Best 2nd Edition Ravenloft adventures

Perhaps in part because I loved Curse of Strahd so much, or that it opened up Ravenloft to the DM's Guild, or maybe just as some macabre interest, I've been looking up a lot of Ravenloft stuff lately. I'm running more Ravenloft for RamaD&Dan this year. The setting wasn't really a favorite in the 90s, but I do still have the Masque of the Red Death box stashed away and collecting dust somewhere in my parents' house. Either way, I've been interested in which other old AD&D Ravenloft adventures were the best.

The obvious starting point is I6: Ravenloft / RM4: House of Strahd / Expedition to Castle Ravenloft / Fair Barovia / Curse of Strahd) for the original material and the revisions/reimaginings. Afer a few searches and having to look up the old Kargatane website on the wayback machine for reviews, I've come across five adventures that continually come up as good (in order of release):

• Feast of Goblyns (1990)
• Night of the Walking Dead (1992)
• Castles Forlorn (1993)
• The Evil Eye (1995)
• Bleak House (1996)

I've now got my hands on all of these in some form (Bleak House only electronically, Castles Forlorn isn't on the DM's Guild yet), but each strikes me as fairly 90s and fairly Ravenloft. This isn't also to say that others are bad (though some almost certainly are). It's just that these seem to have generally positive reviews rather than mixed or negative (or positive with ways to fix it up) plus they are mentioned numerous times in threads discussing the best Ravenloft adventures. I wanted to base this top 5 list on some Enworld poll or the DM's Guild ratings, but there are some old modules that I'm literally the only one who's rated them there. Also, missing maps is a problem with the old TSR modules on the guild, and its hard to distinguish some of the ratings when people rate it poorly for missing maps versus being a stinking turd. In general, there just aren't enough people rating things to get a good sense of what's what.

I'll stick to first impressions here, and say barring Bleak House (which I haven't looked at as much because I've just got the pdf from the guild) I'd run any of these. The adventures in the setting tend to be much more about investigation and interaction than combats and dungeon crawls, which leads me to be a bit leery about 5e adaptations. I think D&D players expect a bit more combat, that the original Ravenloft and Curse of Strahd deliver on. Feast has the most dungeon to explore, probably because it's straddling the eras and was the first adventure for Ravenloft as a campaign setting. Given the weekend in hell nature of Ravenloft and the Sliders-like domain hopping, I wonder if they could be stitched together into a neat little campaign: Feast, Castles, and Evil Eye are all for levels 4-6ish, while Night is levels 1-3...

Another interesting note is how the railroads work in these adventures. They're quite event-based, eschewing random encounters ("No random encounters, only deadly ones") in favor of things that push the mood and story. I've become a fan of random encounters as they have their uses, but it is intersting to see these as examples of how different event-based sessions can be run. I don't thing this is the worst design ever, but might need some alternate paths so the events don't feel as railroady and player choices can be meaningful in a way that a game can't really go "off the rails" simply because there are no rails to depart from in the way of a good sandbox.

The other adventures that seem to be mentioned with some regularity are the mid 90s ones: Hour of the Knife (1994), Howls in the Night (1994), Circle of Darkness (1995), and Neither Man nor Beast (1995). Also maybe Servants of Darknes (1998) and The Shadow Rift (1998). These don't seem to be mentioned as much, and from the small number of reviews it's not as easy to see them floating up to the top of well-liked adventures.

Homebrewing: Then and Now

Obviously, one thing I love about RPGs is the ability for the players to add to them. You can't just take a computer RPG and add new classes or spells or even new levels readily. Since time immemorial I've been finding cool things from Dragon Magazine to add to a game, or crafting new white necromancy for that old Giovanni larp. The rules need interpretations at times, and often minor fixes though it is easy to go overboard. Now we've got a glorious new SRD that lets anyone play with (most of) the 5e rules, and the Dungeon Master's Guild which lets you use all the rules and (for now) Forgotten Realms intellectual property to publish your own nonsense. So yesterday started a new golden era...

But new D&D is distinctly harder to homebrew than old D&D. And some of that is design philosophy.

