[Warning: Possible Stonehell spoilers below]
The Stonehell party consisted of 3 players with 2 characters each, one was their primary and the other would be their secondary, in some cases this ended up with a master servant thing going on. The party was:
Boris, Human Fighter (Female, played by Amanda)
Ms. Gentleman, Human Magic-User (aka Ms. G, played by Amanda)
Jesus, Human Cleric (Played by Dave)
Tarquin, Elf (Played by Dave as a MU)
Agent Smith, Human Paranormal Effects Administrator (MU played by Giz)
Manservant, Halfling (Played by Giz)
The players had heard about how fatal older editions of D&D (and its retro clones) could be, and armed with this knowledge were incredibly cautious.... Ish. Manservant insisted on crowbar-ing every door he came across and Boris was a bit of a bimbo but they bumbled on quite well; meeting Dwarves, sleeping Orcs and generally performing a bit of murder whilst their enemies were sleeping.
At one point Boris found a rat with a name tag (which read: 'Precious'), instead of killing it she took the sleeping rodent and muzzled/hogtied it, runing it into her unofficial pet/mascot. Later the party surprised me by being ambushed by a group of orcs and wisely running away, back to their Dwarven 'allies' who took care of the mess.
There was a long period of exploration in which we discovered that I could roll more than a 1 when it came to rolling for the Hp of some cobras and the party eventually made it to the caves section killed some kobolds and took their precious guano.
Their next encounter with kobolds was random and was another work crew carrying mops and buckets, there was a brief roleplay encounter that left Giz twitching with the urge to kill everything in the room and put their eyes out. I obliged him when he fiddled with the cracks in the same room and lost his 10' pole for his trouble. Giant Centipedes were by far the most dangerous foes the party encountered with Agent Smith hitting the deck unconscious before the party fled into the fountain room.
They rested and then headed down and around to reach the entrance and then went back to the fountain room with the intention of heading through to the centipede room. Then Boris decided to touch the fountain (perhaps because I pointed out that whilst they had been in this room they hadn't 'explored' it) and activated the poison gas trap. She survived by Manservant and Jesus bought it.
Fortunately Jesus would return d3 days later, assuming we don't get smote for blasphemy.
The party (deciding against the centipedes) then went to the wheel of fortune room, which was always going to be a giggle. Ms. Gentleman pulled the lever first, I rolled up 'Wisdom' which I had dubbed the Exp bonus and went straight up to level 2. Agent Smith pulled the lever next, got the Bloody Eye and was instantly struck blind.
The last room dealt with was the crypts which the party raided in style, hacking down the few monsters there were (including no less than 2 ghouls) and finally gaining some good treasure for their troubles (about 600 gold and a magic item, which I ruled was an elven sword +1) and most of them reached level 2.
The party then fled the dungeon and went back to the town to spend some time carousing, healing and getting the sword identified. Due to their carousing several characters went up to level 3, in no small part due to the large sums of gold they had randomly acquired.
All in all it was a good session, and now that I have a handle on the rules I think it's time to do a little 'brewing' with them; I'd like to expand the spells list a little so that characters can have a few more interesting spells at level 1, especially for the cleric, who was relegated to doing very little. I'm also tempted to use Jeff Rient's carousing rules and I could also do with some reaction tables (given that I just fudged it this time).
All in all though, given we started character gen at 2.30pm and finished at about 9pm it was a damn good session and one of the longest I have ever run, so in short, it will be occuring again.
Next week is World Top; involving the party's stint in Zendicon and possibly the arrival of a new ally.
Sunday 31 May 2009
Saturday 30 May 2009
Zen and the Art of Dungeon Structure
I had to write Stonehell 1A out by hand for today's session, which was fine, Amityville Mike used only two pages and whilst there's alot to get down on paper (39 rooms) its simple, concise and still has flavour. I slipped on the reggae stylings of Dub Side of the Moon and took a couple of hours to work through it.
This also has the advantage of making me more familiar with the dungeon, I'd read Stonehell 1A but hadn't really absorbed it until I wrote it out myself. There's something about the process that just made it make more sense to me in my head and I think it's given me a little more appreciation for the way the encounters come together in some areas (specifically around room 16) to create an implied narrative.
So the encounters are ready, the traps are primed, the monsters are recieving their final pep talk and Stonehell is go. A report will be filed laterz.
This also has the advantage of making me more familiar with the dungeon, I'd read Stonehell 1A but hadn't really absorbed it until I wrote it out myself. There's something about the process that just made it make more sense to me in my head and I think it's given me a little more appreciation for the way the encounters come together in some areas (specifically around room 16) to create an implied narrative.
