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Rangda's Zeitgeist Campaign (SPOILERS)
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<blockquote data-quote="rangda" data-source="post: 6000795" data-attributes="member: 86125"><p><strong>8//26 Session</strong></p><p></p><p>The session starts with the party standing outside the hedge maze. They decide that the easiest way to get in and get Gillie to come out and play is to set the maze on fire (having a fire elementalist makes this particularly easy). Sure enough both work and this encounter ends up being pretty easy. The damage Gillie takes from the hedge maze really works against him here (area attacks can just set too much on fire too fast).</p><p></p><p>The party heads inside the tower and manages to come upon the duchess and Asrabey in the middle of their argument without being heard and listen in. Upon being discovered, Ford spends a Diplomacy IP to talk to Asrabey rather than fight. They ponder his terms of "I leave and take Nathan with me" and decide they'd rather fight him and maybe die than get on Lya's bad side and potentially cause an international incident by letting Asrabey get away with Nathan. I ran using the L20 version of Asrabey, but in my game I'm trying to fudge out the half level add from all the math so I lowered his defenses and attack bonus (but left his high damage). This allowed the players to hit him with moderate dice rolls (13-15) but left the problem of soaking up his damage output. It was a bit tight but they took him down. Lacy and Savanna had both taken Shields of Protection as their magic items from the requisition money, and the resist 10 all effect x2 is what tipped the scales in their favor (that and 2 leaders).</p><p></p><p>Nathan requests asylum as he doesn't want to go back to Danor. (Did the module say why? If so I missed it.) The party decides to defer on that and ask Lya if it's OK that he come. Given her pending marriage she allows it and the party has to spend a moment picking their jaws up from the ground after hearing about the marriage.</p><p></p><p>After about 2 hours of picking L2 magic items and printing (I let them do it off the Z2 clock so they had the items to start) we dive into Z2.</p><p></p><p>They get the call for to investigate the body and head out. As expected this scene showcases investigation points as they figure out far more than I expect most parties would, but at the cost of blowing most of their IP. They get all of the clues from the body and the embassy itself; they even manage a look at the 4th floor w/o escort (but wisely avoid actually going into the consul's office). Carlie distracts LeBrix by wanting to go upstairs (which he really doesn't want); this frees up Ford to get some alone time with Tia, who provides them with the records of Dr. Wolfgan's visit. They then flip the good-guy bad-guy with Ford making waves about taking Tia into HQ for questioning. Of course they have zero authority to do this but his making a fuss about it forces LeBrix to deal with him leaving Carlie with a flunky. She manages to get rid of said flunky with a 25 bluff check (rolled a 15) and off she goes upstairs to discover the office lock having been picked and the blood stains and splash pattern.</p><p></p><p>With their last IP they manage to find the signs of a fight outside and the deed but miss the blood stain.</p><p></p><p>They leave the embassy "knowing":</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Most of what LeBrix said was a lie, and that he's not really happy about lieing.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Nilasa had a face wound, probably a slash from a claw) that was healed post-mortem</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Nilasa was shot after being impaled on the fence</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">She had an empty vial, used an invisibility elixer (probaby in the vial)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Used flight magic</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Drugged the workers with fey pepper in the chocolates</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Was bailed by Heward Sechim</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">She frequented the Thinking Man's Tavern</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Probably picked the lock of the consul's office</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Had an accomplice, Dr. Wolfgang, that took whatever she stole + her pendant away, got in a fight, losing the deed to the barge.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Either LeBrix is hiding something and can make himself look completely black, or there was anoother unmentioned party here.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Danorans have a barge, which is most likely up to something illegal</li> </ul><p>They've gotten Dr. Wolfgang's involvement totally wrong and taken the wrong impression of the barge deed, but it will be fun to see what they do with those. They also missed the eye witness clue about there being another person here so they aren't sure if the black shape was LeBrix or someone else.