Fourth session, part deux
Posted 2nd July 2008 at 02:04 PM by Jack99
(Continued from the previous blog, due to word-count)
When he gets back, Torn uses his comprehend languages on those as well.
In the year 0, the Empire of Iron was founded by the Stonefist Dynasty. As the empire spread out, conquering more land, mighty dwarven cities were built in the mountains all over the world. Eventually, the Empire of Iron collided with another Empire, the Empire of the Sword, a hobgoblin empire pre-dating the dwarven empire by a couple of hundred years.
After many years of war, the hobgoblin capital of Xi'kir finally fell in 1416, to the might of the dwarves. Since there, there has been more than 800 years of relative peace. The Empire of Iron spawns more than 1500 miles from north to south, with the Stonefists ruling over more than 2 million dwarves and 20 millions from other races.
There is also mention of Kolar the Golden, who appears to be the god of the dwarves, but also god of crafting and wealth. The two statues in the dwarven temple were obviously representations of him, and the mountain with a gold coin his symbol.
Much of this debate happen in the Black Raven Inn, and Zeke announces to the heroes that he knows where Castle Whiterock is, and wishes to make a deal. They are not too happy about this, as they neither trust him, nor the Ancients. However, it could be problematic to find said place, without some help. So they strike a deal with Zeke, promissing him to bring back information about Castle Whiterock, and any non-magical items pertaining to the new world that could prove of interest. In exchange, he gets to read the copies that Muffin made, and he draws up a map that shows where Castle Whiterock.
3rd Sunday, Early Spring
So, the next day, the heroes head out into the Silent Forest, to find Castle Whiterock. Or not. As it turns out, it was merely a ruse. They plan on heading to Danar Hold. They gamble on the precision of dwarves to be able to find it, 60 miles north-west of Castle Whiterock, which is why they needed to know the location of Castle Whiterock.
3rd Fireday, Early Spring
After a couple of days (on the second night, both moons are full) going through the forest, they are ambushed by five orcs. Luckily for them, Elar spots one of the orcs moments before they are attacked, and they get to keep a more advantegous position than else.
Encounter: An Orc Ambush (1 unconscious, 0 dead)
One of the orcs had a magical axe (+1 viscious) and another had a magical leather armor (+1). Brocun laid claim to the axe, while Erik got the leather. At the same time, it was decided to let Muffin (who meanwhile had learned some magic) hold the Staff of Winter.
3rd Starday, Early Spring
The heroes arrive near Castle Whiterock, which is built on a plateau on the mountainside, around 200' above ground level, with a large lake below it. They immediately turn north-west, lead by Elar.
4th Sunday, Early Spring
After a couple of more days of jungle-trecking, the heroes are attacked at night by a horde of 20 kobolds.
Encounter: Lots of Kobolds (1 unconscious, 0 dead)
4th Airday, Early Spring
We finished with the heroes have just waking up, after their night of fun with kobolds....
DM's notes:
Again a very good night. We had 3 hours of 100% roleplaying - I can't recall when we last had that. Boy I have been missing that.
A couple of iconic NPC's got introduced. Zeke and Leria will play a central role as the plot develops - unless of course my players do something that I totally do not expect. But nothing is set in stone. Zeke has the potential to be an ally in discovering the new world, but he could just as well become a bitter rival, racing the players to discover it secrets. So far, it looks more like a rival than anything else, but only time will tell this.
Leria is just as much a puzzle. See, she has a little secret. She ain't a newcomer. Leria is one of those non-noble tieflings that live in Qu'orath (previous blog post): By accident she discovered some ancient ruins in the mountains in the south part of Qu'orath, and in there, she found a portal to another temple, this one located in the Silent Forest, not far at all from Drahar. Stumbling over the newcomers, she decided to pass herself off as one (which was easy, since 50.000 people had just arrived via the portal. So, for the last year, she has been living amongst the newcomers, trying to figure out how to best take advantage of her knowledge.
For now, she has been "helping" Zeke, in his quest for knowledge, while trying to steer him clear of things that could lead him to find out too much, too soon. Of course, Zeke is much to intelligent to fool so easily, and he has long ago figured out what she is up to, and is now trying to take advantage of that.
Anyway, depending on how things pan out, it should be interesting to see.
Both encounters were short and fun. The orcs were scaled down orcs (level 1 skirmishers, level 2 brutes, and a level 3 Eye of Gruumsh). My players liked the warrior surge abilities of the orcs, and absolutely loved the shock when they got their death attack due to the aura of the Eye.
One thing though. At a point, the wizard kills an orc with a thunderwave, pushing him back. I wasn't quite sure if the orc should still get the attack or not. Since 4e is a yes-game and the wizard used said attack spefically to avoid the death-attack that he at this point had witnessed a couple of times, I ruled that he avoided by using this tactic.
