There are a couple of reasons I am combining these 2 episodes 1: lawschool takes a lot of time. 2: These are very closely entwined so it allows me to better discuss what was involved in the episodes. 3: It will help me catch up with where we are in the game.
I don't want to spend too much time getting into a lot of discussion this week, but I don want to let you know that I have decided to run my group through the Tomb of Horrors. They are the right level for it, they are a solid thinking party, and it just seemed like a good opportunity to play a module that has been elevated to the point of legend. Its a lot of fun, and I think the group is enjoying it just as much.
Episodes 23 &24
Things are going pretty well at this point in the game, Belfast has been beaten, Leanna has paid for her crimes, the Duke is alive, and its almost Christmas time! Things would really be going well if it wasn't for the fact that Ismana had been captured by some cruel wealthy lord and the fact that there is a Demon Lord about to tear open the fabric of reality between the Abyss and Proveria. So outside of those couple of things, you know, life is pretty good.
The party spends a couple of days celebrating christmas and having a little bit of festivity before they head out to find Ismana. Urz decided it was time to teach Wisthaven about one of his tribes traditional games: you walk as far onto the ice as you can before it breaks. Urz was fine, but 7 people lost their lives that Christmas day. Damone ended up getting drunk and woke up with... someone else- at some point we decided he was mildy bisexual, or at least accidentally so, so whenever he gets drunk there is a percent chance it will be one gender or the other.
When the party finally left the snow was deep and the whether was cold, so I modifed the way that the cold damage would be taken, rather than 1 save per hour I did 1 save per day that dealt CON damage. That was fun way to do it. Lina took about 6 points of CON damage on the way out to Osht (the half-way point between them and Lord Pelegrin).
Once they made it to Osht it was new years eve, Lina stayed in to heal up while the rest of the party went out to party. Urz once again introduced people to his game, this time he sunk under the ice, almost drowned, and then was dropped to about 3 total CON left by the time he got back to shore. Life can be exciting when you are a half-orc barbarian.
After spending a few days recovering and dodging some of the poor weather coming their way they made the last 4 days of travel down to Lord Pelegrins Estate. They were escorted below and met with him, and he had Ismana right there with him. He let them know he would exchange Ismana for either $75,000 or for 1 service. The service he requested was that they travel to an ancient tomb, the tomb where Nagaste-Tor and his apprentice Shay-Sek researched immortality. Inside of the Tomb, past layers of horrific traps, is a Silver Dragon Orb, the ancient and powerful artifact. If they can bring him this item, then Lord Pelegrin agreed to give them back Ismana.
Hesitantly the party agreed, after using spells and abilities to verify that he was telling the truth. They made their way down to the Tomb, using the only man who had ever gone in and come back out again as their guide. Once they arrived at the frozen swamp they spent a few days searching for the entrance. After a few false entrances had been found and Lina had disabled the traps they finally found the correct entrance way. The hall in front of them was long and had a winding mosaic path that led towards a 5 foot tall green demon head and to an archway with mist in it.
My party chose to completely bypass both of those when Urz smashed a chunk of the wall, set off a trap, and then accidentally found a secret door. Inside of that secret door was a four armed gargoyle that deal almost 90 points of damage to Urz in the first round. A few lucky rolls on the parties part and they barely managed to bring the gargoyle down before it killed any one. At this point Lina took the lead and with her insane Perception and Disable device checks, supported by Good Hope from Damone, she managed to work her way through a series of secret doors and dart traps.
On the other side of those secret doors the party set up camp. They woke and found themselves in another long hallway, this one had a number of orbs that were going up an down the hallway. The first took them to a 4 armed gargoyle statue and a puzzle that required them to destroy a number of gems and then earned them a gem of seeing. Further down the hallway another secret door led them into a room with a brain in a jar. It dominated Urz and when the party tried to destroy it Urz swung on Lina dealing about 50% of her total HP in damage. The brain was quickly destroyed and Urz was back to normal.
The next entrance they took led them to a large evil chapel. After setting off a poison trap, then a lightning bolt trap, then a fireball trap they finally managed to solve the secret door in the room and opened up to another hallway. A couple of put traps later they found that there was yet another secret door that led to another secret door and then into a room with 3 vats. The first vat was water, the second acid, and the last a gelatinous cube. Sam dumped acid into the cube vat and dissolved it. Once that was done they pulled 2 key halves out and moved on to the next room.
They then flew over a 30 foot long pit and somehow stumbled onto the most optimal route to get to a magically sealed door. This door required a DC 45 Disable Device check to unlock, which means that Lina would need a natural 20 to open it, unless they could solve the puzzle (I did not tell them this, they found out after). Lina rolled a natural 20. So into the next room they went! A huge chamber filled with columns and a strange soft orange glow from the other side of the room.
And that folks is where we left off this last week. I don't want to get into too much detail on this because they are still in the dungeon and there is a good amount left to deal with.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Episode 22
The campaign has been moving along nicely. Really most everything I was wanting to happen the party has been doing. Which is nice. This was a very big week in regards to the over all story line of the adventure. It was actually an opportunity for there to be very big changes in the game and I was not exactly sure where things were going to go. Lots of fun to be had when you don't know what is about to happen. Very exciting.
EPISODE 22:
The party took time to finish up their preparations. It turned out that Tyhpus sword, Crissus, became sentient this last time that it was enchanted... as it turns out Crissus has belonged to the Paladin order of Tyr for centuries and it views itself as a defender of the faithful. I have decided to make a random chance for any item that receives an enchantment to become sentient. The idea is the process of making a magic item is somewhat.... volatile, and sometimes they wake up.
So the party took their new gear and headed into the blustery winds of mid December towards the Sunlight Keep. On their way south they ran into some of their old friends, Leanna the assassin and Athis the Graveknight. Those 2 were very interested in making the party dead. It was a tough fight, and it once again brought Urz to the edge of death. Once Athis fell Leanna tried to bargain for her life. She offered to trade freedom for secrets. I only about 25% expected that this was going to get the party to bite. Instead the took her down, bound her up, questioned her and killed her. I cannot entirely blame them- I did what I could to get her out of there but ultimately the party was just too interested in seeing her die for her crimes. She has been a foil to the group for some time and it was good for them to get some closure there.
From the clues she left they managed to put together that Belfast was completing a ritual that night to open up the seal that was holding back Nagaste-Tor. If Nagaste-Tor was unleashed than every person in Osht would die, more than 150,000 people. So they slipped past the Black Guard encampment, hurried into the secret tunnel and then ran into a few cultists at the bottom of the tunnel. These cultists were really causing some confusion for the group. They knew now that not all of the cultists were bad and yet here they were killing paladins of Tyr and trying to raise the most horrific scourge that the world had seen back into the open. This was really the effect I was hoping for, because things were about to be cleared up shortly. The cultists that they fought were also the exact same difficulty as the cultists they fought at the beginning of the game, a couple of level 2 guys, and a few level 1's. I thought it would be fun for them to see how far they had come.
Once they got downstairs they saw that Belfast was finishing up the ritual. And now he had a chance to provide a little exposition. Belfast informs the party that he became aware of rifts between Proveria and after researching what was happening and communing with Nergal realized that there was a Demon Lord that was trying to tear his way into their reality. He tried to find ways to stop it and with more study determined the only thing strong enough to stop the Demon Lord was the Arch-Lich Nagaste-Tor. He used Athis's money and resources as the Count of Pastan and then asked him for the ultimate sacrifice, become an evil undead monster to help save the world. And now Belfast is prepared to sacrifice the entire country so that the rest of the world will be saved from the demon invasion.
At this point the party had a decision to make, do they stand back and let Belfast kill 150,000 people that night and potentially the entire country to stop the Demon Lord, or do they stop Belfast and find a new way to prevent this Demon Lord from entering their world.
They chose to stop Belfast and save Osht. Another tough fight. This is the inherent problem with difficult encounters- they can be extremely volatile. Belfast had a few spells that boiled down to save or die- destruction and disintegrate. I hit 2 people in the party with those and they both saved, and still took a ton of damage. The whole fight took about 5, maybe 6 rounds. I would love for a boss fight like this to take 9, 10, or 11 rounds, but the nature of them is such that the party just cannot stand the damage output. The only reason that its a problem is that a Big Bad Evil Guy that has been built up from the start of the game ought to have, I don't know, something more.
That being said, Belfast was slain. The party arose victorious from the depths, freed the paladins who had been captured below and convinced the remaining Black Guard that they should follow Chara (the Black Guard priestess who helped them defeat a demon earlier). With that the adventure was basically over, they headed back up to Wisthaven and needed to find out what happened to Ismana.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
EPISODE 22:
The party took time to finish up their preparations. It turned out that Tyhpus sword, Crissus, became sentient this last time that it was enchanted... as it turns out Crissus has belonged to the Paladin order of Tyr for centuries and it views itself as a defender of the faithful. I have decided to make a random chance for any item that receives an enchantment to become sentient. The idea is the process of making a magic item is somewhat.... volatile, and sometimes they wake up.
So the party took their new gear and headed into the blustery winds of mid December towards the Sunlight Keep. On their way south they ran into some of their old friends, Leanna the assassin and Athis the Graveknight. Those 2 were very interested in making the party dead. It was a tough fight, and it once again brought Urz to the edge of death. Once Athis fell Leanna tried to bargain for her life. She offered to trade freedom for secrets. I only about 25% expected that this was going to get the party to bite. Instead the took her down, bound her up, questioned her and killed her. I cannot entirely blame them- I did what I could to get her out of there but ultimately the party was just too interested in seeing her die for her crimes. She has been a foil to the group for some time and it was good for them to get some closure there.
From the clues she left they managed to put together that Belfast was completing a ritual that night to open up the seal that was holding back Nagaste-Tor. If Nagaste-Tor was unleashed than every person in Osht would die, more than 150,000 people. So they slipped past the Black Guard encampment, hurried into the secret tunnel and then ran into a few cultists at the bottom of the tunnel. These cultists were really causing some confusion for the group. They knew now that not all of the cultists were bad and yet here they were killing paladins of Tyr and trying to raise the most horrific scourge that the world had seen back into the open. This was really the effect I was hoping for, because things were about to be cleared up shortly. The cultists that they fought were also the exact same difficulty as the cultists they fought at the beginning of the game, a couple of level 2 guys, and a few level 1's. I thought it would be fun for them to see how far they had come.
Once they got downstairs they saw that Belfast was finishing up the ritual. And now he had a chance to provide a little exposition. Belfast informs the party that he became aware of rifts between Proveria and after researching what was happening and communing with Nergal realized that there was a Demon Lord that was trying to tear his way into their reality. He tried to find ways to stop it and with more study determined the only thing strong enough to stop the Demon Lord was the Arch-Lich Nagaste-Tor. He used Athis's money and resources as the Count of Pastan and then asked him for the ultimate sacrifice, become an evil undead monster to help save the world. And now Belfast is prepared to sacrifice the entire country so that the rest of the world will be saved from the demon invasion.
At this point the party had a decision to make, do they stand back and let Belfast kill 150,000 people that night and potentially the entire country to stop the Demon Lord, or do they stop Belfast and find a new way to prevent this Demon Lord from entering their world.
They chose to stop Belfast and save Osht. Another tough fight. This is the inherent problem with difficult encounters- they can be extremely volatile. Belfast had a few spells that boiled down to save or die- destruction and disintegrate. I hit 2 people in the party with those and they both saved, and still took a ton of damage. The whole fight took about 5, maybe 6 rounds. I would love for a boss fight like this to take 9, 10, or 11 rounds, but the nature of them is such that the party just cannot stand the damage output. The only reason that its a problem is that a Big Bad Evil Guy that has been built up from the start of the game ought to have, I don't know, something more.
That being said, Belfast was slain. The party arose victorious from the depths, freed the paladins who had been captured below and convinced the remaining Black Guard that they should follow Chara (the Black Guard priestess who helped them defeat a demon earlier). With that the adventure was basically over, they headed back up to Wisthaven and needed to find out what happened to Ismana.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Episode 21
This was a short adventure night. Everyone hit level 9- so we had to spend some time letting the group level. Then we also got started a little late. While it was a short week I thought it would be a good chance to set some things up for the next week, where we would be able to go a little later. I knew 1 member of the group was going to be gone so originally I had planned on doing a 1-off where they got to play the badguys- while it would have been fun I was concerned it might take more time than we had, but not enough for 2 sessions. So I just fleshed out a few extra parts of the regular campaign and moved on.
Episode 21:
The party was left in Oberrons Grove with with Mal'Inia's heart in a Cold Iron box and the Anchor stone to close the dimensional rift. After talking with Oberron (the black unicorn lord of the good dark fey) they decided to leave the Anchor Stone with him. In the parties opinion it was not really there business whether the rift stayed open or not. So the Duke and Oberron would have to hash that out between each other. That seemed a little odd to me, if they leave the anchor stone with Oberron they are effectively saying it will stay open, because the Duke would have to go in and get it from the heart of Oberrons encampment... so while they did not "take a stance" they really only left 1 option on the table.
At this point they had to lean on Oberron's military forces 1 more time. Mal'Inia's forces were gathered near the rift to stop the party from getting through to the other side with their mistresses heart in tow. So the good dark fey would attack the evil ones while the party used Damones magic to get as close to the rift as possible. This of course was all done with Sam's corpse still along for the ride. They got in close and crossed a barrier near the rift that ended their invisibility. What waited for them were 4 of Mal'Inias elite guards- buffed to the 9's since the party had triggered a silent alarm a few rounds earlier.
The elite guards were 2 8th level fighters and 2 Eldritch Knights. Turns out an Eldritch Knight can be a massive bad ass. They were universalists, so they had hand of the apprentice. Which means they were flinging their long swords at 30 paces and slamming them with empowered magic missles as well. They were a lot more effective than I thought they would be, simply because it was so hard to engage them in melee, they could always scoot and blast with a +17 damage longsword toss. Well the fight took a few rounds and the party left through the rift once they saw that the Dark Fey army saw them and were headed their way in a hurry. The party went through the rift so fast that they forgot to loot the bad guys. And they had some decent gear.
