I like to use thick marker to write the name & effect of communal buff spells the table has in effect and pot them on the battle map so people have an easy tower reminder of those effects.

Coincidentally I was looking at reviews for B1-9 combined version (In Search of Adventure) and it has apparently left out (abridged) a lot of what was in those modules as they were published separately.

I wish I could trust my players that much. :P I tend to do the big-picture stuff myself beforehand. Find ways to connect the various adventures to one another so that there is some semblance of a plot going on. Now, the PCs might not know what that plot is, and they might only interact with parts of it intermittently, but they are getting a feeling that something is going on. Something bigger than just one random lair of goblinoids.

Again, the audio. I am hearing you in my left headphone, not on the right.

great stuff

I love the advantages for material components vs. cost.

I'm curious whether you've worked out a rationale, within the fiction, for why the caster either retains or forgets the spell, and what that process is like for them. Or is that something that each GM should come up with for themselves?

A couple of quick comments (IMHO and all that): 1. Fizzle: It should never cause the spell to go off as normal. Even on a high roll, there should be something wrong with it, wrong target or changed effect or something. 2. Eldrich Taint: You did mention that falling unconscious for 1d6 hours is the best result. However, if you are in combat, that can be a death sentence. I would recommend rather 1d6 nights of nightmares or something like that. Something that is not an immediate combat-influencing effect. I mean, if I am fighting for my life, give me white hair over falling unconscious and getting eaten any day!

There is the sound aberration again. I hear you in my left ear, not in the right.

Sound is really low.

Great video! I like your work and I think it would be interesting to see rework of more story based module. Or may be even mystery one? Against the Cult of the Reptile God or The Assassin's Knot would be cool!

I reworked this to be a working castle with a main hall, kitchen, undercroft, and so on. There are so few privies it would not function. i love the setup but the execution does deserve more attention. Glad you did it as well

I actually ran this module a million years ago, so it's extra fun to see it reworked. I'm looking forward to using your changes to introduce a new group of players to this module.

Now just from the security perspective, opening the portculis should be happening from inside the castle, not from the courtyard. But then you have to come up with a way for the PCs to reach the opening mechanism somwhow. Or, indeed, just leave the portculis up in the first place...

Extract error Since both of your maps are actually called 'map' within the zip files, trying to extract a zip package with both 1 and 2 inside it caused my file browser to crash. Downloading them separately and then extracting separately, renaming in between, got around that issue. Just in case someone else had the same problem. EDIT: Oh well, I wasn't able to open them in Dungeon Scrawl anyway. EDIT2: Dropbox was the issue. See comments below.

Alright. Good: 1.) I very much like moving stuff to a dungeon level. Big thumbs up for that! 2.) Thinking about how the troops can move is also good. I am not sure I agree about putting all the barracks in a single cluster, but thinking how they will get to their positions when there is an alarm is good. I.e. not located in the farthest corner of the map. 3.) Also, changing the monster types to harmonize better is good. Critique: (More of the whole castle architecture and rooms rather than your reworking.) 4.) While your map is a definite improvement, I think it still has too many corridors. Corridors are essentially wasted floor space: there should be a reason for a corridor to exist rather than just have one room connect to the next. Now in an underground thing this can be because of structural reasons: with the weight of the castle above, you don't want to undermine the walls! So it can be better to have thicker 'walls', i.e. separate the rooms and connect them with narrow corridors. But within castle proper, corridors should be rare. 5.) Light & Ventilation. Continuing from the above point of corridors (especially exterior ones), space, light and ventilation were all very necessary in medieval castles. Thus, expanding the dining hall to reach the outer walls will give the dining hall much more of all three, and similar considerations could be used for the other locations (see next point especially), where possible. I might also add a light well in the middle of the castle to help with these issues. Now, there might be less need for those in a fantasy setting, especially if continual light items are plentiful and easy to make (i.e. cheap), but best practices and all that. 6.) More social rooms. Some of these might actually exist on the second level, but I think there should be a guard hall close to the dining hall, as well as maybe a sitting/waiting room, and another audience / parlor room.

