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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: 5399847" data-attributes="member: 78116"><p style="text-align: center"><strong>Dark Sun: Builder's Cry</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p><p></p><p>After sorting out some internet drama, which I was pretty sure was going to cost me the game we got away to the PCs updating their tokens a little bit. I decided it was going to be a nice return to hitting some things this session after last sessions very slow paced horror. The first order of business was dealing with a tiefling Ianto, who had built himself a "fort" out of some of the tables in the room to hold off the escaped beasts. Once it was decided that he wasn't trying to kill them, they discovered he was responsible for the general patching up of arena beasts and gladiators that were wounded in the arena.</p><p></p><p>Here they learned some important in character details about three-fang and other arena beats he had worked on. In particular, their characters learned that whoever Three-Fang bites tends to die horrifically due to the creature hunting them down. The wound was more than just an injury, whenever it flares up it means the horrific beast is someone nearby. He also mentioned that he could permanently patch up and shore up wounds on a PC with his remaining reagents. This gave the PCs their access to the first "magical" item in the game.</p><p></p><p>Now I thought about magical items and Dark Sun a lot. For one thing, I've restricted items so much in this PCs cannot even create or easily purchase (though it is possible) basic common items. Given this is an inherent bonuses campaign I don't feel this is too bad. What I wanted to do with the limited items I needed to give out each item was try to make them all really special. Not just throw a +1 something or another at the party, but really make every magical item something unique and exciting if possible. Not everything will be like this for practical reasons, but I wanted to make as many items as possible something truly special. Either in the games narrative or just cool.</p><p></p><p>Hence this rare item, the Scars of Bloodsand.</p><p></p><p><strong>Scars of Bloodsand</strong></p><p><em>Deep stitches in the most severe of your injuries, covered up with strange embalming fluid like substances and enchanted tattoos covers your body. Aside from making you tougher both physically and mentally, when bloodied the pain of these old wounds flares causing you to fight even harder.</em></p><p><strong>Level 5 Rare Item</strong></p><p><strong>Wondrous Item: Tattoo</strong></p><p><strong>Property</strong>: You gain a +5 bonus to your HP total</p><p><strong>Property</strong>: When you are bloodied you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls.</p><p><strong>Daily Power</strong>: When you are bloodied you may make an at-will melee attack against an enemy within reach as a free action.</p><p></p><p>This item can be improved using rituals or just through the storyline to a level 15 and 25 version, each tier adding an additional +5 HP and +2 bonus damage (so +15 HP and +6 damage while bloodied at epic). Balance wise, I wanted to make sure when I gave my players a rare item it felt like big deal and was something they <em>wanted</em>. If they said "Meh, who cares who gets it" then that is by far the worst thing - well unless it is clearly for a specific PC in mind. When I did make this, I did have the Battlemind or Monk, who have been taking a grade A beating in this game in mind. The extra HP were basically to help with survivability - especially early on as many DS monsters are frankly insane for damage (Silt Runners are 4d6+6 at level 1!).</p><p></p><p>Ultimately Eshara made the sacrifice to have the enchanted stitching, fluids and god knows what else Ianto did to her. Upon the immense pain and suffering ending after 30 minutes of rather cruel work, she was the new recipient of the enchanted tattoo and all the tougher for it. Good for her as well because she was soon going to need it!</p><p></p><p>At this point, I offered the PCs a fairly clear choice on how to proceed. They could try a rather heroic storming of the front of the arena, beating their way through whatever gladiators, escaped monsters and templars were in the way. Alternatively, with some coercion they learned that Ianto had been helping individuals sneak in and out of the arena. Some of the tiles in an abandoned barracks - now used for caging the odd prison or random animal - were very lose. These led to a network of tunnels further under the arena again and where the PCs could sneak out silently.</p><p></p><p>Although it seems a very simple choice (either A or B) it actually has a pretty high ramification on the rest of the campaign. Of course we shall see how this pans out with the PCs over the next few sessions! But none the less they took the option to get out silently, avoiding a direct conflict with the templars rallying their defense to the strong archways and stone of the arena. Allowing Ianto to go with them, due to his handy years of stitch-work and ability to prevent even the strongest wound debilitating a warrior (albeit, he is the *worst* for sterility...) the party set off for the barracks.