The last enounter was straight out of the MM, a wyrmpriest and 19 minions. It was absolutely hilareous, it reminded me of the old westerns, with the players standing back to back around their campfire, and all the kobolds moving around in circles, coordinating their shifting and moving to swarm as many on the same target as possible. Instead of a flat damage of 4, I used 1d6. Worked quite well, and didn't slow down things noticably. The wizard got to shine with his AE spells, and a sleep spell that took out the wyrmpriest (after which the warlock decided to blow his daily on it, critting for 35 damage). Muffin got to shine as well. He got tired of the kobolds that were running around, so at some point where they were all close by, he cast his new spell (ray of frost - he has mulitclassed into wizard when they dinged to level 2, after the orcs) while activating the Staff of Winter, causing 13 kobolds to be immobilized. Very nice.
As I started out saying, a great night. Lots of roleplay, some inter-party conflict, some fun fights and things worked well for those that tried the odd thing.
When he gets back, Torn uses his comprehend languages on those as well.
In the year 0, the Empire of Iron was founded by the Stonefist Dynasty. As the empire spread out, conquering more land, mighty dwarven cities were built in the mountains all over the world. Eventually, the Empire of Iron collided with another Empire, the Empire of the Sword, a hobgoblin empire pre-dating the dwarven empire by a couple of hundred years.
After many years of war, the hobgoblin capital of Xi'kir finally fell in 1416, to the might of the dwarves. Since there, there has been more than 800 years of relative peace. The Empire of Iron spawns more than 1500 miles from north to south, with the Stonefists ruling over more than 2 million dwarves and 20 millions from other races.
There is also mention of Kolar the Golden, who appears to be the god of the dwarves, but also god of crafting and wealth. The two statues in the dwarven temple were obviously representations of him, and the mountain with a gold coin his symbol.
Much of this debate happen in the Black Raven Inn, and Zeke announces to the heroes that he knows where Castle Whiterock is, and wishes to make a deal. They are not too happy about this, as they neither trust him, nor the Ancients. However, it could be problematic to find said place, without some help. So they strike a deal with Zeke, promissing him to bring back information about Castle Whiterock, and any non-magical items pertaining to the new world that could prove of interest. In exchange, he gets to read the copies that Muffin made, and he draws up a map that shows where Castle Whiterock.
3rd Sunday, Early Spring
So, the next day, the heroes head out into the Silent Forest, to find Castle Whiterock. Or not. As it turns out, it was merely a ruse. They plan on heading to Danar Hold. They gamble on the precision of dwarves to be able to find it, 60 miles north-west of Castle Whiterock, which is why they needed to know the location of Castle Whiterock.
3rd Fireday, Early Spring
After a couple of days (on the second night, both moons are full) going through the forest, they are ambushed by five orcs. Luckily for them, Elar spots one of the orcs moments before they are attacked, and they get to keep a more advantegous position than else.
Encounter: An Orc Ambush (1 unconscious, 0 dead)
One of the orcs had a magical axe (+1 viscious) and another had a magical leather armor (+1). Brocun laid claim to the axe, while Erik got the leather. At the same time, it was decided to let Muffin (who meanwhile had learned some magic) hold the Staff of Winter.
3rd Starday, Early Spring
The heroes arrive near Castle Whiterock, which is built on a plateau on the mountainside, around 200' above ground level, with a large lake below it. They immediately turn north-west, lead by Elar.
4th Sunday, Early Spring
After a couple of more days of jungle-trecking, the heroes are attacked at night by a horde of 20 kobolds.
Encounter: Lots of Kobolds (1 unconscious, 0 dead)
4th Airday, Early Spring
We finished with the heroes have just waking up, after their night of fun with kobolds....
DM's notes:
Again a very good night. We had 3 hours of 100% roleplaying - I can't recall when we last had that. Boy I have been missing that.
A couple of iconic NPC's got introduced. Zeke and Leria will play a central role as the plot develops - unless of course my players do something that I totally do not expect. But nothing is set in stone. Zeke has the potential to be an ally in discovering the new world, but he could just as well become a bitter rival, racing the players to discover it secrets. So far, it looks more like a rival than anything else, but only time will tell this.
Leria is just as much a puzzle. See, she has a little secret. She ain't a newcomer. Leria is one of those non-noble tieflings that live in Qu'orath (previous blog post): By accident she discovered some ancient ruins in the mountains in the south part of Qu'orath, and in there, she found a portal to another temple, this one located in the Silent Forest, not far at all from Drahar. Stumbling over the newcomers, she decided to pass herself off as one (which was easy, since 50.000 people had just arrived via the portal. So, for the last year, she has been living amongst the newcomers, trying to figure out how to best take advantage of her knowledge.
