"D&D solo crawl. Classic rules" Topic

Inspired by the excellent posts on the board, I figured I'd do something similar, but a bit more my style, which means.. get out the old red and blue D&D books from when Elf was a class.

I'm not sure if this will be a regular feature or an infrequent one, we'll see.

For now, we have a party of 6 characters rolled with 3D6 in order, no trades or changes.

Initially, each character was only permitted to buy equipment with their own gold. After the first expedition I figure they'll know each other well enough to share gold.

Names came off a random generator online.

First up we have Garda, the Lawful magic user.
She's clever and well supplied with a Sleep spell and a brace of daggers but physically weak, clumsy and highly impulsive (a 5 Wisdom)

Second, we have the Lawful fighter Ansic.
A tough guy whose poor decision making skills left him with very little gold.

Third we have Wilim, the neutral Halfling.
A curious wanderer, Wilim is calculating, clever and in excellent health.

Fourth, we have Sarry, a neutral Thief.
A street urchin, Sarry is overly cautious and supicious leading to her to miss opportunities (low wisdom). She's physically frail but quite fast.

Fifth, we have Elurir the chaotic Elf.
Flighty and erratic rather than evil, he's a stout fighter with much wisdom to offer.

Lastly, we bring up Kater the cleric. Another lawful.
Wise beyond her years, she's of limited physical capability due to too much time couped up in the monastery.

Elurir and Wilim are the only characters that don't have a penalty to at least one ability score, this should be good.

For their first adventure, they'll have 3 "normal men" along, with D6 hit points and a spear.

The first outing will be the fabled Caverns of Quasqueton.

As far as solo play mechanics, I'll just sort of go with whatever seems like the better option at any given time.
If in doubt, I'll roll dice to see what the heroes do.

Very cool. I love doing stuff like that. There are a lot of random dungeon/wilderness tables in the blue (of Moldvay red & blue) books, and you can also dip into the AD&D DMG for even more random dungeons.

The first adventure then will be B1 – In Search of the Unknown.

This was a bit of a weird module in that it gives you lists of monsters and treasure and you were then supposed to place them yourself.

I did this in a sort-of-random fashion by making a list of rooms on the map, then just writing in numbers corresponding to the monster and treasure lists with a few of each list left off. (you're not supposed to place all of them).

Unless the module says otherwise, reaction rolls will be made, which may allow the heroes to avoid the odd fight.

Room 1 and Room 23

The entrance to the caves, the stronghold of a pair of long-dead adventurers, is a lengthy corridor with 3 sets of alcoves on each side.

As we cautiously move forward, out of nowhere voices begin to shout at us:
WHO DARES ENTER THIS PLACE AND INTRUDE UPON THE SANCTUARY OF ITS INHABITANTS?

ONLY A GROUP OF FOOLHARDY EXPLORERS DOOMED TO CERTAIN DEATH!

WOE TO ANY WHO PASS THIS PLACE – THE WRATH OF ZELLIGAR AND ROGAHN WILL BE UPON THEM!

The voices begin laughing, obviously mocking us.
We'll see about that, stupid disembodied voices.

Up ahead, there's a short set of stairs with a pile of bodies strewn about.
Three of them seem to be adventurer types while two were barbarians, likely guards. Looks like they didn't make that far.

Beyond the stairs, the corridors split with passages leading east and west while the north corridor has two doors and leads on in the dark.

Having no obvious preferences, we opt to head east.

The corridor takes a southward turn and continues for quite a while.
Foot steps echo through hte damp, murky halls.
After a bit of walking, the corridor splits again, allowing us to proceed south as well as head east.
On our west is a small alcove which, upon closer inspection reveals a secret one-way door that leads back to the entrance. Might be handy for making a get-away.

We opt to continue heading south, following the tunnel as it turns east.

At the end, it reveals two doors in the north wall and a dead end.

Listening at the door reveals nothing, so we pop open the closer of the two.

