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The Flint Irregulars, whose portraits you may have seen
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<blockquote data-quote="Ajar" data-source="post: 5639797" data-attributes="member: 85901"><p>Our first session was yesterday. I'd prepped Act 1 of Island at the Axis of the World, figuring that if we did get all the way through the Coaltongue sabotage, it would be a good place to stop. </p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>SETUP</strong></p><p>We set up our Google+ hangout and made sure all our sound stuff was OK. I know there are other chat options -- Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, WotC's VTT, etc. But I've found that when playing with my friends, video chat makes it much more fun than audio chat. When I introduced Assisstant Chief Inspector Delft by peering into the camera through an oversized brass magnifying glass, my players all burst out laughing. At that point, I was pretty sure that we were going to have a good time. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> For good measure, I sucked loudly on a mint to simulate chewing tobacco. </p><p></p><p>A couple of players still needed to install MapTool, since I'd only confirmed to them that my hosting worked properly the night before. No problem; I used the time to set up the map of Lanjyr as one of the campaign maps. I had the Act 1 maps -- Docks and Coaltongue -- plus Flint and Lanjyr. When I was reading the Intro text, I suggested that they look at the maps of Lanjyr and/or Flint, which I think helped get them in the right mindset. </p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>DOCKS</strong></p><p>I was a little nervous going into the Docks challenge, but it actually worked out very well. I don't directly expose skill challenges, so I didn't explain the mechanics to them, only the situation. They took to it very well, with a Viveen and Murdok climbing up onto the rooftops to better survey the crowd, while Vesta and Reginald mingled, trying to pick out potential troublemakers from the crowd. Due to a number of failed Perception checks, it turned out to be a close thing, with two of the dockers closing in on Reginald and Vesta as Reginald tried to Intimidate Coulton into thinking the crowd was full of plainclothes officers. But he succeeded, and Coulton's nervous glances gave Dafton away. </p><p></p><p>Hearing Reginald entreating Coulton and the dockers to stand down, Thames sidled up to Viveen and Murdok as they made their way back through the crowd to join up with Reginald and Vesta. He explained himself to them quickly, since the constables appeared to be interested in defusing the situation. They did manage to talk the dockers down, and Murdok's successful Stealth check allowed him to follow them back to their hideout. That information was passed on to the regular police.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Thames entreated Reginald and Vesta to take the dockers' cause up with the governor -- something Vesta was more than happy to agree to. After cautioning that they didn't know the governor personally, Reginald said he would at the very least pass the message as far up the chain as he could. </p><p></p><p>I thought this challenge went well. The DCs were a bit tough since my party doesn't have great Perception, but if I was running it again, I wouldn't adjust it. </p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>COALTONGUE</strong></p><p>At the party, the constables were amused by how quick Delft was to abandon them and set about gladhanding the bigwigs. Their Insight check came close to detecting the Duchess' duplicity (28 vs 30!), but Sokana immediately aroused their suspicions. Between Vesta and Reginald, they quickly realized that she was actually an eladrin. The constables agreed to find her a room to nap in, and after taking a full tour of the ship, they settled on the sickbay since it would allow them to spy on her from above through the small section of fine mesh grating. </p><p></p><p>The Duchess wasn't initially too thrilled with the idea of napping in the sickbay, but with Bluff checks the constables were able to sell her on it as being far enough out of the way that people getting tours of the ship wouldn't be stopping by (unlike the mage's quarters or observation room on the deck above). </p><p></p><p>Vesta and Murdok waited in the room above, Viveen waited in the engine room in case of trouble, and Reginald was a perfectly generous and courteous escort as he led Sokana and the Duchess to the sickbay. When Sokana and the Duchess began casting ritual magic shortly thereafter, they became quite concerned. </p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>SABOTAGE</strong></p><p>Reginald left a fragment of his consciousness on the sickbay deck and headed up to the main deck, ready to warn Harkover Lee in the event of real trouble. When the false engineers and the assassin convened in the Duchess' room, more failed Perception checks