Tegel Manor at DunDraCon

Thom Hall wrote:

I had a great time running Tegel Manor yesterday at DunDraCon. Thanks to Jon Wilson, Keith Johnson, and the other participants for making the game memorable.

Has anyone had experience running this module from dragon #41?

Thom Hall wrote:

Has anyone had experience running this module from dragon #41? There's a couple cool quirks; first there is a special saving throw mechanic introduced where the situation calls for a saving throw against the specified ability score (ala t&t,5e, etc) but the save is made by rolling a certain number of d6 as noted for the difficulty or complexity of the situation then the player subtracts one for every 2 levels of experience and if the resulting total is less than the ability score they are successful. The other bit nifty about this module is it includes dex scores for a bunch of the monsters for holmes style initiative.

I was rereading my holmes edition and saw something I had glossed over previously about determining initiative; that...

I was rereading my holmes edition and saw something I had glossed over previously about determining initiative; that if dex scores between opponents is within 2 points, you roll a d6 to decide. One could extrapolate that initiative is dex + d6, perhaps to speed things up

Quick question for the rules experts, is a heavy crossbow fired once every 3 rounds or 4?

Quick question for the rules experts, is a heavy crossbow fired once every 3 rounds or 4? The reason I ask is it says light crossbows are like heavy weapons and fire basically once every 2 rounds but that heavy crossbows take twice as long to load and fire. Any thoughts?

A play report

Thom Hall wrote:

(a post of mine taken from another private forum tonight)
Played our first D&D game with my son (age 5) tonight. My wife Kristi ran the game and used the blueholme ruleset. It's holmes basic d&d but expanded to level 20. It was fantastic fun as anticipated but after the first combat my son inspired these: shark toothed arrows (+1 damage)

He was playing a centaur armed with a bow and shot this sharklike creature with arms and legs coming ashore while our party slept near by. After killing the thing with the help from his pop's fighter (he woke me up to help) he decided he wanted to make arrows from the shark teeth. Kristi and I both were surprised by his suggestion and she absolutely allowed it. The result was simply arrows that deal a bit more damage but the story behind them will be one as a beardo gamer dad I will never forget. :)

I had a great session today running Holmes edition at Big Bad Con, here on the left coast.

I had a great session today running Holmes edition at Big Bad Con, here on the left coast. I used the Fantasy Games Unlimited "Citadel" adventure game as the basic premise for the module and stocked the lovely tiles with a bit of my own weirdness and the sample wandering monster tables provided in the holmes book. I am pretty sure at least 10 player characters were killed in the process and each of the players seemed to enjoy themselves nonetheless. I leverage a house rule mechanic where when someone loses a PC, they get a replacement character but I place the "Santa Muerte" candle in front of them. If you ever lose a PC and you already have Santa Muerte with her eye on you, you are not given a replacement. There is just one candle and it gets passed amongst the players as they earn the attention of Santa Muerte. This works well for convention games to keep players in the session in spite of their poor choices.

Im sure everyone has their own gm hacks but i have found recently that a small cribbage board really helps me keep...

Im sure everyone has their own gm hacks but i have found recently that a small cribbage board really helps me keep track of time and light resources.

Anyone seen this sheet before? Saw it in a lot on ebay

Anyone seen this sheet before? Saw it in a lot on ebay

I don't think one was ever published, but does a Holmes edition DM screen exist?

I don't think one was ever published, but does a Holmes edition DM screen exist? I have DiY sheets and such (thanks Zach!) but was wondering if anything else was out there. Official or third party. Thanks!

Holmes Edition is wonderfully flexible.

Holmes Edition is wonderfully flexible. I just ran my 9th grade daughter and her friends through a session using holmes basic but they were in an alternate modern universe of their high school including elves, daemons, etc. Very Fun. :)

Has anyone taken the time to prepare some of the more common creatures for player character usage?

Has anyone taken the time to prepare some of the more common creatures for player character usage? Im about to start a spreadsheet to determine some racial modifiers for thief abilities and adjusted abilities to represent a level 1 character of that race. Blueholme does so for some of the common demi-humans but id like to flesh out the list a bit :)

But, of someone has already done so, no need to reinvent the wheel..

BLUEHOLME JOURNEYMANNE ERRATA

BLUEHOLME JOURNEYMANNE ERRATA
(Not Sure if this is the right place, but wanna help before print on demand)

pg 24 8th level Wizard spells - s/18/20 for Vision

We need to do something for Zach.

We need to do something for Zach. Its just absolutely incredible the amount he has contributed to the community. Zach this is your chance to chime in on how we can support and recognize your work and dedication. Cuz goddamn its coming in the form of beer at garycon so far :)

Dunno about you guys, but I'm already loving my Blueholme - Journeymanne edition PDF preview

Continued our family holmes edition game last night and I'm really pleased with how smoothly things run with the...

Continued our family holmes edition game last night and I'm really pleased with how smoothly things run with the group. I'm basically using the Outdoor survival movement and water/food rules above ground and I think when it comes to segments where the group doesn't want to spend a lot of time exploring a hex, I will just use a random event/encounter table I'm cooking up. Thanks to the group for all the advice and links over the past few months, especially.

Our family campaign map at the start of our latest D&D game.

Thom Hall wrote:

Our family campaign map at the start of our latest D&D game.

Overland movement? Is this simply extrapolated from standard movement per turn?

Any suggestions or preferences from my Holmesian friends on where to place portown on the outdoor survival map?

Chapel of silence. Too beefy for a fledgling Holmes campaign?

Family game night tonight with my weekly AD&D session on pause until next week.

Family game night tonight with my weekly AD&D session on pause until next week. So, it's time to break out the family favored edition. (Honest, they have played a bunch! Haha)

Any clever puzzles or maps you have seen recently and want to share? For some reason I'm running a bit blank today.