[OSSR]Advanced D&D(tm): DUNGEON MASTERS GUIDE

[ishy]

There are different flavors of mooks. Followers, Henchmen, and Hirelings. Hirelings need money, Followers don't, and Henchmen require money to recruit but you have the choice to pay them or not and it adjusts their loyalty percentage.

-Username17

You'd think so. But in 2e AD&D you totally did have to pay followers wages. I think it was because the fighter could attract them as a class feature, thus it needed some suck to balance it.

I'm just not sure about 1e.

[shadzar]

There are different flavors of mooks. Followers, Henchmen, and Hirelings. Hirelings need money, Followers don't, and Henchmen require money to recruit but you have the choice to pay them or not and it adjusts their loyalty percentage.

-Username17

You'd think so. But in 2e AD&D you totally did have to pay followers wages. I think it was because the fighter could attract them as a class feature, thus it needed some suck to balance it.

I'm just not sure about 1e.

no.

More reliable than those who are motivated purely by money are those characters who, while they expect pay, were originally drawn into service by the reputation of the player character. These are followers, usually a unit of soldiers of one type or another. Followers serve only those of significant power and reputation, thus the construction of a stronghold is necessary to attract followers.


Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

henchman require no pay, and hirelings are the ones you ALWAYS have to pay, and most times you have to pay them up front.

stationing your follower at your stronghold, means you really dont pay them as they are getting free room and board for their services to you.

[ishy]

no.

More reliable than those who are motivated purely by money are those characters who, while they expect pay, were originally drawn into service by the reputation of the player character. These are followers, usually a unit of soldiers of one type or another. Followers serve only those of significant power and reputation, thus the construction of a stronghold is necessary to attract followers.


Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

henchman require no pay, and hirelings are the ones you ALWAYS have to pay, and most times you have to pay them up front.

stationing your follower at your stronghold, means you really dont pay them as they are getting free room and board for their services to you.

What? Let me bold and underline your own quote.[/u]

[shadzar]

America expects politicians to actually do some good too, or people in general expect WotC to be able to provide a decent RPG game, sadly, none of the 3 are a guarantee.

expect in one hand, and shit in the other and see which one fills up quicker.

thus you have idol/celebrity worship in D&D, and likewise not all expectations are met.

[Wiseman]

America expects politicians to actually do some good too, or people in general expect WotC to be able to provide a decent RPG game, sadly, none of the 3 are a guarantee.

expect in one hand, and shit in the other and see which one fills up quicker.

thus you have idol/celebrity worship in D&D, and likewise not all expectations are met.

What? What does that have to do with anything?

[Dean]

STOP TALKING TO HIM!? FUCK!!!

[tussock]

@2nd edition: is random and does not use reserved words for things, so what any particular passage means is basically guesswork, which is "the most important ingredient" or whatever. People coming to it from AD&D tended to assume it meant the same things AD&D said, and people starting fresh assumed a thousand different things instead. Sage Advice eventually "clarified" most of them, but y'all know how that works.


DMG, DMG, it's an abbreviation for Damage. Which it likely did to you as a child.

MONEY
Is the root of all Evil. Wait, no it's not, it's how you go up levels.

PLAYER CHARACTER STARTING MONEY

The amount of funds which each player begins with is kept low to prevent the game from becoming too easy. Players learn from the beginning that they are never able to obtain all of the goods they would like in order to feel safe and satisfied.

Reminds me again that 1st edition (in many ways) was designed to train people to play it in a certain fashion. Starting cash here trains new players that real wealth lies in the dungeon, because years of careful savings got you bugger all.

The game is always supposed to be a challenge, to cause players to want for something, and to wish to adventure with their characters in order to obtain the desired things.

That; for the current magic item hullabloo around here. AD&D was designed not to make sense, but to teach people that adventure was desirable because you never had what you wanted, but always had more chances if you played the fucking game some more.

That gets into how addiction works and stuff. All social functions tend to collapse and disappear if they fail to be addictive as well, no matter how enjoyable they are, and AD&D was probably better at triggering the "random-ding" function in our brain than any edition since. Because it was built to do exactly that, and damn any concerns for realism getting in the way.

