This is my Perfect Underdark...

False  Machine

This cat's vision of the undeworld is pretty much perfect; I want to play in his game.

Reading his entries had me thinking about the vast subterranean vaults of pulp fantasy as the megadungeon, which led to me thinking of the underworld as a wilderness.

If you have a dungeon/underworld complex that spans the tens of thousands of feet, and you use the snails-pace oldschool D&D underground travel rates, you end up in a situation where it takes ~1 day of travel to cover ~1 mile.

Suddenly bringing food and water is even more important.

I love the idea of a megadungeon composed of a complex of miles-spanning caverns and tunnels, connecting various dungeon complexes.

Journey to the Center of the Earth; Descent into the Depth of the Earth; The Descent (novel); mega-spelunking. Caches. Base camps.

The Warlord (Fighter Subclass)

Requirements: Intelligence and Charisma 13+, Strength 9+; a Warlord with 15+ in all three scores gains a +10% bonus to all earned experience points.
Experience Points, Hit Points, Combat and Saving Throws: As a Cleric.
Weapon and Armor Restrictions: None.

Special Abilities:

All special abilities require the Warlord speaking or shouting, and for the affected party to be with 60 feet of the Warlord; to have an Intelligence of 3+; and to be able to clearly understand the Warlord's communications. A Warlord is unable to use any of their special abilities if they are stunned, unconscious, paralyzed, or otherwise unable to clearly communicate with the subject(s).

Diplomacy & Leadership: +1(2d6)/+10% on all Reaction, Loyalty, Morale and similar checks.

Inspiring Word: Twice per melee/encounter, but only once per round, an ally gains 1d6 temporary hit points for the duration of the melee/encounter. The amount of temporary hit points gained can not exceed the different between the subject's current and maximum hit points. At 11th level the Warlord can use Inspiring Word 3 times per melee.

Auras: A Warlord of second or higher level is able to project an aura that affects themselves and all allies within range.  Only one aura can affect a subject at a time. As the Warlord gains levels the effect of the auras increase.

Level - Auras Known/Bonus
1 - 0/0
2 - 1/+1
3 - 1/+1
4 - 1/+1
5 - 2/+1
6 - 2/+1
7 - 2/+2
8 - 2/+2
9 - 3/+2
10 - 3/+2
11 - 3/+2
12 - 3/+2
13 - 3/+2
14 - 4/+3
15 - 4/+3
16 - 4/+3
17 - 4/+3
18 - 4/+3
19 - 4/+3
20 - 5/+4

Auras:

Motivate Ardor : The ally gains the bonus to all weapon and unrmed damage rolls.
Motivate Attack: The ally gains the bonus to all melee attack rolls.
Motivate Care: The ally gains the bonus to armor class.
Resilient Troops: The ally gains the bonus to all saving throws.
Steady Hand: The ally gains the bonus to all ranged attacks.

Grand Urgency: Starting at fourth level, once per day, the Warlord can grant, to any or all allies within range, an additional move of up to half their normal movement rate. A subject can only be effected by one Grant Urgency per round. As the Warlord gains levels they are able to Grant Urgency multiple times per day as follows:

Level - Grant Urgency/per Day
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 1
5 - 1
6 - 1
7 - 1
8 - 2
9 - 2
10 - 2
11 - 2
12 - 3
13 - 3
14 - 3
15 - 3
16 - 4
17 - 4
18 - 4
19 - 4
20 - 4

ALSO: POST YOUR TRANS- EDITION OLDSCHOOL CONVERSIONS!

How Would You Do a Bloodsport-style Scenario in Oldschool D&D?

I just watched Bloodsport, and I enjoyed it so much I want to do a Bloodsport-inspired scenario.

This is actually something that could be pretty cool under the Flailsnails paradigm.

Here's my current thoughts

- Is it going to be more like Mortal Combat, with the supernatural aspects of D&D, or a "Martial Class Only", no spells, no magic items, sort of thing?

- This screams for some sort of combat maneuver system. Ideally I'd cherry pick from a bunch of simple options and format/present them as a quick cheat sheet.

- Would NPC antagonists have abilities that PC don't have access to? i.e. a sumo wrestler with special fat-belly attack abilities?

- Armor or no armor?

- Bloodsport soundtrack music would be a must. KUMITE! KUMITE! KUMITE!

Trans-edition Oldschool Conversion: Serpent Anathema

Armor Class: 0

Move: 150' (50'), climb 90' (30'), swim 90' (30')

Hit Dice: 22

Attacks: Claws for 1-8/1-8 or giant scimitar for 2-16, plus bite for 1-10+poison

Special: Poison; constrict 1-8; +3 or better magic weapons to hit; regenerate 3 hit points per round; spells; 60% magic resistance; speak with any snake or snake-like monster; become a swarm of poisonous snakes at will

Intelligence: Godlike

Alignment: Chaotic evil

Size: Huge

Spells: 3/day - cause fear, darkness, detect poison, entangle, haste, neutralize poison, polymorph other, snake charm, sticks to snakes, suggestion

Serpent Anathema are worshipped as avatars of their loathsome gods by serpentine races such as Inphidians and Ophidians. They resemble a gigantic snake 20-30 feet long, with a humanoid torso and arms, and possessing a mass of six long-necked snakes instead of a head. An opponent bitten by a Serpent Anathema must save versus poison or die; those that survive will be constricted by one of the snake heads for 1-8 points of damage per round. As long as all six heads are not constricting victims the Serpent Anathema can continue to make bite attacks.

ALSO:

POST YOUR TRANS-EDITION OLDSCHOOL CONVERSIONS!

Ape, Giant Carnivorous & Post Your Oldschool Conversions

Armor Class: 6
Move: 150 (50), climb 150' (50)
Hit Dice: 10
Attacks: 1-10/1-10/3-18
Special: Hurl rock 100' for 2-24; grab and hurl
Intelligence: Low (upper)
Alignment: Neutral
Size: Huge

Grab and hurl: If a Giant Carnivorous Ape hits strikes a man-sized opponent with both hands they will be lifted up and hurled next round, as a rock, inflicting 3-18 points of damage to the target and the projectile.

I can't believe those guy's didn't think of that...

EDIT:
Post your conversions of post-oldschool D&D monsters!

The benefits of obsessing over pulp fantasy...

. . . getting 97% on an anthropology term paper which was basically about different species of cavemen killing and eating each other.

3 & 1/12 years until I have a life again . . .

As I See It: Even Thousands of GP

Every adventurer isn't rain man. They look at a heap of coins and say "That looks like 600 GP to me." It's a form of significant figure and with all things being equal, as we assume that adventurers are competent at adventuring matters, all of their estimated coin totals total up to something that's close enough to the actual realistic total that it's not worth slowing down the game to worry about it.

The same way that we don't have things like "Hit Points: blood left: 47543.26 millilitres; compound fracture of left anterior tibia; 2nd degree burn on upper right arm from fingertips to shoulder" and "Sword, long, steel, high carbon, 54 rockwell hardness, blade length: 107.5 cm, entire length: 129.2 cm, single-edged, hollow-grind; sharpness: 63% of maximum; weight: 8.2 kg" on our character sheets for heck's sake.

If say, a theoretical DM, decided that even thousands of coin was unrealistic and would subtract 500 coins and add a d1000 roll to have true scientific realistic treasure hoards, they would find out pretty dang soon that it's a pain in the ass for the DM and the players to deal with that degree of accuracy. Not that I ever learned that lesson the hard way...