Building Bhakashal - Travel, Randomness and Sandbox Play

Art by Wrsaith at Deviantart

https://www.deviantart.com/wrsaith/art/Wrsaith-A-Shen-Lung-323518183

After today’s session I felt compelled to post. It occurred to me as we finished tonight’s game, that a recap of the last three sessions of the Tuesday game would give someone a real sense of how the game plays at our table. If you ever wanted to get a taste of what Bhakashal has to offer as a setting and in terms of recommended playstyle, this should do it.

The party finished a job a few weeks ago, and went to their patron, Quin Faal, with the item they had retrieved for him. I checked in beforehand asking the players if they wanted to continue with homebrew content or do a module. We play until the end of June, so if they wanted anything like that, it would have to be soon. We spent some time discussing it, and they wanted to do something “gonzo” (I swear I didn’t tell them the word), with sci-fi and fantasy. 

Barrier Peaks it is! They are a bit low level for it, most of them are 8th level, and I let them know that, but they are a confident bunch. So I took out the map, in my Tuesday game Bhakashal is located in the Pelissio swamp, and the party was headed to Barrier Peaks

That was an 8 day journey by sea, and a 3-4 day journey by river. They commissioned a ship, they have enough wealth now that they can charter a crewed ship for just themselves, and off they went. I roll for weather each day, and day 1 started out overcast and windy, it drove them Westward at a good pace. 

Every day of travel I ask the players if they want to do any RP / actions or just roll for encounters. 

Day 1 they asked for just the encounter rolls, and the evening saw a ship of pilgrims pass by at twilight. They approached the ship and I rolled to see what the pilgrims would do, and they invited the party to pray with them. The party was down with that, so they tethered ships and transferred to the pilgrims ship, they were all Malu (fish folk), followers of Sithasial, god of the Oceans and Waters. 

The party was directed to stomp the deck of the ship in rhythm as the pilgrims threw a severed manticore’s head into a pool of barracuda, chanting their prayers, deep and rough up there in the air, while the barracuda devoured it. The pilgrims gave the party a charm, depicting a silver bodied figure with a squid head, carrying daggers in each hand (Sithasial). This charm marks them as prayer bonded to the pilgrims, and will bring them goodwill at nearby ports.  

Day 2 came up with a storm to start,  they asked for RP, they were stuck inside with the storm and gambled with the crew, mostly saan (lizard folk) and a bawdy, mountain of a Chitin (insect man) named Goramuna the Brazen. They started shooting dice. I rolled an encounter reaction roll after a few rounds of high / low, and it came up positive, so they asked the party if they wanted to wrestle. Every member of the crew had tried to wrestle Goramuna down while the crew bet on it, but he was the reigning champion. They asked the party to try. The party fighter took him on, and lost, as Goramuna has 4 arms and mad grappling bonuses, but it was good fun. And as the party lost some of their gold to the crew, who bet against them, spirits were high. I give a +5% morale and loyalty bonus if the PCs do stuff like this with the crew. 

There were no rolled encounters on day 2. If one had been rolled while they were doing the RP, then it would happen in the middle of it. 

Day 3 weather calmed down and winds were low, so the crew hit the oars for stretches of a few hours over the day. The party fighter and the two priests joined in the oaring too. The Bard took an oar and sang songs to boost morale and get a rhythm going. 

During one stirring rendition of “Off With Their Heads Said the Giant-Slayers” in mid-afternoon under the blazing sun they rolled an encounter with a merchant ship. The ship was uninterested in them, and the party decided to just let them pass.

Day 4 saw rain and high winds all day, then just winds through the night. The party asked for RP and spent the evening having dinner with the captain and discussing recruiting some of the crew for the upriver travel ahead. They wanted Goramuna to come along, and even offered to take on his wages. They discussed return times, and asked if any crewmembers heard rumours about Barrier Peaks, none had.

At night time, at 3 am to be precise, they rolled a random encounter with sea serpents. The party Bard was on watch, along with one of the priests and a small cadre of crew. Fortunately the serpents did not get surprise, the party and crew got first shots with missiles and spell, targeting and slaying one serpent outright, and the party bard played, successfully charming one into attacking the remaining others, this led to a failed morale roll and they left.

The party demurred on following them back to their lair, as they were big, dangerous brutes and only one had been damaged. They headed on.

Day 5 the weather was sunny and windy, and the party phantasmist (illusionist) asked to spend time sketching (all phantasmists in Bhakashal are artists as well) the crew, giving away the portraits when done. He even drew some caricatures of the boatswain, whom everyone disliked, which got them some deck cred.

