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DRAGON 141: GIANTS && HUMANOIDS
FORUM
After reading all of the
articles on humanoids
in issue #141, I felt I had
to write in. In my
AD&D
campaign, orcs and other less-powerful
humanoids are not as weak
as characters would
like to believe. I took my
friend’s 13th-level
necromantic-specialist mage
on a solo adventure,
and it was great fun to see
him actually
start to worry about his
character’s welfare!
The adventure went as follows:
The mage entered a dark cave,
where he
found an ogre slumped over,
sleeping. Quietly
dispatching the guard, he
continued on. As he
peered around the corner
of the next room, he
saw two goblins playing knucklebones
on the
ground. Thinking of them
as easy prey, he
pompously strolled in. Immediately,
the goblins
sounded the alarm (he thought
they were too
disorganized to use one)
and rushed into the
fray. He slew both of them
with a magic missile
spell, but not before most
of the other monsters
knew he was there. He continued
down a very
narrow passage that led to
a dead end. Turning
around, he came face-to-face
with the biggest
ogre he had ever seen. Quickly
casting a fireball
spell, he incinerated the
ogre. Because he had
his minor globe of invulnerability
up, he was
unaffected by the backlash.
Continuing on he stumbled
onto an orc
sacrificial ceremony. This
chamber was actually
a series of layers sunk into
the ground. The four
orc guards quickly rushed
to destroy him and
he was hit twice (his AC
is -5) before he killed
them. At that moment, the
orc shaman whirled
around and hurled his dagger
of piercing +2,
which struck the mage with
terrible force. His
spell ruined, the mage then
attacked the orc
with his wand of magic missiles.
Though he
smashed the mage with his
mace +1, the shaman
was killed immediately after
his blow
struck by a well-placed dagger
+2.
The mage heard a loud noise
coming from the
passage above the sacrificial
platform, and he
cast a levitate spell to
investigate the disturbance.
Seeing an ogre and deciding
he had just
about enough of this, the
mage cast a teleport
spell to take him home. Unfortunately,
the ogre
was quicker. He leaped up
and caught the mage
around the midsection, causing
both of them to
plummet to the ground 60’
below. The ogre did
not survive the fall, and
the mage was barely
hanging on to life.
Slipping down behind the altar,
the mage
gulped down three potions
of extra-healing,
then cast an invisibility
spell and fell asleep.
Tymora
was with him, and he was not discovered.
Memorizing a few spells when
he awoke,
he recast the invisibility
spell and continued on.
He went into another room,
this time the sleeping
quarters of the monsters.
Still invisible, he
backed into a far corner
and waited. Inside the
room were three orcs, one
being extremely
large. One orc left just
as the mage completed a
web spell over the doorway.
Facing the two
other orcs, he cast a flaming
sphere spell and
killed one orc instantly.
The second, while
wounded, charged the mage
with his bastard
sword +1 raised; the blade
bit deep. The mage
dispatched the orc with a
series of magic missile
attacks, then searched the
bodies. On the larger
one, he discovered a brass
key. There was only
one way to go, so he continued
on.
Coming to a large iron door,
he placed the key
into the lock. When he entered
the room, the
remaining orc was at the
other end of the room,
preparing for battle. He
wore full plate mail and
wielded a two-handed sword
+1, with a brooch
of absorption pinned to his
breast. When the
mage entered, he cast a magic
missile spell. The
orc survived and gulped down
a potion of
super-heroism. With a wild
battle cry, he lunged
forward. The mage then cast
a lightning bolt
spell that was promptly absorbed
by the
brooch. The orc swung wildly
and hit the mage
twice. The mage then cast
a burning hands spell
at the orc and destroyed
it. Exhausted, he
flopped down and sighed.
He had faced a handful
of ?wimpy? monsters and barely
survived.
The adventure was finally
over!
In the above example, some
simple humanoids
were made more powerful and
challenging by a
few simple one-shot or weak
magical items. It
also made the mage think
about what he should
do when encountering lesser
humanoids, and
what defenses they might
have up their sleeve.
Jason Dunn
Calgary, Alberta
(Dragon
#152)