but nothing that gets "rulesy". A 3.5 red will sport 218 HP. The Fighter (we'll say he's 19th level, to put him on par with the dragon) would have, on average, 105 HP. Of course, this is 3.x, so it is safe to assume a CON bonus, but even if it is a massive +5, his hit point will only (only?) be 200, on average. He could possibly have a max of 285, but that's not very likely.

Our 3.5 red is a Young Adult at 100 years. That translates into 10d10 damage for the breath weapon, which recycles (1 in 4 chance per turn of being available). That's a potential of an average of 55 points every fourth turn. Of course, you could go the whole fight with the poor red not hitting that one in four, or he could nail it every turn, in which case the Fighter is screwed. But, maybe he's screwed anyway. See, that Young Adult is like a B-17 bomber; it has weapons hanging all over it. It gets the following attacks: 1@2d6, 3@d8, and 2@d6. They all have a +19 attack bonus. A Fighter in half plate (which seems closest to D&D plate mail) is AC 18 without DEX or magic. He better have plenty of both or that dragon is going to rape him for an average of 28 points per round, not including breath.

I want to be clear about something. I'm not trying to compare OD&D to 3.x. I'm using 3.x in this comparison because it is the final culmination of a game with the D&D monicker that actually resembled D&D. It is the ultimate end of the dragon's development cycle in a recognizable form. I'm not even trying to say one is superior to the other. As an aside, I believe that what happened with the dragon is a direct reflection of the design paradigm of later editions. That being character power inflation and monsters becoming more and more challenging occurring an endless and self-serving cycle.

So, you can see that at some point the dragon went from being a worthy adversary to being a virtual deity. I think it also illustrates later editions' reliance on character buffs, special abilities, and magic items in order to overcome foes. A smart player running his character with a smart referee can handle an OD&D dragon without needing to use a database to cross-reference all the necessary bonuses. I don't believe any amount of player skill will help a later edition character who is short of his bonuses when he runs up on a dragon.

Monsters & Treasure Examination Pt1

This booklet leads off with two comprehensive reference sheets of all the monsters included with D&D. There were about 50 in the beginning and some were quite different than they were in later editions. The presentation was also vastly different.

The pertinent stats, minus special abilities, were all contained up-front, in the reference sheets. The descriptions were quite short. Specifics were left to the imaginations of individual players and referees. There were no lengthy entries detailing the proper habitat, eating habits, or the like. No highly detailed pictures showing you just what the creature looks like.

 I like this approach. It is my long-held contention that once something is in writing in a game, it is law in the minds of the participants, for good or ill. If a referee isn't told exactly where wyverns are likely to nest , he'll make it up. He may decree that there is a nest of wyverns high up in an ancient oak. Sure, he may worry if he's doing it "right", but he'll decide anyway, and the game will go on. On the other hand, if the Tome o' Monsters states unequivocally that wyverns only ever nest on rocky crags, then our referee will be at a loss. Of course, he can override the rules, but what complications may that cause, he worries. Better to scour the Tome for a creature that does nest in oaks. I know that may sound silly to a strong-willed referee, but it's not that far-fetched.

Even though the descriptions are brief, there are differences in several creatures. Here are a few:

Gnolls are a cross between goblins and trolls, rather than hyenas and whatever. I always pictured them more like a cross between men and dogs, myself.

Skeletons have 1/2 HD, Zombies have 1HD. Which means Fighting-Men shouldn't have too much trouble with either of them.

There is one iconic monster that has changed not only mechanically or descriptively, but philosophically. It has changed so much, in fact, I think it deserves its own post . . .