When someone on the internet asks how to bring specialty priests back into Swords and Wizardry, my answer is simple: if you're not taking someone else's specialty priest options, just modify the spell list slightly. Remove 1-2 spells per spell level from the generic cleric list to get rid of all the non-generic miracles, then add a spell or two per level back to the list to make specialty priests unique. Steal the domain from 3rd edition and now your fire priest can cast burning hands and flame blade, no real need for special powers beyond that. But you could remove/alter turn undead if you really felt it was needed to make the class unique.

Making specialty priests for third edition was actually similarly simple: just a new domain as needed (similarly not 100% satisfying, but meh). But domains now are much more difficult. 4e required you to concoct two dozen powers to make a full class build, which is untenable. 13th Age is—lamentably—a bit similar in its complexity. I imagine the complexity of classes in 13th age is why the 13th Age in Glorantha has been delayed.  5e scales that back a little, but its still not necessarily easy to modify classes (races aren't as bad because they don't affect your character as much).

So the new homebrew takes a lot of work, unfortunately. Clerics don't just get a few bonus spells, but first, sixth, and 17th level granted powers and I've never played the game that high in level to really have a good idea what a 17th level granted power ought to do.

There's another aspect of homebrew that's weird with modern D&D, which is that we're finally homebrewing non-casters. I guess you can make a swashbuckler class for Swords & Wizardry, but the breadth of classes like fighter and thief/rogue make that a bit odd, whereas one can always dream up another wizard or priest option. This is why I really think that wizards and priests need a bit more work, as their rules really impact the game world. Until third edition, almost all spell casters in D&D cast their spells in exactly the same way. Sure, we can replace old school spell mechanics with something a bit different, like the Sha'ir method, Runecasters, or something from Spells & Magic, and that's great. Unfortunately, in 5e we cant easily change how spells work, and each class needs new abilities at each and every level (excepting when spellcasters gain a new spell level, that apparently counts as a noticeable power bump).

So what's this really mean?

Because I like rules to reflect the setting, particularly with magic, D&D needs a bit of houserules and homebrew to really make it shine. Things like channel divinity make it hard(er?) to use the cleric class to represent priests who don't serve deities, and spells on bards, paladins, and rangers make it harder to use those classes in a low-magic setting.

Old D&D is still the easiest to homebrew, meaning I like it a bit better. I think my ideal D&D would take some of the simplifications of basic D&D and 5e, mixing them with some of the dice technology of 13th Age and the audacity of 2nd Edition. Basically an AD&D 3rd edition. With the new SRD someone could, perhaps, make much of that happen. But I'm still excited for the new 5e stuff, which could help fix a few of my issues with the game and (hopefully) produce a lot of good content.

Morale and the Old School Magic-User

Since I've been reading up on some old school AD&D lately (and perhaps reading the first edition DMG for the first time?!?) I've noticed that the morale system (which I like) interacts oddly with magic use.

Basically, magic use has a couple ways to force morale checks, sometimes at a penalty. Using 2nd edition morale, the goblins fighting the party will have a -2 penalty to their morale if the PCs have an obvious magic user and the goblins do not. Furthermore, if "an ally is slain by magic" that forces a morale check. Given that morale rolls are done by adding 2d10, that -2 penalty adds up. Furthermore, each time an ally is slain by magic that could force a morale check.

That gives a bit of a different perspective on the low-level mage: that magic missile spell not only will automatically hit the kobold, but has a reasonable chance to scare the group off it it kills it. If it doesn't kill the kobold, the magic user can still attempt to force morale checks again by offering a chance to surrender. If you can kill the leader with magic, so much the better.

This might seem like min-maxing the morale rules, and maybe it is. But its a very different take from later editions, where wizards suddenly have a small pool of cantrips it not outright at-will spells they can constantly blast. And now 5e where every single class can select an option to get spells of some sort, even if only in a very limited way.

[Edit: I should note that the D&D Rules Cyclopedia isn't quite as generous as AD&D 2nd, but the magic effects on morale are there. First edition is such a mess I'm either not seeing magic effecting morale, or its not there. Hard to tell with that DMG.]

Back to the 13th Age

Back to running 13th Age online for a few of my oldest Bros. This time I opted to try one of the modules for organized play that seemed like it would fit where we are in the story. Without too much fiddling, it seemed to work. But there's an odd aspect to it that I didn't realize at first: the 13th Age adventure suggested making it very indie by having the players constantly suggest what they expected.

