Scax, the player of Rori and new to the table, rolled an 18 for charisma last night for his new character. Naturally, the question came up of his playing a paladin.
I'm not sure whether or not I like paladins. Sure, the concept is fun - he's a questing Holy Knight, like Percival or Galahad or the Templars or the Hospitallers. But if we're honest, isn't that niche pretty well covered by the Cleric if you want godly powers, or the Fighter with appropriate background tweaks?
Still, with the exception of the monk (whom I find egregious) and the assassin (annoying), I'm not going to curtail my players' options. If they want a paladin, they can have a paladin. Really, I can't blame them; the role has a certain irreducible flavor.
According to S&W Complete, "Paladins will not work with characters other than those of Lawful alignment unless ordered to do so by a superior officer of the Paladin’s order, by a Lawful prince, or by the high priest of a Lawful temple." I disagree.
First, such a restriction means one of two things in play: either it is a restriction on the rest of the players, and not the paladin, or the paladin will never be played. That's not fun. Second, it's not really how I see a godly crusader behaving.
So for my game, instead, Paladins have to have some specific goal which reflect why they're going adventuring. This can be pretty much anything that passes the sniff test, and is dependent on the creativity of the player. Some examples might include, "End the influence of the Cult of the Red Hand," "Pacify the Dagoland Marshes," "Root out and destroy the heresy of Pelasgos that is gripping temples in the hinterland," "Convert all the orcs from the worship of Tectonicus their heathen god," or whatever. Specificity is important, not only because it needs to be a restriction and a direction, but because it seems a great way to flesh out the world further. (Suddenly there's a Dagoland Marshes, or a heresy in the church, or a cult, or a general religion of orcs.)
A Paladin will not do anything that doesn't obviously and pretty directly further his goal. You want to go spelunking in those caverns you found last week? That's great. How exactly does that relate to erecting a shrine to Isel and teaching all the pagans in this land to worship Him? Well, that's what I'll be doing while you lot are off futzing around. For this reason, I recommend having a back-up character to play whenever the party wants to do something that doesn't align with the Paladin's goals.
Paladins do not, however, have any restrictions of association based on the class. If consorting with Chaotic people truly will further the goal of converting all of the elves to the Munificent Blood, then consorting with Chaotic people is what you will do.
If a paladin ever accomplishes his task, he chooses another. (Or, alternatively, he's retired, because frankly at that point you've come as close as possible to 'winning' D&D.)
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
Session recap 3 and 4
Late in the week of the party's convalescence, a new sage moved into town, taking residence in Father Jovian's old apartment. His name is Cedric, though they still haven't asked. His specialties are (major) old Imperial history and geography and (minor) monstrous humanoids. My rules for sages are sort of a vague nod to AD&D; sages generally have an area of major expertise and an area of minor expertise. In their major area, they can reliably answer all questions but the sort nobody would know, plus general related questions. In their minor area, sages can reliably answer questions any specialist might know the answer to, but nothing absolutely specific. Either way, it takes 100 gp and a week's time to answer questions that aren't merely general in nature, plus any costs of materials.
Once I'd explained the difference between going to a sage and just listening for rumours (more expensive, but the answer is guaranteed accurate, and if he doesn't know he'll refund your money) the players decided it would be a good idea to visit Cedric. They asked him for a couple maps of the local area; one just around the Keep, and another of the wilderness a few days beyond. He readily agreed, and they came to terms of 50 gp now, 50 gp on delivery if they're satisfied with the map. Swallowing his pride because Cedric is a travelling sage whose reputation has not yet shown itself around here, he agreed.
Meanwhile, the party has been getting a bit of a reputation as the Slayers of the Basilisk. The local townsfolk have been showing them respect, buying them drinks, and generally treating them like minor celebrities.
After their week of healing, they decided to head back out to the newly christened Basilisk Cave to see if they couldn't find out any more information or ferret out any more treasure. Since they knew the location, they could easily go back. (I didn't roll a 1, they didn't get lost.)
When they got there, they immediately noticed that the smell had changed - more musky, less acrid. Sending the elf to peek his head in, they discovered a bear had taken up residence and was currently napping. Considering the problem for a good long while of quiet back-and-forth outside the cave, they decided the smartest course was to Sleep the bear, then slit its throat. Further discussion led to spending a day smoking the bear meat and trying to salvage the pelt (that didn't go well).
Braving the cave again, they decided to retrace their steps to the basilisk room. There they found the statues of their erstwhile friends, as well as the unmolested corpse of the basilisk, still fairly fresh. Turns out basilisk is highly poisonous. Pablo had a stroke of genius, then: he jimmied off one of the lizard's scales. Pius quickly decided to help, and they managed to remove the rest after a short bit of bloody work.
Meanwhile the party bust down the rest of the doors uninterrupted, finding all the rooms to be much like the first two, with only the mummified lizard as the object of possible value. (It actually is worth ~100 GP to an apothecary for various medical preparations, but they still haven't asked anyone.)
The one room on the west wall was different. It looked more ornate, though in monkish fashion; it had a tapestry so old and rotted away it could not be discerned and crumbled into wet dust at the first touch on the north wall, and the old 'dresser' and 'bed' were inconspicuously carved with symbols of snakes and other reptilian figures. Then the elf noticed that the stone of the southern wall didn't quite meet the joint, and after a little inspection they found that it was a secret door designed to slide to one side.
Cue the search for the trigger, which took much longer than it should have because they searched everywhere it wasn't, including the northern wall (with its own secret door that they failed to find, concealing the as-yet unpillaged temple treasury). Eventually they found press switch recessed under the lip of the bed, and the door slid back. They were unable to make sense of what was revealed: an old collapsed bed with what looked like an ancient elven mummy/skeleton on top of it. However, they did make sense of the torc it wore, and took that before leaving to explore further, neglecting to search and so not finding the box of silver handcuffs underneath the remains of the bed.
Pressing on through the bronze doors, they came to what was a dining hall, and the explanation of what became of this place. There was a hole in the ceiling, and under it was the remains of an old bronze cage. Seated at the long table were six extremely realistic statues of lizard men, albeit with some anatomical oddities - larger crania, finer fingers, and (though they didn't get close enough to see this) the suggestion of feathers.
Poking around the room they didn't find much of interest - all the cookware long since degraded, the sound of dripping water coming from the hole - but Elarian did check the doorway to the southwest. He heard snakes, lots of slithering snakes, and saw that the walkway ended in a jagged break-off not that far along. The party decided to avoid the 'snake-pit', thereby avoiding the one treasure I really hoped they'd find. Alas.
Instead they poked their way up through the ceiling, finding a natural cavern. Faced with a choice, they curved left, coming eventually to a widening cavern that something-or-other was using as a trash-heap. After poking around in the trash and getting freaked out when some of it moved, they discovered that a) it was covered with a sticky, tarry substance, and b) magic missile didn't make it stop moving.
Player of Pius: "Wait, did we just strike oil?" (No, no you didn't. You found an immature black pudding.)
Losing interest, they went further, heading straight instead of right at another fork. This is when they found a foul-smelling cavern and the source of the weeping and moaning that had been suffusing the whole place. The floor was covered with pools of green goop. And at the back of the cavern, a shambling pile of the stuff, whence the cries, reared up and started shuffling toward them. When a Sleep spell didn't put it down, they took the wise course and decided to bug out and back to town.