On the other side of the rift it was snowing, it turns out the what seemed like 9 days to the party in the Twilight Kingdom was closer to 3 months back in Proveria. One they were on the other side of the rift Urz stabbed Mal'Inias heart with a Cold Iron dagger and a shockwave knocked them all to the ground. Mal'Inia was now dead.
Heading down the path they met back with the Dukes military commander, Colonel Christoph, who thought the heroes were dead, since they had been gone so long. Well word of the dukes recovery was spreading and the party was in a hurry to get back to Wisthaven so that they could ressurect Sam, before he had been dead too long. Nabbing some of the supplies at the camp they headed south to Wisthaven, and spoke with their friend Bertrand, the High Priest of Tyr. He agreed to resurrect Sam, for a nominal donation (16,000 for res and removing negative levels). The party agreed and as Sam was waking from the sleep of ages he was handed a magic item and asked to identify it.
As the party spent time in the city they found out that there had been insurgencies cropping up while the war with the Dark Fey was being fought. Specifically there was some trouble down at the sunlight keep. Realizing bad things were a foot they pooled their gold and prepared to drop some enchantments on things in order to ease their burden in the fights to come. Then they decided to see the Duke.
The ferry to the Dukes Island was closed for the day, so Sam cast fly on everyone and they jetted across the bay to go and meet with him. After some small talk the Duke mentioned the King never provided him aid in the conflict with the Dark Fey, he then asked if Urz and his tribe would be willing to lend him aid if war with the King was coming. Urz agreed- so long as he could get a few slaves out of the deal (he is a half-Orc). Then Urz decided to get flung out of a catapult, but he was okay- only took 20d6 of damage.
The next day they went to go check on Ismana and see what she had been up to for the past several months. It turns out she had been kidnapped by a man named Lord Pelegrin, the same name on a "magic vault" they had received from Ismana on their last mission for her. There was a note in her room that said "If you want to see her again, come find me". It also turns out that Ismana was constructing a deep water vessel from the materials the party had been collecting for her over the past several missions.
With that the night drew to a close, there was a lot to be done and a ton of loose ends that would eventually lead somewhere.... I hope.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
Episode 21:
The party was left in Oberrons Grove with with Mal'Inia's heart in a Cold Iron box and the Anchor stone to close the dimensional rift. After talking with Oberron (the black unicorn lord of the good dark fey) they decided to leave the Anchor Stone with him. In the parties opinion it was not really there business whether the rift stayed open or not. So the Duke and Oberron would have to hash that out between each other. That seemed a little odd to me, if they leave the anchor stone with Oberron they are effectively saying it will stay open, because the Duke would have to go in and get it from the heart of Oberrons encampment... so while they did not "take a stance" they really only left 1 option on the table.
At this point they had to lean on Oberron's military forces 1 more time. Mal'Inia's forces were gathered near the rift to stop the party from getting through to the other side with their mistresses heart in tow. So the good dark fey would attack the evil ones while the party used Damones magic to get as close to the rift as possible. This of course was all done with Sam's corpse still along for the ride. They got in close and crossed a barrier near the rift that ended their invisibility. What waited for them were 4 of Mal'Inias elite guards- buffed to the 9's since the party had triggered a silent alarm a few rounds earlier.
The elite guards were 2 8th level fighters and 2 Eldritch Knights. Turns out an Eldritch Knight can be a massive bad ass. They were universalists, so they had hand of the apprentice. Which means they were flinging their long swords at 30 paces and slamming them with empowered magic missles as well. They were a lot more effective than I thought they would be, simply because it was so hard to engage them in melee, they could always scoot and blast with a +17 damage longsword toss. Well the fight took a few rounds and the party left through the rift once they saw that the Dark Fey army saw them and were headed their way in a hurry. The party went through the rift so fast that they forgot to loot the bad guys. And they had some decent gear.
On the other side of the rift it was snowing, it turns out the what seemed like 9 days to the party in the Twilight Kingdom was closer to 3 months back in Proveria. One they were on the other side of the rift Urz stabbed Mal'Inias heart with a Cold Iron dagger and a shockwave knocked them all to the ground. Mal'Inia was now dead.
Heading down the path they met back with the Dukes military commander, Colonel Christoph, who thought the heroes were dead, since they had been gone so long. Well word of the dukes recovery was spreading and the party was in a hurry to get back to Wisthaven so that they could ressurect Sam, before he had been dead too long. Nabbing some of the supplies at the camp they headed south to Wisthaven, and spoke with their friend Bertrand, the High Priest of Tyr. He agreed to resurrect Sam, for a nominal donation (16,000 for res and removing negative levels). The party agreed and as Sam was waking from the sleep of ages he was handed a magic item and asked to identify it.
As the party spent time in the city they found out that there had been insurgencies cropping up while the war with the Dark Fey was being fought. Specifically there was some trouble down at the sunlight keep. Realizing bad things were a foot they pooled their gold and prepared to drop some enchantments on things in order to ease their burden in the fights to come. Then they decided to see the Duke.
The ferry to the Dukes Island was closed for the day, so Sam cast fly on everyone and they jetted across the bay to go and meet with him. After some small talk the Duke mentioned the King never provided him aid in the conflict with the Dark Fey, he then asked if Urz and his tribe would be willing to lend him aid if war with the King was coming. Urz agreed- so long as he could get a few slaves out of the deal (he is a half-Orc). Then Urz decided to get flung out of a catapult, but he was okay- only took 20d6 of damage.
The next day they went to go check on Ismana and see what she had been up to for the past several months. It turns out she had been kidnapped by a man named Lord Pelegrin, the same name on a "magic vault" they had received from Ismana on their last mission for her. There was a note in her room that said "If you want to see her again, come find me". It also turns out that Ismana was constructing a deep water vessel from the materials the party had been collecting for her over the past several missions.
With that the night drew to a close, there was a lot to be done and a ton of loose ends that would eventually lead somewhere.... I hope.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Episode 20
A little late on delivery this week, sorry. This week we had a few funny things going on. I had 2 people who had joined us for 1 session not there (and unfortunately would not be able to keep coming in the future) and 1 new person who had not really ever played before. So I had to figure out how to get him into the game and get them out. Well I came up with something that was a little Deus ex Machina- but it worked out. This was a big week- featuring mayhem, triumph, and a little defeat.
Episode 20:
The party started off the night back in this little garden of Mal'Inia where they had fought off a Naied the week before with her water elemental minions. It was a tough fight, but they had a good time. This week they took some time and prepared listening at the door and trying to figure out what was up ahead. They made good rolls so I gave them a hint that these dark fey goblins had captured something. The group popped into the next room and started way-laying the bad guys. Within 3 rounds the encounter was over and the party was looking for clues.
The next room they went in to (with great care, I guess I have made this group a little paranoid... being a GM can be so rewarding) had 4 human ranger looking dudes in it, and their leader was in the room next to them (their leader was the new guy). At this point the two other folks who were not here "decided" to take the 4 rangers and try and keep the bad guys busy at the front while the rest of the party went on to fight Mal'Inia at the top of the tower.
As soon as the party left the room with the guards they ran straight into a very large scale battle. At this point there were something like 12 good guys for the party to control and this fight had 12 dark fey goblins, 2 satyr mauraders, 2 dark fey spellcasters, and a trap the party NEVER sprung.
I knew this fight would take a while, but I also know that I have couple of players who really like to play tactics games. So every now and then it is fun to let them play tactics with the guys they have with them. This was not the best example of that, since the guys they had were very limited, but in general I think that its fun to run a few guys and make their combat decisions.
It was a pretty long and difficult fight, that ultimately was brought to the last guy was invisible and the party was waiting to pounce on him when he was revealed. I was happy with the fight, and they got a healing fountain in exchange. The healing fountain was basically just a way for them to get some free healing- the rest of the tower should be tough enough to make this a fine choice and to reward them for exploring.
The party then went up to the next level of the tower and saw a still pool surrounded by statues and trees. The party used this opportunity to try and avoid any traps I might have laid for them. Instead they used an Unseen Servant spell and had him collect the water from the pond. The water was beneficial to them. It was infused with power from the shadow realm and would give anyone who drank it a +1 to saves vs Mal'Inia... that would be helpful very soon.
On the top floor the dark queen herself waited for them. She mentioned that some "Cleric" had told her that these heroes might visit her. The fight was easily the most challenging that the party had faced. Urz was immediately Baleful Polymorphed into a song bird, and Damone was dropped into a pit. Mal'Inia is highly mobile, but they pinned her down with silence spells and stinking cloud, which really would have ended the fight right there.... except that there were 3 gargoyles the party had not fought on the level below and 1 air elemental. These kept them busy until Mal'Inia got out of the stinking cloud. The party defeated her minions and crushed her illusory defenses. Mal'Inia was down to her last desperate act- a mazimized shadowfireball. Most everyone made the save, and those that did not were fine. Except for Sam. Sam died- he was dropped 1 point below his CON and was done for. Urz proceeded to cut Mal'Inia down now that he had been changed back to normal, and the girls panicked and tried to figure out how to make everything better for Sam.
They collected the gigantic Anchor Stone and placed Mal'Inia's heart in a cold iron box so they could eventually slay her.
With that the Heroes slipped out of the fortress using Oberron's army as a shield to get back to their Base camp. No one there was capable of raising Sam from the dead, and the party did not have a divine caster capable of casting that spell, so now the party has to sit and wait until they can cross the rift safely and try and patch up their loving companion.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
Episode 20:
The party started off the night back in this little garden of Mal'Inia where they had fought off a Naied the week before with her water elemental minions. It was a tough fight, but they had a good time. This week they took some time and prepared listening at the door and trying to figure out what was up ahead. They made good rolls so I gave them a hint that these dark fey goblins had captured something. The group popped into the next room and started way-laying the bad guys. Within 3 rounds the encounter was over and the party was looking for clues.
The next room they went in to (with great care, I guess I have made this group a little paranoid... being a GM can be so rewarding) had 4 human ranger looking dudes in it, and their leader was in the room next to them (their leader was the new guy). At this point the two other folks who were not here "decided" to take the 4 rangers and try and keep the bad guys busy at the front while the rest of the party went on to fight Mal'Inia at the top of the tower.
As soon as the party left the room with the guards they ran straight into a very large scale battle. At this point there were something like 12 good guys for the party to control and this fight had 12 dark fey goblins, 2 satyr mauraders, 2 dark fey spellcasters, and a trap the party NEVER sprung.
I knew this fight would take a while, but I also know that I have couple of players who really like to play tactics games. So every now and then it is fun to let them play tactics with the guys they have with them. This was not the best example of that, since the guys they had were very limited, but in general I think that its fun to run a few guys and make their combat decisions.
It was a pretty long and difficult fight, that ultimately was brought to the last guy was invisible and the party was waiting to pounce on him when he was revealed. I was happy with the fight, and they got a healing fountain in exchange. The healing fountain was basically just a way for them to get some free healing- the rest of the tower should be tough enough to make this a fine choice and to reward them for exploring.
The party then went up to the next level of the tower and saw a still pool surrounded by statues and trees. The party used this opportunity to try and avoid any traps I might have laid for them. Instead they used an Unseen Servant spell and had him collect the water from the pond. The water was beneficial to them. It was infused with power from the shadow realm and would give anyone who drank it a +1 to saves vs Mal'Inia... that would be helpful very soon.
On the top floor the dark queen herself waited for them. She mentioned that some "Cleric" had told her that these heroes might visit her. The fight was easily the most challenging that the party had faced. Urz was immediately Baleful Polymorphed into a song bird, and Damone was dropped into a pit. Mal'Inia is highly mobile, but they pinned her down with silence spells and stinking cloud, which really would have ended the fight right there.... except that there were 3 gargoyles the party had not fought on the level below and 1 air elemental. These kept them busy until Mal'Inia got out of the stinking cloud. The party defeated her minions and crushed her illusory defenses. Mal'Inia was down to her last desperate act- a mazimized shadowfireball. Most everyone made the save, and those that did not were fine. Except for Sam. Sam died- he was dropped 1 point below his CON and was done for. Urz proceeded to cut Mal'Inia down now that he had been changed back to normal, and the girls panicked and tried to figure out how to make everything better for Sam.
They collected the gigantic Anchor Stone and placed Mal'Inia's heart in a cold iron box so they could eventually slay her.
With that the Heroes slipped out of the fortress using Oberron's army as a shield to get back to their Base camp. No one there was capable of raising Sam from the dead, and the party did not have a divine caster capable of casting that spell, so now the party has to sit and wait until they can cross the rift safely and try and patch up their loving companion.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Episode 19
It was a large group at the Ubercroz residence this evening. We had a total of 7 players for this iteration, the difficulty being that 2 of them were only going to be there that evening, so I had to figure out a way that would make things work while not ruining the fun for the rest of the group. The good news is that when you have a group of players in their late 20's and early 30's it makes things easier, since no one gets too hung up on things.
These 2 were a couple, he was with us the week before and asked to bring his lady so that she could get to see how a game ran and so she could get some context if he ever started spouting inane gamer nonsense. I think it worked out, now it did leave me with a few interesting challenges for the next week, since the party is closing in on the BBEG and I now have 7 PC's for what I had designed to be a 5 PC fight....
Episode 19:
The party spent some time preparing for their journey up to find the druid who was supposed to have a secret way in to Mal'Inia's fortress. To find the way Oberron asked a guide named Moonflower Stardust (the girl) to guide them up to where the druid lived. It very quickly became apparent to the party that you could move Moonflowers name around and come up with all kinds of interesting names: Starflower Moondust, Moonstar Flowerdust, Starflower Dustmoon, etc. I think we as a group were more amused by that than she was... but maybe not.
So Stardust led the party up to the druids hut and on the way they were waylay-ed by a Quickwood- This was an encounter I thought would be real fun and it challenged the party because of how far away the monster can engage the group. It continued to grapple and pull them in towards its slobbering maw while the archer types blasted away at a distance. It didn't take long for the tree to fall, given its not that tough of a monster, but it was a fun fight regardless.
