Hello all! My first post here on ENWorld.
After hearing abundant praise heaped upon Zeitgeist, I decided to go ahead and run it for my group. We’re a fairly large group (8 PCs if everyone’s there) running the Pathfinder version. I figured I’d add my group’s exploits to the list of sessions reported here. We’re two sessions in so far, and my group is ready to storm the lighthouse at the beginning of the next go-round. Thus far, it's been excellent - I've gotten lots of positive feedback, and have really been enjoying running it. Looking forward to the Kickstarter rewards coming in so I can see part 2!
During character creation, I let the group have a pretty free hand as far as being recruited into the RHC - with the result that this is not, shall we say, a group composed of 'traditional' law enforcement agents. Our cast features (my descriptions):
Elhaiada, a High Elf Ki Mystic Monk with the Vekeshi Mystic background. An elderly high elven woman who, having reached the end of her childbearing years, entered into a Vekeshi monastery for training and to determine her next path in life. She has joined the RHC to act on behalf of her oppressed persons, no longer just her own people. A well-regarded field agent of the RHC, she recently suffered a debilitating injury that has resulted in her temporary reassignment to the Flint office.
Felix Lightgardner, a human Cleric (War/Healing domains) with the Yerasol Veteran background. Felix was a competent soldier - though he's a little slow upstairs. While on a campaign in Ber, he found himself dying on the battlefield, bearing a shield he'd scavenged from a fallen foe. He called out for aid, and some force he'd never felt before answered; the shield focused his call, and he felt his wounds closing. After that campaign, he left the army and joined the RHC.
Luthor, a human ranger (skirmisher) with the Gunsmith background. Luthor is a human mercenary, a hired warrior the RHC uses from time to time when they need some extra muscle.
Pearce Charles, a catfolk rogue with the Docker background. Pearce acts as the RHC's eyes and ears in the docks of Flint, and (mostly) keeps his avaricious tendencies in check while on official business. Mostly.
Tec, a human sorcerer (arcane bloodline) with the Eschatologist background. Tec doesn't have much of a backstory.
Hannah Jierre, a tiefling alchemist with the Technologist background. Hannah is a relation of the ruling family of Danor (Not yet precisely specified, but a nephew once removed or so from Han Jierre). Thrown out of her family and of Danor for her tendency to take things apart and "improve" them, as well as unfettered trickster streak, her prowess with alchemy and machines has made her a useful asset to the RHC - though she needs close monitoring, especially during fieldwork.
“Doc” Aloysius Brown, a dwarf alchemist with the Technologist background. Doc hails from the dwarven nations, and is the very essence of unrestrained Dwarfdom - loud, fond of booze, but handy with a hammer. If Hannah needs monitoring during fieldwork, Doc needs monitoring not in fieldwork - he's singlehandedly responsible for no less than three layers of safety protocols in the Flint office's underground labs.
Vallax, a tiefling kensai magus with the Spirit Medium background. Vallax is another Danoran exile; in his case, he was driven out of his village for his uncanny ability to speak with the dead (racial Soul Seer trait as well as the background feat). His exile, combined with the strain of seeing the dead all around him, has driven him more than slightly insane.
Leading up to the first session, one of my big concerns was scaling things - the initial skill challenge and the Coaltongue encounter both seemed like they’d get far easier with a party of 8. I’d considered some options, but wound up not needing them - my players wound up in both cases spending a lot of time on reasonable but unproductive tasks.
Highlights from the first session…
“Doc” Brown was ‘in the middle of an experiment’ when Delft came to shepherd the group down to the docks. It turns out the RHC installed an ‘alchemical suppression system’ in Brown’s lab - the dwarf was extra-grumpy after he and his lab equipment were doused in water.
I opted to bypass the “establish a profile” step in the initial skill challenge; I couldn’t come up with a good way to present that. I figured if one of the players suggested it, I’d give them a check for a bonus on the rest of the challenge, but it didn’t come up. Between some bad rolls and some time spent on non-productive actions (Doc climbed up on a box and failed miserably to intimidate the entire crowd; Hannah spent her time mostly running around doing perimeter checks on the bridge, boats, etc.), the party only barely caught Dafton as the crowd was entering the bridge area. Pearce (the group’s Docker) did some good RP to talk him down without a fight.
