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The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
City of Brass: Author Playtest Notes
- Thread starter bowbe
- Start date
Breakdaddy
First Post
I can personally attest to Case's evil DM nature. He is fun as hell to game with. Carry on!
Desdichado
Hero
And it better be, for that price. $70 MSRP? Ouch! Even the pdf version sells for $50! How many pages is this?Treebore said:
Michael_R_Proteau
First Post
3 books totalling between 400 and 450 pages plus a map booklet. More details of the product itself and reactions can be found on this thread:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=204078
-M
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=204078
-M
bowbe
First Post
Thanks Zack... yeah sadly Zach went uncredited as a playtester, but more on him and his character later...
For now we resume at the foot of the Pyramid of Set. Another player showed up, a friend of mine who decided he wanted to play a hobgoblin Psion... Don't ask.
The players start at the stair leading to the entrance of the pyramid and proceed up. It's pretty dead at the time they show up in disguise, most of the followers of Set happen to be wandering around below the pyramid flagellating themselves and uttering prayers to whichever face of the snake they worship... some the Jackal, some the Ass, some the Serpent, and others the Scorpion.
The PCs get about midway up the stairs and a pair of stone sphinxes animate and ask if they are true believers in the great god Set.
Of course they are not, and have no brand, mark, or holy symbol to show, so the stone sphinxes attack.
The PCs manage to make quick work of the sphinxes with psionic desintegrate, an adamantium bastard sword, and a maul. They enter the pyramid mid level and see 3 sets of doors, one one north, one south, and one further down the hall.
At this time they are still very much "room searchers and level cleaners". That doom philosophy inspired by 3.x hasn't taught them a single thing yet. So they enter the first chamber and find themselves amongst a group of low level acolytes who note that they bear no mark, symbol, or sign to the Dread Lord and of course attack.
Now, I admit I cheat a little bit here. Not out of cheating the "rules as written" for a hatred of the rules set, but because I am oldschool and run an oldschool style adventure when I play tabletop. IN oldschool jackal weres and werewolves and stuff are still only damaged by silver weapons. Others will disagree with this but say what they will, it made for a lot of fun taking the characters out of their comfort zone and pushing their creativity. Thus the priests they see at first appear as humans, but shift to thier "true form" soon enough as combat commences. I didn't rule it that way as a matter of "screw the players'. As you have noticed I've been pretty lenient about gear, more than free with loot, and accomodating of all the variety of silly quirk feats and character races the PCs wanted to try out.
Mainly I did it to see what they could come up with if actually challenged with a true threat from seemingly weak characters. That said I also ruled that the damage dealt without silver weapons was subdual damage so if they wacked the crap out of a jackalwere they are knocked out until their fast healing kicks in and brings them back. Like i said it's quirky.
One thing I forgot to mention that is fairly important at this point. One of the treasures from the Tower of Jhedophar is a cursed ring of wizardry that doubles the number of 3rd level spells a character can cast. The curse is that it casts the spells as illusionary equivalents of the 3rd level spell...meaning they do no real damage but make the wizard think he is hotter than burnt cheese. Ard, Leader of our People, of course has this item and the cheese is beginning to smolder.
The Fun Begins:
As the combat begins Ard Blasts the room with his illusionary fireballs, thinking them real, and takes out like 3 of the jackalwere priests right off the bat. Nobody thinks any different, and the PCs move in to attack, chopping and clobbering the priests to bits in quick fashion. Of course they are horrified when the priests take on jackal forms and figure to pursue actions a bit more steadily.
They move to the next room and find it filled with like 50 worshippers of set and 3 higher ranking priests. It's a scene straight out of the film version "Conan the Barbarian" and sacrifices are being chucked down a hole that immolates them in the name of Set on the way out of the pyramid.
Of course, this will not stand, and Rhy the Fighter, and Elandril the cleric jump in to end these wicked priests, only to be faced with frenzied worshippers who are now attacking like low level barbarians in their fervor.