There were no encounters on day 5.

On day 6 they didn’t ask for any RP, and they rolled an encounter with 8 kopoacinth (marine gargoyles) in the evening. These things are beasts, they propel themselves through the water with huge, powerful wings, in the air they are super fast, and they do terrific damage. 

They manage to take down a few of them and the rest flee. Then they have to decide what to do about it, let them go or follow them back to their lair.

Remember, they are headed to Barrier Peaks, so they could just go ahead. But there is the possibility of loot… We broke last session with the creatures fleeing. 

They spent the week planning, and returned today ready to rumble. 

The party has a Malu (fish-person) phantasmist so it just so happened they could chase the creatures, they were faster, but the phantasmist could follow from a distance. In order to reduce the odds of being noticed, the phantasmist decided to follow on his own, and the rest of the party waited behind on the ship. This is the classic, “don’t split the party” situation, and they decided that sending one PC would be less likely to draw attention.

Bold move.

The phantasmist swam after the creatures, and maintained distance. We rolled to see if he was noticed, I treated it as a surprise roll with a bonus (as the kopoacinth wouldn’t expect the sailors to follow them into the water), 3 in 6 odds, and he was successful, managing to follow unnoticed. 

When they got to their lair and entered he decided to wait outside. The plan was that they would eventually leave to hunt, and he would sneak into the lair while they were gone. I rolled and the kopoacinth waited 12 hours before leaving. I asked the phantasmist every hour if he wanted to leave, and every hour I rolled a d12 to see if a wandering monster came by. The phantasmist had been up at this point for a full day plus 12 hours, so he had to roll a save to avoid falling asleep!

He toughed it out and watched them leave, with no random encounters in the mean time. He then swam up to the cave and entered. Unfortunately there were three giant eels in the cave, two asleep, one awake. Surprise was rolled and the phantasmist was surprised. Honestly, I thought that would be the end. The phantasmist only has 21 hp, and a bite from the eel does 3-18. I rolled to hit… and missed, the eel shot past the phantasmist. Now the phantasmist decided to cast Fear as the other eels woke and also came towards him.

I checked the DMG and Fear can be cast underwater, so it was all down to who went first. The three eels charged the PC, the phantasmist cast fear, it captured the three eels, but only one failed its save and fled. The two remaining eels shot forward, both attacked… and missed. I was rolling terribly today, so the PC got a break. He cast Fear again, this time one failed and fled. When that happened, a morale roll had the last one fleeing.

So now he was alone in the cave. But he knew the fear would only last for so long, and the kopoacinth would eventually return, so he got to work fast. He had a 1 in 6 chance per turn of locating the cache of treasure.

First turn, nothing, then he stopped. He was concerned that the eels would return when the Fear spell wore off, so he swam out of the cave and hid nearby, waiting to see if the eels would return. When he spotted them in the distance, he cast an illusion of the cave entrance covered with rubble as if caved in. The eels approached and I decided to give them a saving throw to see if they would investigate the “rubble” or swim away. They failed and left. Now the phantasmist went back to searching. He didn’t know if the eels would return or when the kopoacinth would come back from the hunt. 

The tension was delicious, alone he was very vulnerable, but he didn’t want to give up the chance for loot! 

Decisions, decisions… 

He went back to searching. One turn, nothing, two turns, nothing. They were squirming, waiting to see if any monsters would show up.

The next turn he scores a 1 on a d6, and finds the cache of treasure! We roll live for loot, treasure type C, they rolled 4000 gp, a 1000 gp bracelet, a 500 gp ruby and a 50 gp sapphire. Then they got to the magic column, they had a 10% chance. They rolled an 8! Much screaming and jumping around. If you roll on the tables RAW, magic items are comparatively rare, they have rolled plenty of empty caches or caches with coin/gems only, so when magic comes up, it’s a BIG DEAL.

They found a potion bottle and a sealed canister. Now the player had a decision to make, they couldn’t take the gold (4000 gp is about 400 lbs of coin in AD&D), so he reluctantly left that behind, taking the bracelet, the gems, the potion bottle and the canister

Then he booked it back to the ship before the kopoacinth showed up. He was gone for around 13 hours, so I rolled for two possible encounters on the ship while they waited, but nothing came up. Once on the ship they tested the potion (potion of treasure finding - IRONIC) and he opened the canister to find 12 +2 arrows. They were super stoked about that, dividing them up between two party members with bows. There was much rejoicing, they LOVE IT when they find loot, and they were extremely excited about finding what they did, even though the items were temporary. I have to remind myself that players will love things that you might not think are a big deal. Yet another reason to roll for treasure rather than picking it.