Personally, I'm proud of this encounter. The shambling pile of goop is actually a troll who years ago was exposed to green slime. It has been eating away at him ever since, but his natural regeneration has kept him from completely succumbing, though it is somewhat compromised now, as are his Hit Dice. He's quite insane as well from the pain. However, what he wants most of all is for it to stop, so as soon as someone thinks to use fire, he would gladly just sit down and burn to death. Perhaps not terribly original, but I like the combination.
Anyhow, back in town the players decided to wait for the completion of their map, taking odd jobs and living off the fame of being the basilisk slayers for a bit. In the meanwhile, Pablo and Elarian took the scales to the local leatherworker and had him make a pair of cloaks, for which there was just enough material because this was for an elf and a halfling.
When the maps were ready (a subject of a different post), they went to see Cedric and managed to avoid paying any more for his work by instead bargaining information and their incomplete map of the Caves of the Unknown. Cedric was ecstatic - it's not every day you make a brand new discovery - and now considers the party his friends. Which doesn't mean he'll charge them less, but it does mean he likes them and is willing to put their commissions first - excepting of course the Lord of the Keep, by whom he hopes to be kept on retainer.
Armed with their new maps, the PCs set out for the Caves of Chaos. Amusingly, they came at them backward, which is to say through the woods from the direction of the Caves of the Unknown rather than from the road as Gary intended. Because of this, the kobolds hiding in the tree don't see them, and they naturally decide to check out the first cave mouth:
They poke their heads in and come quickly upon the gnoll guard picket. The gnolls don't immediately attack, because they want to know what these strange people want in their cave. However, two of them do go off to rouse the others, just in case. Meanwhile the party attempts to communicate once it becomes clear this isn't necessarily a fight, but it turns out none of them speak Gnollish. (This is actually a question in play; I'm using a house rule to determine language selection.) Then the elf opens his mouth to bring attention to himself, having previously been in the back.
Gnolls hate elves with a passion. So they open fire. Gim is seriously injured, but not dead. (0 hp) The party rushes the gnolls, who somehow manage to not only hold off these superior numbers but actually inflict wounds and strike down Pablo when he takes a swing at one of their shins. Morale broken, the party runs, picking up Gim but leaving Pablo's body behind. That's fine; gnolls love halflings!
After patching Gim up enough so he can walk, the party returns to town to lick their wounds and plan. They buy lots of oil, some buckets, and some rope. They also consult Cedric.
It turns out that gnolls hate and fear uncontrolled fire. Also, they have very sensitive noses with a keen sense of smell. Which means, one of the players realizes, that one way to disable them would be to muck with their sense of smell - much like how if you want to get bloodhounds off your trail, you spread cayenne pepper along the ground. The party promptly thanks Cedric and goes off to buy as much powered horseradish as they can get their greedy mits on.
An aside: the party's Magic User, Jib, is a halfling with strange ideas. Rather than considering what he does magic, he calls it 'vougence' and carries around a large, complicated, tubular piece of machinery he calls the Elliptotron. It is with this that he casts Magic Missile.
The horseradish thus acquired, it is decided, can be stuffed down the barrel of the Elliptotron and, if Jib prepares Magic Missile that day, he can shoot it out one 'dose' at a time. Or, if he actually casts Magic Missile, it will all come out in a sort of Poor Man's Dust of Sneezing and Choking. He has enough for six such 'doses'.
Also in town they run across Juan, Pablo's brother who got a letter from his dear sibling and came out to help him make his fortune. Alas, too late, but he has the family resemblance.
Back to the gnoll cave at slightly after dawn, the party sets up their trap. First, they saturate the ground outside the cave with oil. Jib, Elarian and Pius hide above the cave. Gim and Rori, a new fighter from a new player that night, flank the cave to take care of any gnolls who come out. The plan is for Juan to run in, insult the gnolls so they run after him, and then dash back out. When the gnolls are outside the cave, those above will drop buckets of oil on them, and then light it on fire.
The plan works fairly well, except that one of the gnolls is missed by his bucket. Regardless, they burn nicely. However, as before two of the gnolls had gone further into the cave to bring out reinforcements. We ended up with an archery battle across the burning pit, which was something of a standoff because, while the gnolls had more HP, they only had one bow.
Eventually it became clear to the party that the rest of the gnolls had no intention of coming out and facing the fire, which was dying down at that point anyway. Plucking up their courage, Gim, Jib, Elarian, and Rori rush into the cave to face off the ~8 gnolls gathered there, hoping to put them out of commission with Jib's Magic Missile. Unfortunately this proves to be a tactical mis-step, as Rori takes an axe to the skull and Jib is cut down before he can finish the spell. Elarian rushes to take up the Elliptotron and finish the work. One of the gnolls slices into him as well, but he manages to hang onto consciousness just long enough to loose the powder. (He was at exactly 0 HP; I rolled to see if he managed to keep the spell and if he managed to get it off before losing consciousness.) Down went the gnolls, too concerned with the excruciating pain in their noses to put up a fight, and the PCs promptly slit their throats. The final casualty list was 3 PCs to 12 gnolls; pretty good for level 1.
Then, rather than press forward, they decided to retire back to town. They were severely depleted, and it was late. We'll pick this up again in the coming Saturday, though we'll be down one player, because he moves this week to sunnier pastures. Hopefully we can find a replacement. (If not, 3 is an acceptable number for now.)
Meanwhile the gnoll chieftan has to figure out what to do about his depleted tribe. The PCs are going to take at least a couple days to recuperate, so the bugbears are going to come sniffing about, smelling weakness. However, they'll be repulsed once they find there are still 13 able-bodied gnolls. The gnolls will send to their disaffected kin in the Moathouse, but they won't arrive for months. However, all the males that are normally in the common room will be stationed in the entrance, and they'll have built a makeshift barricade out of the old burnt table, broken chairs, and mounds of earth and branches.
Once I'd explained the difference between going to a sage and just listening for rumours (more expensive, but the answer is guaranteed accurate, and if he doesn't know he'll refund your money) the players decided it would be a good idea to visit Cedric. They asked him for a couple maps of the local area; one just around the Keep, and another of the wilderness a few days beyond. He readily agreed, and they came to terms of 50 gp now, 50 gp on delivery if they're satisfied with the map. Swallowing his pride because Cedric is a travelling sage whose reputation has not yet shown itself around here, he agreed.
Meanwhile, the party has been getting a bit of a reputation as the Slayers of the Basilisk. The local townsfolk have been showing them respect, buying them drinks, and generally treating them like minor celebrities.
After their week of healing, they decided to head back out to the newly christened Basilisk Cave to see if they couldn't find out any more information or ferret out any more treasure. Since they knew the location, they could easily go back. (I didn't roll a 1, they didn't get lost.)
When they got there, they immediately noticed that the smell had changed - more musky, less acrid. Sending the elf to peek his head in, they discovered a bear had taken up residence and was currently napping. Considering the problem for a good long while of quiet back-and-forth outside the cave, they decided the smartest course was to Sleep the bear, then slit its throat. Further discussion led to spending a day smoking the bear meat and trying to salvage the pelt (that didn't go well).
