The Second Age - Commentary on my campaign

[Jack99]

Orc, Ogre Shaman & Bulette
While the Bloodspear tribe was nearly wiped out 20 odd years ago, most of the females and those orcs too young to fight survived, back in the caves of Hollow hills. In order to survive, they made a deal with a clan of ogres for protection. So now, they are led by J'tar, an ambitious ogre shaman who has a bulette for pet (She calls it "Pain"), and her Ogre Magi lover. They have for years been feeding tales of greatness and revenge to the young orcs, who now are old enough to go to war. Fallcrest is just the first stop in a war. The couple are determined to rid the region completely of humans.

Wererat
The Twin Daggers, the thieves' guild in Fallcrest, which is controlled by the succubus Adele (or rather, that's her human name) has a family of wererats as members. They have been charmed, just as anyone else, but unbeknown to Adele, the control breaks when they change shape. For now, they play along, mostly because they do not what to do and who they can trust. But they are looking for a way out of the clutches of Adele. Just as everyone else, they have no idea what they are dealing with. They think she is a sorcerer or a witch of some sorts.

Human Bandit
Leucis Firecold is determined to be popular in the region. He has therefore (via intermediaries) hired brigands from far to come to the region and pillage and rob people. Right now, there is at least 3 bands of brigands in the general area of Fallcrest. One band is hiding in the outer ruins of Castle Flame, one in the forest between Fallcrest and Ashtown, and last but not least, one near where Jade River forks, about 15 miles South-West of the Bridge of Accord.

Lich
Deep within the Shadow Forest lies Everdark, the keep of a lich who calls himself the Shadow of the Keeper. He is behind the Shadow Forest, and is now working on expanding it, by further blurring the line between the Shadowfell and the mortal world.

 

[Jack99]

Orc
Tribe of the Sharp Fangs is another tribe of orcs from Hollow Hills. They are relative newcomers to the area, having recently come down from up north. This tribe gets it's name from the members ritual sharpening of their teeth, giving them even sharper and more pointy fangs than the normal orc. While the sharpening is ritualistic, these orcs make special use of their sharp fangs. The Tribe of the Sharp Fangs are cannibals. They favor halfling and human flesh, and while they normally wait until after, there has been incidents where orcs from the tribe have thrown themselves on dieing enemies.

------------------

As noted, I am not going sandbox, simply because it wouldn't suit neither me nor my players. Actually, considering all the debate the last week about what a sandbox campaign is, I am probably better off not claiming what my campaign is or is not. It seems everyone has an opinion on the definition of these things, to the point where I am not even sure of my own definition.

With that said, I have been thinking about how to handle when players head out into the wilderness. I am not a fan of random encounters, for two reasons.
1) They do not advance the story. While that doesn't mean I think random encounters are bad, see 2)
2) Encounters in modern D&D take a bit too long to have too many random encounters. I do not want my players to spend half the night fighting random stuff, and left with the feeling that they didn't advance the story, just because they were unlucky.

So, the obvious solution is to make any random encounters depend on the players. This means a skill challenge of course.

In short, every time they enter a square in which there is a chance of getting lost or encountering monsters (just about all non-plains squares more than 1 removed from a town or village), I will run a small skill challenge. I will also operate with a radius of encounters. Whenever the players enter a square (or a square adjacent thereof) which on my DM's map has a NPC camp/village/place, any encounter will be NPC's from that camp/village/place.

I have also chosen to keep the DC's fixed, at level 4 (although tweaked from WotC's official numbers). This means that things will be rough at first, but as the players become higher level, they will have an easier time moving around and finding their way in the world. The one thing that will be adjusted is the stealth DC's when players enter a square with or adjacent to NPC's - that DC will depend on what type and level NPC's "own" said square.

[sblock=Finding your way through the wilderness Skill Challenge]
Level 4 (special) Skill Challenge
Complexity 1 (per square)
Primary Skills: Nature, Perception, Stealth
Secondary Skills: Endurance, Heal
Nature and Perception can each give 2 successes
Stealth (Varies, base 15, otherwise depends on inhabitants of square) At least two characters must make a stealth check once per square. If both checks fails, the party runs into an encounter. If the party is in a square or a square adjacent to a NPC camp, the encounter will be with NPC's from that camp.
Endurance (DC 15) At least three characters must make an endurance check once per square. If all three checks fails, everyone in the party loses a healing surge due to the rigors of travel in the wilderness. A successful endurance check does not count as a success for the skill challenge.
Nature (DC 15) A success indicates that the party is on the right track, navigating skillfully through the wild.
Perception (DC 16) A success indicates that the party has notices something that helps them find their way. It could be a trail, some smoke or a thousand other things.
Heal (DC 20) In case of three failed endurance checks, one player can attempt to negate the loss of healing surges by succeeding a heal check. A successful heal check does not count as a success for the skill challenge.

