RMA: Gargoyles

This was going to be an REF, but I was a little surprised to see that I hadn't done an RMA for Gargoyles. Perhaps because they aren't that uncommon as a monster. Since it turns out there is a lot to these rocky ruffians, I decided an RMA was more appropriate.

(from Moldvay)
Gargoyles

AC: 5
HD: 4
Move: 90' (30')
    Fly: 150' (50')
Att: 4 (2 claws/1 bite/ 1 horn)
Damage: 1d3 ea./1d6/1d4
No. App: 1d6 (2d4)
Save: F8
Morale: 11
TT: C
AL: C

So, a few things leap out here. First off, FOUR attacks! None of them are exactly dragon's breath in terms of damage, but still! Secondly, it saves as an EIGHTH level fighter despite only having four hit dice. That's a resilient creature! Gargoyles also have a very high Morale. These guys aren't cutting and running too much.

Moving on, there are a couple items from the description that are worth mentioning. Magic or magic weapons are required to hit them. So right there that ups the ante for an encounter. Remember, these are Basic monsters, not Expert. The description actually states "The DM is advised to use gargoyles only if the player characters have at least one magical weapon."

Secondly, they are immune to sleep and charm magics. This limits lower level spell casters somewhat, as Sleep  is a perennial favorite option vs monsters of 4HD or less. 

Third, 

"Gargoyles are very cunning and at least semi-intelligent. They will attack nearly anything that approaches them." 

Which meshes nicely with their high Morale and Chaotic alignment. These are vicious things! I wouldn't play them as highly intelligent or capable of long-term planning, but simple ambushes or clever combat tactics would be reasonable.

Couple all that with the fact that you are usually running into at least a couple of them in any given encounter makes it that much dicier.

Oh, and they can fly.

Treasure type is C; Which is respectable enough, but no one is retiring on the loot. 

While it isn't specifically stated, I would argue that their stony skin would lead to plenty of potential surprise situations.

DMs looking to make a memorable encounter should be taking all this into account. Low level parties running across a nest of these things should know they've been in a fight! If it were a planned encounter or set piece, I might be nice and drop hints about their presence. Perhaps even rumors in town about "flying demons" spotted in the hills or what have you. 

For players, I heartily hope that there is a magic weapon or two in your arsenal. Since Gargoyles appear on the Level 3 wandering monsters, I'll say your party should probably average out to 3rd level. that means you should hopefully have a 2nd level spell or two at your disposal. Hold Person  should work (they are roughly humanoid) on the clerical side. Magic-users might look to Web  or Phantasmal Force.  As always, Light to blind foes is a good choice, too! Even Levitate to partially counter their aerial advantage could be useful. And, of course, there's always running away!

RMA: Manticore

vb Wyrde over on the MeWe OSR group asked about who had used or encountered these critters in their games and I realized I had never done a Random Monster Assessment on them.

These creatures appear in Cook Expert. This makes sense as they would be a handful for Basic level PCs and they are more suited to wilderness encounters (they do appear on the random monsters for dungeon levels 8+). They are on the flyer table for Mountain and Desert terrain, which also makes sense given their origin in persian mythology. 

Manticore (from Cook)

AC: 4

HD: 6+1

Move: 120' (40'), Fly 180' (60')

Att: 2 claws/1bite or spikes

Dmg: 1d4/1d4/2d8 or special

No. App: 1d2 (1d4)

Save: F6

Morale: 9

Treasure: D

AL: C

So stat-wise, the manticore is pretty tough, but not unstoppable. Its AC is so-so for a 6 hit die creature. It has poor morale, too. What makes this fella formidable is a combination of factors. This makes a little work for the DM to keep them all in mind, but the result can be a pretty memorable encounter.