So the encounters are ready, the traps are primed, the monsters are recieving their final pep talk and Stonehell is go. A report will be filed laterz.
Monday 25 May 2009
Session? No Luck
This is usually where my session write up would go, but since Dave (our erstwhile Dragonborn Paladin) was captured by The Evil Empire and forced to work until gone 9 (on... something, details are vague) we decided to do something else. We played 'Burn In Hell' and then decided that the game could for it's raw tedium; we have a love hate relationship with Steve Jackson Games; Munchkin and Munchkin Cthulhu are awesome, Ninja Burger is divisive (although I love it for the roleplaying alone) and Munchkin Bites and Burn in Hell were truly yawn inducing.
Apart from this we watched Read or Die and then went to bed; hardly the stuff of heroic legends.
World Top has been plagued by these interruptions; although I won't blame anyone because when work comes knocking its difficult to tell them to sod off cos you've got some ogres to kill; but it does end up stealing some momentum from the campaign. I'm tempted at this point, with next week being cancelled aswell, to just trap the players in Zendicon for a year and come back to it when our schedules re-align.
So whilst Dave is sunning himself in Barcelona and Rachel is off doing... something; I am going to spend next sunday afternoon running a few people through Stonehell, even if it's just Gareth and Amanda, and hopefully I'll get a few ideas for making my own dungeons in the process.
Apart from this we watched Read or Die and then went to bed; hardly the stuff of heroic legends.
World Top has been plagued by these interruptions; although I won't blame anyone because when work comes knocking its difficult to tell them to sod off cos you've got some ogres to kill; but it does end up stealing some momentum from the campaign. I'm tempted at this point, with next week being cancelled aswell, to just trap the players in Zendicon for a year and come back to it when our schedules re-align.
So whilst Dave is sunning himself in Barcelona and Rachel is off doing... something; I am going to spend next sunday afternoon running a few people through Stonehell, even if it's just Gareth and Amanda, and hopefully I'll get a few ideas for making my own dungeons in the process.
Saturday 23 May 2009
Tomorrow's Session and Stonehell
So another week and we wind up for our sunday session and the players continuation through Zendicon, which may this week involve heading into the depths to look for a way out. Personally I'm looking forward to it, but I think this will be the last 'module' (for want of a better word) in the World Top Campaign for a while given that Gareth is foaming at the bit to run his space campaign and I'm all psyched up to run something 'old school'.
However it should be noted that I have never ran anything older than 3rd edition when it comes to D&D and whilst I'm picking up Microlite74 for the endevour, a system that seems to bridge the gap between OD&D and 3rd ed. quite adequetly (and simplifies encumberance; thank god), I'm not really in tune with a system which relys so heavily on my ability to make a ruling instantaneously, and so I think I need practice.
Help is on hand though.
Amityville Mike's Stonehell dungeon comes highly rated by people who know what they're talking about and seems like an interesting old school adventure that I'd like to run, and given that Rachel will be absent from next weeks session; it might be a good idea to run Stonehell 1A and give me and the players some experience of what old school gaming is really like.
However it should be noted that I have never ran anything older than 3rd edition when it comes to D&D and whilst I'm picking up Microlite74 for the endevour, a system that seems to bridge the gap between OD&D and 3rd ed. quite adequetly (and simplifies encumberance; thank god), I'm not really in tune with a system which relys so heavily on my ability to make a ruling instantaneously, and so I think I need practice.
Help is on hand though.
Amityville Mike's Stonehell dungeon comes highly rated by people who know what they're talking about and seems like an interesting old school adventure that I'd like to run, and given that Rachel will be absent from next weeks session; it might be a good idea to run Stonehell 1A and give me and the players some experience of what old school gaming is really like.
Saturday 16 May 2009
No Session and The Final Frontier
This week our D&D session has been cancelled due to one of our number being secvonded by the 'Evil Empire' to do a stock take. As such this week we shall be playing poker, perudo and possibly some Munchkin Cthulu. This of course leaves me with nothing to talk about concerning my own game and so I'm going to have a look at the future and Gareth's space opera.
We were sat downstairs after a successful session discussing what we could possibly run next so that I could perhaps have a break from running our sessions. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy running the sessions, but it's always nice to actually play a game rather than run it. Gareth too has been itching to run something spacey and we sat down with the intention of coming up with a functioning system that would be light and easy to learn, fatal in combat and allows us to be whatever we'd like.