Afterwards they made it up to the druid who was about to explain how to get explain how to get into Mal'Inias lair (after some cajoling from the party) when they noticed a Quickling in the rafters and took off after it. At this point I had a chase set up using the rules in the Game Mastery Guide. At 8th level chases get a little difficult it seems. The skill disparity between characters is so high that you either play towards the high skill characters and leave the others behind or you try and figure out to let everyone win somehow.
I decided to play to the latter- at a certain card in the chase sequence there was no way for a couple of the characters to bypass it, so I made a secret perception roll on that card that would let them use survival to run a shortcut so they might be able to cut the quickling off. Well the way it worked out Typhus made the perception check and then the survival check easily and caught the quickling with no trouble (something I was a little worried about, but it was fine). The the new silver dragon in the party caught up quickly and caught the little fey in a mouth grapple (which sounds much better than it is I think). At this point one of Mal'Inia's main supporters, a 10th level fighter pure fey, was waiting to catch the PC's in an ambush with the quickling who was leading the party to him. Well the ambush didn't go off well because the quickling got caught. Then Typhus did a move and swing on Arbalest, the bad guy, and caught him with a critical. Since I use the crit cards Typhus pulled "decapitation" which meant Arbalest Saves or dies. Arbalest dies.
I had planned on this being a much more bad ass fat than it ended up being. Somehow I was not upset, it was just what happened. It seemed real great in a lot of ways, I had wanted the party to get an advantage if they caught that quickling and they caught him. It worked out really well. It made Typhus feel like a bad ass and the rest of the party felt good because they got to move on in the game with a clean victory.
They then headed back to the druid, Shalinia, who explained that they would need to travel through a myconid and troll infested cave to get to an underground waterway. At this waterway they would need to polymorph into a diminutive creature and swim for some distance to get into a pool in Mal'Inias courtyard.
Taking this information back to Oberron they planned their next move. On the parties signal Oberron would lead his forces to attack while the party slipped in the back. Once inside the good Dark Fey would provide a distraction so the party could get in and put Mal'Inia's heart into a cold iron box.
The party slipped into the cave and ran into a few trolls... and talked their way out of the fight. I was really hesitant to let this one go. It seems like it would be very hard to talk a troll into not wanting to eat you. They made the roll so I did not want to discredit that. The thing was it seemed really strange that these trolls who had been waiting to eat whatever came into their cave did not eat the party. I don't know, it was probably fine it just seemed a little strange.... to make it easier they used the bards fascinate and suggestion skill- which I was fine with, the diplomacy just seemed strange. After talking their way past the trolls they dove into the waterway and popped out in the courtyard of Mal'Inia.
In the courtyard an evil Neiad with a couple of water elemental servants fought the party. Finally a good fight! She was back in the water, so the group had to swim or fight at a distance... or enlarge. This would have been a better fight against 5 players, but 7 was still fun. It went pretty quickly but the party had fun and it made for a nice closeout on the night. Now this week I have another new player showing up who wants to play his own character, which I am fine with... I just have to figure out how to make it work...
I use to many ellipsis.
Until next time!
-Ubercroz
These 2 were a couple, he was with us the week before and asked to bring his lady so that she could get to see how a game ran and so she could get some context if he ever started spouting inane gamer nonsense. I think it worked out, now it did leave me with a few interesting challenges for the next week, since the party is closing in on the BBEG and I now have 7 PC's for what I had designed to be a 5 PC fight....
Episode 19:
The party spent some time preparing for their journey up to find the druid who was supposed to have a secret way in to Mal'Inia's fortress. To find the way Oberron asked a guide named Moonflower Stardust (the girl) to guide them up to where the druid lived. It very quickly became apparent to the party that you could move Moonflowers name around and come up with all kinds of interesting names: Starflower Moondust, Moonstar Flowerdust, Starflower Dustmoon, etc. I think we as a group were more amused by that than she was... but maybe not.
So Stardust led the party up to the druids hut and on the way they were waylay-ed by a Quickwood- This was an encounter I thought would be real fun and it challenged the party because of how far away the monster can engage the group. It continued to grapple and pull them in towards its slobbering maw while the archer types blasted away at a distance. It didn't take long for the tree to fall, given its not that tough of a monster, but it was a fun fight regardless.
Afterwards they made it up to the druid who was about to explain how to get explain how to get into Mal'Inias lair (after some cajoling from the party) when they noticed a Quickling in the rafters and took off after it. At this point I had a chase set up using the rules in the Game Mastery Guide. At 8th level chases get a little difficult it seems. The skill disparity between characters is so high that you either play towards the high skill characters and leave the others behind or you try and figure out to let everyone win somehow.
I decided to play to the latter- at a certain card in the chase sequence there was no way for a couple of the characters to bypass it, so I made a secret perception roll on that card that would let them use survival to run a shortcut so they might be able to cut the quickling off. Well the way it worked out Typhus made the perception check and then the survival check easily and caught the quickling with no trouble (something I was a little worried about, but it was fine). The the new silver dragon in the party caught up quickly and caught the little fey in a mouth grapple (which sounds much better than it is I think). At this point one of Mal'Inia's main supporters, a 10th level fighter pure fey, was waiting to catch the PC's in an ambush with the quickling who was leading the party to him. Well the ambush didn't go off well because the quickling got caught. Then Typhus did a move and swing on Arbalest, the bad guy, and caught him with a critical. Since I use the crit cards Typhus pulled "decapitation" which meant Arbalest Saves or dies. Arbalest dies.
 |
| This was going to be a really good fight. |
They then headed back to the druid, Shalinia, who explained that they would need to travel through a myconid and troll infested cave to get to an underground waterway. At this waterway they would need to polymorph into a diminutive creature and swim for some distance to get into a pool in Mal'Inias courtyard.
Taking this information back to Oberron they planned their next move. On the parties signal Oberron would lead his forces to attack while the party slipped in the back. Once inside the good Dark Fey would provide a distraction so the party could get in and put Mal'Inia's heart into a cold iron box.
 |
| The cave of Wonders! (or maybe just trolls and things) |
In the courtyard an evil Neiad with a couple of water elemental servants fought the party. Finally a good fight! She was back in the water, so the group had to swim or fight at a distance... or enlarge. This would have been a better fight against 5 players, but 7 was still fun. It went pretty quickly but the party had fun and it made for a nice closeout on the night. Now this week I have another new player showing up who wants to play his own character, which I am fine with... I just have to figure out how to make it work...
I use to many ellipsis.
Until next time!
-Ubercroz
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Episode 18
Occasionally you have new people to add, or older people leave and that is certainly something that has to be addressed by the table. This week we had a guy that several of my players had met and a few had not. He is an experienced player and is involved in Pathfinder Society, so I was not worried about him in regards to rules. He was also in the right age range (aka: not a teenager), so it seemed like he would fit in well. But its not just up to me. We play at my, and my wife's, house but the game we play is everyone's. Turns out it was not a big deal, everyone was okay with it, so that's nice. What it did mean was that- since he will not be a regular- that I needed to have an NPC ready for him. I had been trying to figure out how I was going to work an angle later in the game and this presented a great opportunity for me. So he is playing I'Olethia, the Silver Dragon Paladin.... This ought to be good.
Oberron takes this opportunity to explain his plan. If they use this time to attack Mal'Inias' supply points they will pull her forces from her castle to protect her supplies so that she can continue her assault against the light world. Using this to their advantage they will pick Mal'Inia apart until she is left much less defended at her doorstep. Once that happens the heroes will attack her fortress, cut out Mal'Inia's heart, put it in a Cold Iron box, and then take it across the rift and kill her.
Episode 18:
The party spent a little time getting acclimated to the grove they were in, since I drew a map and had a few places they could nab some resources from it was a good opportunity. Afterwards (they really didn't care that much about the grove, but hopefully that will change in time) they went to meet with Oberron again. He introduced them to a new outsider who had joined them in the Twilight Kingdom, a Paladin named I'Oethia. She had slipped through the rift on her own and found the rebellious dark fey and wanted to assist them in their struggle against tyranny and evil.
Oberron takes this opportunity to explain his plan. If they use this time to attack Mal'Inias' supply points they will pull her forces from her castle to protect her supplies so that she can continue her assault against the light world. Using this to their advantage they will pick Mal'Inia apart until she is left much less defended at her doorstep. Once that happens the heroes will attack her fortress, cut out Mal'Inia's heart, put it in a Cold Iron box, and then take it across the rift and kill her.
The players agree to take a strike force up to the river supply point and batter their way into the complex and destroy the supplies. The fight itself was around a CR 9 (the APL is 9 as well, since there are 6 level 8 players). This was more of the same monsters they fought last week. I really don't like to over commit to a single type of monster, but it seemed reasonable that the most common monster would be here. There were a number of goblins, a couple of Satyrs, and 2 Ogres (these are modified Ogres... so they were slightly more challenging). This was really the first fight were the players got to stretch their legs as 8th level characters, so they got to do some fun stuff. The battle wrapped up fairly quickly and the players pulled back to get to the grove.
On their way back to the grove the party ran into a Juvenile Umbral Dragon. Yeah, immediately after the last fight they ran into a CR11-12 encounter- I love my job. The Dragon, Daranus, tracked the players by the smell of the silver dragon they had with them. Up until this point I'Olethia had not mentioned that she was a Silver Dragon, and at this point she changed shape from human to dragon form and flew right into combat.
This was a tough dragon, I maxed his HP, I buffed him for the fight, and he was prepared to do some damage. Somewhere around the 2nd round Sam hit a critical on scorching ray. I use the critical cards and the one he got was time vortex, which means that the Dragon disappeared for 4 rounds. Now there was some debate as to what happened there. Ultimately I decided that he was in an alternate timeline for 4 rounds, so he got to take some actions as well. The party formed up around him, then Daranus used his first action to take a AoO and flew far enough away to slam every member of the party with his negative energy breath weapon. 50 points of damage and 2 negative levels later I managed to nearly drop Sam, but to no avail. Mark my words, I am taking Sam out sometime...
So after another couple of rounds they manage to drop Daranus and make their way back to the Grove. They get patched up, the healers take care of their negative levels and they go to sleep out in the tent city. That night, while they are sleeping, Mal'Inia sends a Nightmare to the PC's.
They awake at the foot of her courtroom, fully rested and ready for combat. I then take an opportunity to let the 1st 4 rounds of combat run so the players can get an idea of what her tactics are. This was actually for a couple of reasons. Mal'Inia is going to be a very difficult fight, and my group has not done combat at this level very often, so I wanted them to have a chance to see what could happen. I also wanted to see what they would do, Mal'Inia is smart and if she has to fight the PC's she want's to know how to deal with them.
I nailed Urz and Sam with baleful polymorph, I trapped Damone with black tentacles, and the rest of the party was very quickly going to be in bad shape.
At that point the party was woken up from their Nightmare and were given an Amulet to hold back Mal'Inia's ability to use divination to track them. At this point we were getting late at night. The party agreed that they would prepare for the next phase the following week, but now recognized that dispel magic and the ability to detect invisibility would become critical if they were to survive Mal'Inia.
Another good week in gaming, some quick thinking only a little cheating on my part made for some nicely challenging encounters- hopefully the players had a good time.
Thanks for reading!
-Ubercroz
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Episode 17
This week I am beginning to lead my group on a little side jaunt. Its been several sessions since we had a multi-night adventure so I had been working on something that I thought would be good. I took some inspiration from Neil Spicer's Fellnight Queen Module. I have not read his actual module, but I did read a review, and I read his proposal. It certainly has my own twist on it, and I am using rules that don't exist... kinda.
Episode 17
The PC's took some time to prepare for the upcoming wedding of Duke Arlington and his new fiance. They got in to some fancy clothes, haggled people down on prices and in general made sure that they were ready to go be guests at a royal wedding.
As they arrived it was obvious that something bad was going to happen, because I drew a battle map. After the wedding as the reception was hitting a high point the windows broke open and inky black fog started pouring in.
As the fog rolled in dark grey skinned goblins and firey eyed satyrs with great axes began attacking the reception. These were a racial template that I made called Dark Fey. The main advantage they have is the can dimension step through the dark fog. They are very mobile, though not particularly strong. I gave the PC's control of the handful of guards in the room. As more goblins filled the room a Dark Fey elf named Abalest stepped in and declared that his mistress Mal'Inia sent her greetings. He then threw a swarm on the ground that immediately covered the Duke and poisoned him with an otherworldly source.
The Party fought off the goblins and then with the help of the High Priest of Tyr, Bertrand, that Typhus had been working with found that the source of the disease was a Fey Lord, in this case Mal'Inia. Doing some research the party found Mal'Inia had been sealed into a pocket dimension by the Dukes family centuries ago. Somehow her dimension had been breached and now she was preparing to wage war on the PC's dimension.
They headed to the Dukes estate and did some additional research, and during this time the hordes of Mal'Inia's Dark Fey had been attacking town along the northern mountains. The point of the breach had been determined as being near the village of Ebonhon. They also found that the only way to cure the Duke was to kill the Fey Lord who had infected him, and that you can't kill a Fey Lord in their own dimension. Not knowing what else to do they decided to head to the rift and see if they could find a way to eliminate Mal'Inia.
The village was small, around the same size as Durrisburg- the first village they spent time in. But the village had become occupied by the military. There were wizards there holding back the fog and patrols trying to contain the Dark Fey from coming down the cliff and invading their dimension.
With the assistance of a local guide they made their way up the cliff avoiding the staging ground of the Dark fey army. At the top of the cliff they found a a stone-henge like set of stones with 1 missing. From the center there was a large dark rift.
Once they enetered the rift they saw a host of dark goblins, satyrs, lesser fey, Ogres, and various assortments of other monstrosities. The PC's quickly slipped into the wilderness rather than facing the army head on. As they passed through the forest they ran into a group of good dark fey who were fighting a rebellion against Mal'Inia and were taking to the encampment in the woods and to their leader, the Dark Unicorn Oberron.
Episode 17
The PC's took some time to prepare for the upcoming wedding of Duke Arlington and his new fiance. They got in to some fancy clothes, haggled people down on prices and in general made sure that they were ready to go be guests at a royal wedding.
