Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary of Blackmoor and of Role-Playing!
Today is Part 48 of my series of looks at OD&D starting with Monsters & Treasure Volume 2.
**For those coming in, in the middle of this series I am giving you my take on OD&D during my first exposure starting in Sept of 1975. For this first part it is just the first three books of the original woodgrain box set and prior to obtaining the Greyhawk, Blackmoor and later Supplements.**
Today we will look at the potions, of which there are quite a few.
A few things to note about potions in general is it gives duration for limited duration potions as 6 turns + 1d6 turns. Some potions are not described as the duplicate Magic already explained. So which potions are those? They are:
Invisibility
Levitation
Flying
ESP
Clairvoyance
Clairaudience
Poison
These are all temporary effects except one and they were all described except that one, Poison was not previously described. At the Potion Table the footnote was provided saying: ** Referee will mislead by naming any of the other Potions, but if carefully questioned should give it a singular feature.
So how does Poison work, it gets a Saving Throw as per the Saving Throw Matrix in Men & Magic. What is the result of that? Fail the saving Throw and you die in 1d12 rounds. During that time you can give a Potion of Poison Neutralization (which I added) or you can try some folk remedies which the referee gives a % chance of success (between 10-50%) based on how convinced he is by your description of what you are trying. (A chance for any player to step up and sell the referee some swampland.) If this is successful you take damage equal to 3/4 of your current total HPs and you will not be able to travel for a week. If you make the Saving Throw you take damage equal to 1/4 of your current total HPs.
This was used as indicated, strength increased according to size, otherwise you would not be able to move at all once you grew past a certain point according to your strength. But HPs do not increase!
You retain your full Strength and HPs when you shrink. This is also proportionate to the amount drunk.
This I delineated as to which type of Giant was and adjusted the damage done accordingly so they were not all two dice of damage.
I was always waiting for a player to try this when a vampire turned to gaseous form, but no one ever has.
I saved this for here so I could cover spell and potion at the same time. Now here is a potion that is similar to the Haste Spell. You may have noticed that the Haste Spell and the Slow Spell gave details that they affected up to 24 creatures. Yes, this spell as stated requires a roll of 1d24, and as far as I know, no one has ever noticed that. Since I at that point had never heard of a d24, I rolled 4d6 for 4-24.
Both Spells have a Duration of 3 Turns and a Range of 24". But it does not tell what the effect is. We also took it that Haste doubled speed and Slow halved speed. But they both affect up to 24 creatures. So the Speed potion also doubles speed, but the duration from above instead of 3 Turns is 6 Turns + 1d6 Turns.
As previously noted, I like to pay attention to what players want or expect and use that information to help sell the Delusion.
I added different types of Healing Potions in line with the way that I revised Healing Spells and created three different levels of healing.
As stated. You cannot drink two of them within a weeks time or they will increase your game-age by 20 game-years.
Players always loved these kinds of Potions and they were a lot of fun. Some players like to show off there vocabulary and in such cases the animals are just confused.
Players always loved these kinds of Potions as they could get the Undead to fight each other. Very helpful when the Cleric fails to turn the nastiest one of the bunch.
I always found this to be the most humorous.
Note that this and the next two get saving throws unlike the first three.
This is a souped up Charm Monster Spell giving you a chance of controlling more than one.
Now this is a powerful spell. Fortunately the duration is not too terribly long, but long enough for the players to get their characters into a big mess.
Not really Invulnerability, but a pretty good temporary boost especially in OD&D. Not the effect of taking more than one dose of the potion within a week, this is where I tweaked the Longevity Potion from.
Great Potion, also helps against Balrog Immolation.
Note the minimum size it will locate. If players rely too much on this potion, they will walk right on by a lot of treasures which are worth finding, but smaller than this.
As it says "all respects" it will also boost the hit points temporarily as well.
Tomorrow we will move on to Scrolls.
Today is Part 48 of my series of looks at OD&D starting with Monsters & Treasure Volume 2.
**For those coming in, in the middle of this series I am giving you my take on OD&D during my first exposure starting in Sept of 1975. For this first part it is just the first three books of the original woodgrain box set and prior to obtaining the Greyhawk, Blackmoor and later Supplements.**
Today we will look at the potions, of which there are quite a few.
A few things to note about potions in general is it gives duration for limited duration potions as 6 turns + 1d6 turns. Some potions are not described as the duplicate Magic already explained. So which potions are those? They are:
Invisibility
Levitation
Flying
ESP
Clairvoyance
Clairaudience
Poison
These are all temporary effects except one and they were all described except that one, Poison was not previously described. At the Potion Table the footnote was provided saying: ** Referee will mislead by naming any of the other Potions, but if carefully questioned should give it a singular feature.
So how does Poison work, it gets a Saving Throw as per the Saving Throw Matrix in Men & Magic. What is the result of that? Fail the saving Throw and you die in 1d12 rounds. During that time you can give a Potion of Poison Neutralization (which I added) or you can try some folk remedies which the referee gives a % chance of success (between 10-50%) based on how convinced he is by your description of what you are trying. (A chance for any player to step up and sell the referee some swampland.) If this is successful you take damage equal to 3/4 of your current total HPs and you will not be able to travel for a week. If you make the Saving Throw you take damage equal to 1/4 of your current total HPs.
This was used as indicated, strength increased according to size, otherwise you would not be able to move at all once you grew past a certain point according to your strength. But HPs do not increase!
You retain your full Strength and HPs when you shrink. This is also proportionate to the amount drunk.
This I delineated as to which type of Giant was and adjusted the damage done accordingly so they were not all two dice of damage.
I was always waiting for a player to try this when a vampire turned to gaseous form, but no one ever has.
I saved this for here so I could cover spell and potion at the same time. Now here is a potion that is similar to the Haste Spell. You may have noticed that the Haste Spell and the Slow Spell gave details that they affected up to 24 creatures. Yes, this spell as stated requires a roll of 1d24, and as far as I know, no one has ever noticed that. Since I at that point had never heard of a d24, I rolled 4d6 for 4-24.
Both Spells have a Duration of 3 Turns and a Range of 24". But it does not tell what the effect is. We also took it that Haste doubled speed and Slow halved speed. But they both affect up to 24 creatures. So the Speed potion also doubles speed, but the duration from above instead of 3 Turns is 6 Turns + 1d6 Turns.
I added different types of Healing Potions in line with the way that I revised Healing Spells and created three different levels of healing.
Players always loved these kinds of Potions and they were a lot of fun. Some players like to show off there vocabulary and in such cases the animals are just confused.
Players always loved these kinds of Potions as they could get the Undead to fight each other. Very helpful when the Cleric fails to turn the nastiest one of the bunch.
I always found this to be the most humorous.
Note that this and the next two get saving throws unlike the first three.
This is a souped up Charm Monster Spell giving you a chance of controlling more than one.
Now this is a powerful spell. Fortunately the duration is not too terribly long, but long enough for the players to get their characters into a big mess.
Not really Invulnerability, but a pretty good temporary boost especially in OD&D. Not the effect of taking more than one dose of the potion within a week, this is where I tweaked the Longevity Potion from.
Great Potion, also helps against Balrog Immolation.
Note the minimum size it will locate. If players rely too much on this potion, they will walk right on by a lot of treasures which are worth finding, but smaller than this.
As it says "all respects" it will also boost the hit points temporarily as well.
Tomorrow we will move on to Scrolls.
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