“ <b>THE COVEN</b>
When the characters approach a clearing in the forest, they will see 4 ogres who are guarding, and preventing from escape, 4 human males, and 3 human females. The ogres will see the party and leap to attack. The females will scream 'OUR SAVIORS!!' and run screaming straight across the currently forming battlefield, in between ogres and party members, to hide behind the rearmost party members. They will be safe there. The males will try to skirt the battle to the north side to join the women.
To the south, giants will be hiding in the thick underbrush until the party has engaged the ogres and then attack the most opportune target EXCEPT the ones that the females are next to.
It should be noted that the female commoners are not female commoners at all, nor are the male commoners actually male commoners. The female commoners are the hags, who have polymorphed themselves as the commoners in their stewpot to escape detection. The males skirting the battle are actually MORE ogres, the hags were in the process of polymorphing ALL the ogres into regular humans for ambush purposes. The REAL commoners are already dead, having found their way into the coven's cauldron for dinner.
The hags (the women) will position themselves near to any spellcasters in the rear first, and then near anyone else in the back of the fight. The ogres (the men) will wait until the hags shift form, and then attack first the rear folks, then shift into the melee.
It is possible that the characters, as they approach the ogres, will notice the giants in the bush, and be able to warn the others of the ambush.
<i>GAME NOTES</i>: If you sell the screaming women correctly, they will not even be suspected until it is too late. Therein lay the problem. This encounter is ESPECIALLY deadly to the rear eschelon of the party. It is entirely possible that the hags will finish off half the party before they even realize they have been duped. Caution is required if the game master wishes to avoid a TPK(total party kill).”
“ I've never been happy that almost every player picks long sword and greatsword, so I made a special chart to make them more unique. I use this in OSR and Pathfinder. I use 20 only as crit threat(Pathfinder speak),double damage.
dagger +2 to hit, D4 damage
short sword +1 to hit, d6 damage
long sword, threatens critical(see below) on 19-20, D8 damage
battle axe, ignores one Damage resistance( some monsters have resistance to damage in the form of knocks damage off before you do actual damage)(scale at higher L?) D8 damage
Mace, 0ne damage on a miss(Scalable?) D8 damage (Ok , should prob only be vrs Metal armor but not looking for that kind of complexity)
spear D6 damage, d12 damage vrs large creatures
great sword 2d6 damage
military pick d6 damage, x3 damage( triple dice damage) on crit(20)
great axe D10 damage, +3 to confirm crit ( in pathfinder if you roll a 20 you then reroll your attack and if you hit the targets AC, you get a critical multiplier)
quarterstaff(2 handed) D6 damage +1 bonus to AC (to the better)
Etc.”
“ The thieves guild of Mysantia has paid the stone masons guild to put a particular pattern into the stone of new multi story construction.
A small bonus to the climb skill is the result..”