As the fog rolled in dark grey skinned goblins and firey eyed satyrs with great axes began attacking the reception. These were a racial template that I made called Dark Fey. The main advantage they have is the can dimension step through the dark fog. They are very mobile, though not particularly strong. I gave the PC's control of the handful of guards in the room. As more goblins filled the room a Dark Fey elf named Abalest stepped in and declared that his mistress Mal'Inia sent her greetings. He then threw a swarm on the ground that immediately covered the Duke and poisoned him with an otherworldly source.
The Party fought off the goblins and then with the help of the High Priest of Tyr, Bertrand, that Typhus had been working with found that the source of the disease was a Fey Lord, in this case Mal'Inia. Doing some research the party found Mal'Inia had been sealed into a pocket dimension by the Dukes family centuries ago. Somehow her dimension had been breached and now she was preparing to wage war on the PC's dimension.
They headed to the Dukes estate and did some additional research, and during this time the hordes of Mal'Inia's Dark Fey had been attacking town along the northern mountains. The point of the breach had been determined as being near the village of Ebonhon. They also found that the only way to cure the Duke was to kill the Fey Lord who had infected him, and that you can't kill a Fey Lord in their own dimension. Not knowing what else to do they decided to head to the rift and see if they could find a way to eliminate Mal'Inia.
The village was small, around the same size as Durrisburg- the first village they spent time in. But the village had become occupied by the military. There were wizards there holding back the fog and patrols trying to contain the Dark Fey from coming down the cliff and invading their dimension.
With the assistance of a local guide they made their way up the cliff avoiding the staging ground of the Dark fey army. At the top of the cliff they found a a stone-henge like set of stones with 1 missing. From the center there was a large dark rift.
Once they enetered the rift they saw a host of dark goblins, satyrs, lesser fey, Ogres, and various assortments of other monstrosities. The PC's quickly slipped into the wilderness rather than facing the army head on. As they passed through the forest they ran into a group of good dark fey who were fighting a rebellion against Mal'Inia and were taking to the encampment in the woods and to their leader, the Dark Unicorn Oberron.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Episode 16
Things have settled down a little for my group. They have hit their stride in a number of ways, they know some NPC's and have relationships with them, they know the areas in Wisthaven and are developing a good reputation. So tonight was following a little more in that theme. Things will begin picking up again shortly in terms of pushing the party and I wanted to give them time to wrap a few things up and remind them that things are dangerous out there.
Episode 16:
At the end of the last adventure the party had just slain a powerful demon who had been brought into the world through a rift between Proveria and the Abyss. Now they are still there standing in blood, rancid wine, and demon goo. Chara- the Black Guard cleric- tells them that the rift is closed and gives them a stone that will indicate where rifts between dimensions are. At this point they all head south back towards Sunlight Keep so they can tell Lord Argus what was happening up there.
On their way back Leanna, the Assassin, and Athis, the Graveknight, catch them on the road. The party is not rested, low on spells, and in some cases well under 1/2 hitpoints. Leanna laughs at them and begins to move forward saying that she needs to get rid of them so they stop interfering in her masters plans. Nervously the party gets ready for a difficult battle.
As initiative turns, out pops Vlaad the anti-paladin Bounty hunter. He shouts at Leanna to stop, he needs the party alive so he can collect the full price. Over the next several initiatives the rest of his bounty hunter crew intercedes and tries to stop Athis and Leanna. His crew consisted of an Elven Witch named Wrinn, an Orc Ranger named Gru'Utch, and a Human Monk named Giarra.
I thought that this would be an interesting turn of events. I knew that if the party stayed they would get killed. I hoped that they would not stay. But I wanted to do a few things here, I wanted to show the rest of the bounty hunters and let the party get a feel for what they were capable of. I also wanted to show what each groups motivations were. The bounty hunters are interested in the money and were willing to let the PC's get away so they can get another shot at them later. Leanna and Athis are done messing around and now know where the party is and were taking steps to eliminate them. I also found the idea that an Anti-Paladin coming to their rescue was a funny, especially an Anti-Paladin that has aims to take them out.
The party quickly realizes things are bad and decides to haste and high-tail it. They manage to get away and get back to town where things are much calmer and the people around them are glad the Heroes are there. Urz recieves a message from Ismana and from Duke Arlington. Ismana says that she may have figured out how to make the dragon wings he left with her fly- but she needs something. And the Duke has invited Urz to participate in a tournament of arms in a couple of days.
Urz read the word invitation and insisted this mean he could go and see the Duke immediately. So he storms the castle where they don't want to let him in. He tries to scale the walls and eventually is left sitting on the drawbridge until he is let in. Several hours later Sam realized Urz was still there and gently convinced him to go back and train for the tournament only 2 days from then.
Urz had been trying to get an underground fighting ring going for a couple of sessions at this point, unfortunately he lacked the social skills to do anything but frighten people. So I decided to do this to let him get the result he wanted. The tournament was pretty simple, and it qualified him for the next round of more difficult fights. I had several events they could compete in, and ultimately Urz did melee combat, unarmed combat, and the team did group tactics.
After a couple bouts they qualified for the next round of games and decided to go and see what Ismana wanted. She said she needed a Bebelith's abdomen to harvest the silk, and with that she might be able to make Urzs' dragon wings fly. The good news, she said, is that the fabric of reality is tearing so a Beblith has slipped through and taken up residence in some nearby ruins.
The party went in to the ruins the next day. The ruins were in poor shape and a good amount of it had collapsed, but side tunnels were built to allow movement around the collapses. Traps had been set up in the cave by a couple of tricky imps who had made a deal with the Bebelith to exchange fresh food for safety.
The party wound its way through the traps and had a difficult encounter with their first Huge size catagory monster. It had reach on them and cleaved the hell out of them. It was a difficult encounter, but not as hard as the demon the week before. We wrapped up the fight and they found the imps secret lair in the back that had the collected treasure from the unfortunate souls who they had led to the Bebeliths lair.
The week again wrapped up nicely.
Until next time!
-Ubercroz
Episode 16:
At the end of the last adventure the party had just slain a powerful demon who had been brought into the world through a rift between Proveria and the Abyss. Now they are still there standing in blood, rancid wine, and demon goo. Chara- the Black Guard cleric- tells them that the rift is closed and gives them a stone that will indicate where rifts between dimensions are. At this point they all head south back towards Sunlight Keep so they can tell Lord Argus what was happening up there.
On their way back Leanna, the Assassin, and Athis, the Graveknight, catch them on the road. The party is not rested, low on spells, and in some cases well under 1/2 hitpoints. Leanna laughs at them and begins to move forward saying that she needs to get rid of them so they stop interfering in her masters plans. Nervously the party gets ready for a difficult battle.
As initiative turns, out pops Vlaad the anti-paladin Bounty hunter. He shouts at Leanna to stop, he needs the party alive so he can collect the full price. Over the next several initiatives the rest of his bounty hunter crew intercedes and tries to stop Athis and Leanna. His crew consisted of an Elven Witch named Wrinn, an Orc Ranger named Gru'Utch, and a Human Monk named Giarra.
I thought that this would be an interesting turn of events. I knew that if the party stayed they would get killed. I hoped that they would not stay. But I wanted to do a few things here, I wanted to show the rest of the bounty hunters and let the party get a feel for what they were capable of. I also wanted to show what each groups motivations were. The bounty hunters are interested in the money and were willing to let the PC's get away so they can get another shot at them later. Leanna and Athis are done messing around and now know where the party is and were taking steps to eliminate them. I also found the idea that an Anti-Paladin coming to their rescue was a funny, especially an Anti-Paladin that has aims to take them out.
The party quickly realizes things are bad and decides to haste and high-tail it. They manage to get away and get back to town where things are much calmer and the people around them are glad the Heroes are there. Urz recieves a message from Ismana and from Duke Arlington. Ismana says that she may have figured out how to make the dragon wings he left with her fly- but she needs something. And the Duke has invited Urz to participate in a tournament of arms in a couple of days.
Urz read the word invitation and insisted this mean he could go and see the Duke immediately. So he storms the castle where they don't want to let him in. He tries to scale the walls and eventually is left sitting on the drawbridge until he is let in. Several hours later Sam realized Urz was still there and gently convinced him to go back and train for the tournament only 2 days from then.
Urz had been trying to get an underground fighting ring going for a couple of sessions at this point, unfortunately he lacked the social skills to do anything but frighten people. So I decided to do this to let him get the result he wanted. The tournament was pretty simple, and it qualified him for the next round of more difficult fights. I had several events they could compete in, and ultimately Urz did melee combat, unarmed combat, and the team did group tactics.
After a couple bouts they qualified for the next round of games and decided to go and see what Ismana wanted. She said she needed a Bebelith's abdomen to harvest the silk, and with that she might be able to make Urzs' dragon wings fly. The good news, she said, is that the fabric of reality is tearing so a Beblith has slipped through and taken up residence in some nearby ruins.
The party went in to the ruins the next day. The ruins were in poor shape and a good amount of it had collapsed, but side tunnels were built to allow movement around the collapses. Traps had been set up in the cave by a couple of tricky imps who had made a deal with the Bebelith to exchange fresh food for safety.
The party wound its way through the traps and had a difficult encounter with their first Huge size catagory monster. It had reach on them and cleaved the hell out of them. It was a difficult encounter, but not as hard as the demon the week before. We wrapped up the fight and they found the imps secret lair in the back that had the collected treasure from the unfortunate souls who they had led to the Bebeliths lair.
The week again wrapped up nicely.
Until next time!
-Ubercroz
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Episode 15
Another great week in gaming. I have recently began running Pathfinder Society games as well, which for whatever reason I don't have a high comfort level with. Its a mental block more than anything. I don't feel like the NPC's are my NPC's, so I am hesitant to take liberty with them in how they act. I have never really liked box text and I feel like I am forced to use it, and it doesn't come out naturally.
What I think I will be doing in the future is just getting a good idea for what the dialogue is, and wing it rather than read it, as long as I hit the big points it should be fine. Regardless, we had another good session this week and as fast as we went last week we seemed to have slowed down slightly this week, which is fine we had fun.
Episode 15:
The party picked up back in the Dragon Cults lair. After a little work they found his hoard of 35,000 copper pieces (I love giving them copper pieces) a long with a bunch of other good stuff. The town guard and the Paladins of Tyr were happy to see that this black mar in the city of Wisthaven had been erased. So the party has once again endeared themselves to the townsfolk- though there is an angry dragon with no hoard somewhere out there.
Once the party headed back to the smoking hound they decided it was time to get back on track. They took a couple of days to heal up and re-gear themselves. During this time Lina got a note from Tian letting her know that their old friend Leanna had been asking for information about them. Tian likes the party so gave them a heads-up but made sure they knew that he would still give Leanna information.... eventually. Sam was with her and they also discovered that Leanna is now traveling with Athis, the Graveknight.
At the same time Typhus received a note from Xerxes, the head of the White Lodge (which is a guild of adventurers for hire) that let him know the bounty hunters hired by the Stoutfellow clan were spotted in town as well. All that was going on while Sam was learning that the Travelers (the sorcerers who can shift between dimensions) are some how connected to Alanus, a being whose power once rivaled the gods'.
Taking all that in to account the party got together, shared their information, and poured their resources into.... throwing a party.
Yup they decided that with their recent fame and fortune they would garner some good will from the townsfolk by throwing a party in the city square. I had no idea this was coming, but it was a great idea. It really makes them popular, it got the Duke to come down and see them, it gave them a chance to try and spot the badguys that were looking for them, and Urz got drunk and got laid. To be fair Damone got drunk and laid too.... By 3 girls and 1 guy... Damone has a freakishly high charisma score.
After they collected themselves and raked in some profit for the night they went to the Sunlight Keep. This is where one of the Seals that Belfast (the main badguy if you still remember who he is) was after. So they went there, found the place to be well guarded (and also found out some paladins have no love for inquisitors) and were asked to help with a problem. You see there is a small town to the north of Sunlight Keep where no one has been heard from for days. A scout ran up that way a few days ago and has not returned and the Paladin Lord Argus would like the party to look into it and make sure that everything was okay.
The party agreed and went up north to go figure out what the problem was. From just outside the town they heard the sounds of battle and went to go see what was going on. In the middle of the city center the Black Guard Cultists were fighting a number of demons in what appeared to be a deserted town.
This was around a CR8/9 encounter with 4 Dretches, 1 Nabasu, and the death cultists in the mix too. This was not a tough fight the death cultists were helping (a Lvl 5 Cleric and 3 Lvl 4 warriors). So a lot of the pressure was taken off of the party here. They still got dinged up a little and 2 of the cultists died, but it set the stage. Something was wrong in this town and there were demons afoot, and the Black Guard was there.
After the fight the party learns that the Black Guard is not all bad. The cleric who is still left standing is LN and she is only interested in putting down demons. She works for Belfast, and does not entirely trust the PC's, but if they are willing to help her end the Demon scourge in this town she will take their help while they offer it.
The party is then led to a winery, where it seems that the emanations of evil are coming from. Inside is a Succubus and a Babau demon. this is a pretty tough fight, no awful since there are 6 PC's and a cleric NPC, but difficult none-the-less. The succubus is grappling people and draining levels, the Babau is smacking people with his long spear, but the party eventually brings them down with a couple of sneak attacks and cold iron. They take a few minutes to rest and get some health back before heading down to take on the guy below. The Black Guard, Charra, has explained that where an abyssal rift exists there is a source for that rift. If they can eliminate that source the rift will vanish. In the basement is that rift.
They head downstairs to face the CR11/12 demon of the homebrew variety. This is a large sized demon that has an insect like visage. It's basically a reskinned barbed devil, it has a grabby hand and a stabby hand. It also lost most of its spell like abilities, but it gained the ability to summon a swarm of flies and it can flap its wings to spread a nauseating effect on any within 30' (DC24).
This was a very hard fight, the swarm was really messing up the party and this demon had HP and DR for days. What made a big difference is that the Demon grabbed Urz with his pincer hand and then stabbed him with his stabby hand over and over. Urz is now a 7th level barbarian 1/2 orc. He has a sick amount of hp. It took this demon (mind you barbed devil like in grappling and impaling) 4 rounds to get him to negative hp. Then Urz was still fighting. Then Urz was healed so he had ANOTHER few rounds to get grabbed and stabed. It took 6 rounds to get that barbarian unconcious, without that time the party would have died.
