Observations from The Keep on the Borderlands 2025 Sessions 2 and 3

B2 Keep on the Borderlands (A DriveThruRPG link to purchase the module) was published in 1979 and was often the first module players encountered. It was contemporaneous with B1 In Search of the Unknown from 1978. These two modules are teaching modules, designed to guide the DM and the players through the mechanics and world of Dungeons and Dragons. Both are stripped down to the bare bones of a setting, and they plug in nicely to any campaign setting. 

I find B2 to be superior to B1 because I encountered it first. That's it. It is the "Why do you think chocolate is better than strawberry?" argument. It has no answer and no end. So, here is where I drop it. If you like B1 better, that is your option. I won't even call it a choice or an opinion; you are just as right as I am. 

The great thing about these two modules is the license granted to DMs to change stuff up, to merge it with their world. 

In Sessions 2 and 3, I do just that. I gave the A-Team a ruin to operate out of. This drawing looks like an island. It is not what I was going for. 

I didn't have a good idea of what I wanted, and the sketch above is what I came up with. As the session progressed, I reworked it into this: 

It is ragged and rough. It leaves plenty of details for players to fill in, which fits with this module. 

I think DMs should always work out little maps for the party to use to make tactical choices. I don't think these maps should take much time or skill, and should rarely contain surprises. On the left side of these ruins, I imagined some sort of root cellar. I didn't add it. To the south is a collapsed cistern, also not drawn. 

Back to the actual sessions. In giving the party a ruin to sleep in, I provided them with cover, a +2 bump to armor class. It's not as good as actually wearing armor, but it does afford tactical advantages. And believably allows characters to shuck their armor to sleep. 

In Session 3, I allude to the fact that the A and B Teams operate completely differently. The A Team is a tactical unit, while Rety's Team is more strategic in thinking. Morale is more important to the Rety's team than fighting power. Lefty and Punch do some very dangerous things and are rewarded with discovery and praise, as does the rest of the party. Rety is the one holding this team together as a leader. 

The A Team is almost leaderless. They have a job, they do a job. 

I would like to take a moment to discuss a topic of great interest to me: Alignment. I like it, but it doesn't work without motivation. I think that murder-hobos happen because the player is acting with no real motivation. A lich in an impregnable fortress doesn't really have an alignment because nothing flows in or out. All NPCs and characters should have some motivation AND agency that interacts with their alignment. This makes interesting characters. 

Rety is chaotic to be sure. It's built into her nature. Rety robs from the party. She is a thief. However, she is not particularly evil. In AD&D, she would be Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral. Her motivation for stealing from the party was a series of slights, almost universal slights against all of the NPCs. She lashed out, and now she is probably done. Or not. We'll see.  

My choice to make Lefty and Punch Knights is based on this concept. Lefty, the former mercenary, experienced a near-death experience at the hands of the hermit. How does a mercenary become an honorable Knight? Especially when Lefty and Punch have no leige to follow? 

Well, that is where Rety's vs. the A Team's actions come into play. The A Team healed Lefty, but then forced him to stay in his would-be killer's home. That is a harsh cut. They expected the NPCs to do stuff after dealing with a near-death death. Once Rety's morale failed, so did his. Having no one to follow, Lefty followed Rety and dragged Punch with him. While Lefty was probably good and Punch was neutral, they both follow Rety.  

There is no description of liege in the OSE rules because they are so setting light. Even if there was, I would have let Lefty become a liege-less Knight anyway. A mercenary is not so different than a Knight, just the currency is different. Honor vs. coin. His Knighthood comes from an internal compass; he doesn't need a liege. Punch being neutral is simply hanging on to Lefty's compass as a good friend. 

I hope by now I have highlighted how players of differing styles can advance through the Caves of Chaos and how B2 can be an evolving moment in your gameplay. 

The Keep on the Borderlands 2025 - Session 3 Rety or Not

Yeah, I've been waiting to tell the joke in the title for a while. 

We are back with Keep on the Borderlands, session 3. If you click that link, you'll get the DriveThruRPG page to purchase the module. 

We left the A Team in the ruins of an old manor house, looking down on the valley. From their position, they're able to scope out what is happening down there. Thankfully, the B Team has shown up. 

The ruins.