The Coaltongue encounter worked out pretty well, though there were a few items I goofed up on while running it (and I was also having difficulty tracking initiative - I kept accidentally skipping people. Not sure what was up with that). I’d decided to give Sokana some minor boosts and add a third engineer beforehand, but backed out the third engineer and some of Sokana’s buffs as events played out.
The group didn’t do much during the shipboard downtime; I had the crew set up a separate table for them on the aft deck (Delft wasn’t about to let Doc or Hannah spend too much time unsupervised in conversation with anyone of import) during the meal. As they finished eating, a couple of them suddenly went “wait, where’s the duchess?!” and ran off right before I was about to have Delft come ask them that same question. Split the party? Check!
My belowdecks group had the encounter play out basically as described - Sokana stalled for time while the duchess finished her ritual and cast water breathing. When Pearce picked the lock and opened the door, the duchess dove out the rear window, and Sokana hit him with burning hands. She won initiative, and went invisible before climbing out the rear window and down one deck. Pearce followed her while the other two climbed down the ladder to the next deck.
Abovedecks, both alchemists heard the duchess dive into the water; when they raced to the rear rail, they spotted her and promptly dove in after her. Luthor grabbed two of the crew and deployed a lifeboat while Felix checked in with Delft and then lowered a rope off the stern. The swimmers got an up-close view of the Kraken as the duchess fled before working their way to the lifeboat and then up the rope and into the boat. This group joined the fray after a few rounds - I accelerated their return to avoid having the players idling for the rest of the encounter.
Belowdecks, there was a surprisingly long-lasting fight in front of the boiler; Sokana managed to throw her gem into the fireplace, Pearce got knocked out by the wrench-wielding mechanics, Vallax yanked the gem back out of the fire. Once their foes were subdued, Tec raced up to get help while the party tried to deal with the reactor. Tiefling fire resistance helped a lot here, though I was accidentally nerfing this - I was only dealing damage for actually reaching into the furnace. Tec returned with the engineer Geoff, who told him to warn Minister Lee that they may have to evacuate, but not to disturb anything yet. The two alchemists tried to deal with one valve while Pearce and Felix went after the other one; the alchemists were able to blow theirs open, while Pearce used his own blood to lubricate the stuck valve as Felix forced it open. When Felix succeeded, the resulting steam blast knocked Pearce out for the third time in the session, but the ship was safe. The counter never got below 10 rounds with all the PCs helping.
(I misplayed this part quite a bit - I should’ve had Tec instructed to tell the nobility to evacuate. Instead, I had him just warn Lee, who told him to break the teleportation ward on deck but that was it. Ah well.)
Session Two: Three Towers.
At the beginning of the session, Pearce declared that he was strapping the rust monster antennae from the first session to his hands. This would become relevant later.
I went ahead and actually made props for Lya’s riddle. The group hit on the three-dimensional answer pretty quickly, which I expected. Hannah was (to me) surprisingly friendly towards Lya; I had her react somewhat coolly. The players, of course, immediately discerned that their roles as backups to the main infiltrators wasn’t likely to last, but they did a good-enough job of hiding it in-character.
Actually got a brief conversation out of the philosophical dinner, which was a pleasant surprise.
The party didn't interact much with the NPC infiltrators - Tec noticed the illusionist slipping out of the briefing (“that’s a neat trick, I’ll have to remember that!”). When the rockfall triggered, the party descended en masse; while Felix and a couple of others tried to figure out how to move the boulders, Vallax simply drew a blade and hacked off the goblin’s pinned leg. This prompted retributive violence from Elhaida and Pearce, knocking the tiefling out cold. They returned to the boat, where the goblin related what happened. The party took the time to excavate the other members of the team (since Vallax, with some persuasion, used his life-sense ability to detect the other infiltrators, and picked up on one still-living creature; the druid’s hound was still alive.) This led to some awkward DM moments (‘no, you can’t loot your dead co-worker’s bodies! Well, okay, you can have extras of the mission-critical items - two more Pyrotechnics scrolls and one more Passwall.’).
