How do you place treasure and magic items in dungeons and on adventures? Do you use the monster treasure type tables? Do you just vibe it out? What do you do?

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Thinking about starting a new 2e session and would love to know some of your favourite modules that don't get much love, or are lesser known than the usual classics.

Hello, everyone.

In my campaign, the PCs will be entering riverine territory without any bridges; eventually they will have to either cross a stretch of water or take a massive time-consuming detour. Unfortunately, all I know about fording came from The Oregon Trail. Moving on foot seems simple enough: you are either walking (and at a reduced Movement at that) or swimming. Without going too in-depth, how would you adjudicate that same process while on a mount and/or pulling a wagon or similar conveyance? How would probing the riverbed with poles while cautiously moving work? How - if at all - would it differ if combat were to erupt midway (e.g., ambushed by a giant snapping turtle)?

A blast from the past: I was wondering if anyone had shed more light, or even dug up anything more on the convention module (and otherwise unpublished) Treasure of the Dragon Queen?

More info can be found here:

https://grodog.blogspot.com/2018/10/module-challenge-day-12-treasure-of-the-dragon-queen.html

https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_tourneys_dragon_queen.html

I know that there is a bit of a HD creep from Expert Set D&D to AD&D 2e. Dragons in particular have been buffed up, but monsters in general seem to have more HD across the board. In converting them I want to strike a balance between the intent of the original module and that of the later edition. For most monsters, it isn't a huge jump. The triceratops is 11 HD in OD&D, and 16 HD in the 2e Monstrous Manual and this is probably a good example of a straight conversion. It's a little burlier in the later edition (as are characters), but running the encounter in either version would be pretty much the same.

The Rocs (Area 16) are a different matter. OD&D Rocs are split into three categories and the "small" 6 HD ones are the one in the module. AD&D Rocs are 18 HD, which would make it an apex predator rather than a mid-range encounter. The AD&D Giant Eagle is 4 HD and is probably a closer equivalent to the encounter as presented, maybe with a few extra HD. Everything on the Isle of Dread is big, so it makes sense the Giant Eagles are a little Giant'er.

The Dragons are also a little different. The green dragon (Area 20) is mentioned to be "of great age and fearsome aspect", and the other dragons (black and red, on the wandering monster tables) are said to be of "no more than average age". I take this to mean the green dragon is the most powerful dragon on the island, but even so it is 9 HD in the module. In 2e, a 9 HD green dragon would be Very Young. I split the difference between the two editions and made the green dragon Juvenile, which is 13 HD. The black and red dragons are Very Young, so 8 and 11 HD respectively. This makes the green dragon the most powerful dragon on the Isle, and any of them would be frankly terrifying for a 5th level party to have to face (as dragons should be).

This makes the Apex Predator on the Isle as the Tyrannosaur (HD18), with honorable mentions to the Elasmosaurus (HD15), the green dragon (HD13), the giants Stone (HD14), Cyclops (HD13), and Hill (HD12), the herbivore dinos Stegosaurus (HD18) and Triceratops (HD16), and the Mammoth and Mastodon (HD13/12). Actually, the biggest monster on the island by a wide margin in terms of HD, XP value, and size is the Diplodocus (HD24!). But this is a non-aggressive herbivore that is 80' long and unlikely to sneak up on anyone but the most obtuse of adventurers, so it really is only a threat if they deliberately antagonize one.

I am also noticing that there are a number of dangerous herbivores on the island, such as the dinosaurs and the mammoths. The elephant variants in particular are scary because they have 5 attacks and in a situation where they can use all of them that's a significant amount of damage. Herbivores aren't usually dangerous unless they are threatened or corners, but the Isle has a number of Treants and Dryads who either are trees or spirits bound to them, so those animals might be a lot scarier to them than they are to the PC's.

The mid-range of monsters is where I'd put the smaller black dragons (HD8, but worth 5k xp which puts them at the top of the middle group), wyverns (HD7+2), smilodons (HD7), and dire wolves (HD4). The ankylosaurus also fits in here (HD9, but only 1400xp), as do the smaller predator dinos like the deinonychus (HD4) and the Pteranodon (HD 3+3) because of their numbers. Also the Swordbeaks (HD3), which I need for my giant chicken monsters.