I stat'd out the B-Team and made some changes. Rety is the thief, as mentioned before. Everyone else morphed into full-blown 1st and 2nd-level characters. I decided to make Left and Punch Knights since they have the weapons and armor for it. Thomas the Cleric is the only 2nd level character of the group. The barman Hender and his son Sonny are a Barbarian and an Assassin. They have integrated themselves with the drover family: Simon, Bela, and Liz. I made Simon a Druid, and the two young women are a Ranger and an Illusionist. 

I could be a Knight...
Or maybe not.

I used these classes so I could learn how they work in the OSE rules. I did hand myself a problem. By making family groups, I have disallowed myself Demi-Humans. I plan to avoid a TPK, so I don't see that changing unless I make some poor dice rolls.  

Rety is reasonably smart and savvy. The B Team lacks the staying power of the A Team, all being 1st level except the cleric. She has outfitted them for a long, slow slog in the Caves as opposed to the more tactical, fire-team-like behavior of the other group. Her team has horses. This fundamentally changes how they need to operate. 

Rety has split her forces. Simon, Bela, Liz, and Sonny are part of the support team, staying behind to care for the horses. Lefty, Punch, Hender, and Thomas are the adventuring group behind Rety. By doing this, the Barbarian is separated from two of the three magically powered characters. Thomas reasonably decided to give the "we are all on the same path" speech in the hopes that Hender would think of him as one of his tribe. At this point, Hender thinks "magic is as magic does" and finds Thomas to be ignorable until he acts. 

Camp is at the edge of the trees to the east of the valley. It cannot be seen from the ruins at the top of the valley, although people coming and going can be seen. Rety's stolen map shows the cave entrances and a small distance into each cave. She suspects it is not accurate. 

Punch and Lefty probe the valley floor, riding their horses along the northern edge. They encounter the kobolds in the trees near Cave A. I hate the wording of this encounter. There is a 2-in-6 chance they will come out of hiding and attack the party. Does that mean there is a 4-in-6 chance they remain in hiding, OR does that mean there is a chance they aren't there at all? I like the second option. Sometimes, the kobolds are simply not there. 

The kobolds threw rocks and garbage at Punch and Lefty. The Knights were assigned recon and kicked their horses away from the nasty bunch of kobolds. They ride south to escape along the hillside. On the way back, they note Cave E, which is not on the map. They also spot creatures inside Cave D, but they can't tell what they are. 

You never know what is in the shadows

Rety was excited about the discovery and had Punch and Lefty ride again, retracting their steps in the opposite direction. On this pass, Cave D appeared empty. They slowed near Cave E. They saw a hulking form in the back of the cave that convinced them to move faster. They wove their way through the trees around Cave G. An unholsome smell spooked the horses, made worse by the appearance of several massive rats. They give their horses their heads, striking for the kobold caves again. 

Behind them, the stirges burst out of the cave in hot pursuit. 

The riders encountered a line of kobolds, scattering them. Although they don't know it, the Knights' ruckas brought the 8 kobold guards out of the cave, too. In turn, this brought the goblin guards and patrol out of Cave A. The Knights swung northward to escape the impeding melee, and the stirges dove on the kobolds and goblins.

This is what the A Team spotted in the previous session from their perch at the top of the valley, but missed seeing Rety and the Knights due to the treecover. 

Rety was monitoring the Knights' progress from the end of the valley. She greeted them with excitement and praised their bravery all the way back to camp. Additionally, she treats everyone as if they had ridden to war with the Knights. Rety doesn't retire after a glorious dinner; she takes the first watch herself. A bunch of morale dice are thrown, and Rety wins the day. 

Thank you for sticking with me through this combat-free session. It is now time for the commercial. 

I like to use a simple A6-sized notebook and a composition graph paper pad for my games. The links go to Amazon, and I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase, at no extra cost to you. If you already have a small notebook, you might like refills. They are so cheap, and the craft paper is attractive at the game table, giving an ol' timey look to notes. 

This particular image shows a list of songs, which you can find on YouTube Music. If you have an account, you can listen to the songs that make my brain go. This playlist is called "triphop by the light of the silver cords". 

I shared the composition notebook as an example only. A week or two from now, you may find them at your local retailer for pocket change as "Back to School" sales wrap-up. I suggest you try to find one at a discount. It helps your local retailer. 

