Shackled City: Week Ten

[JoeGKushner]

Just finished Fane of the Drow yesterday, about, as I suspected, six hours of game play worth out of it, or in my group's case, two weeks worth of combat!

There were two parts left of the Fane. The party rested up before moving on. They quickly cleared out the drow fane itself. The party is very heavily melee oriented and know how to do things like flank, aid another, use healing on each other, when to retreat, etc... That and the action points.

They do tend to "meta" the action points a bit now that they remember they have them. Since they were close to 5th level, they tended to spend them quickly in almost everything from making attack rolls and saving throws, to making tumble checks to avoid being hit.

After the drow santum, they followed some notes about a royal burial ground. They have light spells on them so they're easy to see and noisy as heck so they were basically fighting one undead after another. As the drow notes indicated, the tombs had been plundered by a necromancer. Something I'll probably paly with latter, maybe use Heroes of Horror or something to stat out a dread necromancer (or Pale Master, or True Necromancer....)

The party had a heck of a time opening up the crypt of the ghost queen and in the end decided to just smash it open.

The "ghost queen" went down quick. One of the party members is a ritual warrior and one of his rituals treats his weapon as magical and he almost always rolled the % necessary to effect the queen. Even with her touching him twice and stealing 10 hit points, she was cut down quickly.

One thing the players mentioned is that they didn't like all the miniature stuff on the maps that had no coresponding notes in the actual adventure. Could've just been my reading though. The important thing is everyone had a good time.

I also set up some seeds for the adventurers. In Fane, there are some prisoners, one a dwarf, the other a human. I had the human be a farmer of tobaco from the outlying regions around Cauldron. Perhaps sold to the drow by the half-dwarf that the party had just killed, while the dwarf was unlucky enough to be caught in the first place.

One thing that the party wasn't expecting was the trade off of the humans they had left behind in the Malachite Fortress in the first place so they 'traded' the dwarf for the three humans and one gnome. That worked out well. The party and dwarves now have an ally in one of the NPC's who I decided was a captured member of the watch.

In addition, I've added the seed that someone has hired an assassin to kill off the Elan, who happens to be a soul knife. The one doing the hit? The xeph from Weapons of Legacy with the psychic blade of legacy. Figure he's about the right level to "inherit" it now.

Should be a good game next week!

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, my car is in the shop for 3K worth of work so I had to get a ride to the game and then a ride home. Cut the game time down from 4.5-5 hours to 3-3.5 hours.

The party has finished with the Fane and their little excursion into the Underdark. They're rested and healed. One of the players, Mark, playing a scout-fighter (thug variant from Unearthed Arcana), couldn't make it.

The city of Cauldron has been plauged of late by goblins. As the city is built on a volcano, there are many passages to the underdark. The party was contacted by the commander of the guards and asked to find out where the goblins were coming from.

They started by looking at the locations the goblins have hit and where they've left their marks at. During that time, I used one of the encounters from Weapons of Legacy, the one with the mind blade. I've wanted to test the stuff from Weapons for a while and mentioned to the players that I'd put this item into the game if any of them made a soul knife. One did and now he has the weapon. Ironically enough, this is one of the first magic weapons that my 5th level party has. And the +2 chain mail didn't hurt either!

It was a close fight though as the xeph's armor class was pretty good and the players were rolling really poorly. The fight was in a dark alley with rain and fog with people running on roof tops and making balance checks to stay in combat and avoid falling.

The wizard mage, Leaf, managed to finish her off as he was able to inflict small amounts of damage almost every round with magic missiles and even an ice bolt from the Book of Eldritch Might.

After that fight, they spend the next few hours wandering the city and finding mor exampels of the goblins grafitti. Some of the slogans were quite amusing like "who build city in volcano? Stupid humans" but others gave up a name, Drakthar.

After that, the party went to speak with Jenrya, the priestess of St. Cuthbert and asked to use her Star of Justice so that they could ask it some questions.

Then they went to seek out the red eyed dwarf as indicated by the Star and after some near physical violence with the dwarf, were attacked by wererats! (I love Skaven and have some Skaven miniatures so that worked well.) After the attack, the party came back to the dwarf's bathhouse invisible and discovered the stairs leading to the underdark.

Finding the entrance and noting the dwarf's somewhat strange behavior, and warned by the Star of Justice that he'd lie, they take their findings to the captain of the guard who is pleased with their work thus far and will escort them into the dwarf's home and allow them access to the underdark via that entrance. Even if it's nothing, they need to know so that they can cross it off the list of potential threats to the city.

And that's where I cut it. Since I'm getting a ride to work in the morning, I have to get up earlier. Game could've went on a little longer and got into a few encounters but...

So far so good. Not a lot of combat in that session but enough to keep things moving. Next session should be pretty straightforward. If they hussle, they might even finish it!