This seems to be some sort of small storage rooms full of old junk, furniture, and some wood working tools.
Among the debris, we do find a rather elaborately decorated Spear.
We stash that away until we can get back to town and figure out what it is. The elf will carry it, since his weapon of choice is a spear anyways.

(a few wandering monster checks took place in the process btw, but nothing showed up).

I should add, I may skip the step-by-step pathing when writing it up. Its not super interesting to read and nobody is going to map this out anyways.

We continue through the corridors seemingly forever, encountering a pair of vile giant centipedes.

They're slain with little fanfare and we eventually emerge into a throne room

Room 27

This room is huge, resembling an underground ballroom. At the far end is a pair of huge chairs on a raised stone platform, while stone pillars break up the room.

The room is quite colourful, the thrones of white warble while the pillars and platform are carved of red granite.

More disconcerting, the throne room is also home to an oversized crab spider.

The party wins initiative with Wilim, Sarry and Elurir unleashing a hail of arrows, badly wounding the repulsive monster.

Hoping that the poison won't be THAT bad, Kater and Ansic rush in, both failing to land telling blows.
Lacking armour and decent weaponry, Garda skulks around the rear.

The spider darts forward, Kater praising her god as she barely holds the monster at bay with her shield.
As the beast clings to her shield, a well aimed blow of her war hammer smashes its head, covering everyone in stinking ichor and sending the twitching monster to the ground.

Wiping themselves down, they search the room but find nothing of value.
"Typical" hisses Sarry. "Giant spiders and other vermin, and not a thing to show for it".

Everyone rests up for a moment, while reviewing their maps.

As we search the area, Elurir's keen Elven senses notices a concealed door in the north of the Throne room.

Room 25

We step through and find ourselves in what must have been the personal chambers of one of the rulers of this place.
The walls are covered in fine tapestries depicting heroes slaying dragons and facing down entire armies.
No doubt quite valuable but extremely heavy and bulky to carry, we'll leave them here.

Stepping back into the throne room, we open the visible door there to enter

Room 28
This seems to have been some sort of altar. A horned idol is carved into the wall itself with runes and symbols covering it.
The floor itself is a black, smooth slate. A circular pit is in the middle of the room. A faint layer of ash reveals it as some sort of sacrificial pit.

This is quite empty as well and nothing here seems of value.

We leave while Kater does a warding sign in case the idol is for some evil deity.

Moving through the nearby corridors, we find:

Room 26
This room is a trophy room, filled with the somewhat macabre remains of heroic conquests: A petrified basilisk, a stuffed cockatrice, various animal skins and skulls, the claws of 4 dragon paws as well as war-flags we recognize as the flags of nearby barbarian tribes.

Displayed prominently in this room is a mace that we grab, leaving behind the animal bits where they below. Yerch.

((This adventure is rather generous with items, I might add but I'm sure we'll need them. As with the spear, the heroes won't know what they really are until they return to town)

Room 30
Continuing along a corridor leading away from the throne room, we open a door to find a stairwell leading down to the lower level.

Unfortunately, it's guarded by another monstrosity: A gigantic black widow spider

The beast propels itself towards us as we reach for our weapons.

Our front rank warriors lay into the beast with blade and hammer and smash it into gory ooze, once again evading danger. No doubt, this streak of luck won't continue.

Searching the room we find a potion that we pocket and the stairs leading down to the lower level.

We're not confident in our ability to brave the lower depths at this moment, so we opt to backtrack to the entrance, trying to find our way out.

The trek
Unfortunately, our march is interrupted by a pair of rather unpleasant looking troglodytes.

We didn't bring the hirelings along for nothing, so we send them to deter these beasties.
That turns out to be a terrible idea as the reeking cave lizards rip two of them to bloody shreds in an instant.
The third man shrieks, drops his spear and runs screaming into the night.

I guess if you need something done, you gotta do it yourself.
Elurir burns one of the beasts with a magic missile while Sarry and Wilim unleash a disappointing flurry of arrows.

