WotBS thekwp's War of the Burning Sky Unchained

T

thekwp

First Post
(Reposting this after the great data loss of 2016. Fortunately, since my session posts are so long, I spend time drafting them outside of the forums, so I have saved drafts of all the key posts in this thread.)

Introduction

I have a regular campaign group that meets every other week, and has been stable for years now. We just wrapped up (early August, 2016) one of the members of the group giving me a break as a game master, and completed the Council of Thieves Adventure Path. In a few more years, I plan a 20th year revival of a campaign that started this group together. In thinking of what I wanted to do right now, I went through a lot of the material I had on hand. I realized that despite having a subscription for War of the Burning Sky from the time the first adventure came out, and really enjoying the material, I had never run the campaign. As the Pathfinder adaptation was unlikely to come out very soon, I anticipate that the work to adapt the campaign would just become greater as time passed. In addition, the campaign I want to return to in a few more years is a more low fantasy, gritty feel that takes a very slow progression path. The War of the Burning Sky might present a very different style, with a grander scope and engaging a higher level of magic than I planned; at the same time it might let me evaluate some variant rules in play for flavor and impact. So, with that in mind, I have started my War of the Burning Sky Unchained campaign.

Goals for the campaign

First, as alluded above, I want to explore a variety of variant and custom house rules for the campaign to see how they play out and scale. I want to get a good run with that before I started the campaign revival, to both see if they produce the feel in campaign play I want and also to familiarize my players with them.

Second, I want to work with some of the new campaign management tools and techniques, to gain experience with them. I am using Realm Works from Lone Wolf Development. I am also looking at different ways to handle maps during game play and information reveals, including using poster print out for maps, hand outs of different styles, and props. Finally, while I have used background music for decades now, I want to try more carefully themed music and special effects, possible with the use of Syrinscape.

Summary of mechanics translations

I am converting the adventure set to use Pathfinder, but with a large list of variant rules for Pathfinder in play (see below). I have converted all of the starting bonus feats to be Campaign Traits.

I am also scaling up the encounters to deal with an "oversized" party of 6 players, but I am generally trying to do this by increasing the number of opponents by 50% rather than just increasing the CR of individual opponents.

Finally, I am planning on using a limited use of the Mythic rules in the game, but with Mythic progression tightly controlled, and with actual development of mythic powers out of the players hand. I have asked my players to be willing to let me control their mythic development, including mythic power choices.

Summary of rules variants in play

This will get a bit long, but I will hit just the highlights for now:

  • Armor as Damage Reduction (from Ultimate Combat)
  • Wounds and Vitality System (from Ultimate Combat, but house rule modified)
  • Divine casters are all Words of Power Caster (from Ultimate Magic, but house rule modified and for divine casters only)
  • Background Skills (from Pathfinder Unchained)
  • Revised Action Economy (from Pathfinder Unchained)
  • Use 3d6 for skill checks (House Rule)
  • Limit maximum spell level cast by attribute bonus (i.e. +2 bonus required for 2nd level spells, +5 bonus required for 5th level spells, etc) (House Rule)
  • Psychological Maneuvers (from Ultimate Charisma)

Summary of world adaptation

I am assigning the campaign as in a vaguely undefined location in the Golarion campaign world of Pathfinder. I am adapting to the deities, timelines, etc, but not dealing with the geography or existing countries, etc. I will work more on this as the campaign advances.

