And I realized that I started us in the wrong thread.  I moved the posts to the proper thread.  We should be in the Caves of Chaos Part 2.  Apologies.

I rolled dice to see how this combat would start and essentially killed Gyp.  One of the two sword-wielding goblins hit and did 6 points of damage.  I'm putting it here because despite the nostalgia of this rule-set I am myself becoming frustrated with some of the aspects of it.  As they say, they revised them for reasons.

So, I was avoiding house-ruling anything, up to now just using some of the optional rules in the book.  Three obvious options present themselves going forward:  continuing as-is and letting the dice fall where the may; making some house rules, which has the danger of spiraling away; or changing to a later edition.  I ask you as the players of the game your preference, since either option is a deviation from the original intent of the game and therefore from what you signed up to play.

I accept Gyp’s death. He had plenty of chances, the monster Reaction Roll, the Initiative roll and attack roll. Any of them might have gone in his favour; alas the rolls all went against him.

His sacrifice might save the rest of the party and be a noble one, or it might be fruitless. This is the nature of the game, I think I’ve said it before but combat has to be a last resort for the party and the party must gain any advantage they can. In the current situation my take was we couldn’t all hide because anything living in the cave would most likely have infravision so putting out the torch would likely benefit them more than us. So keeping the torch lit and separating the party so the monsters couldn’t see all of us or use their infravision properly (which is usually longer range than torch light) was a good plan, however it didn’t work. I don’t think there’s much we could have done better, but I’m open for suggestions for the next delve.

In terms of house rules I often use this (which coincidently would mean that Gyp would be revivable)

Death and Dying (From LotFP)

The LotFP death & dying rules apply, which can generally be summarised as:

>0        Up and capable

0        Up, but any strenuous activity (like attacking) will cause the character to drop to -1hp

-1        Incapacitated but conscious

-2        Unconscious

-3        Dying. Will die in 1d10 rounds (rolled secretly) unless continuously tended to. See below for information about tending to a dying character.

-4        Dead. Cry out your dying words if you must.


When tending to a dying character, they will need to be tended each round or their rounds before dying will count down. This normally means that one other character must tend them continuously until combat is over. A full turn spent tending to a dying character (normally after combat) will prevent the character’s death from this countdown, and they will simply be unconscious and in bad shape at -3hp.

I like older rulesets mostly for the flavor, but am not that much attached to the rules themselves. The rules presented by Gyp for character death sound reasonable to me.

You're always one strike away from death in these editions, and running away is usually the best policy - it just gets very tiresome, very quickly, so at some point you use all your spells and you just stand and fight.

I don't think it helps that most (some?) of us rolled low for hit points. One good adjustment is to maximise hit points at first level, or allow at least one more than average (5 for d8, 4 for d6, etc). As it stands a strong breeze could kill half the party.

But we all knew the rules coming in. The early editions of the game were a grind, and losing characters in bunches was just part of it.

Okay, I've been mulling it over.  Let's bump up to max hp at first level.  I'm looking at Gyp's suggested rules about death and dying and am leaning that way also.

Does that sound reasonable?

Yes it is.

Okay with me

With a constitution of 5 Faldal has -2 HP per hit die. Does it mean he starts at 4 with the new rule?

Gyp has maximum 4 hit points anyway.

Right, so into the death rules then.

Yes, that would make sense.

Nice change, up to 6hp now.

Head's up that I start a one week business trip this afternoon. I will read from hotel and airport wifi and post as I am able. Crossing nine time zones today arriving Tuesday, then have to turn around again on Friday.

Not sure if I qualify for a vote but I'd vote for retreating out of the caves to somewhere safe to rest, so that Gyp might regain consciousness. However it might be worth at least scouting out a little in the direction the goblins came from, there might be something there and it might now be unguarded.

I've been thinking about about this for a while. The PbP format just doesn't seem to work for this kind of game. It's just too difficult to make any progress. So I'm dropping out. Take care.

Well, take care.  I appreciate that you stuck with us this far.

Anyone else share the sentiment?

I am keen to continue.

I too am keen to continue. I've played plenty of games of PbP, all run slowly. Traditional dungeon crawls are slow to get going too. I think the progress we have made has been good. We have reached the dungeon and entered it twice, I expect it will get quicker as we start building up some routines.

I'm happy to carry on. PbP can be slow, but sometimes that's a good thing. Games that require daily posting burn out just as quickly, if not quicker.

Since we are back at the Keep, now would maybe be a good time to find new blood to accompany us to the caves?

I will see about recruiting again, yes.  We can also move the conversation to the Keep thread if you guys prefer that sort of organization.

Hello, everyone. I will be playing Roland, an apprentice woodcarver traveling to the keep on guild business. In combat, he favors the bow. I have just uploaded a basic character description.  I am not experienced playing with the B/X rules so I ask for your patience. Looking forward to playing with you all.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:21, Mon 23 May 2022.

Welcome, Ian!