More fake fireballs ensue as Ard feels quite godlike. General slaughter, the priests turn jackal, cast sanctuary and make to leave the chamber. A couple black jackals of set cast invisibility, and seek to wait out the PCs with venomed blades, going for the death attack at some point.
Someone uses a gem of true seeing from the tower of jheophar... Elandrin I think... and battle continues. Priests are descimeted, but some assassination attempts go out and although the PCs make the save vs. death, they also have to make poison saves, and take way more damage than they would have. With the calamity unfolding, the PCs realize that they can't do this adventure, leave, and come back, or the amount of danger they face will double next time. No resting in this adventure, its straight to the quick, so time to reserve some of the boom spells. Ard is thinking he still has 5 more 3rd level spells so isn't sweating much but Elandrin is. The psion has blown thru a ton of points by this time and we aren't even into the guts of the pyramid yet.
Moving down the hall, they enter the chamber with a statue of the lord Set in the center, and the floor covered with snakes. Ard "blasts" the snakes and the PCs move into the room. The snakes fail a save and are unconscious so all good so far? Wrong, as they move in, the statue animates and attacks them with some avatar quality attacks, especially the poisoned spear and some spells it has programmed into it. It happens to be immune to most magic (being a construct of sorts) so its up to the Konn, Glandril, and Rhy to beat this thing, which of course they do, thanks mostly to Rhy's adamantine bastard sword and Glandril's maul.
This doesn't stop the statue from critting rhy twice with its venomed blade, dropping him at one point to negative HPs. His sword magically dances before him as the elf spirit within it leaps to his aid. AS soon as he is healed by Elandrin the sword drops to the ground near him and everyone is pretty awed by the blade, except Rhy, who "didn't see" the sword fighting to save his life.
Elandrin is WAY jealous of the sword being in the hands of a human. Something sparks in him and he remembers something about a lost demigodess and a sword but doesn't roll high enough on his Knowledge religion check to figure out exactly what. (rolled like a 6, got a 20 total).
At the back of the chamber are stairs going up and down. They choose down, figuring the High Priest to be in the basement. Wrong! Their first room, is more black jackals of set, and more priests of set, tougher ones. Battle goes similarly to before with Ard ripping illusionary fireballs, and the others leveling awesome blows, but taking a bit of damage here and there.
The jackalweres are subdued or so they think. The PCs enter another chamber, still looking for this high priest fellow. Instead they are in a crypt. they proceed, seeing a door at the end of the chamber. The various sarcophogi open, and its 25 mummies or something crazy like that, with several greater mummies... 2 at least in the mix.
Everyone make 27 saves vs. despair. Just kidding... Mainly if your within "sight", and from their various positions, nobody can see ALL of the mummies. More like 6 at a pop. Of course the Psion, Ard, Elandrin have Zero problem making 6 will saves. The rogue gets REAL lucky making all of his. Konn is guarding the rear, so no worries, he didn't see jack from where he's at. Miraculously or weighted dice, Rhy makes the 3 he would have to make from his vantage... which leaves poor Glandril. He has to make like 10 saves and nerfs 2 of them with natural 1's.
The mummy lords turn, and one coup de gras's the dwarf as his action. The other casts desecrate to increase the turn saves and HP of his army. Looking REALLY bad for the PCs.
Elandrin's turn. WOOMP there it is Natural 20 turn check with greater and improved turning and a fat charisma.
Zap. A whole LOT of mummies destroyed. Ard... again with the fake fireball spell. Zooomp. Hmm these guys look fire resistant Ard. Ahh ok he says, thinking something different for the following round. Going great revenge... Konn tumbles into the room to guard the spellcasters... makes 3, fails 4th save and is paralized next to Ard/Elandrin. Psion desintegrates a mummy lord with psionic desintegrate. Rhy goes full attack on the one nearest him, kills it, cleaves to the next and its about wiped out.
