(01) The Approach

[mgtremaine]

Tass skips along in the back as they approach the gate he cups one hand up to his mouth. GOOOOODBYYYE GAARAAAMOOON, DOOOONNTTT GEETTTTT KILLLLEDDD. He says in his tree voice. "Oh Flin isn't that sweet the tree is saying goodbye."

[rredmond]

Garamon sighs and grips his spear a little tighter.

Witherun is the ranger and Thanis the woodsmen? So having the two brutes in mail up front isn't very stealthy then?

[ehiker133]

Yeah... maybe in the wilderness, we flip it so Thanis and Witherun are in front and Garamon and Stern are second rank, then in closer quarters (dungeons), we go back to Garamon and Stern up front. Unless we want the child-like Kender to scout ahead in those situations.

[Tonneau]

Wraislin vents a tight-lipped sigh as the party members shuffle themselves back and forth around him.

"Next, you will be asking me to lead..." he mutters.

[waysoftheearth]

A day-long march through the wet, misty forest ensues... following the winding forest path.

Tass maintains his chirpy sense of humour up the back, grating on Flin's nerves mightily, while the other party members spend half the day debating alternate marching orders.
The drizzle continues until sometime close to midday, when a short stop is called for a meagre lunch of trail rations. And then it's onward.

Stern and Garamon continue to lead with their hard steel armor. Those who brought oiled great cloaks along are thankful for remaining even partially dry... the others are grumpily wet through.

The path winds its way around thickets and tree trunks, but remains relatively easy to follow despite the forest seemingly becoming denser, and the mist thicker. Through the afternoon the ground develops a gradual downward slope, and becomes wetter.

Although the rain stopped earlier, there are puddles and trickling streamlets of water on the ground, persistent dripping from the foliage, and the babble of running water not too far away...

As you'll recall, wilderness exploration happens in turns that are one day in duration, with a chance of an encounter and of becoming lost each day (each turn). Because the party is following a reasonably obvious path I'll ignore any chance of becoming lost.

Dicing for a wandering monster encounter 1d6=6, so there will be an encounter.

Will the players surprise the monsters? 1d6=3, no. Ironically, sneaky Tass surprises on a 3-6. Had he been out front, he could have surprised the monsters, but from his position at the rear... it's not going to go that way.

Will the monsters surprise the players? 1d6=5, yes. So it's a text book "bad" situation for the players; ambushed in the woods. Will the heroes and miscreants survive this mishap..?

(No player input required yet... )

[ehiker133]

*sigh*
Whelp... someone else want to take over? I have chosen poorly...

[sully]

You have to live through a bad situation in order to learn from it. So now class is in session!

[rredmond]

As long as the wandering monsters have treasure, I'm good!

[waysoftheearth]

As long as the wandering monsters have treasure, I'm good!

Alas, wandering monsters generally have no treasure
They are one of several risk elements in the risk:reward balance of OD&D.

Apologies for the delay folks; update coming today.

[waysoftheearth]

Garamon is about to mutter something about his wet feet when (*twig*)...

The ref uses the FFC/Arnseson method to determine which type of monsters are encountered. This involves dicing to see which of the local monster lairs they are from. d6=3, so it's lizardmen.

The ref dices for lair numbers. According to GH there are 10-40 lizardmen in a lair. For comparison, other 2 HD normal types appearing in M&T are 30-300 cavemen or 20-200 gnolls. It also has 2-24 ghouls but their paralysis attack arguably makes ghouls 3 or 4 HD equivilent monsters. DL#1 has 2-20 (2 HD) baaz draconians appearing. Later in the DL series we see 2-20 (3 HD) kapak draconians and 2-20 (4 HD) bozak draconians appearing. So... DL doesn't really follow the typical OD&D pattern for numbers of draconians appearing.

The ref dices 10d4=22, so there are 22 lizardmen in the lair.

Dave Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign (FFC) says 10-60% of lair occupants are wandering out in the wilderness at any time, so d6=4 means (40% x 22 = 8.8) 9 of the lizardmen are out and about. FFC also says they will be split into multiple groups on a throw of 6; 1d6=2, so they are a single group.

Encounter distance is is 10--30 yards when surprised; d3=1! So they are encountered at 10 yards. A baleful outcome for the players as the monsters will be able to use their surprise segment to attack immediately. UWA is also explicit that when 3 or more monsters surprise the players outdoors they will have surrounded the players.

So let' see how this goes...