Now, I decided to go along with this, even though its not quite what I think of as my 'style'. Though I didn't really let go and run with it right away. Also the players maybe weren't aware of what I was vaguely hinting at in the beginning, but I tried to run with their choices. Then we got into the dungeon. The adventure suggests just doing a montage over most of the exploration to get right to the encounters. I kinda see the point there. It feels very 4th edition to me though. But I can also attest to how trying to visualize a poorly defined map and many branching passageways can lead to a whole lot of no fun. So, whatever, I figured I might give this hokey technique a shot.

I kinda liked it. Playing online, the players can't see me smiling as they suggest what sort of troubles they had on in the dungeon and then suggest how they overcame them. And after re-reading some of the examples in the module I had to throw one of my own in to raise the gonzo stakes a bit. But I kinda enjoyed it.

I'm not sure I'd like to do that all the time, or as much as they kinda suggest in this adventure. Maybe the others don't involve quite as much: I'll have to skim another one or two in a bit. I did like it as a quick way to get back to the action. Though the combats didn't challenge the PCs much, in part because the second one was just a big ambush and the PCs can both deal some pretty serious damage.

Another issue with this collaborative montage is in TSR D&D, part of the point of travel was to wear down the party's resources a bit. The montage didn't really do that. Maybe I could have asked for a skill check or something to see how well they fared. Swinging across a pit, or topping a column into a stream were fairly easy ways across the obstacles, but a failed check could have still cost a recovery or dealt a little damage. Or even expended a spell or power. Fail forward and all. Though that wouldn't showcase the party's awesomeness, which is what the adventure suggested the montage would/should do...

As I keep thinking about an Al-Qadim game I'd like to run, I'm wondering how I could incorporate some more collaborative world- and story-building into it. I want to run it a bit as an old-school style: here's the world, you explore it and carve out your new kingdom. But maybe I could (in the hypothetical world where I run it) let the players help define their backstories more. Their families, their home villages, their temples, or their sorcerous masters. That's not too hard. Maybe they can also suggest some ideas for the types of adventures they might go on. And maybe I could get the action moving now and then with a good collaborative montage scene.

The Influence of Combat & Tactics

I burnt my hand cooking breakfast today, so in a fit of childishness I opted to do nothing this afternoon and ended up reading Combat & Tactics a bit. I'm still a little shocked at how it really does pre-figure third edition quite a bit. Armor is classified into light, medium, and heavy (or Leather, Mail, and Plate). There are proficiency options that are basically feats by another name. And the whole 5 foot square gridded combat system.

Obviously all of it didn't make it into later editions, but there's one aspect that I'm wondering if we left behind. Third edition codified a lot of bonuses to individual weapons into weapon properties, but left some things behind a bit. And now Fifth feels a bit like an exercise in filling a grid of weapon damage types and properties. Its not quite that bad, but a couple more weapon properties might be helpful.

I think some of this is the tactics that have been left behind with the transition to more story-focused games. Don't get me wrong, I love 13th Age and Vampire and other story-focused games. But I have a hankering for some old school simulation too, and I like the idea of two soldiers opting to use shields and short swords because they're optimal in a cave where both can be in the front ranks where a longsword or battle axe would be ineffective. Maybe I yearn for the days of putting the dwarf and gnome up front too where others can use reach weapons or ranged weapons over their heads. And Henchmen. But henchmen might be for a different post.

Anyway, I've picked a dozen and one (ish) additional properties here inspired by Combat & Tactics. The designers probably considered something like these and opted not to use them, so there may be reasons not to. Chief among them is probably the part where many of these properties only apply to fighting armed humanoids, not beasts. It also makes the game more complex, obviously. A well-trained fighter might be encouraged to switch weapons based on his opponents (a feature, in my mind, rather than a bug). Some of these properties have a "critical" effect. This could be re-worded to happen in addition to extra damage, but it seems possibly excessive. These properties are also written for 5e. As such they are mostly limited to +1 bonuses: advantage seems too good and would synergize with things like a rogue's sneak attack. A small (+1) bonus shouldn't really muck with the math; besides rogues/bards can already get stupid good at disarming or tripping because of expertise. If I were writing these for AD&D, they'd be more like Defensive +1 or Armor Piercing (Mail) +2. Because AD&D could work that way. I also listed some weapons these properties might apply to (though not all exist in 5e): this might be motivation for adding in a few other polearms or whatnot as well.

