Devious Plot

Rewriting Skill Challenges

2009-07-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

I like skill challenges... when they work. I've been through a few that were fairly drab or didn't make sense or a few that were incomprehensible. Now, most of the "packaged" skill challenges that I've seen have been from Dungeon's Scales of War Adventure path. Due to the creativity of the multiple authors that have contributed to the series, I've seen many different spins. some have worked better than others.

My take on skill challenges is that series of small skill challenges work better than one large one, so when I looked at the "Walls Come Tumbling Down" challenge in Beyond the Mottled Tower, I think it needs a re-write. The basic premise of the challenge is that an inn is collapsing due to an apparent earthquake and the PC's need to save the Inn's patrons and themselves before the inn collapses.

Now the interesting thing about the challenge is the sequence of events that happen during the collapse of the inn. Here are a few things that are described as part of the collapse:

A patron is hit on the head by a falling beam.
A patron is trapped under rubble.
A terrified patron hides under a table and needs to be convinced to out.
The floor collapses, trapping PC's and patrons.
There's a fire.
The whole building will collapse in 7 rounds.

The presentation of the events piles everything into two groups: one complex skill challenge with 12 success required before 3 failures, and a time line of events. As well the reward/drawback for the outcome of the challenge is a little bit non-sensical. If you succeed at saving the inn's patrons - you get some extra time to save a villager outside the inn, but of you fail (eg if you leave the inn without saving the patrons) you get less time.

I'd rather run this as a set of simpler skill challenges - with any round not getting a success toward one of the challenges counting as a failure. The challenges would each have their own reward/drawback - and it's not going to be time.

The four challenges would be:

Starting on round 1: the drunken patron struck on head; athletics, heal; on success drunk patron is saved; reward: potions
Starting on round 2: terrified and trapped patrons: athletics, diplomacy, intimidation, insight; on 5 success all villagers are safely out; reward: saved villagers help with fire in this and next encounter
Starting on round 3: crumbling floor: athletics, acrobatics; on success patrons that have fallen into the basement escape; on 3 successes villagers in hole are saved: reward: saved villagers aid in rescuing villagers and PC stuck in collapsed building
Starting on round 4: fire: athletics; in 3 successes the fire is out; reward barkeep reveals knowledge.
Collapse of building - not a skill challenge - rounds 6 and 7 is the last chance to save any patrons trapped inside.

Perception checks may be made to notice new events as they happen (possibly providing a bonus). The general penalty for failure is enmity from the villagers, and lack of help from them in the upcoming (combat) encounter.

I'll see how the challenge runs this weekend.

Zombies?

2009-04-28T09:08:00.000-07:00

It has been a while.

I've been running two D&D 4e campaigns and have resorted to using Dungeon adventures for all of them. My Sunday group has been playing "The Last Breaths of Ashenport", which is an 8th level Cthulu-esque adventure. And I've been bringing my Saturday group through the Scales of War campaign from Dungeon as wel. Even using prepared adventures, the preparation time investment to running all these is enough to suck up my time and not allow for much that's original, or all that interesting to write about.

No more! Things, they are a changing. I've been hinting (complaining) about it for long enough that *two* of my players have stepped up to try their hand at dungeon mastering. So I'm now a player! This makes me happy.

For the Sunday group, I have "about 2 months" of a break according to my new DM while he goes through an original adventure that he's been working on. It's a Celtic, Dark Ages themed, low magic campaign. I'm playing Carric, a 1st level paladin - who's acquired his Divine magic by being possessed/ridden by a spirit/demon. It's an interesting take on the nature of magic, reminding me of "The Curse of Chalion".

For the Saturday group, I'm trading off every second week with one of my players who is running "Keep on the Shadowfell". I'm semi-familiar with that adventure based on forum discussions I read back in the early days of 4e, but I'm hazy enough on the details that it's still a refreshing play through. I've been playing Pallas, a 1st level eladrin tactical warlord for that adventure. He technically died in the first session (4 level 1 characters going up against the Irontooth fight is pretty bad, we narrowly avoided a TPK). He's got a pass though, so he's made a miraculous recovery, despite the fact that nobody but me has either any healing powers nor the ability to roll a 15 on a heal check... whatever. I'd have been more than happy to roll up a new character, but in the interests of continuity, Pallas lives.

The result of all this is that I'm having fun playing, and I have *one* adventure to DM every second Saturday. Which gives me lots of time to stray off the written adventure path for the Scales of War campaign that I'm DMing every second Saturday. I think I may add a little divergence to next week's game. I'm thinking Zombies!

Vengeance is Theirs!

2009-01-09T11:46:00.000-08:00

Last week, our heroes, comprised of:

Aeldrick, 6th level Human Warlord
Minos, 6th level Minotaur Fighter
Rendrill, 6th level Halfling Rogue

having discovered the connection between the dragons Dre and Oran returned by boat to the port of Shinar in Prolia where they went to report their findings to King Yutsen and met up with

Lindark, 6th level Elf Cleric

Lindark is being played by Voden's player, and is a Dex/Wis based Cleric with some Ranger powers and archery.

While Aeldrick and the rest of the party went to confer with the King about their plans for dealing with the "Dragons" Minos, his usual boisterous self went to recruit some help at the bar, where he met up with a loudmouth warrior/knight named Gaston. (Think of Disney's Beauty and the Beast's (no one fights like Gaston!) combined with a little bit of "The Tick") Anyway, Gaston has heard of Minos and his great exploits with the party, and insisted on joining up. Gaston was modeled as a level 1 Soldier - decent AC and attack for a level 1 NPC and 25 hit points (20 AC, longsword attack +6 vs AC; d8+3 ).

After spending a day and night in Shinar, the party headed out on the road toward Derros and the tower where they met the Dragons before.

There was much discussion of just how to deal with the Dragons, who up till now were summoned to the tower with a silver bell. A few minutes after the bell at their door was rung, one of the dragons always answered, and the party was welcomed into a cold-but-warming room withe a freshly lit fire, which looked un-lived in. They argued about whether they should scout out the tower before approaching. They argued about whether they should ring the bell at all or try to break in the front door, and they also argued about what tactics they should use. All this went pretty much nowhere except for one thing. Because they expected that their opposition must have some illusion or shape-changing ability, so they created a challenge response code of two numbers which should add up to 5. So if they suspected that Minos was not himself they'd say "three" and Minos would have to say "two" to prove that he was himself. Minos barely was able to comprehend this, and it was *way* over Gaston's head.

Ultimately the party and Gaston decided to trundle up to the front door and ring the bell, which began the first combat encounter of the evening.

From the ground, rose a group of undead. 2 Ghouls, 2 Corruption Corpses (zombies that use ranged necrotic attacks), and 1 Zombie Brute (a powerful Ogre-sized zombie). Gaston, arrogant and overconfident way beyond his experience immediately charged the Zombie Brute, the biggest and meanest looking target in the battle, and proceeded to get walloped by it while the party both attempted to keep Gaston alive, and to deal with the undead.

Everyone survived although Gaston got a Healing Word, a Cure Light Wounds and several temporary hit points from Sacred Flame from Lindark and still came near death almost every round.

After resting from the initial combat (all the while wondering if they'd be attacked by ambushing Dragon-pretenders) the party decided to try to get into the tower. Rendrill attempted to pick the lock - and failed despite a spectacular Thievery skill check. Minos got out his axe and began chopping down the very solid looking front door, which surprisingly was bust-in after only a couple of hits.

Cautiously the party entered, to search the empty-seeming premises.

The party admonished Gaston, out of healing surges and wounded from the last battle, to stay outside and rest. Being near-death he complied.
The party found the main room as they'd seen it before. There was small kitchen area, with a fireplace for a hearth fire (unlit), a door leading to a stairway to the cellar, a comfortable sitting area with several chairs surrounding a lit fire, and a wide stone stairway leading higher into the tower.
Minos guarded the main floor, while Rendrill decided to scout the second floor and the rest of the party checked the cellar. Stepping off the last step onto the second floor, Rendrill fell through the floor - which was apparently illusionary.
Un-phased, Rendrill joined Aeldrick and Lindark in the basement.
Unbeknown to the party exploring the tower, Oran the "Elite Succubus" snuck up on the wounded Gaston resting outside, slayed him and mimicked his appearance.
Oran, appearing as Gaston, wandered into the Tower claiming to feel ready for combat. Minos, unsuspecting, tried to convince him to take it easy and keep himself safe and was open to a surprise attack by Oran who used "Charming Kiss" on him.
The party discovered nothing downstairs except for a few sacks of root vegetables. Returning to the main level the party began searching the main floor more closely.
Upon returning upstairs, Oran (still appearing as Gaston) dominated Minos into attacking Aeldrick when was heading out the front door - and would have seen Gaston's body.

Oranthidirian Level 9 Elite Controller (Based on Succubus)
Medium immortal humanoid (devil, shape-changer) XP 800
Initiative +8 Senses Perception +8; dark vision; HP 180; Bloodied 90
AC 25; Fortitude 17, Reflex 23, Will 25 Resist 20 fire, Saving Throws +2
Action Points: 1 Speed 6, fly 6
(Basic Melee) Corrupting Touch (standard; at-will); +14 vs. AC; 1d6 + 6 damage.
(Melee) Charming Kiss (standard; at-will) ; Charm; +14 vs. AC; on a hit, the succubus makes a secondary attack against the same target. Secondary Attack: +12 vs. Will; the target cannot attack the succubus, and if the target is adjacent to the succubus when the succubus is targeted by a melee or a ranged attack, the target interposes itself and becomes the target of the attack instead. The effects last until the succubus or one of its allies attacks the target or until the succubus dies. If the target is still under the effect of this power at the end of the encounter, the succubus can sustain the effect indefinitely by kissing the target once per day. The succubus can affect only one target at a time with its charming kiss.
Dominate (minor; at-will) ; Charm; Ranged 5; +12 vs. Will; the target is dominated until the end of the succubus’s next turn.
Major Illusion (minor; at-will) ; Illusion; The succubus can take on the appearance of any creature of size tiny to huge, including a unique individual, and can also make convincing insubstantial illusionary areas that fool all five regular senses. (Insight DC 25, to detect)
Alignment Evil Languages Common, Supernal
Skills Bluff +15, Diplomacy +15, Insight +13
Str 11 (+4) Dex 18 (+8) Wis 19 (+8)
Con 10 (+4) Int 15 (+6) Cha 22 (+10)

The combat with Oran was a fairly long affair, fought around the "sitting area" of the main floor. Oran maintained "Charming Kiss" on Minos through the entire fight (nobody attacked him and he stayed away from Oran through most of the fight) and each turn Oran used a minor action to dominate Rendrill into attacking Aeldrick (and usually succeeded due to his low willpower). The dual leaders (Aeldrick and Lindark) were enough to weather the onslaught, and as Oran was deciding that it was time to flee by flying away the heroes managed to slay her.

After Oran's death, the illusion of the tower dissolved in to the ruins of a stone cottage, the party found a magical longbow which Lindark will use, and some crumpled vellum papers with Infernal writing which the party will attempt to extract more clues about the location of Dre and what he's been up to .

At the end of the session, Rendrill's player mentioned that he was wondering why I had everybody make Insight rolls the first time the entered into the Dragon's tower. And now he knows why. Nodding sagely, I smiled and said nothing. In fact, I don't remember making the players check their Insight. It's the type of thing I do every once in a while just to keep them guessing. I hadn't really decided what was going to happen with the Dragons at that point, but it seems my trixy DM ways have everybody convinced that this betrayal had been planned since we started playing this campaign six months ago. I see no need to reveal that they're over-estimating my planning which is rarely more that two session ahead of them. :)

Speaking of planning, I need to do some soon. I imagine the party will have to deal with Gaston's body. I'm curious about how they will do so, because Gaston was an errant son of a powerful Empire noble. There may be consequences for being involved in his death (maybe assasins?) - or he may be back from the dead (not everybody get Raised from the dead, but being a rich noble helps). Gaston was a fun NPC. I'll be wanting to expand on how they deal with Gaston's death at the beginning of next session, which will be this weekend.

The real story begins to surface (Chapter 6)

2008-12-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

The holidays are close and also final exams are still a concern for two of our players, so there were just three PC's for this session. Aeldrick the Warlord, Minos the Warrior and Rendrill Halfmoon (from Thunderspire labyrinth) the halfling Rogue were present. Absent characters were off doing their own things for a time.

This session was almost completely devoid of dangerous combat and as such, it was filled to the brim with story development.