</p><p></p><p>NOTE: My party really got hung up on 4e mechanics here. The math of Nilasa flying 40' and landing on the spikes just doesn't work according to 4e rules and my party really got stuck on trying to explain how this happened using D&D combat mechanics (which of course it can't be). They really tunneled on this and I had to push them away from it. They kept trying to put it on a combat grid and explain the math away and then try to figure out why she would end her combat turn of flight over the spikes killing herself. Other GM's might want to take note of this and tell them up front to not meta here if your party is prone to such things.</p><p></p><p>At this point they split up, Savanna & Ford head to the Parity Lake police station to get a copy of Nilasa's rap sheet while Cyrus, Carlie, and Lacy calling a Flint favor to get a dragnet started for the nefarious Dr. Wolfgang. Having used 1 favor for a dragnet the fail the diplomacy check for a second favor for the rap sheet and have to cool their heels for a few hours while the "very busy" records office gets it for them. Meanwhile the dragnet doesn't find Wolfgang but it does come up with the person of interest report taking the cabbie's statement about taking someone matching his description to the House of Blue Bird.</p><p></p><p>At this point they ponder all of their leads:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Try to get the truth from LeBrix</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Investigate the House of Blue Bird</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Investigate the Thinking Man's Tavern</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Try to find the source of the fey pepper</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Talk to Heward</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Talk to Ford & Travis.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Look for the Wolfgang needle in the Flint haystack</li> </ul><p>Since it's 7:30pm they decide to head to the tavern for dinner, drinks and (hopefully) information. They head in as private citizens rather than law enforcement, order dinner and try to take in the lay of the land. Some investigative skills point them to Bab, Jad, and Hennet as likely people to talk to. At this point they spot Thames and invite him to the table; Carlie and Lacy are both dockers and they handled the docker situation at the king's speech really well from Thame' viewpoint (they released the dockers to Thames on his word they would cause no further trouble). So he was happy to join them and talk shop about his work trying to create the docker union, which Carlie and Lacy are genuinely supportive of.</p><p></p><p>Thames being a regular here confirms who they should talk to but warns that Babs & Nilasa were close so they have to be gentle with her, and that in general they will get a lot more here with a carrot than with a stick.</p><p></p><p>Carlie heads off to get Babs alone and break the news that Nilasa is dead and see if Babs could help find the scoundrels who would do such a thing to her (leaving the subject of international espionage out of the discussion). Ford and Cyrus, meanwhile try to strike up a conversation with Hennet. I decide to be a bit cruel and give Hennet a small chance to recognize the party given their 15 min of fame in the papers after Z1 and promptly roll a 16 so he indeed recognizes them (my dice like to do that). So despite their best efforts they get sucked into his philosophical game. But they are good sports and play it out which makes him at least satisfied. </p><p></p><p>Thames does bristle at the party being treated as "the man", especially Carlie and Lacy who he is thinking of more as dockers than law enforcement and has a slight outburst sticking up for them. This certainly helps, and along with some smooth talking from Carlie convinces the dockers to give what they know. The party leaves the tavern knowing that Nilasa associated with some brigands in the Cloudwood and that Nilasa was having letters written to Morgan about something most likely illegal and involving large sums of money.</p><p></p><p>They finish the day off sending an express letter off to LeBrix inviting him out for dinner tomorrow, but he declines as he is "far too busy" for the next couple of weeks.</p><p></p><p>This takes us to 2nd summer. They start the day giving Delf a status report and again split up. Cyrus and Ford head to Bosum Strand to check out the barge and also search for the fey pepper supplier in that district. Carlie, Lacy, and Savanna head to Parity Lake to talk to Heward and search that district for fey pepper. The plan is to meet up at Bosum Strand and call in a Flint favor to take a ship out to the prison boats to talk to Ford & Travis.</p><p></p><p>The barge is of course a waste of time, but they do have to get a warrant to search which costs a RHC favor to get it quick (and wastes an hour of travel time). And the search for the pepper comes up empty.</p><p></p><p>The protests at the Parity Lake really hit home for Carlie and Lacy who are much more supportive of the workers than the owners. There was mention that hanging an owner or two might teach them a valuable lesson but it was left at a comment. They meet Heward and are impressed with his factory, but don't really get much information here. They do, however, get the request to meet with Nevard to talk with Gale which gives them another thread to follow.