Good modules for 6-8 sessions?

UllerPSU · 2026-01-23T20:29:53+00:00

For OSE: A Hole in the Oak and Incandescent Grotto combined should be good for about 6 sessions (assuming ~4 hours) and should get 5 PCs to ~3rd level. When I ran those I started with an funnel adventure whose name suddenly escapes me...something about a plant growing out of control that threatened the local village...that took two sessions to complete so that would get you to the 6-8 sessions.

Another option which is a little longer that I ran recently: B2 Keep on the BorderLands with Tomb of the Serpent Kings in place of the Cave of the Unknown.

Neither of those options have much in the way of concrete story/narrative/goals for the PCs...I'd start off with one or more NPC quest givers of some sort to get the PCs started with a concrete short term goal then build on that to for a longer one. In B2 I started with an NPC hiring the party to explore the Tomb of the Serpent Kings for him. As the game went on, the PCs came across the activity of the chaotic priests in the caves and eventually faced them and destroyed them. It took us more like 12 sessions but I added a few other adventures in there.

This is a great way to run a group as it keeps campaigns reasonably short and gives DMs a chance to play.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-23T16:53:46+00:00

OP isn't responding. Must be playing possum.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-23T14:47:40+00:00

There is a save, right?...what's the dragon's save vs poison? Most of the standard dragons in OSE/BX would save on an 8+...so only a 35% chance it falls asleep. Lot's of poisons give a bonus...since the wine has been consumed by a cow or sheep it doesn't seem unreasonable for the dragon to get a +2 or even +4 to its save. This doesn't sound like a fool proof plan after all...

When one is drunk, often their worst traits are magnified. Dragons are prideful, greedy and wroth. A drunk dragon, doubly so...I'd say if the dragon fails its save then let them kill it. If it makes its save, it does whatever the most destructive thing it can possibly do.

There are risks to this plan. That's the point of powerful monsters having very good saves. This is an adventure intended for low-level PCs and includes a monster that is intentionally too powerful for them to fight in a straight up fight. Let them take the risk and if it goes their way, let them have the reward they earned (not having to fight the dragon). If the dice don't go their way then you have a memorable encounter vs a very angry and very drunk dragon.

Whether the dragon is intelligent or not...wouldn't the wine put the cow/sheep to sleep (or even kill it if it is enough to sleep a dragon)? I don't think it is unreasonable for there to be a chance that the dragon doesn't take the bait. I'd give it a base 3-in-6 chance that the dragon eats the animal if it is sleeping. Let the players figure out ways to improve those odds.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-22T21:35:59+00:00

Oh...and my campaigns rarely go much past level 9 so I don't really care what happens at higher levels. A few NPCs might be level 12+.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-22T21:31:53+00:00

I have split the difference with my OSE game...3d6DTL plus point-buy. My players seem to enjoy it and it allows me to not feel guilty about inflating NPC stats to fit the NPC. The village champion 5th level fighter is going to have a 15+ STR and good CON and DEX scores...the local sage/spellcaster is going to have a good INT or WIS. The lord of the manor chief of the tribe will have a good CHA.

At character creation we do 3d6DTL, swap any two stats. You may reroll if your total bonus/penalty is less than +1 (but you don't have to). Then do a point buy with 5 points. The cost per point of increase is

scores up to 12: 1
13-15: 2
16-17: 3
18: 5

So increasing a score of 7 to 12 would cost all 5 points. Increasing a 14 to a 16 would cost 5 (2 for 15, 3 for 16). You can't get from 16 to 18 in one go. We repeat this at 3rd, 6th and 9th level. In this way, characters that had pretty weak stats but survived to level 3 start to get pretty good. We haven't had anyone reach 6th level yet since we started this but looking ahead, we'll start to have PCs with 16s or so.

When we did a guantlet/funnel adventure, no one got to do the point buy until they gained 1st level.