Summary

PC's return to Shinar, hear rumors of a courier from Prauld arriving yesterday. There's some speculation about the courier's message, but no details.
PC's meet with King Yutsen, to inquire about what's up. Yutsen says that there have been reports of Hobgoblin movement in the northern forest. He also mentions that the heroes that scouted the giants armies have returned and are currently in Drunduin (Drunduin s the fort the dwarves captured from the giants in Estvald last year.) Yarl Hastel and his brother Hagel have been sent to Drunduin to gather information, coordinate with the Dwarves and to form the basis of a lasting trade agreement with Drunduin and the new Krondheim.
PC's stop by to visit with Dre and Oran the dragons that settled north of Derros. They ask the PC's if they could carry a valuable package to Nolton in the Republic of the Isles. The PC's agree to stop by on their way back from Drunduin.
On the road they see that the Dwarves are working on a highway through the hills between Drunduin and Derros. A wide path has already been cleared, and bridges are being built across ravines and gullys. Once the highway is complete, it will allow easy trade through the hills.
In Drunduin, the PC's see recent development of the area; the silver and mithril mines are in full operation. Drunduin's forges and factories are busy building war machines, weapons and armor for the anticipated confrontation with the giants.
The PC's meet with the "old heroes" (The "old heroes" are from a previous campaign, that took place in OY 603, whcih ended with the old heroes following the giants off to the war in the west.) According to the "old heroes":
1. The Giants fought in a civil war backed by Kryve. and then against an invading Kryve army. The giants were victorious driving the Kryvans back out of the mountains, and using a powerful ritual the Stone Giants of southern Estvald, cracked the earth and raised a giant gap across the western edge of the mountains, effectively defending Westvald from Kryvan invasion.
2. The "old heroes" made contact with the Stone Giants and explored parts of Kryve and old Kryvan ruins. They discovered a change in the religious leadership oin Kryve seems to be the cause of recent warlike activity out of the Kryvans.
3. They do not think that the Giants will attack the hills. The Giants have already born the brunt of a major invasion and feel that there are world-shaking events on the horizon.
During their stay in Drunduin, the PC's were contacted by Hagel and his assistent (Jenkins in disguise). They tell the PC's about Jaryl Hastel's recent strange behaviour, and wish the PC's to stealthily break into his guest chambers while he's meeting with the Thanes. He's been particularly secretive about the room's contents and they want to know why. A key is provided, a dwarven guard in the area is bribed to take a short walk, but the key needs to be returned before the council is sceduled to finish in one hour.
The PC's break into Hastel's room and discover several arcance traps and glyphs protecting the room and it's contents, setting off one trap and making the break-in quite obvious due to singed carpet and damaged room contents. Nevertheless they do find notes that include a summary of Jaryl Hastel's life and mannerisms, including things that he should know and a check list of things that should be said to the Thanes that include many inflammatory statements. There are also ritual materials, and a lock of what appears to be Hastel's hair.
The PC's head for the council chamber and confront Hastel on the spot in front of the thanes of being an imposter. There is hot debate, followed by an attempt to escape by Hagel, who is eventually revealed to be a shape changer of some sort. The fake hastel is captured by the dwarves but manages to suicide while he's in custody.
Questioning Hagel, they determine that the switch likely took place at an inn just outside of shinar. The PC's head back towards Shinar, stopping at Dre's and Oran's tower to pick up their package. They investigate at the inn, find a muddy bootprint outside of Hastel's room that hasn't washed away in weather yet, a description of a inn resident that matches the description of the imposter (who dissapeared while Hastel was at the inn) and evidence of some dark ritual magic that was performed a few hundred yards outside of the inn, and a small wooded clearing. In addition, they found the impression of the front cover of a book on the waxy surface of a woden desk in the imposters room. Further investigation in shanar led to the discovery that the book in question was a book of dark magic rituals - written in Abyssal (the language of demons).
The package from Dre and Oran, is a small, seciure chest with arcane runes of protection and a solid lock, which is to be delivered to one Chancellor Warwick who is staying at the Stag and Castle Inn off of the Garden square in Nolton. After a brief sea voyage, the PC's arrive in Nolton, visit the inn and make contact with the Chancellor, who pays them a rather significant sum of money (900gp) for delivering the chest to him. Aeldirck feels a groqwing sense of unease when dealing with the man however. Who appears to be pretending to be a noble, but shows some mannerisms of speech and ettiquette that seem very much out of place. and sends Rendrill to follow the man after the deal is done.
Rendrill follows the Chancellor to a fishing shack near the docks where the chest is passed off once again. The receiver is a grizzled man, who assures the "Chancellor" that the package will be leaving for the Empire.
Rendrill reports his findings to Aeldrick and Minos and together they decide that this bears looking in to. They try to get some information about Dre and Oran, but are told that the best place to get information about dragons is from a dragon. There just so happens to be a Dragon who sometimes resides in Nolton. Gasparion - who's a longtime friend of the Royal family.
The party goes off to find Gasparian, in the north side of town in a massive tower, 80 feet to a side and over 180 feet high. At the main entrance to the tower the are met by a mechanical construct/golem who attempts to dismiss them, but eventually takes a message in to Gaspar, who allows the PC's entrance.
The PC's are overcome by fear as they see that the massive tower is a single giant room with ledges and aprches, and see Gaspar decend in his natural form as a huge red dragon. The ask about Dre and Oran the dragons that have recently arrived in Prolia, and are answered with a single phrase. "There are no Dragons in Prolia."
Stunned, the PC's realise that they may be being duped by the "Dragons" and race back to the docks where they break into the fishing shack, subdue the grizzed man, and recover the box.
They open the chest, suffering the magic protections and discover that inside the chest is a leather bound book, written in infernal (the language of devils). Heading off to their local arcane sage, they get the translation of the book, which is a detailed reconstruction of their adventures in Yuri's doom, including diagrams of the ritual circle where the druids are trapped in time and research about the origins of Yuri's ritual and possible means of disrupting the magic. The book is addressed to somebody called "My Prince".
The PC's decided to head back to Derros and confront the "Dragons" about their treachery.

That was the end of the session. The characters advanced to level 6. The next game to pick up this story line will be in January.

Back to the Alia Plot!

2008-12-11T13:22:00.000-08:00

Our heroes are back on the free-form plot path and this week's game could go in any direction. Here are my thoughts as for how things may progress, and some background that ready to be uncovered. (but may take a few sessions to actually get discovered). So far, the heroes have heard of Solanthus. They've also heard about the adventurers that followed the giants into the mountains but not about the Kryvans or any specifics about what's happening in the West.

Over the next few adventures, some of these plot elements are going to be revealed. Which ones will depend on which paths the adventurers take. Although some events may happen in the world regardless of which direction the adventurers choose.

I shall be putting to together some stock ready to go combat encounters and working on NPC profiles and dialog plans for some of the major figures.

Background (Plot Spoilers)

3 years ago, three comets were seen in the skies, one over the northern tundra, one over the great south forest Shadowwood and one far to the west, far beyond the mountains of Estvald. Each of these comets was a being from another dimension. Three beings of power who battled across the cosmos were caught in a great backlash of power and were hurled through the sky into the ground. Each landed in a crater, greatly weakened in power and looked about them, only to discover that they were in Alia, a place only most difficultly accessed from their home realms.

Solanthus a Captain of Celestia, is an Angel of War. He desires only to defeat his opponents in glorius one on one combat. (Or die trying). Since his arrival he has become the leader of the Hobgoblins of the forest North of Prolia. He has a plan to distract the Kryvan armies with the Hobgoblins so he may face Illranikus alone. He is *not* the hero of the story, and is only concerned about his personal honour. If he dies in combat and the forces of darkness conquer the world... well that won't be his problem.

Illranikus is a Duke of Infernus. He wishes to open a gate so he can conquer the world in the name of Infernus. He wishes to use a ritual, powered by a dedication of deaths killed in a great battle to power the ritual. He is attempting to use the armies of Solanthus and Ferazghul to do so, but has also insinuated himself into the Emporer of Rhode's good graces and may use a Prolian/Empire conflict, if the northern conflict is not successful. He is also known as "Prince Ran, of the Grey Isle." in Rhode. Illranikus wishes to offer the world as a prize to his Infernal Prince.

Ferazghul is a Demon of Tartarus, no title, but very powerful. He wishes to conquer the world or destroy it (depending on his mood). He has taken control of the Kryvan nation through it's priesthood, and is sending it's armies on the march. He is aware that his greatest threat to domination are his two otherworldly rivals, and wishes to begin the destruction with them and their armies. He has taken a liking to the Kryvan's interpretation of the Elmental pantheon and has taken the part of the four elemental avatars in previous battles against the giants.

Recent Events(Winter of OY 603/604)

1. Discovery of the "western threat" that is human empire beyond the mountains, called Kryve.
2. Kryvan follow the elemental pantheon, but have a darker view of the four gods of creation, and combine worship of Wikri, Umos, Enosa and Freda with worship of demons and dark magic.
3. Last year Kryvan agents corrupted one of the Storm Giant royal family, to support the Kryvan in a rebellion in Westvald, and lead an army of Kryvan into the mountains. Last winter the stone giants led an opposing army out of Estvald to support the rightful monarch, quelled the rebellion and shaped western edge of the mountains into a unscalable cliff three hundred feet high.
4. This spring, the giant army has returned to the east, but don't wish to engage the Dwarves for control of the Estvald foothills.
5. Solanthus, who has great power over dreams, was responsible for the portentous dreams that many Arcane and Divine heroes had last year, warning of a shadow in the West. The dreams were aimed mostly at the giants, to encourage them to mobilize in their own defense and to drive the main army north into Solanthus's territory.

A group of adventurers sent to discover what has happened in the west have returned to Prolia.

They followed the giant army into the west. They saw the first clashes between the Kryvan and the Giant armies, and eventually became embroiled in the conflict after meeting with a Stone Giant Psionic called Rankrull.
The Kryvan are on the warpath. Apparently, there was an abrupt change in focus from an inward looking corrupt society, to a war seeking rampaging army over the course of less than a month. A huge army is marching over the northern tundra towards the hobgoblin lands to the north of Prolia.
The group saw ancient Kryvan ruins suggesting that they have been living in that area for a very long time. Possibly longer than written records of Krondhiem.
Kryvan heroes favor Paladins and Warlocks, and are a racially diverse culture including a fairly large number of elves and half-elves.
The Kryvan versions of the gods include:

Enosa, a squid, associated with decay, poison and greed.
Freda, a raven, associated with rulership, tyranny and betrayal.
Umos, a worm, associated with secrets, insanity and fanaticism
Wikri, a burning tree, associated with punishment, slavery and massacre

Adventure Opportunities

Dwarves are looking for:

An escort for a diplomatic mission to Estvald. The escort will be likely attacked by Kryvan agents and or demons

Dragons:

Wish a package carried to Nolton (the package contains details about Yuri's doom ritual and instructions on how to break the ritual - for an Empire agent in Nolton. Ultimate destination is Prince Ran, of the Grey Isle in the Empire of Rhodes)

Prolia:

Hastel, Jarl of Beryl, has been replaced by a Kryvan employed shapechanger. Hastel, wishes to employ the PC's to kill Jenkins (the Republic diplomat/assassin).
Jenkins and Hagel(Hastel's brother) are suspecting that something's wrong with Hastel - but they don't know what.
King Yutsen of Shinar, is concerned about recent activity in the North. (He hasn't yet heard of the Kryvan in the North - but he will soon.) He's worried that they may join forces with the Hobgoblins in preface to an invasion.

Hobgoblins:

The hobgoblins leader, Solanthus wishes help to confront Illranikus, who is treacherous and will not hesitate to use his underlings to interfere in an honorable combat challenge.

Freeform:

It might be a good idea to venture into older Krondhiem ruins in search of knowledge pertaining to Kryve.

Thunderspire Labyrinth is Bland

2008-12-05T11:18:00.000-08:00

... is no longer being played by my group.

I'm quite disappointed with it overall. It started out okay. The Seven Pillared Hall was an interesting town/quest hub, the overall story was ok... but the encounters quickly became quite boring.

The encounters in the Chamber of Eyes, were fine. There were four or five of them depending on how you count. The last part has the potential to combine two or three encounters into on extended encounter, which is in itself a little bit interesting, at least in terms of difficulty.

The sameness began to appear in the Horned Hold, which has a total of eight encounters, of which at least five of them are *really* generic, and quite similar. When the encounters start becoming predictable, that's when you know something's really wrong. When the third group composed of "two soldiers/two artillery or skirmishers/one named or controller leader joined combat in a room" happened everybody was feeling the blandness. Sure, there was a fight across a bridge. There was fireplace or two to shove the enemies into (but wait Druegar have resist fire 10 so make that fireplaces to shove players into). But they were small details amongst the larger repetitive battles. Honestly, I expect more from a stand alone, published package like Thunderspire Labyrinth.

What really drove the point home for me was that I started up a second D&D 4 group last week and ran the beginning of the Scales of War adventure path from Dungeon #156 "Rescue at Rivenroar". That adventure started out with two really different combat encounters as the town of Brindol comes under the attack of some goblins and a cart-pulling Ogre. A couple of memorable battles came out of that, interspersed with some fun role-playing in the aftermath of the attack (skill challenges as written are still boring to me, so I don't use them at least not as written). Then the party set off overland to find Rivenroar and had some (also fun) wilderness encounters. It could have been a series of "you meet a balanced group of 5 goblins" and if that was the case it would have been boring... just like the Horned Hold was.

So two things resulted from this...

First, I'm staying away from "adventure modules" for a while. There's something about them that makes me feel constrained to their framework rather than inspired by their content. We finished up with the Horned Hold last weekend, and the breadcrumb trail that should have led off to the next chapter in the labyrinth mysteriously dried up. The heroes will leave Thunderspire Labyrinth next week and I'll start working the creative juices towards something original and fun in Alia.

Second, I'm enjoying my digital subscription to D&D Insider. Go, Scales of War! The Character Builder is looking pretty nice too. Levels beyond 3, and the rules filter, sometime soon please?

Rorni's Creek Play (Part 1)

2008-10-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

So we finished up characters and started the adventure.

From memory, the party consistes of the following:

Dragonborn Paladin, cha/wis/con, sword and board
Dragonborn Fighter, str/dex/wis focus, sword and board, with a focus on OA and knockbacks
Elf Ranger, bow using, dex/wis, rogue multiclass feat
Elf Cleric, wis/dex, ranger multiclass feat
Half Elf Warlock, fey pact

I don't remember their names.

We borrowed from Spirit of the Centrury/Fate's character creation process and Pathfinder Society's raison d'etre (transplanted into Alia) to fill in the back-story of these freshly created level 10 characters. 'Twas fun. I'm not sure how much real depth that it's added, but if they want they have a framework that should work as a decent skeleton to develop their characters and their back-stories.

We started play off with a bit of narration, explaining how their contacts all referred them to the Thanes of Drunduin and jumped right into the action.

Encounter 1: Orc/Ogre/Dire Boar combat

I allowed for a skill challenge of Perception or Nature(DC 25) for the PC's to be aware of the Orc band following them. The party succeeded and decided to set up an ambush. They successfully surprised the Orc's as they traveled up the path toward the entrance of Rorni's Creek and the gate.

The combat was fairly straight-forward with the usual delays as the players tried out their new powers and got used to the way things worked. The Orc Chieftain proved to be very tough, if not very dangerous after all his companions were killed. It took nearly ten rounds for the players to defeat the initial encounter.

The double defender/double striker/single leader party is actually fairly well balanced. The fighter and paladin can fairly effectively control critical targets in combat and are proving to be very tough, and they each have a per-encounter use of their breath weapon, which should be a great help in killing and dealing with minions. The ranger/ cleric ranger and warlock are all quite comfortable in a second rank behind the defenders and the fey warlock is really enjoying his mobility. The fey pact is turning out to have a quite different play style from the infernal pact play style of Voden, even though the fundamentals are very similar.

Anyway the characters move on to opening the door after the combat was concluded, The ritual of opening succeeded and the vision of the closing was sprung on the players, who reacted with a sense of satisfaction and a hope that the sealed door will lead to many well preserved and long lost treasures and secrets.

Encounter 2: Trapped Room and Kloin

I brought out the ghost of Kloin after the party had set off one trap and were taking their time clearing the dust away, trying to see if there were more.

The Ranger and the Cleric/Ranger who both have excellent perception checks, noticed the faint amorphous blob of the ghost. Further perception checks also allowed them to hear a faint whispering in a foreign tongue (old dwarvish). The warlock actually knows dwarvish, so a bit of laborious sounding out of words, allowed them to translate one important word that Kloin is saying, "posses". When the warlock tries to converse in dwarvish with the spirit, he felt a "chilling" presence". The +2 versus willpower wasn't nearly enough to actually possess the warlock. A successful religion check by the Paladin revealed to the group that old spirits like this often cling to the earth because of a need to accomplish a task in the world of the living, but this particular spirit is too weak to much effect on the material world. The party decides that the spirit is in fact trying to posses one of them. After a few clumsy attempts at communication, the warlock agrees to allow himself to be possessed.

The possessed Warlock/Kloin briefly recounted his companions' ambush during their rest and the desperation that overcame the outpost after months of being sealed in. He reiterated his wish to discover what became of the outpost and to discover why this betrayal happened. And with that Klon faded to the back of the warlocks mind.

The party continued deeper into the outpost exploring the living and crafting quarters of the old outpost. Everything through those areas was covered with a thick layer of undisturbed dust. Several of the Thanes of Drunduin's valued objects were found, a few traps were avoided, leading the party eventually to the doors into the fungus farm.

The session ended with the adventurers opening the doors, seeing the foulspawn and the grell and the unfortunate the elven slave being "dealt with". The PC's are about to attack the aberrations. The encounter 3 combat will continue next session (in two weeks) .

Level 10 characters have a good deal more complexity than level 1 characters do. After one combat encounter, I feel that the players have a good grasp of their at-will powers and just a basic appreciation for their encounter powers. Hopefully the upcoming battle will allow the players to explore their characters a bit more fully.