Rushing in to melee, Ansic and Kater realise an unfortunately fact about these lizards: They stink! A lot!

Ansic drives his blade into the chest of one of them, collapsing it in a pile of gore while Kater coughs and wheezes, trying to overcome the odious fumes.

Swinging to face the second troglodyte, Ansic slashes at its hide while Wilim darts in, trying to stab it with his sword.

The fiend howls and snarls as it lays into the heroes, scraping and gnashing.

As the troglodyte grabs Ansic's arm to pull him in for a bite, he smashes the beast in the mouth with the hilt of his sword. Reeling back, Wilim flings himself forward, putting all the weight of a fat little hobbit behind his sword.
The tip emerges from the back of the troglodyte as it slumps backwards in a spray of blood.

With that unfortunate encounter over, the heroes make their way to the exit and back to the relative safety of town.

The loot!
The spoils of the first expedition are quite meager, 24 XP for each character.

But other than 2 retainers, we had no losses and we're now in possesion of some quite fine treasures: A spear +2 which Elurir will take and a Mace +1 which Kater will use to smite the unbelievers.

The potion is a potion of invisibility, which we give to Sarry. She might be able to use it to set up a surprise attack.

The heroes will rest in town for 2 days, tending their wounds before setting out again.

I like this!

Thanks!

The next expedition will be tomorrow, geared up with more firepower (or well, spear-power)

Awesome stuff! More please :)

(Squeezed in a bit of time while working on two documents)

Our heroes return to the cave complex, opting to investigate some of the places they did not find last time.

We're going to go in without henchmen this time as the threat level wasn't that big last time.

As we retrace our steps to the quarters near the throne room, we turn a corner and face two vile Troglodytes!
Neither party is surprised but they still get the jump on us, Garda being torn by the claws of one, stumbling back as she cries out in distress.
She manages to scratch the attacker with her knife as she scrambles to get out of reach.
Ansic and Wilim swing at the beast, both choking from the oily stench, a sword connecting to stagger the monster for a moment.

Kater and Elurir fail to make much of an impression despite their magical weaponry.

Reforming their formation, the front ranks cut off the troglodytes from the thief and magic user.
Garda flings one of her daggers at the troglodyte that gored her but fail to make an impact.
However, it distracts the beast long enough for Ansic to thrust his sword into its neck, slaying it instantly.

Meanwhile, Kater, sputtering a curse connects a mace-blow with the arm of her foe, causing it to howl in pain and preventing it from landing any hits of its own.

As the group closes around the lone foe, its slain with relative ease.

Assessing their situation, Garda is bleeding profusely but we opt to push on, figuring the group can form a "cage" around her, protecting her from further ambush.

We have another encounter with a pack of rabid giant rats but swift blows dispatch two and send the rest of the pack fleeing through the hallways.

Room 29
We find ourselves in a personal chamber. Judging from the brass lettering on the walls, this belonged to an "Erig".

There's a fair amount of kitchen ware here along with various musty old cloaks and clothes, all fairly worthless.

We do find a silver plaque with the words "To Erig, great and trusted fighter by my side and captain of the guard of Quasqueton – Against all foes we shall prevail".

Seems this room was for someone one some import. The silver plaque has some monetary value so we pocket it.

We also find two shields and a heavy mace hanging here, which we'll drag back for further investigation (they're not magical, but we have no way of telling right now)

We proceed.

Room 24

This was evidently also the chambers of someone important: A finely decorated bedroom of significant pomp and class.

We find two goblins lurking here, though accosting them, they don't seem to have the spirit for a fight and scurry off.
(We got "friendly" on a reaction roll and I figured two of them wouldn't want to take on a full party of 6 murder hobos).

Searching the room, we determine this was the bedroom of the mistress of one of the adventurers that constructed the place.

We pocket a silver comb that may be worth a few coins but the adventurers agree that looting this place would be in bad taste (also there's little here of value).