Remembering that good players will be able to gain from nearly any successful encounter - there will always be some armor and weapons or equipment to be gained from an adventure - you should not hesitate to be stingy and tight right from the beginning of a campaign!

So Greyhawking, dear readers, is just plain old fashioned good play.

PLAYER CHARACTER EXPENSES
In addition to

... such things as additional equipment expense for henchmen or hirelings, costs of hirelings, bribes, costs of locating prospective henchmen, and so on.

Not to mention training costs, you are also required by the game to go whoring, at a cost of 100gp/level/month, and pay for your henchman to come too at the same cost. Once you get a stronghold, you also have to pay 1% of it's value in maintenance every month.

As you can tell, taking time off from hitting the dungeon is not an easy thing to do. Note that it's not optional outside extraordinary circumstances (like, you're locked in a dungeon).

These costs are to be deducted by the Dungeon Master automatically, and any further spending by the PC is to be added to these costs. Such expense is justified by the "fact" that adventurers are o free-wheeling and high-living lot (except, of course, for monks).

I'll assume the note means Monks do not have these whoring expenses, and so make passable henchmen in place of fast-levelling Thieves. Ah, AD&D, you've got to be sharp to optimise this game.

VALUE AND REPUTED PROPERTIES OF GEMS AND JEWELRY
So there's a roll to give you a base gemstone value from 10gp to 5,000gp (mean value 275gp). You can either roll for each gem found on that table, or roll once on that table for the base value of the bunch of them and then roll again on a different table for each one.
Where the value can randomly rise to 1,000,000gp. The fabled million gp gem that lets you hit 12th-14th level depending on class, if you ignore the rule where you can't get more than your max XP for your current level until you train (like most people did).

But the chance of that is only 0.0000425%, or one in every 2.4 million gems. I can only assume the tables did things like that to get everyone to talk about theoretical million gp gems and thus play more of the game in hopes of finding one. Though given the number of players, someone probably did roll one legitimately.

Then some tables for gemstone names and what they all look like. Where Obsidian is 10gp and black, Jet is 100gp and deep black, and Black Sapphires are 5000gp and lustrous black with shiny bits, which is also true in the real world. Remember to paint some shiny bits on your Obsidian boys and girls.

REPUTED MAGICAL PROPERTIES OF GEMS
This list apparently doesn't match real world woo all that well, if at all, and also isn't true in the game. So ?
NOTE REGARDING THE MAGICAL PROPERTIES OF GEMS, HERBS, et al.

Regardless of what qualities gems, herbs, and other substances are purported to possess, the mere possession of a score of a type of gem or a bale of some herb will convey absolutely no benefit of magical nature to the character concerned. These special qualities are given herein merely as information for Dungeon Master use in devising special formulae for potions, inks, etc. The information might also prove useful in other ways, particularly with regard to description of magic items, laboratories, and so on. Under no circumstances should you allow some player to convince you to the contrary!

There we go, it's just for the crafting game the casters get to start playing at 12th level. OK then. Save up your gemstones, you'll be needing that Onyx for your wand of confusion project in about a year's time, preferably a white one.

VALUES OF OTHER RARE COMMODITIES
Includes such blasts from the past as Mink Coats and Ivory, this being 1979, you see. Also seems historically accurate with the prices: 1gp/ounce for pepper, all the way up to 60gp/gill for rare ungents. USians may even know what a gill is without looking it up, thanks to being stuck in 1780 with their weights and measures.


ARMOR, ARMOR CLASS, AND WEAPONS
TYPES OF ARMOR AND ENCUMBRANCE
So the weights are "adjusted" for encumbrance value, like everything. No weights in AD&D are intended to be actual "weights". Plate Armour is a mere 45 lb. Ooh, secret armour note, Field Plate at AC2, for 2,000gp, and only medium armour, neat.

Helmets is a note that not wearing one makes your head AC 10 and opponents will take advantage of that either 50% of the time (smart) or 1-in-6 (not smart).

Magic Armor says that it's all one-step-lighter like 3e's mithral armours and also half the weight. Also that there is no magical Elfin Chain, because Elfin Chain is already effectively +0 magical Chain.