They continued on to Port Torvin and transferred to a riverboat, heading up the Javan river towards Barrier Peaks. On day 1 there were no encounters and they were content with no RP, but on day 2 they rolled an encounter in the evening with a Shen Lung dragon. There was no surprise indicated, and the party saw the Shen Lung’s head emerge from the water up ahead of them. They have encountered wingless dragons before, and knew they were intelligent, so they decided to parley with it.

They hailed the creature, and it demanded to know what they were doing on “my river”. They indicated they were heading to the mountains for adventure.

Short pause, then the dragon asked “if they were after its treasure”. It was a tense moment.

The party Jugyi (turtle man) bard told the dragon they didn’t want its loot, as they were heading to the mountains to slay terrible, stupid giants. However, he offered to play the dragon a song as “payment” to pass unmolested. The bard played a song on his lute, retelling the tale of the attack of the sea serpents from several days ago “The Balladeer of the Brine”, including the grizzly death of sailors swallowed whole, and how he charmed the mighty sea snakes into leaving them alone rather than harming them. I rolled an encounter reaction roll, and with the bard’s CHA modifier it came up strongly positive, so the dragon was entertained, and agreed to let them pass. Since it was a strong positive result, the dragon also gave them information about the threats up river, I ruled that this shifted their random encounter die for each segment of the day up one, so the d6 became a d8, the d8 a d10, etc. 

They headed forward and eventually the river entered the Oytwood Forest. In the evening they rolled an encounter with 8 giant water spiders, all of which dropped on them from overhanging trees, that’s where we stopped. The spiders got surprise, and they dropped from above, which I treat as a charge, landing on party members before any of them could respond. We’ll start there next week.

Observations

So many things I see people saying on Twitter fade like the evening sun when I sit at the table and play.

First, the “swingy” and binary nature of dice rolls in AD&D are often cited as a bug, “there is too much variation”, and “it’s all or nothing”. 

Here we see that these things are features, not bugs. The party phantasmist tracked the kopoacinth undetected with a successful surprise roll. He was surprised by the eel, but it missed him with a failed “to hit”. He rolled low enough initiative to get a fear spell out, but two of the eels saved against it. They both missed him again with “all or nothing” to hit rolls, and one of them saved against fear, but the loss of more than half of the eels triggered an “all or nothing” morale roll, which led to the last eel fleeing.

The search for the loot was excruciatingly slow and full of tension, each failed roll produced screams of terror. All “pass/fail” rolls. Then finally loot was found, but not all could be retrieved. And rolls were made for the kopoacinth to show up. There were 8 of them (4 more were in the lair), they would have slaughtered the lone phantasmist if found.

The encounter with the dragon showed the awesomeness of encounter reactions, the PCs gained information, a form of currency that pays rich dividends in the game, and they talked (and sang) their way out of danger. A bad roll there could have went south fast. They met pilgrims and got a taste of some of the culture of the game world. They gambled and wrestled and inspired the crew. The players understand the importance of courting factions and gaining loyalty bonuses, they know the social game is as important as the stats in a sandbox setting, so they put in the time. 

And I get to role play over the top chitin (insect-person) wrestlers. 

And for all the talk of fail forward mechanics, consecutive pass / fail rolls do not feel limiting, they propel the game forward in ways I could not foresee. How many times would a referee that “tweaks” the dice have been tempted to do so in all of these cases. Note the days when there were no encounters. Some refs would force an encounter as you should have one every day. Some ref’s would have tried to give “everyone a chance to shine” rather than letting the phantasmist go off on his own, “don’t split the party”.

Nonsense.

That loot raid was absolute madness at our table, even though only one PC was “acting”, every player was engaged, shouting advice, hooting and hollering. They planned it for a week outside of the game for heaven’s sake.

Just let it happen, that’s all you have to do.

There were near deaths several times, they lost two crewmembers too, and had a service for them before docking. I could have placed treasure, but rolling it was far more exciting, and they ended up with treasure they ADORED. Finding a Treasure Finding potion after excruciating rounds spent NOT FINDING TREASURE was perfect. That was rolled. When you place something that on the nose players just roll their eyes, when it comes up on it’s own with a random roll IT’S MAGIC, and the players are blown away.

