Thac0 with Advantage 89. It’s the End of the Campaign as We Know It

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D won’t let us ascend to become Immortals yet.

It is in the nature of all things to end, but what does that mean for D&D and fantasy RPG campaigns? What does it take for the end of a campaign to feel meaningful, and how much effort do you have to invest to get that result? How far out do you plan for an ending, and what happens if you realize the end is nearer than you expected? We’ll look at the end of campaigns in our episode today.

From the Bardic College

Mac: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, your Constitution score was important for a number of reasons,

Wolfman: Like how many beers you could pound to put that dwarf in his place

Mac: Wolfman, that’s not cool anymore. People should drink in moderation

Wolfman: Sure. Know your limit and all that.

Mac: Good. And don’t forget it. As I Was saying, constitution was important but one of the most extreme reasons was to measure how likely someone was to survive being returned to life, and how many times they could be brought to life.

Wolfman: Tick tock on the old constitution clock.

Mac: That good old clock of doom Wolfman. If you tried to return someone to life, there was a percentile chance that they stayed dead anyway. In addition to that, a given creature could only be returned to life a number of times equal to their original Constitution score. Even if your Constitution score was raised above its starting value, that original value was a hard limit.

Wolfman: Boom and the lights go out forever. The grey walls a coming.

Mac: That means if you ever wanted to determine the original Constitution score of a character, you could kill them and return them to life until they didn’t come back, and you would either know their Constitution score, or they failed that Resurrection Survival Check.