This may have realistically been too hard of an encounter for the group. I was unsure, since they would have some additional help and it was a large group. however, if I rolled well and they rolled average I would have wiped the party out. Turns out no one died and everyone almost died, but it worked out.
This is where the night ended. We had a party found out a lot of good information, learned about the tower, and killed a legitimately powerful demon. All in all, a very good night.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
What I think I will be doing in the future is just getting a good idea for what the dialogue is, and wing it rather than read it, as long as I hit the big points it should be fine. Regardless, we had another good session this week and as fast as we went last week we seemed to have slowed down slightly this week, which is fine we had fun.
Episode 15:
The party picked up back in the Dragon Cults lair. After a little work they found his hoard of 35,000 copper pieces (I love giving them copper pieces) a long with a bunch of other good stuff. The town guard and the Paladins of Tyr were happy to see that this black mar in the city of Wisthaven had been erased. So the party has once again endeared themselves to the townsfolk- though there is an angry dragon with no hoard somewhere out there.
Once the party headed back to the smoking hound they decided it was time to get back on track. They took a couple of days to heal up and re-gear themselves. During this time Lina got a note from Tian letting her know that their old friend Leanna had been asking for information about them. Tian likes the party so gave them a heads-up but made sure they knew that he would still give Leanna information.... eventually. Sam was with her and they also discovered that Leanna is now traveling with Athis, the Graveknight.
At the same time Typhus received a note from Xerxes, the head of the White Lodge (which is a guild of adventurers for hire) that let him know the bounty hunters hired by the Stoutfellow clan were spotted in town as well. All that was going on while Sam was learning that the Travelers (the sorcerers who can shift between dimensions) are some how connected to Alanus, a being whose power once rivaled the gods'.
Taking all that in to account the party got together, shared their information, and poured their resources into.... throwing a party.
Yup they decided that with their recent fame and fortune they would garner some good will from the townsfolk by throwing a party in the city square. I had no idea this was coming, but it was a great idea. It really makes them popular, it got the Duke to come down and see them, it gave them a chance to try and spot the badguys that were looking for them, and Urz got drunk and got laid. To be fair Damone got drunk and laid too.... By 3 girls and 1 guy... Damone has a freakishly high charisma score.
After they collected themselves and raked in some profit for the night they went to the Sunlight Keep. This is where one of the Seals that Belfast (the main badguy if you still remember who he is) was after. So they went there, found the place to be well guarded (and also found out some paladins have no love for inquisitors) and were asked to help with a problem. You see there is a small town to the north of Sunlight Keep where no one has been heard from for days. A scout ran up that way a few days ago and has not returned and the Paladin Lord Argus would like the party to look into it and make sure that everything was okay.
The party agreed and went up north to go figure out what the problem was. From just outside the town they heard the sounds of battle and went to go see what was going on. In the middle of the city center the Black Guard Cultists were fighting a number of demons in what appeared to be a deserted town.
This was around a CR8/9 encounter with 4 Dretches, 1 Nabasu, and the death cultists in the mix too. This was not a tough fight the death cultists were helping (a Lvl 5 Cleric and 3 Lvl 4 warriors). So a lot of the pressure was taken off of the party here. They still got dinged up a little and 2 of the cultists died, but it set the stage. Something was wrong in this town and there were demons afoot, and the Black Guard was there.
After the fight the party learns that the Black Guard is not all bad. The cleric who is still left standing is LN and she is only interested in putting down demons. She works for Belfast, and does not entirely trust the PC's, but if they are willing to help her end the Demon scourge in this town she will take their help while they offer it.
The party is then led to a winery, where it seems that the emanations of evil are coming from. Inside is a Succubus and a Babau demon. this is a pretty tough fight, no awful since there are 6 PC's and a cleric NPC, but difficult none-the-less. The succubus is grappling people and draining levels, the Babau is smacking people with his long spear, but the party eventually brings them down with a couple of sneak attacks and cold iron. They take a few minutes to rest and get some health back before heading down to take on the guy below. The Black Guard, Charra, has explained that where an abyssal rift exists there is a source for that rift. If they can eliminate that source the rift will vanish. In the basement is that rift.
They head downstairs to face the CR11/12 demon of the homebrew variety. This is a large sized demon that has an insect like visage. It's basically a reskinned barbed devil, it has a grabby hand and a stabby hand. It also lost most of its spell like abilities, but it gained the ability to summon a swarm of flies and it can flap its wings to spread a nauseating effect on any within 30' (DC24).
This was a very hard fight, the swarm was really messing up the party and this demon had HP and DR for days. What made a big difference is that the Demon grabbed Urz with his pincer hand and then stabbed him with his stabby hand over and over. Urz is now a 7th level barbarian 1/2 orc. He has a sick amount of hp. It took this demon (mind you barbed devil like in grappling and impaling) 4 rounds to get him to negative hp. Then Urz was still fighting. Then Urz was healed so he had ANOTHER few rounds to get grabbed and stabed. It took 6 rounds to get that barbarian unconcious, without that time the party would have died.
This may have realistically been too hard of an encounter for the group. I was unsure, since they would have some additional help and it was a large group. however, if I rolled well and they rolled average I would have wiped the party out. Turns out no one died and everyone almost died, but it worked out.
This is where the night ended. We had a party found out a lot of good information, learned about the tower, and killed a legitimately powerful demon. All in all, a very good night.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
Monday, July 2, 2012
Episode 14
Good stuff this week. I had planned for the first half of this game to take all night. I had planned for the second half to take another full night. This was probably the best single night of the campaign so far, in terms of having fun. There are times as a GM when you over prepare and you wonder why you spent so much time working on something the party never gets to, and then there are nights where you are under prepared and have to wing it. This was a rare occasion where the party did the things I expected in roughly the way I planned and did all of it quickly and cleanly. Really good night.
Episode 14:
The party began the night in the bandit fortress from the week before. They quickly went through the fortress and looted everything they could. Several scrolls of shield, mage armor, and protection from good as well as a +2 great sword and couple of decent suits of armor. They also found a book inscribed in a language they could not make out, oddly they didn't even look into it.
So the party now heads back to Wisthaven, before they get back they have a pow-wow and decide to let Lina know that the cloak she is wearing does not make her invisible, even though she is convinced it does. They cast remove curse on her and she gets a little red-cheaked about thinking she was wondering around invisible all the time. That night Lina decided to cut Sam's hair (he is still a girl due to his robe). Sam didn't know about this haircut until the morning when Lina presented him a hair bracelet with a gem she had stolen earlier. Sam was a little put off, but he (she) understood and was prepared to blackmail Lina in short order.
Back in Town the party found out that Sam's nemesis, Eric Erinson, who Lina had paid some thieves guild information dealers to follow, had killed the people following him in a somewhat brutal fashion- and they have not found the entirety of the slain men. Tian Primrose (the guy she paid) was not very happy with the situation.
Typhus looked in on the bandit they sent back to town and were pleased to hear that he had NOT escaped and he was about to be tried. Typhus wrote a letter explaining what the bandit had done and that he was guilty. Typhus went to the Bertrand the High Priest of Tyr afterwards and gave him the lowdown of their activities.
At this point Sam decided to blackmail Lina, he had seen her steal a gem from the party earlier and promised that he "Wouldn't tell Typhus" if she helped him check out the mansion that his robes personality, Minya, wanted to get in their to lift her curse. So Lina and Sam head to the mansion. Once inside the walls bleed, Minya screams, and they are hit by a fear affect and run away. This mansion is filled with haunts. Sam decided to let the rest of the party know why he has turned in to a girl and that he needs to get in there to release Minya from her curse.
The party travels through the Mansion and they see haunts that drain their strength, dexterity, and constitution and also explain the story of how Caris Balarous sacrificed his student Minya so that he could gain a powerful cloak. He then dominated her personality with wards and used his newfound power to become a successful adventurer that eventually led his family to become more rich and more powerful. At the end of the Mansion they fought the ghost of Caris- a 9th level wizard. He was dimensional stepping around dropping fireballs and enervation's on people (sapped 4 levels from Sam) and eventually was smothered by the robe of Minya. At this point it is important to note that Sam had mentioned in jest earlier that he "always wore his sexy underwear". So when he (she) took off her robe, he was in sexy underwear. Once the Caris was destroyed Sam reverted to his masculine ways... still in sexy underwear.
After this the party had to rest about 5 days to regain their strength. Damone put this time to good use by finding out some information on the Cult that was in the "Bottoms" of Wisthaven. They knew that they were after a cult and decided to pull in some favors from the Paladins of Tyr and the Wisthaven guard to cause a distraction so they could get in close to the shrine of this cult and find out what was going on. Outside the Shrine they had a pretty easy fight and blasted through. Inside they shrine they fought a Dragon Disciple who was fighter/sorceror based. I designed this gal with high AC and mean natural attacks. With all the bonuses she averaged about 45 damage per round if she hit with every attack.
It turns out that this was a cult to a Blue Dragon who goes by the name Que'etzl, and this Dragon Disciple was his head enforcer. All the clerics there were Aasimar, I liked it because they are so charismatic and it plays against type. But lets be honest if a few Aasimar chicks asked you to worship a dragon in some low cut clerical robes you might agree too. The party found a secret door that led into the sewers and wound its way through a few traps and fed into a lair where Que'etzl's pet lived. His pet is a CR10 blue dragon chimera.
This ended up not being a very long fight, but it dropped Sam to -13 (16 con) and nearly dropped 2 more. This Chimera was a substitution I made earlier in case the party bit on this hook too early. Originally they were going to fight the Adult Blue Dragon down there, but I changed it up earlier because I could feel the hints of them going this way last week.
So now the party is standing in the bottom of the cultist lair after killing the chimera and soon their legend will spread. Turns out blue dragons are pretty adept at hearing legends and rumors. So now the Heroes of Pastan may have to deal with an angry blue dragon in the not too distant future.... a dragon villain, man that should be good.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
Episode 14:
The party began the night in the bandit fortress from the week before. They quickly went through the fortress and looted everything they could. Several scrolls of shield, mage armor, and protection from good as well as a +2 great sword and couple of decent suits of armor. They also found a book inscribed in a language they could not make out, oddly they didn't even look into it.
So the party now heads back to Wisthaven, before they get back they have a pow-wow and decide to let Lina know that the cloak she is wearing does not make her invisible, even though she is convinced it does. They cast remove curse on her and she gets a little red-cheaked about thinking she was wondering around invisible all the time. That night Lina decided to cut Sam's hair (he is still a girl due to his robe). Sam didn't know about this haircut until the morning when Lina presented him a hair bracelet with a gem she had stolen earlier. Sam was a little put off, but he (she) understood and was prepared to blackmail Lina in short order.
Back in Town the party found out that Sam's nemesis, Eric Erinson, who Lina had paid some thieves guild information dealers to follow, had killed the people following him in a somewhat brutal fashion- and they have not found the entirety of the slain men. Tian Primrose (the guy she paid) was not very happy with the situation.
Typhus looked in on the bandit they sent back to town and were pleased to hear that he had NOT escaped and he was about to be tried. Typhus wrote a letter explaining what the bandit had done and that he was guilty. Typhus went to the Bertrand the High Priest of Tyr afterwards and gave him the lowdown of their activities.
At this point Sam decided to blackmail Lina, he had seen her steal a gem from the party earlier and promised that he "Wouldn't tell Typhus" if she helped him check out the mansion that his robes personality, Minya, wanted to get in their to lift her curse. So Lina and Sam head to the mansion. Once inside the walls bleed, Minya screams, and they are hit by a fear affect and run away. This mansion is filled with haunts. Sam decided to let the rest of the party know why he has turned in to a girl and that he needs to get in there to release Minya from her curse.
The party travels through the Mansion and they see haunts that drain their strength, dexterity, and constitution and also explain the story of how Caris Balarous sacrificed his student Minya so that he could gain a powerful cloak. He then dominated her personality with wards and used his newfound power to become a successful adventurer that eventually led his family to become more rich and more powerful. At the end of the Mansion they fought the ghost of Caris- a 9th level wizard. He was dimensional stepping around dropping fireballs and enervation's on people (sapped 4 levels from Sam) and eventually was smothered by the robe of Minya. At this point it is important to note that Sam had mentioned in jest earlier that he "always wore his sexy underwear". So when he (she) took off her robe, he was in sexy underwear. Once the Caris was destroyed Sam reverted to his masculine ways... still in sexy underwear.
After this the party had to rest about 5 days to regain their strength. Damone put this time to good use by finding out some information on the Cult that was in the "Bottoms" of Wisthaven. They knew that they were after a cult and decided to pull in some favors from the Paladins of Tyr and the Wisthaven guard to cause a distraction so they could get in close to the shrine of this cult and find out what was going on. Outside the Shrine they had a pretty easy fight and blasted through. Inside they shrine they fought a Dragon Disciple who was fighter/sorceror based. I designed this gal with high AC and mean natural attacks. With all the bonuses she averaged about 45 damage per round if she hit with every attack.
It turns out that this was a cult to a Blue Dragon who goes by the name Que'etzl, and this Dragon Disciple was his head enforcer. All the clerics there were Aasimar, I liked it because they are so charismatic and it plays against type. But lets be honest if a few Aasimar chicks asked you to worship a dragon in some low cut clerical robes you might agree too. The party found a secret door that led into the sewers and wound its way through a few traps and fed into a lair where Que'etzl's pet lived. His pet is a CR10 blue dragon chimera.
This ended up not being a very long fight, but it dropped Sam to -13 (16 con) and nearly dropped 2 more. This Chimera was a substitution I made earlier in case the party bit on this hook too early. Originally they were going to fight the Adult Blue Dragon down there, but I changed it up earlier because I could feel the hints of them going this way last week.
So now the party is standing in the bottom of the cultist lair after killing the chimera and soon their legend will spread. Turns out blue dragons are pretty adept at hearing legends and rumors. So now the Heroes of Pastan may have to deal with an angry blue dragon in the not too distant future.... a dragon villain, man that should be good.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Episode 13
I apologize for the lateness of the posting, but sometimes life gets in the way.