The magic arrows produced squeals of joy from the party archers, even though they understand that they aren’t permanent magic items. That was rolled. All the loot was randomly rolled. And they felt like it was totally worth the risk. 

The random encounter tables produce potential conflict and potential alliances, sources of information and sometimes even treasure. It is not an “endless series of fights”, though fights are of course a risk. It’s not loot, loot and more loot, though sometimes there is loot to be found. I run the AD&D treasure tables as written and the actual amount of magic given out is comparatively small, and randomizing it makes it exciting. Rolling on the treasure tables is one of the most enjoyable experiences my players have. 

And all of this is ON THE WAY to the dungeon. The players take the time to experience the game world, they gather intel, form alliances, find loot, and build their power while heading to the next task. They aren’t passing through the game world, they are diving into it, and wrestling out what they need to succeed. 

The journey is the destination, it isn’t just a space between points, the PCs LIVE THROUGH THE SPACE, this is how they engage with the world, this is how it comes to life. When they arrive in Barrier Peaks they will have earned their arrival at the gates of the unknown, and the distance will feel real.

NONE of this involved backstories, “making each player shine”, ensuring there were a certain number of encounters per day, working to keep everything “dramatic”, or connecting the events to some larger plot or story. None of it. Instead, the PCs go out into the world, do stuff, and the world pushes back. 

Exploratory play and emergent story.

Adventure awaits.

Building Bhakashal - Bardic Inspiration

Image by Jesper Ejsing

Inspired by a thread on bards on Twitter.

I had a 1e AD&D bard in my game, one of my after school kids played one for 2 years. Total of 160 hours at the table got him through his fighter and thief levels and to 6th as a bard before he stopped. A few observations based on that experience, and the experience of a player in my current game.

I find that the bardic abilities in 1e AD&D fall short in a predictably 1e way. 

First, charm requires a roll to “cast”, and the target still gets a save. Dual rolls like this reduce your odds of success precipitously. 

So BTB bardic charm is unreliable until high levels.

However, there are caveats.

First, if you use it against low level monsters, then when the bard makes their percentage roll it has a much better chance of working, and the duration is permanent with checks every week. For up to 2 HD monsters it’s only a 5% chance of breaking free of the charm per week. 

So that means that the bard has good odds of charming a group of 2-8 low level monsters and having them by their side for 1 week minimum, and then they only have a 5% chance of breaking the charm, so it could last longer. That’s pretty helpful. 

That “1 week minimum” depends on how you read the spell entry, for 0-2 HD creatures, it says there is a 5% chance per week of the monster breaking the charm, I read that as you get 1 week if it fails the initial save, then at the end of that week and subsequent weeks you roll to see if it breaks the charm.

Also, bardic charm can be used on 0-levels to get favorable treatment, information, that sort of thing. It has so many non-combat uses, when the party bard was on a ship for an extended voyage, bardic inspiration helped with morale when pirates were spotted and bardic charm helped at various ports along the way, as well as with at least one sea monster. Just one example, the party was slowly docking at a new city so the bard took out his instrument and played to the approaching officials, he made his roll, they failed their saves, and he managed to get their docking fees dropped, a choice berth and recommended lodgings. 

It’s also role playing gold, play for the bandit leader, cast charm, if successful, make new friends. Who doesn’t want some music after all, even without the charm magic, adventurers, caravan merchants and soldiers all love music, it’s a great icebreaker.

Against high HD monsters the charm was less impactful because the saving throw is easier to make, but when it worked, the bard had a charmed monster for a week guaranteed, if they ended the enchantment before the week was up there was little risk. A monster in your service for a week is pretty helpful on an adventure. The aforementioned bard at one point managed to charm a fire giant, boy did that make the next few sessions super fun. A charmed mid to high HD monster can also make a great mount. 

Lots of AD&D is like this, low thief percentages for example, bad odds but high reward if it works. Most DMs I know who house rule, house rule these odds. It’s a place where I think Gygax was wrong, if the odds are too long it’s no fun, not for a primary class ability. A low level thief hardly ever makes their rolls, and a low level bard will only be able to charm the weakest of monsters and humanoids if at all. This is why I would recommend augmenting the bardic charm odds, I added the bard’s CHA bonus to the roll. It wasn’t a slam dunk or anything, but it helped.

Same comments could be made about legend lore, its scope is restricted, and the odds are terrible, but if they come up, it could be a crucial advantage for the party. 