Getting 4 successes before 3 failures means that the party heads in the right direction, entering the next square on the map where they intend to. Getting 3 failures before 4 successes means that the party heads in the wrong direction, entering the wrong square. The fewer wins the party has when they finish the challenge, the more off track they are.[/sblock]

I would love to hear what people think about the Skill Challenge and that way of handling "random" encounters.

 

[Jack99]

So, in case of random encounters, this is the table I will be using. It's not 100% complete as of now, and not so suitable for mountain encounters, but luckily I do not foresee my players spending a lot of time in mountains anytime soon.

Roll 1d20

1. Cockatrices
2. Dire Wolf (Shadow Beetles if close to Shadow Forest)
3. Deathjump Spiders or Giant Frog (if in square with swamp)
4. Gray Wolf (Shadow wolf if close to Shadow Forest)
5. Gray Wolf (Shadow wolf if close to Shadow Forest)
6. Stirges (Shadowhunter bat if Shadow Forest)
7. Stirges (Shadowhunter bat if Shadow Forest)
8. Wild Dogs (Shadow wolf if close to Shadow Forest)
9. Neutral NPC
10. Non-hostile NPC
11. Non-hostile NPC
12. Non-hostile NPC
13. Neutral NPC
14. Death Boar (Wraith if Shadow Forest)
15. Cave Bear (Death Dog if Shadow Forest)
16. Dire Stirge (Umbral Panther if Shadow Forest)
17. Phase Spider
18. Venom-Eyed Basilisk Shambling Mound (if Swamp)
19. Worg, Unicorn (if forest) or Bog Hag (if Swamp)
20. Special (Dragon is always a good bet)

Then roll 1d6 for Difficulty Level, but never less than 1 monster of determined type.

1. n-2 encounter
2. n-1 encounter
3. n-1 encounter
4. n+0 encounter
5. n+0 encounter
6. n+1 encounter

I am thinking that some places, such as the Shadow Forest, won't have many NPC's that wander around, so I need to figure out what to do then. Perhaps it's corpses or graves that the players encounter instead, in that case.

 

[Filcher]

Love it. Bookmarked.

 

[Jack99]

Love it. Bookmarked.

\o/

One thing I absolutely love about 4e is how the humanoid races feel different in combat, not just in the fluff. But for this campaign, I want to make them even more distinct, meaning that each tribe (within the same race) should have a special ability or attack to set them apart.

For example, since the Green Warrior Goblins have been trained by a hobgoblin, I find it quite fitting to give them all the Phalanx Soldier ability (+2 AC when adjacent to another goblin).

Green Warrior Goblins: Phalanx Soldier
Blind Eye Kobolds:
Human Bandit (Castle Flame):
Human Bandit (Silent Forest):
Human Bandit (Bridge of Accord):
Bloody Skulls Goblins:
Guardians of Lore Goblins:
Bloodspear Orcs:
Sharp Fangs Orcs:

A few notes. Orcs won't have the usual Warrior Surge ability as standard, instead they will deal more damage when bloodied. The Bloodspear Orcs will of course use spears, while the Sharp Fangs Orcs will have some sort of attack against prone/helpless characters. Will have to think a bit about those things.

 

[Jack99]

Session 1
So today was the first day of our new campaign. I was very optimistic. I had received 4 very good backgrounds and 1 passable out of 6 possible. Considering its only two or three that bother, it worked dangling the possibility of a magical item. Even better, it was clear that all 5 had taken the time to actually read the stuff on the campaign setting, again, usually its only a couple who do that before the campaign starts, the rest pick it up as we go.

Once people were gathered, and questions were answered, it turns out there had been a few minor adjustments to the characters. Nothing much. We had:

Lucan, Elf Monk (Centered Breath)
Garel-kai, Genasi Tactical Warlord (multiclass wizard)
Tokiel, Dragonborn Dragon Sorcerer
Kavaki, Goliath Earth Warden
Velkin, Human Avenger/Invoker (hybrid) of Ioun
Amul Zur, Halforc Paladin of Kord.

