ZEITGEIST Tales of the RHC Irregulars [Zeitgeist spoilers through Always on Time]
So, haven't had enough time to post an update here in a while, but our campaign is still running strong. We're at the grand finale of Digging for Lies, and I've got a couple of questions regarding the Pathfinder version of the module...
For "Rally the RHC", if the party saves Delft, it says that "Bystanders who see Delft regain their wits and start fighting back." But, there's no mention of what stats to use for them, and the only other reference to the bystanders is in the sidebar at the top, where it says they're all noncombatants. The 4E version has a minion stat block for rallied staffers; is there a Pathfinder one?
For the "Collapse" outcome of the portal ritual, there's no actual effect listed aside from the Thing From Beyond emerging, though "Rupture" says to "Repeat the attack from Collapse above." Is there a specific effect that was intended to go here? The 4E version has a damaging attack listed. (Personally, I'm debating whether it should inflict aging penalties on PCs who fail a save TBD.)
Thanks for any feedback! I'll try and post back soon with at least a few of the highlights from the past year of playing.
For "Rally the RHC", if the party saves Delft, it says that "Bystanders who see Delft regain their wits and start fighting back." But, there's no mention of what stats to use for them, and the only other reference to the bystanders is in the sidebar at the top, where it says they're all noncombatants. The 4E version has a minion stat block for rallied staffers; is there a Pathfinder one?
For the "Collapse" outcome of the portal ritual, there's no actual effect listed aside from the Thing From Beyond emerging, though "Rupture" says to "Repeat the attack from Collapse above." Is there a specific effect that was intended to go here? The 4E version has a damaging attack listed. (Personally, I'm debating whether it should inflict aging penalties on PCs who fail a save TBD.)
Thanks for any feedback! I'll try and post back soon with at least a few of the highlights from the past year of playing.
RangerWickett
Legend
I'll make sure to fix these issues for the hardcover compilation.
I think "Delft rallies the rest of the RHC staff" is more of a background flavor thing, perhaps an excuse for you to not have the party be attacked by gidim warbeasts anymore.
The PF version should also have some damage. Maybe 5d6 negative energy damage (Ref half, DC 18) and 1 point of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution drain (Fort negates, DC 18). So far as far as I know only one group has actually let that happen.
I think "Delft rallies the rest of the RHC staff" is more of a background flavor thing, perhaps an excuse for you to not have the party be attacked by gidim warbeasts anymore.
The PF version should also have some damage. Maybe 5d6 negative energy damage (Ref half, DC 18) and 1 point of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution drain (Fort negates, DC 18). So far as far as I know only one group has actually let that happen.
This post is a highlight-reel summary of Dying Skyseer and the first 2/3 of Digging for Lies. I'll post a recap of our last session afterward.
Highlights from The Dying Skyseer and Digging for Lies:
During the smuggling operation, the party assaults the hideout. The boat casts off, Hannah swims after it while the party (with concerted effort) lights the boat on fire. Hannah's cut off from shore by the piranhas, and has to swim for the boat; Felix sees her plight and dives in after her. The two of them eventually end up subdued before the boat finishes burning down, but they manage to negotiate their release.
When planning their meeting with Gale, the party decides to try and get her to accept some object so they can use Locate Object later as a means of tracking her; the plan that's settled on is...Felix proposing to her. She declined the proposal and the ring, of course, but it was hilarious.
When Quintal showed up at the church, the party didn't bother with negotiating at all; they just went straight for the back door exit.
Had a really good followup session from the papers von Recklinghausen got from Nilasa. They backtracked a couple of the shell buyers, including faking a fire in one apartment building so they could get unfettered access to his apartment. Tec had a nice showdown with a recalcitrant bank manager.
After Macbannin was brought in to custody, Felix was bound and determined not to leave his side until the party could get his Geas lifted. As a result, the Ob were forced to replace the spellcaster dispatched to remove the geas with their own operative; instead of Break Enchantment, the caster felled the mayor with Slay Living before slipping into the Bleak Gate.
They didn't really do much with Rock Rackus - he was interrogated briefly after being brought in (he wound up accidentally taking out a civilian during the fight at the arms fair - we have a house rule where nat 1's have a chance of bad effects, one of which is hitting an ally), but I've just been using him as a bit of background flavor.