The Keep on the Borderlands 2025 - Session 2 How it Should have Been

Keep on the Borderlands is one of my favorites, you don't have it follow the link. If you click that link, you'll get the DriveThruRPG page to purchase the module. 

You can read session 0-1 here. There is also a post on observations and rationales for things here. The second post explains why I made many of the choices I did. 

For Session Two, we will follow the former hirelings, Rety, Punch, and Lefty at the Keep. They are flush with cash and ready to find adventure. Lety is in the drover's seat and knows what she wants. Punch and Lefty are all geared up and love their new equipment. They are the core of The B Team. 

Rety uses her drover skills to locate some horses. More importantly, she trades on her clan skills. She finds a family of drovers selling horses. She selects two older, but healthy draft horses for Lefty and Punch. She takes a headstrong pony for herself. That costs The B Team 150 gps. This premium cost nets them something extra. The seller was willing to tag along with his two daughters to care for the horses while the B Team adventures in the Caves of Chaos. They have their own ponies. 

This horse is 18 hands. Ponies are smaller.

Just an aside, a pony is a smaller horse. It is approximately 14 hands tall, which is suitable for riding but not for carrying burdens, such as treasure. Rety knows this and wants their speed and doesn't care about carrying capacity. That is what the draft horses are for. Draft horses are huge, suitable for a man in armor to ride, but they are unable and unwilling to let someone fight while riding. That's fine for Lefty and Punch; they don't know how to fight from horseback anyway. 

Rety is looking for something else: Security. She needs to hire a cleric or healer. Being world-savvy, she gravitates to the Loan Bank, looking for someone down on their luck. She skips over a bunch of gamblers, farmers, and other people seeking loans and targets a poor, down-on-his-luck travelling priest. Thomas of the Fen agrees to join the group for 25 gps a month, plus a share of the treasure. 

This has taken all of 48 hours, and the B Team is almost ready to leave. Throughout this shopping excursion, Rety keeps everyone well lubricated with beer. A chance happening allows the B Team to round out their party. The barman's son takes a shine to the drover's daughters, and it is decided that the barman and his son will join the party for 10 gps a month plus a share of treasure. 

B Team spends another 100 gps on supplies like boots, sacks for treasure, cloaks, rations, etc. 

All of this has taken the B Team about 4 days. They will set off for the Caves of Chaos on the morning of Day 5 since the encounter with the Hermit.

It's time to name names. B Team is made up of: 

Rety, Punch, Left, Thomas, and the Barman Hender. In order, they are a Thief, 2 fighters, a second-level Cleric, and another Fighter. Everyone but the Cleric is first level. 

Bela, Liz, Sonny (real name is Henderson), and Simon round out the party. They are the two drover girls, the son of Hender the barkeep, and the drover girl's father. 

A treed ridge-line, Mt. Prospect, NY

Back to the Original Scoobies, disaster in progress. 

Let's give them names: the Ranger is Pavel, Dunkin the Half-Elf, Dorian the Cleric, Slammer the Fighter,  Belaphon is the magic-user, and Solvo the Elf. I should have named them from the get-go. 

The A Team is not having fun. They are slogging through the forest ridge at a very slow pace. Worse, Rety took their map. As a reminder, the party thought a contour line on the map was a road. They know if they follow this line, they will get to the Caves of Chaos. Occasionally, the Ranger can sight the river or road below by climbing trees. Pavel won't let them get lost. 

The A Team ends up spending a full day on the forest ridge, unsure of how far away from the Caves they are. The next morning, they break into the clearing surrounding The Caves of the Unknown. Since they saw six deer, and the area is heart-shaped, they called it The Hart. The party breaks in two to search the perimeter of The Hart. Magic-User sacrifices one of their magic items for safety. Belaphon breaks the Eyes of the Eagle into two lenses so the groups can watch each other from afar. 

The search was cut short as they made it to the north-eastern side of The Hart, nearest the valley of the Caves. I decided to throw in a little detail, the foundation of some sort of small tower or manor house. On the western side of the ruins, they find a collapsed cistern. The ruins are a 20-foot square with two 40-foot squares to the north and south. The center section does have the remains of a low wall on the western side. The party guesses the ruins are hundreds of years old.

A cave mouth, Panama Rocks, NY.