While eating, I tried something new. I can't remember where I read it, but someone suggested letting the members introduce themselves, then figure out as a group how they knew each other. I said that they had to know at least one other party-member from earlier on. It went okay. At first, there was some silence and some looking around, but once they got going, we got almost all well involved. One (the one with no background) needed some help, but we managed to make things fit together nicely. I can easily see myself doing this again, next time we start a campaign (hopefully that will be some years).

After that little exercise, we got the campaign on the road. They started out at the Alehouse in Fallcrest, having gotten together to form an adventuring band. They were also celebrating the Goliath's birthday, so he was getting quite drunk. They are approached by Amara Azaer, the tiefling who runs the local Azaer Trading House. Incidently, the Dragonborn had written in his background that since he had brokered a trade deal for his tribe to the south, he had already had several meetings with Amara and they had been a bit of flirting (not too sure about the racial issue, but he does have 18 CHA and trained bluff and diplomacy). So when an Azaer caravan had been attacked and the goods stolen, with all the guards being tied up by goblin and kobold attacks, I figured that it wasn't too unrealistic to have her approach Tokiel and his new group of friends. After some haggling, they agreed to some terms, but convinced her it was okay to put things off until the morning, as Kavaki was already borderline roaring drunk.

As she left, some Red Riders came in the door. Kavaki, who has a history with the Red Riders (he thinks he killed 3 of them a couple of months ago) tried to hide under the table, but managed instead to turn over the table and make a lot of noise (natural 1 on stealth check). They started looking around, claiming they were searching for a young human man, who had been poaching the land of their Lord. But since he wasn't there, they quickly left again and Kavaki could once again return to his drinking.

The next morning, they went and had a talk with the driver who had survived the bandit attack (by playing dead). He said they had been heading east, that they had mentioned something about a castle, and that they had expressed happiness about their job, since they both got pay and got to keep the loot. Immediately, theories of competing merchants trying to hurt House Azaer were conjured, but based on the little knowledge they had, nothing concrete came out of that. They decided to head south via the trail to find the spot where the caravan had been ambushed and go from there.

Once at the spot, marked by 3 shallow graves, they quickly found the trail and headed west, into the Silent Forest.

This is where my Find-the-way skill challenge started. They failed the first, which led to a random encounter in the form of two Phase Spiders. Ouch. Only a level n+1 combat by the XP, but with 2 level 8 skirmishers against 6 level 1 characters, it was still a rough combat. Lots of people going down due to the poison, and a lot of surges were spent. It wasn't extremely close, but close enough for my players to gain a good deal of respect of the Silent Forest.

Just to be fair, I had warned them prior to the campaign starting, that things would be more realistic this time around, with monsters varying greatly in level and such things. They were all okay with that.

Anyway, once the spiders dead, the party continued following the tracks. Or rather, they got a bit off track, and ran into a couple of dire stirges (yes, the second skill challenge was failed as well, or rather, the stealth part). Again, two higher level (7) monsters against many low-level players. On paper, not a hard fight (n+0), but in practice, it was very hard. Especially since they (the dire stirges) were constantly sitting on the back of characters, giving them a 26 AC and 23(?) Reflex defense. Both very hard to hit. But eventually the party managed, especially when they figured that attacking fortitude was much more effective than attacking AC and Reflex. It was still touch and go for a couple of characters, but luckily it was the Warden they were attached to (after the monk was dead), right when he had popped his Stone's Endurance. Otherwise 20 ongoing damage hurts most characters a lot. Like, really a lot

After fighting the stirges, they were like:"Okay, we better get out of this forest" or "We should have stayed at home. When that is said, they did continue. From here on, following the trail went mostly well, and they walked most of the day through the forest. As it was getting late, they ran into 4 bandits (or rather, were ambushed by them) but those were much easier and died quickly.

After a good night's sleep with no interruptions, they followed the trail and made it to Castle Flame. Up there, next to the castle, they found a bandit camp. They tried to ambush it, but failed at being stealthy. Instead they were showered with arrows, but in the end, the 7 bandits and their illusionist leader (7 level 2 skirmishers and a level 4 elite controller = n+3) all died the same. They found some gold and a magic staff, that none of them could identify.