Braving the cave again, they decided to retrace their steps to the basilisk room. There they found the statues of their erstwhile friends, as well as the unmolested corpse of the basilisk, still fairly fresh. Turns out basilisk is highly poisonous. Pablo had a stroke of genius, then: he jimmied off one of the lizard's scales. Pius quickly decided to help, and they managed to remove the rest after a short bit of bloody work.
Meanwhile the party bust down the rest of the doors uninterrupted, finding all the rooms to be much like the first two, with only the mummified lizard as the object of possible value. (It actually is worth ~100 GP to an apothecary for various medical preparations, but they still haven't asked anyone.)
The one room on the west wall was different. It looked more ornate, though in monkish fashion; it had a tapestry so old and rotted away it could not be discerned and crumbled into wet dust at the first touch on the north wall, and the old 'dresser' and 'bed' were inconspicuously carved with symbols of snakes and other reptilian figures. Then the elf noticed that the stone of the southern wall didn't quite meet the joint, and after a little inspection they found that it was a secret door designed to slide to one side.
Cue the search for the trigger, which took much longer than it should have because they searched everywhere it wasn't, including the northern wall (with its own secret door that they failed to find, concealing the as-yet unpillaged temple treasury). Eventually they found press switch recessed under the lip of the bed, and the door slid back. They were unable to make sense of what was revealed: an old collapsed bed with what looked like an ancient elven mummy/skeleton on top of it. However, they did make sense of the torc it wore, and took that before leaving to explore further, neglecting to search and so not finding the box of silver handcuffs underneath the remains of the bed.
Pressing on through the bronze doors, they came to what was a dining hall, and the explanation of what became of this place. There was a hole in the ceiling, and under it was the remains of an old bronze cage. Seated at the long table were six extremely realistic statues of lizard men, albeit with some anatomical oddities - larger crania, finer fingers, and (though they didn't get close enough to see this) the suggestion of feathers.
Poking around the room they didn't find much of interest - all the cookware long since degraded, the sound of dripping water coming from the hole - but Elarian did check the doorway to the southwest. He heard snakes, lots of slithering snakes, and saw that the walkway ended in a jagged break-off not that far along. The party decided to avoid the 'snake-pit', thereby avoiding the one treasure I really hoped they'd find. Alas.
Instead they poked their way up through the ceiling, finding a natural cavern. Faced with a choice, they curved left, coming eventually to a widening cavern that something-or-other was using as a trash-heap. After poking around in the trash and getting freaked out when some of it moved, they discovered that a) it was covered with a sticky, tarry substance, and b) magic missile didn't make it stop moving.
Player of Pius: "Wait, did we just strike oil?" (No, no you didn't. You found an immature black pudding.)
Losing interest, they went further, heading straight instead of right at another fork. This is when they found a foul-smelling cavern and the source of the weeping and moaning that had been suffusing the whole place. The floor was covered with pools of green goop. And at the back of the cavern, a shambling pile of the stuff, whence the cries, reared up and started shuffling toward them. When a Sleep spell didn't put it down, they took the wise course and decided to bug out and back to town.
Personally, I'm proud of this encounter. The shambling pile of goop is actually a troll who years ago was exposed to green slime. It has been eating away at him ever since, but his natural regeneration has kept him from completely succumbing, though it is somewhat compromised now, as are his Hit Dice. He's quite insane as well from the pain. However, what he wants most of all is for it to stop, so as soon as someone thinks to use fire, he would gladly just sit down and burn to death. Perhaps not terribly original, but I like the combination.
Anyhow, back in town the players decided to wait for the completion of their map, taking odd jobs and living off the fame of being the basilisk slayers for a bit. In the meanwhile, Pablo and Elarian took the scales to the local leatherworker and had him make a pair of cloaks, for which there was just enough material because this was for an elf and a halfling.
When the maps were ready (a subject of a different post), they went to see Cedric and managed to avoid paying any more for his work by instead bargaining information and their incomplete map of the Caves of the Unknown. Cedric was ecstatic - it's not every day you make a brand new discovery - and now considers the party his friends. Which doesn't mean he'll charge them less, but it does mean he likes them and is willing to put their commissions first - excepting of course the Lord of the Keep, by whom he hopes to be kept on retainer.
Armed with their new maps, the PCs set out for the Caves of Chaos. Amusingly, they came at them backward, which is to say through the woods from the direction of the Caves of the Unknown rather than from the road as Gary intended. Because of this, the kobolds hiding in the tree don't see them, and they naturally decide to check out the first cave mouth:
 | ||
| This one right here. The one with the gnolls. |
Gnolls hate elves with a passion. So they open fire. Gim is seriously injured, but not dead. (0 hp) The party rushes the gnolls, who somehow manage to not only hold off these superior numbers but actually inflict wounds and strike down Pablo when he takes a swing at one of their shins. Morale broken, the party runs, picking up Gim but leaving Pablo's body behind. That's fine; gnolls love halflings!
After patching Gim up enough so he can walk, the party returns to town to lick their wounds and plan. They buy lots of oil, some buckets, and some rope. They also consult Cedric.
It turns out that gnolls hate and fear uncontrolled fire. Also, they have very sensitive noses with a keen sense of smell. Which means, one of the players realizes, that one way to disable them would be to muck with their sense of smell - much like how if you want to get bloodhounds off your trail, you spread cayenne pepper along the ground. The party promptly thanks Cedric and goes off to buy as much powered horseradish as they can get their greedy mits on.
An aside: the party's Magic User, Jib, is a halfling with strange ideas. Rather than considering what he does magic, he calls it 'vougence' and carries around a large, complicated, tubular piece of machinery he calls the Elliptotron. It is with this that he casts Magic Missile.
The horseradish thus acquired, it is decided, can be stuffed down the barrel of the Elliptotron and, if Jib prepares Magic Missile that day, he can shoot it out one 'dose' at a time. Or, if he actually casts Magic Missile, it will all come out in a sort of Poor Man's Dust of Sneezing and Choking. He has enough for six such 'doses'.
Also in town they run across Juan, Pablo's brother who got a letter from his dear sibling and came out to help him make his fortune. Alas, too late, but he has the family resemblance.
Back to the gnoll cave at slightly after dawn, the party sets up their trap. First, they saturate the ground outside the cave with oil. Jib, Elarian and Pius hide above the cave. Gim and Rori, a new fighter from a new player that night, flank the cave to take care of any gnolls who come out. The plan is for Juan to run in, insult the gnolls so they run after him, and then dash back out. When the gnolls are outside the cave, those above will drop buckets of oil on them, and then light it on fire.
The plan works fairly well, except that one of the gnolls is missed by his bucket. Regardless, they burn nicely. However, as before two of the gnolls had gone further into the cave to bring out reinforcements. We ended up with an archery battle across the burning pit, which was something of a standoff because, while the gnolls had more HP, they only had one bow.
