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My game "session" notes (Dark Sun, Eberron, Gamma World and PoL)
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<blockquote data-quote="Aegeri" data-source="post: 5395546" data-attributes="member: 78116"><p style="text-align: center"><strong>Eberron: Dark Prophecy</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p><p style="text-align: left">Before I begin describing the game proper, one of the things most important to Dark Prophecy I am most happy with is my decision to <strong>not</strong> use certain monsters. In every campaign before, my low level adventures have relied on a lot of undead and other humanoid enemies (Kobolds, Orcs, Hobgoblins and such forth). At the start of this, I wrote the <em>entire</em> lot off and said "I'm not allowed any of these, except in exceptional circumstances or where another monster justifies it[/i]". So this meant I had to think about what creatures I could use and basically had to "write" entire adventures around monsters I would never go near with a 10 foot pole. </p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">Although giant vermin are a classic D&D archetype, I have been very pleased with how this is currently proceeding. It's also a challenge to my design skills, because I have to make varied and challenging encounters using a specific subset of creatures. It turns out that this is quite a successful strategy!</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">Finishing off from last sessions dramatic spider related wedding crash, we pick up with the PCs heading back to the village of New Cyre*. The insects of course are well onto their sinister invasion plans and have hit village - including the surrounding farmside with considerable force. As they headed back, they discovered a man trapped on an overturned cart in the middle of a [seemingly] innocuous field. The players approached to find he rapidly began yelling for help and complaining about "bugs" surrounding him. Of course looking around there was certainly disturbed earth everywhere, but no sign of any bugs. So they did the natural thing and wandered over.</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">The burrowed bugs soon revealed themselves as young ankheg broodlings! The bugs emerged suddenly, but due to the PCs having a strong idea there was something up there was no surprise round and combat began. The first few broodlings exploded violently as the PCs got stuck into the poor beasties. Thinking that the encounter was going pretty well the artificer moved over to the rogue and assassin, bunching up just a bit. This of course soon turned out to not be the best idea, because two large ankhegs - the fully grown one that is - burst forth as well! One moved into position and splattered the rogue and assassin with an acidic burst, while the other tore into another PC to the north.</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">Inevitably the players discovered the ankegs had burrowed out an extensive tunnel network right into their feet and the rogue was dragged underground! With the fight turning against them and one ankheg left, he decided the only honorable thing to do was to grab Ryske and make off with the drow as his new queen. Queen being "Ankheg" for "delicious lunch" of course. At the end I think the rogue had 1 HP (or pretty close to this) and the paladin was similarly mauled, but they got their sweet rewards from the most appreciative <em>Ordelious Cornhalph Rudolfi the XVI</em>.</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">Now you might notice the name and wonder what happened. I did have him named but before the game I forgot to put it on the token. So I immediately realized that I should just come up with whatever fancied me at the time. So I started throwing together stuff until I came up with the above piece of absurdity. After doing so, I liked it sufficiently that I figured to make him a reoccurring character in some way. This is a rather handy thing, because it lets me establish a cast of characters the players can get to know over the game. Additionally having a merchant is certainly very useful for them, because I can let him go places that wouldn't make sense for your regular shop alchemist. This will become more obvious as the game goes on, but rest assured I now have plans for this guy I hadn't originally. </p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">The PCs now richly rewarded and having picked up their first magical items, took some time to look at the strange symbol I described last game on the ankhegs. After some checks, they realized the mark was functionally similar to those who bear an <em>aberrant</em> mark. Ominous music I am certain played at this point. A quick history check let Tybalt remember the mark was similar to one from a historical figure, who bore the aberrant mark of plague. It allowed them to command an army of vermin at their behest to spread disease and overwhelm their enemies. The mark was different in some ways - especially as it seemed to function in the control of these giant arachnids and insects. Unfortunately for the PCs this didn't give them any clues as to who was behind it, but Tybalt was sure his nemesis Isaac had <em>something</em> to do with it.</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">In any event, they advanced to the village where ominous spoke was billowing up from one of the poor districts. A group of gigantic beetles - including two of the fire breathing kind - were rampaging along the district. It was naturally the PCs job (who else?) to deal with it. This encounter went pretty simply, for one there was no tremorsense on these beetles - quite deliberately - letting the rogue and assassin sneak up to the bugs mostly unnoticed before attacking. The other beetles were mostly just a distraction however, keeping the PCs at bay while the fire beetles attempted to burn down a house full of innocent people. Fortunately for the PCs the fire beetles proved terrible at this, so they could take their time in killing the other lurking beetles through the alley.