For now, she has been "helping" Zeke, in his quest for knowledge, while trying to steer him clear of things that could lead him to find out too much, too soon. Of course, Zeke is much to intelligent to fool so easily, and he has long ago figured out what she is up to, and is now trying to take advantage of that.
Anyway, depending on how things pan out, it should be interesting to see.
Both encounters were short and fun. The orcs were scaled down orcs (level 1 skirmishers, level 2 brutes, and a level 3 Eye of Gruumsh). My players liked the warrior surge abilities of the orcs, and absolutely loved the shock when they got their death attack due to the aura of the Eye.
One thing though. At a point, the wizard kills an orc with a thunderwave, pushing him back. I wasn't quite sure if the orc should still get the attack or not. Since 4e is a yes-game and the wizard used said attack spefically to avoid the death-attack that he at this point had witnessed a couple of times, I ruled that he avoided by using this tactic.
The last enounter was straight out of the MM, a wyrmpriest and 19 minions. It was absolutely hilareous, it reminded me of the old westerns, with the players standing back to back around their campfire, and all the kobolds moving around in circles, coordinating their shifting and moving to swarm as many on the same target as possible. Instead of a flat damage of 4, I used 1d6. Worked quite well, and didn't slow down things noticably. The wizard got to shine with his AE spells, and a sleep spell that took out the wyrmpriest (after which the warlock decided to blow his daily on it, critting for 35 damage). Muffin got to shine as well. He got tired of the kobolds that were running around, so at some point where they were all close by, he cast his new spell (ray of frost - he has mulitclassed into wizard when they dinged to level 2, after the orcs) while activating the Staff of Winter, causing 13 kobolds to be immobilized. Very nice.
As I started out saying, a great night. Lots of roleplay, some inter-party conflict, some fun fights and things worked well for those that tried the odd thing.
Total Comments 5
Comments
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So what level are you PC's now? And the 100% roleplaying - are you giving xp for that?Posted 2nd July 2008 at 04:23 PM by Dayspire
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They dinged level 2 right after the fight with the orcs. Can't believe I forgot to include that.
With regards to roleplaying, I have changed how I hand out xp. In my last campaign (3.5), I gave out 2 sorts of xp (aside from the normal encounter xp and quest xp), one bonus for being the most "valuable" in combats, one bonus for the best roleplaying.
With 4e, I decided to change that. After reading some posts here on ENworld, I decided that I really shouldn't be the one judging how well people roleplay, it is after all, a very subjective issue. So for now, they get encounter xp, skill challenge xp and quest xp. There is a bonus (about 1/20th of a level, so ½ an encounter) that people can get for great moves. When I say great moves, I mean when they succeed in something out of the ordinary/different etc, or when they come up with an exceptional idea or in character stuff. So far, I gave it once to Elra's player, when he instead of merely pounding on the croc, just said: I am going to attempt to pull Eric out of the jaws, without first consulting the books or asking how difficult it would be. I like that kind of things, and when they succeed, it's just plain cool. Mufifn also got one at a point (its on the excel sheet, but I can't recall for what, atm.
Cheers, and thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings..Posted 2nd July 2008 at 06:01 PM by Jack99 - Sounds good. I'm curious though - what do you do with encounters that aren't really encounters? Meaning,the players have a great roleplaying session with the mayor of a town, learn quite a bit about the world, perhaps pick up a few plot points. It takes 2-3 hours, there was never any threat, everyone had fun - but is it an encounter in your book? Do they get xp? Just curious.Posted 2nd July 2008 at 06:29 PM by Dayspire
- That's a good question. In 4e, I would probably incorporate a skill challenge if possible. Despite the many debates on the math not working, it is very easy to eye-ball a few changes that makes the system work.
When that is said, assuming I either run a 4e game without skill challenges, or a non-4e game, I would probably consider giving some xp, for advancing the plot significantly. When that is said, my players never seemed to mind when they didn't get so many xp during an evening, because it was mostly non-combat stuff. As long as it was fun, mind you.
As you might have noted, I didn't give xp for all the roleplaying last night, even though they did advance the plot quite a bit, and spent "many" hours. Had this been at another time, I might have, but another thing that caused me not to give out xp for that, was the fact that this is our first 4e campaign (obviously) and I am trying to keep the xp relatively tight, so that we advance at a reasonable pace.
Cheers,Posted 2nd July 2008 at 08:16 PM by Jack99 -
As far as the "does the orc get to make a death attack?" thing:
It doesn't specify for death attack, but all of the orcs' other retaliatory attacks are statted up as Immediate Reactions, which mean they get resolved after the triggering action--so push before axe.Posted 2nd July 2008 at 08:27 PM by arscott
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