Overall it was a decent session. It was fun, without being stellar or anything. I have had worse starts to a campaign, but I have certainly had better as well. It was missing je-ne-sais-quoi... Maybe because it was that the last encounter really didn't push them much, despite it being a n+3 with the monsters having the tactical advantage. On the other hand, I was pleased with the random encounters being rough on the players, making them fear just a little bit what else could be in that forest. I also liked that I got planted both the bandit, kobold and goblin hook, so they will definitely have enough to do for a while. When they return, I will start the undead part and the thieves guild part, so there will be 5 different hooks in action. Although some are of course connected.

 

[jbear]

If you are going to set your campaign around Fallcrest you are going to want to check out this guys maps and sketches of Fallcrest and the Nentir Vale in general. They are truly awesome:

D&D Doodle: Map of Fallcrest

 

[Daern]

Nice campaign. The random encounters seem cool. I like that you put the fear in them. You might want to check out those Penny Arcade rules that posted this week.
About the first session being so so. Of course there are many reasons for a less than stellar session (how much sleep the DM got the night before is a big one), but to me it sounds a bit like a function of the "open ended" nature of the set up. Wandering around doesn't have much of a dramatic arch. Talking to truck drivers to decide where to walk isn't as mind blowing as discovering you are all the victims of a cosmic curse. Anyways, you might think about introducing mini subplots each session to give the narrative some shape while they knock about in the woods.

 

[Jack99]

If you are going to set your campaign around Fallcrest you are going to want to check out this guys maps and sketches of Fallcrest and the Nentir Vale in general. They are truly awesome:

D&D Doodle: Map of Fallcrest

Yes, I knew about those sketches, but had completely forgotten. Thanks for the reminder.

Nice campaign. The random encounters seem cool. I like that you put the fear in them. You might want to check out those Penny Arcade rules that posted this week.
About the first session being so so. Of course there are many reasons for a less than stellar session (how much sleep the DM got the night before is a big one), but to me it sounds a bit like a function of the "open ended" nature of the set up. Wandering around doesn't have much of a dramatic arch. Talking to truck drivers to decide where to walk isn't as mind blowing as discovering you are all the victims of a cosmic curse. Anyways, you might think about introducing mini subplots each session to give the narrative some shape while they knock about in the woods.

Argh, had a long answer that was eaten by my fat fingers. The short version is that yes, you are right. There was a lack of dramatic arc and subplots. And the switch from very epic to very not-epic campaign will probably take some adjustment.

One of the reasons that I chose to hold of all but the simplest of subplots (I did present 3 though, the kobolds, the goblins and the bandits, and they chose to go after the bandits), is that I am a bit unsure where I want to go with the campaign. Do I keep 5-7 separate, short arcs, or do I weave them all (or almost all) together into one overarching plot? I started out wanting to do the first, but I am no longer certain it is what I want, nor what the players would prefer.

As a side-note, I am seeing some themes to the campaign, being Primal vs Magic, or the Wild vs Civilization. This is based on character classes, background of players and history in the campaign. Now, the evil NPC's do not really fit this per say, but that can be fixed, once I have a clearer picture of which way we are going with this campaign.

 

[Jack99]

3) You get an AP after every combat.
Why? - It's easier to remember, and I plan to tone down the amount of magical items a little bit, so this is to off-set that.

It's funny how it's never the house-rules you imagine will cause issues or discussions that ends up doing just that.

When I added the houserule above, I never thought it would be an issue. But we were barely done playing last time, when I got a mail from one of the players. He had some concerns about the rule. He had noticed that quite a few of the others seemed to think too much about having to use that AP every combat (since collecting them becomes pretty silly), causing a slowdown in play. I put it out there to the other players. Obviously, the taclord liked it, and didn't feel we needed to return to RAW. The Sorcerer felt it made AP's less than special that they had one every fight. The Avenger/Invoker (who initially brought this forth) actually suggested to make AP's a once per day thing, but that didn't go over well with the taclord. Me, I am just trying to make everyone happy, but I decided to hold off any decision until we have tried it (the once-per-fight-houserule) at least for another session.

It's funny, my players, who are quite opinionated people, rarely have comments or an opinion when it comes to our D&D rules/houserules. I mean, not one of six people even blinked when I removed magic item creation, raise dead and made the penalties for being brought back to life 3 times as bad as RAW. So I am wondering what made the AP-houserule worthy of debate?