Pearce took to fairly heavy larceny during Digging for Lies. When asked during the audit about Kaja's bracers (which he had removed from her at the scene of the battle, then fenced without reporting), he turned it around and got official direction to ask around about various fences should anything similar happen in the future. I may have to do something about this eventually, but for now I'm just enjoying making the player sweat from time to time
The Apet ziggurat was a heck of a lot of fun. Upon entering, they started out entering the rainbow room; Pearce tossed a coin into the pit to gauge depth, which I decided would awaken all the monsters in the room. (Sadly - it would've been so much more fun if the party had been halfway through the puzzle before triggering the fight.) As soon as the first implanter tried to stick its proboscis down Felix's ear, the party collectively said "oh HECK no" and fled the temple, training Gidim beasts behind them. Once outside (and since the orbs were slower than the rest), they were able to take the Gidim out without losing anyone - still a close fight. They rested up before going in again, solved the rainbow puzzle, and wound up proceeding fairly directly to the portal room - tripping the flood trap without clearing anything else. They fled into the sliding room trap, and split themselves up - Pearce teleported out of the flood room and into the fire traps, Doc went around into the hallway with the needle and spear traps, and the rest of the group was stuck dealing with the Gidim beasts in the trap room. The rest of the party (barely) managed to escape, but Felix and Hannah decided to try and wait the flood out in the sliding-floor room; once the flood started rising above knee height, they hopped down and tried to get out, and _almost_ made it; Felix, carrying the unconscious Hannah, almost managed to fight past the last guardian mummy, but he rolled a nat-1 on his Concentration check to get a heal spell off. So, the two of them wound up geas'd to the Voice of Rot. (The Voice got less of a reaction than I'd been hoping for, sadly.)
The party bypassed the fight with Il Dracon de Mer entirely - Tec conjured illusory doubles of themselves to hide their departure underwater. The fight at the seal was kind of hilarious - I hadn't been planning to force the Mavisha creatures to emerge, but Tec's first action once they engaged was to create an illusion masking some of the diving bell lanterns; a couple of rounds later, I'd forgotten that that marker was an illusion. The sharks came charging in from the seal's side of the map, and the obvious PC target was lined up with it. It wasn't until the players pointed out that the sharks had swum into an air gap that their fate was sealed...the party prevailed, though.
The party had also become convinced that *Finona* was the target of the Voice's ire - and one of the first things they did was throw smokesticks into the area around the seal. No PC went down in there, so noone could see what was going on, but when the Mavisha beings attacked, the party was constantly asking "Is she bleeding? Has she been cut?" After the smoke cleared, they actually deliberately cut her while she was unconscious - and I took a little bit of evil DM-ly glee in telling Felix that his taste for rotted flesh was still there.
They cut a deal with Finona to let her leave in exchange for the letter from Caius (and picked up on the importance of the train ride immediately, so yay for that)! I decided that Finona, (since one of her mage assistants was a puddle of goo after the Mavisha explosion, and success on the portal opening was no longer possible) was going to try and cut ties with the Ob, rather than having Il Dracon attack the party. They bummed a ride back on the Dagger, and Xambria just teleported out once their questioning of her got a little too specific.
Back in town, they spent the rest of the session killing the three days before the gala. I used the barge decoy; the PCs think the Apet flask there was important, not that it was a red herring. I wish I'd been fast enough on my feet to follow up with it - they asked if they could locate anything similar (say, a taxi or something) - using those as a geographical marker indicating something would happen to close to HQ would've been a neat touch, but I didn't think of that until after the session, naturally.
Highlights from The Dying Skyseer and Digging for Lies:
During the smuggling operation, the party assaults the hideout. The boat casts off, Hannah swims after it while the party (with concerted effort) lights the boat on fire. Hannah's cut off from shore by the piranhas, and has to swim for the boat; Felix sees her plight and dives in after her. The two of them eventually end up subdued before the boat finishes burning down, but they manage to negotiate their release.
When planning their meeting with Gale, the party decides to try and get her to accept some object so they can use Locate Object later as a means of tracking her; the plan that's settled on is...Felix proposing to her. She declined the proposal and the ring, of course, but it was hilarious.
When Quintal showed up at the church, the party didn't bother with negotiating at all; they just went straight for the back door exit.
Had a really good followup session from the papers von Recklinghausen got from Nilasa. They backtracked a couple of the shell buyers, including faking a fire in one apartment building so they could get unfettered access to his apartment. Tec had a nice showdown with a recalcitrant bank manager.
After Macbannin was brought in to custody, Felix was bound and determined not to leave his side until the party could get his Geas lifted. As a result, the Ob were forced to replace the spellcaster dispatched to remove the geas with their own operative; instead of Break Enchantment, the caster felled the mayor with Slay Living before slipping into the Bleak Gate.
They didn't really do much with Rock Rackus - he was interrogated briefly after being brought in (he wound up accidentally taking out a civilian during the fight at the arms fair - we have a house rule where nat 1's have a chance of bad effects, one of which is hitting an ally), but I've just been using him as a bit of background flavor.