The Halls of Rorni's Creek

2008-10-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

This is an adventure for 5 level 10 characters that will be run as a one-shot adventure as a adjunct/break from Thunderspire Labyrinth. My players have just finished the Chamber of Eyes in Thunderspire Labyrinth and have discovered the connection between the Grimmerzhul Dwarves and the Bloodreavers. Since they've expressed an interest at trying out different classes and also trying out play at a higher level, this adventure should both allow my players to play something different, while also fleshing out the ongoing story.

I've taken the 5-room dungeon template and put together the following short adventure. Characters are being created this week and we should be playing it this weekend. Since at least a little bit of time will need to be taken at the beginning to solidify the PC's it will probably take two 3-to-4-hour sessions to complete.

Background

Rorni's Creek was a Dwarven outpost in the northern Krondhiem kingdom that was lost during Krondhiem's battle with the invading Giants. The dwarven thanes of Drunduin have hired a band of explorers to locate the outpost and re-open the gates to the fortress, exploring all within. Part of the party's contract lists some important dwarven relics believed to be in the ruins. Any treasures found that are not on the list may be claimed by the explorers.

Basic Layout of the Outpost

The outpost is built into a south facing granite cliff along a fault line in northern Estvald. There is a large magically sealed entrace door blocking the outpost off from the world. Beyond the entrance, is a large hall 20x100 feet filled with traps and the ghost of one of the dwarven high priests. Beyond the entrance hall with the traps, the main hall continues straight into the mountain. Off the main hall are side passages into the living and working quarters of the dwarves that called the outpost their home. There are 40 dwarven apartments each containing 1-5 sleeping quarters as well as a large common dining hall and kitchen, a well room and a large cavern filled with various workshops and stores of many materials from a large selection of stone blocks to piles of bones and what must have been hides and wood that has long since rotten away. There are also several empty bins. Small scrap of various ores may be found in the bins, but otherwise they are empty. Beyond the living and work areas, the main hall opens into an underground river and an large cavern filled with many varieties of large mushrooms. The straight path of the hall is a bridge over the river and a clear path through the giant fungus. Beyond the agricultural area, the main hall continues past several side passages following veins of metal and mining equipment. At the end of the main hall, behind two more large double doors is a large forge powered by a flow of lava. Beyond the forge is a hidden tunnel leading into a huge, bottomless chasm, with a stairway along the side leading down into the underdark.

Encounters:

entrance: orcs/ogre
hall: traps/spirit
farm: abberations
forge: (in operation) undead dwarves
cavern: Druegar and devils

Story elements:

Entrance: vision
Hall: spirit
Rooms: journal of master digger Uthuok
Forge: speech my the master smith Brill
Cavern: Druegar link & Underdark map

Room One: Entrance And Guardian

To the north, is a solid wall of granite with a large obviously dwarven stone pair of doors. The doors glow with silvery magical runes that are still keeping the outpost warded from the outside. A Religion check (dc 20) reveals an underlying theme of the works of Umos, the elemental pantheon's god of earth, death, agriculture and building.

The entrance requires "Ritual of Opening" scroll provided by the thanes.
Complication: A group of Orcs have been tracking the the party through the mountain trails in Estvald, they catch up to the party soon after they stop to examine the sealed door.

Level 9 Encounter

1 Orc chieftain (level 8 elite brute)
5 Orc warriors (level 9 minion)
1 Dire boar (level 6 brute)
2 Ogre skirmishers (level 8 skirmisher)

Room Two: Puzzle and Roleplaying Challenge

When the PC's enter the mountain fortress, they get a brief vision of a battle with the gates open as they now are.

Vision:

In the entrance hall, dozens of ogres, orcs and hill giants fight a small number of heavily armored dwarven warriors that are attempting to push the invaders back through the gates, while a brown robed dwarf priest completes a ritual. The gates slam shut trapping many of the invaders inside the gates.

Room description:

The entrance hall is 20 feet wide and 100 feet deep, with two large doors at the end of the hall. The hall is decorated with etched carvings, mosaics, and pillars and high vaulted ceilings. All around the entrance are the skeletons of about 20 dwarves that seem to have fallen in battle. There are no giant, or ogre bones in the area. A thick layer of dust covers the floor. A large rectangular block of stone lies 15 feet in front of the doors.

If the PC's study the room for a while or if they set off a trap, then a spirit manifests out of the body of one of the skeletons. It can barely speak (perception 30 test to hear) or be seen (perception 30 test to see), but it understands common. The spirit is that of High Priest Kloin Hammerhand, the dwarf who performed the ritual of closing. He wishes to possess one of the party members, but is very weak. Probably too weak to forcibly posses any party member. (Possess: +2 vs Will posession until save) He is not malign, but wishes to know the fate of Rorni's Creek and to get revenge on those that betrayed him. If someone allows him to posses them he can communicate easily with the party through the person, but otherwise is content to ride the PC. A PC bearing Kloin's spirit gains:

Healing Word 1/day (+2d6) minor action
Knowledge of the trap pattern in the entrance hall.
Knowledge of the layout of the fortress as it was when it was overrun.
Knowledge that 4 months after sealing the entrance, there was a group of dwarves that suddenly attacked him and other dwarves while they were asleep and killed 20 of them here. He does not know why.
+2 on History checks.
Kloin may attempt to affect the PC's actions with a +2 vs Willpower attack until a save is made.

If the dust is brushed away from the floor, a complicated geometric pattern can be seen to cover it. The pattern is in fact a key to the many traps that defend the entrance hall. When traps are sprung a dungeoneering or intelligence check may be made to deduce the pattern. The DC decreases for every trap sprung, according to the following chart. (at least two traps must be sprung or detected to discover the pattern)

Traps Sprung or Detected/Dungeoneering or Intelligence DC to figure out pattern.

2 traps revealed/ DC 35
3 traps revealed/DC 30
4 traps revealed/ DC 25
5+ traps revealed/DC 20

In order to make any of these checks, the PC's must be brushing the dust away from the floor to reveal the geometric pattern. Sweeping away the dust from a trapped square will probably not trigger traps provided care is used and the squares are not stepped on.

The difficulty of detecting a trap is Perception DC 30 and disabling is a DC 30 Thievery check. On each 5 foot square, there's a 50% chance that a trap is present.

The room is filled with traps. There are four types of traps:

swinging blade traps +15 vc AC, 2d10
falling block traps +13 vs Reflex, 3d8
spring loaded ground spike traps, 4 attacks, +13 vs Reflex, d8 each
covered pit traps, +13 vs Reflex, 20' pit, fall 2d10, climb DC 20

The swinging blade, covered pit and spike traps reset in 1 minute, although the dust disturbed by the covered pit trap clearly marks it once triggered. The falling block traps don't reset.

Exploration:

Devoid of encounters, the main living quarters of the ruins take about 2 hours to cursorily explore. The main hall continues in a straight line into the mountain with side passages leading to the dwarven living and working quarters. The dust has not been disturbed here for many years.

Room Three: Fungus Farm

Room description:

Dozens of slaves (mostly humans) labour to harvest giant mushrooms in this large cavern. Weird mutant-like creatures oversee the work. A heavy stream of water runs from the west side of the cavern over a metal water wheel into an underground river that exits into a sinkhole in the east wall. While the PC's are taking the scene in, an emaciated elf collapses while hauling a load of fibrous mushroom stalks. A floating tentacled creature (a Grell) quickly descends on it from the ceiling. The hapless elf's screams are abruptly cut off with a bite from a venom dripping beak.

Level 11 Encounter (XP 3,050)

1 Foulspawn seer (level 11 artillery)
2 Foulspawn berserkers (level 9 soldier)
3 Foulspawn grues (level 8 controller)
1 Grell (level 7 elite soldier)

Dungeoneering DC 15:

Grells are solitary, malicious hunters that detest sunlight and prefer to lurk underground. They float silently though the air and like to descend from above, snaring their prey in venomous tentacles.

Dungeoneering DC 15:

Foulspawn form loose clans that shelter in existing structures or underground regions, modifying their homes into maddening warrens full of strange features. They also cooperate with other aberrant creatures.

Room Four: The Forge

Long before the doors are reached, the sound of hammers on metal resound through the main hall. The large solid doors are cracked open and a red glow comes from beyond.

There are four lava-powered forges are in the room and an open flow on the north west side. Ten ashen faced dwarves work the forges beating metal into weapons and armor.

If a character falls into lava... they die, no save. (See rule 1!). The forges are half closed; being pushed into the forge causes 2d10 fire damage on entering and at the beginning of each round. There are four levers in the room that control the flow of lava. They each may be spotted with a DC 25 perception check. Pulling the levers completely down causes a burst 1 splash around the forge, 2d10 damage.

Confrontation between Kloin and Master Smith Brill.

1 Vampire lord (level 11 elite skirmisher) (Master Smith Brill)
9 Vampire spawn bloodhunters (level 10 minion)

Brill will attempt to prolong the confrontation with Kloin and attampts to delay as long as possible because he knows that Uthuok is just outside the forge dealing with the Druegar.

In one minute or after 2 rounds of combat, Uthuok and his Zombies arrive through the concealed door in the north wall.

1 Skull lord (level 10 artillery) (Master Digger Uthuok)
2 Zombie hulks (level 8 brute)

Religion check:

DC 15: Contrary to popular folklore, vampires are not hampered by running water or repelled by garlic, and they don’t need invitations to enter homes. Wooden stakes hurt them, but no more so than any other sharp weapon. A vampire does not cast a shadow or produce a reflection in a mirror.
DC 20: A vampire lord can make others of its kind by performing a dark ritual (see the Dark Gift of the Undying sidebar). Performing the ritual leaves the caster weakened, so a vampire lord does not perform the ritual often.

Religion check (skull lord)

DC 15: A skull lord is a formidable undead being with three skulls. Each skull has a different power, and a skull lord on the verge of destruction will sacrifice one of its skulls to keep the rest of its form intact. Once two of its skulls are destroyed, the creature loses the power to heal itself in this fashion.

Religion check (zombie)

DC 15: Most zombies are created using a foul ritual. Once roused, a zombie obeys its creator and wants nothing more than to kill and consume the living.
DC 20: Corpses left in places corrupted by supernatural energy from the Shadowfell sometimes rise as zombies on their own. These zombies have no master and generally attack all living creatures they encounter.

Room Five: The Caravan

Level 11 Encounter

Berbelang (MM)
2 Druegar (see Thunderspire Labyrinth)

Religion check (Berbelang)

DC 20: Berbalangs consume the flesh of dead humanoids. They do not differentiate between those recently dead and those dead for centuries.
DC 25: Berbalangs absorb the memories of the corpses they eat and relive significant portions of those memories while asleep. This absorption of dead memories gives berbalangs the nutrition they require.

The Druegar are readying a small train of large lizards pulling carts (non combat beasts of burden). The carts have several bundles of dried fungus provisions. Two dead human (slaves). The first cart in the train has a "Resounding Hammer +3" and an "Iron Ring of the Dwarf Lords". In the possession of one of the Druegar is a map to the Underdark in the local area and a note from Blackhand Grimmerzhul offering 15 slaves in payment for a magical Hammer and Ring. The map is written with notes in dwarvish and consists of a network of coloured, solid, dashed or dotted lines and circles. Before it may be used to navigate through the Underdark it must be deciphered with a DC 25 Dungeoneering check. Once it has been deciphered, it allows for navigation through the Underdark of all the northern Estvald, and a variable bonus (0 to +5) on Dungeoneering checks related to navigation of the Underdark of Northern Estvald.

All Hail the King (Chapter 5)

2008-09-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

This session's play was, as expected, transitional.

The chapter starts with our heroes, Capricia, Minos, Aeldric, Voden and Ragnar entering the town of Prauld. Capricia happens to have a "bag of holding" and the brave adventurer's deicde not to bring the body of Arnesson into town obviously. They wrap the body in their bedrolls and blankets and put it along with the crown into the bag of holding, which is now just about full.

On the way into town, headed for the "nice" inn off of the market square, Ragnar succeeds his perception check and notices a merchant, who's in the middle of a conversation with a furniture vendor, has "noticed" them. Ragnar brushes it of as his Dwarvish good looks, and the heroes continue into town, where they arrange for some rooms. During the day they meet with a jeweler and exchange their massive diamonds that they found on the Devils in Krolak-Nol for some coinage.

For supper they meet with Jarl Jorgen, who's a fairly down to earth and traditional Jarl. Over the course of several rounds of decent local ale, the party learns a few things from Jorgen.

Jorgen asks about the quest for the crown, but is brushed off by the party.
Jorgen reveals that at least one of the Jarls are uneasy about Yutsen's ability to lead Prolia in a time of war. The king of Prolia has always been a warrior, and Yutsen is a merchant and a diplomat at heart. He's undoubtedly the best peace time leader of the country, but is probably the least versed in war of all the Jarls.
Jorgen mentions that Jenkins, the aide of the Republic ambassador is in town. Jorgen offers the party 5000gp to assasinate him. He explains that while he is certain of Jenkins guilt in the death of his son Giordi, last summer, and that he has the right to mete out justice on his own lands, he is restrained from executing him in his official capacity, to avoid an international incident. If the PC's kill Jenkins, justice will have been done, and an incident will have been avoided.
Jorgen also mentions that Jenkins has been hanging out around Beryl and seems to have some influence with Jarl Hastel.

After their celebratory dinner, they ask around about Jenkins. It turns out he's staying at the inn where they are. They tip the innkeeper and ask him to point Jenkins out when he arrives. They have a few more drinks. and discuss what they'll do with jenkins. There's talk of beating him up and tieing him to the mast of an outbound ship. There's also talk of killing him for the reward, and to see justice done, although not everyone thinks that Jorgen is seeing straigh abou t Giordi's murderer. Later in the evening, the merchant that noticed the heroes on their way into town walks into the inn. The innkeeper indicates it's Jenkins.

They invite Jenkins over for a drink at their table. By this time I'm having Ragnar make constitution checks cause's he's been drinking heavily. Jenkins orders white wine. They have a vaguely disturbing but fairly civil discussion with Jenkins. I'm not sure if the players were aware of it, but there was a very menacing undertone to the conversation, that *I* certainly picked up on, and Jenkins did too (no Insight roll required on that!).

After some time Jenkins excused himself and went off to bed. A few minutes later the heroes followed him up to his room, I don't think they really had a plan, but grabbing him out of his room seemed to be part of it. A rather drunk Ragnar, bashed the door in while the party was trying to discuss what the next step would be, revealing an empty room with an open window. Jenkins was long gone.

The next morning, caring for hangovers the heroes departed south (after buying new bedrolls).

Just north of Beryl they were ambushed by a group of

8 Prolian Archers (souped up Human Rabble, Minions, with bows and axes instead of clubs)
2 Human Berserkers
1 Human Mage
1 Human Bandit

A tough encounter made worse by the ambush... but this was the only encounter of the day, so daily powers could be used without much reservation. The archer minions were set up spaced out along a slope that was difficult movement to go up.

The first round saw Aeldrick, the leader get taken down by 2 arrows, a whack by one berserker and a hit from the multitarget lightning spell of the mage and from falling off his horse. Not a good beginning. Minos took even more damage, geting a crit from the other berserker's encounter power (for 25!) The bandit moved in from behind the party towards the softer targets.

Ragnar ended up saving Aeldric with a healing potion on the second round. That potions plus a second-wind, action point, and self inspiring word got Aeldric back into the action on round two.

After the initial schock of the ambush the heroes recovered, using action points and daily powers to deal out a brutal reprisal, taking down the two berserkers, mage and bandit, and having the prolian archers turn tail and run.

