Random treasure generation earned A 1st level Level group A Potion of Super Heroism, ideas?

marshalljames1

I've gotten a text from my cousin in law, his group did their 1st adventure yesterday, the problem is that the rolls for The Villains Treasure was A 100 then A 39 then A 70

This means that the only Treasure The Villain had was A Bottle that held A Blended Magic Potion whose effects were permanent,it was A Potion of Super Heroism, The Magic User unknowingly drank it and his level shot up from 1st to 6th, the worst bit is that its permanent

What should my cousin in law do now that he has A group of 5 Pcs were 1's A 6th level Magic User and the other 4 are 2 1st level Fighters, A 1st level Thief and A 1st level Cleric

My cousin in laws plan was that none of The Pcs would be daft enough to drink it, they'd take it back to town, it would get identified and The Baron that ruled The town would confiscate it

Comments

  • thaen
    thaen
    Posts: 1,064

    Are the Players upset about the level discrepancy?

    If he's awarding experience (as opposed to awarding levels per completed adventure or something), he could have them go up against things that are hard for 1st levels, but easier for 6th levels.  Then the lower level Characters are going to level up quickly compared to the 6th level, and fairly soon they will all be roughly the same level.

    Also since it was the magic user that got the levels, and not a fighter, the magic user is still probably pretty weak/delicate in the HP department, so the magic user can still benefit from the help from the other party members.

    Obsidian Portal Developer

  • marshalljames1
    Posts: 231 edited April 2022
    22 minutes ago my Cousin in Law sent me A E-Mail informing me of a lot of things he forgot to tell me that he really should have told me, now I'm telling you. Your thoughts. Please

    Their playing 1st edition DAD but my cousin in law is using a few things from 2nd edition DAD that he believes will make the campaign even better then he thinks it would be if he didn't use these few things from 2nd edition DAD

    I will state that my cousin in law says he's using a few things but I know him well enough to know that theirs a strong chance that it'll be more then a few things but he won't be intentionally lying, rather the discrepancy will be due to the 2 of us having very different opinions on how many things you have to add or change before theirs so many changes that they no longer count as a a few changes

    1 example of 1 of the things that he's changed due to using a few things from 2nd edition DAD is that when creating their characters all 5 of his players got to roll 3 dice 12 times, take the 6 highest rolls then choose which of the 6 rolls applies to which his or her characters 6 stats

    The player in questions 6 highest rolls were 2 16's, 1 18, 1 15, 1 14 and 1 12, bad for my cousin in law but in a way that's good for his player way, but they could have far my cousin in law in a way that would have been even better for his player

    In the end my cousin in laws player assigned those rolls of 2 16's, 1 18, 1 15, 1 14 and 1 12 as follows. Str 12, Con 16, Dex 16, Int 18, Wis 14 and Ch 15

    Even worse, for my cousin in law, is that his player characters Hp is nowhere near as low as 95% of Human Magic Users

    The reason for this is that the his rolls for Hp were 3 2's, 2 3's and 1 4, which means my cousin in laws players Magic User has 16Hp, add in +2Hp per level for his players characters CON of 16 gives his players character 28Hp

    Even worse is that drinking A Potion of Super Heroisin grants 4D10+1Hp and my cousin in law very foolish ruled that because the rules don't say that their instead of The Hp you'd normally gain for gaining those levels that their in edition to them and the rolls came up 1 10, 1 8, 1 6 and 1 4 +1 gives +29Hp

    Because the effects of the potion are permanent my cousin in laws players got A 6th level Magic User with 57Hp, a large number of useful spells, a small number of powerful spells, see much later, and A Armor Class of 7, see next paragraph, this is going to be a massive headache for him, but I don't feel sorry him for, I'm laughing at him

    Making it even worse for my cousin in law, but in a way that makes it even better for his players character, is that his players characters Dex of 16 gives his players Human Male Magic User Armor Class of 9-2 or 7

    Even worse is that A Armor Class of 7 is higher then 95% of Human Magic Users that don't have 1 or more Magic Items that boost their Armor Class

    My cousin in law was foolish enough, and in my opinion combined with all the other mistakes he's made that's putting it mildly, to let his player choose his characters Spells at every level, even 1st level, but at least he was sensible enough to ensure that his players character acquired Read Magic at 1st level

    That is why his players Magic User got Read Magic, Sleep, Charm Person and Shield at 1st level, Magic Missile at 2nd level, Invisibility at 3rd level, Web at 4th level, Fireball at 5th level and Monster Summoning I at 6th level

    As a passing comment I will say that even though I remember very little about 1st edition DAD I do remember enough to know that A Player Character as powerful as this 1, especially when the rest of the group are all only 1st level, is going to get very bad for The GM/my cousin in law, very fast, but at least it will happen in a way that gets very good for the players very fast
    Post edited by marshalljames1 on
  • thaen
    thaen
    Posts: 1,064

    Other than the other Players feeling "overshadowed", I think it's just fine.  And to combat the other Players feeling "overshadowed", I would just make sure that a number of the scenarios are difficult for the Magic User, if the Magic User doesn't have the help of the other Players ... so the other PCs get a chance to feel heroic by helping to save the Magic User.  For example, maybe the enemies use attacks that are difficult for the Magic User to counter, like attacking from underground or attacking from darkness or attacking with grappling or attacking with sticky webs or grasping vines.  Or they attack with lots of small damage that cause the Magic User to have to roll vs distraction (I don't remember if that's a thing in D&D 1st Edition).  Or they pull the Magic User under water.  Or in a gas of some kind that the PCs have to hold their breath.  Or they could be immune to magic, or fighting in a magic dead area.  Or fighting in a room with barrels of flammable liquid so the Fireball is too risky to use.

    The GM could also just look at the other PCs and design scenarios where the skills/abilities of each specific PC is the key thing that will win that scenario, so each of the other PCs gets to feel heroic at some point too.

     

    Obsidian Portal Developer

Sign In or Register to comment.

March 2024
Wrath of the Highborn

Read the feature post on the blog
Return to Obsidian Portal

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Discussions