Pearce took to fairly heavy larceny during Digging for Lies. When asked during the audit about Kaja's bracers (which he had removed from her at the scene of the battle, then fenced without reporting), he turned it around and got official direction to ask around about various fences should anything similar happen in the future. I may have to do something about this eventually, but for now I'm just enjoying making the player sweat from time to time
The Apet ziggurat was a heck of a lot of fun. Upon entering, they started out entering the rainbow room; Pearce tossed a coin into the pit to gauge depth, which I decided would awaken all the monsters in the room. (Sadly - it would've been so much more fun if the party had been halfway through the puzzle before triggering the fight.) As soon as the first implanter tried to stick its proboscis down Felix's ear, the party collectively said "oh HECK no" and fled the temple, training Gidim beasts behind them. Once outside (and since the orbs were slower than the rest), they were able to take the Gidim out without losing anyone - still a close fight. They rested up before going in again, solved the rainbow puzzle, and wound up proceeding fairly directly to the portal room - tripping the flood trap without clearing anything else. They fled into the sliding room trap, and split themselves up - Pearce teleported out of the flood room and into the fire traps, Doc went around into the hallway with the needle and spear traps, and the rest of the group was stuck dealing with the Gidim beasts in the trap room. The rest of the party (barely) managed to escape, but Felix and Hannah decided to try and wait the flood out in the sliding-floor room; once the flood started rising above knee height, they hopped down and tried to get out, and _almost_ made it; Felix, carrying the unconscious Hannah, almost managed to fight past the last guardian mummy, but he rolled a nat-1 on his Concentration check to get a heal spell off. So, the two of them wound up geas'd to the Voice of Rot. (The Voice got less of a reaction than I'd been hoping for, sadly.)
The party bypassed the fight with Il Dracon de Mer entirely - Tec conjured illusory doubles of themselves to hide their departure underwater. The fight at the seal was kind of hilarious - I hadn't been planning to force the Mavisha creatures to emerge, but Tec's first action once they engaged was to create an illusion masking some of the diving bell lanterns; a couple of rounds later, I'd forgotten that that marker was an illusion. The sharks came charging in from the seal's side of the map, and the obvious PC target was lined up with it. It wasn't until the players pointed out that the sharks had swum into an air gap that their fate was sealed...the party prevailed, though.
The party had also become convinced that *Finona* was the target of the Voice's ire - and one of the first things they did was throw smokesticks into the area around the seal. No PC went down in there, so noone could see what was going on, but when the Mavisha beings attacked, the party was constantly asking "Is she bleeding? Has she been cut?" After the smoke cleared, they actually deliberately cut her while she was unconscious - and I took a little bit of evil DM-ly glee in telling Felix that his taste for rotted flesh was still there.
They cut a deal with Finona to let her leave in exchange for the letter from Caius (and picked up on the importance of the train ride immediately, so yay for that)! I decided that Finona, (since one of her mage assistants was a puddle of goo after the Mavisha explosion, and success on the portal opening was no longer possible) was going to try and cut ties with the Ob, rather than having Il Dracon attack the party. They bummed a ride back on the Dagger, and Xambria just teleported out once their questioning of her got a little too specific.
Back in town, they spent the rest of the session killing the three days before the gala. I used the barge decoy; the PCs think the Apet flask there was important, not that it was a red herring. I wish I'd been fast enough on my feet to follow up with it - they asked if they could locate anything similar (say, a taxi or something) - using those as a geographical marker indicating something would happen to close to HQ would've been a neat touch, but I didn't think of that until after the session, naturally.
The Gala went pretty much according to script. I decided to use Tyler, the Vekeshi nutcase, as a distraction (Elhaida had simply discarded the note she got from him); he snuck in and made an attempt at Rock, but Felix spotted him before he had a chance to do anything. Felix took him into the loading dock to arrest, and Xambria chose that moment to attack. (The party had had a low-level wizard cast a mental Alarm on the roof around the skylights; the mage had instructions to talk to Felix, so Felix got that tap on the shoulder just as Xambria crashed through the roof.) The fight in the Gala went pretty well; a couple of civilians got taken down by implanters, but the players had fun trying to figure out the details of how Twinmind Wayfarer worked. Felix tagged Xambria/Sijhen with Bestow Curse, opting for the "50% chance to do nothing on your turn" variant; that is one nasty spell. I ruled (privately) that Xambria and Sijhen would each make a roll; if only one of them failed, Xambria got a normal turn (no bonus action), but if they both failed she got no turn.
Once Xambria surrendered, they settled on taking her to the RHC without any prompting on my part. (On the way there, the grilled Tyler lightly, but not hard enough for him to even mention the Vekeshi.) Once the fight began, Pearce followed Xambria like a hawk. Xambria made it to Sijhen's office, and repeatedly stunned Pearce while using suggestion to get the star map. Felix wound up in a fight with 3 of the Obscurati on the top floor, and was almost taken out (wound up at 0 hp); he was saved at the last moment when Luthor critted one of the Ob from the far end of the hall, and Tec managed to get Charm Person to stick on the other one. Doc, Hannah, and Elhaida were busy with the first wave of Gidim reinforcements (and those same Gidim kept the remaining Ob trapped in one of the interrogation rooms.) Once Xambria left, Saxby collected the B-team and fled; the party let her go, focusing instead on Xambria/Sijhen and the Ob. (I completely forgot to run the Delft part of the encounter - whoops.
