AD&D Solo Adventures - The Village of Homlet Part 2

 The contiuning adventures of my now OSE advanced Solo Great Greyhawk Campaign.
It was just so much easier to manage than AD&D, but I know it will change the XP rates pretty badly, since in OSE, as B/X before it. XP is not gained from magical items, unlike what AD&D expects.

Day 4 Dounil wakes at [7:00], feeling changed as the jump to OSE Advanced goes into effect. Suddenly, bereft of most of his magic and 3 HP, he spends Detect Magic on identifying the shield as a +1 Shield. Looking at his now mediocre Bastard Sword (2d8 to 1d8+1). He takes the decision to sell it, use the longsword one-handed and specialize in that to make up the effective difference.

He also buys platemail (09 on 10% availability), a shovel and a bullseye lantern, with two jars of oil, (-86 GP)

He sells the bastard sword, for 7 GP

He sells the Peridot for 400 GP, 55 FXP 52 MUXP, 1626 GP stored with the keep. [7:45]

Fetching his horse, the now moderately encumbered Dounil rides to the keep in 3 hours [10:45].

Walking his horse through the moat and into the courtyard, NRE [10:55]

Moving into the hall and down the stairs, Dounil is careful to inspect everything about the stairs to ensure he doesn’t encounter another green slime above or below. He pauses for a minute while the squeaking of rats disturbs him, but it is nothing (Random Encounter). He finds a gold ring (40GP) [11:15]

Entering Dungeon Level 1, Area 21, he moves up to the locked doors and attempts to hack at them with his shovel, I judge this to be an immediate roll on the random encounter table. A distant rattling disturbs him. And Dounil tries again, judging there to be no immediate threat, this time it’s two bugbears wanting to know what the noise was and if it was the intruder who killed all the zombies yesterday [11:35]

They surprise Dounil, fortunately both miss. They both would have hit him had he kept up the Bastard Sword in AD&D.

Round 1, Dounil’s magic silver spear does 1 HD, his sword rolls just enough (a 15, not possible in AD&D) and does 2 HD, killing one Bugbear (3 HD). The Bugbear misses.

Round 2, the Fray magic and the sword kill the other bugbear. 410 XP/8 then x1.1 and 1.05, FXP 56 MUXP 53 [11:35].

Dounil must rest now and reflects that he has only done a same chip around the lock (12/50 damage). He needs keys or a proper hammer/axe. [11:45]

Cautiously opening the door to Area 23, since that’s where the bugbears came from. He does not notice the grease, but the door opens silently. Searching for four turns the room finds nothing [12:25] 4/6

Moving into Area 24, he is immediately confronted by the ogre Lubash, who comes out swinging at someone not wearing the appropriate uniform. Dounil is surprised, a downside of going from an AD&D Half-Elf to an OSE Advanced Half-Elf. The bardiche swings overhead (1).

Round 1, Fray does nothing, Sword does 4 HD of damage to Lubash. Bardiche does 3 HP of damage to Dounil, 4/7 HP.

Round 2, Fray hits for 1 HD and kills Lubash, sword misses. FXP 26 MUXP 25 [12:25]
Searching the ogre, resting and bandaging, 6 HP, resuming the search of the bedding and the chest finds 823 cp, 46 sp, and 3 gp and a small-but very fine cloak (elven cloak).
To take the treasure with him would overweigh him for not a lot of XP, so he leaves it all in the chest for his return [13:05] NRE x4.

Unbarring the oak door, reveals a hideous sight of bloody walls and three tortured prisoners in the makeshift larder. Two “mildly tortured” humans and a badly beat up gnome start begging for their lives once they see Dounil is not in cult clothes. Dounil helps them out, surprised to see the room is quite small. The bugbears couldn’t have come from there. The merchants, won over by his non-threatening to them demeanor and high CHA, say they are merchants from Dyvers and can pay in thanks for their release. The gnome just says he will be rewarded, especially when Dounil addresses him in Gnomish, giving Dounil a plain iron ring. [13:15]

Dounil tells them to stay here and asks how they came in. The merchants were bundled down the main stairs, but the gnome was caught by some gnolls (not present), he came down the stairs as well, but the gnolls went east (underground senses). Therefore, Dounil tries searching the east wall. He cannot find anything (4 needs 1-2) and moves up, resting after the second search. When searching the top-middle right/NE portion of the wall (3^rd search), the merchants give a shout as 4 gnolls open the secret door. The 5^th random encounter check rolled an encounter.

Neither party is surprised.

Round 1, Dounil is 3 squares away and can only do 20 feet. The gnolls advance and attack. 1 hits for 1 damage, 5 HP.

Round 2, spell and sword do only 2 HD of damage, killing a gnoll. The three gnolls all miss but it’s a near thing. They pass their morale test.

