Snow Saves Slave Lords

Snow and ice wiped out a session against the Slave Lords today, so unfortunately we weren't able to get in any gaming at all today.

I instead did some game prep. Mostly this consisted of cleaning up and organizing my game materials a bit. But I also decided on how I'll proceed for the Slave Lords series going forward.

For the second part of A1, I'll go with "mystic healing powers of the temple" to restore the wounded to full HP. I was going to go with partial - 75% of the lost - but the PCs lack any healing reserves. I feel the appropriate effects of the first session are the cost in spells are reserve items. They've used most of their potions, wasted their Potion of Clairaudience to clairaudit into a Silence, 15' Radius spell, cast a number of spells (especially Phanstern when he was flailing to "not waste" spells as he was mauled in melee), and otherwise expended resources.

Everyone at full HP and the PCs restored - including Phanstern, who'll catch up - and down spells and consumables seems fair.

Thinking about the previous game, it was obvious retroactively how used to "GURPS on hard mode" my players are. They put a troll down and then used two flasks of oil and lit them with a precious charge from a Wand of Fire even though any one of those things would have done the job. But they're used to needing to inflict 120 HP of burning damage-based injury to ensure a dead troll. They'd have used the rest of their flasks if I hadn't stopped them.

They're also a little unfamiliar with their own magic, which cost them. Witness the Sleep spell cast off to the side of combat to avoid putting a PC to sleep - something that simply wouldn't happen based on the level of the PC (and the distribution of sleep effect levels.) This cost them some resources and time that wouldn't have been an issue for a more veteran AD&D group. They'll learn, which will be critical to surviving the later modules and when we go on to the Giants series. You can't usefully run 9th-14th level PCs if you struggle to effectively run 3rd-6th level PCs.

Sadly the ice and snow cost me a day of gaming I won't ever get back. But in a couple weeks we'll have another day, and the Slave Lords will take some hits then. Or the PCs will be exterminated in the attempt. And boy will that throw a wrench into my plans to run the whole series, eh?