The heroes bypassed Beryl completely, skirting southwest around town to the road leading inland to Derros and through the Dragons domain. Dreasinoleanus and Oranthidirian (Dre and Oran for short) notice the travelers along the road. Dre is a male adult silver dragon, and his mate Oran is a female black dragon. They are both adult, and of "huge" size in their dragon forms but can shape-shift into human form. (I don't know or care if 4e dragons are supposed to do that, in Alia they do.) Oran carefully lands off to the side of the road of the heroes, shape-shifts into a beautiful, black-haired woman and comes up to greet them. The heroes are pretty nervous. She welcomes them to her lands and invites them meet with her and her husband in a tower off to the side of the road. They take a small path up to a newly constructed town with a handy empty stables and a clean looking well.

Inside are Oran and Dre preparing for their visitors. Warming up the main room of the tower and stoking up a nice wood fire, and preparing tea. Dre is actually the minstrel Iellos that they met on their way north through Derros. The heroes are a little nervous about being near such dangerous creatures, but the dragons seem to take a rather keen interest in the heroes activities and the activities of humans in Prolia. Soon the party is at their ease and the party tells the dragons everything they know including their journey's through Yuri's doom and into Krolak-Nol, admitting to finding the crown. The dragons thank them for their story and invite them back if the next time they pass through the area.

The journey south of the Dragon's tower, through Derros to Shinar is otherwise uneventful. The party sends ahead to Shinar the day before they arrive in town and are met the next day by an honour guard that brings the body into ton in a majestorial procession.

The heroes then settle down to a week of being feasts, rewards and partying, from the soon-to-be crowned Jarl Yutsen.

The heroes confronted Hagel, Jarl Hastel's brother. About the ambush. Nobody died. Hagel seemed genuinely sorry about his involvement in Jenkins plot. Claimed that he was manipulated by Jenkins while in his cups to sending out his men, and claims to have reformed. The party was doubtful, but accepted his explanation and apology. The heroes are doubly on the lookout for Jenkins, but he did not show up.

The session concluded with the pomp and ceremony of the crowning of the new king of Prolia, who's now severely in debt to the heroes for their service they've performed for Prolia and the heroes are thinking about what to do next. Thunderspire Labyrinth is probably it.

Roles?

2008-09-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

Seems one of my posts has incited some additional activity from The Geek Emporium.

..."Now, I may be calling maestrod out, which isn’t my intention, but it was a catalyst that forced me to realize that not everyone knows how I, and my group, play D&D."

"Maestrod" is me, I really should be consistent about my blogger tag. My original comment was on this and was in direct a response at “…the roles are something I can’t stand about 4e…”

Now where do I start?

I like 4e. But that isn't because I don't like 3.X. I like for 4e for what it brings to the table that's new and different. And because it's a new, it has renewed my interested in classic fantasy role playing. The fact is, I still have a shelf full of 3rd edition rules, and dozens of other games. (plug for Dark Heresy here!)

When I play a game, it is for what it *has* is not what it doesn't. Everyone (unless you're running something within a larger organization such as the RPGA) is free to write house rules and ignore any rule that they're not comfortable with. For example, I've long ignored any alignment rules that D&D has used. They just do not interest me.

One thing that's very apparent in all of the 4e rule books is that there's an obvious effort to spell out everything that more experienced gamers may take for granted. Just like the oft-repeated "What is role-playing" section in the intro chapter, much of this effort is not aimed at experienced gamers. I appreciate this content even though it's really not for me. The class commentary that explains what ability scores a particular class build should focus on is wasted in the eyes of an experienced gamer, it's *not* wasted on someone like say... my wife. For her, an explicit instruction saying "A warlock's main strength is dealing damage at range" and "choose constitution, charisma and intelligence as you ability scores" for an infernal-pact warlock is what she needs.

I don't think that these hints and instructions and labels make 4e any less flexible for the experienced gamer than 3.X or 2nd ed, or Advanced or Basic/Expert/Companion/Master, especially if you're okay with throwing the rules you don't like out the window and writing your own house rules.

D&D Insider Ennui

2008-09-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

I've read a number of blog postings about D&D Insider over the summer. Most recently, a preview from Pen and Paper Portal, PAX 08: Hands-On D&D Insider. Earlier in August there were some articles commenting on the pricing and the timing (RPGCentric with D&DI: The Price is Right and Critical-Hits with D&DI Updates: Charging Before Ready) but for the most part there seems to be a lot of waiting-and-see since the initial criticism over the missed launch dates and the hysterics over pricing.

I understand the wait-and-see feeling. While I hope that D&DI will be the greatest thing since home made bread (sliced bread is really not that great). I haven't been able to get excited about D&DI at all.

When it comes down to it, it's going to be a digital magazine subscription combined with some online tools. The Dragon and Dungeon magazine articles have been out all summer, so there's no doubt what they'll be. The Compendium and Character Creator and Game Table/Dungeon Creator look pretty neat, but I'm not sure how much I'd actually use them.

When faced with the monthly cost for access to these, I'm hesitant. The fact is that half of D&DI is available right now, for free, and other than some casual reading and poking around I don't use it. For the other half, there are currently non-WotC equivalents for pretty much all of the content that D&DI is promising, that I also don't use. Some examples:

Character Visualizer : Hero Machine
Character Builder : Ema's Char-Manager
Game Table : RPTools & IRC

Plus there are dozens of completely free blogs, forums, and dedicated websites with more content than anyone has the time to digest. Now, I'm not claiming that any of these tools are as slick or as polished as the D&DI tools that have been promised. Nor are most of the online forum, blogs and websites nearly comparable to what you'd expect from a professional publication. But it's there and it's free and some of it is really, really good.

Since, to date:

I haven't read more than half a dozen of the (still free) D&DI Dragon or Dungeon articles.
I have no problem making characters using printed character sheets and a pencil.
I haven't used the Compendium for anything other than seeing how it works.
I don't run games online using IRC or any other online tools.

I don't think that my behaviour is going to change overnight. I know that some people feel differently about D&DI. Some people think that the magazine content alone is enough to justify the cost. Some people are really into running on-line RPG games and may think that the Game Table alone justifies the price. I'm just not sure how many people fall into those categories.

I'm a pretty fanatical pen and paper RPG player, and D&D has always been a game that I enjoyed, but even for me I'm not convinced about the subscription price. And if it's not worth it for me, I don't see that there are many casual players that are going to look at the yearly D&DI cost and decide to subscribe.

I expect that WotC will not see the returns on this development that they're hoping for.

I hope that I'm completely wrong, that D&DI will be worth it to enough people to keep it a viable business for WotC. I hope that it's so awesome that I'll be convinced of its usefulness, and by this time next year I'll be a cyber-dm with my laptop glued to my hip, using D&DI for everything even at my regular game table.

But the cynic in me is suspecting that D&DI will go the way of Gleemax.

The Tower of Krolak Nol (Chapter 5)

2008-08-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

The last session left the party at the base of the tower of Krolak-Nol, having beaten the skeleton and magma-men encounters.

This session, added a little bit of a twist. We have a new player and a new PC.

How does one introduce a PC midway through an adventure? In D&D it's pretty easy, magic being what it is, nothing really needs to make sense.

What I ended up doing is after having a conversation with the new player, we had the idea of introducing them as an anachronism; an original knight from Jarl Arnesson's party that came to the tower, and who had been petrified. Add in a ritual scroll in the library, and fini! The party now has a full time, female, human, wizard named Capricia .

After the meeting of their new member and some discussion of the mission of the Jarl they proceeded up the tower's floors. Primarily the encounters were resolved by combat.

I played the Red Dragon as a psychopathically delusional treasure hoarder, sitting on a pile of rusty armor.

The floor was dark, and filled with rack and rack of hanging, rusty armor, obscuring the PC's vision, but it was obvious to them that *something* big was there, muttering to itself in an unknown language (draconic).

After lighting up the room and blundering through the armor, they came face to face with the dragon who screamed about intruders come to steal his precious, precious, rusty armor bits.

The fight started out with the dragon winning initiative and spending an action point, and using both its dragon breath and its terrifying presence to open the fight. From there it degenerated into a tooth and nail fight. Other than bloodied breath, the dragon breath never recharged, but the party was quite tired after the fight, using a couple of daily powers and a handful of healing surges.

The pair of Spinagons in the summoning circle was a brief bit of dialog before continuing up the tower. They were not released form their circle, despite coaxing and pleading on the Devil's part.

The top floor of the tower with the bodies of Fendraeus and the Jarl, led to a rather hasty Ragnar immediately grabbing the book, releasing Caramnon and leading up to the climactic fight, if not the last of the adventure.

Caramnon was indeed tentacle-y and poisonous, and his ability to grab and slide people around in combat combined with the party bringing out their own shifty powers led to a battle of constant repositioning. It was quite tactically interesting. Caramnon's breath ability recharged several times during the fight, and his threatening-reach/grab abilities combined well with his close burst poison gas cloud attack. In the end the party defeated him, using the rest of their dailies, some of their magic item daily abilities and some action points. Ragnar was left with 0 healing surges after healing to the point of being unbloodied.

Afterwards, they collected the body of the fallen Jarl Arnesson and the iron crown he was wearing, and returned to deal with the Spinagons.

The party decided that they didn't want to deal with the Devils except to kill them if possible. They tried to trick the Spinagons into a binding agreement that would allow the PC's to attack the Spinagons without reprisal, but they didn't fall for the ploy. After a fair bit of back and forth, the party decided jut to kill the Spinagons and be done with them, breaking the circle and attacking them.

The Spinagons attempted to escape, but were marked, slowed, knocked prone, shifted around and otherwise prevented from leaving before they could be cut down.

And that was the end of Krolak-Nol and this section of the adventure. The PC's set off back south through the Hobgoblin lands towards Prolia and ended the session upon returning to Prauld.

I dropped a few hints of slaver activity in the mountains near Greenhill, and will possibly run the D&D 4e module, H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth in that area, with some rather heavy modifications to make it fit the game world.

Complications around the crown will still come up, but I believe the next session will be a transition from the first story arc to a second story arc which will focus on the gnomes and giants south of the area the Dwarves now claim.

Five Room Dungeons

2008-08-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

I've gravitated towards this type of adventure design over the years. I never knew it was quite so popular.

I should read more stuff on the intertubes.

It's perfect for homemade adventures. Not so much for published adventure modules.

Chatty DM's Project Kobold Love: The Adventure Plan is a 5 room adventure, that I'd run as a one-shot if I had the time, but as I wrote in the comments, I have one problem with it.

I like everything except for “Scene 1, Dungeons and Diplomacy”. I’ve seen a fair bit of scaled skill challenges with successes reducing number of combatants, and I honestly I don’t like em.

I prefer a different approach. Design a balanced combat and map partial successes to a delay before the underlings get their act together.

A good success could be a bloodless victory, in this case the leader is mollified, wishes the party luck and goes away. Yay!

A total failure would be immediate combat; the leader and all his underlings are pissed off and enter the fray with blood in their eyes.

A middling success could a lesser number of combatants in the first round. The leader and a variable number of his underlings are upset and immediately attacking, but some of the underlings thought the diplomacy sounded reasonable, and aren’t ready. When their leader ups and attacks the kobolds though, it’s just a matter of time (one round probably) before they snap out of their confusion, grab their weapons and join in.

(i.e. The leader cries “Attack boyz!” and charges into combat, but the first round all that the rest of the group does is look confused and draw their weapons… the discussion was going so well!)

That way we can have a well planned tactical challenge that doesn’t become dangerous with a total failure, nor trivially easy with a near total success. What happens if 7/8 (or 9/10 or whatever) of the threats wander off, do you really want to play out that combat against the sole foe? How about a complete failure and zero threats wandering off. TPK?

Published Adventure Modules

2008-08-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

I have a love/hate relationship with published D&D modules.

As a player, I tend to hate published modules. Maybe it's just the game masters that I play with, but when somebody goes into a wooden reading of the "boxed text" for an encounter... Let's just say I don't like it. Published modules are a crutch. Everything is prepackaged and preplanned, and all it takes is for a GM to spoon feed their players the contents, following the printed plan. They can turn a genius of creativity and improvisation into a soulless automaton.

As a game master. I like published adventure modules. They often have interesting backgrounds and settings. Memorable NPC characters. They are sometimes very well polished with interesting tactical combat challenges, infuriating puzzles and traps and great opportunities for role-playing and development. I enjoy reading the modules and thinking about how how my players might react to the setup.

I just bought H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth. And I think with a little work I can work it into my campaign. In fact it's a pretty good fit.

So I've been thinking about how I can use the supplement without falling into the "reading the boxed text" trap that I hate so much. I've come up with a few options.

I could just read and enjoy the published adventure at home and continue to run my homegrown adventures, for which I still have lots of ideas.
I could (figuratively) rip the module into little bits and plant the pieces into my campiagn where I think they'll fit.
I could do as much preparation as I'd normally do with my own adventures making the published adventure into my own adventure.
I could completely rewrite the adventure using it as inspiration rather than as a reference.

Honestly, Option 1, is what I usually do. For the most part, I'll buy an adventure, enjoy reading it, and never spring it on my players. At least half the published adventures I own have never been played.

Option 2 is unsatisfying for me. A story is more than the some of its parts. A group of encounters is really not that difficult to put together. The value of an adventure, published, homegrown or improvised, is not so much in the details, but rather in the how it fits into the overall adventure. The sum is more that it's parts, so to speak.

I think Option 3 is what most people *should* be doing with published adventures. I think that good DMs usually put a fair amount of time into planning for their home-grown sessions. When I'm planning one of my own adventures, I think about the plot direction, get a vague notion of what NPC's will be doing and otherwise make sure that I have enough of a framework that I can easily fill in the fleshy bits with improvisation. I do this with a broad strokes in planning out the developing plot as an ongoing effort, and in a more detailed fashion planning for each upcoming session. So if I was running a published adventure module I could easily spend a the same amount of time reading through the module getting an idea of the overall adventure, and then look in detail at the sections and encounters that the party will likely be running across in each session.

But it's Option 4, that has a special resonance with me. Let me tell a brief story.

When I was a young lad, before I owned any D&D products. I played my first published adventure. That adventure was Castle Amber it was DMed by an inexperienced DM that mostly just read the boxed text, and ran it straight, with no improvisation that I recall. I liked it then. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like it run that way now. I was young and easy to please in those days, but still I believe that Castle Amber was one of the better published adventures of its day.

Years later when I wasn't quite so young, I was DMing for a group of players and decided to recreate Castle Amber from memory for them. We were playing a completely different system at the time. Castle Amber was for the "Expert" boxed set for the non-advanced D&D and the group I was DMing for was playing the original "Oriental Adventures" rules in a far east campaign.

Castle Amber adapted from memory to Oriental Adventures was one of the funnest adventures I ever ran, both for me and for the players. I never saw the stats for any of the encounters of the original, I did fight the battles and hear the room descriptions though. That one time that I played through it, the group I was with certainly didn't manage to explore the whole castle, but I remembered the fun that I had and I possibly forgot about the frustrations. I tried to create something that incorporated the best of everything and modified it to fit the oriental flavour of the game we were playing and succeeded better that I or anyone had expected. It was a high point of my early D&D experience.

So Option 4 is to read through the adventure, and the leave it at home and try to recreate it from memory. I don't know if that's quite the same as playing through it once then trying to recreate it from memory years later, but maybe I'll give it a try.