After getting the map, Xambria just barely stayed up long enough to reach the tunnel. Felix and Pearce both charged after her, knocking her out. Sijhen slipped out of Xambria's body, and activated the last lantern. (Not sure if the PCs will have time to notice; I'm refluffing it to 7 lanterns, each inscribed with an astronomical rune - think Stargate.) Sijhen asked the party to just let him go; Pearce used scent to locate him, and managed to connect on a blow - prompting Sijhen to free the seal, which collapsed on top of Felix. And that's when we ran out of time - Felix and Pearce are trapped with Sijhen and the Thing from Beyond for three more rounds, Felix almost out of HP and low on healing magic.
Once Xambria surrendered, they settled on taking her to the RHC without any prompting on my part. (On the way there, the grilled Tyler lightly, but not hard enough for him to even mention the Vekeshi.) Once the fight began, Pearce followed Xambria like a hawk. Xambria made it to Sijhen's office, and repeatedly stunned Pearce while using suggestion to get the star map. Felix wound up in a fight with 3 of the Obscurati on the top floor, and was almost taken out (wound up at 0 hp); he was saved at the last moment when Luthor critted one of the Ob from the far end of the hall, and Tec managed to get Charm Person to stick on the other one. Doc, Hannah, and Elhaida were busy with the first wave of Gidim reinforcements (and those same Gidim kept the remaining Ob trapped in one of the interrogation rooms.) Once Xambria left, Saxby collected the B-team and fled; the party let her go, focusing instead on Xambria/Sijhen and the Ob. (I completely forgot to run the Delft part of the encounter - whoops.
After getting the map, Xambria just barely stayed up long enough to reach the tunnel. Felix and Pearce both charged after her, knocking her out. Sijhen slipped out of Xambria's body, and activated the last lantern. (Not sure if the PCs will have time to notice; I'm refluffing it to 7 lanterns, each inscribed with an astronomical rune - think Stargate.) Sijhen asked the party to just let him go; Pearce used scent to locate him, and managed to connect on a blow - prompting Sijhen to free the seal, which collapsed on top of Felix. And that's when we ran out of time - Felix and Pearce are trapped with Sijhen and the Thing from Beyond for three more rounds, Felix almost out of HP and low on healing magic.
Finished off the Digging for Lies climax last night. Recap to follow, but I wanted to ask a quick question about Always on Time: Is there a PDF available that'll print the train cars to scale? It looks like they should just barely fit on a page (two cars/page, side-by-side) and it'd be nice to have a better-looking version than my rough redrawing onto graph paper. Thanks!
RangerWickett
Legend
We didn't commission the maps at that resolution, though I recall another poster doing some finagling to resize the images. I'll search around and see if I can find them.
Thanks for the link, that's precisely what I was looking for.
The whole party did survive the Digging for Lies capstone, though it was a close thing (and there could've been 1-2 deaths easily if I'd been playing bloodthirsty).
Felix and Pearce barely managed to survive their showdown with the worm. I had Sijhen hanging back, trying to talk them into letting him leave (and not breaking his invisibility by attacking). Felix channeled to keep them up, the Thing tossed the golden seal at Pearce (thereby freeing Felix), and then Pearce spent his time trying to track Sijhen with his catfolk scent while Felix occupied the Thing's attention (and started attacking the lanterns).
In the RHC, Elhaida (whose PC was absent) was deemed to be tending to the other RHC members. Doc fled down to his basement laboratory (mostly shrouded in deeper darkness by the Obscurati assassins), luring the last of the flashing orbs after him; Doc's lab is somewhat legendary in our game, and one of his favorite aspects is the "fire hose of acid". The orb got a couple of good tentacle whacks in, but the acid hose did it in in just a couple of rounds. (My made-up-on-the-spot house rule was that the acid hose basically functioned as a free alchemist bomb that dealt only acid damage.)
The rest of the PCs in the RHC (this rather baffled me) took off running towards an access tunnel to the rail line (that had been previously established to be ~240 feet away), instead of waiting the 2-3 more rounds for reality to become permeable again. I was kind and quietly reduced distances so that they only lost a single round of extra time compared to waiting (since "I'm running to get from A to B" is a really boring way to spend combat rounds).
Once they got there, events quickly turned in the party's favor. Tec had his rat deliver a light spell on the still-invisible Sijhen (in hindsight, since Sijhen had no gear, this probably shouldn't have worked. Ah well.), since his rat could use scent to pinpoint him as well. This prompted Sijhen to enter combat, but Pearce sneak-attacked him and knocked off most his HP in one blow; it only took him another couple of rounds to down Sijhen.