</p><p></p><p>The first order of business was that someone else had already tried sneaking through the under-tunnels of the arena. Unfortunately they ran into a group of very angry and particularly savage ssurrans and their Jhakar warbeasts. Now once more, the PCs had the option of saving the mysterious elven stranger or perhaps to let the ssurrans have their way, picking off whoever was left. It turns out the PCs decision to engage was suitable, for the elven arcanist Elana lasted barely a round against the ssurran minion hunters - who tore her down easily with their crude picks. </p><p></p><p>This actually led to a bit of controversy for the session, which I think was mostly my inability to explain these were arena bred and trained monsters. Upon striking the final blow on Elana and dropping her unconscious, the minions used this shifting power to immediately disseminate out: Moving towards the PCs position. This apparently caused some issues as the PCs felt this was very meta. They felt that I had done it to deliberately avoid the wizards area scorching burst, when I actually just wanted to get room away from the NPC (in case they healed her) so they could charge a fresh PC on their next turn. The avoidance of scorching burst had actually been a secondary consideration. </p><p></p><p>As an aside, such tactical thinking is probably because to make minions effective at epic tier I basically never grouped them up. In fact, I especially like a good controller vs. minion contest. It's one of the most interesting battles that you can set up in 4E, because the minions want to stay apart while still mobbing enemies to deal damage effectively - all the while trying to avoid the controller.</p><p></p><p>At the time it was mostly just my strategy for getting the minions up into the battle with the PCs faster: Especially as they dropped Elana without her getting a single turn. As well as this, it was just something I felt was logical especially as these are not just random monsters - they are the survivors of <em>many</em> brutal arena battles for the entertainment of the masses. Under the command of the smarter shamans - who are a pretty neat monster that has golden runes literally emblazoned on its scales that give it power - they are hardly stupid combatants. I am consistently reminded that it's important to reinforce these concepts more and really sell them. It probably doesn't help I never felt the need to use the arena monster powers I gave many of the creatures.</p><p></p><p>Of course the PCs do know that there are delightful salt zombies in the under-tunnels that have infiltrated the place. They can expect some rollicking encounters there and zombies definitely don't have any smarts - so they will get a clear difference between monsters trained for an arena battle specifically and braindead zombies.</p><p></p><p>Of course Elana decided to ruin all my plans by rolling a natural 20 on her death saving throw and getting back up off the floor. This forced the minions back and bought the PCs an additional round free of their attentions while they sought to finish the job properly. The shaman managed to dominate Ka'Cha, but this was a short lived thing and they mostly focused on dazing PCs to make life awkward. Elana killed a minion that got overly ambitious in trying to move away from her (from prone), but its colleagues got upset and sent her back into lala land. Team monster scored a moral victory by beating up the monk and managing to whack the Battlemind a lot. The hunters harassed the wizard (though one promptly exploded from infernal wrath for the insult) and the others got a couple of strikes into the thief.</p><p></p><p>It's worth noting that Eshara has picked up toughness, combined with Scars of Bloodsand that's an additional +10 HP. At 2nd level she has 49HP and a surge value of 12HP. That's <em>exceptional</em> for 2nd level. In fact she was never under any major fear of falling all combat: A sign that bodes very well for the whole party. Especially in the deadly under-tunnels to come. Towards the end of the combat the controller got his moment to shine: Othagal caught 4 of the creatures with a burning hands spell (Close blast 5) and then promptly finished off the last wounded ssurran shaman and minion with arc lightning (killing 4 of the last 5 creatures in one round).</p><p></p><p>One the final creature fell, Ianto saw to the elf almost immediately - establishing that Ianto did have an idea who she was - before seeing to any of the PCs injuries. If you're wondering, Ianto acts a bit like a free "healing surge" extender, because each combat they can effectively get 2 surgeless heals out of him. Well as long as he isn't in a terrible amount of bits anyway - he is after all a sadistic crazy infernal fixer upper and not a warrior. While the PCs spoke to Elana, they learned from Ianto - who btw is terrible at keeping his mouth shut - that she is a member of the veiled alliance. I decided to drop a little hint to the party she might be suspicious of them, despite saving her life when she stared at Othagal quite intently before continuing with showing them into the tunnels.</p><p></p><p>So now I have Ianto, who is a useful fellow who isn't particularly good under immense stress as he has "trained" some of the beasts. The same beasts that are now quite happily loose in the arena. Given his surgical techniques can border on torture, it is without saying some of the more intelligent arena monsters might have it in for him. Elana is now also with the party and her motivations are not exactly completely known. Should she know of Othagals defiling in the arena... there could be major trouble. <strong>Major trouble</strong>.