I had anticipated about 3-4 different paths the party would go down at this point. I always try and figure out what the most likely and least likely options are for where the party is going to go. Once I have that figured out I spend energy planning accordingly. This was not the #1 thing that I expected from the group, but I did have something in store if its how things went down.
Episode 13:
At this point the party started the night in Wisthaven. They had spent a few days gathering information and following up on leads.
Tian Primrose, the half-elf information dealer, caught up with Lina at the Smoking hound (the Inn they are staying at). I decided to make Tian kind of a creep, he hits on the little gnome Lina and in general acts like a jerk. But he has the information that Lina is looking for and has found out where Kong, the beardless dwarf is. At this point Lina also asks for information on Eric Erinson (Sam's nemesis) and on Vlaad the Dark Knight Anti-Paladin/Bounty Hunter from the week before.
Once the part found Kong they met back up with Ismana, the elven wizard, at her trans-dimensional Tower that has at least 1 entrance in Wisthaven and 1 in Osht. They were reminded that she was looking for some White Yew from the mountains. Kong knew of some other beardless dwarves who were interested in some work. So with a ahdnful of dwarves in tow the rest of the party decided it was time to go and do this little fetch quest for the addle-brained wizard.
They spent a little extra time getting making some purchases and once they were ready, they loaded a bunch of horses and their dwarven allies. With that they made the 2 day trip to the mountains and began cutting down trees.
After a few days the party had most of what they needed. But, each day they were there added to the possibility that a local group of bandits was going to notice them and attack. As it turned out, on the 4th night they decided to lay an ambush.
The way I ended up doing this was to have them write out their order of watch and have each one roll their perception check for their watch. Once I had that I rolled randomly to see who was on watch when the bad guys snuck in. If our heroes perception beat their sneakiness, they had a chance to act before getting hit. As it turns out it fell on Lina's watch, the best possible result for the party since she had the best perception roll.
By the numbers this was a CR8 encounter. In reality it was probably close to 9/10. they fought 3 rogues (level 2 rogue, level 2 warrior) 3 archers (level 4 warriors), 1 fighter (level 3), 1 ranger (L3) and 1 Wizard (L3). Over all no individual enemy was more difficult that a CR2, but the bad guys were buffed up and the goodguys were off guard and mostly unarmored, which was overcome with a pretty ingenious unseen servant spell to help the inquisitor and the fighter.
This was a fun battle. The wizard was using his familiar to deliver chill touch, the archers were pulling the party in different directions and Kong got sneak attacked by two rogues when he tried to skip out the back of the tent. I was honestly really happy with how this turned out. Sam made some judicious use of the Create Pit spell (which may be the best 2nd level spell...period) which really cut off the enemies mobility. Sam ended up getting downed, but not killed and Damone swung in to save him. After about 10 rounds of difficult combat the elf wizard managed to get away and Typhus decided it was time to get to his "Dark Work" of questioning the still living bandits. As a side note Lina calls it his "Dirty Work", which I think most of the group has started to pick up on and kind of makes me chuckle.
Typhus found out that the bandits had a fortification built about a days ride away. They spent the next couple of days finishing up their lumber work and sent the dwarves back south to Wisthaven with the prisoner.
The fortress was basically a wooden pallisade 25' tall 50' long and 40' deep. about 10 guys were inside, including a 5th level cleric and a 6th level fighter.
The party came up with a plan to get inside: Sam would make a silent image of the guard they rescued while Lina would throw down Ghost Sound to make him call for help. From Ismana's bag of Tasty Treats they pulled 3 flying candies and handed those out to the melee fighters. Once the guards opened the gates they would all throw down the buff spells and the up front fighters would fly up top while the sneaky guys/casting guys would come in from the bottom.
The plan worked like a charm, they hit a couple of snags (Kong was flying 50' in the air when the cleric dispelled magic on him.... which caused him to hit -8... but he was fine). The Hsted flying combatants had not trouble moving around the battlefield and within 12 rounds they cleaned up the bad guys.
The only sad news is that between these 2 fights and a little role-playing we chewed up the enitre night. It was fun though ran some enjoyable combat and we have a good place to pick up from next week, Now I just have to dish out the treasure for all that...
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
I had anticipated about 3-4 different paths the party would go down at this point. I always try and figure out what the most likely and least likely options are for where the party is going to go. Once I have that figured out I spend energy planning accordingly. This was not the #1 thing that I expected from the group, but I did have something in store if its how things went down.
Episode 13:
At this point the party started the night in Wisthaven. They had spent a few days gathering information and following up on leads.
Tian Primrose, the half-elf information dealer, caught up with Lina at the Smoking hound (the Inn they are staying at). I decided to make Tian kind of a creep, he hits on the little gnome Lina and in general acts like a jerk. But he has the information that Lina is looking for and has found out where Kong, the beardless dwarf is. At this point Lina also asks for information on Eric Erinson (Sam's nemesis) and on Vlaad the Dark Knight Anti-Paladin/Bounty Hunter from the week before.
Once the part found Kong they met back up with Ismana, the elven wizard, at her trans-dimensional Tower that has at least 1 entrance in Wisthaven and 1 in Osht. They were reminded that she was looking for some White Yew from the mountains. Kong knew of some other beardless dwarves who were interested in some work. So with a ahdnful of dwarves in tow the rest of the party decided it was time to go and do this little fetch quest for the addle-brained wizard.
They spent a little extra time getting making some purchases and once they were ready, they loaded a bunch of horses and their dwarven allies. With that they made the 2 day trip to the mountains and began cutting down trees.
After a few days the party had most of what they needed. But, each day they were there added to the possibility that a local group of bandits was going to notice them and attack. As it turned out, on the 4th night they decided to lay an ambush.
By the numbers this was a CR8 encounter. In reality it was probably close to 9/10. they fought 3 rogues (level 2 rogue, level 2 warrior) 3 archers (level 4 warriors), 1 fighter (level 3), 1 ranger (L3) and 1 Wizard (L3). Over all no individual enemy was more difficult that a CR2, but the bad guys were buffed up and the goodguys were off guard and mostly unarmored, which was overcome with a pretty ingenious unseen servant spell to help the inquisitor and the fighter.
This was a fun battle. The wizard was using his familiar to deliver chill touch, the archers were pulling the party in different directions and Kong got sneak attacked by two rogues when he tried to skip out the back of the tent. I was honestly really happy with how this turned out. Sam made some judicious use of the Create Pit spell (which may be the best 2nd level spell...period) which really cut off the enemies mobility. Sam ended up getting downed, but not killed and Damone swung in to save him. After about 10 rounds of difficult combat the elf wizard managed to get away and Typhus decided it was time to get to his "Dark Work" of questioning the still living bandits. As a side note Lina calls it his "Dirty Work", which I think most of the group has started to pick up on and kind of makes me chuckle.
Typhus found out that the bandits had a fortification built about a days ride away. They spent the next couple of days finishing up their lumber work and sent the dwarves back south to Wisthaven with the prisoner.
The fortress was basically a wooden pallisade 25' tall 50' long and 40' deep. about 10 guys were inside, including a 5th level cleric and a 6th level fighter.
The party came up with a plan to get inside: Sam would make a silent image of the guard they rescued while Lina would throw down Ghost Sound to make him call for help. From Ismana's bag of Tasty Treats they pulled 3 flying candies and handed those out to the melee fighters. Once the guards opened the gates they would all throw down the buff spells and the up front fighters would fly up top while the sneaky guys/casting guys would come in from the bottom.
The plan worked like a charm, they hit a couple of snags (Kong was flying 50' in the air when the cleric dispelled magic on him.... which caused him to hit -8... but he was fine). The Hsted flying combatants had not trouble moving around the battlefield and within 12 rounds they cleaned up the bad guys.
The only sad news is that between these 2 fights and a little role-playing we chewed up the enitre night. It was fun though ran some enjoyable combat and we have a good place to pick up from next week, Now I just have to dish out the treasure for all that...
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
Monday, June 18, 2012
Episode 12
This week nearly went without any combat at all, which is kind of neat since last week was a very combat intensive night. As a result of that I have no combat maps to upload this week! Over all it was a good night.
Episode 12:
The party started off the evening at the top of a dwarven fortress with a bunch of dwarves outside the main keep. Now the dwarves were currently unaware that the heroes had slipped into the temple, slaughtered a bunch of guys, stolen 15 bars of mithril, released all their slaves, and freed their friend from captivity. The part quickly looked around the room they were in, grabbed Durn's gear and a book written in a cypher, and booked it.
This gave me a nice opportunity to add some tension. They could hear the dwarves discover what happened and then they could hear the tread of running dwarven feat as they ran down the steps to stay just out of reach of their stubby little feet.
The party then bolts out the secret door at the rear of the cliff and managed to get out before the dwarves knew where they went to. Outside they met with all of the folks who, only a few short hours before, where about to be slaves of the dueregar. They ducked back into the trees and slept from dawn to the evening so that they could be full rested and move in the night time. Before that point the party was fatigued due to pulling an all nighter.
Under the cover of darkness the party managed to move out of the valley, and with tremendous luck and good decision making every potential combat was avoided. This was partly due to Whoden, Sam's 1 eyed raven, and just being careful, and of course tremendous luck over and over.
The party then met up with some roving dwarven patrols from Garrets Reach. These were not bad guys and when they realized that they had saved a bunch of their citizens from slavery escorted them back to Garrets Reach. At this point the party decided that they were not going to go IN to Garrets Reach due to the heat that they were under. Durn went in, since he was not with the group, and agreed to meet up with the party 1 day later with potential news about the other missing party member, Kong.
Once the party had rested Durn came back and explained he would work to help clear their name, but he needed to stay and help take care of his father who agreed to testify against the Stoutfellows. In regards to Kong he had been tried and his sentence executed. His fate was the worst a dwarg could suffer, he was banished, had his beard shaved off, and his hand was clamped in the "Black Gauntlet", a device that caused searing pain so long as it was worn. Kong left several days before, with the party believing that he went to meet them in Wisthaven to the southeast.
The party then continued to Wisthaven. Wisthaven is the largest, oldest, and most corrupt city in the area. I should mention that at this point an NPC noticed that Sam the Salesman had his gender changed. This is something that I had not mentioned in previous posts due to in game knowledge of other players. Sam picked up a cloak with from the doppelgangers a few weeks back and when he put it on he began to slowly change gender- and his party failed to make perception checks to notice (which was staggering). Once Urz realized Sam was now Samantha he immediately groped him, causing Sam to look ashamed and confused.
Once on ground the party had a lot of loose ends to tie up. They looked for information on Kong- paying information dealers, gathering information on their own, trying to pick up hints. They needed to locate the next Seal Tower and find out where Belfast had gone to- so they went to the temples and asked around about where the tower might be and if the death cultists had been heard from. Urz decided to find out if someone could enchant the green dragons wings he had been carrying around for weeks so that he could fly- This one was interesting. It turns out Ismana, from Osht who sent them on a previous quest, has a tower in a pocket dimension with entrance points in more than 1 location, and that is who Urz ran into, and picked up a another quest from her as well. Sam had a personal quest to deal with and looked into that as well.
Speaking of Sam, for the first time since the beginning of the game he ran into the guy who brought him into this dimension. On the streets of Osht Sam Simmons ran into a man who called himself Eric Erinson.... though Eric did not recognize "Samantha".
That evening the party ran into a black knight wielding a Lucerne Hammer with a bowl of incense hanging off of a chain. This was an Anti-paladin with spring attack (stealing some inspiration from a podcast). His incense gave let him use his cruelty in any square he had stood or swung his hammer.
This was not designed to be a hard fight. Just challenging and making the players work around him some. So he bounced around hit a bunch of people, fatigued the group, and then ran away as soon as he could to avoid being killed (with a hp total of 7 at the end of the fight).I
Vlaad the Black Kngiht took off, but made sure to leave his calling card and now the party has 1 more thing to worry about (like they needed that).
We did a lot of role playing, the party spent a lot of time shopping (something they had little chance to do for the past many weeks). And they really had a chance to wind down from the past few weeks and put together all the details of what they needed to do. The game could have gone the whole night without combat, but I know that not everyone would have liked that so I made sure to include that here.
Well, we have 2 more villains to contend with - Eric and Vlaad, a couple of new quests, and they have a dwarf friend missing somewhere in the city. It looks like next week is going to be good.
Until Next Time!
-UberCrozier
Episode 12:
The party started off the evening at the top of a dwarven fortress with a bunch of dwarves outside the main keep. Now the dwarves were currently unaware that the heroes had slipped into the temple, slaughtered a bunch of guys, stolen 15 bars of mithril, released all their slaves, and freed their friend from captivity. The part quickly looked around the room they were in, grabbed Durn's gear and a book written in a cypher, and booked it.
This gave me a nice opportunity to add some tension. They could hear the dwarves discover what happened and then they could hear the tread of running dwarven feat as they ran down the steps to stay just out of reach of their stubby little feet.
The party then bolts out the secret door at the rear of the cliff and managed to get out before the dwarves knew where they went to. Outside they met with all of the folks who, only a few short hours before, where about to be slaves of the dueregar. They ducked back into the trees and slept from dawn to the evening so that they could be full rested and move in the night time. Before that point the party was fatigued due to pulling an all nighter.
Under the cover of darkness the party managed to move out of the valley, and with tremendous luck and good decision making every potential combat was avoided. This was partly due to Whoden, Sam's 1 eyed raven, and just being careful, and of course tremendous luck over and over.
The party then met up with some roving dwarven patrols from Garrets Reach. These were not bad guys and when they realized that they had saved a bunch of their citizens from slavery escorted them back to Garrets Reach. At this point the party decided that they were not going to go IN to Garrets Reach due to the heat that they were under. Durn went in, since he was not with the group, and agreed to meet up with the party 1 day later with potential news about the other missing party member, Kong.
Once the party had rested Durn came back and explained he would work to help clear their name, but he needed to stay and help take care of his father who agreed to testify against the Stoutfellows. In regards to Kong he had been tried and his sentence executed. His fate was the worst a dwarg could suffer, he was banished, had his beard shaved off, and his hand was clamped in the "Black Gauntlet", a device that caused searing pain so long as it was worn. Kong left several days before, with the party believing that he went to meet them in Wisthaven to the southeast.