Eventually it became clear to the party that the rest of the gnolls had no intention of coming out and facing the fire, which was dying down at that point anyway. Plucking up their courage, Gim, Jib, Elarian, and Rori rush into the cave to face off the ~8 gnolls gathered there, hoping to put them out of commission with Jib's Magic Missile. Unfortunately this proves to be a tactical mis-step, as Rori takes an axe to the skull and Jib is cut down before he can finish the spell. Elarian rushes to take up the Elliptotron and finish the work. One of the gnolls slices into him as well, but he manages to hang onto consciousness just long enough to loose the powder. (He was at exactly 0 HP; I rolled to see if he managed to keep the spell and if he managed to get it off before losing consciousness.) Down went the gnolls, too concerned with the excruciating pain in their noses to put up a fight, and the PCs promptly slit their throats. The final casualty list was 3 PCs to 12 gnolls; pretty good for level 1.
Then, rather than press forward, they decided to retire back to town. They were severely depleted, and it was late. We'll pick this up again in the coming Saturday, though we'll be down one player, because he moves this week to sunnier pastures. Hopefully we can find a replacement. (If not, 3 is an acceptable number for now.)
Meanwhile the gnoll chieftan has to figure out what to do about his depleted tribe. The PCs are going to take at least a couple days to recuperate, so the bugbears are going to come sniffing about, smelling weakness. However, they'll be repulsed once they find there are still 13 able-bodied gnolls. The gnolls will send to their disaffected kin in the Moathouse, but they won't arrive for months. However, all the males that are normally in the common room will be stationed in the entrance, and they'll have built a makeshift barricade out of the old burnt table, broken chairs, and mounds of earth and branches.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Start of a new campaign + Sessions 1 and 2 recap
The game I'm running now is based on Swords & Wizardry. Originally we were using the Core Rules, but I quickly switched to the Complete rules once I found out they were actually available for free. There's practically no difference; Complete has a few optional classes, and it says a little bit more about Strongholds, wilderness, and monsters. All of the mechanics I've been able to track down are the same, though.
It actually started quite a while after the GURPS DF game finished; I and a couple friends from my former workplace went to a local con, and there I convinced them to play with me in a S&W White Box game. They loved it. For this reason I seriously considered sticking with the White Box rules, but I had done a few test runs with that system and knew I wanted to eventually move to something slightly more complicated, with things like variable weapon damage and hit points. I figured making the move at first was easier than making it later.
I rustled up two extras, two of whom had never played D&D before but were interested, and I gave them the choice: they could start in Hommlet or they could start in the Keep. They chose the Keep. Since I'm all about player choice, I told them that Hommlet was a few days to the east and that there were rumours of an old set of ruins a few days through the swamp to the south. (The Caverns of Thracia.) So far they've only been interested in the Caves, which is fine by me.
The setting is intentionally vague, and at least so far hasn't diverged much from the "medieval fantasy" background assumption of D&D. I'm running it like Points of Light, by which I mean the PCs are all from "the Realm" of which the Keep is the easternmost fortress, but the area they consider civilization they could walk across in a couple weeks. What else is out there? That's a good question, but it's not uninhabited. The Realm just considers them all "barbarians and savages with whom we sometimes trade."
A thousand years ago, The Empire collapsed as it was overrun by barbarian hordes. They left behind ruins, artifacts, etc. etc. The Church of the Realm is the Church of Sol Invictus. Alignments are based around this: if you're Lawful, you believe in Sol Invictus (or perhaps a related god, outside the Realm), civilization as a righteous thing, and all that. If you're Neutral, you don't really care one way or another. Perhaps you've lapsed, or perhaps you follow the Old Ways (druidic paganism). If you're Chaotic, you're opposed to Sol Invictus for some reason - maybe you don't believe in this civilization, maybe you worship one of the Darker Gods, or whatever. Notably, Magic Users are always chaotic, because the arcane forces they toy with twist them, and elves are always Chaotic because they're closely aligned with the Fae.
Generally, I'm going for a Dark Ages Europe feel. There's a Constantinople out there somewhere, but the PCs don't know about it.
Class levels also exist as an in-game phenomenon. In order to gain class levels, you travel to one of the 'navels of the world' - places of old power that the priests and scribes used to be controlled and sanctified by the Empire before it collapsed, and that are now sacred to Sol Invictus. If you go to a Lawful one, you come out either as a Fighter or a Cleric. If you go to a Chaotic one, you can come out as a Fighter, Cleric, or Thief. Naturally the Church doesn't admit that Chaotic navels (generally, those controlled by entities not aligned with Sol Invictus) exist, and they claim that the power of the navels comes from Sol Invictus. It certainly seems like they're partially right, what with Lawful Clerics getting blessings in line with the powers of Sol.
In order to become a Magic User, you find another Magic User to expose you to the secret artifacts and eldritch rituals.
Further, if someone has class levels, you can tell. They have a sort of mystical charisma and an air of competence - Fighters move with more grace and self-assurance than mere men-at-arms. Clerics are also obvious, and thieves are if they want to be, or to each other.
Anyhow, I have four sessions to quickly recap for posterity. I won't bother to make a distinction between the sessions at this point, but later I'll be writing recaps as they happen. (Mostly for my benefit. I don't like writing them, but they're a good place to stick information I need to keep track of that showed up in the session.)
When the curtain opened, we had:
Gim - a Lawful dwarven Cleric
Tiny - a Lawful Fighter
Pius Inebrius - a Chaotic Cleric who worships Bacchus
Elarion - an Elf Fighter/Magic-User
Buddha - a Neutral Cleric to a dead god
They spent the session meandering around the Keep, seeing the sights and meeting the locals. They heard a few rumours about the Caves of Chaos - like how the big dogmen live high in the caves, while the little dogmen live low, and how there's a huge vault of treasure in the southernmost caves, but also a wizard who would kill all trespassers - that I probably need to remind them of because it's been long enough I bet they've forgotten. They spent some time in the Traveller's Rest Inn, the name of the tavern and inn in the Keep, and recruited a few local laborers for their expedition. They also encountered the Curate of the Keep, along with the traveling priest and his two initiates, the latter group of whom readily agreed to go out with them to vanquish the evil in the Caves! These were Theodoric, Jovian, Bob, and Ted respectively. Those of you who remember the module know that Father Jovian is both Chaotic and evil, so he's coming along to make sure they fail and die.
Come the next morning they set out early, though they lost Buddha for a halfling ne'er-do-well named Pablo (who sports a Gordito moustache). They stopped by the Church for Theodoric's blessing, and he confided in Gim that he didn't exactly trust Jovian.
Off they went and promptly realized they didn't know where they were going other than 'off west somewhere near the road'. They turned north after about half a day on the road, cut through the forest, and finally found a very large clearing on the hillside. They set up camp because it was getting late, and resolved to keep searching come morning.
After a night-time diversion involving orcs that caused no casualties but netted no information, either (Jovian was the only one who spoke Orcish, and he wasn't about to tell the party that these guys were from the Caves or anything useful), they set about continuing to search. After a few hours poking through the clearing, Elarion found an opening into the hillside.
Again, those of you who know the module know that this was not the Caves of Chaos, but rather the Caves of the Unknown.
They gathered round the cave mouth and Tiny shouted inside. That's when the 28 stirges flew out and latched on to one of the laborers, Ted, and Gim. Fortunately for the party they were able to free Gim before he died. Ted and the laborer weren't so lucky, but at least most of the stirges stayed attached to them for the next few rounds, so the rest of the party managed to survive.
