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Zaydos
2009-09-27, 05:07 PM
I haven't played 2nd edition (or earlier) in a long time and felt like introducing my friends to it with a one-shot. The basic adventure goal is: A dragon has taken over the kingdom causing plague, famine, and death. Only the restoration of the rightful king to the throne can save the kingdom. You four are the chosen ones who alone can save the kingdom.
Since even when I played 2nd edition I never ran a dragon I was wondering what would be a good level for the players and a good type and age category for the dragon that it would prove a climatic final encounter and seem fully awesome enough to be a dragon and give everybody a good time. I was kind of thinking around 250,000 starting XP putting everybody at least at 9th level with 10th level for magic-user, and 11th for druid and rogues (including bards). Maybe go to 300,000 if we have a paladin or ranger and no druid (since they need 300,000 to reach level 9 but druids are level 12 at the same). I'm not really set on any level, those just seemed liable to be suitably powerful to really be the "I save the kingdom" heroes.

If I placed this thread on the wrong board I'm sorry, and can it please be moved to the proper location.

Matthew
2009-09-27, 05:34 PM
This is the right subforum, though you might get more advice somewhere like Dragonsfoot. However, I would not wish to discourage you from posting here, we seem to be getting a spate of AD&D threads of late, and that is all to the good in my opinion!

So, a 9th Level game with a dragon as the main antagonist. If the final encounter is a straight up fight, then a lot is going to depend on the tactics used by the party, which will be capable of such things as delivering 6D6 damage from a heavy lance charge (and a flying mount is not beyond their means). They could potentially finish the fight in very short order if the dragon exposes itself too early. On the other hand, the more powerful the dragon gets, the more likely a total party kill outcome.

A 9th level fighter is probably hitting AC 0 60-70% of the time, so you will probably need the dragon to have an AC of something like −4 to keep hit ratios at 50/50, so that is probably an Adult. An adult red is 17 HD, which means about 70-80 hp and THAC0 5. Depending on the number of player characters and the conditions of the encounter, it should be reasonably challenging.

Zaydos
2009-09-27, 05:57 PM
Thanks. I'm not sure how optimized everyone will be since only two of them have played 2e before and neither of them really understood the game then so I doubt that they would have flying mount charges (one of them still fails at making characters in 3.5 and he's supposed to be the most experienced member of the group). I'm planning on a 4 person party, and I chose Lv 9 hoping that adult dragons would fall near that range.

Thanks again.