I want to watch this with some more attention, maybe even having my own module open at the same time to follow the explanations and changes. So I will comment more later. I like the changes that I saw so far. That being said, I think there is something wrong with the audio? At least for me, I am getting the voice just in the left ear (using a headset), and the voice quality is worse than in previous videos?

I would point out that your argument regarding Butler's ineffectiveness outside of use of having a blade based on the argument that that's what's shown in the treaties I would like to buy express my concern about that because that argument doesn't take into account that most treaties do not go into combat with more common items such as clubs Mace's or axes. So I think that is not a fair assessment because I believe judging a Shield's value because of a bunch of book writers who specialized in swords doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

1e AD&D handled a roll of 20 "to hit" differently than modern iterations. There wasn't any additional damage granted. Technically, there was no critical hit. What it did do was permit the attacker to hit an AC that was up to 5 AC lower. Then, what would normally be allowed on a roll of 20. That also ment that up to +5 "to hit" on an attack where a 20 is rolled was negated. Since, those plusses to hit were irrelevant. If an attacker had a +6 or more "to hit." Then, rolling a 20 would be supplanted by the "to hit" modifier.

Save vs Bladder or you really need to find a latrine.

I have my volume at maximum, and VoiceMeeter boosting it another 17 decibels. I could barely discern some of the words you said because the volume is soooooo low in your mix.

I am always interested in ways to simplify systems without sacrificing flexibility. One scale of difficulty is elegant and I recommend it for ease of play. Other details depend on the dice system, for d20 a "roll lower than" system is pretty good and requires no reworking of abilities (Symbaroum and 2d20 systems use this as well). We have one player who really enjoys rolling high numbers for success, so we made a "roll higher than" system with a lot of adjustment, which I am not sure was the best choice and departs completely from the D&D systems.

Great concepts - I prefer choices or access to weapons and armor be meaningful! I consider armor/shields cover you wear/carry. Attackers may miss entirely, hit an uncovered spot, or the cover blocks damage according to its structure and material. Making armor and shields cover means you can combine it with cover rules, which retains some of the simplicity while honoring the AC and DR aspects of the armor.

Personally, I'd probably make the Shield the main thing to block/deflect blows. Something like a Gambeson is better than nothing, but its main thing is to protect against hits that get through, so I would be more inclined to give it higher DA and lower AC, if I were to adopt this system. I think Hollow World Nithian Empire had a similar-ish system. And Gazetteer Orcs of Thar. As for the weapons, I would put Longsword in to Martial Weapons as a two-handed weapon. It was not meant to be used in one hand, and would be a huge pain to do so, even if you were strong. You'd be better off with a normal one-handed sword designed to be used in one hand. This also would give a Longsword a niche where it belongs: two-handed sword that doesn't require as specialized training as those huge Greatswords. After all, it was a very common knightly (backup) weapon in the battlefield in the 15th century. I also would cut down the number of polearms even more than you do. For example, merging Lucern Hammer and Poleaxe would not lose much in the grand scheme of things. Bill and Halberd can be merged, same with Bardiche and Glaive, and given that the Halberd is superior in all ways, might just as well drop those two. Fauchard is either a glaive or a bill, so can be dropped, too. Partisan and a longspear are alike enough that might as well merge those two, as well. I seriously doubt that the wings in the partisan's blade are THAT useful in a disarm, too. Sure, better than nothing, but a sai it is not. (In our BECMI campaign, we have just one polearm, called Polearm. :P )

I see what you're saying about moving the goals, but there is also the factor that (for example) locks that are impossible for you to pick at one stage because the DC is not even possible for you, becomes possible later, and locks that are currently difficult but possible become easier, so there is a progression. You can insert any other type of skill challenge in place of lock picking.