Entering the cave, they noticed immediately that it was quite strange, and very old. The stone was worked, but rather than being square, the walls, floor, and ceiling were all gently curved. The place also stank of ammonia and moisture, moreso when the short entryway opened into a large chamber with a tunnel northeast and another to the west that was clearly the place the stirges had been roosting. It also had a small raised area to the north, with a low rock platform that was strewn with the same bones and ammoniac junk that covered the floor. Examining this, they discovered that the thing was likely an altar of some sort, carved with bas-reliefs of snakes and other reptiles in various poses. They also found a small jade statue of a twining snake, which they took.
Deciding the take the northeast tunnel, they discovered that it opened into another smaller room at the end, with several molded wooden doors on the east, north, and west walls, and a pair of large corroded bronze valves ajar to the south. They set about busting down the nearest wooden door, which was still miraculously intact (carved with a snake sigil) but swollen into the doorframe. They sent Pablo in, where he found a large, dusty mess of what looks like it used to be plant fibers all over the room, a low dresser made of stone, and a low sleeping platform at the back of the room. The only thing of potential value he found was in the dresser - a mummified lizard, in the same drawer as a bunch of old stone knives and scalpels, some crusted with ancient blood. He pocketed it and moved on.
Meanwhile the rest of the party was looking around the main room and decided to bust down a few more of these doors to see what was inside. This much noise naturally attracted the interest of the basilisk in the next room, who came to investigate.
Basilisks in my game are very much what you might think - dog-sized lizards who turn creatures to stone. Specifically, you have to look the basilisk in the eyes, which themselves are made of large rubies. They're also immortal and don't need to eat, but constantly ravenously hungry (since most things they try to eat turn to stone before they can).
However, a properly alchemically mummified lizard is proof against this power, and in fact will turn the basilisk to stone if struck by one. Basilisks know this, and are mesmerized by the lizards when presented. (It's a sort of terror; the basilisk is caught between that and the ravenous hunger, and makes a save each round to continue attacking. I made up that mechanic on the spot.)
It took the party a good while to figure out the lizard was why Pablo wasn't turned to stone when the basilisk looked directly at him several times after he stabbed it in the kidneys. By that time, Jovian, Bob, and Pius had already turned to stone, and the surviving laborers had beat feet. It was still nearly a TPK, because they never figured out that striking the basilisk would petrify it. By the end, only Pablo and Tiny remained un-stoned, and Tiny only because he had his guts ripped out.
Fortunately, fresh basilisk blood is an antidote to petrification. It's also a very valuable alchemical reagent, mostly for Stone to Flesh unguents that manage to stretch it further. Pablo, being a worldly sort, knew this. He'd never slaughtered an animal before, but after a few mistakes he managed to get enough blood out of the creature for the four stoned party members to be reversed. (He got lucky; I rolled a d4 for doses. Originally there was a d8, but he wasted quite a bit of blood on the floor.)
After this, the party retired to lick their wounds for a week in the Keep. Turning back from stone is a physically stressful occurrence, and they needed some time off.
This post is getting really long, so I'm going to split the other two sessions off into another post. I'll also write up a little on the Caves of the Unknown.
It actually started quite a while after the GURPS DF game finished; I and a couple friends from my former workplace went to a local con, and there I convinced them to play with me in a S&W White Box game. They loved it. For this reason I seriously considered sticking with the White Box rules, but I had done a few test runs with that system and knew I wanted to eventually move to something slightly more complicated, with things like variable weapon damage and hit points. I figured making the move at first was easier than making it later.
I rustled up two extras, two of whom had never played D&D before but were interested, and I gave them the choice: they could start in Hommlet or they could start in the Keep. They chose the Keep. Since I'm all about player choice, I told them that Hommlet was a few days to the east and that there were rumours of an old set of ruins a few days through the swamp to the south. (The Caverns of Thracia.) So far they've only been interested in the Caves, which is fine by me.
The setting is intentionally vague, and at least so far hasn't diverged much from the "medieval fantasy" background assumption of D&D. I'm running it like Points of Light, by which I mean the PCs are all from "the Realm" of which the Keep is the easternmost fortress, but the area they consider civilization they could walk across in a couple weeks. What else is out there? That's a good question, but it's not uninhabited. The Realm just considers them all "barbarians and savages with whom we sometimes trade."
A thousand years ago, The Empire collapsed as it was overrun by barbarian hordes. They left behind ruins, artifacts, etc. etc. The Church of the Realm is the Church of Sol Invictus. Alignments are based around this: if you're Lawful, you believe in Sol Invictus (or perhaps a related god, outside the Realm), civilization as a righteous thing, and all that. If you're Neutral, you don't really care one way or another. Perhaps you've lapsed, or perhaps you follow the Old Ways (druidic paganism). If you're Chaotic, you're opposed to Sol Invictus for some reason - maybe you don't believe in this civilization, maybe you worship one of the Darker Gods, or whatever. Notably, Magic Users are always chaotic, because the arcane forces they toy with twist them, and elves are always Chaotic because they're closely aligned with the Fae.
Generally, I'm going for a Dark Ages Europe feel. There's a Constantinople out there somewhere, but the PCs don't know about it.
Class levels also exist as an in-game phenomenon. In order to gain class levels, you travel to one of the 'navels of the world' - places of old power that the priests and scribes used to be controlled and sanctified by the Empire before it collapsed, and that are now sacred to Sol Invictus. If you go to a Lawful one, you come out either as a Fighter or a Cleric. If you go to a Chaotic one, you can come out as a Fighter, Cleric, or Thief. Naturally the Church doesn't admit that Chaotic navels (generally, those controlled by entities not aligned with Sol Invictus) exist, and they claim that the power of the navels comes from Sol Invictus. It certainly seems like they're partially right, what with Lawful Clerics getting blessings in line with the powers of Sol.
In order to become a Magic User, you find another Magic User to expose you to the secret artifacts and eldritch rituals.
Further, if someone has class levels, you can tell. They have a sort of mystical charisma and an air of competence - Fighters move with more grace and self-assurance than mere men-at-arms. Clerics are also obvious, and thieves are if they want to be, or to each other.
Anyhow, I have four sessions to quickly recap for posterity. I won't bother to make a distinction between the sessions at this point, but later I'll be writing recaps as they happen. (Mostly for my benefit. I don't like writing them, but they're a good place to stick information I need to keep track of that showed up in the session.)
When the curtain opened, we had:
Gim - a Lawful dwarven Cleric
Tiny - a Lawful Fighter
Pius Inebrius - a Chaotic Cleric who worships Bacchus
Elarion - an Elf Fighter/Magic-User
Buddha - a Neutral Cleric to a dead god
They spent the session meandering around the Keep, seeing the sights and meeting the locals. They heard a few rumours about the Caves of Chaos - like how the big dogmen live high in the caves, while the little dogmen live low, and how there's a huge vault of treasure in the southernmost caves, but also a wizard who would kill all trespassers - that I probably need to remind them of because it's been long enough I bet they've forgotten. They spent some time in the Traveller's Rest Inn, the name of the tavern and inn in the Keep, and recruited a few local laborers for their expedition. They also encountered the Curate of the Keep, along with the traveling priest and his two initiates, the latter group of whom readily agreed to go out with them to vanquish the evil in the Caves! These were Theodoric, Jovian, Bob, and Ted respectively. Those of you who remember the module know that Father Jovian is both Chaotic and evil, so he's coming along to make sure they fail and die.
