apologies for the delay, hopefully this isn't killing anyone's interest by me going so slowly.
anyway, I've just realized that the page numbering started at 2, so although i said i spilled into the "third" page i'm actually on the page numbered 4. sorry for the confusion!
When we last left off, we had a good balance between challenge and XP at 10 giants and ~18,541gp. We'll try to keep a running total to see if we go too high or too low.
Hall of the Chief
Mostly just hidden treasure amid a good deal of red herrings. One shield on the wall is +3 (since it doesn't say I'd assume it's human rather than giant sized) and a 2,000gp gem hidden inside a skull. We won't be counting magic items for the purpose of conversion, but let's take a quick aside about magic items.
Quick aside about magic items
Giants are treasure type N per gang, which will average about 5 giants. Depending on if you're drawing from ACKs core or ACKs Heroic Fantasy Handbook, you'll have a different expectation of change for magic items.
ACKs Core: 50% any 4 + 1 potion + 1 scroll.
HFH: 65% 2d8 common, 50% 1d10 uncommon, 35% 1d4 rare, 25% 1 very rare, 5% 1 legendary
Without fully reproducing the treasure tables from both books, core's "any" has about a 50% chance of being potions or scrolls and a 50% chance of being something else, while the rarity system from HFH is difficult to summarize, but generally true magic items are going to be unlikely before the Rare category. Assuming the wise Archon made the two treasure types comperable, the core value is easier to average: you'll expect to average about 1 magic item per gang, so at this moment we're a little behind, but there's time to catch up.
Chamber of the Chief's Wife
We have a cave bear, throwing off our attempt to measure things exclusively through giants. at 6HD it's pretty close to a giant, but just to be safe we'll switch to XP vs. GP (which we're looking for about 4:1 in general, and giants are expected to average 5x600 = 3,000xp vs Treasure Type N averaging 9,000gp) so 10 giants puts us at 6,000xp to 20,541 (thanks to the gem in the chief's hall). The bear brings us up to 6320, but the chief's wife's chamber is full of hidden treasure. I had to re-read it at first, since it initially looked like the first gem was worth 15,000gp, but it's actually 1x 5000gp. 5k + 3k + 2k + 800 + 250 + 80 = 11,130gp.
We're currently at 6320xp to 31671gp.
Arms Room
another room without specific inhabitants, but 5 javelins of lightning which don't appear to be in the core book. First place I go when something isn't in the core book is the OSRIC book, which tends to have a lot of the stuff missing from core. If that doesn't turn anything up, I'll try google.
someone else has quoted a dmg (not sure which one) in this dragonsfoot forum post that suggests lightning javelins are consumable weapons that don't provide a bonus to hit or damage, but can hit like a +2 weapon. they have what seems like extremely short range, 9", but the fact that it's expressed in inches makes me wonder if it's supposed to have a different foot equivalent. they also shoot a bolt behind the target. I'd have to do some math to figure out what the cost of these would be in ACKs terms, but first guess is either each one is a cantrip consumable (1d6 lightning damage is in cantrip territory) or they're each equivalent to one piece of +1 ammunition. Possibly +2, but not actually GETTING the bonuses seems like a big drawback.
aside from the javelins of not-in-the-rulebook, we've got a giant otter fur cape worth 2,000gp. running GP total is 33,671
Small Dining Room
We've got a secret door mentioned. Without any special instructions detailed in the room, I'd assume ACKs rules for adjucating secret doors are fine. We've also got some description of the room and some scroll tubes described inside the secret room. nothing to convert though!
Long Hall
nothing to convert here either!
Great Hall
the chief's ballista-used-as-a-crossbow seems fine to run as-is, dealing a weird 2d9 to man sized creatures and 4d6 to larger creatures.
We've got quite a few beasties to tally up
- Chief (as a frost giant) 850
- chief's wife & subchief: 1200 (there are no rules for giant subchiefs so i assume he's treated as a giant)
- cloud giant: 1200
- 3 stone giants: 2100
- 22 hill giants: 13,200
- 8 ogres 1120
- cave bear: 320
total: 19,990! with the previous 6320 we're at 26,310, but let's see what loot awaits.
looks like every giant but the subchief, chief, and his wife wears 1d4 pieces each worth 2d6x100gp averages of that means 2.5 * 7 * 100gp * 26 giants = an average of 45,500gp. The chief, subchief and wife are 4 each for 12 * 7 * 100gp = an average of 8,400gp. The 8 ogres wear 1d4 pieces only worth 2d4x100gp so 8 * 2.5 * 5 * 100gp = 10,000gp on average. That's a total of 63,900 for anyone daring enough to fight an entire hall of giants (and their servants who should be coming in and out of this room).
63,900 combined with our previous 33,671 gives us 97,571gp. We're currently at about 3.7gp to 1xp, so things are lining up quite nicely!
Arsenal Room
a room full of, i assume, giant sized equipment since it says "none of these are of use to the party".
Weapons Room
more giant-sized gear, except for a hidden war hammer +2 hidden behind a shield, and another weapon that will detect as magic due to being enchanted with magic mouth.
Main Guest Chamber
the most notable item in here is an intelligent sword +2, +4 against giants, concealed by an illusion. The entry describes it's intelligence and ego scores, which i assume are compatible with the rules in ACKs core. It speaks hill, stone, and frost giant, common, and alignment language of "neutral good". since ACKs doesn't use 9-pointed alignment OR alignment languages, you may need to sub that out for something setting appropriate. it's only special power is detecting enemies. In general, weapons that go above +3 in ACKs are rare, but they do exist when it's a specialty. it's probably fine to run this sword as is.
Common Room
a bunch of furniture described. Considering the author keeps describing this stuff as "of absolutely no value" i have to assume they ran games for parties that tried to loot everything not nailed down.
ok, that wraps up page 4! I'll try to be faster about doing page 5!