It makes a nice camp. As the sun sets, the A Team is now 3 days out from the encounter with the Hermit. After this boring break, days 4 and 5 will involve some combat.

At around midnight on day 3, the party hears gongs and drums in the distance. This was a ceremony from cave K. They couldn't determine where the noise came from, and nothing much happened. Day 4 has the party searching the ruins and finding nothing. As the sun sets and the party settles down, they have their first encounter. 

Belaphon and Dunkin alert the party with a light spell. Giant bats or something are approaching the camp from the valley. The characters armed with bows take the four corners of the ruins, while Belaphon and Dorian take the center, with a huge pile of throwing rocks and sling stones. The 5 flying creatures scream in. 

The party has the initiative, and missiles fly. All but one arrow finds its mark, plus Dunkin scores a hit with his sling. Belaphon doesn't throw a rock due to the distance. Three creatures fall from the sky as the last two dive on Pavel. Pavel has no armor on, but receives +2 due to cover and another +2 for Dex. One of the creatures strikes for 3 points of damage, while the other wheels around for another attack next round. 

"Stirges!" shouts Pavel. The party has initiative again, but the Stirge has locked on Pavel and sucks away 3 more hp before anyone can act. Pavel kills it with his dagger. 

Three more arrows fly, but only one hits. The last stirge with one hit point left retreats over the trees. Pavel is down to 9 hp, so Dorian casts heal on him. Pavel regains 4 hp, bringing him to 13. I should have mentioned that the Belaphon was back to full health. 

About 30 minutes later, two more stirges appear wheeling in the distance. The party lights a huge bonfire about 50 feet in front of them. What the party doesn't know is that six stirges are circling, but they only see two at a time. Belaphon and Dorian do their best to study while the rest of the party stands guard. The stirges retreat at dawn. 

Slammer and Pavel attempt to track them, but lose sight of them as they enter the valley to the east. The party spends day 5 resting up while Solvo the elf brings back a deer for dinner. 

The evening proceeds the same way as the prior day, with the gongs and drums sounding at midnight, followed by the stirges buzzing but not attacking the party. Since the party was using bonfires, the B Team saw the light from the other end of the valley. It makes them very cautious, to the point of backing away and south of the valley. 

On day six, the party has used their ropes of climbing to descend into the valley and has located the entrances to K, I, and in the distance, they can make out entrances D and E. The party pushes into K, expecting the stirges. 

They are shocked to see 8 zombies shuffling towards them. No one is surprised, and the party has initiative. Dorian rolls well and turns 5 of the eight zombies. Arrows strike all three of the still advancing undead. The zombies have 2, 4, and 6 hp left as they melee the party. Pavel, Slammer, and Solvo are all hit. I decide that Belaphon can attack last and strike with his dagger, which does 2 points of damage. 

Here is the scorecard: the zombies have 2, 4, and 4 hp left. Pavel and Slammer have 12 and 19 hp, respectively. Solvo was hit for 2 hp damage, which was eaten up by his armor. 

The zombies attack last, so the party goes first again. Belaphon and Dorian miss. Slammer, Solvo, and Pavel make good rolls. Slammer splatters zombie brains everywhere. Dunkin rips down a second zombie with his sword. The last zombie misses, and in the next round, it goes down quickly. 

The fighting men sheath their weapons and move to recover their dropped bows and arrows while the Cleric and Magic User search bodies. Belaphon casts light on a rock to help in the search. The party examined zombies' amulets and meat cleaver-like weapons and believed them to be magical. 

A minute or two later, Belaphon hears something. He throws his rock, and it sails over the heads of 8 more zombies. Worse, it lights up room 53, where the 5 turned zombies are milling about. 

It will take the zombies two rounds to reach the party. Dorian attempts to turn them and is shocked to find it doesn't work at all, despite a very passable roll. The archers try a different tactic. They target just two of the zombies with arrows. All four arrows hit, and two zombies go down. 

In this round, the party backs up a bit as they target the zombies again. This slow retreat keeps the zombies out of reach for this round, too. Dorian makes a terrible turn roll again, and the 6 undead shamble on. Three arrows hit, but none of the zombies go down. 