This is a pattern in 1e with exceptional abilities for many classes, low odds but big payoff when they hit.

Outside of that though, the bard has a lot going on. 

First off, bards get Druid spells, and lots of them. The 6th level bard in our group had 3 1st level and 3 2nd level spells per day.

Spells like Pass without a Trace, Entangle and Speak with Animals, combined with thief stealth and a fighter punch make a bard in the outdoors quite formidable. So the bard became valuable for wilderness adventures too.

This is yet another area where referee judgment matters. In 1e Charm Person or Mammal is required to charm an animal, bards get Charm Person or Charm Monster with their bardic charm, so technically they can’t charm animals with their music. But they can cast Animal Friendship. That strikes me as an error, and we let bards charm animals as well.

Outside of the druid spells, the main advantages I saw were related to stats and HP. 

Bards need crazy stats, so if you qualify, you get a range of bonuses

Due to stats: 

Minimum +1 WIS save bonus

Min  +1 on every HD

Min -1 to AC

Min +15% loyalty/reaction

AD&D is a game of accumulating bonuses, so this stuff matters long term. And those are all minimums.

But the biggest contributor to bard durability is the XP system and it’s interface with the dual classing system. A bard is essentially a tri-class PC.

AD&D’s XP system means that a 7th/6th/6th (Fighter /Thief /Bard) requires 115,000 XP, that’s the XP range of a… 7th level fighter. In other words, while the 7th level fighter is accumulating XP to get to eighth level, our man of music burns through 6 levels of thief and 6 levels of bard!

That’s a quirk of the XP system, because XP requirements more or less double per level in most cases, the time it takes a single class fighter to get from 7th to 8th is long enough for another lower level PC to level up a lot. The only caveat is the party has to be patient and return to town repeatedly for training to allow the bard to level up. 

But back to our 7/6/6 bard and 7th level fighter. The bard hits as well as the 7th level fighter, and that fighter has an average of [d10 average = 5.5 x 7]38.5 HP, max of 70. 

Remembering that a bard has a minimum of 15 CON…

Fighter 15 CON - Average [6.5 x 7] 45.5 HP - Max HP: 77 

Bard 15 CON - Average fighter [6.5 x 7] 45.5 HP + Average Thief [4.5 x 6] 27 + Average Bard [4.5 x 6] 27 = Average 99.5 HP - Max HP [77 + 42 + 42]: 161 

Fighter 18 CON - Average [9.5 x 7] 66.5 HP - Max HP: 98 

Bard 18 CON - Average fighter [9.5 x 7] 66.5 HP + average thief [5.5 x 6] 33 + average bard [5.5 x 6] 33 =  132.5 HP - Max HP: 98 + 48 + 48 = 194

The bard more than doubles HP compared to the fighter in every category, and a bard with the 15 CON minimum outperforms the 18 CON fighter in HP. 

Now, HP aren’t everything, lots of things bypass HP, but their saves are comparable, as are attack odds and number of attacks, and the bard gets a mountain of extra HP. Bards are typically not tanks, to maintain access to their thieving and druid spell abilities they wear leather armor, so from an AC perspective, they are significantly worse off, even with a DEX bonus. 

Still, they are still pretty awesome at 7th level of ability, 3/2 attacks per round and 7 attacks per round against 0-levels. That’s not too shabby. 

And HP make a difference. When our bard did get into melee he was hard to beat as he could outlast his opponents in almost every case. Yes, his AC was terrible, but he hit as well as a 7th level fighter, and he could take far more damage. So he was never the point guy, but he was often the finisher.

This actually created some problems for me as I had to continually narrate how this bard, who had sustained much more numerical damage than his peers, was somehow still alive. So even when he got hit it was narrated as a near miss, luck, a light blow, a blow he rolled out of, that sort of thing.

Returning to our example, when that 115,000 XP fighter hits 9th level (135,000 xp later), due to the vagaries of the XP tables, the bard will be 11th level, with a min of 22.5 extra HP, and casting 3/3/3/2 druid spells per day. Since players wait so long to be bards, I guess Gygax softened the requirements for progress once they became bards. That means they level fairly quickly.

I’m sorry, fighters are awesome and all, but a 7th level fighter with 3/3/3/2 druid spells per day, animal companions and a bag of HP against a straight up 9th level fighter is not a cake walk for either. Not to mention that our 7/6/6 bard also had 9 weapon proficiency slots. That means they can be proficient in many of the major weapons that appear on the magic weapon table. That’s a nice bennie for the class and increases their odds of having magic weapons. 