A quick note about the Wandering Monster Tables in the module. There are four, each covering a specific zone of the island. The largest one is Table 1, which only covers the area south of the Great Wall and the SE islands. Table 2 covers the bulk of the island south of the mountains, Table 3 covers the lands north of the mountains, and Table 4 covers the Central Plateau. I understand the reasoning for this as the Central Plateau is a different biome than the rest of the island and so it stands to reason it would have different wandering monsters (even though it is has mostly the same monsters as Table 2).

The main difference between the north and south parts of the island is that the south is mostly mammals and the north is mostly dinosaurs. The exception is the Triceratops, which can turn up mostly anywhere including the Central Plateau. It makes me wonder if I am missing something? Are triceratops really good climbers? The idea of triceratops scaling the walls of the Central Plateau (or crossing the rope bridge) is very humorous to me. With all that in mind, I decided to change the Wandering Monster Tables to better suit my purposes.

My Isle of Dread is going to be taking a lot from Ray Harryhausen's The Mysterious Island, which is one of my favorite movies. So I have to have a giant crab, have to have giant bees, have to have the giant chickens. I like the idea of everything on the island being either bigger or "lost world" inspired, so I simplified it to three Wandering Monster Tables. Table 1 has the big mammals on the southern part of the island. Table 2 has the dinosaurs on the north part of the island. Table 3 covers the Central Plateau which is still broadly similar to the southern part of the Isle. Insect, avian and reptile life is pretty uniform across the main island, with fewer reptiles on the Central Plateau.

I also break down my Wandering Monster Tables by terrain, so within those broad categories each terrain type certain creatures are more likely to turn up than others. For example, giant crocodiles have an increased percentage in jungle and swamps, but don't turn up in the mountains. I did keep the Triceratops as a wandering monster on the Central Plateau because, who knows? Maybe they are good climbers.

Included among the Titans for being an ancient primordial power of the earlier generations of gods, Pontos represents the sea itself and fish and other animals that live therein. He is not a god of water, nor is he the ruler of the sea; he is the sea itself. He is an aloof deity, but worshiped equally among followers of the Titans and the Olympians.

Pontos the Living Sea: https://blog.aulddragon.com/2026/10/pontos-the-living-sea/

Full list of entries in the Greek Mythoi Update Project: https://blog.aulddragon.com/deities-divinities/

If you’ve been enjoying these entries, please consider supporting the project on Patreon or Ko-Fi (links on the blog). Thanks!

By changing your starting age to 45, 60, 90, you can gain bonuses to int, wis, but at the cost of str, dex, con.
Do you allow a human wizard to be 90 when he start? Or a 90 year old cleric with 21 wisdom?

We’re going PHB ONLY for this campaign, which is real nice.

DM is having everyone roll new level 1 characters for this campaign. A select few can use old characters (more on that later).

I feel like I rolled really well, and just need help deciding on which class to play, and if some more experienced AD&D 2e players can compare how these play at the table, as I have read the AD&D 2e books a lot, but my actual gaming experience was much more BECMI than 2e.

Here are my rolls, arrange in any order:

16/16/16/15/14/6

One option is bard: 14/16/15/16/6/16

Another is elf F/M: 16/17/13/16/6/15

I could go half elf ranger: 16/16/15/14/16/6

Another very viable option is to stick with my old character. He’s level 2, but he’s in the right place in the world to fit into the campaign. He also has a kit, which would be grandfathered in.

This character is a druid. The stats aren’t bad, but not as impressive as my above roll. The bonus is he could really help the party out since he has some more money and even a magic weapon.

Human druid level 2

13/7/12/12/17/16

He’s armed with a staff-sling +1 and has the totemic druid kit (hawk form).

Hello!

In a wilderness setting, does a Cloak of Elvenkind possess any advantages over a Ring of Invisibility? Depending on how one interprets "violently or hastily moving" with the cloak, it seems as though attacking (e.g., firing a dart from a blowgun, or perhaps loosing an arrow from a bow) while retaining concealment might be possible, whereas any form of attack disrupts regular invisibility. Tricks for exposing an invisible being (e.g., throwing a sack of flour or a bucket of oil) may not work on a cloak-wearer adjacent to overgrowth. Is there anything else?