1. It can fly. I know that's hardly unique, but it does add a wrinkle to facing one (or more) of them. 
2. It has ranged and melee attacks. In both cases it is potentially striking multiple times per round. 
3. The melee attacks (claws/bite) are not automatic kills, but if all three hit a single target, you're looking at up to 16 points of damage per round. A perfectly respectable number.
4. The spike attack is nasty. Granted the manticore only has four of them before his tail is empty, but each round that it uses it can mean up to 36 points of damage dealt out. And this is a ranged attack. 
5. "The manticore's favorite food is man." (X35) These things seek out people and eat them. They are not just dangerous, they actively hunt humans. Their chaotic alignment also points to them not feeling too terrible about it either.
6. "They will frequently track parties with humans, ambushing with spike attacks when the party stops to rest." It's interesting to note that it specifically says "with humans." One reading of that could be distinguishing them from demihumans. So a party with a mix of races could see the humans specifically targeted. 
7. As a 6+ HD monster, it is capable of flying off carrying a man. Or, say, flying up 100' or so and dropping him on some rocks. 

Treasure Type D is pretty respectable, so I could see PC parties being foolish and greedy enough to seek out a manticore lair for the loot. Perhaps in a desert, where the creature(s) have made a den in an old pyramid tomb full of the gold of a lost king?

If I was a player facing such an encounter, I would work hard to find a way to ground it (perhaps a Web spell?) then close to melee so it couldn't shoot me with those 6 x 1d6 spikes. 

Moldvay Musings X: We have liftoff!

I've talked about flying in D&D before, but I wanted to briefly touch upon a nugget of wisdom in Cook that I recently re-read.

In the section on Traveling by Air (X20), it actually gives guidelines for how big (in HD) a creature needs to be to pick up or carry a person. This is useful not only for transport, but for whether a monster can snatch up a PC and carry him off into the air. For example, 3+ HD is required to lift a halfling or smaller. Therefore, technically, a cockatrice could carry a halfling or gnome off. Weird!

This information is incredibly handy, IMO, as it gives me as a DM a quick reference to decide about the tactics of aerial encounters, which can be complex enough as it is. For example, my group recently fought some harpies. While there were no hobbit-sized PCs or NPCs, it would have been nice to know ahead of time that they could have been carried off. (The idea of a charmed halfling just holding out his arms and being flown to the nest for devouring makes me laugh.)

Getting the Word Out: Communication in a BX World.

For a radical change of pace, I was looking at the Moldvay/Cook rules and noticed something that I found interesting: I've always assumed that a society with access to relatively reliable magic would be able to use it to communicate over long distances. e.g. relaying messages across hundreds of miles in moments instead of days, telepathic communication, etc. This came up as I was noodling with an idea for an adventure: A nobleman dies in the capital, and the PCs must get word to his heir out at the distant estate. Why, I thought, would the PCs need to be sent? Can't the people involved just magically notify the heir?

...or send a raven?

Turns out, not so much.

The fastest way to magically send a message, BtB, is the teleport spell. That's right. You need to zap someone from point A to point B via a 5th level MU spell. That means a name level wizard (or elf), a pricey scroll, or a Helm of Teleportation (a seriously odd item in its own right)  is involved. Things like a Crystal Ball allow for observing, but not sending to, distant locations. If one went full palantir, there could be a network of such items where the operators could check in at preplanned times and literally read the writing on the wall left for them to see, but multiple crystal balls quickly becomes an expensive proposition.

Every method in the BX rules that lets a PC communicate over long distances actually requires that the distance itself be traversed (even if instantaneously). Of course this led me to think of flying carpets and winged mounts like griffons or pterippi (look it up).

What if a country's ruler kept a small "fleet" of winged messengers for the most critical of missives? Sure it's way faster than a man on a horse, but it's not instant. The message can still be intercepted. Mounts must rest, and carpets carrying more than one person aren't terribly fast, so the rider probably needs to stop to sleep, so people wanting to literally kill the messenger would probably get at least one opportunity. The fact is, most long distance communication would be written on sealed letters and delivered by horse or ship and take some time. This would also have the effect of driving up the value of things like griffon eggs or similar. Likewise successful research into a long-distance sending spell.

I don't know why, exactly. But that makes me smile.