The real objective is to take some ownership of the adventure. In order to do that you need to put some work into it. Whether that work is reading the adventure before hand, and doing the prep work you'd normally do, or to force one's hand by leaving the actual materials behind, there's a certain amount of you and your campaign that just has to be there to give it life and to bring fun into what could be a soulless and frustrating experience.

Wish me luck.

Jarlsburg to Krolak-Nol (Chapter 4)

2008-08-19T22:24:00.000-07:00

The first half of this session was all role-play.

First, the party cleaned up in Jarlsberg and set out heading north from Jarlsberg, through the rest of the swamp. I sprung a few swamp encounters on them but in each case the party detected the threat before they were themselves detected and decided to avoid the encounters.

The party's first stop out of the swamp was an edge-of-civilization farmhouse where they got cleaned up, replenished their supplies had a hot meal and went on their way. They camped out in the countryside the first night and found an inn on the second night. On the third night they arrived in Belrane.

In Belrane the met with Jarl Wellus, who's a non-nonsense leader of a port town which is the bread basket of Prolia. Wellus is a traditional Jarl, with a stone keep, patterned after a Prolian longhouse, which they had a small feast telling about their trip through the swamp. The party did not mention the book of lost kings that they found but did describe the sunken, undead infested city of Jarlsberg and the dangerous creatures of the swamp. They stayed the night, and had their first chance to get a good read of the book.

Then the party traveled to Shinar, staying at inns along the way. The road between Belrane and Shinar is well-traveled and fairly safe this time of year. No encounters.

By the time they reached Shinar the party had gotten all the relevant information from the book, made their history checks, which fell slightly short. They sought the knowledge of a Skald in Shinar, Drinl Scot, who was able to augment their history knowledge to pull the last few scraps of information about Fendreaus and Krolak-Nol.

Also, in searching around for information of a Skald, they ran across the information about the Dragons between Beryl and Derros, and the current situation with the Dwarves. They finally decided to back Jarl Jorgen in their quest and think they have an edge in being the first to find the crown.

Jorgen also invited the adventurers to a feast and put them up for the night. He's much more mercantile and less traditional than Wellus, by contrast. his demense is a Palace.

One particular conversation they had with Jorgen in trying to sound him out convinced the PC's to back him was his talk about uniting the Towns and how he'd mediate disputes and make the country prosperous. I'm not sure if anyone noticed that he specifically never boasted about his ability to lead the country in times of war. Jorgen is a great merchant-king, a good diplomat and has good relations with all the Jarls... but he does not have any experience in battle.

The next day the party started north again. This time in search of Krolak-Nol.

In Derros,they met the Minstrel who regaled them with tales and information about the two Dragons.

They traveled the rest of the way to Prauld without incident, where they decided to ask the watch if they'd heard of Krolak-Nol. The tower guards had not, since they only ever scout half a day's travel into the forest.

The PC's then entered the forest to see if they could find the tower themselves. One day's travel into the forest they met the Hobgoblins and managed to avoid hostilities, although it was a near thing. After some discussion and a hefty tax paid to the squad captain, who knew the location of Krolak-Nol, they arranged an escort through hobgoblin lands and got some directions to take them the rest of the way.

After finding the tower, the party decided to descend into the crevasse and fought the skeleton encounter and the magma-men/imp encounter, having some difficulty with the fumes in the area, but pulling through.

And that was the end of session 4.

Development of Caramnon

2008-08-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

The PC's will be around level 3 if they encounter Caramnon at Krolak-Nol. I'd like to design this Infernal as a fairly difficult solo encounter, possibly level 4 or 5.

If we look at the monster manual however, it's plainly obvious that there are not many low level solo monsters to choose from, however we should be able to adjust an existing monster for our purposes.

A Young Green Dragon is a level 4 skirmisher. And it seems about right for a poison-based demon. The good news is that it already falls within my intended level range for this encounter. the bad news is it still needs a lot of work to make it feel like something other than a dragon encounter.

Or does it? I might in fact be able to get away with purely cosmetic changes. For example, the poison breath weapon attack and frightful presence could probably stay as is. Infernals are scary, and maybe breathe poison. The bite attack could stay. The claw attack could be kept mechanically the same with the description changed to a "tentacle attack". It would work.

But since I have the time, I think I'd like to change the mechanics of the powers a bit more.

To start, what shall I keep?

The defenses are fine
Hit points and ability scores are fine
Saving throws
Skills
Perception

What base stats shall I modify?

I think I'll change the resist poison to immune poison, resist fire 10, vulnerable cold 5. This tower is a fiery place, and I think most fire resistant creatures should be vulnerable to cold. (Besides the Minotaur has a frosty greataxe now, need to make it useful.)
The flight can go and its speed can be reduced to 6.
The attack powers need a one-by one overhaul

Dragons have Bite and Claw as basic attacks. These need to be replaced by tentacle-y powers.

Bite can be replaced by a Slam attack from a tentacle. The bite from a green dragon has a poison effect, so this fit's quite nicely.
To replace bite, I'd like to add a Grab as a basic attack. I'm not sure how far I'm pushing the rules here, but specific overrides general so this puppy can grab people with a basic attack.

Next up are Tail-sweep and Luring Glare, which don't seem like tentacle demon should have, but are actually pretty convertible.

Tail sweep allows an attack on an enemy that hasn't moved during the last round it does some damage and knocks em prone. Sounds good, we'll replace the knock down with another grab affect.
Luring Glare allows the Dragon to slide people around in combat as a minor action. Let's call it Grasping Tentacles and make it a single target in close burst 4.

Flyby Attack, is sort of central to the Green's dragons role as a Skirmisher so we'll need to replace it with a similar movement/shift ability.

Caramnon doesn't fly, but he has tentacles! How about tentacle powered shifty movement? Say, "Tentacular Perambulation" which allows Caramnon to shift 6 and make an attack at any point along the way.

And lastly the breath weapon powers. I'm going to keep these with some small changes.

Slightly modify the breath weapon to be burst 2 instead of a blast 5. Same area, centered on Caramnon.
Keep bloodied breath as is.

And lastly Frightful Presence and Double attack, scratch em off. Caramnon isn't magically frightening, he's just disgusting and poisonous. And the "make two claw attacks isn't that interesting". However, I'd like to spruce up the grab ability. What I really want is for Caramnon to be able to grab multiple targets with his tentacles, so I shall do the following:

Caramnon's sustain action for the Grab is free action.
When Caramnon moves, his tentacles can maintain the grab as long as Caramnon is within 2 squares.
Such elongated tentacles may be attacked, at the usual defense values. If 12 points of damage is done to a tentacle it releases the target. Half the damage also applies to Caramnon's HP total.
Caramnon has reach with his basic tentacle attacks and threatening reach with his Tentacle Grab attack.

So a stat block for Caramnon:

Caramnon the Many Tentacled, Level 5 Solo Skirmisher
Medium immortal humanoid (infernal) XP 1,000
Initiative +7, Senses: Perception +10, darkvision
HP 260, Bloodied 130, see bloodied breath
AC 21, Fort 17, Ref 19, Will 17
Immune to Poison, Resist 10 fire, Vulnerable 5 cold
Saves +5
Spd 6, see Tentacular Perambulation
Action Points 2
[Basic Melee] Tentacle Slam (standard, at-will) * Poison
Reach 2, +10 vs. AC, 1d8+5 damage, ongoing 5 poison damage (save ends).
[Basic Melee] Tentacle Grab (standard, at-will)
Reach 2, +8 vs. Reflex, Target becomes Grabbed
[Melee Recharge] Tentacular Perambulation (standard recharge 5-6 )
Caramnon shifts up to 6 squares and makes a basic attack at any point during the shift.
[Melee] Tentacle Sweep (immediate reaction, if an adjacent enemy does not move on its turn, at-will)
+8 vs. Reflex, 1d8+5 damage, and the target is Grabbed.
[Close Burst] Grasping Tentacles (minor 1/round, at-will) * Melee
Close Burst 4, one target in burst +8 vs. Fortitude, the target slides 2 squares.
[Close Burst Recharge] Breath Weapon (standard, recharge 5-6 ) * Poison
Close burst 2, +8 vs. Fortitude, 1d10+3 poison damage, and the target takes ongoing 5 poison damage and is slowed (save ends both). Aftereffect: The target is slowed (save ends).
[Close Burst] Bloodied Breath (free, when first bloodied, encounter) * Poison
Caramnon's breath weapon recharges, and he uses it immediately.
[Power] Infernal Grab
Caramnon's Tentacular Grab ability has reach 2 and threatening reach. Maintaining the Grab is a free action and the Grab may be maintained as long as Caramnon stays within 2 squares of the grabbed target. Tentacles holding grabbed foes that are not adjacent, may be attacked. Doing 12 damage to the tentacle frees the grabbed target, but does only half damage to Caramnon.
Languages: Supernal
Skills: Bluff +15, Diplomacy +10, Insight +15, Intimidate +10
Str 15 (+4) Dex 20 (+7) Wis 16 (+5) Con 17 (+5) Int 15 (+4) Cha 17 (+5)

I've also thrown in some campaign related modifications such as removal of Alignment and no Common in the Infernal's languages.

Tactics

Initially, Caramnon attempts to move in close and use its breath weapon on as many enemies as it can. If it's enemies are scattered, it uses its Grasping Tentacles and Tentacle Grab to get them in range.

After breathing it then uses it's Grasping Tentacles, Tentacle Grab to keep it's enemies at bay, while focusing it's Tentacle Slams on those it can't control, shifting away with Tentacular Perambulation when the opportunity presents itself.

I'm afraid this guy may be a tad annoying to deal with. Maybe I should play-test him?

Complications: The Republic and the Iron Crown

2008-08-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

What evil republic plot could this be? The fact is, that the Republic is interested in helping Prolia for their own reasons. The ever expanding Empire of Rhodes is the root of the Republic's problems, and while the Republic wishes to turn Prolia into a thorn in the side of the Empire, their ultimate goal is not altruistic.

In particular, the Republic is not entirely unified in it's actions in Prolia.

Lord Ambassador Carl Marshane the Duke of Whitehouse is the official representative of the Republican Crown in Prolia. His mandate is to provide diplomatic, military and strategic assistance to Prolia and to aid in the reconstruction of the nation as an ally of the Republic against Rhodes. It's a tall order, but Whitehouse is following the letter of his instructions and he believes in them. He's a "good guy" even if he is a little bit naive.

Unfortunately for Prolia, not all Republicans wish to see Prolia as a strong nation. These "other interests" fear the possibility of the alliance breaking down and wish to leave Prolia in a relatively disorganized state without strong leadership. In that state, Prolia can more easily be manipulated by the Republic.

Secretary Gerard Jenkins, who is an aide of Whitehouse, a commoner and a secretly is a member of the Republic's "Special Diplomatic Corps". He is in fact a highly skilled assassin and the Republic's representative for some of these "other interests". Jarl Jorgen believes that Jenkins was responsible for the death of the Jarl's son, Giordi. The Whitehouse has no idea of his aide's other activities.

Jenkins may arrange for several attacks on the party if they return to Prolia with the crown. Jenkins does have access to rituals of divination and is certainly interested in any news of the crown's appearance. He will eventually realize that the crown has been discovered and where it may be found. If he does arrange an attack, he will attempt to obscure his involvement in the attacks. Jarl Hastel's brother Hagel, may be easily influenced into attacking the PC's for the crown. Either on his brother's behalf or even to displace his brother and move to take the crown for himself.

Jenkins certainly doesn't want the crown to be found and should the attack by Hagel succeed, Jenkins will likely kill his patsy and make sure the crown does not resurface. Probably he would ensure that it is kept in a safe place until a suitably controllable King of Prolia could be found.

There are several ways these encounters can play out:

The PC's could be defeated in battle
The PC's may succeed in fending off the attacks
The PC's may partially succeed in fending off the attacks but lose the crown

I'd be loathe to put the PC's up against a force that will guarantee their defeat and risk a party wipe. It's hard to lose without dying. So, I shall carefully craft the encounters and hopefully option 2 or 3 will happen. I'm rooting for 3, but we will see how it plays out.

Any of these possibilities may lead to the PC's doing the following

losing the crown and questing retrieve it
even if they find the crown they may deliver the crown to Yutsen's hands, be convinced to deliver it to a different Jarl, sell it, or even keep it for themselves.
investigate the attack of Hagel.

Or maybe they'll do something completely different. Hopefully, in the next few sessions, I'll get some advance warning of how they plan to deal with events as they arrive.

Planning for Book 2

2008-08-12T13:46:00.000-07:00

The quest to retrieve the Iron Crown of the Prolian Kings is an introductory campaign for the characters, and it's nearing completion.

Events in Prolia and the actions of the party shall determine their future adventures.

Here are some notes about current and upcoming plot hooks:

The arrival of the two dragons in Prolia may lead to an adventure. The dragons are interested in Prolian politics and the rise of what may be a strong nation.
Nobody knows what's up with the Giants of Estvald.
The lost party of adventurers who went into the mountains to investigate the Giants last fall and have not returned, are possibly worth investigation.
Solanthus the leader of the Hobgoblins may lead to future adventures.
Lastly, the Republic envoy may have an interest in keeping the crown undiscovered!

I have plans for many of these hooks. It's nice to bring them up early so when and if the party ever do track down these hooks to their logical completion, they'll see the long arc of planning that must have gone into the story. This is entirely illusion. I have some vague notions about where some of these plot hooks may lead, but at this point I believe it's unlikely for the PC's to follow up on any of them; they're busy being Prolian heroes of legend, returning lost artifacts and rebuilding their nation. So, for the most part these are not detailed, just vague ideas for what might be cool adventures. I plan to keep throwing adventure hooks at the party, some of which may lead to the same place as the others, and other that may open the possibility of moving to new challenges and possibly changes of scenery.

Now that last hook, the Republic envoy's interest in the Crown will result in some amount of complication on the current story arc but the others are really fairly disconnected, at least at this point. I shall elaborate on the Republic's involvement (meddling) in the quest for the Iron Crown in a future post.

Why I must push myself to say "Yes!"

2008-08-12T09:31:00.000-07:00

Saying "yes" to your players can be hard. What I mean by "saying yes" is to allow players to do what they want.

My players currently have a party with a Minotaur in it. A Minotaur! A creature of legend!

My gut reaction to having a Minotaur walking around in my adventure is that it doesn't really belong. I do plan some city-based adventures, and my idea of Prolia is modeled after a weird hybrid of Norse and Celtic coastal society. Traditional, longhouses, Jarls, fishing, and rural. Actually seeing a Minotaur walking through town would certainly be disruptive!

When the player of the Minotaur and I were originally talking bout the races in 4th edition, he was slightly distressed that the half-orc was gone. He's a player that enjoys playing the big, strong and as monstrous as you can get, within the rules. If he plays Shadowrun, he'll be a Troll. In Feng-Shui, probably a "Monster". In Champions, a mutant brick of some sort. It's just him. It's what he likes.

The question is, whether having a Minotaur around really has to be disruptive. Prolia is certainly not a real world. It's whatever I decide it is. My original vision of Prolia didn't have Minotaurs as an accepted part of town life. Minotaurs are monsters! But is my original vision really all that different, if I change things a bit and say that, Minotaurs don't really distress people that much? What if there were some encouraging stories of a Minotaur hero from ages ago. Maybe Prolians would be afraid, uneasy, and initially distrustful of a Minotaur walking around, but maybe most Prolians do have the ability to accept him once he proves himself as an ally.