Defensive - +1 to AC while wielding the weapon (even in your off hand). We lost the defensive property from earlier editions, but I'm not sure why a parrying dagger or gunsen couldn't have it. There may be a good reason this went away.
Added to: Parrying Dagger/Main Gauche, Gunsen, Jitte, Ranseur/Spetum/Partisan, sai, three-piece-rod

Wrap Around - This property would give chain weapons a +1 bonus to hit opponents with shields or behind cover.
Added to: Chain, Flail, Whip, Kusari-Gama

Armor Piercing (Heavy, Medium, Light). These properties would give a +1 bonus to hit opponents wearing the appropriate plate, mail, or leather armor. A weapon might only pierce one type of armor or all three. The idea is plate might not be as good at defending from a weapon designed to pierce it.
Added to: Crossbow (Heavy), Dire Flail (Heavy), Mace (Medium), Morningstar (Heavy), Pick (Heavy), Halbeard (Heavy or Medium), Greatsword (Heavy or Medium), Estoc (heavy or Medium), 

Disarming - A +1 bonus to disarm an opponent. On a critical hit, you can instead deal normal damage and automatically disarm your opponent.
Added to: Chain, Flail, Whip, Scourge, sai, three-piece-rod

Tripping - A +1 bonus to "shove an opponent" and instead you may opt to pull them closer or knock them prone. Or/Also, a critical hit you can opt to deal normal damage and also knock your target prone. A tripping weapon cannot trip an opponent with more than two legs.
Added to: Chain, Flail, Whip, Bill/guisarme

Charger - Double damage when mounted and you've moved at least half your speed.
Added to: Lance

Set-For-Charge - Double damage if you set the weapon to receive a charge. (This needs set-for-charge rules and possibly better charging rules. Probably readying your weapon is like readying an action and then you get the attack if your opponent "charges" or moves 15' and then attacks you.)
Added to: Spear, Pike, Halbeard, Glaive and other pole-arms

Shield-Sundering - +1 bonus to sunder a shield. On a critical hit, you can instead deal normal damage and automatically sunder your opponent's shield. [This would need a rule for sundering a shield probably, though the crit property could live on its own.]
Added to: Battleaxe, Greataxe

Close-Quarters - No penalty for attacking in close quarters or while squeezing. [This would be different than just giving this to piercing weapons, which I had considered. Then I remembered picks.]
Added to: javelin, Spear, Shortsword, Rapier, Trident, Pike

Quick - You can use your reaction to make an attack of opportunity when an opponent attempts to grapple you.  [If it weren't such a pain, I'd consider saying that after making an attack with a quick weapon, your initiative increases by +2. So after a couple rounds you'd end up passing people in the initiative order. Its not a bonus attack, but could be interesting.]
Added to: Dagger

Subduing - This weapon only attacks to subdue. If the opponent is reduced to a number of hit points equal to your level + the damage bonus from your ability score, they are instead reduced to 0 hit points.
Added to: Sap

Ineffective (Heavy, Medium, Light). These weapons are less effective against particular armours, and receive a -1 penalty to the attack.
Added to: Blowgun (Heavy), Bo (Heavy)

Surprise - When you initiate combat and your opponent isn't expecting you to be armed, you gain advantage on the surprise role and a +1 bonus to the initiative roll.
Added to: Brandistock, Ninja-to

In 5e, many properties correspond with damage dice alternations. For example, a two-handed or heavy weapon will do more damage than its one-handed counterpart. Likewise light weapons tend to do one die-size less damage than an otherwise similar weapon. Here, I think the quick and defensive properties should likewise be associated with smaller damage dice. The others don't seem like they're quite sexy enough to merit a change in damage dice as long as they're associated with thematically appropriate weapons (i.e. chain weapons tend to do wrap-around, disarm, and trip).