Party

The party has six players. To get a feel for the mechanics impact, I asked my players to make a mix of full spell casters, semi casters, and fully non-spell casting characters. Finally, I informed them that a bard in the party might prove very useful long term, thinking of how bardic music with Song of Forms could prove unusually important to the campaign. The results were:

Alex: Ceilthanus, an elf magus (bladebound)
Chris: Damier Westgard ("Dom") a human cleric of Desna
J.T.: Gath Finherum, a human fighter (Martial Master)
Kirk: Krombholz Berryman, a dwarf gunslinger (Bolt Ace)
Rick: Bosma Caladen, a human bard
Steven: Bromsby Tarken, a gnome sorcerer (Elemental Air bloodline)

Each of the players let me work with them a bit to give them ideas to fit with the campaign. For example, Chris let me steer his cleric to Desna, as I think that her connection and dominion over dreams will offer some interesting opportunities for role play. Rick took feedback for his bard and about the scope of war in the campaign, and is planning on developing toward a Battle Herald. Steven let me suggest bloodlines, and I plan to have the Elemental Air bloodline tie back to the Stromseeker Eagle and the myth of the Aquiline Heart.

Threads I have found useful to reference:



Posted originally
Reposted
Edit on 2016-10-24 Added link to Morrus post for War of the Burning Sky Campaign Guide
Edit on 2016-10-24 Added link to Arcaneshield's Altering the Setting/Story Heavily post
Edit on 2016-10-25 Added link to RangerWickett pronunciation tips.
Edit on 2016-11-02 Added link to Lylyandra's post on Lady Selena Dena; RangerWickett's expanded world background timeline
Edit on 2016-11-22 Added link to RangerWickett's reply talking about cultural inspirations for Latia, Morrus, etc.; Added the Myth of the Aquiline Heart
Edit on 2017-01-04 Added link to BillT's post for content of Torrax's Notebook; Add the Original Deities listing from RangerWickett
Edit on 2017-01-06 Added link to RangerWickett's other post on original pantheon, Renard's Inquisitor contact
 
Last edited:

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T

thekwp

First Post
Session 01 - Aug 24, 2016

Event Summary sent to Players:

The Scouring of Gate Pass, Act One

Last session, the party meet Torrent, a young member of Resistance, at the Poison Apple Pub just before midnight on New Year's Eve. She described the current situation, with a Ragesian army on the way, the Council of Representatives split on how to respond, but with a strong faction including the current governor inclined to open the gates for the Inquisitors to look for "spellcaster who are hostile to the empire." They have sealed the city gates so no one can get out Curent details from abroad have become murky, with the loss of teleportation couriers. The Resistance is hastily organizing, intending to resist Ragesia, and also Shahalesti, who many fear will take the oppertunity gather Gate Pass into their control as part of the crisis.

Torrent relayed that resistance has a contact that has stolen a case of what is believed to be vital military intelligence. The heads of the resistance wants to see it reach Lyceum, requesting that Torrent and the party recover it from the contact, smuggle it out of the city, and see that it gets there.

The contact is a gnome known as Rivereye Badgerface. His contact was Peppin Tallman, a human wizard from Lyceium, who would occasionally pass information along to the resistance. Pepping Tallman was found dead a week ago, and Torrent is worried that Rivereye might spook when he sees Peppin is not at the rendezvous. The Tallman revealed via Speak with Dead that he was meeting with Riverye, as well as the time and place of the meeting. However, the identity of Tallman's killer remains unknown.

The party has started speculating on how they might get out of the city, with the primary idea being to call on a city council member sympathetic to their cause, Erdan Menash. He might be able to arrange a pass of some kind for the party to exit the city.

The bells rang to celebrate the start of the New Year. Torrent said that the meeting with Rivereye was a little after midnight, at a guarded Depository Tower about half a mile away. During an sudden lull in the ringing of the bells, several party members heard creaking floorboards overhead. Getting ready for intruders on the secret meeting, they party also heard muted thumps filling the air, like the sound of ripe fruit landing on the roof of the house. Moments later, a strong male voice called out "Front door: Go!" The front door shuddered as a battering ram slammed into the door.

Before the fight could even break out properly, the upstairs exploded in fire, with debris and flaming oil falling from the ceiling. Two of the upstairs intruders made it down the stairs, but several others did not, and one burnt body fell down the stairs after them. The front door burst open, and the party began to deal with a mixed group of half-orcs and humans, all wielding saps. They all wore red armbands with a black horse head and strange lettering. Gath and Dom both recognized that was Ignan for "Murders."