Felix eventually got taken down by the Thing; Hannah raced in to give him a potion, and got knocked out herself for her trouble. Felix was conscious again, though, and used his last channel followed by the Yerasol Veteran ability to get them both back up.
The rest of the party focused on shattering all the lanterns first (I was narrating each one as causing increasing instability in the "starfield" effect, but was very clear that the net vector of the streaking lights was still the same.) They were disappointed when shattering the last lantern did not instantly close the portal
Doc finally arrived after the next round of phasing reality, and critted the Thing with an acid bomb; for his trouble, he got grabbed and eaten. The rest of the party quickly knocked the Thing most of the way through phase 3, and on Doc's next turn he used his last bomb of the day to blow an escape hole out of the Thing, finishing it off.
Xambria's consciousness found a willing "roommate" in Hannah (after a brief conversation to establish some ground rules, namely that it's Hannah's body!), which briefly interrupted her efforts to get the rest of the party to put the seal into place, but they were able to lever the golden seal into place with ~3 rounds to spare. I'd gotten distracted by introducing Xambria's consciousness, and forgot about the explosion that should've happened - Felix was the only party member in real danger from it, and our house rule of "the rest of the party has 1 round to get you above the death threshold" would've kept him alive anyway.
Afterward, they tried to trace Saxby's footsteps immediately (her path led to the Strand, then vanished in bloodstains and Bleak Gate energy); there was Delft's promotion, and then Delft's "go get on the train" speech and we called it a night.
A few notes:
As usual, I buffed basically every enemy, mostly by adding HP; I brought the Thing all the way up to 200 HP, and it worked out pretty well, I thought.
The players weren't used to being quite so thoroughly depleted - Felix was totally out of channels, Tec had nothing but cantrips left, Doc and Hannah had both used every bomb they had. The museum encounter plus the finale is easily the longest set of encounters thus far. (This was not a complaint, on my part or theirs.)
I accidentally skipped the bit with Delft in the final scene; and didn't bother with the 2nd+ waves of Gidim (if I'd had them attack the RHC, there were no PCs left; if they'd gone after the party while they were engaged with Sijhen, it probably would've been a TPK.)
I was disappointed that they went straight to "shatter the lanterns". I'd mentally refluffed them as a bit of a Stargate reference - I removed one lantern so that there were only 7, and each would've been marked with a rune recognizable from the Ancient star map. Ah well.
I was also slightly surprised that they skipped raiding the evidence locker or quartermasters' supplies, but the way things played out, there really wasn't time for them to do so. They were laser-focused on Sijhen from the get-go, and really only stopped to address the Ob or the other Gidim when they got in the PCs' way.
The 20-round timer wound up being tighter than I'd initially guessed it would; it's rare for an encounter to go more than 5 rounds, IME, but the way the party got split up (and the amount of time they spent letting the Thing rage while plinking down lanterns) really increased the duration.
All in all, I had a great time running Digging for Lies, and the players had an excellent time as well. Always on Time will, I think, be a bit of a stretch for me to run - that's a lot of NPCs to keep straight, and a lot of social encountering, but I'm looking forward to it!
The whole party did survive the Digging for Lies capstone, though it was a close thing (and there could've been 1-2 deaths easily if I'd been playing bloodthirsty).
Felix and Pearce barely managed to survive their showdown with the worm. I had Sijhen hanging back, trying to talk them into letting him leave (and not breaking his invisibility by attacking). Felix channeled to keep them up, the Thing tossed the golden seal at Pearce (thereby freeing Felix), and then Pearce spent his time trying to track Sijhen with his catfolk scent while Felix occupied the Thing's attention (and started attacking the lanterns).
In the RHC, Elhaida (whose PC was absent) was deemed to be tending to the other RHC members. Doc fled down to his basement laboratory (mostly shrouded in deeper darkness by the Obscurati assassins), luring the last of the flashing orbs after him; Doc's lab is somewhat legendary in our game, and one of his favorite aspects is the "fire hose of acid". The orb got a couple of good tentacle whacks in, but the acid hose did it in in just a couple of rounds. (My made-up-on-the-spot house rule was that the acid hose basically functioned as a free alchemist bomb that dealt only acid damage.)
The rest of the PCs in the RHC (this rather baffled me) took off running towards an access tunnel to the rail line (that had been previously established to be ~240 feet away), instead of waiting the 2-3 more rounds for reality to become permeable again. I was kind and quietly reduced distances so that they only lost a single round of extra time compared to waiting (since "I'm running to get from A to B" is a really boring way to spend combat rounds).
Once they got there, events quickly turned in the party's favor. Tec had his rat deliver a light spell on the still-invisible Sijhen (in hindsight, since Sijhen had no gear, this probably shouldn't have worked. Ah well.), since his rat could use scent to pinpoint him as well. This prompted Sijhen to enter combat, but Pearce sneak-attacked him and knocked off most his HP in one blow; it only took him another couple of rounds to down Sijhen.