Come the next morning they set out early, though they lost Buddha for a halfling ne'er-do-well named Pablo (who sports a Gordito moustache). They stopped by the Church for Theodoric's blessing, and he confided in Gim that he didn't exactly trust Jovian.
Off they went and promptly realized they didn't know where they were going other than 'off west somewhere near the road'. They turned north after about half a day on the road, cut through the forest, and finally found a very large clearing on the hillside. They set up camp because it was getting late, and resolved to keep searching come morning.
After a night-time diversion involving orcs that caused no casualties but netted no information, either (Jovian was the only one who spoke Orcish, and he wasn't about to tell the party that these guys were from the Caves or anything useful), they set about continuing to search. After a few hours poking through the clearing, Elarion found an opening into the hillside.
Again, those of you who know the module know that this was not the Caves of Chaos, but rather the Caves of the Unknown.
They gathered round the cave mouth and Tiny shouted inside. That's when the 28 stirges flew out and latched on to one of the laborers, Ted, and Gim. Fortunately for the party they were able to free Gim before he died. Ted and the laborer weren't so lucky, but at least most of the stirges stayed attached to them for the next few rounds, so the rest of the party managed to survive.
Entering the cave, they noticed immediately that it was quite strange, and very old. The stone was worked, but rather than being square, the walls, floor, and ceiling were all gently curved. The place also stank of ammonia and moisture, moreso when the short entryway opened into a large chamber with a tunnel northeast and another to the west that was clearly the place the stirges had been roosting. It also had a small raised area to the north, with a low rock platform that was strewn with the same bones and ammoniac junk that covered the floor. Examining this, they discovered that the thing was likely an altar of some sort, carved with bas-reliefs of snakes and other reptiles in various poses. They also found a small jade statue of a twining snake, which they took.
Deciding the take the northeast tunnel, they discovered that it opened into another smaller room at the end, with several molded wooden doors on the east, north, and west walls, and a pair of large corroded bronze valves ajar to the south. They set about busting down the nearest wooden door, which was still miraculously intact (carved with a snake sigil) but swollen into the doorframe. They sent Pablo in, where he found a large, dusty mess of what looks like it used to be plant fibers all over the room, a low dresser made of stone, and a low sleeping platform at the back of the room. The only thing of potential value he found was in the dresser - a mummified lizard, in the same drawer as a bunch of old stone knives and scalpels, some crusted with ancient blood. He pocketed it and moved on.
Meanwhile the rest of the party was looking around the main room and decided to bust down a few more of these doors to see what was inside. This much noise naturally attracted the interest of the basilisk in the next room, who came to investigate.
Basilisks in my game are very much what you might think - dog-sized lizards who turn creatures to stone. Specifically, you have to look the basilisk in the eyes, which themselves are made of large rubies. They're also immortal and don't need to eat, but constantly ravenously hungry (since most things they try to eat turn to stone before they can).
However, a properly alchemically mummified lizard is proof against this power, and in fact will turn the basilisk to stone if struck by one. Basilisks know this, and are mesmerized by the lizards when presented. (It's a sort of terror; the basilisk is caught between that and the ravenous hunger, and makes a save each round to continue attacking. I made up that mechanic on the spot.)
It took the party a good while to figure out the lizard was why Pablo wasn't turned to stone when the basilisk looked directly at him several times after he stabbed it in the kidneys. By that time, Jovian, Bob, and Pius had already turned to stone, and the surviving laborers had beat feet. It was still nearly a TPK, because they never figured out that striking the basilisk would petrify it. By the end, only Pablo and Tiny remained un-stoned, and Tiny only because he had his guts ripped out.
Fortunately, fresh basilisk blood is an antidote to petrification. It's also a very valuable alchemical reagent, mostly for Stone to Flesh unguents that manage to stretch it further. Pablo, being a worldly sort, knew this. He'd never slaughtered an animal before, but after a few mistakes he managed to get enough blood out of the creature for the four stoned party members to be reversed. (He got lucky; I rolled a d4 for doses. Originally there was a d8, but he wasted quite a bit of blood on the floor.)
After this, the party retired to lick their wounds for a week in the Keep. Turning back from stone is a physically stressful occurrence, and they needed some time off.
This post is getting really long, so I'm going to split the other two sessions off into another post. I'll also write up a little on the Caves of the Unknown.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Tiny post on SM House Rules for Dungeon Fantasy
Found this in the old posts and thought it might be good enough to throw out there as-is.
Skeletons have SM -1 because they're harder to hit, since the structure isn't all there. The same logic can be used for other creatures, e.g. the Elegant Spears of the Jungles of Zaridun, who have adapted to the heavy monsoons by becoming voluminous lattice-works of chitin to let the water flow through without resistance.
SM can never give more than a -4 or +4 in melee combat, and it will never cause the Size/Range/Speed bonus to be larger/less than+- 4 (by which I mean that the full SM will apply, but the bonus/malus will cap out if it would cause a larger deviation)
For example, fighting a Giant with SM +6 with a sword would only give you a +4 to hit, because after something gets large enough it isn't easier to hit it if it's larger. Is it easier to punch a barn than the Shuttle Assembly Building?
Similarly, if you shot an SM+10 creature from 200 yards away (-12), you'd be at an effective -2. If you shot the same creature from only 15 yards away (-5), you'd be at an effective +4 - the other +1 is lost, because after a certain point it isn't easier to shoot a larger thing. If you were shooting it from two inches away, you'd still only have a +4 - though I wouldn't make you roll unless there were serious other factors in play about whether you could hit it (which the rest of its SM could be used to help cancel out - it is easier to hit the Shuttle Assembly Building than a house if you're trying to do it in a gale).
Skeletons have SM -1 because they're harder to hit, since the structure isn't all there. The same logic can be used for other creatures, e.g. the Elegant Spears of the Jungles of Zaridun, who have adapted to the heavy monsoons by becoming voluminous lattice-works of chitin to let the water flow through without resistance.
SM can never give more than a -4 or +4 in melee combat, and it will never cause the Size/Range/Speed bonus to be larger/less than
For example, fighting a Giant with SM +6 with a sword would only give you a +4 to hit, because after something gets large enough it isn't easier to hit it if it's larger. Is it easier to punch a barn than the Shuttle Assembly Building?
Similarly, if you shot an SM+10 creature from 200 yards away (-12), you'd be at an effective -2. If you shot the same creature from only 15 yards away (-5), you'd be at an effective +4 - the other +1 is lost, because after a certain point it isn't easier to shoot a larger thing. If you were shooting it from two inches away, you'd still only have a +4 - though I wouldn't make you roll unless there were serious other factors in play about whether you could hit it (which the rest of its SM could be used to help cancel out - it is easier to hit the Shuttle Assembly Building than a house if you're trying to do it in a gale).
Post-mortem on a blog (and campaign)
Those of you who were following this blog before have by now no doubt noticed that it is dead. Dead, dead, dead. It was merely wounded, once, and the surgeon did all he could, but after hours of frankly gruesome work on the operating table, up to his elbows in readership, he finally relented and declared it dead.