Really the only martial downsides are the AC and lack of progress in two original classes after switching to bard.

Our bard was the face of the party, he negotiated a lot for them, used his charm on groups where needed to smooth things over, and otherwise operated as a thief with spellcasting abilities. The bard was NOT the party tank after he switched to thief, I think that contributed to his success. If you play a bard like a straight up fighter they won’t be as useful. When he HAD to fight he represented, and his ridiculous HP buffered him to the point where regular melee combat was not a challenge in many cases. But the other fighters, rangers etc. in the party took point.

Things like poison and paralysis and such were a problem, high HP doesn’t help with that, but they were a problem for everyone else in the party too, so that didn’t matter much comparatively. He was the party leader and did as well as the single class PCs. 

I think the efficacy of any given PC class is enmeshed in the campaign setting, play style, and the match between player and PC. 

Our setting is heavily factionalized and navigating those factions is crucial to success. This means that intelligence gathering and alliance formation are absolutely key. This made a high charisma bard with magical charm and legend lore a game changer. Also, our players meet a significant number of 0-level opponents, bandits, soldiers, mercenaries, that sort of business. A high charisma bard with inspiration, charm magic that works well on 0-levels, and 7 attacks per round against 0-level opponents is going to be a big benefit to the party.

From a play style perspective, we use reaction rolls a lot, and the players have learned to eschew combat except where necessary. If you are playing in a game where combat is front and center, the mechanical differences between the bard and other classes are magnified, with our playstyle, they matter, but not as much. The fact that the bard is good at many things but not really good at one thing is actually an advantage. Sandboxes require flexibility. 

And of course the player matters too, in my case the player was outgoing and talkative outside of the game, and it translated well to playing a character like this. He wanted to be on point negotiating and inspiring the troops, so he leaned into it. But he also leaned back from being a front line tank, choosing stealth, surprise and spell casting as his primary contributions to combat.

Good fun.

And as mentioned above, how you read the rules and how you house rule will make a difference, I explicitly bumped the odds of bardic charm (by adding the CHA bonus) and allowed them to charm animals as well (when I feel the text might not support that reading). I also came up with rules for what happens when a charm breaks, and whether or not a target realizes it when a charm attempt fails. These things are NOT specified in the rules, and this can make a significant difference to the utility of the class. Finally, I allowed bard-to-be PCs to advance more than 1 level at leveling if the XP were sufficient, Gygax restricts you to one level at a time, no matter what the XP. Otherwise the bard was constantly needing training while his compatriots were working to level up, and it became unwieldy. If you run XP BTB on this I think the bard would be untenable as they would be completely out of sync with the rest of the party on leveling.

Finally, I’m not going to discuss the textual dissonance in the descriptions of the bard’s charm magic in the PHB here, as this has been pretty long already, but it is a healthy reminder that Gygax is a lot of work to decode. Worth the effort for sure, but it is still effort!

Building Bhakashal - Picaresque Gaming

Image by Don Maitz

So every once in a while I see a post on social media that goes something like this, “If you don’t want the players to get stuck in the dungeon by a puzzle they can’t solve, don’t make solving the puzzle necessary to moving forward”.

This is really just a variation on, “balance your game”, because if you put in a puzzle they can’t solve and solving that puzzle is needed to move forward, they can’t move forward. They have met a challenge they cannot overcome. Similar to a high level monster they can’t damage due to magical resistance, a puzzle they cannot solve is an example of an “unbalanced” encounter, as they are unable to defeat it. 

That’s not how Bhakashal does it though, encounter balance is handled in that most things in the game are randomized through tables, so there has been some engineering in the tables to produce reasonable results. I thought I would work through an example to show what I mean.

Say I am designing an adventure for a group of PCs. In Bhakashal this is often done by going to the patron goals table and rolling up something, and then the patron sends the PCs on the task. So let’s say I roll up an adventure where the party has to retrieve a magic item from a NPC warlock who has a lair in the marshes. The patron will summon the NPC warlock to her tower for a meeting under false pretenses, while he is away from his lair, the party is to break in and steal the item.

To do this I would roll up the NPC warlock, and randomly generate spells and magic items for them. With those in hand, I would design the warlock’s lair to make it appropriate for someone of the NPCs level with that particular loadout of items and spells.