Decision time. By backing up, the party can stay just out of reach of the zombies this round. In the next round, the zombies will be upon them. The party splits up, Dorian and Belaphon retreat to the entrance to look for anyone sneaking up on them, while everyone else readies their melee weapons and charges. Three zombies go down. The remaining three hit Dunkin and Solvo. 

Zombies: 4, 8, and 8 hp. Pavel has 12, Slammer is at 19, and Solvo has 6 hp. 

Belophon and Dorian spot two different things: first, they see a pair of knights and several attendants at the mouth of the valley. This is the B Team. Lefty and Punch are misidentified as knights since they are wearing the plate armor they stole from the party. Second, they see the stirges circling high over the valley. They back up, hoping nothing saw them. 

Two more zombies are down while the third hits Slammer. Pavel has 12 hp, Slammer is at 15 hp, and Solvo has 6 hp. 

A halfling with a bow.

The stirges dive towards the cave entrance as the last zombie goes down. The party quickly moves to the hallway leading to room 53, the guardroom. Dorian warns the party that if they threaten the zombies, they will attack. Not having much of a choice, they stay in the hall and let fly with missiles. One zombie goes down to arrows and sling stones. A second is injured by a magic missile. In the next round, two more go down, and a third is injured. There are just two injured zombies left. It only takes a moment for the party to take the remaining two down. 

Belaphon grabs the rock that is shedding light and pockets it just in time. There is a flurry of wings as stirges go by and enter Room 52. Dorian quietly heals Solvo, restoring 5 hp. 

After about 20 minutes, stirges leave the cave complex. Another few minutes... the party advances to The Hall of Skeletons. From the doorway, they see the skeletons and decide not to venture into the room. They gather the zombie weapons and amulets and beat a retreat. As they climb back up the wall of the valley, they can see some sort of skirmish on the valley floor. There are two types of humanoids fighting each other while the stirges opportunistically attack both. There is no sign of the B Team. 

The party returns to the ruins to lick their wounds. They received 452 exp for the monsters, plus they have 16 amulets and 16 battle axes. I deem all of the battle axes are worth 272 gp, and the amulets are worth 400. That is 187 exp per character. I round to 200 each. So far, the A Team has earned 240 per character by session 2. They have surpassed the B Team's 216 experience points. 

Thanks for holding on for this very, very long post. Since you made it this far, perhaps you'd consider this ad for Chessex dice from Amazon. I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase, at no extra cost to you. 

Observations from The Keep on the Borderlands 2025 Session 0 and 1

In order to get into these two sessions, there were really two sessions. I rolled up some characters using the Old-School Essentials NPC by Class Generator. Once I had the characters selected, I got into play.

If you want to play this one set of rules, check out the following free set at DTRPG. I got the Kickstarter boxed sets a year or two back, and those are not available right now. 

You can approximate them with 3 books: The Referee's Advanced Tome and The Advanced Player's Tome, OR you could pick up the digital core book bundle. Again, these are links to DriveThru to buy digital books. These purchases result in remuneration to me.  

For part one, I don't know how the NPC Generator rolls for stats. Once I post my character sheets, it will become obvious that the stats are out of whack. If I saw a stat of 10 or under, I rerolled it. If I got a score that was higher, I replaced it. But I only tried once. Then I shifted stats around. I didn't honor any rules for doing this; I rearranged the stats as I saw fit. 

Then I handed the characters a bunch of cash. I gave them one weapon, one piece of armor, and a backpack full of camping gear. Then I rolled the OSE standard 3d6x10 for gold. 

Once the mundane task of acquiring equipment was done, I went through the Treasure books and selected 15 items from the lists. At the front of the list, I selected 5 things I didn't mind having duplicates of, and then repeated those items at the end so that I had an even 20 items. Those 5 items were a Cloak of Defense, a Rope of Climbing, a Bag of Holding, a potion of healing, and a scroll with 3 spells. The list was rounded out with various oddities, like shield +1, armor +1, Eyes of the Eagle, Bracers of Defense, a collection of various potions and rings, and so on.  

I rolled 3 times for each character. If I rolled an item that appeared only once, I crossed it out, and the next player to roll that number got nothing. They didn't do too bad, scoring 15 of 18 possible items. You'll notice that I didn't have any magical weapons. That was on purpose; it skews things too quickly in combat at low levels. 