</p><p></p><p>Interesting times are ahead.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Aegeri, post: 5399847, member: 78116"] [CENTER][b]Dark Sun: Builder's Cry[/b] [/CENTER] After sorting out some internet drama, which I was pretty sure was going to cost me the game we got away to the PCs updating their tokens a little bit. I decided it was going to be a nice return to hitting some things this session after last sessions very slow paced horror. The first order of business was dealing with a tiefling Ianto, who had built himself a "fort" out of some of the tables in the room to hold off the escaped beasts. Once it was decided that he wasn't trying to kill them, they discovered he was responsible for the general patching up of arena beasts and gladiators that were wounded in the arena. Here they learned some important in character details about three-fang and other arena beats he had worked on. In particular, their characters learned that whoever Three-Fang bites tends to die horrifically due to the creature hunting them down. The wound was more than just an injury, whenever it flares up it means the horrific beast is someone nearby. He also mentioned that he could permanently patch up and shore up wounds on a PC with his remaining reagents. This gave the PCs their access to the first "magical" item in the game. Now I thought about magical items and Dark Sun a lot. For one thing, I've restricted items so much in this PCs cannot even create or easily purchase (though it is possible) basic common items. Given this is an inherent bonuses campaign I don't feel this is too bad. What I wanted to do with the limited items I needed to give out each item was try to make them all really special. Not just throw a +1 something or another at the party, but really make every magical item something unique and exciting if possible. Not everything will be like this for practical reasons, but I wanted to make as many items as possible something truly special. Either in the games narrative or just cool. Hence this rare item, the Scars of Bloodsand. [b]Scars of Bloodsand[/b] [i]Deep stitches in the most severe of your injuries, covered up with strange embalming fluid like substances and enchanted tattoos covers your body. Aside from making you tougher both physically and mentally, when bloodied the pain of these old wounds flares causing you to fight even harder.[/i] [b]Level 5 Rare Item[/b] [b]Wondrous Item: Tattoo[/b] [b]Property[/b]: You gain a +5 bonus to your HP total [b]Property[/b]: When you are bloodied you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls. [b]Daily Power[/b]: When you are bloodied you may make an at-will melee attack against an enemy within reach as a free action. This item can be improved using rituals or just through the storyline to a level 15 and 25 version, each tier adding an additional +5 HP and +2 bonus damage (so +15 HP and +6 damage while bloodied at epic). Balance wise, I wanted to make sure when I gave my players a rare item it felt like big deal and was something they [i]wanted[/i]. If they said "Meh, who cares who gets it" then that is by far the worst thing - well unless it is clearly for a specific PC in mind. When I did make this, I did have the Battlemind or Monk, who have been taking a grade A beating in this game in mind. The extra HP were basically to help with survivability - especially early on as many DS monsters are frankly insane for damage (Silt Runners are 4d6+6 at level 1!). Ultimately Eshara made the sacrifice to have the enchanted stitching, fluids and god knows what else Ianto did to her. Upon the immense pain and suffering ending after 30 minutes of rather cruel work, she was the new recipient of the enchanted tattoo and all the tougher for it. Good for her as well because she was soon going to need it! At this point, I offered the PCs a fairly clear choice on how to proceed. They could try a rather heroic storming of the front of the arena, beating their way through whatever gladiators, escaped monsters and templars were in the way. Alternatively, with some coercion they learned that Ianto had been helping individuals sneak in and out of the arena. Some of the tiles in an abandoned barracks - now used for caging the odd prison or random animal - were very lose. These led to a network of tunnels further under the arena again and where the PCs could sneak out silently. Although it seems a very simple choice (either A or B) it actually has a pretty high ramification on the rest of the campaign. Of course we shall see how this pans out with the PCs over the next few sessions! But none the less they took the option to get out silently, avoiding a direct conflict with the templars rallying their defense to the strong archways and stone of the arena. Allowing Ianto to go with them, due to his handy years of stitch-work and ability to prevent even the strongest wound debilitating a warrior (albeit, he is the *worst* for sterility...) the party set off for the barracks. The first order of business was that someone else had already tried sneaking through the under-tunnels of the arena. Unfortunately they ran into a group of very angry and particularly savage ssurrans and their Jhakar warbeasts. Now once more, the PCs had