 

[Numion]

I ran my first SC session on saturday. I've not had any major balance problems with 3.0E, so I thought to create some. And all of my players probably can't make it every session, so I significantly upped the power of the PCs, and the players had thought the previous campaigns to be too difficult since they didn't like losing characters. So, we're using Gestalt with 50 point buy. First session had four players:

Monk / Wizard Sun Elf (A bald, short and stocky sun elf - kinda like Goldmember. Likes to grapple.)
Fighter / Wizard Sun Elf (Pretty usual stuff, fights with a bow)
Fighter / Rogue Moon Elf (Savage and uncultured elf, two-weapon flanker)
Fighter / Cleric Wood Elf (A combat monster with little personality. Two bastard swords)

They were quite quick to hone in on the Locksmith, and one player played the guilt / punishment angle on him pretty expertly, so Jzadirune was easy to get to. It is a quite normal dungeon crawl, but I think the gimmick with the gnome doors and coded keys (none had Gnomish) really enhances the place, and makes it memorable.

The opposition was pretty lame, I tried to use the Skulks as efficiently as I could, and while they did some damage their HPs just aren't up to the task. Tilt-a-pit traps are nasty, and almost killed one character. The numerous secret doors are not that difficult for a party of four elves, as they can just elf the room, and one of them is bound to notice a secret door. Actually they found the elevator to the next part immediately, shortcircuiting Jzadirune - they still decided to wipe out the skulks and dark creepers though. They didn't have time to encounter others than skulks, so I'm hoping to have some effect with the mimic or the automatons.

 

[JoeGKushner]

The party rogue, Pill, used a potion of invisibility to search through the one eyed dwarf's bath house and discovered another entrance to the underdark. Moving down, she discovered that's where the goblins were coming from or assumed so based on the graffiti on the wall.

Informing the city guard and the leader who hired them to take out the goblins, they put the dwarf under arrest and behind the scenes, learn that he's been charmed while the rogue gathers the rest of the party, they made their way down.

At this point in my game, I figure that the beholder is going to want to make sure that the party is either finished by the vampire, or they finish him off. The beholder knows that the vampire has been 'flexing' his status and muscle.

The party, all with light sources, some in heavy armor, clank around and attrack all sorts of attention fighting for well over twenty rounds. The initative board I've been playtesting came in handy to keep track of rounds.

The goblins had numbers but not much else save that some of them had the ebon servitor template from the Deluxe Book of Templates by Silverthrone Games. They have a damage feedback so that whenever one is hit, the person striking them takes 1 point of damage and it's only a +1 CR boost and goblins with levels of warrior aren't even a CR 1!

The more dangerous enemey at first were the wrogs. Ah, good old free trip attack. Took down a few characters using that. Players actually had to fight defensively while getting up and attacking, suffering those numerous attacks of opportunity.

Of course all the noise brought forth the bugbear vampire himself. He managed to tag the poor rogue three times, bringing her to 2nd level effectively, the elf mage once, the ritual warrior twice, and the soul knife once.

The ritual warrior game through again this time. One of his rituals allows his weapon to be treated as magical. Between him and the rogue using the skill Use Magic Device and touching the bugbear vampire with a wand of cure light wounds, the creature was finally reduced to gaseous form even after summoining the children of the night and getting 12 out of 18 wolves! Poor wolves thought got hit by a shrapnel blast from the mage which weakened them considerably.

So the bugbear vampire has to retreat. The party decides to retreat but find that the entrance way is blocked. Yeah, the beholder is deteremined that one or the other is going to die this time around.

The party cleared out most of the second level, which was reduced from it's standard amount of many of the goblins have fled or been killed. A few with worgs or adepts are still around.

After the second level, I gave the party XP and made them check for level loss. Only the rogue suffered level loss. Interestingly, because the ritual warrior is using Arcana Evolved xp, he didn't make 6th level so he and the rogue, which was 6th and lost a leve lto 5th, are 5th, and everyone else is 5th. The soul knife hasn't performed his first ritual yet so he gets no extra bonus or penalties from wielding the Weapon of Legacy.

 

[Sunderstone]

Recent events-
Kruk was killed by Drakthar, Morak is seeing his body safely home to Calimshan and Chalyndria is mysteriously missing. This left poor Smileon all alone. Smileon searched for new companions.

Current band of adventurers ...
Roondar Rivenstone, Gnome Wiz4
Cassandra Brightblade, Human Pal4 of Torm (a.k.a. St. Cuthbert )
Smileon Gribligtine, Halfling Rog4 (just caught up after being drained by Drakthar)
Auran The Hulking, Human Clr4 of Torm (strength domain, likes to Enlarge himself)



Earlier this evening we pretty much finished Chapter 2 "Drakthar's Way".
A simple Cure Moderate Wounds Spell (also the very last healing spell in the Cleric's arsenal) narrowly avoided a possible tpk in the throne room.
The Paladin was nearly killed when the party's Rogue used a sneak attack against her finally revealing that he had been Dominated earlier by Drakthar. The Paladin had been going toe-to-toe with Drakthar using an Alchemically-treated Greatsword +1 on loan from Jenya.