Felix eventually got taken down by the Thing; Hannah raced in to give him a potion, and got knocked out herself for her trouble. Felix was conscious again, though, and used his last channel followed by the Yerasol Veteran ability to get them both back up.
The rest of the party focused on shattering all the lanterns first (I was narrating each one as causing increasing instability in the "starfield" effect, but was very clear that the net vector of the streaking lights was still the same.) They were disappointed when shattering the last lantern did not instantly close the portal
Doc finally arrived after the next round of phasing reality, and critted the Thing with an acid bomb; for his trouble, he got grabbed and eaten. The rest of the party quickly knocked the Thing most of the way through phase 3, and on Doc's next turn he used his last bomb of the day to blow an escape hole out of the Thing, finishing it off.
Xambria's consciousness found a willing "roommate" in Hannah (after a brief conversation to establish some ground rules, namely that it's Hannah's body!), which briefly interrupted her efforts to get the rest of the party to put the seal into place, but they were able to lever the golden seal into place with ~3 rounds to spare. I'd gotten distracted by introducing Xambria's consciousness, and forgot about the explosion that should've happened - Felix was the only party member in real danger from it, and our house rule of "the rest of the party has 1 round to get you above the death threshold" would've kept him alive anyway.
Afterward, they tried to trace Saxby's footsteps immediately (her path led to the Strand, then vanished in bloodstains and Bleak Gate energy); there was Delft's promotion, and then Delft's "go get on the train" speech and we called it a night.
A few notes:
As usual, I buffed basically every enemy, mostly by adding HP; I brought the Thing all the way up to 200 HP, and it worked out pretty well, I thought.
The players weren't used to being quite so thoroughly depleted - Felix was totally out of channels, Tec had nothing but cantrips left, Doc and Hannah had both used every bomb they had. The museum encounter plus the finale is easily the longest set of encounters thus far. (This was not a complaint, on my part or theirs.)
I accidentally skipped the bit with Delft in the final scene; and didn't bother with the 2nd+ waves of Gidim (if I'd had them attack the RHC, there were no PCs left; if they'd gone after the party while they were engaged with Sijhen, it probably would've been a TPK.)
I was disappointed that they went straight to "shatter the lanterns". I'd mentally refluffed them as a bit of a Stargate reference - I removed one lantern so that there were only 7, and each would've been marked with a rune recognizable from the Ancient star map. Ah well.
I was also slightly surprised that they skipped raiding the evidence locker or quartermasters' supplies, but the way things played out, there really wasn't time for them to do so. They were laser-focused on Sijhen from the get-go, and really only stopped to address the Ob or the other Gidim when they got in the PCs' way.
The 20-round timer wound up being tighter than I'd initially guessed it would; it's rare for an encounter to go more than 5 rounds, IME, but the way the party got split up (and the amount of time they spent letting the Thing rage while plinking down lanterns) really increased the duration.
All in all, I had a great time running Digging for Lies, and the players had an excellent time as well. Always on Time will, I think, be a bit of a stretch for me to run - that's a lot of NPCs to keep straight, and a lot of social encountering, but I'm looking forward to it!
So, we had session one of Always on Time - basically just got through the planning montage. (The first hour-plus of the session was spent with PCs leveling up and spending gear; several had gotten nags during the audit about unspent funds. As a nice bit of fluff, Felix's craft arms and armor feat has been deemed to work via sparring; PCs who spar with Felix find their gear gradually being imbued with Caudecus' blessings.)
I had to roll my eyes a bit - after Delft's initial orders to keep things on the down-low at the end of Digging for Lies, Pearce's player emailed me between sessions; his PC was going to pump his local contacts for anyone who needed any off-the-records work done or 'alternative sourcing' (theft) of valuables along the route. Doc's player likewise sent along a memo, saying that he'd get in contact with friends (but explicitly not his family) in Trekhom, as well as casino contacts in Nalaam (newly-established backstory: he's a favored patron of the casinos, having squandered a sizable family inheritance there.)
I mean, I appreciate the plot hooks, but dang, people, what part of secret mission did you miss?
The montage was a bit chaotic. We had two PCs absent, so Tec and Elhaida will be joining one of the groups at the next session (or coming up with their own cover story). I mentioned OOC that whatever plans they made needed to include room for the other two. I mostly kept the skill-challenge details secret - I explained a couple of things (1-week turns, the three goals I was tracking, the party-wide nature of successes on the secrecy/disguise checks), but didn't reveal the mechanics. I'm curious about how others ran this - how much of the mechanics did your players get to see?
During the initial planning, Hannah Jierre declared that there was no way she'd be able to stay incognito in Danor, being as she is a (distant) member of the royal family. Doc decided that he'd take a drinking tour in-character, and take Hannah along with; later they decided that Hannah would be presenting Doc to her family as a romantic interest (there wasn't any connection prior to this). Pearce eventually settled on joining them on Doc's drinking tour.
