Adding a little Sci-Fi into AD&D!

Well last night, I was sitting around, thinking of ways to
design a cool game for my group. A thought came across my mind, after running
my mini-adventure at gencon. A little bit of Sci-fi added to the game could be
awesome, as I  made up an item on the fly
for the game to make it a bit more interesting.

It was called the “Power Gauntlet” and what it did
was shoot a “laser” streak that would randomly hit an enemy of the
wearer of the gauntlet.

The Gauntlet had 5 gem like stones on it, which would slowly
fade in color as the player used it. The player did not notice it really, nor
did I spend much time explaining it. He was happen with the fact it randomly
just destroyed the orcs.

Power Gauntlet

Alien Artifact

5 Gems Power (20 uses – Alien recharge only)

To Hit: Roll standard missile attack + 3

Damage: Varies

Special: See Description

Appears to be a large humanoid gauntlet with gems on it.
Once the user places it on, it can not be taken off until it runs out of
charges. Each Gem contains 4 charges (20 total), and the gems will fade in
color once the charges are used, to a dull grey. Upon a successful hit, the
player rolls a d6 and the DM compares on the chart.

1 – 1 enemy takes half damage

2 – 1 enemy takes full damage

3 – 2 enemies take half damage

4 – 2 enemies take full damage

5 – 3 enemies take full damage

6 – All enemies take half damage

Then the player rolls 2d6 for the damage of the
“laser” blast. The DM can describe the blast however they feel they need to. Have fun with it!

2 thoughts on “Adding a little Sci-Fi into AD&D!

  1. When playing S3 "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" we added faults and explosion affects for the tech, being that it was not maintained well. Also made one of the vegi-pigmies figure out how to use guns too – and went to town on the pcs.
    Good times.

  2. This is a Facebook crosspost which I wrote for detractors of sci-fi in AD&D 🙂

    … I love a bit of sci-fi in my AD&D, and it goes right back to the little brown books.

    Check out "The Temple of the Frog" in D&D Supplement II: Blackmoor published in '75. There's also S3 "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks", the Spider-ship in Q1 "Queen of the Demonweb Pits" and artifacts in the DMG including The Mighty Servant of Leuk-O and The Machine of Lum the Mad.

    D&D's weird fiction roots regularly mix fantasy and science fiction. So does the dying earth genre, the notable example being Vance's "Tales of the Dying Earth", from which (you probably know) AD&D's flavour of magic is based.

    Of course if you're going to have sci-fi elements you pick your moments to inject it. An Arthurian campaign probably isn't the best spot. But an Elric campaign – definitely!

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