On to the actual session. Once I had my 6 characters, I picked 3 NPCs. They were Punch, Rety, and Lefty. I didn't even bother to stat them except for HP and AC. I do love giving NPCs personalities of their own, not so much to harass the players but to make them think. 

I wrote a book called Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners that covers BX and AD&D NPCs extensively. I am currently rewriting it for OSE. This title is Pay What You Want. 

I am vaguely amused when a titled product is subverted by the players. "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" has no real thieves, the Zoomer in Stranger Things, and this time, a "Keep on the Borderlands" that no one actually stops at. I could see experienced players doing this, thinking they know better. 

The next subversion was a road. They could have used it, but made the assumption that a contour line was another road. It worked. It goes exactly where they want it to, but not in any reasonable way. 

I planned out the encounter with the Hermit and mountain lion in exactly the way the party was expecting, but they didn't really expect it. I see this as a common trope among players. Let's do something so normal and customary and assume it will work. 

All players who use a marching order pack the center with the squishy characters to protect them. Which this ambush didn't respect. The mountain lion was described as being agile, able to leap and bound. Running down the tight space between trees and players is reasonable. And it went right for the 2 people not wearing armor. It is familiar with humans and knows the guys without armor will cast magic. 

I have a rule of thumb that was borne out in this scenario. In melee, a creature will last one round for every 3.5 hp it has. And the mountain lion did that perfectly. He was projected to last 4.28 rounds against the party. 

On the other hand, he was barely able to hurt one character. But what he did on the way to that goal was a lot. He surprised the rear guard and only got hit once. It foiled an attack by the man-at-arms by spooking the mule. He forced the Cleric to drop his weapon and stopped other characters from shooting into melee. Finally, the lion bit the MU twice before being taken out. That one creature tied up 9 characters for several rounds, allowing the Hermit to kill one guy. 

Sure, that last character didn't stay dead, but it counted for something later. 

When the party decided to sack down for the night in the Hermit's abode, it forced a morale check. There was no way the NPCs weren't going to beat feet for the safe walls of the Keep. And why not take some treasure for your trouble? 

Ironically, that made the NPCs the winners. 

The Keep on the Borderlands 2025 Session 0 and 1

Session 0: 

Keep on the Borderlands is one of my favorites, and today I decided to run a solo session. If you click that link, you'll get the DriveThruRPG page to purchase the module. 

I have selected 6 2nd-level PCs to run through the Caves of Chaos: Elf, Half Elf, Magic-User, Cleric, Fighter, and Ranger. I haven't selected names for them. Maybe next session. 

The PCs have 3 NPCs with them, a drover and two man-at-arms leading 3 mules. They also have a collection of fun magic items. I selected them as they were both effective and fun. They have 3 Bags of Holding, 4 potions of healing, a potion of gaseous form, 2 Cloaks of Defence +1, Boots of Travelling, Eyes of the Eagle, 2 Scrolls of 3 Arcane Spells each, and +1 Leather Armor. 

These are basically all of the items I would wish for as a low-level character. 

They have one more "great" item, a map of the Caves of Chaos. They don't know the map is hopelessly incorrect. Because of this, they bypass the Keep and head due north into the forest. They are reading the map wrong and are expecting a road running east to the Caves. They are looking at a contour line. 

Session 1: 

This mess continues until they meet the Hermit. Well, his mountain lion first. The marching order was: 

Ranger, Elf, followed by 1 mule and a man-at-arms, Magic User, and Cleric (side by side), followed by the drover and a mule, Half-Elf and Fighter, followed by the last man-at-arms and a mule. 

The lion missed its chance to surprise by leaping on someone. It bolts towards the party from the rear. The Fighter and Half-Elf swap places with the last man-at-arms and mule. 

Startled to see a lion racing at them, the Half Elf passes a javelin to the Fighter before they both heave at the lion. The Fighter hits for 4 points of damage as the lion flashes by, running up the right side of the line of characters. The mule spoils the man-at-arms' shot with a crossbow. The Cleric had his sling ready, and the drover and Magic-User drew daggers. The Magic-User goes down under a flurry of bites and slashes. He is bitten for 3 points of damage. 

The Magic-User hits the lion with a dagger for 4 points of damage. The drover weakly swings and misses, while the Cleric drops his sling and lands an incredible kick for 2 points of damage. 