We do find a map hidden here, but comparing it to our own map so far makes it seem like abject nonsense. We discard it as a fake.

(The map is in fact fake, intended to mess with players that keep bad maps. The end effect would mostly be wasting time before the group throws it away).

With that, it looks like we've searched the south-eastern quarter of the first floor, so we opt to return to turn and rest up before we tackle the south-west quarter next.

The trek and the finale
No encounters on the way out, so we return to town safely and sell off what amounts to 30 gold pieces of loot.
Pretty pathetic, but at least nobody died right?

Didn't have a chance to play today unfortunately but I'll get through a few rooms tomorrow and make up for it.

Awesome stuff Weasel.

I liked the descriptions around rooms 29 and 24.

On reflection there are a couple of improvements I need to make to my next game and I think the biggest one is the inclusion of a monster reaction table.

I mean I had this whole plan to talk about potentially joining up with some of the monsters but I had no way (mechanically) doing it and as such whenever monsters and the party meet…..well it was just basically fight on.

What monster reaction table do you use? From memory there used to be one in the old basic red book (jeez I'm trying to remember back to the 80's now).

Hahaha I also liked on you section The Trek where Elurir notes that if you want to get something done you've got to do it yourself. So true. You need the henchmen but jeez they are embarrassingly bad sometimes.

Keep posting please. They are a great read.

DEW

Thanks! I'll try to inject more comments from the characters as I go along to make a bit more of a roleplaying experience out of it.

I just use the table in the red box rules.
Its 2D6, 2 is immediate attack, 3-5 is wait a turn and possibly attack, 6-8 is uncertain, 9-11 is possibly friendly, 12 is immediately friendly.

Modify by charisma (no more than +/ 2 at the most) and I apply a -1 if nobody can talk to the monster.

Tweak to taste, I assume some monsters will always be hostile of course.

After a well deserved rest, the party is ready to head back into the caves.
Garda is suggesting that if the caves are laid out in reasonable symmetry "like a proper wizards lair", then the south-west corner should be the next goal.

Wilim raised an eyebrow. "What's this about a proper lair?"

"Nothing" Adding quitely "..that you would understand".

Feeling cautious we bribe a couple of townsfolks to come along, paying them 5 gold coins each.
This is well above monthly pay for a soldier but then, dungeon delving is a risky business and word got back about the fate of the last guys.

The corridors are as damp and dank as ever as we venture into the south-west quarter of the first floor. After a long trek, we barge through a door and find ourselves in

Room 21
Evidently a meeting room of some sort, with a large stone slab at one end, raised off the ground as a sort of stage.

Wooden benches are scattered around here while rotted old cloth banners hang off the walls.

2 decrepit corpses are poised here, shambling into (un)life as we disturb them.

The dead are quite slow and the two henchmen prod at them ineffectively with their spears while Ansic and Wilim charge in to deliver some punishment.
One of the foul dead collapses, twitching grotesquely but the other latches on to the front henchman, ripping out his throat with its gnarled, decaying teeth.

With a shriek, the other henchmen drops his spear and legs it (I don't blame him but the morale checks aren't in my favour it seems).

As the zombie lurches towards him, Ansic strikes a pose, thrusts his blade through its skull and declares "And Stay dead this time!".

Sarry: "I bet that stuff works a treat with the farm girls who don't know any better".

The only object of value here is an engraved crystal goblet which seems like it may have a bit of monetary value. It goes in a backpack.

The corridors
As we make our way through a strange spiralling corridor, we find ourselves face to face with another pair of troglodytes patrolling the area.

These primitive lizards seem an unlikely choice for guards or sentries, we suspect they must have a lair somewhere.
Sizeing us up, we look as menacing as possible, which causes them to back off slightly and let us pass.

(We have no way of talking to these guys, but the reaction roll was friendly. I figure the next two wandering monster checks I'll roll 2D6 and if either is a 1, these guys come back to ambush us, they don't know)

Room 20
And at the end of the spiral tunnel we find…a dead end. The walls here are unfinished, evidence that they intended to excavate it further but never did finish.