The campaign it chronicled limped on, at first unharmed by this admission. But it too died, grown alien and bizarre to the wishes of both its creator and its players. It reached a natural point, and so we graciously led it into the stall and quietly shot it in the head. We were all agreed: it was a mercy killing.
Here's the autopsy, in no particular order, for both the blog and the campaign.
Part of the problem was just the group and the group dynamics. Rather than being a gaming group, this is more a group of friend(ish) people who get together to game. The distinction I'm making is primarily that the attitude toward actually getting down to brass tacks and playing your character is much more relaxed, and at least two people are there primarily to shoot the shit with friends. Also, the social order comes first, meaning you can't, for example, kick people out of your game if they're not a good fit for whatever reason. Problems that stem from this were in no particular order:
Further, creating content for the game was becoming a chore. True, I'd already converted the Moathouse and portions of the Temple, come up with random encounter tables and cool stuff, and so forth, but still. The difference in the systems got to be too great. As an example, in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, the emphasis on tactical combat is at odds with D&D's low-level focus on exploration and problem solving, which meant that I had to do a lot of 'sprucing up' of the dungeon in order to make it both interesting and a challenge. Another way to look at it is that the Temple became not only a chore, but a boring one - I would have been better off writing a dungeon for DF from scratch. The game assumptions, from how to play to how rewards work, were too fundamentally different for me to remain interested in the task of reconciling them.
Am I saying that you can't play 'Old School' GURPS DF? Absolutely not. Not only do I still personally believe that is possible, but +Peter V. Dell'Orto's group proves that it can be done. But I am saying that method wasn't right for me at the time, and wasn't right for my group.
All of that also makes it pretty clear why the blog died, with a couple of added points:
The player of Calowas brought in a bard, and they all went back out to the Moathouse again. They found that it was now populated by a group of gnolls, previously down in the basement and now broken with Lareth. They ambushed the gnolls pretty effectively and had a fairly one-sided skirmish before the surviving gnolls retreated. While they were picking through the bodies, they discovered that there were also some goblins when the gnolls sent in their goblin thralls to make a truce.
A truce was made, involving non-aggression and information on the one side, and money on the other. The party proceeded downstairs and found Lubash the ogre, who killed the scout and the druid (new player) before being brought to bay. Picking through his stuff they found enough treasure to call it a day.
Coming back, they went down again, skipped past the zombie crypts once more to check out what was beyond the ogre, and found in a large dead-end room a bunch of bugbears. The bard went to 'talk' to them, and found they were pretty well set up, being bugbears - hiding behind an overturned table, ready in ambush by the entrance, etc. They quickly negotiated a monetary truce, and while the bugbears were waiting for the party to throw in the money the party instead threw in a Stench cloud. Bugbears stumbled out wheezing one at a time and the party whacked them all.
Wandering around a bit more, the party found the other end of Lareth's guards and had a long conversation that ended with the party apparently agreeing to go see Lareth. The sergeant told them to put down their arms and follow him, which is when the bard (same player as Calowas) again shot one of them. Cue pitched battle in the hallway with the wizard saving the day with a Mass Sleep spell. After this they go to see Lareth, who is presented as pretty hoss (like he is in the Temple - fourth level Cleric with magic plate and a rod of striking), so they listen to him and are on the verge of possibly joining up when they (still primarily elves despite casualties) find out he worships Lolth.
Cue another battle, this time in magical Darkness against a death-touching cleric (Rod of Striking = 2d deathtouch per blow) which ended well for the party due to a couple lucky hits from the Knight and then the Barbarian getting her big mitts on Lareth and smashing his head into the ceiling repeatedly. His guards didn't have a chance to come in and help him because the party was wisely blocking the door at the same time.
The campaign it chronicled limped on, at first unharmed by this admission. But it too died, grown alien and bizarre to the wishes of both its creator and its players. It reached a natural point, and so we graciously led it into the stall and quietly shot it in the head. We were all agreed: it was a mercy killing.
Here's the autopsy, in no particular order, for both the blog and the campaign.
Part of the problem was just the group and the group dynamics. Rather than being a gaming group, this is more a group of friend(ish) people who get together to game. The distinction I'm making is primarily that the attitude toward actually getting down to brass tacks and playing your character is much more relaxed, and at least two people are there primarily to shoot the shit with friends. Also, the social order comes first, meaning you can't, for example, kick people out of your game if they're not a good fit for whatever reason. Problems that stem from this were in no particular order:
- Some players never bothered to really learn the rules. This in turn made not only play but character creation a chore.
- There was one disruptive player in particular, who could not be excised without probable dissolution of the game anyway.
Further, creating content for the game was becoming a chore. True, I'd already converted the Moathouse and portions of the Temple, come up with random encounter tables and cool stuff, and so forth, but still. The difference in the systems got to be too great. As an example, in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, the emphasis on tactical combat is at odds with D&D's low-level focus on exploration and problem solving, which meant that I had to do a lot of 'sprucing up' of the dungeon in order to make it both interesting and a challenge. Another way to look at it is that the Temple became not only a chore, but a boring one - I would have been better off writing a dungeon for DF from scratch. The game assumptions, from how to play to how rewards work, were too fundamentally different for me to remain interested in the task of reconciling them.
Am I saying that you can't play 'Old School' GURPS DF? Absolutely not. Not only do I still personally believe that is possible, but +Peter V. Dell'Orto's group proves that it can be done. But I am saying that method wasn't right for me at the time, and wasn't right for my group.
All of that also makes it pretty clear why the blog died, with a couple of added points:
- The blog itself began to feel like a chore. When I started running out of things to say, I kept trying to push myself to say more. I forgot that I intended to be a gamer who put stuff here to help myself and other people out, not a content provider. In particular, scheduling myself and expecting myself to stick to the schedule was a bad idea.
- This fed back on my natural cycles of industry, laziness, and guilt. Especially as unfinished draft posts and unwritten play reports backed up, crying out to be written.
Postscript
For those who absolutely, positively must know what happened after Calowas died, what follows is a hyper-abbreviated run-through of the rest of the campaign.The player of Calowas brought in a bard, and they all went back out to the Moathouse again. They found that it was now populated by a group of gnolls, previously down in the basement and now broken with Lareth. They ambushed the gnolls pretty effectively and had a fairly one-sided skirmish before the surviving gnolls retreated. While they were picking through the bodies, they discovered that there were also some goblins when the gnolls sent in their goblin thralls to make a truce.
A truce was made, involving non-aggression and information on the one side, and money on the other. The party proceeded downstairs and found Lubash the ogre, who killed the scout and the druid (new player) before being brought to bay. Picking through his stuff they found enough treasure to call it a day.
Coming back, they went down again, skipped past the zombie crypts once more to check out what was beyond the ogre, and found in a large dead-end room a bunch of bugbears. The bard went to 'talk' to them, and found they were pretty well set up, being bugbears - hiding behind an overturned table, ready in ambush by the entrance, etc. They quickly negotiated a monetary truce, and while the bugbears were waiting for the party to throw in the money the party instead threw in a Stench cloud. Bugbears stumbled out wheezing one at a time and the party whacked them all.