</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">Possibly the funniest moment came at the end of the combat. The final fire beetle on its remaining turn after being stuck in the rogues cloud of darkness recharged its fire breath. At this point, roleplaying wise the beetle should have attacked the rogue or bitten him. Instead, I decided it would be far <em>funnier</em> if he ran towards the now entirely clustered four remaining PCs in the alley and fire breath them. Sometimes what amuses me just plain wins over roleplaying. So the beetle heroically moved away, with the rogue missing his OA and got in position. His final act was a dramatic flame breath that critically hit the wizard instantly dropping him and bloodying the paladin. The paladin's random number generator god decided he had enough of this and critically hit the beetle, squishing it instantly.</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">At this point the victorious PCs got the better reward, which was a +2 staff and some gems embedded in one of the monsters hide. Gem scarabs have natural crystalline minerals in their carapace to harden them - hence they are literally monstrous treasure after a combat! Had they not succeeded in stopping the beetles burning down the building the staff would have been lost to the terrible fire. Plus I'm sure they would have felt bad. Possibly. Probably not.</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">In any event, at this point they had a distinct choice in how to proceed. Towards the town square where Mr. Gigantic centipede is currently rampaging is the main bridge. I wanted to use the bridge as an encounter site so the PCs would have to travel through some regions they had raced through initially - going from fun happy times to people being mass murdered by spiders and bugs. A nice contrast I feel. Before the bridge though, is a residence held by Tybalt (The artificers) nemesis Eustace Isaacs. This gave the player in question a nice choice: Does he follow his PCs natural emnity towards Estace and abuse his position as sherrif a bit by claiming he was "Clearing it for bugs" (or a similar excuse). Or does he put only the defense of the town first? (or some combination).</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">After some encouragement on the option from me - without making it feel like it had to be done immediately, I was not trying to railroad anyone here and this was a purely optional encounter - the PCs were generally not worried with assisting Tybalt in raiding Isaacs' residence. So they raided the building to find giant ants curiously tearing the place apart: Seemingly looking for magical tomes and other documents. Very weird behavior indeed! After dispatching the ants, despite my excitement causing my computer to BSOD when a player got splattered with ant goo (slowing them and dealing some acid damage) they got well rewarded. A suit of shockweave armor (a reference to one of the players characters from another campaign) and some residuum.</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">Checking the basement was most profitable and it's important to emphasize this was somewhat planned. By taking the risk of an extra encounter, which adds more workload to their current adventuring "day" some PCs were running low on surges. Thankfully I had anticipated this and the encounter was designed directly to reward them. In the basement Eustace had been working on making a powerful healing elixir that was so potent, it could restore the most terrible of injuries. It can directly restore a characters healing surges when consumed, two in fact! This is <em>quite</em> handy, the only problem being that the potions bottling was damaged by the ants (as well as most of Eustace's notes) so the elixirs would rapidly spoil (in short, they won't survive an extended rest intact). Additionally while the effect was a pretty potent healing power, it was pretty clear there may be odd - let's say - <em>side effects</em> down the line.</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">Determining that spoilage and potential healing wasn't worth risking the loss of the potions due to spoilage, three of the players - Marhu, Ryske and Walker - decided to skull down one potion each. The player behind Marhu (Hobgoblin Paladin) instantly drank down a potion when any kind of story feat was involved. I can certainly appreciate such gumption! This left a fourth for a rainy day, should the next encounters warrant it. Additionally this gave out my first legacy feat in the game:</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left"><strong>Village Tonic Experimenter</strong></p> <p style="text-align: left"><em>This strange tonic restored your constitution and certainly gave you the strength to fight on... but you're not exactly sure you feel quite the same anymore...</em></p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">What it does is unknown. <em>It is a mystery</em>. Well okay, I know what it does but then I'm the DM. Unfortunately for my players they literally won't have any idea what it does for a <em>very</em> long time. It might be a few levels, it might be 10 or it might even crop up during epic tier. Who knows. All I know is that it will be pretty funny or dramatic, depending on your point of view (mostly if you're looking at it from my perspective or the players).</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">This legacy feat is a bit different to the one I handed out in Dark Sun. Unlike Legacy of Three-Fang, it has no defined mechanic and if it ever feels like doing anything is entirely up to me. One purpose is just to note who likes to drink potions of completely unknown origin - that does take a bit of NADs (so to speak).