The party then continued to Wisthaven. Wisthaven is the largest, oldest, and most corrupt city in the area. I should mention that at this point an NPC noticed that Sam the Salesman had his gender changed. This is something that I had not mentioned in previous posts due to in game knowledge of other players. Sam picked up a cloak with from the doppelgangers a few weeks back and when he put it on he began to slowly change gender- and his party failed to make perception checks to notice (which was staggering). Once Urz realized Sam was now Samantha he immediately groped him, causing Sam to look ashamed and confused.
Once on ground the party had a lot of loose ends to tie up. They looked for information on Kong- paying information dealers, gathering information on their own, trying to pick up hints. They needed to locate the next Seal Tower and find out where Belfast had gone to- so they went to the temples and asked around about where the tower might be and if the death cultists had been heard from. Urz decided to find out if someone could enchant the green dragons wings he had been carrying around for weeks so that he could fly- This one was interesting. It turns out Ismana, from Osht who sent them on a previous quest, has a tower in a pocket dimension with entrance points in more than 1 location, and that is who Urz ran into, and picked up a another quest from her as well. Sam had a personal quest to deal with and looked into that as well.
Speaking of Sam, for the first time since the beginning of the game he ran into the guy who brought him into this dimension. On the streets of Osht Sam Simmons ran into a man who called himself Eric Erinson.... though Eric did not recognize "Samantha".
That evening the party ran into a black knight wielding a Lucerne Hammer with a bowl of incense hanging off of a chain. This was an Anti-paladin with spring attack (stealing some inspiration from a podcast). His incense gave let him use his cruelty in any square he had stood or swung his hammer.
This was not designed to be a hard fight. Just challenging and making the players work around him some. So he bounced around hit a bunch of people, fatigued the group, and then ran away as soon as he could to avoid being killed (with a hp total of 7 at the end of the fight).I
Vlaad the Black Kngiht took off, but made sure to leave his calling card and now the party has 1 more thing to worry about (like they needed that).
We did a lot of role playing, the party spent a lot of time shopping (something they had little chance to do for the past many weeks). And they really had a chance to wind down from the past few weeks and put together all the details of what they needed to do. The game could have gone the whole night without combat, but I know that not everyone would have liked that so I made sure to include that here.
Well, we have 2 more villains to contend with - Eric and Vlaad, a couple of new quests, and they have a dwarf friend missing somewhere in the city. It looks like next week is going to be good.
Until Next Time!
-UberCrozier
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Episode 11
Tonight went pretty well all in all.
Everyone showed up with a little bit of last week on their minds. I
think that’s good. We had a lot to do tonight and tight schedule
to keep. A couple of my players have to work some weekends, so the
night can't go too late. Typically we start around 7:30 (lol 8:00)
and we strive to finish at 12:00-12:30. Its a tight schedule and
with kids and breaks we actually get a lot accomplished every night
we get together. Since last week focused so much on roleplaying I
wanted tonight to be much more problem solving and combat focused.
Its less stressful than moral decisions and when you succeed you can
walk away from the night feeling pretty good.
Episdode 11.
The party started off in the woods near
Granites hidden fortress. They had ambushed him and now found
themselves in the predicament where they had to figure out how to get
from their small encampment into the temple. I built a few skill
checks into this, history, engineering, geogrpahy would all help to
point the party towards knowing that the cliff at the back of the
mountain range looked strange and out of place somehow.
The party started the night a little
on edge, they didn't want to screw anything up. They moved very
carefully, at night, towards the back of the woods, crossed a stream,
and got up to the cliff. A lot of time was spent making sure that
they crossed that stream safely. I'm glad they did that, shows they
want to stay safe but are willing to take risks when necessary.
 |
| Topographical map of the valley. Yellow is the low ground red is the high ground |
I did another word
puzzle here. After searching they found a stone puzzle box they
could plug into the wall tat said “more valuable than gold”, the
letters I had included one to make STONE, FAMILY, MITHRAL, TRUST,
HONOR. The answer was trust. They had 4 chances and using the right
skills (perception, knowledge (history, local, dungeoneering) they
could eliminate some letters. It took 3 tries and around 15 minutes
but they got in.
Once they snuck in
they found some slaves, and Durns mother who told them to travel
upstairs to find her son. After wards they very quickly got into a
fight with some dueregar and some mountain dwarves. I'm torn on what
maps to include here, this was a pretty straightforward fight (CR7)
but had a giant pit in the middle that led down to the underdark.
The only thing I really wanted out
of this fight was for someone to get knocked into the pit and killed
as a result. As it turns out Urz bullrushed a Dueregar over and
dropped him. I was very happy to see that. One of the Dueregar they
were fighting did manage to slip out the back and run back towards
the underdark.... who knows how that will turn out.
The
party found a few bars of Mithril here, I don't give my parties a lot
of money over time, so this Mitrhil may be one of the few major
sources of income they get for a while. Once they had explored the
lower level they climbed over 9 stories to reach the next level where
they found... nothing of note.
I do this sometimes. There was
nothing to find there, but one of my players today asked me what they
missed, and I said- “I dunno, I guess not much.” Its good to
have areas where you don't anything from time to time. It makes it
so finding something that much better.
 |
| The two bottom pillars shot acid arrows at anyone standing in green |
When it was over
they had killed everyone except for 1 dueregar who was willing to
trade information for his safety. He explained that the dueregar
were trading mithril for slaves to give them cheap access to labor
and to give the Stoutfellows the Mithril they needed to have the best
equipped Clan in the
dwarven hierarchy.
When that was over
Typhus- the Judge Dredd of the country of Proveria- determined that
this Dueregar was guilty of his crimes and threw him into the red hot
coals of the forge. Typhus is an inquisitor and LN, it also fit his
character. He considers himself to be judge, jury, and executioner
as such he found the dueregar guilty of slavery and meted out his
punishment.
The party at this
point was pretty hurt. Their APL is 6.4, which I rounded up to 7.
Well given that the 7 and 8 enounter were tough and a lot of
resources were expended on those fights...and up next was the big
daddy of the fights. A CR 10 fight to save their lost comrade Durn.
Upstairs they found
a number of mountain dwarves and dueregar waiting for them. Over the
next 12 rounds the party expended the majority of their resources.
Typhus was dropped to -8 at one point, Lina spent a good portion of
the fight running from a dueregar, Urz was laying waste to the dirty
dwarves with cleaving power attacks, Sam was creating pits under
anyone foolish enough to stand, and Damone was buffing everyone into
the extreme. When all was said and done, all the parties spells were
spent, and there were no remaining rounds of abilities left.
I like fights were people get the
chance to stick and move. One of my gripes about the OGL system of
combat is that it tends to be more beneficial for people to
standstill and swing than it is for people to move around the map. I
like dynamic fights and this was one. I don't pull punches in my
games, and there was a legitimate chance for a TPK here, but when the
party is willing to throw themselves at the fight with all they have
then I am happy with the result.
Now the Party has
Durn, they are at the top of a fortress filled with angry dwarves and
near a town where they are wanted for murder and potentially killing
the Mayor. As the night drew to a close the party found themselves
barricaded behind a stout door to rest as they plotted out their next
move. It was a night filled with combat. The nice thing was that at
the end of the night they felt like they succeeded. They broke into
a stout dwarven fortress, snuck up several levels, put down the
resistance, and saved their friend.
They are
sequestered away in the top level of this fortress behind a thick
iron banded wooden door and are resting up to face whatever foes are
still in and around the keep.
Until next time!
-Ubercroz
Friday, June 8, 2012
Episode 10.2
This is the session that actually made me want to start tracking this game. Like I said before there were a lot of strange things that happened and I don't have a lot of GM's around to talk to that don't play in my game. So I wanted to get a chance to get some feedback (I am sure it will be biased since this is written from my perspective) and to let other people get some feedback from my game.
Episode 10.2
The Party headed up north towards Garrets reach, around 2 days away. Half way there they find a raided caravan. No bodies, but there are signs of a fight there. They find Durns holy symbol here. They pick up the trail and begin to follow it.
I wanted them to have a possibility of finding this Hidden stronghold I made were Durn is right off the bat. It would be tough (6 skill checks of 22+) but they could do it. I like my games to be sand boxy. It keeps me on my toes and forces them to have to think and have consequences in the world.
They got about halfway to the fortress and lost the trail. So they went to Garrets Reach and talked to Durn's father, a man I named Dangit Brewhammer (I thought that was funny). After some convincing (and a charm spell) Dangit tells them that he asked Durn to help him rescue his kidnapped wife and daughter. Granite Stoutfellow (the Stoutfellow that runs Garrets Reach) is involved in the slave trade and Dangit wasn't keeping up his part of the deal, so Granite took his wife and daughter as payment. The party decided to go and meet with Granite.
I've said before I try to give my NPC's motivations. Dangit is scared something worse is going to happen to him. Granite deals in a secret slave trade with the Dueregar swapping mithril for slaves. So he really wants to keep the city in good working order so he can do his dirty deeds behind the scenes where his family’s name won't be dirtied. This is important when my players talk with Granite.
They get a meeting with Granite and they open up by essentially asking him to sell slaves to them- they don't just come right out and say it, but they mention that Draggard recommended they meet Granite and buy slaves from him. Granite gets nervous hearing this and tells the players he doesn't deal in that kind of thing and basically tells them to get out- The players notice Kong's axe on Granites belt.
Its easy as a GM to design a dungeon or an encounter that has a solution. What is somehow both easier and more difficult is building an encounter with no preordained solution. From a certain perspective, you just put it out there and lean back while the players play with it. On the other hand, we tend to WANT to have an answer ready as a GM, and to think how we would do it. I made Granites Keep a place that existed with something the players wanted inside and that was it. If you don’t have a particular answer you open yourself up to letting the players make up something better than you ever could have.
Now the players decide to wait for a guard to leave Keep and follow him to an alley where Lina sneak attacks him with a blackjack. They invisible him and take him to Dangits house and tie him up in the basement. They find out that Kong is in the dungeon of the keep and that the guards do shifting rotations keeping people up on the wall at almost all times. Lina and Damone decide to go scout out the keep at dark while Sam says he and Urz will take care of the guard. At this point Sam makes a noose and strangles the guard to death.
I had something of a problem with this. I was super surprised that one of my more experienced players playing a LG character would do that. This is partly my fault. I have caused other NPC's they let go come back to haunt them and this is the over reaction to that.
Lina and Damone find a small window they can climb up to unnoticed at the keep and peek inside and find some stairs. Given these two are both new players they got a little nervous about being alone and booked it back to the party. Sam and Urz drug the body outside and were caught by a guard. They bluff and convince the guard that the body is just drunk; the guard offers to lead them back to the "drunken" guard’s house. When he turns around they hit him with color spray and the guard saves. Now the guard calls the other guards and Sam and Urz have to book it and get out of there. They manage to invis and get away.
This was the repercussion for killing the guard. Now this party of heroes is wanted for murder in Garrets Reach. It will certainly make things harder and I don't know what is going to happen to Kong.
The party all gathered up and rather than going after Kong that night before news spread about the dead guard they waited until the next night... when the guard was doubled on the keep. They decided to wait out Granite and follow him to his secret fortress. They found the way, managed to get a little ahead of him and caught him in an ambush where things finally went the player’s way. They dismantled him and his guard and now are camped out 1/2 a day’s ride from Granites hidden fortress.
Episode 10.2
The Party headed up north towards Garrets reach, around 2 days away. Half way there they find a raided caravan. No bodies, but there are signs of a fight there. They find Durns holy symbol here. They pick up the trail and begin to follow it.
I wanted them to have a possibility of finding this Hidden stronghold I made were Durn is right off the bat. It would be tough (6 skill checks of 22+) but they could do it. I like my games to be sand boxy. It keeps me on my toes and forces them to have to think and have consequences in the world.
They got about halfway to the fortress and lost the trail. So they went to Garrets Reach and talked to Durn's father, a man I named Dangit Brewhammer (I thought that was funny). After some convincing (and a charm spell) Dangit tells them that he asked Durn to help him rescue his kidnapped wife and daughter. Granite Stoutfellow (the Stoutfellow that runs Garrets Reach) is involved in the slave trade and Dangit wasn't keeping up his part of the deal, so Granite took his wife and daughter as payment. The party decided to go and meet with Granite.
I've said before I try to give my NPC's motivations. Dangit is scared something worse is going to happen to him. Granite deals in a secret slave trade with the Dueregar swapping mithril for slaves. So he really wants to keep the city in good working order so he can do his dirty deeds behind the scenes where his family’s name won't be dirtied. This is important when my players talk with Granite.
They get a meeting with Granite and they open up by essentially asking him to sell slaves to them- they don't just come right out and say it, but they mention that Draggard recommended they meet Granite and buy slaves from him. Granite gets nervous hearing this and tells the players he doesn't deal in that kind of thing and basically tells them to get out- The players notice Kong's axe on Granites belt.
Its easy as a GM to design a dungeon or an encounter that has a solution. What is somehow both easier and more difficult is building an encounter with no preordained solution. From a certain perspective, you just put it out there and lean back while the players play with it. On the other hand, we tend to WANT to have an answer ready as a GM, and to think how we would do it. I made Granites Keep a place that existed with something the players wanted inside and that was it. If you don’t have a particular answer you open yourself up to letting the players make up something better than you ever could have.
Now the players decide to wait for a guard to leave Keep and follow him to an alley where Lina sneak attacks him with a blackjack. They invisible him and take him to Dangits house and tie him up in the basement. They find out that Kong is in the dungeon of the keep and that the guards do shifting rotations keeping people up on the wall at almost all times. Lina and Damone decide to go scout out the keep at dark while Sam says he and Urz will take care of the guard. At this point Sam makes a noose and strangles the guard to death.
I had something of a problem with this. I was super surprised that one of my more experienced players playing a LG character would do that. This is partly my fault. I have caused other NPC's they let go come back to haunt them and this is the over reaction to that.