Glandril's player looks a bit put off. Con of 20, Con booster makes it 24, avg of 12 HP per level under the armor so well over 150 hps with good HP rolls and he is Dead from a failed will save because it happened before he could rage!
Mummies attack, mummy lord uses a boom spell, PCs take damage, none of the mummies can attack Rhy because of his sick ac. Elandrin's AC isn't too shabby either so he's fine. Psion and ard are far enough back that mummies have to move to get them, leading to attacks of opportunity from Rhy who has combat reflexes and a dex 14 so 3 AOO's i believe per round. He scores big hits with his AOO's and another mummy goes back to biting dust.
Ard uses Evard's tentacles to tie up the remaining mummies, which the archer drills to dust with arrows (half damage, takes a whole quiver) and Glandril finishes with a spiritual hammer.
Raise Dead again. This is getting to be a habit. He of course makes the con check to avoid level loss and we are on our way. Into an ambush. Kobold assassin/cooks spring out (Thank you KKC) when they return to the hallway to regroup and heal up. Their assassination checks are worthless but the sneak damage and the venom isn't a joke. Suddenly, they have Black Jackals, and Jackalwere priests at them again... the same guys they fought before. Woops.
What could be wrong? We killed these guys right? Knowledge Arcana check... only injured by silver.. Anyone have any silver? One guy. Ard and its his silver sacrificial dagger! Ooops. All that adamantine and heavy metal, nobody has silver! Doh!
The party ends up splitting. Ard starts using a wand of polymorph to transform one jackal per round into a goblin or kobold (something that can be killed). Glandril takes the dagger, and starts raging, power attacking doing 1d4+18 per hit or something silly like that. Rhy and Konn start grappling and pinning jackals so that Glandril can power attack them!
A battle a few minutes later in a torture room ends with the grappling fighters grabbing jackalweres, waiting for glandril to attack them, or ard to polymorph them which involves the fighters tossing the now killable priests and assassins into torture devices like head presses and iron maidens. Like I said, cheating a little bit made the adventure way more exciting for the players and forced them to use their noggins rather than ther numbers and stats to come up with a solution to their dilemma.
Up Next: Battle with the High Priest!
Case
For now we resume at the foot of the Pyramid of Set. Another player showed up, a friend of mine who decided he wanted to play a hobgoblin Psion... Don't ask.
The players start at the stair leading to the entrance of the pyramid and proceed up. It's pretty dead at the time they show up in disguise, most of the followers of Set happen to be wandering around below the pyramid flagellating themselves and uttering prayers to whichever face of the snake they worship... some the Jackal, some the Ass, some the Serpent, and others the Scorpion.
The PCs get about midway up the stairs and a pair of stone sphinxes animate and ask if they are true believers in the great god Set.
Of course they are not, and have no brand, mark, or holy symbol to show, so the stone sphinxes attack.
The PCs manage to make quick work of the sphinxes with psionic desintegrate, an adamantium bastard sword, and a maul. They enter the pyramid mid level and see 3 sets of doors, one one north, one south, and one further down the hall.
At this time they are still very much "room searchers and level cleaners". That doom philosophy inspired by 3.x hasn't taught them a single thing yet. So they enter the first chamber and find themselves amongst a group of low level acolytes who note that they bear no mark, symbol, or sign to the Dread Lord and of course attack.
Now, I admit I cheat a little bit here. Not out of cheating the "rules as written" for a hatred of the rules set, but because I am oldschool and run an oldschool style adventure when I play tabletop. IN oldschool jackal weres and werewolves and stuff are still only damaged by silver weapons. Others will disagree with this but say what they will, it made for a lot of fun taking the characters out of their comfort zone and pushing their creativity. Thus the priests they see at first appear as humans, but shift to thier "true form" soon enough as combat commences. I didn't rule it that way as a matter of "screw the players'. As you have noticed I've been pretty lenient about gear, more than free with loot, and accomodating of all the variety of silly quirk feats and character races the PCs wanted to try out.