Wandering around a bit more, the party found the other end of Lareth's guards and had a long conversation that ended with the party apparently agreeing to go see Lareth. The sergeant told them to put down their arms and follow him, which is when the bard (same player as Calowas) again shot one of them. Cue pitched battle in the hallway with the wizard saving the day with a Mass Sleep spell. After this they go to see Lareth, who is presented as pretty hoss (like he is in the Temple - fourth level Cleric with magic plate and a rod of striking), so they listen to him and are on the verge of possibly joining up when they (still primarily elves despite casualties) find out he worships Lolth.
Cue another battle, this time in magical Darkness against a death-touching cleric (Rod of Striking = 2d deathtouch per blow) which ended well for the party due to a couple lucky hits from the Knight and then the Barbarian getting her big mitts on Lareth and smashing his head into the ceiling repeatedly. His guards didn't have a chance to come in and help him because the party was wisely blocking the door at the same time.
After that, the party looted all the stuff in Lareth's room and on his body (a very nice haul indeed) and we called that the end of the campaign.
So what now?
Some corpses are not quite what they appear.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
First blood! After play report 7
Cast:
Calawas - Elf Thief (Katz)
Amalia - High Elf Cleric (Paraj) - absent
Volbak - Dwarf Knight (Jim)
Lamaevhun - Wood Elf Scout (Tim)
Ilsildel - High Elf Wizard (Martin)
Chief - Wood Elf Barbarian (Catherine)
Hirelings:
John Porter, employed as a laborer and horse-hand by the party
Titus Longfellow, employed as a man-at-arms by Isildel
Matthias Wimbledon, novice of St. Cuthbert, employed by Calawas
This was a short session, so not too much happened. The party was down at the back end of a hole that had turned into a worked stone passage leading underneath the Moathouse, confronted with a sliding wall behind which they heard voices.
After a lot of dithering on their part, the party decided to force the issue, and the thief got out his crowbar. Assisted by the resident muscles and nearly herniating himself, Calowas finally levered up the wall, after which the barbarian went about lifting and holding it. When he'd gotten the wall about half-way up, the party heard from the other side the shouted words, "Hold! Stop and identify yourselves!" and saw four pairs of boots and four sets of chainmailed legs.
Calowas lost no time and dropped to one knee to fire his bow. He saw four men, dressed in heavy mail and wearing black tabards with a yellow eye in the center, with leveled crossbows. He shot, but his arrow bounced off the chest of the man he fired at.
They shot, and their bolts didn't bounce. Two sank into Calowas' chest, puncturing his lung and spleen. One missed, going wide and bouncing back along the corridor, and the last blew a hole right through Chief's leg. She fell, dropping the wall and frothing into a berserk rage from the pain.
The one saving grace here was that the barbarian was both crippled and without her hammer to hand. She promptly tried punching out the dwarf, who calmly blocked while the Wizard spun up his Sleep spell.
After she calmed down, Matthias rushed forward to check on Calowas, who as it turns out was still alive but badly in need of surgery, which he attempted to provide. Unfortunately, the enterprising thief bled out before his lung could be patched up properly.
That's the point where the party decided to head home to cut their losses and come up with another plan of attack.
This marks the first death, and the splitting of the family. Really, Calowas has been asking for it for a long while now, going off alone and fighting things while severely wounded.
It seems like my players are under the impression, despite my warnings to the contrary, that they can 'win' every encounter. Hopefully this cured them of that.
The guards have ST 30 crossbows. They can wind them up with a crank well enough, but they're definitely a fire-and-forget deal. I wasn't sure I wanted to do this, since some part of me still doesn't want to take such advantage of the rules, and 4d+4 imp seems kind of harsh, especially four times. Still, I went with it because I'd have no qualms if the guards were PCs, which seems a pretty fair test when the PCs are supposed to be special because of point totals only.
Amalia - High Elf Cleric (Paraj) - absent
Volbak - Dwarf Knight (Jim)
Lamaevhun - Wood Elf Scout (Tim)
Ilsildel - High Elf Wizard (Martin)
Chief - Wood Elf Barbarian (Catherine)
Hirelings:
John Porter, employed as a laborer and horse-hand by the party
Titus Longfellow, employed as a man-at-arms by Isildel
Matthias Wimbledon, novice of St. Cuthbert, employed by Calawas
This was a short session, so not too much happened. The party was down at the back end of a hole that had turned into a worked stone passage leading underneath the Moathouse, confronted with a sliding wall behind which they heard voices.
After a lot of dithering on their part, the party decided to force the issue, and the thief got out his crowbar. Assisted by the resident muscles and nearly herniating himself, Calowas finally levered up the wall, after which the barbarian went about lifting and holding it. When he'd gotten the wall about half-way up, the party heard from the other side the shouted words, "Hold! Stop and identify yourselves!" and saw four pairs of boots and four sets of chainmailed legs.
Calowas lost no time and dropped to one knee to fire his bow. He saw four men, dressed in heavy mail and wearing black tabards with a yellow eye in the center, with leveled crossbows. He shot, but his arrow bounced off the chest of the man he fired at.
They shot, and their bolts didn't bounce. Two sank into Calowas' chest, puncturing his lung and spleen. One missed, going wide and bouncing back along the corridor, and the last blew a hole right through Chief's leg. She fell, dropping the wall and frothing into a berserk rage from the pain.
The one saving grace here was that the barbarian was both crippled and without her hammer to hand. She promptly tried punching out the dwarf, who calmly blocked while the Wizard spun up his Sleep spell.
After she calmed down, Matthias rushed forward to check on Calowas, who as it turns out was still alive but badly in need of surgery, which he attempted to provide. Unfortunately, the enterprising thief bled out before his lung could be patched up properly.
That's the point where the party decided to head home to cut their losses and come up with another plan of attack.
Notes
It seems like my players are under the impression, despite my warnings to the contrary, that they can 'win' every encounter. Hopefully this cured them of that.
The guards have ST 30 crossbows. They can wind them up with a crank well enough, but they're definitely a fire-and-forget deal. I wasn't sure I wanted to do this, since some part of me still doesn't want to take such advantage of the rules, and 4d+4 imp seems kind of harsh, especially four times. Still, I went with it because I'd have no qualms if the guards were PCs, which seems a pretty fair test when the PCs are supposed to be special because of point totals only.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Remember Masters of Orion?
For those of you who don't know, Masters of Orion and its sequels were a turn-based galactic empire-building game. However, they're hard to get ahold of, especially if you run Linux. Enter FreeOrion, the free Linux "clone" (with versions for Windows and Mac, too).
They're only up to version 0.4.2, but it's fully featured and currently playable, both single and multiplayer over a network. (Besides, community-built games like these never actually hit version 1; they just keep slicing the version numbers thinner and thinner.)
And now you know why I haven't updated the blog.
Back Monday. (Friday's bad because of the 4th of July as well. For all you Americans, enjoy the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. My wife and I will be re-reading it, as every year.)
They're only up to version 0.4.2, but it's fully featured and currently playable, both single and multiplayer over a network. (Besides, community-built games like these never actually hit version 1; they just keep slicing the version numbers thinner and thinner.)
And now you know why I haven't updated the blog.
Back Monday. (Friday's bad because of the 4th of July as well. For all you Americans, enjoy the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. My wife and I will be re-reading it, as every year.)
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