</p><p></p><p>Next up is a trip to the prison to talk with Ford & Travis. They decide to split up and talk to them separately. Both groups balk at providing a pardon, but decide that since the visiting rights will just cost time and not a favor they will be OK putting that leg work in. I skip the skill checks as they spit up in such a way to keep appropriate investigative skills in each party so after some time they find out about the smuggling operation Nilasa is ivolved in (busy girl!) and the "house elf".</p><p></p><p>At this point they have the bright idea to head to the Pine Island docks instead of back to the Bosum Strand docks, as they haven't checked there for the fey pepper yet and it's a more efficient use of time. They ask around for the fey pepper and learn about Dansica's shop. They also ask around about the House Elf and learn about Blander. At this point it's getting rather late in the day, they decide to call it a day, get a warrant to search Dansica's shop and come back tomorrow pre-armed with the ability to do a thorough search (under the assumption that they might very well turn up some contraband at the shop).</p><p></p><p>Next morning they update Delf, call in a favor for the warrant, and head to Dansica's in separate groups. The plan is for Carlie and Lacy to go in posing as part of whatever group of Cloudwood brigands Nilasa was associated with telling Dansica that they still expect their wands. After 5 minutes if they didn't come back out the rest of the party would barge in as law enforcement, lock the place down, and use the warrant to do a thorough search. The party didn't call in a favor for back up here and they really should have. </p><p></p><p>In my game Nilasa's death made the papers, and while she wasn't mentioned by name there was a sketch so the Waryeye's knew she was dead. I couldn't find anywhere in the module where it said how much the Waryeye's know about Gale's group, so I figured with sufficient bluff this actually had a shot of working, at least for a while. Carlie promptly rolled a 1 but used an action point to reroll (house rule) flipping the 1 into an 18. A 28 bluff check easily convinced Dansica that they were on the level which tells them that the Waryeye's are dirty (at leaste Dansica is). Carlie and Lacy spend some time casing the shop and Carlie notices the gnome sized secret door and (more importantly) the holes in the ceiling for the dreaming dust trap.</p><p></p><p>They decide they'll let the 5 minutes go by to trigger the search and see what happens, having given the impression to Dansica that they are at least business associates if not allies.</p><p></p><p>The session ends here so we'll start in 2 weeks (most likely) with a fight with the Waryeye's.</p><p></p><p>Despite my group being a combat group we had no fights in all of Z2 this session, yet they still really enjoyed it (having a couple of Z1 fights in the session probably helped). All this investigation stuff is new for us, and the investigation skill rules were great for letting them find clues. Instead of flailing at high DC die rolls they are flailing at piecing together the clues, but at least for my group that is a lot more fun. It also gave them an almost overwhelming amount of information; we've got a 4x3 whiteboard in the game room which is covered in notes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="rangda, post: 6000795, member: 86125"] [b]8//26 Session[/b] The session starts with the party standing outside the hedge maze. They decide that the easiest way to get in and get Gillie to come out and play is to set the maze on fire (having a fire elementalist makes this particularly easy). Sure enough both work and this encounter ends up being pretty easy. The damage Gillie takes from the hedge maze really works against him here (area attacks can just set too much on fire too fast). The party heads inside the tower and manages to come upon the duchess and Asrabey in the middle of their argument without being heard and listen in. Upon being discovered, Ford spends a Diplomacy IP to talk to Asrabey rather than fight. They ponder his terms of "I leave and take Nathan with me" and decide they'd rather fight him and maybe die than get on Lya's bad side and potentially cause an international incident by letting Asrabey get away with Nathan. I ran using the L20 version of Asrabey, but in my game I'm trying to fudge out the half level add from all the math so I lowered his defenses and attack bonus (but left his high damage). This allowed the players to hit him with moderate dice rolls (13-15) but left the problem of soaking up his damage output. It was a bit tight but they took him down. Lacy and Savanna had both taken Shields of Protection as their magic items from the requisition money, and the resist 10 all effect x2 is what tipped the scales in their favor (that and 2 leaders). Nathan requests asylum as he doesn't want to go back to Danor. (Did the module say why? If so I missed it.) The party decides to defer on that and ask Lya if it's OK that he come. Given her pending marriage she allows it and the party has to spend a moment picking their jaws up from the ground after hearing about the marriage. After about 2 hours of picking L2 magic items and printing (I let them do it off the Z2 clock so they