It took us a good 15 minutes but we came up with something that seems like a bastard child of Risus and FATE, stealing liberally from different sources and employing a 2d6 roll for that delightful bell curve that apparently we should all aspire to. Add into that FATE's evoking of character 'aspects' to gain an extra dice (Up to a max of 4d4, pick the 2 youn like) and margins of success and it begins to look like a half way acceptable system.
It's going to be fatal, with somewhere between 6-10Hp per character and every margin of success on the opposed combat roll causing an extra point damage (in addition to the 1 for just hitting) it won't take long to kill a PC, but then again we're not supposed to be getting into fights. Hopefully we can shift gears from the stabby-stabby-kill-kill(TM) to something a little more sedate without too much trouble.
We were sat downstairs after a successful session discussing what we could possibly run next so that I could perhaps have a break from running our sessions. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy running the sessions, but it's always nice to actually play a game rather than run it. Gareth too has been itching to run something spacey and we sat down with the intention of coming up with a functioning system that would be light and easy to learn, fatal in combat and allows us to be whatever we'd like.
It took us a good 15 minutes but we came up with something that seems like a bastard child of Risus and FATE, stealing liberally from different sources and employing a 2d6 roll for that delightful bell curve that apparently we should all aspire to. Add into that FATE's evoking of character 'aspects' to gain an extra dice (Up to a max of 4d4, pick the 2 youn like) and margins of success and it begins to look like a half way acceptable system.
It's going to be fatal, with somewhere between 6-10Hp per character and every margin of success on the opposed combat roll causing an extra point damage (in addition to the 1 for just hitting) it won't take long to kill a PC, but then again we're not supposed to be getting into fights. Hopefully we can shift gears from the stabby-stabby-kill-kill(TM) to something a little more sedate without too much trouble.
Thursday 14 May 2009
Alignment and Resolve
Alignment is one of those things that has never really worked for me in role playing games, indeed they seem somewhat antithetical to the whole experience. Attempting to define an individual’s moral code into one of nine groups seems to defeat the entire purpose of playing the role, and whilst it can be a useful guideline for players who don’t have a well defined character in mind, the rest of the time it just comes off as arbitrary and obtrusive.
In Fourth Edition D&D this is compounded by reducing the number of alignments to five and making ‘unaligned’ a catch all group for almost every character in my group. In short it is irrelevant to us and has little impact upon the game, and this is beginning to bother me.
On Sunday when our group encountered Taluil there was, in my mind, a certain kind of conflict going on for the characters. Half the party are dedicated to the Raven Queen, and here was a cleric of the Raven Queen euthanizing the desperate and needy in order to aid those who still had the will to live. The lack of information on the Raven Queen means you could interpret this many ways, certainly he claimed to be administering her will. So was he an evil character who was killing innocents or a desperate priest making use of what few resources there were to keep himself and his followers arrive? Perhaps that’s a little sanitized since when I say ‘resources’ you have to substitute ‘corpses’.
Caradoc and Du’nn’o clearly took the high ground, albeit in an overtly violent way and clearly they saw this as an evil act, but what if they’re wrong? What if they killed a cleric and mutilated a priest on a false assumption? I cannot penalise the characters for acting out of alignment because their alignment is ‘Unaligned’ and thus provides no framework within which to interpret their actions.
I’m tempted to replace the alignment system with something a little more useful to our group, which will still have relevance within role playing encounters but won’t chain them to a single course. Vampire had a good system for managing this, granting willpower to characters who would act with their chosen conducts. This is a simple enough system to adapt for 4th Ed, granting either an unlimited action point (which persists beyond an extended rest) or a point which grants some other kind of bonus (shrug off an ongoing effect, automatically pass a death save etc). In game this would represent some kind of self belief, or ‘Resolve’*, which allows them to push beyond their limit.
I’ll put this to the masses and see what we come up with, largely characters already seem to have certain conducts to which they adhere, though I’d be tempted to give Du’nn’o and Caradoc one involving punishing ‘Heretics’ after their latest debacle.
*The idea of ‘Resolve’ is specifically stolen from Gareth/Caradoc’s now defunct Bleach RPG, where characters regularly endure beyond the limits of the body by strength of will alone.
In Fourth Edition D&D this is compounded by reducing the number of alignments to five and making ‘unaligned’ a catch all group for almost every character in my group. In short it is irrelevant to us and has little impact upon the game, and this is beginning to bother me.