Magic Shields notes that they're all light armors, but the same weight. Large Shields in AD&D are heavy armour by default, and still just +1 AC (but +2 vs missiles, yay).

Shield Use is all wrong.

A shield is basically a barrier between its wielder and his or her opponent. It is used to catch blows or missiles. It can also be used offensively to strike or push an opponent. The shield can be used fully only to the left or front of the right handed individual. Attacks from the right flank or rear negate the benefits of a shield.

While, in fairness to the work, that was state-of-the-art battle reconstruction knowledge in the 70's, it wouldn't be for much longer. Shields are like a parrying knife and weapon-catcher in one, only much easier to use on account of their large size and soft rim. The prime disadvantage is that your enemy can hide behind them, literally. That's why they often have a flat top. Also some of the crazy "run around and stab you in the back" flanking rules there. No wonder everyone walked around in shield-wall formation all the time in AD&D.

DEXTERITY ARMOR CLASS BONUS

The penalty for wearing armor is already subsumed in the defensive bonuses given for it, and if it were further to penalize the character by denying dexterity armor class adjustments, it would be totally invalid.

As found in 3e and onward, where they take away your Dex like a bunch of nanas. +1 for AD&D, even if it did make everyone wear the best armour (plate!) they could. As if there's anything wrong with that.

WEAPON TYPE, "TO HIT" ADJUSTMENT NOTE
Is something a lot of people missed, where the giant table of weapon adjustments found later is to be used against the armour's base AC, not with shield or dex or magic or anything. Also suggesting boney-armoured skin on monsters might count as plate, on a case-by-case basic, but otherwise don't use it, even for (specifically) Iron Golems.


Which is a long enough commented cut and paste, given the time of day here. Hirelings and Henchmen can wait a little longer. EGG must have been in much better mood writing those bits than the ones before them, eh.

[shadzar]

@followers: you only have to pay them if you want to keep them around.

players don't seek followers, a DM assigns X followers. the info for them is in the PHB, but it doesn't mean that you can just roll to attract them at name level.

so you don't have to pay followers if you don't want followers. followers are like those people, well like followers, so aptly named for things like Twitter and such. it equates to the PC being a celebrity in D&D-world. some may want money or leave, some may be the stalker type that continue you follow you until their own death. it is up o the DM the personality of EACH follower and his reaction/morale/loyalty (RML) since they are NPCs. players may have the stats for RML, but it is the DM that decides when that must be rolled.

@2nd edition: is random and does not use reserved words for things, so what any particular passage means is basically guesswork, which is "the most important ingredient" or whatever. People coming to it from AD&D tended to assume it meant the same things AD&D said, and people starting fresh assumed a thousand different things instead. Sage Advice eventually "clarified" most of them, but y'all know how that works.

and there is no D&D police to come to your game and tell you how to play it, so it is up to the group playing how ANYTHING works. we didn't use followers except for clerics. hirelings were more like mercenaries. henchmen were more like well.. Stockholm Syndrome suffers. PCs save NPC X so NPC X feels a life-debt to them and will help when possible to repay for it.

DMG, DMG, it's an abbreviation for Damage. Which it likely did to you as a child.

MONEY
Is the root of all Evil. Wait, no it's not, it's how you go up levels.

so you mean the ORIGINAL Level by Wealth (LBW), which was later turned around backwards to WBL. Which 2nd skipped entirely, but was an option if you wanted to continue to play like 1st. Showing that LBW was never of any real use.

[ishy]

@followers: you only have to pay them if you want to keep them around.

[ . . . ]
so you don't have to pay followers if you don't want followers.

Is this some fancy way of saying, yes you have to pay followers, but 2nd edition doesn't make sense, so you'd have to completely ignore the rules and make something up which is not terrible. Since 2E is terrible?

[tussock]

@Level by Wealth: I'll get to that at it's time, it's good stuff.

Pirate: Pirates are chaotic evil buccaneers who in all other respects conform to the characteristics of the latter type of men.

MOARRR DMG!

Something I noticed reading through the Hirelings and Henchmen stuff is just how much AD&D was written to be played. Or rather, written by playing it I suppose. There's not a random list of medieval profession names with no game support like 2e, or professional skill rules in 3e that don't fucking match the costs or anything for hired professionals, there's just a table of hiring costs for the sort of people you will actually need on your adventures, explaining what they do for you and why you need them.