The careful planner in me makes me want to say "no" to suggestions that I don't expect. To say "no" to things that are not what I envisioned. To say no, when I'm not sure about something. i don't want players to run amok in my beloved campaign. I want things to proceed as planned. To methodically and orderly proceed through my story and do never surprise me with a curve ball that shakes up my world.

I said, "yes". And with that one word, his eyes lit up like a kid with candy. It's simple; fun is good. The truth is, that this particular player is in love with the idea of playing a Minotaur. I know he's having a blast doing his brutish monster thing, and the end result is that Minotaur hasn't upset my plans.

Now if my player was just pushing for a Str/Con combo fighter and like the ability that minotaurs with large weapons, it may have worked out differently. I'd be willing to give somebody the mechanics of a Minotaur without actually being one if that's what they really wanted. So, you're a big human of dubious parentage, possibly a monster in your genetic background, and you have all the stats and abilities of a Minotaur. It's their character and as long as they are not raining on anyone's parade, and they aren't messing with my plans, they can do *whatever* makes them happy.

So even with a Minotaur PC, everything is just fine in Prolia. My plot is intact. A few new role-playing opportunities have arisen in dealing with the townsfolk, but it's nothing that the party and the towns can't handle.

My instincts to say "no" are dead wrong. I don't really want the things I think I do. I'm game mastering for my players because it's the players that give life to my campaign. The unexpected suggestions, the requests that I'm worried about, the danger to my plans are what brings a campaign to life. It's what makes the game interesting to me. If I wanted things to go *exactly* as I planned, I'd be playing alone. I could control *everything*... and there would be no point. No fun. Nothing interesting for me.

I must constantly push myself to allow players to play what they want. When I'm not sure, or when I'm caught by surprise by a suggestion, I shall say "Yes" unless there's a good reason not to. I shall roll with the punches. I shall use the players' ideas to make the game more enjoyable for everyone.

Including me.

Five of my house rules that 4e implemented

2008-08-11T07:50:00.000-07:00

I have embraced the 4th edition Dungeons of Dragons rules. In case nobody has noticed, Pathfinder is still around for those that would like to continue in the 3.X/D20 direction, but for me, the 4th Edition is closer to what I've always wanted.

In particular I've been looking at the house rules that I've been using for Alia. And many of them are mirrored with this latest edition of the world's most popular fantasy role playing game.

Alignment

One thing that has always annoyed me is the implementation of alignment and it's impact on the game.

Alignment has always been an oversimplification of morality and ethics. It's a simple on-paper justification for killing things and taking their stuff.

I've often tried to remove the alignment system from my D&D games but it is, in fact, quite ingrained into the D&D system. There are a rather large selection of spells, abilities and other rules that:

Detect alignment (Detect Evil)
Protect against alignments (Protection from Evil)
Have effects only on an alignment (Dispel Evil, Smite Evil)
Magic items with alignment effects: (holy, unholy, axiomatic and anarchic weapons)
Monsters that have damage resistance dependent on alignment ( /good /evil /lawful /chaotic)

With some work, the long, long tendrils of the alignment rules can be removed from D&D 3.X. You can see some of my efforts here.

4th edition has really downplayed the alignment rules. They are still present, (in a form that many find distasteful) but those tendrils are not nearly as present as those that were there before.

And that makes me happy. My only house rule so far in relation to alignment is: "Alignment doesn't exist." Don't choose one, and ignore Alignment where it comes up. So far I haven't come across any rules that are particularly tied to alignment.

Death and Damage

The death at -10 hit points rule has always worked well for very low levels. When a PC's total hit points are less than 20 and monsters are hitting for 1d8 damage, those 10 hit points between unconscious and dead are meaningful. At higher level, where PC's have more than a 100 hit points and monsters are hitting with multiple attacks of 2d12+17 those 10 hit points make little difference.

One of my first house rules was to define the point of death based on the total hp. Of course then I went on to construct complex wound recovery rules, that are thankfully not present in 4e.

Magic Item Creation

I've read a few rants about how overpowered the item creation feats were in 3.X, many elaborating on just how powerful a class like the Artificer could be given the time to juice up.

That style of power-gaming isn't really mine. It may be fun to think about and discuss on a forum, but in actual play it ends up being boring and/or disruptive in my experience.

On the other side, the rules for making such items demand time, money, feat expenditure and experience. Given many cinematic style campaigns don't give players the time and/or access to a magical laboratory when the big bad is about to destroy the world, players are often reluctant to take the requisite feats in fear that they will never see a use.

I have always waived the XP cost item creation. And 4e has too.

Retraining

I have always allowed for the re-visioning of characters through play. The addition of a new splat book, or a player becoming dissatified with the mechanics of a characters play, but not being dissatisfied with the character itself.

Many times I've had a character express dissatisfaction with their vision of a character, and ask me if they can role up a new one. My usual answer is to say, no need your character can have an *atomic accident* like in Champions, or even be ret-conned in.

For example Thor the human barbarian, has always seen himself as a nature warriorlike woodsman, and a few sessions into the game says he thinks he'd rather be a ranger. If Thor has all along been doing ranger-y things then it really has no impact on the story to re-make the character sheet, maybe switching out a breastplate for hide armor, and redistributing few skill ranks.

Now, the rules in D&D 4 aren't talking about swapping whole classes and rebuilding characters from the ground up as a different one, but they're laying the ground for a flexibility in the rules that allows for modifications of choices that maybe once made don't feel right.

Swap a feat or power when you level. That's a start. It's not like I'm expecting rules for redoing characters. There's a section on character creation. Do it again!

Ritual Magic

It's not like 4e was the first to introduce ritual magic rules, but I've always liked to separate the god-like power at hand magic wielded by Wizards and Clerics, from the idea of the long, complicated potentially multi-participant magic that ritual magic can be.

Skill based, cross-class trainable, slow casting, non-combat ritual magic doesn't have to be the sole domain of spell casting classes. Having "Commoners" perform some ritual magic certainly fits many game settings. And I like it.

4e's ritual magic feats and the ability for anyone to pick up the relevent class skills is certainly not game unbalancing and gives many characters access to useful abilities.

It's also an area that can easily accomodate campiagn specific flavour, and can serve as plot points or even campaign objectives in a campiagn.

Hmm. Maybe I should add some of that. Skulking peasants... ritual magic... maybe some infernal influence? We'll see.

Krolak-Nol

2008-08-07T14:38:00.000-07:00

Part 2 of The Heroes of Prolia, OY 603, May

Background.

The heroes return to Shinar with the book The Last King of Prolia written by Eodwyn the Skald. The book is a journal of the Skald recording his researches into King Arnesson. The following facts may be gained from reading the book:

Arnesson had the iron crown and ruled from 452 OY to 469 OY
During his time, the major threat to the country was invasions of goblins and hobgoblins from the north
The tower lookouts along the norther forest border fell during this time period.
The last records of his life detail preparations for leading a force of Prolian Knights against a goblin fortress, called Krolak-Nol which seemed to be the locus of where the hobgoblins were attacking from.

History checks can further enhance the reader's knowledge of the time-frame of the events.

DC 10 - The Prolian conflict with the goblins was ended around 470 OY
DC 15 - The "goblin fortress" Krolak-Nol was a fortress inhabited by a powerful being named Fendreus who had organized the goblin raids.
DC 20 - Fendreus was a the name of a Knight of Rhodewho was banished from the Empire in 402 OY.

Gather Information checks can enhance the PC's knowledge of current happenings in the northern forest.

DC 5 - The past year has seen the re-organization of the goblin and hobgoblin tribes.
DC 10 - In last summer's raid on Prauld, the hobgoblins of the northern forest have been more disciplined and united than usual.
DC 15 - Goblin raids on the northern part of Prolia have been severely reduced.
DC 20 - Hobgoblins seen at the raid in Prauld all had a red tabard with a white wing.

And also unrelated Gather Information

DC 5 - Last fall a large black dragon and a silver dragon have been seen several times between Beryl and Derros, they have apparently settled there.
DC 10 - The expected battles against giants have not happened to the dwarves. The second wave of Dwarven settlers is arriving in Beryl and traveling to Caer Dunwen.
DC 15 - Council of Thanes will decide this spring whether to attempt to settle another fortress in the hills or to consolidate their forces around Caer Dunwen or to attempt to find and bring battle to the giants.
DC 20 - The party of adventurers that went off into the mountains scouting the giants last fall have not yet returned.

Chapter 1: Travel Through Prolia and the Forest.

There are several possible encounters while traveling. Dole out as interest dictates.

On roads: Human Bandits and Human Rabble

In the wilderness: Kruthik Lair.

In a tavern/inn or possibly on the road. The Minstrel "Jorna Iellos", who has apparently been hired by the Dragons Dreasinoleanus and Oranthidirian to announce their presence and territory. In particular they are not levying taxes on travelers, are not taxing or evicting the few resident farmers in the area, but insist that no new buildings shall be erected, no forest may be cleared other than by residents for hearth fires, nor shall the game be hunted by any but residents for food.

A group of halfling Golanists are making a pilgrimage from Belrane to the Dragon's new fiefdom.

In the forest: A hobgoblin patrol - the patrol is not immediately hostile, will give a chance for the PC's to retreat, but will insist that they do. If the PC's do retreat they will follow them as far as the forest border. If they refuse the hobgoblins will attack, unless decent diplomacy and/or role-play by the PC's dissuade them. Exceptional successes could result on the hobgoblins escorting the PC's to Krolak-Nol.

If asked about their leader, or their tabard, they reverently refer to the great Solanthus their new leader. If asked to describe him they say his glory is to bright to gaze upon. They also say that Solanthus will lead the goblins to victory and greatness, and that he is honorable unlike Fendreus.

Chapter 2: Krolak-Nol.

The fortress of krolak-nol is a very bad place. The hobgoblins of the region have a basic understanding of what happened in the fortress during its time: Hobgoblins consider that time to be a low point of their greatness. Fendreus's twisted the leadership of the hobgoblins to his will and led the entire region to invade Prolia, with great losses. Hobgoblins desire to conquer the south is present, and with a proper leader they would have won but Fendreus's insanity caused him to drive the hobgoblins to fight without proper strategy or tactics, wasting their strength.

A historian among the hobgoblins may further elaborate on some of the details, and the powers of Fendraeus. None are present in the first encounter.

Krolak-Nol is a tower rising out of a deep fault in the earth. The fault is deep and active, with noxious gas rising out of the ground. The fortress is a black iron tower, it's base surround by ash and volcanic rocks and is quite uncomfortable for living creatures. There is a large gothic styled door with a raised pathway at the base of the tower, which leads into a cavern in the side of the fault, there was also a bridge leading from the tower to the edge of the fault at ground level, but that has been destroyed. The tower is 100 feet tall, 40 feet wide, square. The fault is 40 feet deep, and 80 feet wide. There is about 20 feet between the door to the collapsed bridge and the top of the fault.

It is easy to climb down the side of the fault, or it would be were it not for the noxious gas. Anyone entering the fault must make a save each round or be Dazed. If a Dazed character fails the save, the character is stunned. Stunned characters who are climbing, fall.

Except for the pathway from the cavern mouth to the tower, the terrain is rough, and causes d6 fire damage per round.

Encounter 1: The Cavern.

The cavern was once an easier entrance to the tower, but 40 feet in, it has collapsed. The cavern is hand hewn in rough stone, 20 feet high. The ground is littered with skeletons. In addition to the skeletons, covered by a partial rockfall are the remains of a knight clad in black iron scale armor +1. In a belt pouch are 3 poitions of minor healing (10hp for 1 surge).

If a character enters the cave the skeletons aniimate. 3 skeletons and 4 decrepit skeletons.

Encounter 2: First Floor/Chasm Floor

The door to the tower is securely fastened, but is quite rusted, it may be battered, chopped down or blown away with magic. Four rounds of concerted effort will allow a character to pass through the door as rough terrain.

Immediately after the characters destroy the door to the tower, two magma claws, one magma hurler and one imp rise appear and attack. The magma creatures must use a move action in the first round of combat to rise out of the ground, and do not cause surprise.

Fighting these creatures in the chasm is very dangerous due to the Daze/Stun effect of the gasses and the fire damage. The "bridge" across the lava stone is 2 squares wide and 8 squares long.

Two guardian constructs once guarded this room, bits of unmoving golem parts are strewn about the room, littering the floor.

Encounter 3: The second floor (20ft) The Armory.

Armory, several dozen suits or armor are displayed on racks as well as a fine collection of weaponry. The leather and hide armor has long since rotted away, but there are functional, non magical suits of plate, scale and plate armor with only a small amount of corrosion. In the northwest corner, readying an ambush is a rather frightened and angry red dragon juvenile (level adjusted to 3). He considered the tower to be a safe place to live away from Dragon society. He is from a fief miles to the southwest in the mountains of Estvald. He is aware of the Spinagons above, the alchemy lab and the temple.

The dragon speaks Draconic and common and may be calmed down, if not bloodied. Once bloodied the dragon's rage overtakes him and he fights to the death.

Encounter 4: The third floor (40ft) Summoning Circle.

Two Spined Devils (Spinagons) (purple, spined, winged creatures) stand in an active summoning circle (religion and arcana checks allowed). They've been trapped since Fendreus was interrupted while attempting to recruit him for his defense. Two armored bodies lie outside the circle, charred and ruined. The devils will try to trick the party into to letting them out of the circle. They will switch to begging if the party begins to leave. They will agree (and honor) most deals to let them out, including up to one year's service (however it's doubtful how much the PC's will benefit from such service. If released before a bargain is struck, they will attack.

Encounter 5: The fourth floor (60ft) The Study and Alchemy Lab.

The eastern part of this room has a table and a wide book case filled with arcane tomes, most who have been horribly burned to uselessness. The west side has a destroyed alchemy lab. Broken glass-works and potion bottles are everywhere. Scorch marks cover the walls.

Encounter 6: The fifth floor (80ft) Unholy Temple

A large polished obsidian carving of a horned Devil dominates the north side of this room. Two armoured bodies lie in the room as well. One body has been pierced through the chest by a longspear (magic frost +2) and is clutching a large book a purple and black silk cloak still rests about it's shoulders but it is long dead. In the corner of the room, slumped against the wall is an armored skeleton with an iron crown about its neck.

If the book is touched Caramnon servant of Illranikus immediately appears and attacks the party. (Who's Illranikus? Dunno. Maybe he'll be a recurring villain! I like to give named Devils a place in the Infernal heirarchy.)

Caramnon is a unique Infernal, four legs, eyes circling it's many horned head, covered in green and black scaled tentacles tipped with fangs dripping of poison. Caramnon attacks without reason, mercy or fear until dead. I'm planning on creating him by starting out with a solo monster (maybe a green dragon) and replacing each of it's powers for something of similar power level that is poison-y or tentacle-y and then level it adjusting it for the party, I'm thinking maybe threatening reach, and/or a "burst of tentacles" attack, with some ongoing poison damage thrown in. A fully fledged stat block will be forthoming.

And with that I've caught up with my backlog. Future updates won't be quite so frequent. I'm hoping to write at least two per week.

Campaign Map Software

2008-08-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, I drew a big map of Alia with Dundjinni. I put a lot of time into it, and I liked it.

Then I lost the original source files. I still have the jpg's that were produced. And I still have a hard drive that probably has the original data on it, so I might be able to recover it.