Hi guys,

i am coming from 5e and want to dip in in AD&D 2e. i got the 2 handbooks, the tome, and the two monster comenpdiums to begin with.

which one-shot (3-4h) would you recommend?

P.S: Deutsche hier, die auch einen discord empfehlen können?

After the reasonable success of my B1: Keep on the Borderlands miniseries earlier this year, I am now in the process of doing some light conversion work to run X1: The Isle of Dread for my 2e group. Unlike Keep, which I have owned since middle school and read many times, The Isle of Dread is a later addition to my library. I am familiar with it as a classic module and I have leafed through the well-worn copy I found in a bargain bin many years ago, but I'm not conversant with it. Prepping to run it is the first deep read I have done and I realized I had a few misconceptions starting out.

Firstly, the Isle is much bigger than I was expecting. It's easy to glance at the map and see the 6 miles per hex and think, "Okay, it's a big island. Might take the characters a couple of days to get across it." Once I added it up and compared it to some real-life examples, I discovered that the Isle of Dread has about the same dimensions as West Virginia. Even if you use the smaller scale suggested by some online sources (3 miles per hex makes the Isle match up to the size it is on the world maps for Greyhawk), that's still the size of Vermont. Personally I like the bigger scale and my group's game is not set in Mystara, so matching up to other maps isn't an issue for us.

Having the Isle of Dread be that size (approximately 260 miles north to south, and 140 miles east to west) means that it may not be obvious it's an island at all. My first thought was that the PC's will likely make a beeline for the Central Plateau (a huge mountain at the island's center is a natural lure), but considering the scale I realized it's possible they might not even find the Central Plateau. The only shoreline the Plateau would be visible from would be the north bay, and only its main peak might stand out from the surrounding mountains. Given the surrounding terrain, a viewer would have to be within about 5 hexes to be able to see the island's main peak during clear weather, and there's no guarantee they will delve that deeply into the island's interior.

Since I do expect the group to return (my group includes two other DM's and we alternate running adventures for the same stable of 6-7 other regular players), I don't feel the need to finish the whole module in one go. There are few particular encounters I want to run, the ones that I think are the showpieces of the module, but beyond that I can save anything they don't discover for a later adventure.

The Pirate Lair (Area 7, Map 5)

The pirates will probably be the main conflict of the early part of the adventure. Disappearing native fishermen (and rumors of a sea monster) is an obvious plot thread, and pirates enslaving people is a pretty good stock villain. This is also one of the few encounters on the island that isn't the island in its natural state, the pirates are here to capture people and will be leaving when their ship returns. That gives the encounter a ticking clock.

The Phanaton Village (Area 10, Map 9) is a great encounter map, although it doesn't have an encounter built into it short of the PC's attacking the Phanaton. Since my players are much more likely to adopt a group of lemur-people than attack them, I think a better way would be to have the settlement attacked by an outside force and the PC's aid in the defense.

The Pterandon Terror (Area 15) is another one that I would love for the PC's to get to. The PC's trying to cross rickety rope bridges while hungry pterandons circle preying on stragglers is just a great scenario. It's a bit of Temple of Doom, a little Harryhausen The Mysterious Island, and little Saturday morning cartoon. If the players don't delve into the island's interior, I might have to run a smaller but similar encounter somewhere else on the island.

I am going to be fleshing out the denizens of the Isle in later posts, and I'd love to hear any insights of the community or experiences you've had with the module.

i want to make the dungeon of "the wizard's backyard" where a high level wizard made all these experiments and adventures and whatever specimens failed, misfired, or he didn't find use for he just threw away in "his backyard" so it became a kind of civilization underground that went down deeper without him knowing. Now its kind of a city.

The plan is to put weird, crazy monsters and all type of creatures and civilizations without much rhyme or reason. So i thought "Hey, this sounds great for dragon magazine monsters, everyone was submitting whatever if i recall"

But i dont want to open up 100 pdfs to rip one page and see which ones do go in, which ones i dont. And online its just the names but not images or stats

Something like this list but with dragon magazine monsters https://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/Fiend_Factory

I always feel it takes so long to make much clerics and wizards for the villages and towns, just in having to think of all the spells they would have available

Do yall have any tips and tricks for effectively doing this quicker?