During the melee Gath held the front door and kept most of the enemies from ever being able to enter. Some came around from the side, but the attempt to flank the party and pin them in was stopped by a Color Spray from Bromsby. Shortly, the tide of battle turned in favor of the party, and the group left the burning building. Torrent dragged the unconscious foes out from the building, and other party members followed suite with the injured and bleeding foes.

Watching from the street was a tall, powerfully built man dressed in heavy armor. He took no offensive action as the battle ended. The party approached him warily, and called out to him. The comment about the armbands appeared to catch him off guard, and he replied that they say "Black Horses."

With the party piling out into the street and alley, we ended the session with the party's realization that it was not the Poison Apple Pub that was firebombed, but the entirety of west end of Gate Pass. As bells begin to ring urgent warning up and down the mountain pass, Torrent whispered urgently about her concern that Rivereye might flee.


Tactical notes:

Gath did a great job of holding the door, alternating between fighting defensively and lashing out at whichever opponent had suffered most from attacks of opportunity while trying to get into the building. Both Bosma has the feats Combat Reflexes and Bodyguard, and made very good use of them from inside the Poison Apple Pub, as the Black Horse members tried to get into position. Torrent was not terribly effective, but did well enough to seen as useful -- I feel like this was really the right balance for an NPC in starting session, where she neither out shown anyone in the party nor flounder terribly. Bromsby's color spray when two of the Black Horse broke in from the side was very dramatic.

Mechanics issues:

We definitely were off to slow fight with the players learning all of the changes. The Revised Action Economy was generally very well received, and players enjoyed feeling a bit smoother in their actions even if learning things made the battle take much longer in play. Armor as Damage Reduction and the Vitality and Wounds rules made the battle last longer, but play out more smoothly than normal for first level characters. When a character who would have 9 HP takes a 6 point hit, many players start trying to pull back; with the Vitality and Wounds, losing 6 vitality, but still having 2 vitality left before your 12 Wound points gave crater confidence.

However, the Steven (playing Brosmby) is worried about the impact the additional hit points has on his low level spells and bloodline abilities, with the amount of damage that it takes to decisively remove someone from a fight being much higher at low levels, but the damage out put for his character not having changed. I believe this will balance out by 5th to 6th level or so, and then start to shift back in his favor with the progression of things, but for now he has a valid point. He has decided that a low levels he will focus more on battle field control and less on damage.

The only notable change in the mechanics for this session, other than the straight adaptation of the Black Horse members to pathfinder, was to increase their numbers by 50% so as to keep the same scale of encounter.

I adjust Torrent to be NG, instead of CG, to be a worshiper of Gozreh, with the Water and Weather domains.

Props, Music, Images, Supporting handouts, etc

Music for this session was included music from

  • John Carter Soundtrack by Michael Giacchino
  • Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Soundtrack by Fernando Velazquez
  • Casino Royale Soundtrack by Nicholas Dodd
  • The Amazing Spider-man soundtrack by James Horner

I extracted the image for Torrent and for Kathor Danava from the PDF, but did not have any additional character images. I did extract the map for the Gate Pass, and posted that for the group as well. All of these were well received, I believe.

I did use the map for the Poison Apple Pub. I extracted that, then resized it and the DPI so that the print out would have the squares at 1" in the print out. The cost for the printout at Office Depot was more than I liked, but everyone enjoyed having a good visual for the setting to start with.

Notable player reactions

My party really enjoyed the "Murders" vs "Black Horse" issue, and picked up entirely on the fact that the group had markings they did not understand. One player likened it to someone getting a tattoo without verifying the Chinese characters actually meant.

When the players realized that the burning of the pub was not about attacking them, but about general assault on the pass, I believe they were slightly stunned.