So for example, if the warlock has a Charm Monster spell, they would very likely have a charmed monster or monsters in their lair or with them. If they have spells with permanent effects they might be used in the lair as well.  You can of course put in things that have nothing to do with their spells and items, they can make traps, puzzles, magic fonts, etc. or just have them as acquisitions in their lair that have no connection to their particular set of spells and items. 

Importantly, most of this is randomized, and NONE of this is done with the party in mind, except in the sense that the patron wouldn’t send them up against something they would  have no hope of defeating. I don’t calibrate the encounters by looking at what the PCs can do and either enabling it or nerfing it. Both are undesirable to me, instead I design challenges, with no expectations based on the party. I do this to be fair, I’m not giving them advantage or disadvantage, I’m designing the environment.

I’ll take a random NPC warlock that I rolled up a while back as an example, let’s say this was the NPC warlock with the lair in the marshes

Jimnir the Garnet - 9th level Human Fabricus Magus Warlock - House Ghan [CN] MV:12”/9” - AC: 7 - HP: 23

 

Ability Scores S -10 [+1]  I -16 [+3] W -15 [+3] D -10 [+1] C -14 [+2]  C -15 [+3]15%

Deity -  Xoam – Wealth, Happiness, Luck, Healing  Languages - Human, Saan, Togmu, Merpeople & Ogre Magi  Appearance - Black hair with red tips, 6’ tall Skills/Abilities - Sailor, Shipwright, Gambler [+3], infravision - +4 on saves against brightness related blindness - take an action and reduce surprise to 1 in 6 - Permanent Protection from Normal Missiles

Saving Throws Paralyzation [+10] Poison [+10] Death Magic [+12] Petrification [+12] Polymorph [+13] Breath Weapon [+11] Spell [+13]

Weapons - Class Attack Bonus: +3 Broadsword [+6/+3] 2-8/2-7, WS: 3, WvrsAC: [+2L/+3N], Critical: Cleave

Equipment: Backpack, 50’ rope, (3) iron spikes, flint and steel, (3) torches, waterskin, iron rations, blanket, bag of salt, bag of marbles, belladonna, wolfsbane, flask of vinegar, chalk, bag of flour Encumbrance: +340gp Material components - bag and candle, silver dagger

Wealth: 900gp, 900gp ruby, 400 gp silver bracelet, 500 gp ring, 300 gp emerald, 400 gp diamond  Clothing: Leather coat, high leather boots    Personality: Opinionated, arrogant, cheerful, energetic

Spells Castable Per Day - [12] Casting odds: 83% - Failure Odds - 5%/spell level Level 1 - Shocking Grasp, Feather Fall, Unseen Servant Level 2 - Knock, The Sinister Smoke Serpent of Illyig the Corpulent, Thessalin’s Emancipatory Enchantment  Level 3 - Crayne Mistboru’s Devious Closure, Phantasmal Force, Protective Circle 10’ Radius Level 4 - Cestir’s Leaden Load, Monster Summoning 2, Wall of Fire Level 5 - Monster Summoning 3, Wall of Fire Level 6 - Enchant an Item, Extension 3  Level 7 - Firrwin Hollinshae’s Release the Beast Level 8 - Monster Summoning 6, Permanency

Magic Items Ring of Fire Resistance, Ring of Protection +2, Dust of Disappearance, Ring of Convention, +1 Blade of the Steed, Potion of Longevity, Potion of Plant Control, Scroll of Protection from Elementals, Scroll of 4 spells - Levitate, Leomund’s Tiny Hut, Wall of Stone, Reincarnation, Scroll of 3 spells - Mind Blank, Incendiary Cloud,  Mohrgrim’s Magnificent Mount III

I roll up a cave complex for his lair, I decide that you enter a cave and there are tunnels that lead to his lair. In front of the tunnel entrance is a permanent Wall of Fire. Jimnir has a Ring of Fire Resistance, so he can walk through the wall and only take a single HP damage, so this makes sense in the context of the NPC. 

So let’s say the party gets to the Wall of Fire. They have no magic to protect them from the fire, and none of them have enough HP to be willing to risk going through. However, this is the entrance to the lair, and they have to get through it to get in.

This is the classic scenario, the party has met a barrier that they can’t get through, but they have to get through the barrier to complete the task.

Is this bad design?

I say no.

One of the points of running a sandbox style game is that you have no pre-planned “story” to tell, you create encounters, and the party has to deal with them. In that sense the sandbox style is picaresque, in that there is no pre-planned plot in mind.