prevented Murdok and Vesta from hearing just what was said. However, Vesta's Arcana check identified the Duchess' ritual as Water Breathing, which confirmed the party's suspicions. </p><p></p><p>On the sickbay deck, the munitions guard came over to see what was going on and was immediately cut down by the halfling assassin within sight of Reginal's consciousness fragment. Realizing what was up, he immediately warned Harkover Lee that a sabotage attempt was underway, with a very high Diplomacy result. Lee immediately and discreetly began preparing an evacuation plan. </p><p></p><p>Vesta teleported through the mesh into the sickbay through the mesh and attempted to convince Sokana and the Duchess to call it off. But Sokana ensnared him and then surrounded him with fire sprites. The Duchess, seeing things well in hand, completed her Water Breathing ritual and dove out the window. </p><p></p><p>The engineers managed to make it to the sickbay. Poor Fitzcairn was horrified to learn that his supposed friends who had been ribbing him about not shoveling enough firegems were actually saboteurs who had led him astray about how many firegems could safely be added to the furnace! Viveen engaged the engineers, and while they were able to spill firegems out of the holding vessel, they didn't manage to shovel any more into the furnace. </p><p></p><p>Sokana managed to make it to the engine room and successfully threw her rod into the furnace, then tried to make her escape, leaving a wall of fire and three more fire sprites behind her. Reginald asked Geoff for his frost wand, then came down the ladders to the engine room to help Viveen, while Murdok and Vesta went into the boiler room to reopen the (non-rusted, since the engineers never made it there after revealing themselves) safety relief valves. </p><p></p><p>One of the engineers fell, but the other managed to rust the furnace door shut. The PCs were getting pretty nervous at this point, but Viveen tore the door off the furnace and Reginald managed to spot the tongs and get them to her. They extracted the rod and then threw in Geoff's wand of cold, which helped a little bit. </p><p></p><p>After closing the safety relief valves, Murdok and Vesta went back to the sickbay deck just as Sokana was trying to escape up to the gun deck and out one of the portholes in the mage's quarters. The chased her down, and even with Otherwind Stride, which I (as someone who plays a teleporty warlock hybrid) was specifically saving for this, she was still struck down and captured before she could escape. </p><p></p><p>With the immediate threat neutralized, the players quickly realized that they could use the capacitor to discharge the magical fire energy. On the main deck, the evacuation was nearly complete, but Geoff was one of the last people remaining, holding out hope that his creation could be saved. He assisted the PCs on their checks to "quick charge" the Brand, saving the ship. </p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>AFTERMATH</strong></p><p>With the Coaltongue safe, the PCs called the lifeboats back, and after some time to set everything up again, the party resumed. The King took them aside for a private conversation, then gave his announcement speech. The PCs took the opportunity to talk to the governor about the dockers' plight, which will earn them some credibility down the road. </p><p></p><p>Back in Flint, they returned to their normal duties. A couple of them agreed to give interviews. </p><p></p><p>To be honest, I felt slightly unprepared going into this. I just landed a new job, and I'm preparing for a crossborder move and all of the complications that go along with it. I didn't have as much time to pore over the adventure as I would have liked. I felt like I was winging it a bit during the Dock sequence, but it seemed to go okay. When the PCs picked up on the sabotage before the Duchess' cronies even had time to finish all of their preparations, I was concerned that the encounter would be a pushover, but it ended up going down pretty close to the wire -- all of the PCs went down to single digit HP at least once, and the counter got down to about 13 rounds left before they removed the rod. I'd been planning to cut one engineer from the encounter to make the XP appropriate for 4 PCs, but I ended up leaving it at 2 engineers and it still went fine. I'm not going to do that every time, but for encounters that are the only one in a given day, I'll consider leaving them alone. </p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>NEXT TIME</strong></p><p>Looking forward to Axis Island! I'm not sure how I'm going to handle Asrabey -- I like using his 20th level stats, but that will make it really tough for the PCs to deal with him, whether by force of arms or diplomacy. The low level stats will probably make for a cool fight, but it just doesn't feel quite right to me to make him low level on account of being tired. I'm going to have to think that one over. </p><p></p><p>The other question is line of sight in the hedge maze. I've never done LoS in MapTool and I was hoping that I wouldn't have to deal with it, but I guess I'll have to figure out how to make it work. </p><p></p><p>Most importantly, all of my players said they had a great time, and are looking forward to our next session! With my impending move, I'm not quite sure when that will be, but we're hoping to squeeze one in sometime in August.