Story Deviation & Extra Details

I had Torrent explain that "Stand the Heat" is actually a spell created and from Lyceum, and she brought it to town. I have her speaking with a slight southern drawl, but with a good nature to her. I imagine that, as a worshiper of the sea, she is not natively from a mountain pass town. As such, I have her hailing from Seaquen originally. She mentioned to the group that in addition to the potions she has, some sample potions and scrolls were at Gabal's school as well.

I failed to have Kathor call for either retreat or surrender. I am going to have to work the situation carefully next session for the players to get a feel for him; I would rather they not fight him at this stage, but will certainly let that go through if they push it.

I plan to have the "Resistance" assign Bosma as the "mission and cell leader" once the party retrieves the case. Currently, the default in the group is to slightly defer to Torrent to decide on plans. As Torrent is from Seaquen in this campaign, I feel that it offers a very solid excuse for the Resistance to assign someone else to be leader of the mission in terms of requesting help from Lyceum.
 

T

thekwp

First Post
Session 02 - Sept 7, 2016

Event Summary sent to Players:

Act One The Meeting & Ambush (aftermath)

The discussion with the lieutenant of the Black Horse mercenaries continues. He offers terms for granting his men quarter, as the party has shown themselves honorable enough opponents; the party make take their weapons and money, even armor if they wish to take the time, but leave them alive for him to tend. The party hesitates, unsure of the situation, with someone feeling that the Ragesian "collectors" deserve far worse. When the party asks Torrent, she demands the offer their parole, that the fallen men in turn will oppose the party again for the duration of the coming conflict. The heavily armored Black Horse assess the party, and tells them that he thinks it likely they could as a group defeat him, but not without a heavy cost, one they cannot likely bare tonight. An agreement is reached, and the party quickly takes the weapons of the fallen Black Horse mercenaries, tossing most of them into the fire, but keeping some.

With Torrent's urging, the party hurries on through the burning city to try to keep the rendezvous with Rivereye Badgerface.

Intermissions: City on Fire

Aiding the Wounded

As the party traveled through the streets with growing crowds, they come across a man burnt and barely standing, holding a severely burned and unconscious woman. Three small children crowd around him, two crying silently. He calls out for help, seemingly overwhelmed with concern for the woman in his arms, but unable to do more. Gath seemed frustrated at pausing to help while the party had a mission, responding to Torrent statement that "There's always time to do the right thing" with a short but heartfelt "Not always," but did not interfere when Dom took a focus to help them immediately. Learning that the woman was named Risha, he examined her, made sure was stable and did some healing to make sure she would be OK. The party discussed what to do next with them. When torrent offered the chapel of Shelyn dedicated to the Order of the Aquiline Cross, only a couple of blocks from the depository, they party decided it was not too much out of their way, and had them come with them. Dom even offered to carry Risha for the man, but he insisted on carrying her himself.

Leathery wings overhead

As they moved across the city, Ceilthanus attempted to watch the status of the "Dire Bats" overhead. His perception was good enough to spot the creature flying overhead more clearly this time; enough to identify their reptilian form and confirm his supposition that they were some kind of dragon! Bromsby listened to his description of the creatures, and determined for himself that they were more likely a wyvern which is technically a form of dragon, but decided not to contradict Ceilthanus.

Burning Building

Before getting to the gates, the party came across a cluster of four-story buildings that had caught fire, with a group of residents scattered around trying to figure out if they could put it out by any means. When the window on the top floor smashed outward and a woman cried out for help, Bromsby suggested that get a blanket for her to jump into. Torrent offered her cloak, and the rest of the party joined up along with some of the residents to help out with Gath leading the effort. The cloak did not hold, and the woman ripped through it hurting herself, but survived. After making sure she was not too seriously injured the party quickly moved on.