I was thinking about how much effort I put into drawing that map of Alia, and while I enjoyed the time I spent on it, I'm not sure the amount of control over detail that Dundjinni provides is really required for a overland campaign map.

I do like to have nice maps though, so I was looking around to see if I couldn't find something a little easier for country sized hex maps.

The first tool I came across was Hexmapper and with it I quickly produced this:

Not bad for about 10 minutes work. It's old, but it's simple and clean. I like it. It may be worth while to do a bit of a zoom in on Prolia, and possibly expand the size and scope of the map to the entire known world of Alia.

I'm hoping to take a look at Autorealm at some point as well. I also took a brief look at Dungeon Crafter 3. While doesn't look like I'd want to use it for a map like this, it might be useful for buildings and dungeons.

Jarlsberg (Chapter 3)

2008-08-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

The entirety of the this game session was spent in Jarlsberg. The session went mostly according to plan.

One thing that surprised me was how well the party did in the multiple-encounters-without-a-short rest. I expected that after two full fledged encounters with the zombie hordes that they'd be pretty desperate to find a place where they could hole up and take a breather, but they just demolished those zombies without a thought using almost entirely at-will attack powers.

Of the three zombie types that I used, I'd say the most bothersome for the party was the Corruption Corpse ... however Aeldric the Warlord had picked up a suit of Black Iron Scale Armor +1 from the armory in Tidemarch. The 5 necrotic resistance really made him quite tough, and Vipers Strike against a ranged attacker is a pretty effective way of managing them.

The Warlord is shaping up to be able to fill in as a back up defender in this group, which is handy. Also, Ragnar the melee ranger has been doing a fair share of minion control. Dire Wolverine Strike is an awesome response to being mobbed by zombies. I expected that without Lindrin to help manage the minions that they might have issues. I don't see them yet.

After a third encounter without rest, they were starting to feel the pain. I added a nice scary horde of zombies coming up the road to encourage them to head for the defensible Temple of Umos and they obliged.

What followed was their encounter with the three Phantom Warriors. I decided at the last minute to pull a bit of The Sixth Sense and have the Phantom Warriors not realize that they were dead. What followed was a rather starnge encounter wher the ghosts asked about how the battle over Jarlsberg was going. The phantoms pointed the party at the inn, and helped clearing that scary mob of Zombies that had gathered out front of the temple. After seeing the zombies and being confused about not being able to leave the Temple grounds the Phantoms came to the realization that they were dead, showed the PC's their armor and arms and bade them use it to carry on the battle against the Empire.

There was some interest in the ritual site at the center of town, but nobody had time to really stop and take a closer look due to the constant trickle of zombies shuffling after the party.

The inn battle went fairly quickly. The leveled down Ghoul was a decent challenge to the PC's getting off his immobilize power twice and took a nice chunk out of Ragnar, who despite being reduced to 0 hp, managed to survive. We were pressed for time at that point, so I narrated the conclusion of their exploration of Jarlsberg. They find the book, Last King of Prolia and manage to escape from the rest of the Zombies in the city without being overwhelmed.

Leveling without Arithmetic

2008-08-05T12:05:00.000-07:00

I've never been particularly interested in rules for game masters. Guidelines are awesome, but rules are restrictive. The guidelines for putting together encounters are particularly good in 4th edition, but advancement due to experience has always been an aspect of D&D that I hated as a GM. If you follow the rules as written they are mathematical handcuffs on an aspect of the game that's really important. Reaching a new level is an important reward that evolves the way a PC plays the game, opening new options and keeping the experience fresh and exciting.

I'm currently using an alternate advancement rule. Characters advance in level when I say they advance. Pretty simple, no?

My recommended GM's guideline for when to give PC's a new level is "Advance your characters when you believe it will lead to the most fun." For me, there's a certain amount of fun that is discovering a character through playing him. There's the intrinsic fun of building a character by gaining power as they follow the campaign. There's the enjoyment of choosing that power that you've been looking forward to. There's also fun to be had in trying out that power of feat, seeing how it interacts with the other party members, or how it works against monsters or maybe how it doesn't work. When the shine is beginning to wear off and the players feel that they have a good grip on their new set of powers and abilities and are looking forward to their next level, that's when they should be advanced.

Usually, I'll have a quick discussion about how things are going at the end of a session and if the time seems right, I'll say, you're all now level N+1.

It's dead easy and it works. No arithmetic required!

I've found that a level every two sessions (about seven or eight hours of play) seems to be about right for the current game and if we're not having 10 encounters per level in these two sessions, it's really not a big deal.

I do use the XP values marked in monster stat-blocks. I use them as a guideline to balance encounters, because for that purpose XP works very well. For leveling, the informal approach works better for us.

Journey to Yuri's Doom (Chapter 2)

2008-08-04T13:59:00.000-07:00

The next session saw our heroes fleeing the pursuing forces of the empire to the swamp, Yuri's doom.

The first order of business was switching out Ghesh for Ragnar. After a bit of discussion, everybody decided that the Party could do without a controller, and would rather just control one PC each, so Lindrin would be left out too.

Story wise, we narrated the travel from Tidemarch to Yuri's doom and some parallel events in Prolia. Ragnar had some disturbing dreams and was convinced by a crazy old beggar that his brother was in peril south of Yuri's doom. Ragnar paid for a small fast ship to take him south, but couldn't convince the crew to wait around for him to bring back his brother.

At the same time, Lindrin came down with a rather serious disease and bacame unable to travel. When Ragnar found the party, it was decided that Ghesh would remain behind to care for Lindrin and the group would travel through Yuri's Doom and send back a ship to pick up Lindrin and Ghesh at the spot that Ragnar was dropped off.

So Ragnar, Voden, Minos and Aeldric traveled into the swamp. The had an encounter with Deathjump spiders, who's "death from above" ability proved to be quite annoying. The warrior's combat challenge was not being applied when it could have. I'll mark it up as inexperience on our part. I need to make sure that my players are aware of and are going to keep track of their abilities, I caught at least one instance of an attack that Minos wasn't aware that he could have taken, I possibly missed a few as well. Next time I'll be more thorough in checking that players are using the abilities that they have.

They also meet a Fey trickster Frog-man encounter from a monster supplement that I found on the web and can't find the link to. [I think on ENWorld; I shall go looking again.] After defeating the challenge, the Fey offered a reward in the form of information. Gool ol' party played along and asked where they might find the Iron Crown of the Prolian kings. The Fey didn't know where the crown was but did offer directions to the ruins of Jarlsberg where they might be able to find something.

The party headed off towards the ruins and ended the session with a rest in a nearby half-sunken stone tower.

We decided that the party was now level 2. [Decided? What? More to come!]

Yuri's Doom and Index Cards

2008-08-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

At the end of Chapter 1, the players indicated that Yuri's Doom was where they were going next. That was my indication of what needed further development. So I spend some time getting some things straight. I didn't need to write plot elements for this because I already had most of this planned in my head.

The short version was the following:

Yuri's doom is dangerous enough to prevent the empire from moving through it. I need to convey it's danger by some encounters with some "Swamp Nasties".
Jarlsberg is going to have a bunch of undead. More encounters.
Jarlsberg is where the druid Yuri cast his uber-powerful ritual that created the swamp there needs to be some evidence of it. Possibly I'll have the ritual in some time-stopped frozen tableau - something to look at with a bit of awe.
Jarlsberg needs to have some clues to the location of the Iron Crown to continue the main quest plot line.

Encounter Cards

I'm becoming a fan of the 4th edition Monster manual and the monster adjustment rules in the DM's Guide. After putting together some encounters, I'm seeing that the guidelines for putting together encounters seems to be balanced very well and it's pretty easy.

I've been starting to use a combination of index cards and what I call encounter cards to keep track of combat rounds, and I've got to the point to where I'm getting very comfortable.

I started out doing this by copying out the entire stat block of each PC and monster to an index card, putting those cards in a stack in initiative order and cycling through them. The problem with this is the PC or monster on the top of the stack is doing the attacking, but it's attacking a card deeper in the stack. This leads to constant shuffling through the stack to find out defense values and mark off hit points or status effects.

A better way of doing this is to have a separate place for the things that are needed off turn. These are commonly defenses, perception, hit points and a place to mark down damage and conditions. Additionally some mosters have resistances, immunitires, vulnerabilities, auras and other powers that take place on other's turns. My index cards have space for ten lines of information, and given that I rarely (never) have more than 5 types of monsters in an encounter, I developed a 2 line stat block. On it, I record: NAME, AC, Fort, Reflex, Will, Perception, HP, Bloodied Value, Role, and XP value on the left hand side of the two line block and have a free form area on the left to note other things like hp totals, powers of note, resistances etc.

It looks something like this, with an encounter card having five rows that look like the following:

NAME... | AC FR | Per HP | Notes......................
ROLE XP | RF WL | Int BL |

The Role and XP are additions that should help the re-use of some of the encounter cards, by mixing and matching. So for example, I decided that the undead encounteres in Jarlsberg would be mostly zombies, with an occaisional ghoul thrown in as well as Phantom Warriors for a special encounter. For this I wrote up a card with Zombie Rotter, Zombie, Corruption Corpse, Ghoul (level adjusted to 3) and Phantom Warrior.

I also copied out those five mosters to individual monster cards, with complete details. In particular, the information that needs to stand out on the monster card are abilities and stats that get used on the monsters turn, that is mostly the Speed and the Attack Powers. Monsters can be counted on moving and attacking each round, usually. The intent is to have the whole stat block on the monster card, but the movement and attacks are really the thoings that must be there. The monster manual is still available as a reference for full details if required and if space does not permit them to be recorded on the index card.

I have one encounter card made up as a quick reference for the party, with all their defensive stats. That way I don't have to query them all the time. I have an index card for each party member. The PC index cards are mostly blank. Hopefully the PC's will be able to keep track of their attacks and moves. It's there for mostly for initiative.

At the beginning of combat I'll lay out the party and monster encounter cards then grab the correct set of monster cards for the encounter. Next, I'll have each PC and monster roll for initiative, recording the initiative on the upper left corner. The index cards get sorted, and then the top PC or monster takes it's turn, getting placed at the back when finished.

When a PC or Monster gets attacked, their defenses and relevant abilites are referenced on the encounter card, and any damage or conditions that are inflicted are noted.

Encounters

For the Yuri's Doom part of the adventure I drew up about the following encounter cards.

The undead encounter card I mentioned before, with the Zombie Rotters, Zombies, Corruption Corpses, level adjusted Ghoul, and Phantom Warriors.
One swamp encounter card. I put Stirge, Fire Beetle, Deathjump Spider, Visejaw Crocodile, and Shadowhunter Bat.
One card with the solo "Hopper" encounter from Chris "Goober" Ramsley's Boss Compendium. [I sill can't find a link.]

I also noted a suggested sequence of encounters. I plan on putting together the wilderness encounters as the party travels. For Jarlsberg I plan to have several undead encounters, starting with rotters and regular zombies, with additional encounters introducing the corruption corpses and eventually the ghouls.

Level Adjusting

The DM's guide suggests that PC's should be able to handle creatures from Level-4 to Level+7. That may be the case, but I'm not sure it applies at the very low levels. And the very low levels suffer for a little bit of lack of monsters, since the only variety is to move up in the level range.

I have noticed that in particular when the monster's defenses get a little bit too good, everything sort of falls apart. Encounter powers that don't hit don't swing the battle as much as they should and high defenses combined with a larger pool of hit points can make these encounters a little bit too long.

I'm currently trying to limit the level difference of creatures that the party faces to +2 levels, at least on the upper side. Or at least having a long hard look at the monster's defenses.

Regardless, level adjusting monsters in 4e is very easy, and there's hardly a reason not to. The ghouls I added to Jarlsberg are level adjusted to 3. It doesn't make them trivial, it just balances things out a bit and allows me to bring in a larger variety of creatures that the party can face, without being overwhelmed or being caught in a fight that's lasting a little too long because of the enemy creature's toughness.

Jarlsberg Plot Elements

Jarlsberg will have the following non-combat features:

The tableau I mentioned previously of Yuri and his compatriots casting the ritual that created the swamp. I'm thinking a fountain in the middle of town, with a miagic circle containing five druid-looking individuals frozen in place at the conclusion of the ritual. The fountain's water is motionless, the druids's arms are outstretched and holding magical implements. The only movement from within the circle is a thick mist billowing forth from the fountain adn rolling outwards through the ruins into the mists of the swamp.
There is massive amnount of destruction around the city. All the non-stone buildings are essentially destroyed, with a few stone hearths visible among the lush swamp vegetation.
Only a few buildings still stand. A blacksmith, a stone tower half sunk into the swamp at the outskirts of the town, a temple of umos that looks as solid as the day it was buit and a not so solid but still mostly intact inn.
Around the town are hundreds if not thousands of (restless) zombies. They are mostly inanimate these days but will react to the presence of the PC's and to sounds of battle. The conflict with the undead will start slowly with a few zombie rotters slowly raising themselves out of the muck and pathetically attacking the PC's. This will attract Zombies in greater numbers over the next few minutes, until things start looking desperate.
Holing up in the Temple of Umos will afford the PC's a chance to rest and to meet with the three Phantom Warriors who still defend the temple. These will be helpful, provided things don't go badly. The Phantom's earthly remains are in the center of the Temple and have magical goodies for the Party, which the will gift if things go well, or may be taken if the Phantom Warriors are defeated. The Phantom Warriors can recount how most of the Prolian battle against the Empire went, and if asked about the Iron Crown of the Prolian Kings, they recall that a Skald named Eodwyn was collecting information about King Arnesson and was staying at the inn.
The rest in the temple will be followed by a confrontation my a rather large mass of Zombies that have surrounded the temple (mostly rotters). After this fight, the number of Zombies in the area will have been mostly exhausted.
The Inn has the final major undead encounter. Suggest 1 ghoul, 1 corruption corpse, 2 zombies and 3 zombie rotters.
In a room upstairs "The Last King of Prolia" written by Eodwyn the Skald may be found on a table beside an unoccupied bed.

The Party: The Non-Dwarves

2008-08-04T07:39:00.000-07:00

Minos the Minotaur Fighter has been a slave of the Empire of Rhodes for as long as he can remember. His mythical name was given to him by his human slave masters and has long been used to promote his gladiatorial fierceness.

Minos has always lain uneasily under the Empire's yoke despite his favored status as a gladiatorial champion. He has made several escape attempts over his life, the latest seeing him recaptured in the far outpost of Tidemarch where he was set free by the party. He has joined his rescuers and is relishing the glory of the adventuring life.

Aeldric is a Human Warlord who recently was instrumental in fighting off a Goblin raid on his village north of Prauld. During his heroics he took command of the villages defenders, outshining the village's leader and commander and thereby saving the village and embarrasing the leader. After the victory celebration, he was informed in no uncertain terms that he would be welcome to depart from his village to pursue his heroics elsewhere. Taking this as an opportunity, Aeldric headed toward Shinar to join in the hunt for the Crown.

The Party: The Two Dwarves, Voden and Ragnar

2008-07-31T07:21:00.000-07:00

Dwarves in Alia are... a little different.