🥳❤️👍🏿

What I ended up doing in our BECMI campaign, I made the skill formula into: Skill value = (Ability + Level)/2 + 3 per extra skill slot By contrast, the Rules Cyclopedia skill value = Ability + 1 per extra skill slot, which meant that the 1st level character had the same chance to succeed as a 36th level one, assuming the ability score and the used skill slots were the same, which irked me somewhat. Spending more than one skill slot was also a waste, since it was just a 5% improvement. Also, having potentially a 90% chance of succeeding in a skill roll isn't really tense. Obviously, +5 for easy or even +10 for very easy modifiers help at the low levels. I also consolidated the skills to about 20, although there were several optional specializations, and also 'professional skills' that were bundling a few different skill specializations under a single skill. For example, a captain of a ship might have 'Captain Skill' which bundles Willpower (Leadership), Piloting (Ships), and Navigation (Sea). So instead of having to take three general skills, the would-be captain can take just one skill that is tailored to exactly what he is going to be doing. Oh, I should emphasize that the RC skill slots are 4+INT modifier, and then 1 more skill slot every additional 4 levels (so 5th, 9th etc), so they are much rarer than the skill points in Pathfinder. Thus, each skill slot is a major investment. I gave each PC one 'background skill' for free, essentially 'what would you be doing if you weren't an adventurer'? Different character classes got some skills for free, too, particularly the Thief, since the Thief Abilities were repackaged into half a dozen different skills.

I have to admit that with that name, I expected more of a Bard with high CHA and performance skills. :P

Oh, as for the Grand Escape, that was obviously Iron Ring slavers. I used it as a 'failed outcome' as the PCs (my wife's and my brother's) lost against Elwyn in the Sanctuary adventure. I ended up redoing that map too, instead making it more of a stockade with a wooden tower keep, with the PCs locked in the basement. They managed to sneak out easily enough, as they noped straight out of going to the upper levels, after subduing some of the lower level guards to get out. Obviously, I put that fort near Luln, where they went to warn the townsfolk of the imminent attack, having gleaned that intel during their escape.

As for other connections, I am in the habit of making the Chaotic Cleric in Castle Caldwell into Elwyn. In one campaign, she needed the PCs help to talk to that statue, which I made into a more oracular one. She needed to know where the Sanctuary was, and after swearing the PCs to silence in return for healing them, she had them ask the statue about that. Clunky, I know, but it was a quick kitchen-table game with my wife and my brother. Using a modified KAP system, too, instead of BECMI. :P In the other, she played a big role in the Skarda's mansion, and her motivations were... complicated. In this ongoing campaign, she is a follower of Loki (or whatever Loki is called in Hule), corrupted from Petra's worship, having stolen the Bell of Petra from her monastery at the outskirts of Krakatos. She also corrupted some novices to escape with her. These novices will play the role of the evil clerics in the other B modules, while I am still trying to decide if I will put the Sanctuary somewhere in Karameikos, or if I will tie it to the the X modules going after the Master of Hule. Depends which way my players wish to head out, I guess.

(I missed this yesterday and hence I am late in commenting. Subscribed and notifications on so that it won't happen again!) Very nice again. Some comments: 1.) Hobgoblins: I would not increase the normal HD of the hobgoblins. Instead, I'd increase the numbers a bit (3 lizard men -> 4 hobgoblins, type of thing), as well as make the Hobgoblin leader into a mini-boss (maybe HD 3 or 4 and +1 or even +2 to damage), while his bodyguards would have max hp (so 9 each). Of course, depends a bit what level the characters are, if they have already done Castle Caldwell. I'd also boost the goblin leader a bit. 2.) How to find the lair: Another commenter brought this up. Easy enough to write that a local huntsman saw the kidnappers from a distance, and noted in which cave/cliffside they went, and is there to guide the players up to the cavemouth thanks to the reward Caldwell is paying him. 3.) Balcony: I am a bit less enamored with this, since why bother making it a secret room when it is so blindingly obvious? Not to mention most PCs would just climb the balcony anyway. If assuming that this would be some lost temple, I would be tempted to change it into a big statue with a secret room in the head, accessible from the backroom, but let the players see a flash of light in the statue's eyes as Oliver opens the door from the head to the lit backroom as he leaves, before closing the door behind him. Alternatively, I'd keep the balcony but change the bedroom secret door into a normal door. I mean, why bother hiding it at that point? 4.) Hidden passage between goblin quarters and entrance: This passage makes little sense given the layout. However, if you block the lower entrances out of the hall, now it would be a way to both reinforce the entrance quickly, as well as to outflank the enemies in the hall, blocking their escape. I might make this secret door easier to find, the lazy goblins have been using it to get to their guardpost rather than going around the hall, and there might be some dirt/mud/scratchmarks...