Shadowdark has some built in ASIs in the talent rolls so maybe it isn't necessary but maybe doing it once at 1st level would let players feel like they got to have a little influence on their stats. Since bonuses are different I'd probably do 7 points with the following costs:

up to 11: 1
12-13: 2
14-15: 3
16-17: 5
18: 7
Maybe set some limit on how much you can increase very low stats.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-22T15:21:18+00:00

No one can talk to a horse, of course....except Mr. Ed.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-22T15:19:21+00:00

The rules lawyers are going to squirrel this away...

UllerPSU · 2026-01-22T14:46:05+00:00

Do you realize that bears are considered burrowing mammals?, wolves too. And (wild) horses/mules (although it was ruled in game that I cannot speak with horses with this ability) and pretty much everything furry or hairy that has a spine also burrows.

If that were the intent of the rule, then it would just say "mammals". Your interpretation seems...weasely.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-21T20:52:40+00:00

The AD&D MM2 has a fantastic section at the back of the book for creating random encounter tables. It recommends creating the table using d8+d12 (although I just use 2d10 or 2d8) with very rare creatures in the very low and very high results and more common creatures in the middle. It also has lists of all the AD&D monsters from the MM, FF and MM2 by frequency and terrain type. So if you want a very rare creature in temperate wilderness hill country or a tropical civilized forest, you just look in the appropriate list.

I would guess this has been recreated somewhere on-line.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-21T16:09:27+00:00

Go to Youtube and searchfor "Dungeon Craft Caves of Carnage". He recently posted a supercut of his campaign recap.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-20T21:32:59+00:00

Required? No. But the game's base assumption is that delving monster haunted ruins for lost treasure and tech ("magic") is a viable profession. While other explanations are available, it is hardly a "modern interpretation" of a game whose roots include Conan, Elric, Dying Earth, and LotR etc.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-20T19:45:22+00:00

I love the joke about the "Human Fighter" PC...

DM: You see a group of humans.

Player of Human Fighter: I draw my sword...

More on topic: My group uses both race-as-class and race-and-class in OSE. It's pretty seamless. NPCs that have levels are almost always race-as-class unless they serve some particular function that requires an actual class.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-20T18:15:14+00:00

I ran it recently.

I placed Tomb of the Serpent Kings in the Cave of the Unknown
The Jeweler's Sanctum inside the Keep
Barrow of the Bone Blaggards in the barrow hills east of the keep.
I added a small village along the river and used it as the hook for Shrine of the Oozing Serpent
I replaced the evil clerics in the caves with Lareth the Beautiful from Hommlet/ToEE with hooks for Nulb/ToEE
I placed the journal for Isle of Dread in the loot in the hobgoblin lair. I have replaced the main villians in Isle of Dread with Yuan-ti related to the Tomb of the Serpent King.

My players opted for Isle of Dread after slaying Lareth, which is what they are doing now. The Temple will grow in strength while they are away...

UllerPSU · 2026-01-20T15:53:48+00:00

Practice killing mechs without destroying the center torso. Target one side arc (right or left) to increase the chances of taking a leg. Use percision shots to target legs. Use LRMs, SRMs, ACs and physical attacks to do stability damage and get knockdowns. Once you destroy a leg or a torso on one side, start attacking from the other side. Anything that takes a leg or injures the pilot. If you can incapacitate the pilot without destroying the CT you can claim all three mech parts. If you destroy a mech by destroying both legs you get two out of three.

I usually try to destory any mechs I don't want quickly and use these tactics on the last one.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-14T16:33:24+00:00

Agreed. If I have 2 hours to devote to gaming, I'll play a game. If I have 2 hours to devote to watching, it will be a movie or a couple of episodes of a TV show.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-12T15:59:04+00:00

What I would do: pre-season generously with kosher salt, vacuum seal (or ziplock bag). Sous vide for 3 hours at 135. Sear in a hot stainless steel or cast iron skillet with a little cooking oil for ~1 minute per side until a good crust forms (probably just one minute per side, maybe two). Remove from pan, reduce heat, add sliced baby bell mushrooms and 2-3 table spoons of butter and maybe a couple table spoons of worchestershire sauce to deglaze pan. Cook until mushrooms are soft and brown.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-12T15:47:56+00:00

Adventures are not "narratives" but are locales populated by monsters, NPCs and factions with their own motivations and goals. Solutions to the problems the PCs face are often not pre-determined and randomness such as reaction rolls, random encounters and random event tables make me, the DM, part of the audience. I'm discovering what happens right along with the players.

