Monday, July 18, 2011

2nd Edition: The Game You have (probably) never played, part 13

Chapter 11: Encounters
   Nothing in this chapter is really new or optional. The DMG starts off with planned/triggered encounters, then moves into random encounters and how to set up Random Encounter Tables. There's also a nice little chart telling you when to check for a wilderness encounter.
   In both the PHB and DMG, the Encounters chapter is where surprise is covered. The DMG includes a chart of modifiers and encounter distance. In addition to this, there's the infamous Encounter Reactions table that many DMs hate.

Chapter 12: NPCs
  This chapter is just a basic description of what the different types of NPCs(hirelings and henchmen mostly) are and whats expected of both the NPCs and the PCs when using them. Despite the advice against having magic shops, this chapter also includes an NPC spell cost chart. Resurrection isn't even on the list, and Raise dead requires not only payment or service but ALSO requires the character to be raised to be of similar faith and belief.

Chapter 13: Vision and Light
  This chapter gives out a lot of fairly useful information. Where Chapter 11 may give you encounter distance, this chapter lets you know the various visibility ranges(in the PHB). It also gives a chart that gives the radius and duration of the various light sources characters have a tendency to use.
  One big note in this chapter. The fight over what Infravision IS has plagued the various editions of D&D that have used it almost from the beginning. The Core 2nd edition definition of Infravision is that it's basically d20's magical darkvision.  It's not heat vision.

Tomorrow: Time and Movement, and you thought you knew the rules for running!

2 comments:

  1. Really been enjoying this series. I can't remember ever using the Reaction Table--could you maybe quickly summarize why it's such a target of enmity?

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  2. Thank you very much, making a post about the enmity for you so it's not hidden and buried forever in a comments chain.

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