They hate giants because the giants invaded their mountain kingdom, Krondhiem, in YK1339. The war decimated the dwarven population and led to the dwarven Eugenics program. Dwarves now send all their young men off to a life of adventure and battle against the giants. The ones who live and have proven themselves as great heroes and giant slayers (only a few do) go on to be named Thane, which gives them the right to settle down, marry as many Dwarf women as will have them and an have lots of super-dwarf offspring. dwarven females, live a sequestered life managing and defending their home and raising the many children they bear of the Thanes. A typical Thanehold has a single, Thane more than a dozen women and several dozen children.

Voden and Ragnar (Ghesh's old character is the player of Ragner) are two brothers from the same family, from the same mother. They are very close to each other but do not fit in well with the rest of their family.

Voden is a History and Arcana focused Warlock, who has made a pact with an Infernal being called Halictes. He's very interested in dwarven history, and is motivated to discover old giant-conquered dwarven ruins and discover as much about Dwarf history, tradition and lost knowledge. Ragnar is a hammer and axe using, two-weapon-fighting, dwarven ranger. He mostly follows his brother Voden's lead, and the pair of them make a good team in killing their enemies.

Wikis

2008-07-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

I just read Power Up Your Campaign With A Wiki and was intrigued by the campaign centric wiki that was mentioned Obsidian Portal. It looks pretty cool and maybe it'll get my maps to display.

I started using RPGNet's wiki for Alia because I wanted a publicly accessible common resource for my campaign. I wanted to allow other DMs that I played with to be able to work in a common campaign framework with a shared history. I wanted the players that were interested to be able to look up the history and geography of my setting to help flesh out the experience.

As I've said before, it's had middling success, mostly as a player resource. The content has been largely written by just me, and I don't always keep it up to date. But I'm fine with that, because it's always there ready for me to update when I have time and internet access.

I really should be adding NPC and location information after each game session to flesh out the game world as the game develops.

Anyway, I think that Obsidian Portal deserves a closer look. If if looks feasible, I shall consider moving my files from RPGNet wiki to Obsidian Portal. We shall see.

The Raid (Chapter 1)

2008-07-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

Here's the two word summary of play of Chapter 1. It rocked!

We were all keen on 4th edition. It was everybody's first real game. I was comfortable with the rules, conversed with the players by e-mail leading up to our first game. Everybody was finished with character creation and basic background before we started. I'll go into more detail in my next post about the party members.

I think I outdid myself on Krodar's speech in the tavern. Everyone was cheering at my stirring words. Half the players had been played in a Prolia campaign before and were very happy to be involved with the rising new Prolia.

Some politics happened in town, with a fairly spirited discussion of which Jarl they'd like to support. Voden in particular, wouldn't support any Jarl but Yutsen, Jarl of Shinar. Eventually the whole party followed his lead and decided to back him. Yutsen is a pretty logical choice. From an objective point of view he's the most trade-oriented of the Jarls and is on very good terms with everyone.

The party was more than happy to sign up for Krodar's raid on Tidemarch. Which made things easy. I don't like railroading the story too much. I present the party with interesting hooks and try to prepare for where I believe they will go. If they weren't interested in the raid, they might have decided to head straight for Jarlsberg and I would have had to wing it a bit, but it would have worked out okay anyway.

The boat trip to Tidemarch, was a good closed environment for party and NPC interaction. Krodar asked everybody to organize themselves into groups. The four PC's (Radgar, Aeldric, Vodan and Ghesh) decided to bring the Eladrin, Lindrin along with them after they discovered he was an accomplished Wizard. I also described some of the other heroes along on the raid.

My idea was that since this is the first game there may be some dissatisfaction with the characters they've built. I've basically given everybody carte-blanche to change their characters as they see it. The beginning of the story is the best time to make these big changes either by leaving someone behind and swapping to a whole new character (one of the other raiders), or by ret-conning (I'm actually a cleric, you just mis-remember me sneak attacking everything in sight.) Small changes, of course, like swapping powers or adjusting ability score are easy. They have almost zero affect on anything and I want to make sure that the players are comfortable and happy with their character's in the game.

Encounter 1

The initial fight on the docks with the large numbers of minions went really fast. Lindrin (being played by Radgar's/Minos's player) made short work of the minions.

Encounter 2

Minos joined the party afterward and we skipped the second fight. I thought it was little too much like the first, so instead of another fight, a small crowd of Human Rabble ran away after seeing the party mow down their friends on the dock. Radgar said goodbye and went back to support Krodar on the docks to make sure no trouble arose there.

Encounter 3

The fight in front of the armory went rather poorly for the party. The Human Guards' Powerful Strike power took both Minos and Ghesh off their feet the first round. It's a pretty nasty attack, which recharged at least twice during the fight. The PC's a had a fair amount of bad luck, missing a lot and taking a pounding in what should have been an easy fight. but they all lived and broke into the Armory/Church. They stole the loot and took a short rest.

Encounter 4

I switched up the Sir Rodney fight after seeing what two Human Guards could do to the party. I was afraid they'd be completely hosed in a fight with three guards plus an elite, so a swapped the three guards for some Human Rabble, a Human Bandit and a Human Mage.

Lindrin started the combat out with an Icy Terrain which landed Sir Rodney, his Warhorse and the Bandit on the ground. The fight went quickly in the PC's favor, and Rodney's plan of leaving his men to fight the PC's was thwarted. By the time he was on his feet, he was marked by Minos and didn't have much of a retreat path. Potential recurring villain... dead. Oh well, there may be others.

Cut off from Docks Event

The party almost decided to try to fight their way through the dozen guardsman that had appeared between them and the docks. A quick discussion of the situation amongst themselves and they changed their mind. I didn't even have to point out how much trouble they had with two Human Guards.

Encounter 5

I used 2 minions instead of Guards at the gates, they were taken out in passing as they exited the city. This was mostly due to real time constraints.

The PC's escaped from Tidemarch into the wilderness around the outpost. They found a secluded glen to rest in and took an extended rest, thus ending Chapter 1.

The total elapsed time for the session was about 3.5 hours.

We had a little discussion about what they liked and didn't like and what they planned on doing next, so that I could focus my preparation. The consensus was that they liked fighting the minions, thought that Human Guards were too powerful (statistical anomaly that), and wanted to go back to Prolia through Yuri's Doom, since they wanted to investigate Jarlsburg anyway and it was on they way home.

Isn't it funny how these things seem to work out? (There might be a bit of a railroad here, but it's invisible!)

The Adventure Begins!

2008-07-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

I have a lot to say about:

my philosophy on game mastering
the development of Alia
the organization that led up to the first gaming session
4th edition D&D

..but I have a bit of a backlog right now and since I've started this late and I want to try to catch up, I shall cover some of those other topics in future posts.

Adventure Background

Our heroes have converged in the town of Shinar in Prolia. Prolia is in the process of transformation from a broken collection of fairly independent towns, back towards being the great nation that it once was.

Over the winter, the six Jarls that lead the Prolian towns have met in Shinar, to discuss the naming of a king from among them. All have legitimate claims to the fallen throne. Also the legendary Iron Crown of Prolia has been lost for a hundred years.

The Jarls have decided to solve both problems by issuing a call to heroes to quest for the Iron Crown. Each Jarl will sponsor (and outfit) aspirants to quest for the crown and if one such hero brings back the crown that Jarl will be named King of Prolia. The word has been sent out and would-be heroes have been gathering in Shinar all spring.

Tidemarch is an Empire town/outpost whose main purpose of existence is to look out for the Empire's interests along the Prolian border. (It's the unnamed black dot south east of Belrane - I'll fix the map someday.) The swamp, "Yuri's Doom" and the Giant-backed gnomish forces of Greenhill are an effective overland barrier between the Empire and Prolia and so far the Republic's control over the northern seas has also restricted Empire activity towards Prolia.

Our Heroes

There's been some turbulence in the composition of the party, but initially the group consisted of:

Aeldrick, a Human Tactical Warlord
Voden, a Dwarf Infernal Pact Warlock
Ghesh, a Dragonborn Paladin
Minos, a Minotaur, Fighter

Minos won't start in Shinar. Instead, Krodar's armsman Radgar will be played until Minos shows up. (Yeah Minos, the Minotaur... how does one come up with an original name like that?)

Events in Shinar

A call for heroes to find the Iron Crown of the Prolian Kings. Many young would be heroes are forming bands to search for the crown.
Rumour has it that the Iron Crown was lost in the ruined city of Jarlsberg, which was overtaken by Yuri's Doom in the last Empire attack.
The son of Jarl Yutsen of Shinar, Krodar wishes to form a raiding party against the empire town of Tidemarch.

The game really begins in the tavern (surprise, surprise), where a rather large group of (would be) heroes are socializing, planning, forming parties, and discussing which Jarl they'd rather be backing.

Several NPC's are introduced here including Lindrin, a strange Eladrin from a newly discovered island out in the mists of the eastern ocean and Nafrim, a wood elf cleric/ranger that's has come north in search of aid in the Elves long conflict with the Empire of Rhode. The NPCs introduced in the tavern at this stage are candidates for future story tie ins, but I have no specific plans for them at the present. Although these are fully done PC's with sheets and if the players desire they'll join their party.

Krodar gives a stirring speech to the tavern about recapturing the long lost glory days of Prolia where Prolian raiders were feared all across the known seas. He proposes that since there are so many fine heroes in the town with a hatred of the Empire that they should organize a raid on Tidemarch. He's a charismatic leader, stirs up the passion of the crowd and convinces a large crowd of adventurers to accompany him on his foray. He's already arranged for a ship and supplies. (Hopefully, the PC's will join him.)

Broad Adventure Synopsis

Chapter 1: Raid on Tidemarch. Docked ships set afire. Fighting at the harbourfront during raid for supplies. Party sent to raid the armory. Along the way Minos* breaks out/is broken out of the slave barracks. Joins the raid. At the armory, Sir Rodney shows up. Large numbers of soldiers begin to muster. Party cut off from ship, which leaves before being overrun.

Chapter 2: Flight from Tidemarch. Two ways this could go, combat or narrative (depending on situation, whether Rodney still lives, and party desire).

Chapter 3: Possibilities: Yuri's Doom or Greenhill.

Chapter 1 Details

If anyone expresses concern about being left behind in the raid, Krodar arranges for a pickup location 1 day's ride west along the shore. In two days, the a ship will return to pick up any who are separated from the ship. Otherwise Krodar is too confident in his plans to have a backup plan. But (after this undoubtedly happens) will sail the coast to the west looking for survivors on the shore. Unfortunately the shore will be being heavily patrolled by Rodney's men looking for the escaped PC's.

Treasure parcels

In the "Armory"

(non magical) gold Holy Symbol (Stair) worth 1000gp;
Level 4 Suit of Armor +1 (Black Iron or Darkleaf),
Level 3 Thunder Weapon +1,
Level 2 Implement +1 (Pact Blade, Wand, Staff, Orb or Holy Symbol of something).

Encounter 1: Minionfest at the harbour.

When the ship lands there's an fairly quick response from the burlier citizens of Tidemarch. It's lot's of "Human Rabble".

PC's get to deal with their own section of them. Suggest 1 Human Bandit + 3 Rabble per PC beyond 1. Also PC's may help other knots of fighting if they choose to and/or if their combat is going poorly they may be aided by some of the other heroes.

After defeating the bulk of the rabble, Krodar congratulates the PC's on their bravery and asks them to try to find/destroy/raid the heavily fortified building up the main road that looks like an armory, while the bulk of the crew begin loading essential supplies from the dockside warehouses.

Encounter 2: More rabble on the streets.

A short way up the main street are a group of 3 Human Rabble/per party member beyond 1, One Human Berserker. This time the party is unsupported.

This encounter will be tied in with escape of Minos and retreat of Radgar.

The battle will happen right near the slave-pen where Minos is being held. Minos is a recaptured minotaur slave of the empire. He was making a run for the borders of the Empire when he met with a patrol that recaptured him. He's being kept in a solid-looking cell off the main road in Tidemarch, until he can be sent back to his owner.

During the confusion of the battle taking place outside the door, Minos will get a chance to escape.

After the battle is resolved, Radgar will notice that another fight has started on the docks and will decide to return to help with it.

Encounter 3: Armory Guards.

Two guards are stationed at the armory as well as some Human Rabble.

If the PC's break into the Armory, they find it is in fact a Church of the Order of Man. It does however have a decorative armor stand displaying the magic items (treasure parcels 2,3,4) .

On the altar is the h0ly symbol (treasure parcel 1).

Encounter 4: Rodney rides in.

Sir Rodney mounted on his Warhorse, shows up with 3 guards to try to organize the defense of the town. He participates in one round of combat with his guards and then leaves them to deal with the PC's while he rides off towards the docks.

Sir Rodney is an Elite based off of "Human Guard" with the Warlord monster class template from the DMG.

Event: Warning of Trouble

A Prolian raider runs past, and tells the party that the Empire has mobilized. A large force of soldiers interposes itself between the docks and the PC's. After a few minutes of fighting retreat, the crew and the ship sails off. It's possible for the PC's to sneak or fight their way back to the ship but quite dangerous. It's fairly obvious that the defenders are overwhelmingly strong. Dozens of well equipped (non-minion) soldiers Human Guards have mobilized out of the barracks. If the PC's flee, a bunch (maybe 12) will attempt to follow them out of the city.

Encounter 5: Leaving by the gates.

Two Human Guards are stationed at the gates. No rabble. Two guards should be a fairly easy fight but the dozen reinforcements following behind are an incentive to finish it quickly. The guards don't have to be killed, engaging the guards, opening the gates and moving past is probably the quickest way to deal with them. Make sure the pursuers from event 1 aren't right on the party's heel, or TPK is likely. If they are closely pursued, the gates should probably be unguarded.

Notes

The opposition in these encounters is quite vanilla. Humans, Sir Rodney, Warhorse. This is intentional. This will be the first adventure that I'm running in 4e. I don't want to bite off more than I can deal with in the initial combats, but if I'm feeling up to it, I may mix in some other humans into the encounters. An additional Berserker or Human Mage in some of the plainer encounters could mix things up a bit. I also want to give the players time to get used to how their powers work and see how 4e D&D plays before I start making things more complicated.

There are ZERO 1st level monsters in the first chapter of this 1st level adventure. I'm being careful to stay within the experience guidelines for encounters, but I expect there will be a little bit more missing than I'd like. I may level-adjust all of the humans, except for Sir Rodney and his warhorse down to level 1, to make things easier for everybody. If I do, I will increase the number of enemies in the easier encounters.

Introductions

2008-07-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

This blog is a "Campaign Journal" of a game I've been running with my regular group.

The setting is Alia , a fantasy campaign setting developed initially by me and slapped up onto a wiki space in hopes of getting some collaboration on its development, which has been of middling success. As far as I know, only a handful of people even know/or care that it exists and its gotten just a little bit of contribution, from one of my players. Also the "image" functionality on the RPGNet wiki seem to have been nerfed over the years, so the geography pages that used to have embedded maps, now have links. Sigh.

What inspired me to start a new campaign in Alia was the recent release of D&D 4th Edition. Previously, we were playing mostly the current version of the World of Darkness games from White Wolf (an were enjoying ourselves). Once in a while people need a change and D&D 4e certainly is that.

What inspired me to cook up this blog was Musings of the Chatty DM's series So you wanna write a RPG Blog?.

I usually end up composing my thoughts about upcoming game sessions by writing them up as drafts in Google Mail. That way I have an easy reference that I can access (and maybe print) from any internet connection. It's not too much of a stretch to compose those thoughts in a blog. Hopefully I'll keep up with it.