Terror in the Skies

The party approached the gate and found it open. Large number of people crowded the streets, and made it slow going for the guards trying to move through the gate. Suddenly, cries of terror filled the streets and the crowds began to panic. The cold dread blew through the party members, panicking everyone in the party. Looking up, many people in the party spotted the crimson, bat-winged shape the size of a house flying a hundred feet overhead. "Now that," Bromsby said, "is a red dragon." And then promptly began running.

Bromsby and Ceilthanus fled in same direction, with Bromsby desperately attempting to hold onto Ceilthanus' belt to keep up. Dom and Bosma also fled in together, also by chance. Gath, Krombholz, and Torrent all went in different directions. Bosma knew the local area, and helped Dom and him cut through a back alley and then over a roof bridge to get back to the gate while the crowds continued to move away from the area. Bromsby and Ceilthanus had to work against the full force of the crowd, as did Krombholz and Torrent. Gath made slightly better progress by occasionally ordering the crowd out of his way.

Being some of the first to return, Bosma and Dom were able to recover their dropped longspears. They also found Risha on the ground, dropped by her husband and then injured further by the panicked crowds, and Dom resumed giving her medical attention. The party was able to gather again, and two of the children returned as well, but not the father or the middle child.

Visiting the Safe House

Arriving at the Order of the Aquiline Cross chapel dedicated to Shelyn, the part met with Buron Watcher, who took the woman to one of the cots he had already gotten ready for the injured. Dom made sure to tell Buron that the woman's name was Risha, and then took a moment to talk to both of the children, that they were going to have to be brave and help Buron with their mother for a while, as it would take a long time for her to get better. With a word of encouragement from Buron, and a reminder that they could back themselves if they needed shelter, the party left for the Depository tower.

Act Two: Retrieving the Case

Spy versus Spy

The party finally made it to the eighty foot high stone tower. Torrent's identification was recognized by the four guards, and while they were skeptical about the number of extras she brought with her but permitted her and the entire party to enter. She and the party got as far as one of two fountains -- the one with the dragon, worm, kraken, and eagle spirits on it -- before she remembered to ask the guards for tonight's passphrase: "Avilona barflew."

Entering the large building, the party spread out to start searching the aisles of lockers. As they spread out across the ground floor of the tower, a coughing and wheezing gnome descended with a shuffling gait down from the second flood. Complaining that he caught a cold on the trip her from the Ragesian capital, he waved at the group. Bromsby replied to this with "Hello, Rivereye." The gnome nodded in reply, calling out a greeting "Peppin." Bromsby replied with "Bromsby." Rivereye seem to ignore that, and drew them to the second floor to "get this done." Torrent dropped back as they went up the stairs so she could whisper to Bosma and Dom as they passed by "I don't know what's going on here." Bosma and Dom tried to be subtle in taking flanking positions around 'Rivereye' as he brought them to a locker, then said "Well, go on. Use the password and let's get this open." Torrent and Gath hung back by the stairs, while Krombholz went half way up the stairs to the third floor to take an over watch position.

As the situation escalated in tension, Rivereye turned to Bromsby saying "Come on Peppin." When he was told "No, Peppin's dead," Rivereye made a bolt for it, calling out "Help" while scrambling up the aisle of lockers. Bosma attempted to trip him as he climbed, but failed. Krombholz, however, successfully took a shot at the strangely distended gnome. A chase broke out, with the party desperately attempting to keep 'Rivereye' from fleeing, but not sure of who he was or what was going on.

A glowing fairy-like tiny woman with gossamer butterfly wings flew down from the third floor past Krombholz. Bromsby identified the creature as a Lyrakien Azata. Krombholz stayed focused on the fleeing figure and fired again. Dom used Cramp on him, but he resisted. Ceilthanus moved in to strike at figure but missed, who turned to him asking "Why are you helping *them*?" before turning away. Ceilthanus attempted to strike him, but a blazing flash of light and sparkles from the fey-like Azata dazed him. However, 'Rivereye''s movement also provoked from Bosma, who this time struck a critical hit that seriously injured 'Riverye,' drawing blood from the grievous wound, before the man continued to flee. As he headed toward the balcony door, it opened for him. Bosma went out the side door, and spotted 'Rivereye' climbing straight up the walls like a spider.

