Next Week: AD&D, A2 Part II

Next week we're planning on a break from DF, with so many delvers mauled so badly that they need time off to recover from injuries. It's a good time to take a mental break and play some AD&D.

We'll play A2 Secret of the Slaver's Stockade, Part II - the dungeon portion of the tournament adventure.

We played the surface over two sessions last year:

Part I
Part II

I sent out a link to all of the PCs, their spells, etc.

My goal is to have everyone pick their characters within the next couple of days, or assign them out. That way people have a chance to decide who to play and look at their abilities.

With a group that's not really expert at AD&D and only plays sporadically, I think we'll need that.

We have one guy who only likes to play support characters. We have another who doesn't like to use special abilities or spells - and who once died with all of his spells still memorized because he wouldn't use them. We have guys who only like spellcasters. Etc. But we also have nine characters - Cleric, Illusionist, Magic-User, two Fighters, Thief, Ranger, Fighter/Magic-User, and a Fighter/Cleric. Seven of them have special abilities that can change the game. The ranger is best used against giant-class humanoids. The thief must find a way to backstab and detect traps. The clerics need to heal, bless, and offensively neutralize foes. The magic-users must handle the utility and offense roles. The illusionist needs to be a force-multiplier with spells that chance the enemy's ability to organize or attack.

If those classes aren't played optimally, or at least well, they're just cut-rate fighters with low HP.

The players will need a strategy for casting spells, and for healing. They'll need to ditch the GURPS mindset of "and heal everyone up to full after each fight." They did that last time and were dismayed when the lack of healing spells meant they couldn't heal up wounded characters they needed later on. They'll need to find a way to move with speed and boldness without taking excessive risk. And a way to solve puzzles without "There must be a way to completely avoid this puzzle in this railroad-style tournament module." We'll see how it goes!

These posts might help, too:
Lessons Learned (2019)
Some Thoughts (2017)
Avoiding HP Losss in AD&D