HIRELINGS
STANDARD HIRELINGS

Most hirelings are dealt with under the section entitled EXPERT HIRELINGS - those which are typically employed at such time as the character in question has an established stronghold. Common, standard hirelings are basically the usual craftsmen or laborers taken on by lower level player characters. Men-at-arms (soldiers of mercenary calling) are dealt with under EXPERT HIRELINGS (q.v.).

So they're even divided up by what part of the game spectrum you'll likely want them in, including neat little cost factors that encourage you to use them at that point rather than another.

And the professions? Pure game play. A Porter will carry 50 lb. for you, while a Linkboy will carry a torch for you, and they're just 1sp/day each. Ten types there in all. Can't carry all your treasure out? Hire more porters! Or some packers and teamsters. Want to wall-in the goblins? Hire a mason!

EXPERT HIRELINGS

If henchmen are defined as the associates, companions, and loyal (to some degree) followers of a player character, hirelings are the servitors, mercenaries, and employees of such player characters, and they too can have some degree of loyalty - based on their accomodations, rate of remuneration, and treatment. Various hirelings of menial nature are assumed to come with the cost of maintaining a stronghold; thus, cooks, lackeys, stableboys, sweepers, and various servants are no concern of the player character. Guards and special hirelings are, however, and such persons must be located and enlisted by the PC or his or her NPC henchmen.

So beyond a certain level you stop fussing with the small stuff and worry about paying and supporting your army with the proceeds of tax from your barony. Most of the common hirelings are included in the cost of these guys as needed too. Also, they're all massively expensive, around 150gp per month rather than the ~2gp per month of the low level guys.

The reason the (relatively cheap) mercenaries are here is they come in arbitrary companies which each need their own captain, and the captain is expensive, same as a henchman (q.v.). Unlike 2e where they arbitrarily won't adventure and 3e where you're not supposed to notice how cheap the cannon fodder is. +1 for 1st edition.

Oh, expert hirelings also contain the crafting rules, because these are who you have to hire to make stuff, and you have to hire them anyway to look after your mercenaries' gear. The stuff is just there in case you want something nice for your henchmen or self a bit cheaper (less the setup costs that stop it being cheaper at low level).

Little rules abound for Dwarves and Gnomes being better at this and that, and costing much more as a result. How you have to have Dwarf Engineer-Sapper to get Dwarf miners and so on (which is worth it, should you be cutting shortcuts through the dungeon, or building your own).

Anyway, a company of troops may as well be 80-120 guys (which is what your Fighter gets when he makes his barony, handy that) because that's where the numbers of experts needed meshes best.

The rules for Sages are in here, which are that they're basically divination spells for non-casters, and only Fighters, Thieves, and their respective sub-classes can keep them on staff. Best chances are to know 40% of everything, 55% in one or two fields, 70% in one other, and 90% in 2-4 special sub-categories of that last field (of ~10 each). Decreased for more specific questions.

You must determine if any given question is of general, specific, or exacting nature according to the subject. For example, "Do giants live on that island?" is a general sort of a question; "Do fire giants inhabit the volcanic region of that island?" is a specific question; and "Do the fire giants inhabiting the volcanic region of that island possess the Artifact of Alamanzaliz?" is exacting. Any question asked must be within the scope of knowledge of the player character, or his or her associates at the time, and such inquiries must always be consistent with the learning of the milieu which you have designed.

Which I will go and say is clearly better than Magic Tea Party and thus worth the space in the book. Infact, it's something I think I'll be stealing if I ever tried to use 3e's knowledge system again, including the cost and time to actually do research (including the library of up to 100,000gp cost!).


Ha! Fooled me, a tiny note at the end says you can hire Mercs at 1st level after all.

Daily Employment: ... Soldiers can be hired, but not captains, lieutenants, or serjeants. They recognize hazardous duty, and the cost per day is the same as per month. The supply of such men-at-arms willing to work day-to-day is strictly limited, so if the PCs lose them adventuring, more will not be likely to be found.