The rest of the party settled on trying to find a Risuri diplomat whose entourage they could join; I thought that was an excellent idea, so now I have to come up with a diplomat who's going to Crisillyr, and a reason for that Later on, Luthor decided instead to set out early and try and land a job on the train; his mercenary background made him a good enough candidate for a security guard, so he's in.
Felix spent his first turn checking for spies, and located the watchers successfully. Later, he used established contacts in the docks to recruit help from a local acting troupe with the party's disguises (Diplomacy check, failed the DC - twice!); hired a set of actors to portray the undercover PCs setting out to return to the Apet ziggurat (their established cover story; Diplomacy check; would've failed the DC, but the party decided to be very generous (~50 gp) to the actors, for a nice circumstance bonus). Two more diplomacy checks located the diplomat the party needed, and got his help providing the bogus paperwork.
Doc spent most of his time setting up contacts - the aformentioned friends in Trekhom and casino in Nalaam; arranging for business meetings at various breweries along the train (Prof: Brewer); he also spent two weeks working on custom-brewed beers with 'special' effects, one to act as a 'truth serum' and one to act as a sleeping potion.
Hannah, since she was concerned, decided to get 'fired' from the RHC. She spent the first week studiously avoiding work, instead poring over Ancient research with her 'roommate' Xambria (Hannah got Xambria's consciousness). I used the 'miller library burned down' news bit after week #1, and Hannah took severe exception to the arsonists' implied threats; she went down to the prison he was being held in, used her RHC credentials to get in, and doused the lizardman in alchemist's fire and acid. This action got her fired from the RHC, which was her planned cover story. (I made sure Delft gave no confirmation afterward that she was just 'fired' and not no, really, fired!, though OOC it's pretty clear.) After that, Hannah sent letters to her family, arranging a chance to introduce her mother to her beau (Doc), and making arrangements to meet with some of her relatives she's on better terms with. She also spent some time securing a rusted iron amulet (the whole party's getting a bit paranoid about negative energy and the Bleak Gate), and studying the Ancients, trying to figure out where the other two known Ziggurats are.
Luthor spent time working on paperwork for his cover identity (successful Bluff check), had a few failed checks trying to get a disguise and more information about the train's operations, and then set out for Danor a few weeks early to try and land a job. A successful Profession: Soldier check was enough, and he's now been up and down the route a few times.
Pearce started out filing some fake paperwork to feed to the identified moles; he then spent his time working on the party's disguises, and pumping his local contacts for larcenous opportunities. He set up a fake identity (even though plan A is him traveling openly), and spent time getting to know their diplomat's staff, so he's got cover in case he needs to switch identities mid-trip. He spent his last turn getting an RHC contact hired on the train to pass messages between the party's various groups.
After 6 turns, I had Delft mention that there had been a few vessels intercepted along their intended route; they could either stick to their current schedule, or leave a week earlier and go around the Yerasol Archipelago entirely. (I wanted to offer an out to avoid the naval encounter, especially since the party had been split already.) The party decided immediately to leave early; Pearce decided to head to Vendricce and make the trip in the reverse direction to get to Beaumont, instead of taking the boat.
I've got a lot of homework: work out the diplomacy angle, figure out mechanics for Doc's brews, come up with a reasonable larcenous task for Pearce, and provide more detailed route information for Luthor and Pearce.
For the diplomacy item - I'm thinking that Vendricce would be a good site for a Ber/Crisillyr conference; doing that means I could even potentially bring Brakken into the picture (have him board in Cherage from the Bernese embassy there), just to introduce him before part 5. (...and now that I think about it, his bear could potentially end up being fun at some point during this module...). I'm thinking the Risuri diplomat will be acting as a moderator in a trade dispute between Crisillyr and Ber; my initial thought is that Crisillyr has high tariffs on imports from Ber (since the Clergy appears to have a pro-human bias, from the setting documents), that the Bernese would like to get rid of to help their attempts to modernize their economy; I just need to figure out what leverage they'd be using to try and extract concessons.
I had to roll my eyes a bit - after Delft's initial orders to keep things on the down-low at the end of Digging for Lies, Pearce's player emailed me between sessions; his PC was going to pump his local contacts for anyone who needed any off-the-records work done or 'alternative sourcing' (theft) of valuables along the route. Doc's player likewise sent along a memo, saying that he'd get in contact with friends (but explicitly not his family) in Trekhom, as well as casino contacts in Nalaam (newly-established backstory: he's a favored patron of the casinos, having squandered a sizable family inheritance there.)
I mean, I appreciate the plot hooks, but dang, people, what part of secret mission did you miss?