In the mine, I gave them two rounds before the miner started shooting - during which time they mostly clustered on the near set of platforms. When the miner attacked, he promptly rolled a nat-1 on his gunshot - misfire! I’d added a second earth elemental to up the difficulty a bit, and while they both missed, 1d6 splash damage is still pretty rough on a 1st-level party. Vallax tried to talk him down, but was out of sight; the combat continued for two more rounds before the miner spotted the tiefling Vallax, which made their claims of not being with the invaders much more credible, at which point they stood down. (Hannah, meanwhile, had been distracted by the air medallion and spent the whole combat getting to it and studying it.) There was a good bit of conversation with the miner, during which the PCs got most of the relevant information (iron spikes help block the planar incursions, medallions grant control of elementals and have other powers, easy way to the fort). The party tried to talk the miner out of his two medallions, but with no success.
As they were leaving the mine, Pearce attempted to sleight-of-hand off one of the miner’s medallions. Having completely forgotten about the rust monster antennae. He badly botched the roll, letting the miner know exactly what happened, and why he could no longer see in the dark. The miner got very angry, and his pistol and the two earth elementals sent the PCs running for the hills.
After the planar incursion on the road, the elven monk decided that, if iron blocked this effect, she could prevent further issues by tying shuriken to her sandals such that the points dug into the earth with every step. The rest of the party thought this was a brilliant idea and followed suit. The patrol and golem the party both bypassed (hid from the patrol, fled at the first sound of the golem without ever seeing it). The trap was comedic - Tec had nothing iron on him, so asked if the scattered weapons included any small metal blades, and promptly went to pick one up. The trap rolled a nat 1 on its attack roll, so while puffs of ice appeared all around him, he was completely unharmed.
Their infiltration of the city was fairly uneventful, though they failed a lot of stealth checks - the fortress is now on high alert. They went around the heavily-guarded building (the teleportation circle) rather than investigating it. They’re now at the base of the sea wall, poised to head down it and try to take the lighthouse.
After hearing abundant praise heaped upon Zeitgeist, I decided to go ahead and run it for my group. We’re a fairly large group (8 PCs if everyone’s there) running the Pathfinder version. I figured I’d add my group’s exploits to the list of sessions reported here. We’re two sessions in so far, and my group is ready to storm the lighthouse at the beginning of the next go-round. Thus far, it's been excellent - I've gotten lots of positive feedback, and have really been enjoying running it. Looking forward to the Kickstarter rewards coming in so I can see part 2!
During character creation, I let the group have a pretty free hand as far as being recruited into the RHC - with the result that this is not, shall we say, a group composed of 'traditional' law enforcement agents. Our cast features (my descriptions):
Elhaiada, a High Elf Ki Mystic Monk with the Vekeshi Mystic background. An elderly high elven woman who, having reached the end of her childbearing years, entered into a Vekeshi monastery for training and to determine her next path in life. She has joined the RHC to act on behalf of her oppressed persons, no longer just her own people. A well-regarded field agent of the RHC, she recently suffered a debilitating injury that has resulted in her temporary reassignment to the Flint office.
Felix Lightgardner, a human Cleric (War/Healing domains) with the Yerasol Veteran background. Felix was a competent soldier - though he's a little slow upstairs. While on a campaign in Ber, he found himself dying on the battlefield, bearing a shield he'd scavenged from a fallen foe. He called out for aid, and some force he'd never felt before answered; the shield focused his call, and he felt his wounds closing. After that campaign, he left the army and joined the RHC.
Luthor, a human ranger (skirmisher) with the Gunsmith background. Luthor is a human mercenary, a hired warrior the RHC uses from time to time when they need some extra muscle.
Pearce Charles, a catfolk rogue with the Docker background. Pearce acts as the RHC's eyes and ears in the docks of Flint, and (mostly) keeps his avaricious tendencies in check while on official business. Mostly.
Tec, a human sorcerer (arcane bloodline) with the Eschatologist background. Tec doesn't have much of a backstory.