(This is pure Gygax btw, the only reason this is here is to confound the players, make mapping hard and take up time which translates to more random monster checks and less time left on the torches)

Grumbling, we backtrack and head north.

Room 22
As we step in, we're met with a breathtaking sight.
This is a garden filled with strange molds, mushrooms and plant growths, many of them glowing with strange and bright colours.

Standing here is like standing inside a rainbow.. albeit one that is wet and full of spores.

(I gave the low Wisdom characters and Wilim the halfling a 1 in 6 chance to try and eat some of the mushrooms even though its a fairly obvious trap, but nobody felt like risking it)

On a small pedestal in the room, we find a small engraved platinum ring which gets pocketed for later identification.

This mostly concludes the south-west corner, as it turned out to be mostly corridors and tunnels, but we opt to investigate one more room on our way back to the entrance.

Room 2
This place reeks even before we open the door. Its a kitchen, except nobody has cooked here in forever.

The remnants of food are decayed and disgusting with green fuzzy things growing everywhere.
Continuing our lucky streak, we do find a small purse containing 28 gold pieces. Hey, never say no to a good thing.

With that in the bag, we head for the entrance, preparing for a deeper delve next time.

The loot
Very little gold but at least it;ll cover our living and hiring expenses.

The ring is a ring of protection +1 which Garda claims for herself (reasonably as the mage refuses to wear armour).

(As stated before, B1 is heavy in magic but light in gold)

I am also figuring by now, the heroes know each other well enough to share funds, so Wilim squeezes into some pint-sized chain mail and picks up a shield while Ansic gets a nice suit of plate armour.

Ansic and Kater were waiting outside the inn in the cold spring morning.
Ansic grumbled, halfway to himself "Why do they always take so long?"

Kater looked at him, then looked back at the door of the inn. "They have other concerns than you. Maybe you should go help them?"

The warrior scoffed. "When I was with the mercenary band, everyone man packed his own pack".

* * * * *
Our intrepid adventurers return to the caves for another delve. We pay for another two spear chuckers to follow along.

We're going to push directly north this time, exploring a few rooms near the entrance that we didn't visit so far.

Room 3
This seems to have been a dining hall of sorts: There are tables and chairs everywhere with two magnificent throne-like chairs that likely belonged to the builders of this keep.

Currently though, the place is occupied by a group of four orcs, sniffing through hte wreckage for plunder.
As we barge in, they stare at us, dumb-founded with surprise.

Wilim, Sarri and Elurir let arrows fly, sending two of the beasts stumbling to the ground, blackened blood spurting from their wounds.

The two remaining orcs bravely charge but are cut down in short order as the party mobs them.

(I am starting to think that this adventure was originally intended for only 3-4 characters, unlike a lot of other "B" modules that were intended for 6-8. Oh well)

The orcs had a sizable bag of silver coins, which we distribute out among ourselves.

The furniture here may have been valuable at one point but its covered in moss and mildew, some of it no doubt evil, magical or carnivorous.

Room 4
A small lounge adjoining the dining room. This room has plenty of hooks and bars to hang ale mugs and wine bottles on, though nothing remains.

The centre piece of the room is a beautiful statue of an alluring naked woman, carved entirely from white marble.

This seems like it would be worth a small fortune, however it's impossible to move making it of no value to us.

Wilim glances wishfully at a few old, dusty beer kegs in a corner.

Room 10
Pushing further into the complex into the North-Western corner of the first floor we find an old storage room.

There are dozens of barrels and casks here but no sign of recent disturbances.
Cracked a few of them open we find all manner of grain and even a few casks of wine.
While the food is a bit stale, it still fundamentally seems to be edible.

We make a promise to come back for the wine later and press on.

(though that will be tomorrow, I haven't felt all that great today but wanted to get in an extra session, if a bit dull)