Q) On "Spell of Somnolence", and in particular "friendly fire".
TLBB says "within a 24" range" - I assume that means sleep can affect targets from the caster's location, within line-of-sight? Many other editions will mention a 240' range combined with a XX' radius/square area of effect (it varies by edition/retro-clone).
TLBB says "Effects are random if there are more potential targets than the number rolled." If there are both PCs and monsters (i.e. "beings"), can the sleep spell work against the party, if the random selection goes awry?
I was playing yesterday and I house-ruled that "potential targets" excludes friendlies.
I think in other editions, including the "target area" within the range helps with the tactical considerations of casting sleep.
However, in "Delving Deeper", it says:
Sleep (affects: 1 or 4-14 creatures, duration: 3-18 turns, range: 24") Causes 4-14 normal-types or 1 heroic-type with up to 4+1 hit dice to fall into a fitful slumber.
The magic is indiscriminate and must affect the indicated number of creatures beginning with those nearest the target.
The magic affects only creatures that normally sleep but no saving throw is allowed.
So that has some concept of a "target" - I guess that's like "target zero", implying Sleep is cast upon an initial target and spreads out from there.
From DD and TLBB I can infer that FF is possible on a sleep.
Q) Page 12 uses the term "saving roll", whereas everywhere else uses "saving throw". With PDF I often use search feature, and I missed that comment on p.12.
A successful saving roll negates a hazard (death, paralysis,
polymorph, etc.) or halves damage.
I find that some spell descriptions will mention saving throw mechanics, but others do not. This creates confusion for me at the table!
Do you apply the rule on p.12 universally? How about against any spell, perhaps "Spell of Somnolence"?
I would suggest that if sleep is the exception rather than rule with regards to saving throws against magic, TLBB could invert the text to make the universal comment on p.12 more clear (i.e with regards to resisting spells, wands, staves), and then remove all the comments from individual spells on "save for 1/2 damage etc". Then, add to Sleep spell the explicit comment on "no save".
Wonderful, thanks for sharing! Questions/feedback:
Bookmarks on the PDF would be great
A region map for the "seven realms of Lothorian"?
A city map of "Cathedra"?
All three I can do myself of course, but it would be awesome to add to the PDF, I think!
Another option for a regional map - mix these adventures into SD's Cursed Scroll 2 - Red Sands expansion. In that case, Lothorian can be "The Djurum", Cathedra can be "Alkesh", the Serpent's Den could be "The Jewel of Borak" in The Forgotten Quarter, and the"Oasis of Al-Gaib (or is that Al-Ḡarab?) could be the "Shar Oasis".
For VTT maps, I generally use a GM's map as-is, the numbers help with players telling me where they want to go - the only tweak I'd like is to put the "S" for secret doors/walls/passages "behind" the secret, so when I use "fog of war" during online/VTT play, I can reveal the room without making it immediately obvious. I feel that's less work than a separate "player facing" map.
Thanks will check it out. TLM at first flick-through looks very interesting. Your description of Infravision & Nightvision is great.
With TLM I really like the layout and choice of art. Bookmarks might need a bit of fixup?
For the Backgrounds, would recommend adjusting the layout so each one fits on a single page, rather than bleeding over.
There's a lot of depth in TLM, will have to take my time reading through it all.
For now, I'm planning to play your adventure with "The Littlest Brown Book" (here on itch as well), to give a 5e group a taste of '74 D&D, in both rules and vibes (and for me as DM as well).
If I ever got the chance to run an OSR sandbox, I'd look at TLM for sure. I wonder how it'd go with Gunderholfen?
As someone who never played OD&D before, a table-ready version would be nice. Expanding the house-rules in the Appendix seems useful, for dealing with the questions that are inevitable for almost every group.
What I do at the moment is cross-reference a few other choice retroclones, and pick a rule clarification (or equipment item) I like, and add it in to my own houserules doc. Delving Deeper, S&W:CR, Wight Box, WB:FMAG, Iron Falcon, etc.
Hi Chris - I really like this adventure, thanks for writing it. I also read your play reports for this module, up on loottheroom.uk, good stuff.
Q) Any plans for an epub version of this module?
For context - I'm using an e-ink reader (Supernote) these days a lot to read RPG materials, and page 29 is not legible, at least on my greyscale display!
Lastly, I would be interested in any house-rules you have for MB.
I just finished reading ADF through in detail, I think this is one of the best TTRPG books I've read in a while, for those reasons you've stated above.