Lina and Damone find a small window they can climb up to unnoticed at the keep and peek inside and find some stairs. Given these two are both new players they got a little nervous about being alone and booked it back to the party. Sam and Urz drug the body outside and were caught by a guard. They bluff and convince the guard that the body is just drunk; the guard offers to lead them back to the "drunken" guard’s house. When he turns around they hit him with color spray and the guard saves. Now the guard calls the other guards and Sam and Urz have to book it and get out of there. They manage to invis and get away.
This was the repercussion for killing the guard. Now this party of heroes is wanted for murder in Garrets Reach. It will certainly make things harder and I don't know what is going to happen to Kong.
The party all gathered up and rather than going after Kong that night before news spread about the dead guard they waited until the next night... when the guard was doubled on the keep. They decided to wait out Granite and follow him to his secret fortress. They found the way, managed to get a little ahead of him and caught him in an ambush where things finally went the player’s way. They dismantled him and his guard and now are camped out 1/2 a day’s ride from Granites hidden fortress.
Well, the night started out rough and had a few bumpy moments, but the players got where I hoped they would. They have less information than is ideal, but that’s okay. I was pretty frustrated at several points in the evening; I didn’t like some of my player’s choices. In retrospect this was the kind of stuff I want to happen. I want my players to muck around and do things with lasting consequences. When I get put in an uncomfortable spot as a GM that’s when I have the chance to really shine and make my game better. So that’s a lesson I will take with me, next time things are going awry, sit back relax and let the good times roll.
Until next time!
-Ubercroz
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Episode 10.1
There are times when it seems like a game comes off the rails quite a bit, and this was one of those nights. There was mystery, murder, bar fights, confusion, and despair. That may be an exaggeration but there was confusion at a minimum. Enough happened here that I think I am going to break this into 2 posts. The reason is that I don't want to overload anyone and so much role playing happened that to go into it all would be overwhelming- I think. So here is part 1
Episode 10:
The party started off the evening in Owls Roost, the northern most city that is still within the confines of the country of Proveria. Owls Roost is a merchant city, it’s where a bunch of traveling merchants and nomads set up shop and it stays a large city, mostly made of tents. I didn’t exactly have a basis for this but I wanted it to have the feeling of 1840’s mining town. Owls Roost is a city of convenience, it’s right in the middle of some major traffic ways from the dwarven trade cities to the north and the country of Proveria. It is also the gateway to the one pass that would take them north of the Dwarven Highlands into the Northlands.
The party begins asking questions around town looking for their buddy Durn. Urz asks "Have you seen a Dwarf with nine fingers anywhere?". I caught myself right before the guy answered no and paused. so Urz says "I intimidate the guy". The lowly merchant tells Urz about a Dwarf in South Town named Draggard is probably who he is looking for.
This is where improv skills can come in handy. Whenever your instinct as a GM is to say no, try to stop yourself. The game will be much more fun if you say "Yes, and...". This was one of those times, it ends up completely changing the adventure that I said yes to his question about the 9 fingered Dwarf. I also noticed my party had been abusing the intimidate skill recently. It seemed like the party preferred using that skill over diplomacy. So on the spot here I made 2 decisions: 1- I was going to make a 9 fingered dwarf who ran things in town, He is the seedy underbelly. 2- If they keep intimidating people they are going to let Draggard know that the money they pay him for protection doesn't seem to be working.
Typhus went to the local constable and found a drunk constable who seemed to be completely disinterested in managing the law in town. However, he recommended that they look at the bar next door for info, after Typhus intimidated him.
I have a simple rule when I name a tavern: the (adjective) (noun). it works pretty well. In this case it was the (fallen) (wheel). In my world I have essentially made Inquisitors like a separate branch of the government. So when Typhus rolls in and shows his badge people listen. Not all inquisitors are on the same level… and to be honest I have not really worked out all the details, but I liked the idea of the roving law man.
After a some more looking around Sam finds that Durn and Kong went north with a merchant group a week ago. Lina found out that the thieves guild was located in South Town, and Damone found out that the north gate is where records of merchant travel are kept. All with done with a couple more intimidate checks.
So when all the information is gathered they decide its time to go meet.... Draggard. So for whatever reason this NPC caught their attention, and I obliged. They found his tent after intimidating a Madam at the brothel across the street and intimidated the bar tender to get back in and meet Draggard face to face.
At this point I couldn't really have a party of 5th level characters bullying everyone they run into. So I pulled out a premade 12th level fighter NPC I had and made him Draggard. They were not going to be able to bully this guy around, he ran the place.
The party now demands information from Draggard on their 2 dwarf friends. Draggard recommends they go up north and look. Somehow the party has convinced themselves that Draggard is a slaver and they don't like him. At this point everyone they intimidated shows up and lets Draggard know these guys have been causing trouble in town. Draggard say "pay these people for their trouble and we will call it good." Once again the party says "Fuck off" and Sam enlarges Urz to intimidate Draggard. Draggard now demands that they pay for his ruined tent as well, since Urz burst through the top of it. So the party decides it’s time to fight this fool.
The comical thing to me about this situation is that Draggard was demanding payment of only 100 gp. Each one of these characters has nearly 1000 gp on them. And if they hadn’t wrecked his tent he would have taken 50! All Draggard cares about is making sure that the people in town know he is not weak and that he runs things. He doesn’t honestly care about the money or the people; he just wants to stay in control.
I won't go in to details, but they barely managed to slip out the back by laying down grease spells and webs spells and having a summoned snow leopard drag Urz's bleeding body out the back of the burning tent. I think it’s safe to say things didn’t go the way the party planned.
Fleeing from South Owls Roost with an entirely invisible group they head up to the north gate. Literally exhausted from their run they find out that their friends left a week ago. Unfortunately their horses are on the other side of town. Lina stealth’s back there and uses her masterwork disguise kit to dress up as a green (rather than purple) haired male gnome with a large twisted mustache and led the horses up north to meet with the party at a fireless camp as they prepared to head up north, tired, depressed, and wondering what was coming next.
Until next time!
-Ubercroz
Episode 10:
The party started off the evening in Owls Roost, the northern most city that is still within the confines of the country of Proveria. Owls Roost is a merchant city, it’s where a bunch of traveling merchants and nomads set up shop and it stays a large city, mostly made of tents. I didn’t exactly have a basis for this but I wanted it to have the feeling of 1840’s mining town. Owls Roost is a city of convenience, it’s right in the middle of some major traffic ways from the dwarven trade cities to the north and the country of Proveria. It is also the gateway to the one pass that would take them north of the Dwarven Highlands into the Northlands.
The party begins asking questions around town looking for their buddy Durn. Urz asks "Have you seen a Dwarf with nine fingers anywhere?". I caught myself right before the guy answered no and paused. so Urz says "I intimidate the guy". The lowly merchant tells Urz about a Dwarf in South Town named Draggard is probably who he is looking for.
This is where improv skills can come in handy. Whenever your instinct as a GM is to say no, try to stop yourself. The game will be much more fun if you say "Yes, and...". This was one of those times, it ends up completely changing the adventure that I said yes to his question about the 9 fingered Dwarf. I also noticed my party had been abusing the intimidate skill recently. It seemed like the party preferred using that skill over diplomacy. So on the spot here I made 2 decisions: 1- I was going to make a 9 fingered dwarf who ran things in town, He is the seedy underbelly. 2- If they keep intimidating people they are going to let Draggard know that the money they pay him for protection doesn't seem to be working.
Typhus went to the local constable and found a drunk constable who seemed to be completely disinterested in managing the law in town. However, he recommended that they look at the bar next door for info, after Typhus intimidated him.
I have a simple rule when I name a tavern: the (adjective) (noun). it works pretty well. In this case it was the (fallen) (wheel). In my world I have essentially made Inquisitors like a separate branch of the government. So when Typhus rolls in and shows his badge people listen. Not all inquisitors are on the same level… and to be honest I have not really worked out all the details, but I liked the idea of the roving law man.
After a some more looking around Sam finds that Durn and Kong went north with a merchant group a week ago. Lina found out that the thieves guild was located in South Town, and Damone found out that the north gate is where records of merchant travel are kept. All with done with a couple more intimidate checks.
So when all the information is gathered they decide its time to go meet.... Draggard. So for whatever reason this NPC caught their attention, and I obliged. They found his tent after intimidating a Madam at the brothel across the street and intimidated the bar tender to get back in and meet Draggard face to face.
At this point I couldn't really have a party of 5th level characters bullying everyone they run into. So I pulled out a premade 12th level fighter NPC I had and made him Draggard. They were not going to be able to bully this guy around, he ran the place.
The party now demands information from Draggard on their 2 dwarf friends. Draggard recommends they go up north and look. Somehow the party has convinced themselves that Draggard is a slaver and they don't like him. At this point everyone they intimidated shows up and lets Draggard know these guys have been causing trouble in town. Draggard say "pay these people for their trouble and we will call it good." Once again the party says "Fuck off" and Sam enlarges Urz to intimidate Draggard. Draggard now demands that they pay for his ruined tent as well, since Urz burst through the top of it. So the party decides it’s time to fight this fool.
The comical thing to me about this situation is that Draggard was demanding payment of only 100 gp. Each one of these characters has nearly 1000 gp on them. And if they hadn’t wrecked his tent he would have taken 50! All Draggard cares about is making sure that the people in town know he is not weak and that he runs things. He doesn’t honestly care about the money or the people; he just wants to stay in control.
I won't go in to details, but they barely managed to slip out the back by laying down grease spells and webs spells and having a summoned snow leopard drag Urz's bleeding body out the back of the burning tent. I think it’s safe to say things didn’t go the way the party planned.
Fleeing from South Owls Roost with an entirely invisible group they head up to the north gate. Literally exhausted from their run they find out that their friends left a week ago. Unfortunately their horses are on the other side of town. Lina stealth’s back there and uses her masterwork disguise kit to dress up as a green (rather than purple) haired male gnome with a large twisted mustache and led the horses up north to meet with the party at a fireless camp as they prepared to head up north, tired, depressed, and wondering what was coming next.
Until next time!
-Ubercroz
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Episode 9
Tonight was a big change for the gaming group. Durn's player finally decided to switch characters. He is now playing a heavy armor wearing inquisitor named Typhus, on a mission from God (Tyr). Typhus has the Sword Crissus the PC's found in Doomsward. Also I decided to stop running Kong as an NPC. Nothing that hasn't been dealt with before, but it always throws a kink in the works.
My concept for the adventure this evening stemmed, partly, from the fact that my players had been enjoying their fame. Now there is nothing wrong with that, they should enjoy it. What it let me do was take something that my players enjoyed (being recognized as good) and take it away from them briefly.
Episode 9:
Durn and Kong head up north to Garrets reach to deal with the problem with Durn's father. The rest of the party stayed a few days to gear up, rest, and prepare to head out to Wisthaven to chase down Belfast.
As they got on the road they started to notice that the townspeople they were running into were scared of them and more than happy to do what the PC's wanted. Well this clearly struck a chord with them and they decided to investigate. At the first town the people are scared, but subservient. They won't accept money from the pc's, but insist they have seen them before and they are willing to do whatever they need to so that the pc's get on their way again.
Here I gave the players a little information. I could tell they were nervous. They actually took watch in the tavern they were staying in because they thought the townspeople had it out for them.
They left the first town and caught made it to a second the next day. This town was much more angry with the PC's, the constable came and spat on them and told them to leave. At this point Typhus showed up with his big war stallion and his shiny inquisitor badge. With some diplomacy checks (and a few intimidate checks) the party figures out that the group that was here was there old group- including Durn and Kong. And that these guys were here only a few days before. With a few more diplomacy checks (and maybe another intimidate check) they are pointed in the right direction the bad guys took off. Oh, and they got spat on 2-3 more times.
This was cool part to play, I got to show the gamut of reactions to being bullied. And it let me take the players in a more roleplaying direction. Role playing sections can be difficult, because your party can often surprise you. I was not 100% that they were going to take the hook here. So I had some predetermined consequences ready if they went the other way.
After 3 days of tracking the party finds a sinkhole in the middle of the woods the bad guys dropped into.
What they found was as classic a dungeon crawl as I could come up with for a 1 session game. I am in the military and spend a good amount of time on the road. So most all of this dungeon was created in a hotel room with horrific internet.
The guys they are after are a group of doppelgangers. They have made their home inside of this cavern and have a few pets they use for defense, or whatever else they need. The players enter at the bottom of the map. I have a series of traps here that the players could get caught up in. The room to the left is a Dire Wolf and her two cubs. The room with the chests in it is guarded by two assassin vines past a dead fall of rocks, a poison dart trap, and a 20' pit trap.
The pit trap made for some comic relief, so Lina was disabling it and Urz says "I'm going to peek around the corner", at which point he falls into the pit. He was mostly fine. He then climbs up on the other side and is immediately grappled by the first vine.
To me this ended up being the most fun encounter of the night, the party had to figure out how to get past the pit, kill the vines and then get into the treasure room.
They made it into the treasure room... the chest with a lil' cloud on it is poison gas. They triggered it, they were fine.
The room labeled "body room" is exactly what it sounds like, a room of dead bodies. They have parts cut off and butchered- this was used to feed the monsters.
The back left room had a Giant spider and two baby spiders in it. Again, not a difficult fight, but it was interesting with the spiders web and a little poison.
Lastly the Doppelgangers. There were 6, 1 of them had a few PC levels. he was a 2nd level wizard. no big deal. The party had purchased a amulet of fireballs and used 2 of the balls in this fight in the first 2 rounds. That really turned the fight easy.
The interesting thing in this fight was that the players thought that they were going to face mirror images of themselves, stat for stat, so they came in ready to kill. So while the fight was easy, it also forced them to use resources that have value- and in the long run that's just as good as challenging.
Once the dungeon was clear the party head out and let the townspeople know the doppelgangers are dead. As they head north there is a familiar blond 1/2 elf in a black cloak. Leanna, the assassin was waiting for them. There is a little unfriendly banter and right before the party is ready to kill her she says that she has information they may be interested in. At that point she throws a bag with Durn's finger in it in front of them. "Look after your friends, or come after us". Now the party has a choice, up north to save Durn and Kong, or east to Wisthaven where the search for Belfast continues...
Until Nest Time!
-Ubercroz
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