 February 18, 2018 - 9:51am | Back story: I'm running Keep on the Borderlands with my daughters on Saturday visitation. They are playing an elf and a halfling Basic D&D characters. So Im curious how you all might have modified or embellished the module when you played it? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 4, 2018 - 6:58am | Concieved and created herself. ... her future as an engineer is more important than ... A key trait I watch for in young engineering hopefuls. I've now learned that she only did the science fair because the science teacher did double talk: you dont have to do this but you have to do this and BTW engineering projects usually win so while her ambition, as I am now told is to be a doctor, she decided on the spot to do an engineering project and came up with this in seconds. Scary how smart the child is. A younger me would have taken credit for her smarts, "Yep, thats my child", but again for the second time I'm convinced that God decided he needed a special child raised and looked for a suitable parent and chose me. Humbling and scary at the same time- but then the Word says that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I never use to be very wise so I'm sort of learning wisdom on the fly as i go on the journey of parenthood. EDIT a little off topic I know but I'll preach this little bit: My first daughter was born with Apert's syndrom and I was wrongly told by the geneticist who should have known better that she'd be most likely mentally retarded which she is not although she is developmentally delayed. I tell people she is 16 going on 12. I always looked at my situation as God had a special child and chose me to raise her and I was incredibly humbled by the honor. It's not what every parent hopes for: "I hope and wish I get to raise a special needs child!" no what every parent wants instinctively is a genius sports playing rocket scientist that will change the world and coincidently allow them to brag. MY Kid this and my kid that. I beginning to wonder if the first child was a test of me. Because I've only recently begun to realize just how special my second child is. That God has sent me one that is and will be everything that most parents want: one who will grow to be an Olympian who does brain surgurey on Wed, and plays in a rock band on Saturday and writes best selling novels in her spare time. I honestly dont really know what my child will do or be only that i know that what she sets her mind to, she will excell in. I also tell people that she's 12 going on 16 because her drive and maturity put many high schoolers I meet or know to shame. So the sermon is this: set your mind to view the children God sends your way as special and an honor that you were chosen to raise them. forget the parental bragging like it was your doing, and always feel honored that you get to raise such a child. God has given me two and each is uniquely special in very different ways. I would not have asked for such a brilliant child thinking it presumptous and been satisfied with a normal child without any syndromes when the second one arrived and yet I got what so many want to flaunt their own arrogance and I have to wonder if my approach to parenting the first child had something to do with what God sent me for a second child? Alright back on topic: the bow with the flaming tallent- googled elvish english translator and found one dedicated to Tolkiens languages. Feanaro means spirit of flame in elvish so that is the name of the bow. Feanaro: +1 bow flaming talent, lawful alignment potential intelligence speaks elvish if intelligent. of elvish make. Going to change the pluses associated with flaming tallent to be +2 vs harpies and gargoyles instead of hippogriffs and gryphons. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 4, 2018 - 1:22pm | Nice Bow... Thumbs Up on Kids insight. Raising Kids is very much what you wrote. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 March 4, 2018 - 1:33pm | I wouldn't allow a basic adventure with an intelligent weapon that is intelligent enough to speak...that's the upper end of intelligent weaponry (3 primary powers at the minimum) and they're more prone to controlling the character too. |
March 4, 2018 - 4:49pm | I wouldn't allow a basic adventure with an intelligent weapon that is intelligent enough to speak...that's the upper end of intelligent weaponry (3 primary powers at the minimum) and they're more prone to controlling the character too.
Copy that, im fine without it being intelligent I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 4, 2018 - 9:53pm | That shouldn't be taken as "no intelligent weapons at basic levels". As I mentioned earlier, I have no qualms with a low intelligence/one power weapon (i.e. intelligence score of 7) in my basic games as long as it doesn't have any extraordinary powers (teleporting, 4X damage, etc) or a special purpose (slay fighters, defeat chaos, etc)...that's strictly expert level advetnuring goodies. A +1 intelligent weapon that detects magic or traps is certainly fine, in fact I've gone as far as "dumbing that down" even further by making the power work 2 or 3 times a day per user level (instead of any time all of the time as written) or going a la LOTR and have a low-intelligence weapon that glows in the presence of certain monsters --- such as an elven bow that glows blue for orcs and/or red for hobgoblins, or a dwarvish axe that glows blue for goblins and/or red for kobalds. So your proposed flaming bow +1 could certainly be capable of detecting magic or some other lower magical "utility" as such in a basic setting without becoming unbalanced. Anything beyond that I see as imbalancing the basic game levels, but is certainly fine once the group progresses to expert (lv:4+). |
March 5, 2018 - 8:33am | I'm tempted to put a limit on it like flaming 3x per day (or x3/day +1/level of weilder) but on their return to the Keep to present the evidence they have found I might do a quasi devine visitation- of the aged old woman trope begging for a few coppers. who turns out to be something akin to a valkerie messenger from the forces of good and law warning of the gathering darkness and offering an abstract blessing on the party. prophesying that in "the darkest moments to come the light will not abandon you" such that during the seige they get extra aid ie the flaming bow is not limited to 3x and the some other benefit for the other PC. The old woman/angel will then glow bright like the sun and disappear and where she was standing will be 4 healing potions, 4 vials of holy water or some other holy item for Brother Gaxian who will be with them at this point and leather armor/ barding for their centaur friend (non magical +1) might also have them suddenly notice some horses that seem unafraid of them at this point and the old woman/angel's voice whispers in their mind "you must hurry, the darkness is gathering" Naturally the horses disappear when no one is looking at them. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 6, 2018 - 6:10am | I think I will use these to train my daughters to think about traps, although they say the burned hand teaches best. http://www.ragingswan.com/10-triggered-traps/ I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 31, 2018 - 8:46pm | I scoured Dragonsfoot and RPG.net for add-ons or suggestions for KotB. I found a nice color map, and then a good painting of the mouth of the ravine. I think the latter site had some great collections of NPCs, neutral, hostile, or otherwise. I ran it for my teen son, his girlfriend, her brother, one of her friends, and whoever else came along. I ran a couple sessions for others of his HS friends when he held a gaming sleepover. Since the 2nd group went into a different cave, it added some layers to the fun. The first group played about 8 sessions, culminating in a nighttime assault on the Keep by waves of undead (all the goblinoids killed by the PCs, mostly), and the PCs outside disrupting the Cult leadership. I used the Keep and its NPCs as a homebase when I ran a mercenary fighter-pilot game in the Russian Civil War. That didn't really work out, as that particular group didn't really interact with NPCs. [I have to admit, I prefer Restenford as a home village, but I was already using that in another game.] |
March 31, 2018 - 10:05pm | I found a nice color map
Of KOTB? Got a link to that one? I started converting Restenford to B/X, never finished it but I should some day... |
April 8, 2018 - 8:16pm | https://sites.google.com/site/zenopusarchives/home/modules-and-scenarios/b2-keep-on-the-borderlands Check this guy out, I think the map I spoke of was in there somewhere. Or maybe this one: http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2011/09/caves-of-chaos-is-one-page-dungeon.html And here's a gazilion things about the module, courtesy of Dragonsfoot: https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=40884&hilit=Keep+BOrderlands+keep+index+borderlands RPG.net has a lot of threads on the module, but I liked this one best: https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?595246-(B-X)-100-Random-People-Passing-Through-THE-KEEP-ON-THE-BORDERLANDS&highlight=keep+borderlands |
April 8, 2018 - 9:44pm | Zenopus has a lot of cool stuff on his site, he leans heavily toward Holmes edition. Palelogos has a lot of files for the various boxed basic sets that he has collected from around the web. The other site is new to me... |