Round 3, Fray rolls 1, so the spell dissipates, but the sword does 2 more HD damage, killing another gnoll. They fail their morale test and flee back down the passage. Dounil gives chase but they outpace him in his armor (30’vs 20’). He stops on the stairs, cursing the weight as he can’t even string and knock an arrow before they disappear around a bend. But the staircase he passes intrigues him. FXP 10 MUXP 9 [13:55].

He moves back and rallies the merchants and gnome, it’s time to leave, moving the chest into the larder. They move back confidently to Area 21, NRE x 2. They rest and bandage again before the climb only to be disturbed by moaning, though nothing else occurs, HP is 7 [14:05].

Moving up to the horse, they are forced to walk home, taking 6 hours with rest breaks, the injured taking turns riding the horse. He pays for bed and horse (-4 GP) FXP 6 MUXP 5 [20:05]

Day 5

I made a mistake with his XP, he really should get 120 more XP for the gems. FU 16 and MUXP 15
Dounil looks at his 9 rations left and decides since they might be going bad, he better actually prepare for a serious multiday excursion into the moat house, otherwise he’ll be losing most of the day going back and forth. So, he buys a bedroll and a tent (-22 GP). He sells the ring (40 GP), but receives 50 XP, FXP 6 MUXP 6. Morning tasks done, he rides out [7:45].

Arriving at [10:45], he crosses the moat and teethers the horse by the ruined tower where the spider was killed. He also uses his shovel to slowly and disgustingly turf the corpse of the spider into the moat. NRE x 2, [11:05].

Consulting the crude map he has been making as his revised secondary skill of Map-Making. He realizes the second staircase must be under the place the bandits were, NRE [11:15]

Heading in and searching Area 7, he spends 2 turns fruitlessly searching the black stones. Rests and then is surprised by a scraping noise from above (Random Encounter) but nothing happens [11:55]. He should have paid more attention because the next search turns up nothing but allows a giant tick to jump down upon him.

Dounil was not surprised but his silver spear spell went wild. His sword misses by 1. The tick hits him but the proboscis does yet penetrate the clothes. The Spell and sword make short work of it next round, FXP 19 MUXP 18. [12:05]

He is furious now and starting to doubt he has mapped the place properly. He decides to check all of them with a Defying death roll (probably not the intended use but I was getting sick of constantly rolling).

He takes 1d4 damage on his first use this session as he tears about, HP 6/7. Constantly running over each 10-foot square, heedless of the dangers that wander in, only to dispatch them without XP. After another 30 minutes, he finds the secret passage in the exterior-facing wall, obviously never used by the bandits. But he must rest, [12:45].

It takes him two turns to move though, down and half of that second turn is realizing he is facing a blank wall again, even as the reverse is clearly a door, NRE x 2 [13:05].

He saw the gnolls go through here, so he attempted to find a catch of sorts. After 1 turn, he finds it and opens to Area 26 [13:15].

Advancing through the corridor, he takes two turns to reach the junction, NRE x 2. He turns left to try and reach the middle of the maze (as one does) and detects the secret door. [13:35]

He rests and opens the secret door, NRE to find a corridor. He travels along it to find just a winch and returns to the same spot, NRE [13:55].

It takes another 2 turns to move into the room where Area 28 (the northern) is. Random Encounter, he is unnerved by the sound of his own footsteps for a time. But when he enters the room, Random Encounter, he is confronted with two bugbears leaving Area 27. [14:15]

They have surprise and so attack, one hits. Dounil HP is 4/7.

Round 1, Dounil hits one with magic for 1 HD, but not with sword. One hits him, Hp 2/7

Round 2 Fray does 1 HD, Sword does 4 HD, both slain. FXP 51 MUXP 49

Dounil bandage but is almost interrupted by the rest of the Bugbears, wanting to see what the noise was about, HP 4/7. The Bugbears surprise [14:20]

All miss by the virtue of my cheap wooden desk and its suspicious rolling surface.

Round 1, 5 HD of damage kills one, the bugbears pass their morale. Two hit back, 3/7 HP.

Round 2, 3 HD kills another bugbear, one hits back, 1/7 HP.
Round 3, 3 HD damage, another bugbear dies and the bugbears fail morale and retreat. Dounil does not pursue but bandages again, 3/7 HP FXP 79 MUXP 75 [14:25] 4/6

Dounil faces a choice, he can change forth into almost certain death or retreat with them sneaking up behind them. Checking my options, there is a 3/6 chance they stop to pick up coins, but doesn’t say what value of coins, so Dounil dumps his 33 CP on the ground and legs it. As OSE Advance states most monsters lose interest after they lose line of sight, the single round of pause from the Bugbears is enough to move around three corners back to the junction. Dounil does not stop until he is up the stairs and out into the courtyard. That takes 6 rounds or 1 minute to achieve. [14:26].