So just a short-term gap-stop until you can afford some henchmen after about 3rd level.


HENCHMEN

Henchmen, whether male or female, are greatly desired by the discerning players, for they usually spell the difference between failure and success in the long term view. They are useful in individual adventures as a safety measure against the machinations of rival player characters, provide strength to the character and his or her stronghold, and lastly serve as a means of adventuring when the player character is unable to. Because they are so useful, and because they are typically so devoted, there are charisma limitations as to how many henchmen a PC is able to attract. Knowing this, the real question for the Dungeon Master is who will be attracted? where will they be found? when will they come? and what will the cost be? These questions are answered in detail hereafter.

I get the impression the more EGG used a rule in his own games, the more he liked it, and the more testing and shaping it got along the way. The punitive shit in this book tends toward primitive and rather ugly, but rules like these ones are absolutely gorgeous.

Level of Prospective Henchmen is 1st. 10% 2nd level if you're over 6th, and 25% 3rd/25% 2nd if you're over 11th.
Bringing your henchmen to danger-appropriate levels involves playing them on their own or carrying their ass for a while. Fortunately the XP tables provide and before you go up a level the Henchfolk will have all but caught you.

It then blas on for a while about what sort of folk would turn up based on where you're looking for them and so on (you find a lot of Dwarves searching in a Dwarven citadel, not so many in an Elven forest, eh)

Number of Prospective Henchmen is a note that one in a thousand people are prospective henchmen (because ~10% of local adventurers are 1st level and that desperate, and they're 1% of the population). Up to 1-in-200 or down to 1-in-5000 for more or less adventuresome places.

Effective Location of Henchmen says you can't actually attract any of those people without throwing around money like a ... an adventurer, I guess. Various methods are hinted at in the PHB and here we find the secret rate at which they function. Adding them together (and subtracting a bit for trying everything) shows what chunk of folk turn up.

You need to spend around 500gp to get everyone, and not too much more. Hey, I put an actual spoiler in the spoiler, yay me.

They turn up over the next week or so, dribbling in consistently until they stop. The DM gives them random classes and stats, and non-humans can be multiclass if they get a 14+ in an appropriate off-stat (which should probably be the general rule for that).

Cost of Successful Employment is quite high though, and not a sure thing anyway. Their basic cost is 100gp/level/month (same as officers for your mercs and the PCs themselves, also ships captains and all sorts). You have to pay that up front, and supply all their gear, and supply them housing and free food and clothes and so on (which, as far as I can tell, is why they cost 100gp/month, plus the gear you've Greyhawked for them).

They also want a share of found treasure (coins only, and this isn't needed, but giving it to them is their main source of XP, so you may as well), and you need to explain to them up front what you want them to do for you. Free magic items increase their chances of joining up, so those spare +1 swords are worthwhile at higher levels.

Get it basically right and 30% of them will accept an offer to join. Note you have to try this before you see them all, they come in random order and don't come back if you refuse them until you spend all the attraction money again. Add 300gp extra and three potions to bring that up to 100%. /spoiler.

Best tactics for this mini-game seem to be pooling the party funds and picking your favourite henchfolk each in a crowded area of mixed races to suit the party. You can boost their loyalty by picking the right ones for yourself, and the costs to attract them end up shared around. All good.

LOYALTY OF HENCHMEN & HIRELINGS, OBEDIENCE, AND MORALE
Holy shit charisma is a powerful stat in 1st edition. Asking your mooks (especially the day-soldiers, linkboys, and porters) to even go in the dungeon with you is a morale check, and it's a base of 30% or so if you fail to minmax a page of secret potential bonuses. OTOH, if you're the same race and alignment, and do much of anything for them (like not treat them as disposable garbage and really try to level them up and stuff, be fair when they fail some morale checks, or just flat out be a bully and kick their ass for refusing) it quickly enough hits 100%.

NB: you sort of have to roll obedience and morale a lot of the time for a lot of reasons, particularly if fights are going imperfectly. Getting that number high is pretty damned important to having a henchman who actually henches. Bring about ten times as many porters as you need and one of them will hang around long enough to carry something (and that's the one you reward and hire on permanent-like because it greatly improves morale).