Mainly I did it to see what they could come up with if actually challenged with a true threat from seemingly weak characters. That said I also ruled that the damage dealt without silver weapons was subdual damage so if they wacked the crap out of a jackalwere they are knocked out until their fast healing kicks in and brings them back. Like i said it's quirky.
One thing I forgot to mention that is fairly important at this point. One of the treasures from the Tower of Jhedophar is a cursed ring of wizardry that doubles the number of 3rd level spells a character can cast. The curse is that it casts the spells as illusionary equivalents of the 3rd level spell...meaning they do no real damage but make the wizard think he is hotter than burnt cheese. Ard, Leader of our People, of course has this item and the cheese is beginning to smolder.
The Fun Begins:
As the combat begins Ard Blasts the room with his illusionary fireballs, thinking them real, and takes out like 3 of the jackalwere priests right off the bat. Nobody thinks any different, and the PCs move in to attack, chopping and clobbering the priests to bits in quick fashion. Of course they are horrified when the priests take on jackal forms and figure to pursue actions a bit more steadily.
They move to the next room and find it filled with like 50 worshippers of set and 3 higher ranking priests. It's a scene straight out of the film version "Conan the Barbarian" and sacrifices are being chucked down a hole that immolates them in the name of Set on the way out of the pyramid.
Of course, this will not stand, and Rhy the Fighter, and Elandril the cleric jump in to end these wicked priests, only to be faced with frenzied worshippers who are now attacking like low level barbarians in their fervor.
More fake fireballs ensue as Ard feels quite godlike. General slaughter, the priests turn jackal, cast sanctuary and make to leave the chamber. A couple black jackals of set cast invisibility, and seek to wait out the PCs with venomed blades, going for the death attack at some point.
Someone uses a gem of true seeing from the tower of jheophar... Elandrin I think... and battle continues. Priests are descimeted, but some assassination attempts go out and although the PCs make the save vs. death, they also have to make poison saves, and take way more damage than they would have. With the calamity unfolding, the PCs realize that they can't do this adventure, leave, and come back, or the amount of danger they face will double next time. No resting in this adventure, its straight to the quick, so time to reserve some of the boom spells. Ard is thinking he still has 5 more 3rd level spells so isn't sweating much but Elandrin is. The psion has blown thru a ton of points by this time and we aren't even into the guts of the pyramid yet.
Moving down the hall, they enter the chamber with a statue of the lord Set in the center, and the floor covered with snakes. Ard "blasts" the snakes and the PCs move into the room. The snakes fail a save and are unconscious so all good so far? Wrong, as they move in, the statue animates and attacks them with some avatar quality attacks, especially the poisoned spear and some spells it has programmed into it. It happens to be immune to most magic (being a construct of sorts) so its up to the Konn, Glandril, and Rhy to beat this thing, which of course they do, thanks mostly to Rhy's adamantine bastard sword and Glandril's maul.
This doesn't stop the statue from critting rhy twice with its venomed blade, dropping him at one point to negative HPs. His sword magically dances before him as the elf spirit within it leaps to his aid. AS soon as he is healed by Elandrin the sword drops to the ground near him and everyone is pretty awed by the blade, except Rhy, who "didn't see" the sword fighting to save his life.
Elandrin is WAY jealous of the sword being in the hands of a human. Something sparks in him and he remembers something about a lost demigodess and a sword but doesn't roll high enough on his Knowledge religion check to figure out exactly what. (rolled like a 6, got a 20 total).
At the back of the chamber are stairs going up and down. They choose down, figuring the High Priest to be in the basement. Wrong! Their first room, is more black jackals of set, and more priests of set, tougher ones. Battle goes similarly to before with Ard ripping illusionary fireballs, and the others leveling awesome blows, but taking a bit of damage here and there.