Hannah Jierre, a tiefling alchemist with the Technologist background. Hannah is a relation of the ruling family of Danor (Not yet precisely specified, but a nephew once removed or so from Han Jierre). Thrown out of her family and of Danor for her tendency to take things apart and "improve" them, as well as unfettered trickster streak, her prowess with alchemy and machines has made her a useful asset to the RHC - though she needs close monitoring, especially during fieldwork.
“Doc” Aloysius Brown, a dwarf alchemist with the Technologist background. Doc hails from the dwarven nations, and is the very essence of unrestrained Dwarfdom - loud, fond of booze, but handy with a hammer. If Hannah needs monitoring during fieldwork, Doc needs monitoring not in fieldwork - he's singlehandedly responsible for no less than three layers of safety protocols in the Flint office's underground labs.
Vallax, a tiefling kensai magus with the Spirit Medium background. Vallax is another Danoran exile; in his case, he was driven out of his village for his uncanny ability to speak with the dead (racial Soul Seer trait as well as the background feat). His exile, combined with the strain of seeing the dead all around him, has driven him more than slightly insane.
Leading up to the first session, one of my big concerns was scaling things - the initial skill challenge and the Coaltongue encounter both seemed like they’d get far easier with a party of 8. I’d considered some options, but wound up not needing them - my players wound up in both cases spending a lot of time on reasonable but unproductive tasks.
Highlights from the first session…
“Doc” Brown was ‘in the middle of an experiment’ when Delft came to shepherd the group down to the docks. It turns out the RHC installed an ‘alchemical suppression system’ in Brown’s lab - the dwarf was extra-grumpy after he and his lab equipment were doused in water.
I opted to bypass the “establish a profile” step in the initial skill challenge; I couldn’t come up with a good way to present that. I figured if one of the players suggested it, I’d give them a check for a bonus on the rest of the challenge, but it didn’t come up. Between some bad rolls and some time spent on non-productive actions (Doc climbed up on a box and failed miserably to intimidate the entire crowd; Hannah spent her time mostly running around doing perimeter checks on the bridge, boats, etc.), the party only barely caught Dafton as the crowd was entering the bridge area. Pearce (the group’s Docker) did some good RP to talk him down without a fight.
The Coaltongue encounter worked out pretty well, though there were a few items I goofed up on while running it (and I was also having difficulty tracking initiative - I kept accidentally skipping people. Not sure what was up with that). I’d decided to give Sokana some minor boosts and add a third engineer beforehand, but backed out the third engineer and some of Sokana’s buffs as events played out.
The group didn’t do much during the shipboard downtime; I had the crew set up a separate table for them on the aft deck (Delft wasn’t about to let Doc or Hannah spend too much time unsupervised in conversation with anyone of import) during the meal. As they finished eating, a couple of them suddenly went “wait, where’s the duchess?!” and ran off right before I was about to have Delft come ask them that same question. Split the party? Check!
My belowdecks group had the encounter play out basically as described - Sokana stalled for time while the duchess finished her ritual and cast water breathing. When Pearce picked the lock and opened the door, the duchess dove out the rear window, and Sokana hit him with burning hands. She won initiative, and went invisible before climbing out the rear window and down one deck. Pearce followed her while the other two climbed down the ladder to the next deck.
Abovedecks, both alchemists heard the duchess dive into the water; when they raced to the rear rail, they spotted her and promptly dove in after her. Luthor grabbed two of the crew and deployed a lifeboat while Felix checked in with Delft and then lowered a rope off the stern. The swimmers got an up-close view of the Kraken as the duchess fled before working their way to the lifeboat and then up the rope and into the boat. This group joined the fray after a few rounds - I accelerated their return to avoid having the players idling for the rest of the encounter.