The dominated Rogue and Drakthar were flanking Cassandra and had her down to 2hp when a timely CMW from Auran brought her up to 21 hp. The Wizard was out of offensive magic and melee-ing with the Undead Throne (and losing). Cassandra finally brought down Drakthar which released Smileon from Drakthar's domination. Together again, the party destroyed the Throne while Smileon followed the gaseous form of Drakthar having seen him use that form before (as a voluntary mode of transportation previously). Running into a Dire Bat slowed the party down, but they already noticed the other ladder across the tunnel. They eventually found the trapdoor beneath the treasure and poured holy water onto Drakthar's grave dirt destroying him.

After examining the treasure, they tossed the 3500 silver pieces into the chest and decided to carry the Chest itself (with the other items both magical and mundane) out of the dungeon. They left the copper pieces untill they can get help moving all of it.
This is where we ended, the party is preparing to leave the dungeon with their treasure and inform Terseon that the goblin threat is most likely over.

The only place they havent been to is the last map with the Green Slime, Xoden Nightshield, and the Half-Orc mercs. So far they have no clue as to the existence of the half-orc merc part of the story . One of my players mentioned investigating the tunnel further though, we'll see what happens when we play again on sunday.

They do think that Kallev and Chorlyndyr most likely had another accomplice being that their room had 3 cots that looked fairly used.
In our previous session, they killed Chorlyndyr, apprehended Kallev, and brought her to the town guard above before going back into the dungeon. Kallev was defiant (and still dominated by Drakthar) and wouldnt give the party much information. If the party doesnt go to the last map, Ill have Xoden and the Half-Orc mercs moving about the dungeon as they are hauling their loot. This way I can still give the party bits of the story behind Drakthar's Way.

This campaign is alot of fun so far.

 

[Psion]

So, has this evolved into an "actual play in Shackled city" thread?

Ran the second session last night. I let the players make characters using some of the rules in Green Ronin's Advanced GM's Manual, namely the "bonus ECL" rule and the ability score rolls by class.

As I mentioned in another thread, I am running the game in Second World, a campaign setting that is basically a fantasy version of earth across the interdimentional hallway from d20 modern earth.

The characters are currently look like:

• Daldin Kaer - m Chaos Gnome Sorcerer 3 - looking to become a wild mage.
• Akilah Sanchez - f Ved Qayat Martial Artist 3 (Wyrm Blooded) (First world special forces background - I let her juggle her classes to a second world class rather than deal with the complication of d20 modern base and advanced classes that would be taking the long route to what she wanted.)
• Tash - m Uthuk Shaman 3 (Scarred Soul) (Northeast background)
• Mat - m Human Rogue 3 (Scion of Surabar) (Former street irchin background)

I have reservations about traits, but I figure that randomly rolling them limits the min/maxing.

I thought that the extra power might prove a nice hedge against the tales of TPKs I have heard, but it's really showing: session two and I don't think anyone has taken significant damage yet (they have made a circuit through the outer rim of Jzadirune, having slain the dark stalker*, one automaton, the grell, and the raggamoffyns.) The party pretty much went straight to Ghelve's from the orphanage. The already had suspicions about the locksmiths after talking to Jenya; a brief talk with the orphanage governess was enough to send them straight there, so they have yet to meet the striders.

* - I gave some real thoughts to using the ToH version of the dark stalker. It explodes when you kill it. But I was pressed for time and was pretty much running straight out of the book. Perhaps I'll assume the vanishing infected one simply lost this ability.

 

[Sunderstone]

So, has this evolved into an "actual play in Shackled city" thread?

I figured since Joe has been updating, I would too from time to time. I hope Im not mishandling this thread.
I dont think the thread pretty much qualifies for "story hour" status as it seems we are posting highlights at best. Its still interesting to see how others are handling the same adventure.

 

[zoroaster100]

Just wanted to put in my 2 cents and say I'm finding the hard cover well worth its price, even though I already owned all the magazines with the relevant adventures. It's great to have everything in one place, and the extras really make it easier to give the campaign as a whole more depth and verisimilitude. It's awesome!

 

[Sunderstone]

Just wanted to put in my 2 cents and say I'm finding the hard cover well worth its price, even though I already owned all the magazines with the relevant adventures. It's great to have everything in one place, and the extras really make it easier to give the campaign as a whole more depth and verisimilitude. It's awesome!

I agree 100%

 

[Psion]

Heh. Today my players finished out Jzadirune. The players ran into the mimic guarding the rat. When the mimic pandered for rations, the special forces first world character gave it a snickers bar.

It chewed it up and said "hey. That really satisfies you."

She gave him another snickers, and they asked the mimic if he wanted to acompany them, and it said "Nah. I'm not going anywhere for a while."