RMA: Harpies

Despite their mythological pedigree, harpies are not a common occurence in games I've played or run. Which is odd, because their fit the bill for so many things I find compelling in an old-school monster encounter:

1) They're stats allow for use in low level games, but their abilities make them interesting even for more powerful characters.

2) Their magical abilities are scary, but not insta-TPK.

3) The fact they can fly adds a fun tactical twist to encounters.

4) They are intelligent enough (INT 7, according to the Rules Cyclopedia) that communication and varying response are possible.

So, let's take a look at these feathered fiends.

Harpy (from Moldvay)
AC: 7
HD: 3*
Move: 60' (20')
Fly: 150' (50')
Att: 2 claws/1 weapon + special
Damage: 1d4/1d4/1d6 + special
# App.: 1d6 (1d8)
Save: F3 (+2)
Morale: 7
AL: C
TT: C

First off, it may (or may not) be worth pointing out that Gygax & co. sort of mashed together two mythological critters into the D&D harpy. Harpies were bird women that stole and killed. Sirens were bird women that sang and charmed victims. Easy enough to confuse or conflate, but I just thought I'd mention that the harpies of myth were not typically portrayed as hypnotic singers.

Anyway, the harpy is said to be part giant eagle, part hideous woman. As there is no "Eagle, Giant" in BX, let's go with the giant hawk. It's pretty close HD-wise to the harpy and is described as the size of a large dog or small pony. So that sounds like it could be the creature's lower half. A giant hawk can carry away small targets like halflings, so right there you can have some fun. Imagine a charmed hobbit letting himself literally get carried away!

Harpies have lousy morale, so they are likely to flee at any fierce resistance. Harpies aren't smart, but the aren't mindless animals either. The description says a successful save lets a character resist the song for the rest of the encounter. Meaning if the ladybirds show back up later that day, it's time to roll again! They could harry a party striving to lure at least one PC away with their song. Perhaps enticing him to walk off a cliff! Then the PCs would have to find a way to reach the body while the harpies simply fly down and feast. Treasure type C is no great shakes, but lends me to think the harpies might carry shiny trinkets back to their eyrie even if they may leave the picked-over bones behind.

How to fight them? Well, as mentioned, they aren't particularly tough. Their morale is poor, so chasing them off is a possibility. Judicious use of a Silence 15' Radius spell could potentially render the harpies mute for the encounter, depending on how much room they have to fly around and where the cleric centers the spell.

RMA: AAAH! FLYING DINOSAURS!

He enjoys his hobbies too!

(link utterly NSFK/W)

While not true dinosaurs, the pterosaurs are inextricably linked with the terrible lizards in people's consciousness. The distinction is even less an issue in a "Lost World" scenario where we are lumping species together that were actually separated by millions of years (and various continents).

In the real world, there were several species of these creatures, but for BX purposes they are split into two: The pterodactyl and the pteranodon. This is a nice, simple way to offer smaller and larger options for using the beasts in your game.

D&D took a page from classic prehistoric fantasy stories and doubled these creatures in size for the purposes of making the more fun.

It just doesn't get better than Harryhausen!

Pterodactyl (from Cook & LL):

AC: 7

HD: 1

Move: (fly) 180' (60')

Att:1 (bite)

Dmg: 1d3

No. App:0 (2d4)

Save: F1

Morale: 7

Treasure: nil

AL: N

Pteranodon

AC: 6

HD: 5

Move: (fly) 240' (120')
Att:1 (bite)
Dmg: 1d12
No. App:0 (1d4)
Save: F3
Morale: 8
Treasure: V
AL: N

(Note: The Cook Expert rules contain a typo that does not list the number or type of attack for these monsters, I took that stat from the Labyrinth Lord retro-clone)

The pterodactyl is the smaller of the two, with a wingspan of 8-10 feet (real ones it was more like 3 feet). They aren't big enough to haul away a character, but a half dozen of them harassing a party or their mounts could be an annoyance. Their low morale suggests they'd flee easily, but possibly return to harry a likely meal. Essentially treat them as prehistoric giant, non-vampiric bats and you'll be close. The way I might use them is to have them get defensive around their nests/roost and the resulting flapping and noise might attract a bigger threat (force a wandering monster check).