Dom sprinted for the stairs, and he and Krombholz went out the third floor balcony. The door that 'Rivereye' fled through closed on its own, before Ceilthanus came out of his daze. It was up on the third story, when Riverye came over the balcony's edge, that Dom struck the final blow, and the unconscious figure fell from the third floor to the ground. The guards called out and began to rush to the building, the Lyrakien fled into the night, while those on the balcony had a stunning view of the city as it burned. The western gate, about a mile and a half away lit up the sky with the fires burning around it. Trebuchets hurled flaming balls of pitch over the walls and into city as well. From Bosma's position, some of the Gate Pass griffon riders swooped past over the rooftops, battle horns blaring as they joined the battle.

Hearing the guards call out, Ceilthanus turned back to the locker that had been shown. Using his knowledge of magic, he attempted to trick whatever spell or arcane protection was in place to open for him, but failed to get any response.

After the guards brought back in the dead figure, things slowly got straightened out. The ones who brought 'Rivereye' back in noted the his appearance and what they had held did not match. Soon, he was revealed not as a gnome but as an elf under a Disguise Self spell. When the building searched found the dead guard, the bound guards, and a very much alive Rivereye on the fourth floor, things finally began to click into place.

The real Rivereye explained, in his abrupt and somewhat chaotic manner, that he had been captured while waiting for rendezvous with Peppin. He was saddened to learn of Peppin's death, but not surprised. He explained that after they got the case from him, he convinced them that it needed a password to be opened safely. They had talked amongst themselves, and the female elf who seemed the leader took the case. He heard the Lyrakien promise to meet her "back at Gabal's school, in your quarters" but had not understood anything the elves had said. He note that while he never got a look at her face, she had long and lean legs, with high boots and metal gloves that gleamed silver. The one here, that the Azata had called "Larion" had stayed behind to try and bluff the contacts into revealing the password after attempts at physical coercion had failed to get the information from Rivereye. Larion had thus used the ruse of a storage locker to try and get the nonexistent password. The real case, he explained, was about a foot long and a foot wide, almost half a foot deep, made from a black metal, most likely adamantine, with a lock on it, and lined with lead to prevent magical detections.

When asked to reveal the contents, Riverye explained that he couldn't, but that it was vital it got to Lyceum. No, not would not, but could not. The geas he operated under would not let him tell anyone what he learned by serving in the Ragesian palace. It was why he operated under a cover name, after all. The party as a whole did not agree with Rivereye that "Rivereye Badgerface" was a dashing and cool code name. After a quick discussion revealed no one in the group could break the spell, the party considered if they knew of anyone who could. "Depends on how powerful the caster who placed it on him is. Rivereye, who did cast that on you?" "Supreme Inquisitor Leska." "OK, so that option is out. After the case it is."

After examining Larion's body a bit more closely, the party gathered up to head toward Gabal's school, to chase their one lead on the case.

End of Player Summary

Story Deviation & Extra Details

I allowed the party to drop off the wounded woman at the Safe House without having the Fallen Devil encounter. I was saving that for after the Depository tower; now that they appear to be headed for the Elvish Spymaster at Gabal's school, I may include it before they arrive there. Likewise, I skipped the encounter with Mulysa Bahri, the malign bard for now. When they return to the Safe House at the end of the evening, I will include her.

As should be obvious from the player summary, I replaced the Lantern Archon with a Lyrakien Azata. I liked the idea of a good-aligned outsider working in conjunction with the Shahalesti spies, but I felt that the a Lawful Good outsider working with Chaotic Neutral individuals for a country with more than its fair share of Chaotic Neutral to Evil historical actions did not work. On the other hand, I personally find it believable that a Chaotic Good patriotic cleric in Shahalesti would make an agreeable arrangement. More on the implications of this in Mechanics below. In addition, I liked the fey-like style of the of the Lyrakien.