There's a few other bits of "tactics" that would be interesting to add (I'm thinking forming a shield wall), but these might do a bit to help add in a few tactics to the game and make various weapons a bit more unique. I'm still a little unclear on the bonus part. For some, proficiency bonus might be an appropriate thing rather than just +1. But, by and large, +1 is easy to add in and not going to be overpowered. I'll have to take a closer look to decide if any of these properties are redundant or could otherwise be combined, but it just might make a slightly more interesting set of weapons available.

OSR and TSR Options

Since I've got a bug up my butt about running Temple of Elemental Evil (For better for for worse), I'm looking through some of the OSR material I have as well as the TSR options. I've seen a few things I really like or are at least notable. A lot of this comes from the Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) with a eye on Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea (ASSH). But some of it might be doable in a 5th edition game or 13th Age, not just TSR D&D or an OSR retroclone or whatnot, but some are really tied to those older d20 rolling fantasy games.

1) Warrior damage bonus and cleaving. ACKS just flat-out gives warriors a scaling damage bonus from +1 at first level to +5 at 12th Level. It reminds me of weapon specialization in AD&D. At some point, fighters just need to be doing a little more damage. I'm just not quite sure what the correct amount is, but something simple like +1 at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20 surely can't be overpowered. Weapon Mastery (double specialization) and beyond show up in Combat & Tactics as single-classed fighter only options which is nice, but guarantees that fighters become very kensei-like and overspecialized in a single weapon. I like the option, but I'm unsure what the implementation ought to be. ASSH gives fighters a couple weapons that they get +1 hit/damage with over their careers and the option to double specialize in one. I like the kensei class option in greater specialization, but maybe its not for all warriors.

2) Warrior cleaving. First edition had a somewhat hidden/obscure rule (well, lots really) that allowed a fighter to make a number of attacks equal to his level against creatures less than 1/2 hit die. It gets repeated in a number of OSR books, and adapted a little by Combat and Tactics. But I like the ACKS implementation mostly though it might need a slight tweak. When a warrior kills an enemy, they get to make a bonus attack with the same weapon against an enemy within 5' (though if they have movement they can still move 5' and make the attack). They can do this a number of times equal to their level. Clerics and Thieves can do it up to half their level. That's powerful! Removing the hit die cap (which is what ACKS appears to do) makes it much easier to use. Combat & Tactics specifies you must be outnumbered to use the rule, and it might still have a hit die limit. I like the idea of a scaling Hit die limit still. Though a "kill in one blow" wording might de-facto do an appropriate hit die limit. Combat & Tactics limits the number of bonus attacks, giving double your normal attack rate as the limit, which I kinda like. But some version of this really gives a nice bonus to warriors. Note that, depending on the wording, this warrior cleave or heroic fray might work for missile attacks as well, not just melee.

3) Encumbrance in Stone. Its around the internet in a few places, but ACKS uses is too. Basically, you use a much larger weight unit so encumbrance has a better level of granularity. ACKS defines a stone as 10 pounds, but the 14-pound stone is still used in the UK as a unit of human body weight. However you define it, you're dealing with numbers in the range of 20 or less usually, so that's a bit easier to math out.

4) Rations. DungeonWorld and ACKS use a nicer ration system, though its there in all forms of TSR D&D too. It could just be a little simplified. TSR D&D never gave lots of healing overnight though, which is where rations might be more important for a game like 5th edition or 13th Age where you fully heal (or more fully heal) overnight. I actually did something like this in the 4th edition Dark Sun game I ran, which was letting the PCs cast defiling magic to regain all their healing surges while they were travelling. It made wilderness encounters actually worthwhile since you might actually lose resources on the way to the dungeon. Normal AD&D makes regaining HP difficult enough unless the cleric totally blasts the party with cure light wounds.

5) Dual Wielding. In ACKS, dual wielding just gives you an offensive bonus, not extra attacks. Extra attacks should, I feel, be limited to special situations and certain classes (warriors in general, the monk specifically). I also like the 13th Age take on dual wielding, but extra attacks can get pretty powerful (especially when you have magic bonuses to hit and damage in addition to ability score bonuses) and they can be a pain to deal with consistently. Saying that though, some missile weapons in TSR D&D more readily get multiple attacks, particularly with weapon specialization.