So in this case they would have to either brave the Wall of Fire and hope for the best, leave and come back with fire protection magic to help them, find another way in (say a Passwall spell or Dimension Door), or go talk to their patron and tell her that they couldn’t get into the lair and need help, or abandon the task.

There are really very few situations in the game that the players can’t think their way around, but if this particular challenge is above their pay grade, then they are able to walk away. Sandbox games are premised on the idea that you can do whatever you want, that includes abandoning a task if it is too much for the party at the moment. 

You might think that this is a bad example, as a Wall of Fire isn’t the same as a puzzle you can’t solve. But here’s the thing. D&D is a game with magic, and a game with sages, and either of them can help you in this case. There are spells like Speak with Dead and Commune, Contact other Plane, if your party doesn’t have these spells you can pay others to cast them for you, they aren’t combat spells after all, so you can take your time. The DMG lists prices for spells for this reason, it’s an in game way to get access to higher level magic.

There is also casting higher level spells from scrolls in AD&D, so sometimes the party will have a spell like this available. 

Other options include going to consult a sage, there are extensive resources on sages in 1e, the party can find out answers there. It takes more time, and it costs, but it is within the reach of any adventuring party with some dosh to spend. And, depending on how your referee handles it, you could trade services, or a cut of the loot, for the spell or sage consultation. 

You might think, “why bother, why not just give a hint, or not design the adventure with a component like this?” 

Good question.

First off, this sort of thing is pretty rare. Players figure out most riddles after a bit of time and discussion, I haven’t hit a riddle the PCs haven’t been able to figure out eventually. But let’s for the moment assume this is one of those rare cases.

For me, when the party hits something they can’t handle, and has to travel back to the sage and rolls are made there to see if they can get their answer, the game world feels real. Travel engages with the encounter tables, you can get waylaid on your way back to the sage after all. Or you can get to the sage and agree to solve a problem for them in exchange for his knowledge. And who knows how that will go.

If you have ever read Vance, you will recognize that this is pretty much how classic Vance rolls. You get bumped around like a pinball, sometimes you capitalize on it and do well, but things can always go sideways. Vance’s stories were always so unpredictable, and that’s exactly what you get when you don’t give away the solution to the puzzle, or you don’t hand waive the Wall of Fire, or remove it from the adventure as it isn’t “fair”. 

And I will add that the players are ALWAYS smarter than you, if you don’t just give them the solution. I can’t tell you the number of times players would complain about hitting a wall, and say things like, “can’t we just say that my PC has X”, or “can’t you just tell us the solution?”, and when I said, “no”, they figured it out. They found a spell one of them had that would allow them to do Y, and then they could do X. Or they “brute force” their way through things. 

The aforementioned Wall of Fire was used in a session of ours with low level PCs (1st and 2nd level), the PCs hacked it by walking to a nearby river, immersing themselves (sans magic-user material components) in the water for 10 min to get thoroughly soaked, and soaking their blankets in water. Fortunately they had horses, and returned to the entrance soon after. Soaking wet and attired with wet blankets, they dashed through the wall and took reduced damage. 

Roll of the dice, they got lucky, they might have taken enough to kill them, but they found a way out.

Caveats

Games will be frustrating if you are constantly facing reversals, so there are always caveats on things like this. If you use too many traps, puzzles and encounters in your game that the party can’t beat without a lot of ingenuity and luck, the game will become frustrating. 

The point is not to make a lot of these sorts of situations, it’s to treat the PCs’ reversals as prompts for the adventure, not things that have to be dealt with by the referee in the form of clues or hand waving. It’s OK to hit a wall and have to improvise, it’s OK to walk away and come back later. A group of mine got a third of the way into White Plume Mountain and bailed as they lost 4 henchmen and almost lost 2 PCs early on. I could have “softened up” the opposition, or fudged a bit, but instead the party left White Plume, and quickly became embroiled in other shenanigans. That’s what picaresque adventuring looks like in Bhakashal, and it is an intentional design conceit, that’s what it is meant to emulate.

Don’t be afraid of saying, “no” and seeing what happens, don’t be afraid of creating encounters that are above the party’s pay grade, let them either figure it out or run away from it with an exciting story about how they almost died. There really is no lose state here for you.

Let the results of the players actions + the environment + the dice take you where it takes you, and you will have exciting, engaging, memorable times together. And your referee isn’t responsible for making the party succeed, the players' success is entirely their own.

That’s the stuff.