I made Rivereye Badgerface a "code name," as my group generally shies away from that style of name for their characters. They have been discussing amongst themselves what kind of name that was, and when it was revealed that Rivereye chose it for himself as his alias, it added to the party's impression as to who Rivereye is. I need to take a look to see how he might show up again later in the campaign.

I added a small detail, that the case with the documents was also lead lined, preventing many forms of divination and scrying on the contents. As a result, the party is already speculating if the contents are magical in any way, or if there are any magical traps on the inside.

General Game Play & Notable player reactions:

I tried to keep the pace of things fluid and fast moving during this game. I did not want the players to get bogged down and slow the start of the campaign, but wanted to provide the overwhelming feeling of the start of a massive fantasy war, while keeping them focused on their own smaller story and goal in the midst of the chaos of the larger events. I think I succeeded, but at the cost of missing a few of the possible points to do the various subplots. I think I have them queued up for the next session appropriately, with Fallen Devil happening soon, and handling the bard motivated angry mob at the Safe house at the end of the evening.

I carefully read the section for Larion, and noted that his languages do not include Gnome. I decided that he interpreted Bromsby's one word reply to his greeting as a gnomish word, and not a name. With that he continued his bluff, attempting to get his password. The confusion about what was going on with Rivereye, Peppin, and the "spy drop" was really funny, as the party did not know what to do, and wasn't really sure they had done the right thing in stopping Larion. Some of the players picked up immediately that something was wrong based on the "Peppin" response, but others had not paid close enough attention to details and just got more confused the longer the encounter went on. This could be seen in Alex attempting to figure out if Ceilthanus could apply his Use Magic Device skill to fool an Arcane Lock that was not there on the locker that Larion brought them too. They were all greatly relieved, however, when Rivereye was found on the fourth floor by the guards, thus establishing they had been "heroes" for stopping the "thief."

The use of spider climb to get over the shelves and move away from them completely surprised the party, and raised the question of "Who has a spider climb ready like that?" I thought that was entertaining because in context it is both very reasonable with Larion's overall plan but not this specific use, and a good way to set expectation for how magic is used in the setting.

Using preprinted maps continued to be helpful. This session, it made the chase sequence up the depository much smoother in play, as no delays happened to draw a new map level. Not only I noted this, but several players commented on it as well.

The party recognized the pass phrase for an Arcane Lock, and was suitably impressed. Various members noted the closing and opening door, but failed to ask about it or investigate it. I think that was a very clever use of the Unseen Servant spell, and wish they had paid more attention to it.

I very much enjoyed playing the real Rivereye with the party, and commiserating with the Bromsby, the gnome in the party, about having to deal with this gorup "other folk". He focused his descriptions on the legs and footwear of everyone he dealt, noting that was generally what was eye level for him, and besides which, a servant in Ragesia should not get in the habit of looking up at others or making too much eye contact.

Tactical notes:

I should have had Larion use a locker closer to the balcony. I really did expect him to get away, and if not for a critical hit with a x3 weapon, he likely would have. I played him overconfident, and did not have him tumble directly away when he should have.

The party did a good job of playing to their own strengths, such as Krombholz taking an elevated position, or Gath being ready to block any one coming up after them at the top of the stairs.

Mechanics issues:

For Burning Building interlude between Act One and Act Two, the jump from the window included nothing about what the implications were for failing. The party failed, but only by 3, and I decided to house rule that they broke some of her fall but not all. She destroyed Torrent's cloak, but only took 1d6 of damage, surviving.