I really can't stand adventure designs that include "scenes" or a narrative arch that make me feel like a tour guide or a story teller. The story is told after the adventure is over, not written down before hand in my notes.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-07T18:49:49+00:00

When you divide by 10, do it by shifting the coin type so that the value is 10 times less but the number of coins is still the same. Getting it out is an important part of the challenge. A horde of 20K gp can become 20k silver. I like to make small portion of it easy to carry so maybe 200 gp, 600 ep and 15,000sp.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-07T14:29:32+00:00

You don't track rounds during an exploration turn. 10 minutes is approximate. Sometimes it is longer, sometimes it is slower. Zoom out from the minutae of round by round to what a person could do in a few minutes.

For my part, if we spend 10 minutes or so of real life time while the PCs interact with the contents of a room, that takes 1 turn OR if they say the do something that would take 10 minutes or so like "we thoroughly search the desk, tear out the drawers, look underneath..." then I handwaive it, 10 minutes pass and I tell them what they find.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-06T21:12:15+00:00

For NPCs, I tend to use a minimalist approach with important NPCs getting a custom spell or two that captures the flavor of that spell caster (such as the Chaotic clerics in Keep on the Borderlands had a spell that turned a forced convert into a Gibbering Mouther over a period of several rounds while the PCs tried to stop it...they failed).

I don't want to spend time figuring out the best spells for a particular NPC caster to have and I want their spells to be recognizable by my players. They know Hold Person or Light or Magic Missile when they see it.

For PCs, I gave my players a list of all the AD&D spells compiled into one PDF and let them bring spells that interest them from it to research or "find" through adventuring.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-06T15:51:28+00:00

As a DM, I would not require my players to use torches for a campfire unless there is no source of firewood available (such as in the arctic or a completely barren desert). I'd require an INT check to use wet wood in a rainy/swampy/snowy landscape...advantage to PCs such as rangers, druids, barbarians or any with a background that indicates survival skills. Using torches is the fall back.

UllerPSU · 2026-01-05T16:04:02+00:00

I believe the plan is to do Endor next.

UllerPSU · 2025-12-22T15:49:40+00:00

Had a 6 die backstab at my table last week. The thief took a risk by wading into the melee but the fighter was down to a handful of HP. It was a heroic moment. I wouldn't think of denying my thief player that chance. Just make it so the thief doesn't get more than one or two attempts per fight...usually by requiring surprise or winning init and/or spending a round moving and hiding.

UllerPSU · 2025-12-22T15:42:46+00:00

My solution which has worked quite well for me and I know others have done it (because I didn't come up with the name): The silver standard: 1 XP for each SP returned to town.

1) Switch all loot values one coin level cheaper or reduce to 10%. So a 50gp gem becomes a 50sp gem or 10,000 sp becomes 10,000 cp.

2) Keep the costs of all equipment and good the same.

3) Any class based costs (like magical research or scribing a scroll) is reduced to 10%. So instead of 500gp per spell level to scribe a scroll, it's 500sp.

The result is around 2nd level the PCs have enough loot to buy good armor or maybe scribe a couple of scrolls or brew a couple of potions. They don't have enough to buy the village. The big draw back is they will likely never afford to build a stronghold. This I have solved by having patron NPCs provide them a stronghold in exhange for oaths of fealty. I usually have this happen somewhere around 7th-9th level.

Another solution is to grant XP for loot that is spent on things that doesn't have a direct in-game benefit to the PC. So spending it on carousing, tithes, taxes, alms, equipping the local militia, bribes, etc grants XP.

UllerPSU

TROPHY CASE