the option of saving the mysterious elven stranger or perhaps to let the ssurrans have their way, picking off whoever was left. It turns out the PCs decision to engage was suitable, for the elven arcanist Elana lasted barely a round against the ssurran minion hunters - who tore her down easily with their crude picks. This actually led to a bit of controversy for the session, which I think was mostly my inability to explain these were arena bred and trained monsters. Upon striking the final blow on Elana and dropping her unconscious, the minions used this shifting power to immediately disseminate out: Moving towards the PCs position. This apparently caused some issues as the PCs felt this was very meta. They felt that I had done it to deliberately avoid the wizards area scorching burst, when I actually just wanted to get room away from the NPC (in case they healed her) so they could charge a fresh PC on their next turn. The avoidance of scorching burst had actually been a secondary consideration. As an aside, such tactical thinking is probably because to make minions effective at epic tier I basically never grouped them up. In fact, I especially like a good controller vs. minion contest. It's one of the most interesting battles that you can set up in 4E, because the minions want to stay apart while still mobbing enemies to deal damage effectively - all the while trying to avoid the controller. At the time it was mostly just my strategy for getting the minions up into the battle with the PCs faster: Especially as they dropped Elana without her getting a single turn. As well as this, it was just something I felt was logical especially as these are not just random monsters - they are the survivors of [i]many[/i] brutal arena battles for the entertainment of the masses. Under the command of the smarter shamans - who are a pretty neat monster that has golden runes literally emblazoned on its scales that give it power - they are hardly stupid combatants. I am consistently reminded that it's important to reinforce these concepts more and really sell them. It probably doesn't help I never felt the need to use the arena monster powers I gave many of the creatures. Of course the PCs do know that there are delightful salt zombies in the under-tunnels that have infiltrated the place. They can expect some rollicking encounters there and zombies definitely don't have any smarts - so they will get a clear difference between monsters trained for an arena battle specifically and braindead zombies. Of course Elana decided to ruin all my plans by rolling a natural 20 on her death saving throw and getting back up off the floor. This forced the minions back and bought the PCs an additional round free of their attentions while they sought to finish the job properly. The shaman managed to dominate Ka'Cha, but this was a short lived thing and they mostly focused on dazing PCs to make life awkward. Elana killed a minion that got overly ambitious in trying to move away from her (from prone), but its colleagues got upset and sent her back into lala land. Team monster scored a moral victory by beating up the monk and managing to whack the Battlemind a lot. The hunters harassed the wizard (though one promptly exploded from infernal wrath for the insult) and the others got a couple of strikes into the thief. It's worth noting that Eshara has picked up toughness, combined with Scars of Bloodsand that's an additional +10 HP. At 2nd level she has 49HP and a surge value of 12HP. That's [i]exceptional[/i] for 2nd level. In fact she was never under any major fear of falling all combat: A sign that bodes very well for the whole party. Especially in the deadly under-tunnels to come. Towards the end of the combat the controller got his moment to shine: Othagal caught 4 of the creatures with a burning hands spell (Close blast 5) and then promptly finished off the last wounded ssurran shaman and minion with arc lightning (killing 4 of the last 5 creatures in one round). One the final creature fell, Ianto saw to the elf almost immediately - establishing that Ianto did have an idea who she was - before seeing to any of the PCs injuries. If you're wondering, Ianto acts a bit like a free "healing surge" extender, because each combat they can effectively get 2 surgeless heals out of him. Well as long as he isn't in a terrible amount of bits anyway - he is after all a sadistic crazy infernal fixer upper and not a warrior. While the PCs spoke to Elana, they learned from Ianto - who btw is terrible at keeping his mouth shut - that she is a member of the veiled alliance. I decided to drop a little hint to the party she might be suspicious of them, despite saving her life when she stared at Othagal quite intently before continuing with showing them into the tunnels. So now I have Ianto, who is a useful fellow who isn't particularly good under immense stress as he has "trained" some of the beasts. The same beasts that are now quite happily loose in the arena. Given his surgical techniques can border on torture, it is without saying some of the more intelligent arena monsters might have it in for him. Elana is now also with the party and her motivations are not exactly completely known. Should she know of Othagals defiling in the arena... there could be major trouble. [b]Major trouble[/b]. Interesting times are ahead. [/QUOTE]
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