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ajar, post: 5639797, member: 85901"] Our first session was yesterday. I'd prepped Act 1 of Island at the Axis of the World, figuring that if we did get all the way through the Coaltongue sabotage, it would be a good place to stop. [B]SETUP[/B] We set up our Google+ hangout and made sure all our sound stuff was OK. I know there are other chat options -- Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, WotC's VTT, etc. But I've found that when playing with my friends, video chat makes it much more fun than audio chat. When I introduced Assisstant Chief Inspector Delft by peering into the camera through an oversized brass magnifying glass, my players all burst out laughing. At that point, I was pretty sure that we were going to have a good time. :) For good measure, I sucked loudly on a mint to simulate chewing tobacco. A couple of players still needed to install MapTool, since I'd only confirmed to them that my hosting worked properly the night before. No problem; I used the time to set up the map of Lanjyr as one of the campaign maps. I had the Act 1 maps -- Docks and Coaltongue -- plus Flint and Lanjyr. When I was reading the Intro text, I suggested that they look at the maps of Lanjyr and/or Flint, which I think helped get them in the right mindset. [B]DOCKS[/B] I was a little nervous going into the Docks challenge, but it actually worked out very well. I don't directly expose skill challenges, so I didn't explain the mechanics to them, only the situation. They took to it very well, with a Viveen and Murdok climbing up onto the rooftops to better survey the crowd, while Vesta and Reginald mingled, trying to pick out potential troublemakers from the crowd. Due to a number of failed Perception checks, it turned out to be a close thing, with two of the dockers closing in on Reginald and Vesta as Reginald tried to Intimidate Coulton into thinking the crowd was full of plainclothes officers. But he succeeded, and Coulton's nervous glances gave Dafton away. Hearing Reginald entreating Coulton and the dockers to stand down, Thames sidled up to Viveen and Murdok as they made their way back through the crowd to join up with Reginald and Vesta. He explained himself to them quickly, since the constables appeared to be interested in defusing the situation. They did manage to talk the dockers down, and Murdok's successful Stealth check allowed him to follow them back to their hideout. That information was passed on to the regular police. Meanwhile, Thames entreated Reginald and Vesta to take the dockers' cause up with the governor -- something Vesta was more than happy to agree to. After cautioning that they didn't know the governor personally, Reginald said he would at the very least pass the message as far up the chain as he could. I thought this challenge went well. The DCs were a bit tough since my party doesn't have great Perception, but if I was running it again, I wouldn't adjust it. [B]COALTONGUE[/B] At the party, the constables were amused by how quick Delft was to abandon them and set about gladhanding the bigwigs. Their Insight check came close to detecting the Duchess' duplicity (28 vs 30!), but Sokana immediately aroused their suspicions. Between Vesta and Reginald, they quickly realized that she was actually an eladrin. The constables agreed to find her a room to nap in, and after taking a full tour of the ship, they settled on the sickbay since it would allow them to spy on her from above through the small section of fine mesh grating. The Duchess wasn't initially too thrilled with the idea of napping in the sickbay, but with Bluff checks the constables were able to sell her on it as being far enough out of the way that people getting tours of the ship wouldn't be stopping by (unlike the mage's quarters or observation room on the deck above). Vesta and Murdok waited in the room above, Viveen waited in the engine room in case of trouble, and Reginald was a perfectly generous and courteous escort as he led Sokana and the Duchess to the sickbay. When Sokana and the Duchess began casting ritual magic shortly thereafter, they became quite concerned. [B]SABOTAGE[/B] Reginald left a fragment of his consciousness on the sickbay deck and headed up to the main deck, ready to warn Harkover Lee in the event of real trouble. When the false engineers and the assassin convened in the Duchess' room, more failed Perception checks prevented Murdok and Vesta from hearing just what was said. However, Vesta's Arcana check identified the Duchess' ritual as Water Breathing, which confirmed the party's suspicions. On