In the tower, near his horse, Dounil rests for 3 turns, recovering his energy, NRE x 3 [15:56]
he can go back down, or wait here overnight. He sneaks downstairs to fetch the treasure chest, only a distant rattling (Random Encounter) disturbs him, as he loads the ogre’s coins into his sack and returns [16:56].
He loads up his horse, and rides back to Homlet feeling defeated [19:56].

He gets the nickname, Mister Lately, for coming back at 8PM each night and pays (-4 gp). 823 cp, 46 sp, and 3 gp. He uses his one cast of Detect Magic to identify the cloak as magical (small-sized elven cloak). FXP 2 MUXP 2, he stays for 3 days as the 1d3 HP per day of HP healing goes through the same dice conversion as damage. He pays out the money from the ogre until he runs out, HP 5/7.

Day 9

With only 6 cp to spare, Dounil needs to get his money back from the bugbears and find some more. He rides back, not stopping to buy anything, ditching the leftover rations as they had gone off [7:15].

Arriving at the moat house, he tethers his horse where it was supposedly safe last time and ventures below to Area 18 NRE x 2 [10:35].
Marching into Area 24, he seizes the bardiche where it lays, noting the body of the ogre has been removed and heads back to Area 18, Dounil rests and begins to hack at the doors. NRE x 5, [11:25].

After 3 blows, the sound of thumbing gives Dounil pause, but it passes, it takes another swing to hack the door down to Area 19. Dounil sees the supplies and sees a way to regain some money, he searches a 10 x 10 space and rests, NRE x 2. He searches the rest, NRE x 3, and begins to catalogue. 30 shields ( 30x10/2 = 150 gp profit )12 leather armor (12x20/2 = 120 gp), two kegs of something and barrels smelling of salt [12:15].

He moves up to Area 20 and repeats, 7 rounds, where he hears footsteps of his own shuffling and on round 6 where 2 gnolls come to see and ambush the repeated noisemaker.

Neither are surprised, in round 1 the gnolls are dispatched. FXP 11 MUXP 11 [12:26]

He searches one square and rests NRE x 2. He searches the rest, NRE x 3 [13:16].

50 spears (50x3/2 = 75 gp profit), 10 glaives, six guisarmes (16x7/2 = 56 gp), three battle axes (7 gp x 3 /2 = 10 gp), 70 black capes (each with a yellow eye of fire sewed on the center), more containers of provisions, a crate of 120 arrows (120/5/2 = 30 gp), and a crate of 200 crossbow bolts 200/30x10/2 = 33 gp.

Dounil notes how much he thinks he can fit on his horse. He’ll sell the shields, axes and armor and see if the kegs are worth anything. 3/6.

It takes 30 turns of movement and 6 turns of resting to move everything. As at 778 coin weight encumbrance already and carrying even a normal decent amount halves what remains to 30 feet of exploration movement. 12 random encounters roll on level 1 and 18 in the courtyard. There are no random encounters in the upper level. But three times is Dounil interrupted below. Once by a moaning wind and then by 2 bugbears and then by 2 Gnolls.

Neither Dounil nor the Bugbears surprise, which is fortunate. Dounil’s mighty damage bonus came in handy for turning 2 total damage into 5, slaying one. He receives 1 damage, HP 4/7. The next round a bolt of magic slays the monster.

Against the Gnolls, they surprise but miss. Next round, the Gnolls miss but magic and sword slay 1 and wound the other to 1 HD. Magic slays it next round. Total XP 17 each. x1.1 and 1.05

After all the fighting and carrying, it is now [19:19], the over encumbered horse won’t make it back before the inn closes. So he decides to sleep between the horse and the wall, hoping the horse alerts him to any random encounters. He eats some of the less dubious food from the provisions he opened, trusting that it was part of the human bandit supplies. There’s not a lot of rules for night encounters but as the upper level was cleared by Dounil, it passes uneventfully.

Day 10

In the morning, Dounil transported the remaining barrels and gear up the tower [7:00].

The barrels (indetermined), crates and polearms take another 36 turns of carrying and resting. At one point below, he is interrupted by footsteps, but it was an echo. [13:00]

He takes what he planned and one robe with the symbol. He walks his horse to Homlet. [19:00]

As Mister Lately, most thought him dead. He spends the next hour selling his spoils and futilely trying to get an audience with Rufus & Burne but is told to come back tomorrow. He stables the horse and rents a room. [20:00]

280 gp to the traders at 90% is 252 gp, 160 gp of brandy to Ostler Gundigoot of the Inn of the Welcome Wench due to repeat service. Bed and horse are -4 gp. FXP is 56, MUXP is 54.