Oh, an addendum to the Classes section now I'm this far through: Fighter followers are paid as mercenary Hirelings or they leave, Clerical followers are free, while Rangers, Thieves, and Assassins effectively get automatic Henchmen. All followers are loyal and don't randomly leave (but are not replaced if they die and you fail to raise them, or they miss the resurrection survival check).


I'll do a quick note on timekeeping in AD&D tomorrow, then I'm AFK for a week and a half up in the snow and ice, so this will have to wait, unless someone else wants to carry on in urgency. I'm not fussed.

[tussock]

TIME

One of the things stressed in the original game of D&D was the importance of recording game time with respect to each and every player character in a campaign. In AD&D it is emphasized even more: YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.

And that is because lots of valuable things in AD&D take time, often a lot of time, and that time means your character can't come on the next dungeon delve. So you either start a new character or send a henchman or don't bother turning up.
This gets back to EGG having about 20 players in his game and telling most of them not to turn up at the same time was convenient. It was still assumed all DMs would run their world and grand dungeon this way, using modules just for breaks and one-shots.
It also notes how you need a table for everyone for what day their character is on, to know who can adventure yet and so on. Running little delves for a free character or three happened a lot too.

You may ask why time is so important if i t causes such difficulties with record-keeping, dictates who can or can not go adventuring during a game session, and disperses player characters to the four winds by its strictures. Well, as initially pointed out, it is a necessary penalty imposed upon characters for certain activities. Beyond that, it also gives players yet another interesting set of choices and consequences. The latter tends to bring more true-to-life quality to the game, as some characters will use
precious time to the utmost advantage, some will treat it lightly, and some will be constantly wasting it to their complete detriment. Time is yet another facet which helps to seporate the superior players from the lesser ones.

Would it not be cool to have a couple dozen players on your beck and call for shit like that? In 3e the Wizard player just has to beg the party (and DM) for some downtime. EGG seems to have been running 1 game-week per week, so two months to do some research on a new spell means you're playing your henchman for a long fucking time.

EDIT: and there's a note to remember the wandering monster checks if people ever try to recover spells in the field, which it notes often make spell recovery impossible, and suggests you consider moderating that just a touch, "depending on conditions".

[fbmf]

Little rules abound for dwarves and gnomes

I see what you did there.

Game On,
fbmf

[shadzar]

TIME

One of the things stressed in the original game of D&D was the importance of recording game time with respect to each and every player character in a campaign. In AD&D it is emphasized even more: YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.

And that is because lots of valuable things in AD&D take time, often a lot of time, and that time means your character can't come on the next dungeon delve. So you either start a new character or send a henchman or don't bother turning up.
This gets back to EGG having about 20 players in his game and telling most of them not to turn up at the same time was convenient. It was still assumed all DMs would run their world and grand dungeon this way, using modules just for breaks and one-shots.
It also notes how you need a table for everyone for what day their character is on, to know who can adventure yet and so on. Running little delves for a free character or three happened a lot too.

yeah, no. sounds like that tournament nonsense where he thinks a game is everyone in the town plaiyng all togethr.. Monopoly has a limit based on resources and so does D&D, thus why MANY people stick to a game of about 5 players to keep things moving.

that shit is what bred Mentzer RPGA tournament rules i am sure. tables for everyone...no... DMs arent tournament judges for MtG pre-release events or pro-tour qualifiers. D&D is more hands on than MtG and warhammer and the like.

it is nice to be able to keep playing because you have extra people to fill in, but games of 16 players at once just dont work. especially when in a store where everyone is expected to play under ONE DM? yeah... too much shit. Living Greyhawk and LFR are as close as you should gt to "everyone playing the same campaign" but there should be that hard limit to the number of people so you dont need rules like in 3th to give everyone a chance at the spotlight because their are 20 mother fuckers sitting down at the same time to play!

also i am sure Gary had players who had more than one character at a time running, along with their henchmen, so only about 5~8 human players and maybe 20 PCs/NPCs in the player party.

remember too that one job Gary had was accounting, and Gayle was the accounted or in that department for TSR... so he liked that maybe more than anyone else wants to fuss with time.