The montage was a bit chaotic. We had two PCs absent, so Tec and Elhaida will be joining one of the groups at the next session (or coming up with their own cover story). I mentioned OOC that whatever plans they made needed to include room for the other two. I mostly kept the skill-challenge details secret - I explained a couple of things (1-week turns, the three goals I was tracking, the party-wide nature of successes on the secrecy/disguise checks), but didn't reveal the mechanics. I'm curious about how others ran this - how much of the mechanics did your players get to see?
During the initial planning, Hannah Jierre declared that there was no way she'd be able to stay incognito in Danor, being as she is a (distant) member of the royal family. Doc decided that he'd take a drinking tour in-character, and take Hannah along with; later they decided that Hannah would be presenting Doc to her family as a romantic interest (there wasn't any connection prior to this). Pearce eventually settled on joining them on Doc's drinking tour.
The rest of the party settled on trying to find a Risuri diplomat whose entourage they could join; I thought that was an excellent idea, so now I have to come up with a diplomat who's going to Crisillyr, and a reason for that
Later on, Luthor decided instead to set out early and try and land a job on the train; his mercenary background made him a good enough candidate for a security guard, so he's in. Felix spent his first turn checking for spies, and located the watchers successfully. Later, he used established contacts in the docks to recruit help from a local acting troupe with the party's disguises (Diplomacy check, failed the DC - twice!); hired a set of actors to portray the undercover PCs setting out to return to the Apet ziggurat (their established cover story; Diplomacy check; would've failed the DC, but the party decided to be very generous (~50 gp) to the actors, for a nice circumstance bonus). Two more diplomacy checks located the diplomat the party needed, and got his help providing the bogus paperwork.
Doc spent most of his time setting up contacts - the aformentioned friends in Trekhom and casino in Nalaam; arranging for business meetings at various breweries along the train (Prof: Brewer); he also spent two weeks working on custom-brewed beers with 'special' effects, one to act as a 'truth serum' and one to act as a sleeping potion.
Hannah, since she was concerned, decided to get 'fired' from the RHC. She spent the first week studiously avoiding work, instead poring over Ancient research with her 'roommate' Xambria (Hannah got Xambria's consciousness). I used the 'miller library burned down' news bit after week #1, and Hannah took severe exception to the arsonists' implied threats; she went down to the prison he was being held in, used her RHC credentials to get in, and doused the lizardman in alchemist's fire and acid. This action got her fired from the RHC, which was her planned cover story. (I made sure Delft gave no confirmation afterward that she was just 'fired' and not no, really, fired!, though OOC it's pretty clear.) After that, Hannah sent letters to her family, arranging a chance to introduce her mother to her beau (Doc), and making arrangements to meet with some of her relatives she's on better terms with. She also spent some time securing a rusted iron amulet (the whole party's getting a bit paranoid about negative energy and the Bleak Gate), and studying the Ancients, trying to figure out where the other two known Ziggurats are.
Luthor spent time working on paperwork for his cover identity (successful Bluff check), had a few failed checks trying to get a disguise and more information about the train's operations, and then set out for Danor a few weeks early to try and land a job. A successful Profession: Soldier check was enough, and he's now been up and down the route a few times.
Pearce started out filing some fake paperwork to feed to the identified moles; he then spent his time working on the party's disguises, and pumping his local contacts for larcenous opportunities. He set up a fake identity (even though plan A is him traveling openly), and spent time getting to know their diplomat's staff, so he's got cover in case he needs to switch identities mid-trip. He spent his last turn getting an RHC contact hired on the train to pass messages between the party's various groups.
After 6 turns, I had Delft mention that there had been a few vessels intercepted along their intended route; they could either stick to their current schedule, or leave a week earlier and go around the Yerasol Archipelago entirely. (I wanted to offer an out to avoid the naval encounter, especially since the party had been split already.) The party decided immediately to leave early; Pearce decided to head to Vendricce and make the trip in the reverse direction to get to Beaumont, instead of taking the boat.
I've got a lot of homework: work out the diplomacy angle, figure out mechanics for Doc's brews, come up with a reasonable larcenous task for Pearce, and provide more detailed route information for Luthor and Pearce.
For the diplomacy item - I'm thinking that Vendricce would be a good site for a Ber/Crisillyr conference; doing that means I could even potentially bring Brakken into the picture (have him board in Cherage from the Bernese embassy there), just to introduce him before part 5. (...and now that I think about it, his bear could potentially end up being fun at some point during this module...). I'm thinking the Risuri diplomat will be acting as a moderator in a trade dispute between Crisillyr and Ber; my initial thought is that Crisillyr has high tariffs on imports from Ber (since the Clergy appears to have a pro-human bias, from the setting documents), that the Bernese would like to get rid of to help their attempts to modernize their economy; I just need to figure out what leverage they'd be using to try and extract concessons.
Similar Threads
ZEITGEIST
Tet's Zeitgeist Campaign