The rest of the party is charging to the Magic-User's defense. The round is over. The mountain lion has 5 hp left, the Magic-User has 3 hp left. The NPCs are struggling with the mules rather than fighting. 

Next round. Initiative is a tie; all attacks are simultaneous.

The lion bites for 2 points of damage and flubs his slash attacks. The Magic-User's dagger bounces off the lion's hide. The Cleric gets his warhammer out and kills the lion. As everyone is running towards the center of the group, only the Fighter and Half-Elf see the Hermit brain the man-at-arms, and they are at the rear. The module doesn't say what weapon the Hermit has. I like the idea of a massive wooden club. I am using my damage reduction rules, and the man-at-arms' chainmail absorbs 2 points of damage. It doesn't matter much.  He goes down and has -3 hp. 

The Half Elf elects not to throw his last javelin at the Hermit, but the Fighter knocks an arrow. I am using my modified attack rolls for archers. The Fighter rolls an 8, which would be a miss. However, being an even number, he realizes he would miss and does not actually release the arrow. Nothing happens, and the Fighter has an arrow ready for the next round. 

Round 3. The party handily wins initiative this round. 

The Fighter takes aim again and hits with a 20. I was going to give the Hermit some sort of advantage because of all the mayhem around him, but a 20 is a 20. He has taken 5 points of damage, damage reduced by one for his leather armor. 

The Half-Elf charges ahead with his javelin and won't reach the Hermit this round. The Cleric pulls the Magic-User up as the drover and the second man-at-arms struggle with the mules. The third mule darts up the road. The Ranger and the Elf hem in the Hermit with sword and mace. They hit for a combined total of 8 points of damage, again reduced by 1 point per attack. 

Round 4. The party decides to make sure they both stay down. The initiative is tied again. 

The Hermit misses the Elf. The Half-Elf flings a javelin, striking for 2 points. The Fighter holds his arrow on a second roll of 8. The Ranger and Elf close in again. The Elf hits for 5 points of damage, and the leather armor eats up one point of damage. The Hermit is down, and the Ranger makes sure. 

The drover, Ranger, and Half-Elf go after the lost mule while everyone else attends the fallen man-at-arms and the injured Magic-User. The Cleric casts Cure Light Wounds, bringing the man-at-arms to 2 hp. The Magic-User forgoes healing. 

It doesn't take too long for the Half-Elf and the drover to round up the mule. The ranger has a 50% chance of finding the tracks left by the Hermit. He does so. They take some time to strip the bodies, skinning the lion and picking over the Hermit's body. 

They collect up their goodies; they have the club, the lion pelt, and the Ring of Protection +1. It doesn't take long to follow the footprints back to the Hermit's Hollow in the tree. They toss the place and find his treasure: a Potion of Invisibility, the +1 dagger, 31 gold pieces, and 164 silver pieces. 

The party decides to bed down around the hollow for the day to rest up before tackling the Caves of Chaos tomorrow. The NPCs decide to roll for morale. They get a 9. 

The party talks among themselves, attends to their weapons, and beds down for the night. They have been awarded a total of 175 for the Hermit and the lion, plus 47 exp for the treasure. That is 37 each. I will round this to 40 exp and award it now. 

The next morning, the party awakes long after sunrise. It is strangely quiet. 

The 2 men-at-arms, the drover, and all three mules are gone. 

The three NPCs have taken stock of their loot while having breakfast at the Keep on the Borderlands. They have a map, a 100 gp lion pelt, 3 mules, 2 scrolls with 3 arcane spells on each, two suits of plate armor, a +1 dagger, a potion of Invisibility, a giant club, 232 gold pieces, 164 silver pieces, a bow, 3 javelins, 2 swords, 6 weeks of iron rations, a lantern, 6 flasks of oil, and 40 arrows. 

They divvy up their stuff, sell the pelt (50 gps), the scrolls (300 gps each), the mules (15 each), and saddle bags (2.5 each). They are awarded 216 exp each. They also have 650 gp in cash, plus fine armor and weapons, a potion, and a +1 magic ring. They don't know what to do with the giant club, so they give it to a barkeep. They pop into the armorer's for a nice suit of leather armor for the drover turned thief and pay to have the platemail properly fitted to the newly minted fighters. 

Rety the drover hears rumor 11, while Lefty and Punch are being fitted.