</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">Oh I can't resist just a hint so everyone can wonder: <em>It has a random table associated with it</em>.</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">In any event, the session ended there for the day and I immediately began planning my next devious moves. I predict a future filled with horrible giant insects....</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">*Renamed because I remembered this place actually existed anyway and so I didn't need to make a new town.</p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> </p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Aegeri, post: 5395546, member: 78116"] [CENTER][b]Eberron: Dark Prophecy[/b] [LEFT]Before I begin describing the game proper, one of the things most important to Dark Prophecy I am most happy with is my decision to [b]not[/b] use certain monsters. In every campaign before, my low level adventures have relied on a lot of undead and other humanoid enemies (Kobolds, Orcs, Hobgoblins and such forth). At the start of this, I wrote the [i]entire[/i] lot off and said "I'm not allowed any of these, except in exceptional circumstances or where another monster justifies it[/i]". So this meant I had to think about what creatures I could use and basically had to "write" entire adventures around monsters I would never go near with a 10 foot pole. Although giant vermin are a classic D&D archetype, I have been very pleased with how this is currently proceeding. It's also a challenge to my design skills, because I have to make varied and challenging encounters using a specific subset of creatures. It turns out that this is quite a successful strategy! Finishing off from last sessions dramatic spider related wedding crash, we pick up with the PCs heading back to the village of New Cyre*. The insects of course are well onto their sinister invasion plans and have hit village - including the surrounding farmside with considerable force. As they headed back, they discovered a man trapped on an overturned cart in the middle of a [seemingly] innocuous field. The players approached to find he rapidly began yelling for help and complaining about "bugs" surrounding him. Of course looking around there was certainly disturbed earth everywhere, but no sign of any bugs. So they did the natural thing and wandered over. The burrowed bugs soon revealed themselves as young ankheg broodlings! The bugs emerged suddenly, but due to the PCs having a strong idea there was something up there was no surprise round and combat began. The first few broodlings exploded violently as the PCs got stuck into the poor beasties. Thinking that the encounter was going pretty well the artificer moved over to the rogue and assassin, bunching up just a bit. This of course soon turned out to not be the best idea, because two large ankhegs - the fully grown one that is - burst forth as well! One moved into position and splattered the rogue and assassin with an acidic burst, while the other tore into another PC to the north. Inevitably the players discovered the ankegs had burrowed out an extensive tunnel network right into their feet and the rogue was dragged underground! With the fight turning against them and one ankheg left, he decided the only honorable thing to do was to grab Ryske and make off with the drow as his new queen. Queen being "Ankheg" for "delicious lunch" of course. At the end I think the rogue had 1 HP (or pretty close to this) and the paladin was similarly mauled, but they got their sweet rewards from the most appreciative [i]Ordelious Cornhalph Rudolfi the XVI[/i]. Now you might notice the name and wonder what happened. I did have him named but before the game I forgot to put it on the token. So I immediately realized that I should just come up with whatever fancied me at the time. So I started throwing together stuff until I came up with the above piece of absurdity. After doing so, I liked it sufficiently that I figured to make him a reoccurring character in some way. This is a rather handy thing, because it lets me establish a cast of characters the players can get to know over the game. Additionally having a merchant is certainly very useful for them, because I can let him go places that wouldn't make sense for your regular shop alchemist. This will become more obvious as the game goes on, but rest assured I now have plans for this guy I hadn't originally. The PCs now richly rewarded and having picked up their first magical items, took some time to look at the strange symbol I described last game on the ankhegs. After some checks, they realized the mark was functionally similar to those who bear an [i]aberrant[/i] mark. Ominous music I am certain played at this point. A quick history check let Tybalt remember the mark was similar to one from a historical figure, who bore the aberrant mark of plague. It allowed them to command an army of vermin at their behest to spread disease and overwhelm their enemies. The mark was different in some ways - especially as it seemed to function in the control of these giant arachnids and insects. Unfortunately for the PCs this didn't give them any clues as to who was behind it, but Tybalt was sure his nemesis Isaac had [i]something[/i] to do with it. In any event, they advanced to the village where ominous spoke was billowing up from one of the poor districts. A group of gigantic beetles - including two of the fire breathing kind - were rampaging along the district. It was naturally the PCs job (who else?) to deal with it. This encounter went pretty simply, for one there was no tremorsense on these beetles - quite deliberately - letting the rogue and assassin sneak up to the bugs mostly unnoticed before attacking. The other beetles were mostly just a distraction however, keeping