Out of Character discussion:

Well if the DM gives you a lemon, squeeze it to get lemonade.

I really, really, REALLY want to impress upon you all how dangerous this new territory is that you're encroaching on. I strongly advise you to play this level like you realize that B/X D&D is full of deadly surprises for careless adventurers and the players that play them carelessly.

Be very careful with what your PC does down in this dungeon.

Noted. We can only be as careful as the dice roll however lol.

Lmao! Yeah I'm bracing have to roll up a newbie soon.

Just a heads up, though I know @dominion451 is aware of this, but flaming torches do 1d4 damage. The first time the Master-at-Arms attacked I thought they did 1d6 for some reason, and he rolled a "6". I later realized they do 1d4, but I allowed the "d" to stand.
Maloria's made an attack and correctly applied 1d4 for damage, and then I turned around and did 1d6 again for Angel's most recent shot, because I'm an air brain (he rolled 1 damage).

But for clarification, torches and flaming arrows will do 1d4 damage against this slime and I need to get my crap together.

There's another version of the game (maybe B/X?) where torches do 1d6, can't keep my editions straight ;)

Well, sort of. B/X has "Standard" weapon damage, where all successful attacks do 1d6 damage, or variable weapon damage, where weapons do different damage depending on what they are. We use variable weapon damage, but I didn't realise torch damage was printed in the book, so I defaulted to standard for that first attack that Man-at-Arms did.

I'm about to head out into the mountains hunting down a glacier, but I figured I'd pop in for a minute. Didn't we leave all the bandit's weapons behind from our first day here, since they weren't good enough quality to sell? It might be worth grabbing some replacement blades from them if the quality is currently better.

Oh, now that is good thinking!

If you search around, there's a link to an excel sheet that has our XP. I just don't remember where to find it now.

Question on nonproficiency with weapons. Can Eltrezar try fighting with a torch? What penalties are associated with that? I couldn't find an answer to this.

Yeah, I'll make a permalink. Actually, I'll just edit the first post of every "chapter" or "part" to put it up there. So any time you need to find it, there will be a link to the XP tracker in the first post of every thread.

But here it is as well...

@cowleyc: Hmm... that's a pretty big ask. Lemme think on it. Daggers being the Magic-User's only weapon is sort of a sticking point of B/X, in order to force them away from direct combat. At the same time, a torch only does 1d4 damage as well, so what's the big deal?... At the same time we do stick to R.A.W. in this game as much as possible... At the same time, I did mess up and allow you to order a sweet staff from the Druid of the Grove, which you shouldn't be allowed, but I already let you...



I'll make you a deal. You can choose a torch as a secondary weapon option, OR you can choose your fancy wizard staff the Druid is making for you.

Aakshully... There's just no way I can say a Wizard can't swing a club. That doesn't make any sense. I would argue that there's a penalty for using a weapon not allowed, and since the biggest penalty I think I can give you is -2, that's what it will be, but I'll still waive the penalty for either torches or staffs.

Knowing how much of DnD was taken directly from Tolkien, I never understood what Gygax's beef with wizard weapons was. Gandalf swung a long sword like a badass!

Well, I'll let you guys take some votes on this. There is some rules options in the Advanced OSE book, and while we've been pretty good at staying out of the weeds as far as straying from B/X R.A.W., I've also allowed for Race/Class options from OSE Advanced, so I'm good with letting you guys decide.

Personally, I don't see how the wizard realistically can't swing something, that doesn't make sense. So at the very least, I'll say any character can use whatever weapon they want, but there will be a -2 penalty to your attack rolls to use them if their not something you're supposed to be using.

The second option, if we want to incorporate more of the OSE Advanced stuff in besides character Race/Class options is the idea of allowing Magic-Users to wield staffs:

So basically, if the Wizard was fighting with a dagger or a staff they don't suffer the -2 penalty.

The final option, if we really want to let the OSE Advanced leak into the campaign is to just straight-up let you play with the Weapon Proficiency rules of OSE Advanced:


We could retroactively allow you to pick weapon proficiencies as if you had at character creation. Or we could say you have the option of selecting a weapon proficiency at Level 2.

What is everyone's thoughts?