On Sunday when our group encountered Taluil there was, in my mind, a certain kind of conflict going on for the characters. Half the party are dedicated to the Raven Queen, and here was a cleric of the Raven Queen euthanizing the desperate and needy in order to aid those who still had the will to live. The lack of information on the Raven Queen means you could interpret this many ways, certainly he claimed to be administering her will. So was he an evil character who was killing innocents or a desperate priest making use of what few resources there were to keep himself and his followers arrive? Perhaps that’s a little sanitized since when I say ‘resources’ you have to substitute ‘corpses’.
Caradoc and Du’nn’o clearly took the high ground, albeit in an overtly violent way and clearly they saw this as an evil act, but what if they’re wrong? What if they killed a cleric and mutilated a priest on a false assumption? I cannot penalise the characters for acting out of alignment because their alignment is ‘Unaligned’ and thus provides no framework within which to interpret their actions.
I’m tempted to replace the alignment system with something a little more useful to our group, which will still have relevance within role playing encounters but won’t chain them to a single course. Vampire had a good system for managing this, granting willpower to characters who would act with their chosen conducts. This is a simple enough system to adapt for 4th Ed, granting either an unlimited action point (which persists beyond an extended rest) or a point which grants some other kind of bonus (shrug off an ongoing effect, automatically pass a death save etc). In game this would represent some kind of self belief, or ‘Resolve’*, which allows them to push beyond their limit.
I’ll put this to the masses and see what we come up with, largely characters already seem to have certain conducts to which they adhere, though I’d be tempted to give Du’nn’o and Caradoc one involving punishing ‘Heretics’ after their latest debacle.
*The idea of ‘Resolve’ is specifically stolen from Gareth/Caradoc’s now defunct Bleach RPG, where characters regularly endure beyond the limits of the body by strength of will alone.
Monday 11 May 2009
On Top of the World: Session 5
This week was a chance to change things up for the characters and introduce some of the dreaded role playing to proceedings. It seemed to work quite well.
The party’s attempt to beat a hasty retreat from the Malboro Forest was thwarted by the arrival of a mysterious figure clad in armour as black as night and swathed in dark robes. He appeared to them stood in a tree and dropped down when spotted by Skurmesh and instantly began accusing the party of ‘transgressions’ by trespassing and awakening the huge Malboro (Malthulu?). The party were none too pleased about the possibility of going to prison for the prescribed 25 years and Du’nn’o snuck off into the long grass to take a shot at the ‘Judge’ with her new Blingtastic Crossbow (The first item in the campaign to get the much coveted +4 Enhancement bonus, largely because I felt guilty for losing her character sheet before the session).
Suffice to say there is a time to shoot and a time not to, specifically it is a poor idea to shoot a man in the head when he is in the middle of exposition, and even worse when he’s in the middle of delivering the DM’s railroad. Generally I try to avoid railroading the party, but this once I wanted them to be somewhere so that the work I had actually done wouldn’t be wasted. Suffice to say the Judge was struck squarely by a sneaky bolt and instantly disappeared.
Du’nn’o felt burning and cold and the distinct sensation of having been cut open. Twice. Frankly she took a ridiculous amount of damage, which was fine by me as it instantly made the party realise I wasn’t about to let them just run away, and begrudgingly they followed the judge through a rift to the Gaol Zendicon.
I pulled a couple of ‘dick moves’ here, intended solely to make the party’s life difficult. One was to remove all of their food and water, including their much coveted ‘Horn(s) of Plenty’. These items I didn’t rule out near the start of the campaign, but given that I want Zendicon to be tough for reasons other than monsters and the like, they had to go. Mercifully I concocted a reason that was acceptable to the internal mechanics of the world and yet wouldn’t rob them of their other precious magic items.
The party awoke to the sound of a lean looking elf by the name of Cael who seemed to act as their guide; letting them know where they were and what travails they would encounter within the walls of Zendicon. Caradoc was very upset to find out that he had lost his Horn of Plenty and 40 Waybread Rations, it would not be the last time he would be upset this night.
The party having recovered themselves began to get a general lay of the land; to the South lay Dust Market, there were the East and West wings and to the north was a hall where a temple of the Raven Queen was holed up. Additionally in the ceiling of this chamber were two portals set into the carved ceiling from which, at irregular intervals, food and water would be deposited. Cael mentioned it was a kind of control; the food and water was never enough to sustain all the inmates, forcing them to fight for what resources there are.
Caradoc instructed Katarakis and Skurmesh to stay in the main chamber whilst he and Du’nn’o (The two party members dedicated to the Raven Queen) went to check out the temple. I get the inkling that Caradoc was well aware of what would be going on when I said: ‘They administer the Raven Queen’s Blessing’ and I was not one to disappoint.