the PCs at bay while the fire beetles attempted to burn down a house full of innocent people. Fortunately for the PCs the fire beetles proved terrible at this, so they could take their time in killing the other lurking beetles through the alley. Possibly the funniest moment came at the end of the combat. The final fire beetle on its remaining turn after being stuck in the rogues cloud of darkness recharged its fire breath. At this point, roleplaying wise the beetle should have attacked the rogue or bitten him. Instead, I decided it would be far [i]funnier[/i] if he ran towards the now entirely clustered four remaining PCs in the alley and fire breath them. Sometimes what amuses me just plain wins over roleplaying. So the beetle heroically moved away, with the rogue missing his OA and got in position. His final act was a dramatic flame breath that critically hit the wizard instantly dropping him and bloodying the paladin. The paladin's random number generator god decided he had enough of this and critically hit the beetle, squishing it instantly. At this point the victorious PCs got the better reward, which was a +2 staff and some gems embedded in one of the monsters hide. Gem scarabs have natural crystalline minerals in their carapace to harden them - hence they are literally monstrous treasure after a combat! Had they not succeeded in stopping the beetles burning down the building the staff would have been lost to the terrible fire. Plus I'm sure they would have felt bad. Possibly. Probably not. In any event, at this point they had a distinct choice in how to proceed. Towards the town square where Mr. Gigantic centipede is currently rampaging is the main bridge. I wanted to use the bridge as an encounter site so the PCs would have to travel through some regions they had raced through initially - going from fun happy times to people being mass murdered by spiders and bugs. A nice contrast I feel. Before the bridge though, is a residence held by Tybalt (The artificers) nemesis Eustace Isaacs. This gave the player in question a nice choice: Does he follow his PCs natural emnity towards Estace and abuse his position as sherrif a bit by claiming he was "Clearing it for bugs" (or a similar excuse). Or does he put only the defense of the town first? (or some combination). After some encouragement on the option from me - without making it feel like it had to be done immediately, I was not trying to railroad anyone here and this was a purely optional encounter - the PCs were generally not worried with assisting Tybalt in raiding Isaacs' residence. So they raided the building to find giant ants curiously tearing the place apart: Seemingly looking for magical tomes and other documents. Very weird behavior indeed! After dispatching the ants, despite my excitement causing my computer to BSOD when a player got splattered with ant goo (slowing them and dealing some acid damage) they got well rewarded. A suit of shockweave armor (a reference to one of the players characters from another campaign) and some residuum. Checking the basement was most profitable and it's important to emphasize this was somewhat planned. By taking the risk of an extra encounter, which adds more workload to their current adventuring "day" some PCs were running low on surges. Thankfully I had anticipated this and the encounter was designed directly to reward them. In the basement Eustace had been working on making a powerful healing elixir that was so potent, it could restore the most terrible of injuries. It can directly restore a characters healing surges when consumed, two in fact! This is [i]quite[/i] handy, the only problem being that the potions bottling was damaged by the ants (as well as most of Eustace's notes) so the elixirs would rapidly spoil (in short, they won't survive an extended rest intact). Additionally while the effect was a pretty potent healing power, it was pretty clear there may be odd - let's say - [i]side effects[/i] down the line. Determining that spoilage and potential healing wasn't worth risking the loss of the potions due to spoilage, three of the players - Marhu, Ryske and Walker - decided to skull down one potion each. The player behind Marhu (Hobgoblin Paladin) instantly drank down a potion when any kind of story feat was involved. I can certainly appreciate such gumption! This left a fourth for a rainy day, should the next encounters warrant it. Additionally this gave out my first legacy feat in the game: [b]Village Tonic Experimenter[/b] [i]This strange tonic restored your constitution and certainly gave you the strength to fight on... but you're not exactly sure you feel quite the same anymore...[/i] What it does is unknown. [i]It is a mystery[/i]. Well okay, I know what it does but then I'm the DM. Unfortunately for my players they literally won't have any idea what it does for a [i]very[/i] long time. It might be a few levels, it might be 10 or it might even crop up during epic tier. Who knows. All I know is that it will be pretty funny or dramatic, depending on your point of view (mostly if you're looking at it from my perspective or the players). This legacy feat is a bit different to the one I handed out in Dark Sun. Unlike Legacy of Three-Fang, it has no defined mechanic and if it ever feels like doing anything is entirely up to me. One purpose is just to note who likes to drink potions of completely unknown origin - that does take a bit of NADs (so to speak). Oh I can't resist just a hint so everyone can wonder: [i]It has a random table associated with it[/i]. In any event, the session ended there for the day and I immediately began planning my next devious moves. I predict a future filled with horrible giant insects.... *Renamed because I remembered this place actually existed anyway and so I didn't need to make a new town. [/LEFT] [/CENTER] [/QUOTE]
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