The jackalweres are subdued or so they think. The PCs enter another chamber, still looking for this high priest fellow. Instead they are in a crypt. they proceed, seeing a door at the end of the chamber. The various sarcophogi open, and its 25 mummies or something crazy like that, with several greater mummies... 2 at least in the mix.
Everyone make 27 saves vs. despair. Just kidding... Mainly if your within "sight", and from their various positions, nobody can see ALL of the mummies. More like 6 at a pop. Of course the Psion, Ard, Elandrin have Zero problem making 6 will saves. The rogue gets REAL lucky making all of his. Konn is guarding the rear, so no worries, he didn't see jack from where he's at. Miraculously or weighted dice, Rhy makes the 3 he would have to make from his vantage... which leaves poor Glandril. He has to make like 10 saves and nerfs 2 of them with natural 1's.
The mummy lords turn, and one coup de gras's the dwarf as his action. The other casts desecrate to increase the turn saves and HP of his army. Looking REALLY bad for the PCs.
Elandrin's turn. WOOMP there it is Natural 20 turn check with greater and improved turning and a fat charisma.
Zap. A whole LOT of mummies destroyed. Ard... again with the fake fireball spell. Zooomp. Hmm these guys look fire resistant Ard. Ahh ok he says, thinking something different for the following round. Going great revenge... Konn tumbles into the room to guard the spellcasters... makes 3, fails 4th save and is paralized next to Ard/Elandrin. Psion desintegrates a mummy lord with psionic desintegrate. Rhy goes full attack on the one nearest him, kills it, cleaves to the next and its about wiped out.
Glandril's player looks a bit put off. Con of 20, Con booster makes it 24, avg of 12 HP per level under the armor so well over 150 hps with good HP rolls and he is Dead from a failed will save because it happened before he could rage!
Mummies attack, mummy lord uses a boom spell, PCs take damage, none of the mummies can attack Rhy because of his sick ac. Elandrin's AC isn't too shabby either so he's fine. Psion and ard are far enough back that mummies have to move to get them, leading to attacks of opportunity from Rhy who has combat reflexes and a dex 14 so 3 AOO's i believe per round. He scores big hits with his AOO's and another mummy goes back to biting dust.
Ard uses Evard's tentacles to tie up the remaining mummies, which the archer drills to dust with arrows (half damage, takes a whole quiver) and Glandril finishes with a spiritual hammer.
Raise Dead again. This is getting to be a habit. He of course makes the con check to avoid level loss and we are on our way. Into an ambush. Kobold assassin/cooks spring out (Thank you KKC) when they return to the hallway to regroup and heal up. Their assassination checks are worthless but the sneak damage and the venom isn't a joke. Suddenly, they have Black Jackals, and Jackalwere priests at them again... the same guys they fought before. Woops.
What could be wrong? We killed these guys right? Knowledge Arcana check... only injured by silver.. Anyone have any silver? One guy. Ard and its his silver sacrificial dagger! Ooops. All that adamantine and heavy metal, nobody has silver! Doh!
The party ends up splitting. Ard starts using a wand of polymorph to transform one jackal per round into a goblin or kobold (something that can be killed). Glandril takes the dagger, and starts raging, power attacking doing 1d4+18 per hit or something silly like that. Rhy and Konn start grappling and pinning jackals so that Glandril can power attack them!
A battle a few minutes later in a torture room ends with the grappling fighters grabbing jackalweres, waiting for glandril to attack them, or ard to polymorph them which involves the fighters tossing the now killable priests and assassins into torture devices like head presses and iron maidens. Like I said, cheating a little bit made the adventure way more exciting for the players and forced them to use their noggins rather than ther numbers and stats to come up with a solution to their dilemma.
Up Next: Battle with the High Priest!
Case
TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
Very good. Very funny and informative. This is a great way to sell the product.
My favorite parts in recent posts:
My favorite parts in recent posts:
Out of curiosity, what do you believe is a wiser philosophy for a group of PC's? Investigators? Hit-and-Run Tacticians? Infiltrators?
What happened to Zach?
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