Within they found Taluil and his brother clerics with rows upon rows of the dead and it didn’t take long for Caradoc to go on the offensive as Taluil explained quite plainly about how he euthanized the poor souls who came here and justified his actions as a blessing granted by the Raven Queen.* The exhumation and consumption of the organs post mortem was treated quite matter of fact-ly by the cleric who claimed that the dead allowed the living to survive; but Caradoc saw this as a clear sign of murder and kicked the Cleric.
Caradoc is 2 feet 9 inches tall, the minimum size for a Halfling in Third Edition, we assumed he either got a stepladder or has an exceptionally strong boot.
Suffice to say that as Skurmesh and Katarakis arrived the entire place went crazy; the Dragonborn threatened everyone in the room whilst Skurmesh played good cop and squeezed some of the more terrified clerics for information before loaning his axe to Caradoc who tied up the now whimpering Taluil and lopped his hands off. Katarakis prevented him from dealing the fatal blow although Du’nn’o managed to kill a cleric before Skurmesh could stop her (by hitting her in the face with the haft of his axe) and the others including Taluil made a dash for it. Du’nn’o, apparently not enamoured with having her nose broken by an irate Dwarf ran after the fleeing cleric and into Dust Market.
The Dust Market is a market ostensibly for Dust, a kind of narcotic which represents the only ‘escape’ from the Gaol Zendicon. Here and there merchants were plying wares for trinkets, jerked rat meat and weapons made of sharpened pieces of metal. As a symbol of status those merchants who were particularly wealthy wore cloaks made out of strips of faded precious fabrics; the more gaudy the more up market they were and probably the closer affiliated with the gangs.
Du’nn’o didn’t find Taluil before the rest of the party tracked her down (with Cael’s help) and led her back to the area with the two ceiling hatches. Caradoc stated plainly his disgust for the place and his desire to be rid of it by the end of the day. His plan was simple and relied upon Du’nn’o’s skills of athletics and thievery to open one of ceiling hatches and find a route up into the higher reaches. Cael had warned them of the darkness clad warders he had heard about higher up the gaol and the beasts that existed in the lower reaches, but Caradoc felt confident they could at least assess the risk.
Du’nn’o shimmied up the wall and set to work hanging from the ceiling. Her Aevis Sandals she had gained a while back protected her from falling damage so she was a good candidate for the task at hand. It took her some time but eventually she managed to open the iris hatch and climb into the room above in which shafts of light caught the dust from the floor and a pair of tall wooden doors stood in the wall like proud guards.
Speaking of proud guards it was at this point Du’nn’o attempted a stealth check in an empty room and true to form rolled a 1.
We have an unspoken rule in these parts that when Rachel (Du’nn’o’s Player) rolls a stealth check on ‘anything but a critical failure’ she will instantly roll a 1 (Or 100 in her fabled Dark Heresy bork) and we are obliged to then hurt her character. Specifically at this juncture three wardens crept out of the shadows, immobilized her and began to wail on her. They had greatswords. They did extra damage when she was immobilized.
Now she could still teleport down the shaft that she had just come up and didn’t risk falling damage but Du’nn’o apparently wanted to cause as much damage as possible and being a trickster rogue managed to toss two of them down the shaft (and they had teleported by the time they reached the floor and Katarakis got to bat at them) although in the process was hit so hard she lost almost all of her Hit Points in 3 hits.
Eventually she beat a hasty retreat and teleported down the shaft, which was fortunate as one more roll probably would have killed her with no way for the party to get up there and save her. The hatch in the ceiling closed and the wedges Du’nn’o had put in to keep the hatch open were reduced to splinters.
The party were, at the end, reunited and currently have some much needed info; primarily don’t go up alone, and given it was midnight at this point we elected to reconvene in a fortnight and continue from there; possibly with a journey down into the depths of Gaol Zendicon.
*This is perhaps a point of contention, technically Taluil kills only those who seek him out and it was never stated nor implied that he went out into Gaol Zendicon and hunted people down. Certainly his other crimes are severe but we are talking about a place with little or no food or water and given that a corpse is rich in (or at least possesses) both, the dead can be considered to be one of the few resources that the Gaol has in rich supply. Currenlty the party see this as black or white and Caradoc was certainly not impressed with Taluil’s reasoning.