had the items to start) we dive into Z2. They get the call for to investigate the body and head out. As expected this scene showcases investigation points as they figure out far more than I expect most parties would, but at the cost of blowing most of their IP. They get all of the clues from the body and the embassy itself; they even manage a look at the 4th floor w/o escort (but wisely avoid actually going into the consul's office). Carlie distracts LeBrix by wanting to go upstairs (which he really doesn't want); this frees up Ford to get some alone time with Tia, who provides them with the records of Dr. Wolfgan's visit. They then flip the good-guy bad-guy with Ford making waves about taking Tia into HQ for questioning. Of course they have zero authority to do this but his making a fuss about it forces LeBrix to deal with him leaving Carlie with a flunky. She manages to get rid of said flunky with a 25 bluff check (rolled a 15) and off she goes upstairs to discover the office lock having been picked and the blood stains and splash pattern. With their last IP they manage to find the signs of a fight outside and the deed but miss the blood stain. They leave the embassy "knowing": [LIST] [*]Most of what LeBrix said was a lie, and that he's not really happy about lieing. [*]Nilasa had a face wound, probably a slash from a claw) that was healed post-mortem [*]Nilasa was shot after being impaled on the fence [*]She had an empty vial, used an invisibility elixer (probaby in the vial) [*]Used flight magic [*]Drugged the workers with fey pepper in the chocolates [*]Was bailed by Heward Sechim [*]She frequented the Thinking Man's Tavern [*]Probably picked the lock of the consul's office [*]Had an accomplice, Dr. Wolfgang, that took whatever she stole + her pendant away, got in a fight, losing the deed to the barge. [*]Either LeBrix is hiding something and can make himself look completely black, or there was anoother unmentioned party here. [*]The Danorans have a barge, which is most likely up to something illegal [/LIST] They've gotten Dr. Wolfgang's involvement totally wrong and taken the wrong impression of the barge deed, but it will be fun to see what they do with those. They also missed the eye witness clue about there being another person here so they aren't sure if the black shape was LeBrix or someone else. NOTE: My party really got hung up on 4e mechanics here. The math of Nilasa flying 40' and landing on the spikes just doesn't work according to 4e rules and my party really got stuck on trying to explain how this happened using D&D combat mechanics (which of course it can't be). They really tunneled on this and I had to push them away from it. They kept trying to put it on a combat grid and explain the math away and then try to figure out why she would end her combat turn of flight over the spikes killing herself. Other GM's might want to take note of this and tell them up front to not meta here if your party is prone to such things. At this point they split up, Savanna & Ford head to the Parity Lake police station to get a copy of Nilasa's rap sheet while Cyrus, Carlie, and Lacy calling a Flint favor to get a dragnet started for the nefarious Dr. Wolfgang. Having used 1 favor for a dragnet the fail the diplomacy check for a second favor for the rap sheet and have to cool their heels for a few hours while the "very busy" records office gets it for them. Meanwhile the dragnet doesn't find Wolfgang but it does come up with the person of interest report taking the cabbie's statement about taking someone matching his description to the House of Blue Bird. At this point they ponder all of their leads: [LIST] [*]Try to get the truth from LeBrix [*]Investigate the House of Blue Bird [*]Investigate the Thinking Man's Tavern [*]Try to find the source of the fey pepper [*]Talk to Heward [*]Talk to Ford & Travis. [*]Look for the Wolfgang needle in the Flint haystack [/LIST] Since it's 7:30pm they decide to head to the tavern for dinner, drinks and (hopefully) information. They head in as private citizens rather than law enforcement, order dinner and try to take in the lay of the land. Some investigative skills point them to Bab, Jad, and Hennet as likely people to talk to. At this point they spot Thames and invite him to the table; Carlie and Lacy are both dockers and they handled the docker situation at the king's speech really well from Thame' viewpoint (they released the dockers to Thames on his word they would cause no further trouble). So he was happy to join them and talk shop about his work trying to create the docker union, which Carlie and Lacy are genuinely supportive of. Thames being a regular here confirms who they should talk to but warns that Babs & Nilasa were close so they have to be gentle with her, and that in general they will get a lot more here with a carrot than with a stick. Carlie heads off to get Babs alone and break the news that Nilasa is dead and see if Babs could help find the scoundrels who would do such a thing to her (leaving the subject of international espionage out of the discussion). Ford and Cyrus, meanwhile try to strike up a conversation with Hennet. I decide to be a bit cruel and give Hennet a small chance to recognize the party given their 15 min of fame in the papers after Z1 and promptly roll a 