Belowdecks, there was a surprisingly long-lasting fight in front of the boiler; Sokana managed to throw her gem into the fireplace, Pearce got knocked out by the wrench-wielding mechanics, Vallax yanked the gem back out of the fire. Once their foes were subdued, Tec raced up to get help while the party tried to deal with the reactor. Tiefling fire resistance helped a lot here, though I was accidentally nerfing this - I was only dealing damage for actually reaching into the furnace. Tec returned with the engineer Geoff, who told him to warn Minister Lee that they may have to evacuate, but not to disturb anything yet. The two alchemists tried to deal with one valve while Pearce and Felix went after the other one; the alchemists were able to blow theirs open, while Pearce used his own blood to lubricate the stuck valve as Felix forced it open. When Felix succeeded, the resulting steam blast knocked Pearce out for the third time in the session, but the ship was safe. The counter never got below 10 rounds with all the PCs helping.
(I misplayed this part quite a bit - I should’ve had Tec instructed to tell the nobility to evacuate. Instead, I had him just warn Lee, who told him to break the teleportation ward on deck but that was it. Ah well.)
Session Two: Three Towers.
At the beginning of the session, Pearce declared that he was strapping the rust monster antennae from the first session to his hands. This would become relevant later.
I went ahead and actually made props for Lya’s riddle. The group hit on the three-dimensional answer pretty quickly, which I expected. Hannah was (to me) surprisingly friendly towards Lya; I had her react somewhat coolly. The players, of course, immediately discerned that their roles as backups to the main infiltrators wasn’t likely to last, but they did a good-enough job of hiding it in-character.
Actually got a brief conversation out of the philosophical dinner, which was a pleasant surprise.
The party didn't interact much with the NPC infiltrators - Tec noticed the illusionist slipping out of the briefing (“that’s a neat trick, I’ll have to remember that!”). When the rockfall triggered, the party descended en masse; while Felix and a couple of others tried to figure out how to move the boulders, Vallax simply drew a blade and hacked off the goblin’s pinned leg. This prompted retributive violence from Elhaida and Pearce, knocking the tiefling out cold. They returned to the boat, where the goblin related what happened. The party took the time to excavate the other members of the team (since Vallax, with some persuasion, used his life-sense ability to detect the other infiltrators, and picked up on one still-living creature; the druid’s hound was still alive.) This led to some awkward DM moments (‘no, you can’t loot your dead co-worker’s bodies! Well, okay, you can have extras of the mission-critical items - two more Pyrotechnics scrolls and one more Passwall.’).
In the mine, I gave them two rounds before the miner started shooting - during which time they mostly clustered on the near set of platforms. When the miner attacked, he promptly rolled a nat-1 on his gunshot - misfire! I’d added a second earth elemental to up the difficulty a bit, and while they both missed, 1d6 splash damage is still pretty rough on a 1st-level party. Vallax tried to talk him down, but was out of sight; the combat continued for two more rounds before the miner spotted the tiefling Vallax, which made their claims of not being with the invaders much more credible, at which point they stood down. (Hannah, meanwhile, had been distracted by the air medallion and spent the whole combat getting to it and studying it.) There was a good bit of conversation with the miner, during which the PCs got most of the relevant information (iron spikes help block the planar incursions, medallions grant control of elementals and have other powers, easy way to the fort). The party tried to talk the miner out of his two medallions, but with no success.
As they were leaving the mine, Pearce attempted to sleight-of-hand off one of the miner’s medallions. Having completely forgotten about the rust monster antennae. He badly botched the roll, letting the miner know exactly what happened, and why he could no longer see in the dark. The miner got very angry, and his pistol and the two earth elementals sent the PCs running for the hills.
After the planar incursion on the road, the elven monk decided that, if iron blocked this effect, she could prevent further issues by tying shuriken to her sandals such that the points dug into the earth with every step. The rest of the party thought this was a brilliant idea and followed suit. The patrol and golem the party both bypassed (hid from the patrol, fled at the first sound of the golem without ever seeing it). The trap was comedic - Tec had nothing iron on him, so asked if the scattered weapons included any small metal blades, and promptly went to pick one up. The trap rolled a nat 1 on its attack roll, so while puffs of ice appeared all around him, he was completely unharmed.
Their infiltration of the city was fairly uneventful, though they failed a lot of stealth checks - the fortress is now on high alert. They went around the heavily-guarded building (the teleportation circle) rather than investigating it. They’re now at the base of the sea wall, poised to head down it and try to take the lighthouse.
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