The party’s attempt to beat a hasty retreat from the Malboro Forest was thwarted by the arrival of a mysterious figure clad in armour as black as night and swathed in dark robes. He appeared to them stood in a tree and dropped down when spotted by Skurmesh and instantly began accusing the party of ‘transgressions’ by trespassing and awakening the huge Malboro (Malthulu?). The party were none too pleased about the possibility of going to prison for the prescribed 25 years and Du’nn’o snuck off into the long grass to take a shot at the ‘Judge’ with her new Blingtastic Crossbow (The first item in the campaign to get the much coveted +4 Enhancement bonus, largely because I felt guilty for losing her character sheet before the session).
Suffice to say there is a time to shoot and a time not to, specifically it is a poor idea to shoot a man in the head when he is in the middle of exposition, and even worse when he’s in the middle of delivering the DM’s railroad. Generally I try to avoid railroading the party, but this once I wanted them to be somewhere so that the work I had actually done wouldn’t be wasted. Suffice to say the Judge was struck squarely by a sneaky bolt and instantly disappeared.
Du’nn’o felt burning and cold and the distinct sensation of having been cut open. Twice. Frankly she took a ridiculous amount of damage, which was fine by me as it instantly made the party realise I wasn’t about to let them just run away, and begrudgingly they followed the judge through a rift to the Gaol Zendicon.
I pulled a couple of ‘dick moves’ here, intended solely to make the party’s life difficult. One was to remove all of their food and water, including their much coveted ‘Horn(s) of Plenty’. These items I didn’t rule out near the start of the campaign, but given that I want Zendicon to be tough for reasons other than monsters and the like, they had to go. Mercifully I concocted a reason that was acceptable to the internal mechanics of the world and yet wouldn’t rob them of their other precious magic items.
The party awoke to the sound of a lean looking elf by the name of Cael who seemed to act as their guide; letting them know where they were and what travails they would encounter within the walls of Zendicon. Caradoc was very upset to find out that he had lost his Horn of Plenty and 40 Waybread Rations, it would not be the last time he would be upset this night.
The party having recovered themselves began to get a general lay of the land; to the South lay Dust Market, there were the East and West wings and to the north was a hall where a temple of the Raven Queen was holed up. Additionally in the ceiling of this chamber were two portals set into the carved ceiling from which, at irregular intervals, food and water would be deposited. Cael mentioned it was a kind of control; the food and water was never enough to sustain all the inmates, forcing them to fight for what resources there are.
Caradoc instructed Katarakis and Skurmesh to stay in the main chamber whilst he and Du’nn’o (The two party members dedicated to the Raven Queen) went to check out the temple. I get the inkling that Caradoc was well aware of what would be going on when I said: ‘They administer the Raven Queen’s Blessing’ and I was not one to disappoint.
Within they found Taluil and his brother clerics with rows upon rows of the dead and it didn’t take long for Caradoc to go on the offensive as Taluil explained quite plainly about how he euthanized the poor souls who came here and justified his actions as a blessing granted by the Raven Queen.* The exhumation and consumption of the organs post mortem was treated quite matter of fact-ly by the cleric who claimed that the dead allowed the living to survive; but Caradoc saw this as a clear sign of murder and kicked the Cleric.
Caradoc is 2 feet 9 inches tall, the minimum size for a Halfling in Third Edition, we assumed he either got a stepladder or has an exceptionally strong boot.
Suffice to say that as Skurmesh and Katarakis arrived the entire place went crazy; the Dragonborn threatened everyone in the room whilst Skurmesh played good cop and squeezed some of the more terrified clerics for information before loaning his axe to Caradoc who tied up the now whimpering Taluil and lopped his hands off. Katarakis prevented him from dealing the fatal blow although Du’nn’o managed to kill a cleric before Skurmesh could stop her (by hitting her in the face with the haft of his axe) and the others including Taluil made a dash for it. Du’nn’o, apparently not enamoured with having her nose broken by an irate Dwarf ran after the fleeing cleric and into Dust Market.
The Dust Market is a market ostensibly for Dust, a kind of narcotic which represents the only ‘escape’ from the Gaol Zendicon. Here and there merchants were plying wares for trinkets, jerked rat meat and weapons made of sharpened pieces of metal. As a symbol of status those merchants who were particularly wealthy wore cloaks made out of strips of faded precious fabrics; the more gaudy the more up market they were and probably the closer affiliated with the gangs.