4) XP for gold and Carousing (i.e. gold for XP). I can see how gaining XP based on the loot you get makes the game a bit more Sword-and-Sorcery than high fantasy. So I like it. I also agree that its maybe best if you get the XP for magic items you sell (but don't use): so its really for gold you're bringing back to town. ACKS has a carousing rule which says you can piss away that gold and start an XP bank for your next character. I kinda like that idea too. Again, not sure the best implementation, but I like the idea. However, this doesn't look like it'd work well in a game like 5th edition or 13th Age: something about those distinct XP charts for classes and AD&D multiclassing makes this feel like it works best in those games. When you either don't really pay attention to XP (or gold, for that matter) and just give out level-ups for milestones or whatnot, it doesn't seem to matter.

5) Simplified weapons. ACKS does a 5th edition on weapons a bit, taking the broad number of weapons down from AD&D's massive set. I like the idea, but I also like the notion of weapon properties. A few more properties might play up some more differences between weapons, like flails and chains ignoring shields (wrap around) and entangling enemies (easier to disarm or trip). You could even capture some of the weapon vs armor stuff of AD&D with properties like plate-penetration or whatnot. Certainly they must have considered this in 3rd edition and decided against it for some reason, but I'm not privy to what that reason was so it still seems worthwhile to simplify the weapons slightly but keep some of the crazier properties and oddities of the system. Maybe the properties could be steamlined a bit to generic +2/-2 so its easier to keep track of though.

6) Shield sundering (and more). Though I can't seem to find it in ACKS, the internet claimed there was a shields-will-be-sundered rule. I'm not sure I like the option where you can just let your shield break anytime for half-damage, but I like weapons and shields breaking. Its part of the reason why I'm thinking one benefit of fighters is they should automatically get something like tight-group proficiency with weapons and be able to use more weapons, rather than funnel them into grand-mastery specialization with just one weapon. I wonder if this might be great as an alternative to some critical hit nonsense. Crits and fumbles might where your equipment has a chance to break (or enemies equipment does) rather than always just doing something like max damage. Actually, I really like the idea of crits doing things like breaking equipment in addition to or instead of just heaps of damage. Cause unless you have a max damage on crits rule, just rolling double dice can be a bummer when you roll 1s on the damage die for a crit.

7) Wisdom (and Charisma) for bonus XP. This comes out of Swords and Wizardry, where your prime requisite bonus is only 5%. A wisdom or charisma of 13+ gives you a 5% bonus to XP as well. I'm not so sure I like it for Charisma, but any class with a better wisdom seems like it should get that XP bonus. I might give the Cha bonus for classes who would otherwise be required to have a good wisdom like Clerics or a Necromancer rather than letting wisdom do double duty there. But Wisdom as a prime requisite for all classes might be nice.

8) Spell preparation. ASSH uses the TSR / vancian method of fire-and-forget. But ACKS uses the method that classes like the Spirit Shaman of 3rd edition or now 5th edition use. A wizard's spellbook lets him practice/prepare a set of spells, but the spell slots themselves are also magic points used to cast those spells. In this case, the wizard is a little more versatile. Clerics in ACKS, it seems, have their whole list prepared! I do like the 5th edition system a little, but is is odd if you have 2nd level slots left and need to cast a first level spell. I'm not sure about this, but see scrolls below.

9) Scrolls. ASSH gives mages the ability to scribe scrolls right away at first level. This is a case where I'm not sure I like it. Scribe Scroll seemed quite potent in third edition, so allowing wizards to explicitly scribe scrolls at low levels seems a lot. Mostly because at mid and higher levels, the wizard is only spending a pittance of XP or gold to have a good number of useful low-level scrolls scribed. Now, a game where you still use your own slots or magic points to power a scroll might make it more interesting and balanced: you're scribing the scrolls to expand your repertoire but not your number of spells cast per day. Depends on your rules, perhaps. Though that wouldn't fit with thieves being able to read a scroll on occasion, though maybe you could also rule you lose 1d4hp per level of the spell if you don't use a slot to cast that spell.

There's a whole lot of other options out there, but the Player's Option books and the OSR literature don't always make this stuff easy to find. Also, deciding on what to implement isn't easy. I'm guessing a lot of this stuff wasn't playtested as well as it could be, and what works well in one system or even gaming table might not translate at all to another. More reading to do, I suppose, but this was a first pass at some interesting options.