BX Pteranodons are much bigger (50' span) and described as more aggressive. Having one swoop in and grab a character is a classic move, though it would probably target the lighter/less armored ones for carrying purposes. They actually get a treasure type, so maybe shiny objects and former victims' equipment ends up in their nests? The most fun way to use them would be as flying mounts, of course. Perhaps a tribe of airborne neanderthals or some PCs with a charm monster spell?

RMA: Roc

POLLY WANT A BIG CRACKER!!

While running my Barrowmaze campaign a while back, the party stumbled upon a small Roc as a random wilderness encounter. No combat ensued (hooray for non-hostile reaction rolls), but it did mean taking a good look at its stats. I commented on how interesting the beasts were as written and one of my players suggested that an RMA might be in order. So here it is.

Roc, S/M/L (from Cook)

AC: 4/2/0
HD: 6/12/36
Move: 60' (20'), Fly 480' (160')
AL: Lawful
Att: 2 claws/1 bite 
Dmg: 2-5, 2-5, 2-12/1-8, 1-8, 2-20/3-18, 3-18, 8-48
No. App: 0 (1d12)/ 0 (1d8)/ 0 (1)
Morale: 8/9/10

One omission in the Cook Expert entry is the Save As listing (typo). 

This one took a little research because despite the fact that the entry includes three different sizes, the descriptive text is pretty sparse. I cobbled together a mental picture of ol' Beaky between BX, LL, 1st ed. AD&D, and d20 (3e). 

One thing to keep in mind is that these are some truly formidable birds. Even the small one is no picnic considering there might be TWELVE of them flapping about. At 6HD minimum, Sleep spells are useless, too. The AC not great for the smaller ones, but it's not terrible either. Three attacks at middling damage can mean a bad day for someone who looks like bird food. Small Rocs are relatively skittish though, so you might scare them off.

Medium Rocs are significantly tougher (x2 HD than small) but otherwise similar. Their bite is impressive though.

The Large Rocs are crazy! More HD than a Dragon Turtle! AC 0! Attacking with both claws and beak can deal up to eighty-four points of damage per round! Despite their hugeness, rocs' flight speed (all three sizes) is unbeaten and nearly unmatched.

I assume that the sizes are age categories and all rocs eventually become large ones (if they reach full maturity). 

The alignment is worth noting. It is a lawful creature that reacts poorly to neutrals and chaotics. They are not particularly intelligent, though. It makes me wonder how they make distinctions with whom they are dealing.

They have a fair chance of treasure lying about the nest (mostly coins and jewels per the chart), but the real wealth would be to make off with some of the eggs. Such chicks can be trained as mounts, which should entice some PCs to risk tracking down a roc eyrie.  The 1st edition AD&D Monster Manual has a fun note, too:

"Rocs are occasionally tamed and used by giants." 

At first, I thought they meant as hunting birds, but no. According to the Storm Giant entry, they RIDE them! Imagine that encounter! A couple of giants flying at you on the back of a bird that can pick up an elephant! 

RMA: Hippogriffs and Griffons, oh my!

Both of these creatures have strong mythological street cred, and are flying fantasy staples. I have found that they are nearly interchangeable as encounters most times, in a "Look out! It's some big bird-crossed-with-something-else and it's flying right at us!" kind of way. There are a few differences worth noting, though. But first, the stats.

Griffon (from Cook)

No. App: 0 (2d8)
HD: 7
AC: 5
AL: N
Move: 120' (40')
    -Fly: 360' (120')
Att: 3 (2 claws/1 bite)
Damage: 1d4/1d4/2d8
Save: F4
Morale: 8





The griffon is a pretty tough cookie. Its AC isn't that great, but it isn't awful. It gets three attacks per round and the beak attack does some respectable damage, too. What's interesting about the griffon (apart from the flying thing) is its morale score (and using it).

