This Saturday's game wasn't meant to have eight players. Lee was meant to be running his Pathfinder game, which would have left me with a scant handful of player (and thus, heavy on the henchmen). However, Lee was ill, so I inherited his players, all of whom have played in my AD&D game at one time or another. Daniel also turned up, and Tim as well. Tim created a new character – an Assassin! – so both Tait and Tim were Assassining this evening.

I discovered I didn't have quite all my notes with me – I had the older dungeon levels, but not the newest versions of them. However, given where the group ended up, I had enough of the notes with me. I warned the group through Teresa (my NPC magic-user) that Knights of Hextor had been seen about with their hellhounds, and the group sort of resolved to find them. In a vague sort of way.

This probably would have given the group a definite goal if they could remember where the outpost of the Knights was. They couldn't. So, they decided to go down to where they were exploring last session (the notes for which were at my home). Preparing to make up some encounters, I looked on in bemusement as they went entirely the wrong way… and ended up in the outpost of the Knights anyway!

Go figure!

Hell hounds are scary (as Lee will tell you), as they get to breathe fire every round with an auto-hit attack (save for half). The big ones are doing 7 hp with their breath weapon. It doesn't sound like much, but it is massive with the lower hit points of AD&D. This time around, Josh was there with his cleric, and he prepared Resist FIre in anticipation. Josh did a really good job of choosing and casting his cleric spells, and a large part of the group's success was due to his presence.

The group? Here it is:

Josh: human cleric 4 (AC 2, hp 28)
Daniel: elf Fighter 3/Thief 3 (AC 6, hp 13)
Shane: human Cleric 1 (AC 2, hp 8)
Paul; half-orc Fighter 7 (AC -3, hp 52)
Tim: human Assassin 1 (AC 3, hp 7)
Ben: human Ranger 5 (AC -2, hp 42)
Brodie: human Fighter 3 (AC 1, hp 33)
Tait: human Assassin 4 (AC  4, hp 29)

Shane's magic-user took a day off; not because the group didn't want him (they probably did), but because he was researching find familiar. We'd dealt with that in the dinner break before the game started. Eventually it took him about 10,000 gold and 6 weeks to research the spell, so he wasn't available when the session started. And it means that – assuming the group remain in dungeon mode – his wizard won't be around for the next five weeks, either. Yes, I'm using a "1 real day=1 game day" for time spent not playing in the campaign, and now, with the wizards crafting and researching, it limits their participation greatly; instead, Shane was playing one of his henchmen.

Jesse just was absent, but his wizard will have a couple of weeks of downtime to "spend" when he gets back.

I'm allowing spear use from the second rank, so all of the group were involved in every combat. A discovery of a cache of jewelry allowed all the group to gain substantial XP from the session (about 2,000 or more), allowing the new players to gain levels and some of the older ones to do likewise. Most of the session was spent in the main Hextorian base in the Caverns of the Oracle, fighting the knights and their hell-hounds; a few little traps and tricks kept things interesting. The group did, in fact, try to negotiate with the Knights at times (especially when dressed in the robes of petitioners), but managed to make a mess of it, and things devolved into combat again.

The combats were actually pretty balanced and interesting. My standard Knight of Hextor used the following stats: AC 2, HD 3, hp 11, D 1-8. I added in both 4 HD and 7 HD hellhounds, Without the magic-users, the fighters were definitely needed, and there were few quick combats – and more than a couple where the clerics were kept busy keeping the front line of fighters going.

The clerics in AD&D, with a very limited spell-list, are nowhere near as dominant as they'd get later on. In particular having no healing spells at levels 2 and 3 allows them to prepare utility spells that help the party; meanwhile, the limitations on magic-user damage spells (like fireball and lightning bolt) mean that those spells tend not to be cast as often as in later editions. I'm also making it difficult to cast area effect spells on combatants once they're in melee – it's assumed they're moving enough that you can't quite judge if you'll just hit them or your friends.

And yes, the game will continue next week. I wonder who will be playing?