Scenario Prep

[Mal]

Hello all!
I recently started a campaign using Basic Fantasy as the rule set. I love the simplicity and feel of the system.
However, I come to the this style of play from more complex systems, namely Pathfinder. I'm having a bit of trouble gauging the lethality of my scenarios.
Any advice on this?

[Hywaywolf]

If your scenario is to lethal, then maybe the party ought to run away or find some other way to avoid it.

[Mal]

They do sometimes, but it's not so clear other times.
I've had a four man party of second level pcs killed off by a group of five skeletons. I tend to roll openly, so no dice fudging happens. Am I missing something here?

[Hywaywolf]

Its old school, PCs can die a lot in lower levels. Some groups change that by giving max HP at 1st round and use the bleed out rule where you go down at 0 hp but not die unless no one binds your wounds within a certain amount of rounds.

In some of the game i played it took 3 or 4 PCs before i made it to 2nd level. Another one I had a thief with 3 starting hp survive every battle. I had an awesome elf mu/fighter with max HP plus 2 extra hp from con bonus go down in one round when he went through a door into an ambush where all 4 attackers hit with crossbows and 3 of them rolled 20's. Been swallowed by a giant ferret to never be seen again.

The game can be deadly if you play it by the book, but since character creation is so easy it doesn't take long to get back in the flow.

[Hywaywolf]

A question about the TPK with the skeletons? Did the party work as a team or did they just all go one on one? Did they have a cleric? Did they use blunt weapons? If 4 PCs using arrows and edged weapons, and without a cleric, stand to fight 5 skeletons then what you have there is a learning experience.

If they are only using edged weapons then they will need to roll around 50 hp of damage to kill them all (edged weapons just do half damage). That number goes way up if the PCs are using range weapons.

[Mal]

So this level of lethality is normal?
That is a big change from what I'm used to running. Maybe full first hit die is the bump my pcs need. Do you not balance old school encounters like you do with modern games?

They had a cleric, and basic team work. The fighter and theif used edged weapons, the cleric a mace, the wizard died before getting an action.

[LibraryLass]

So this level of lethality is normal?
That is a big change from what I'm used to running. Maybe full first hit die is the bump my pcs need. Do you not balance old school encounters like you do with modern games?

You can if you want, but there aren't a lot of hard-and-fast rules for it. Let them try unusual tactics. Encourage it subtly.

[JoeCarr28]

There's an entertaining thread on this subject here at rpg.net.

I've just started a by-the-book game of Basic Fantasy with an absolute minimum of house rules. So it's 3d6 in order for Attributes, and hit points are rolled. My only concession is that I let 1st level characters re-roll a 1 or 2 for hit points. We'll see how it goes and what the body count's like ...

[SmootRK]

Low levels are very lethal, and this expected. Such parties need to run more often, employ help, and be very creative and sneaky.

Coming from PF/3e mentality, you need to realize that the game was not always meant to be 'so balanced' in the sense that scenarios are not meant to be beatable by all balanced parties. Players are free to be stupid and do stuff that will get them killed. Your players will need an old-school re-education. The latter games sought always to make stuff "win-able", while the older games are more campaign/story/freeform based.

[Solomoriah]

Yes, exactly.

In general, we try to write scenarios that are playable, in the sense that careful players who aren't unusually unlucky are likely to get their characters through alive. But in the Old School, stuff kills you if you give it a chance.

In the TPK scenario you describe, after the first guy fell, did the others make any effort to back off or to improve their odds of success? If they simply stood their ground and fought, well, that was their mistake. Anything that would be a bad idea in real life is probably a bad idea in the game, and continuing to fight a losing battle is a bad idea in any world.