"Its favorite prey is horses. When within 120' of horses a griffon must pass a morale check or attack immediately."

The young can be tamed (like Pegasi), but they still make morale tests near horses. This is a savage mount, and one I could easily see ridden by some chaotic warlord.

Hippogriff (from Cook)


No. App: 0 (2d8)
HD: 3+1
AC: 5
AL: N
Move: 180' (60')
    -Fly: 360' (120')
Att: 3 (2 claws/1 bite)
Damage: 1d6/1d6/1d10
Save: F2
Morale: 8

No, I wasn't going to use Buckbeak!

These creatures are a bit less robust than griffons (lower HD), but I suppose that's the horse vs lion parts thing. The notes about taming them does not explicitly state you must get a young one, but that's GM discretion, to be sure. "They will usually attack pegasi, who are their natural enemies." as I mentioned previously. Surely there is some plot fodder there. 

Hippogriffs and Griffons are of animal intelligence, so that probably makes more complex training difficult. A flying mount could be a great status symbol, not to mention things like adding aerial combat to a game. Imagine being able to couch a lance and charge a dragon in the air!

RMA: Pegasus

Fly, my pretties! Fly!

Over the next few days, I'm going to take a look at a few of our fine-feathered monster friends. Today's entry? The Pegasus.


Another mythological classic that appears in just about every version of the game. Many's a PC has wished for a pegasus mount. I have a feeling that other gamers may have seen more of these creatures in play than I have. I think, for me and my group, that flight –the very thing that makes them cool– makes them harder to run and use in play.


Pegasus

It's a FLYING HORSE! I don't care who you are, that's cool. Apart from flight, they are listed (in Cook) as "semi-intelligent," which puts them a notch above most animals in the IQ department. I imagine that makes them fairly trainable (see below). As for the stats...

(from Cook)

No. App: (1d12)
AC: 6
AL: L
HD: 2+2
Move: 240' (80')
     -Fly: 480' (160')
Att: 2 (hooves)
Dmg: 1d6/1d6
Save: F2
Morale: 8

Apart from flight, they are approximately halfway between a war horse and a riding horse, but with better AC than either. As a foe, their main advantage is their tremendous speed in the air. They are among the fastest of the fast. That 480' is only matched by some birds (rocs, and normal-sized hawks). Nothing beats it on land, sea, or air. Dragons? Pshaw! Half a pegasus' speed. Even magic, like flying carpets, can't beat them. For transport, you have to go to teleportation to get there faster.

(insert sounds of tires squealing)

The are described as "wild and shy." Also "they cannot be tamed, but will serve Lawful characters (only) if captured when young and trained." They are also described as the natural enemies of hippogriffs, which is a nice bit of Gygaxian naturalism, I think.

I don't see a party having to fight pegasi too often. Although if some lord wants a pegasus mount and hires them to capture a foal, the herd might not take kindly to that.

Look! Up in the Sky!

Flying in old-school D&D

The power of flight is one those nigh-universal fantasies. Whether it's being a super-hero, or riding a magic carpet, or any of the other methods that can be found throughout mythology, folklore, and modern fiction; flying is something people find extraordinarily cool.

In classic D&D, flight is achieved by three basic means. 

1. A spell
2. A magic item
3. A mount

Without going into the detailed specifics of each and every possible way to get airborne in-game, I thought I'd talk a little bit about the ways that flying characters and creatures can complicate –and enliven– a campaign.

Complication: The "Z"

Adding verticality to a combat means tracking in three dimensions instead of two. Everything from relative elevation to the hypotenuse of distance & elevation for ranged attacks is now a factor to keep track of. To me, this is one of those cases where less is more. Versions of the games that don't relay on a careful mapping/grid of a combat make it easier to run things like this. Instead of trying to precisely plot out everything visually (with minis), the players can simply ask the GM and he can describe it. Now, I do use minis as a rule, but I don't worry about representing changes in altitude on the battlement. I might put a mini on top of a plastic box to represent that it's airborne, but that's all. This means that PCs might not know exactly how far away that dive-bombing dragon is when they try to shoot it, but chalk it up to the fog of war and move on.