16 so he indeed recognizes them (my dice like to do that). So despite their best efforts they get sucked into his philosophical game. But they are good sports and play it out which makes him at least satisfied. Thames does bristle at the party being treated as "the man", especially Carlie and Lacy who he is thinking of more as dockers than law enforcement and has a slight outburst sticking up for them. This certainly helps, and along with some smooth talking from Carlie convinces the dockers to give what they know. The party leaves the tavern knowing that Nilasa associated with some brigands in the Cloudwood and that Nilasa was having letters written to Morgan about something most likely illegal and involving large sums of money. They finish the day off sending an express letter off to LeBrix inviting him out for dinner tomorrow, but he declines as he is "far too busy" for the next couple of weeks. This takes us to 2nd summer. They start the day giving Delf a status report and again split up. Cyrus and Ford head to Bosum Strand to check out the barge and also search for the fey pepper supplier in that district. Carlie, Lacy, and Savanna head to Parity Lake to talk to Heward and search that district for fey pepper. The plan is to meet up at Bosum Strand and call in a Flint favor to take a ship out to the prison boats to talk to Ford & Travis. The barge is of course a waste of time, but they do have to get a warrant to search which costs a RHC favor to get it quick (and wastes an hour of travel time). And the search for the pepper comes up empty. The protests at the Parity Lake really hit home for Carlie and Lacy who are much more supportive of the workers than the owners. There was mention that hanging an owner or two might teach them a valuable lesson but it was left at a comment. They meet Heward and are impressed with his factory, but don't really get much information here. They do, however, get the request to meet with Nevard to talk with Gale which gives them another thread to follow. Next up is a trip to the prison to talk with Ford & Travis. They decide to split up and talk to them separately. Both groups balk at providing a pardon, but decide that since the visiting rights will just cost time and not a favor they will be OK putting that leg work in. I skip the skill checks as they spit up in such a way to keep appropriate investigative skills in each party so after some time they find out about the smuggling operation Nilasa is ivolved in (busy girl!) and the "house elf". At this point they have the bright idea to head to the Pine Island docks instead of back to the Bosum Strand docks, as they haven't checked there for the fey pepper yet and it's a more efficient use of time. They ask around for the fey pepper and learn about Dansica's shop. They also ask around about the House Elf and learn about Blander. At this point it's getting rather late in the day, they decide to call it a day, get a warrant to search Dansica's shop and come back tomorrow pre-armed with the ability to do a thorough search (under the assumption that they might very well turn up some contraband at the shop). Next morning they update Delf, call in a favor for the warrant, and head to Dansica's in separate groups. The plan is for Carlie and Lacy to go in posing as part of whatever group of Cloudwood brigands Nilasa was associated with telling Dansica that they still expect their wands. After 5 minutes if they didn't come back out the rest of the party would barge in as law enforcement, lock the place down, and use the warrant to do a thorough search. The party didn't call in a favor for back up here and they really should have. In my game Nilasa's death made the papers, and while she wasn't mentioned by name there was a sketch so the Waryeye's knew she was dead. I couldn't find anywhere in the module where it said how much the Waryeye's know about Gale's group, so I figured with sufficient bluff this actually had a shot of working, at least for a while. Carlie promptly rolled a 1 but used an action point to reroll (house rule) flipping the 1 into an 18. A 28 bluff check easily convinced Dansica that they were on the level which tells them that the Waryeye's are dirty (at leaste Dansica is). Carlie and Lacy spend some time casing the shop and Carlie notices the gnome sized secret door and (more importantly) the holes in the ceiling for the dreaming dust trap. They decide they'll let the 5 minutes go by to trigger the search and see what happens, having given the impression to Dansica that they are at least business associates if not allies. The session ends here so we'll start in 2 weeks (most likely) with a fight with the Waryeye's. Despite my group being a combat group we had no fights in all of Z2 this session, yet they still really enjoyed it (having a couple of Z1 fights in the session probably helped). All this investigation stuff is new for us, and the investigation skill rules were great for letting them find clues. Instead of flailing at high DC die rolls they are flailing at piecing together the clues, but at least for my group that is a lot more fun. It also gave them an almost overwhelming amount of information; we've got a 4x3 whiteboard in the game room which is covered in notes. [/QUOTE]
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