Du’nn’o didn’t find Taluil before the rest of the party tracked her down (with Cael’s help) and led her back to the area with the two ceiling hatches. Caradoc stated plainly his disgust for the place and his desire to be rid of it by the end of the day. His plan was simple and relied upon Du’nn’o’s skills of athletics and thievery to open one of ceiling hatches and find a route up into the higher reaches. Cael had warned them of the darkness clad warders he had heard about higher up the gaol and the beasts that existed in the lower reaches, but Caradoc felt confident they could at least assess the risk.
Du’nn’o shimmied up the wall and set to work hanging from the ceiling. Her Aevis Sandals she had gained a while back protected her from falling damage so she was a good candidate for the task at hand. It took her some time but eventually she managed to open the iris hatch and climb into the room above in which shafts of light caught the dust from the floor and a pair of tall wooden doors stood in the wall like proud guards.
Speaking of proud guards it was at this point Du’nn’o attempted a stealth check in an empty room and true to form rolled a 1.
We have an unspoken rule in these parts that when Rachel (Du’nn’o’s Player) rolls a stealth check on ‘anything but a critical failure’ she will instantly roll a 1 (Or 100 in her fabled Dark Heresy bork) and we are obliged to then hurt her character. Specifically at this juncture three wardens crept out of the shadows, immobilized her and began to wail on her. They had greatswords. They did extra damage when she was immobilized.
Now she could still teleport down the shaft that she had just come up and didn’t risk falling damage but Du’nn’o apparently wanted to cause as much damage as possible and being a trickster rogue managed to toss two of them down the shaft (and they had teleported by the time they reached the floor and Katarakis got to bat at them) although in the process was hit so hard she lost almost all of her Hit Points in 3 hits.
Eventually she beat a hasty retreat and teleported down the shaft, which was fortunate as one more roll probably would have killed her with no way for the party to get up there and save her. The hatch in the ceiling closed and the wedges Du’nn’o had put in to keep the hatch open were reduced to splinters.
The party were, at the end, reunited and currently have some much needed info; primarily don’t go up alone, and given it was midnight at this point we elected to reconvene in a fortnight and continue from there; possibly with a journey down into the depths of Gaol Zendicon.
*This is perhaps a point of contention, technically Taluil kills only those who seek him out and it was never stated nor implied that he went out into Gaol Zendicon and hunted people down. Certainly his other crimes are severe but we are talking about a place with little or no food or water and given that a corpse is rich in (or at least possesses) both, the dead can be considered to be one of the few resources that the Gaol has in rich supply. Currenlty the party see this as black or white and Caradoc was certainly not impressed with Taluil’s reasoning.
Saturday 9 May 2009
Sunday Prep and Playing Roles
So another Sunday session of D&D is upon us and after the washout that was last week I’ve been spending some time with the players wish list I’ve come up with a suitable plan for getting everyone back into the swing of things.
Next up comes a site based adventure which is quite simple, it resorts to tried and tested techniques and will hopefully allow the players to do some of the roleplaying which has gone by the way side in recent sessions but was so prevalent in the first.
We’ve encountered this problem which I’m certain many other parties have encountered before where the role playing takes a back seat to combat mechanics and adventuring. This is especially jarring after the first session was so strong with this particular aspect. One could blame the players for not playing their characters but that’s unfair when they’ve been in the wilderness for weeks and have been given no opportunity to interact with creatures who didn’t instantly try to bite their faces off.
I’m fortuitous in this respect since I’ve been running World Top largely adlibbed and that means dungeons and the like only go on as long as I really want them to. It also allows me to drop things in at the last minute; such as the Malboro forest, which I only had a vague idea about before the session began; and then these adventures need only go on as long as the PC’s are interested. Since the Malboro forest was a bust this Sunday the party will be leaving it for Zendicon.
In other news with the Monster Manual II coming out soon we may soon be fighting a new swathe of nasties. Personally I’m hoping for a Paragon level Rust Monster or something that steals magic items so that I can get rid of the party’s annoying ‘Horns of Plenty’.
Next up comes a site based adventure which is quite simple, it resorts to tried and tested techniques and will hopefully allow the players to do some of the roleplaying which has gone by the way side in recent sessions but was so prevalent in the first.
We’ve encountered this problem which I’m certain many other parties have encountered before where the role playing takes a back seat to combat mechanics and adventuring. This is especially jarring after the first session was so strong with this particular aspect. One could blame the players for not playing their characters but that’s unfair when they’ve been in the wilderness for weeks and have been given no opportunity to interact with creatures who didn’t instantly try to bite their faces off.