the sickbay deck, the munitions guard came over to see what was going on and was immediately cut down by the halfling assassin within sight of Reginal's consciousness fragment. Realizing what was up, he immediately warned Harkover Lee that a sabotage attempt was underway, with a very high Diplomacy result. Lee immediately and discreetly began preparing an evacuation plan. Vesta teleported through the mesh into the sickbay through the mesh and attempted to convince Sokana and the Duchess to call it off. But Sokana ensnared him and then surrounded him with fire sprites. The Duchess, seeing things well in hand, completed her Water Breathing ritual and dove out the window. The engineers managed to make it to the sickbay. Poor Fitzcairn was horrified to learn that his supposed friends who had been ribbing him about not shoveling enough firegems were actually saboteurs who had led him astray about how many firegems could safely be added to the furnace! Viveen engaged the engineers, and while they were able to spill firegems out of the holding vessel, they didn't manage to shovel any more into the furnace. Sokana managed to make it to the engine room and successfully threw her rod into the furnace, then tried to make her escape, leaving a wall of fire and three more fire sprites behind her. Reginald asked Geoff for his frost wand, then came down the ladders to the engine room to help Viveen, while Murdok and Vesta went into the boiler room to reopen the (non-rusted, since the engineers never made it there after revealing themselves) safety relief valves. One of the engineers fell, but the other managed to rust the furnace door shut. The PCs were getting pretty nervous at this point, but Viveen tore the door off the furnace and Reginald managed to spot the tongs and get them to her. They extracted the rod and then threw in Geoff's wand of cold, which helped a little bit. After closing the safety relief valves, Murdok and Vesta went back to the sickbay deck just as Sokana was trying to escape up to the gun deck and out one of the portholes in the mage's quarters. The chased her down, and even with Otherwind Stride, which I (as someone who plays a teleporty warlock hybrid) was specifically saving for this, she was still struck down and captured before she could escape. With the immediate threat neutralized, the players quickly realized that they could use the capacitor to discharge the magical fire energy. On the main deck, the evacuation was nearly complete, but Geoff was one of the last people remaining, holding out hope that his creation could be saved. He assisted the PCs on their checks to "quick charge" the Brand, saving the ship. [B]AFTERMATH[/B] With the Coaltongue safe, the PCs called the lifeboats back, and after some time to set everything up again, the party resumed. The King took them aside for a private conversation, then gave his announcement speech. The PCs took the opportunity to talk to the governor about the dockers' plight, which will earn them some credibility down the road. Back in Flint, they returned to their normal duties. A couple of them agreed to give interviews. To be honest, I felt slightly unprepared going into this. I just landed a new job, and I'm preparing for a crossborder move and all of the complications that go along with it. I didn't have as much time to pore over the adventure as I would have liked. I felt like I was winging it a bit during the Dock sequence, but it seemed to go okay. When the PCs picked up on the sabotage before the Duchess' cronies even had time to finish all of their preparations, I was concerned that the encounter would be a pushover, but it ended up going down pretty close to the wire -- all of the PCs went down to single digit HP at least once, and the counter got down to about 13 rounds left before they removed the rod. I'd been planning to cut one engineer from the encounter to make the XP appropriate for 4 PCs, but I ended up leaving it at 2 engineers and it still went fine. I'm not going to do that every time, but for encounters that are the only one in a given day, I'll consider leaving them alone. [B]NEXT TIME[/B] Looking forward to Axis Island! I'm not sure how I'm going to handle Asrabey -- I like using his 20th level stats, but that will make it really tough for the PCs to deal with him, whether by force of arms or diplomacy. The low level stats will probably make for a cool fight, but it just doesn't feel quite right to me to make him low level on account of being tired. I'm going to have to think that one over. The other question is line of sight in the hedge maze. I've never done LoS in MapTool and I was hoping that I wouldn't have to deal with it, but I guess I'll have to figure out how to make it work. Most importantly, all of my players said they had a great time, and are looking forward to our next session! With my impending move, I'm not quite sure when that will be, but we're hoping to squeeze one in sometime in August. [/QUOTE]
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