Once the PCs are flying around too, then it gets a little trickier. At that point, it's up to the players to be ready with the numbers when the GM asks. For the most part, how far off the ground only matters when you target something on the ground or when you fall. Otherwise it's just distance between you and everyone else.

This can make a fight really exciting or deadly dull, depending. Like I said, less is more. Players should concentrate on finding ways to use combat flying in useful and creative ways, not sweating complex rules. GMs need to provide a reality check, but likewise allow for things like dive bombing out of the sun, loop de loops, or even barrel rolls. Of course, things like fighting with weapons (ranged or otherwise) can be difficult, but it's certainly more exciting!

Fun: Look, Ma! I'm FLYING!

It's like dinosaurs, take any situation and add "And you're flying" to it, and it gets better. Give a PC some way to get airborne and you'll be amazed at how often the player will find a use for it, even out of combat. While GMs sometimes lament when their carefully thought out challenges are unexpectedly circumvented ("Well, heck! I just use my flying carpet to get us all up the cliff!") –and I am sometimes guilty of this as well– I think that anything that encourages players to problem solve creatively is an overall plus. 

Fun: Be vewy, vewy kwiet. I'm hunting hippogwiffs!

While any mage of a certain level is potentially able to cast Fly, other characters might like to get airborne too. Finding a magic item is a nice way for that to happen, but that's going to depend upon the GM placing or rolling up said loot. What the players can do is go looking for flying mounts. Can you say "Instant Player-Driven Adventure Hook"? I knew you could! Whether it's climbing rocky crags in search of a griffon nest, fighting off the mama as you steal her eggs, or tracking down rumors of pegasus herds, it's all great fun. Certainly not an easy task for beginning PCs, but a good way for those mid to high level characters to spend some time. Not to mention money on a trainer capable of making the beasts usable as a mount! Not to mention that some of these critters will be a problem if you try to stable them with horses (Does the term "fox in the henhouse" ring a bell?) You can also give up keeping -ahem- a "low" profile riding around on these kinds of beasts. The same holds true for a lot of the items like carpets, brooms, cloaks, etc.)

Complicated Fun: ZOOOOOM!!

While flying is not radically faster than riding in the game rules, it does have the added advantages of:

1. Avoiding difficult/"slow" terrain
2. Bypassing many possible encounters

Both of these tend to add up to quicker travel times. It also makes the party less isolated when you want them to be. "Oh no! the bridge is washed out!" doesn't mean diddly to them. Now, while I do not advocate trying to screw the PCs over because they've gotten a new toy, there are a couple of ways to make it a bit less of a universal remedy. 

First off, you can increase the chances of an aerial encounter slightly. Obviously if they never saw wyverns flying all over when they were on the ground, it wouldn't make sense for them to show up all the time just because the party is in the air. However, perhaps that pack of griffons that might have ignored a party on foot feels threatened by this challenge to their air space.

Secondly, and this shouldn't be limited to use when flying: weather. Throw a thunderstorm at them. Or a blizzard. Groups traveling overland should deal with weather too, but if you haven't been mixing it up meteorologically before, start now.

Third, visibility. Yes, being up on your pegasus lets you scan the horizon, but it also means everyone sees you, too! Whether it means you're making it dead easy for those bounty hunters to track you down ("Yep! I was working the fields yesterday and a whole group of fellas flew right over me heading north! On winged horses! Can you believe it?!") or just being a big target, it's something to keep in mind.

Fourth: Good for the (Flying) Goose. If you're party gains access to flight, who's to say the bad guys can't? 'Nuff said.

In conclusion, while I don't think it's necessary for all campaigns to end up with everyone whooshing around the sky, flight comes up often enough (even if it's only when the dragon strafes the village) that thinking about ways to make it work for your game is well worth the effort.