I’m fortuitous in this respect since I’ve been running World Top largely adlibbed and that means dungeons and the like only go on as long as I really want them to. It also allows me to drop things in at the last minute; such as the Malboro forest, which I only had a vague idea about before the session began; and then these adventures need only go on as long as the PC’s are interested. Since the Malboro forest was a bust this Sunday the party will be leaving it for Zendicon.
In other news with the Monster Manual II coming out soon we may soon be fighting a new swathe of nasties. Personally I’m hoping for a Paragon level Rust Monster or something that steals magic items so that I can get rid of the party’s annoying ‘Horns of Plenty’.
Monday 4 May 2009
On Top of the World: Session 4
This was by far the worst of our sessions in terms of combat and the blame for that falls squarely at my feet. Our party having beaten Melgoroth of the Eternal Blight finally got a weapon for Katarakis (The Smith's Hammer) which Du'nn'o fished out of the lava with her face given that she took 45 damage (12d6 Fire damage) because I was still annoyed about not killing her character a fortnight ago.
At the top of the ridge on the far side of the lava river was a great crater of glamoured forest in which dancing multicoloured lights weaved between the gret deciduous boughs. In the centre of the forest a massive oak rose out of the canopy and dominated the area around. Perhaps not the most original of glamoured forests to be sure but it worked quite well and for a while the party were wandering in circles. Eventually they reached the great oak* and decided to wander in opposite directions around it to reach the far side in a direction that was roughly north.
Halfway around Caradoc and Du'nn'o noticed they were being followed by dryads and a few minutes later realized they were no dryads. These were the deadly Malboro's we had been building for a week and I was quite pleased with how tough they were; as it turned out they were too tough. Here's three thing I learned:
1) Stunning is brutal and takes people out of the game and should not be given to 4 monsters in an encounter.
2) Stunning should most certainly not be a rechargable power with a 1/3 chance and auto-recharge at bloodied.
3) Taking people out of the game for near enough 5 rounds can be classed as a 'dick move'.
My lust for tough monsters made the Malboro's overly powerful and I was forced to give them a raft of 'on the spot' changes; lowering some defences, giving them the fire vulnerability they sould always have had and amending their bad breath to 'dazed' instead of Stunned.
All in all it was a bit of an underwhelming session, I think in order to make it up to the players next week might have to involve a trip into the 'awesome' bucket for encounters. At the end I polled some of the players for things they'd like to see and will use some of that feedback. Next week will be a session as normal although hopefully with more roleplaying and less unkillable monsters.
*Katarakis is officially insane. Our journey to the centre was a skills challenge and I was eager for a little bit of 'out of the box' thinking. To this end I told the players they could use any skills as long as they justified it. Given that the party were under the impression they were being watched Katarakis attempted to intimidate the hidden parties into revealing themselves... By shouting at the trees.
At the top of the ridge on the far side of the lava river was a great crater of glamoured forest in which dancing multicoloured lights weaved between the gret deciduous boughs. In the centre of the forest a massive oak rose out of the canopy and dominated the area around. Perhaps not the most original of glamoured forests to be sure but it worked quite well and for a while the party were wandering in circles. Eventually they reached the great oak* and decided to wander in opposite directions around it to reach the far side in a direction that was roughly north.
Halfway around Caradoc and Du'nn'o noticed they were being followed by dryads and a few minutes later realized they were no dryads. These were the deadly Malboro's we had been building for a week and I was quite pleased with how tough they were; as it turned out they were too tough. Here's three thing I learned:
1) Stunning is brutal and takes people out of the game and should not be given to 4 monsters in an encounter.
2) Stunning should most certainly not be a rechargable power with a 1/3 chance and auto-recharge at bloodied.
3) Taking people out of the game for near enough 5 rounds can be classed as a 'dick move'.
My lust for tough monsters made the Malboro's overly powerful and I was forced to give them a raft of 'on the spot' changes; lowering some defences, giving them the fire vulnerability they sould always have had and amending their bad breath to 'dazed' instead of Stunned.
All in all it was a bit of an underwhelming session, I think in order to make it up to the players next week might have to involve a trip into the 'awesome' bucket for encounters. At the end I polled some of the players for things they'd like to see and will use some of that feedback. Next week will be a session as normal although hopefully with more roleplaying and less unkillable monsters.
*Katarakis is officially insane. Our journey to the centre was a skills challenge and I was eager for a little bit of 'out of the box' thinking. To this end I told the players they could use any skills as long as they justified it. Given that the party were under the impression they were being watched Katarakis attempted to intimidate the hidden parties into revealing themselves... By shouting at the trees.
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