There are not good mechanics implications for handling mass panic in the streets. I made each character roll a d8 to determine which direction they ran, and those that rain the same direction could work together after their panic fled. The implications of dropping what you were holding though was strong, as the two long spears were dropped in the street as was the injured woman Risha being carried by her husband. I felt like there should have been more risk for being overrun and trampled by the crowd, and having the party scatter should have more implications as well. In retrospect, I wish I had added a mild Knowledge (Local) check or something else to force the players to navigate back; even having the pair that got back faster did not have real meaning. They could have lost gear of course, and Risha could have been injured even more severely, but the mechanical results felt minor. I even went through Ultimate Intrigue on handling a large crowed, which gave guidelines for wading through one, hiding in one, and using skills to deal with them but nothing about what happens when a crowd panics, possibly trampling people.

I had looked at adapting the Animal Crossing encounter. For Pathfinder, a Giant Weasel (a medium animal) is much closer to the original challenge scenario and size than a Dire Weasel (a large animal). I had the stats ready for it, but decided to skip that encounter for game flow.

Still getting used to the new rules myself, I forgot to apply Larion's Armor as Damage Reduction, letting him drop a trifle faster than he should have; the over all difference was not much, though, with the critical hit doing the greatest amount of damage on him, and the falling clearly finishing him.

The Azata Lyrakien having unlimited Daze proved to be a good play out in this role. Blocking actions was frustrating to the party without being damaging to them, and I think may have been as effective as continual aid in keeping Larion up. The party avoided attacking the good "Tinker Bell" so she will appear again.

Props, Music, Images, Supporting handouts, etc

Music for this session was included music from

  • Brom Stoker's Dracula by Wojciech Kilar
  • Gladiator by Hans Zimmer
  • National Treasure by Trevor Rabin
  • Skyfall by Thomas Newman
  • Terminator II by Brad Fiedel
  • Witcher III by Mikolai Stroinski

As I had with the Poison Apple Pub, I extracted the map for the Depository Tower, then resized it setting DPI so that the print out would have the squares at 1" in the print out. It being able to just lay out the map for the next level as they got to it kept the pace in the game moving fast. Even if one does not do a print out for the situation, I do recommend pre-drawing the maps.

I extracted and use the image for Rivereye Badgerface. I found an image that I liked for using with Larion and posted that after his disguise self spell ended.
 

T

thekwp

First Post
Session 03 - Sept 21, 2016

Party Summary for September 21, 2016 session (session #03)

The Scouring of Gate Pass

Act Two, Retrieving the Case - Spy versus Spy (continued)

The party checked with Rivereye on a few more details. From this, came a small amount of commentary on the strength of the forces opposing Gate Pass. "General Danava leads the 2nd Army, and he's a pretty good fellow, really. He's generally considered a friend of Gate Pass, so I think he is trying to take it easy on you right now. He's not like General Revulus or General Magdus, really." The party recognized that General Danava and Kathor Danava shared a family name, and suspect that Kathor may be a nephew or some other relation to General Danava. Some party members speculated, or perhaps hoped, that they might receive better interactions if they ever do interact with General Danava for not killing Kathor. There was also a brief discussion about the size of the army, with the revelation that the Ragesian 2nd Army is "slightly undersized" with about 10,000 soldiers, including a few air cavalry on wyvern mounts and some monstrous allies; compared to the population of Gate Pass total at 17,000 or so.

Act Two, Retrieving the Case - The Elvish Spymaster

The party headed across the next district to head to Gabal's School, or 'the Castle' as the students call it. On crossing the last gate, they were confronted by guards who were asking what their purpose was moving around this night. A diplomacy check persuaded them to let the party escort the students of Gabal back to the grounds of the school. One of the guards echoed support for the idea of gathering up all the mages to have them ready for the Inquisitors, which caused his sergeant to react by slapping him on the back of the head. The party moved on through while the ensuing discussion among the guards escalated up.

The arrived at Gabal's School to see one of the internal towers -- Gabal's personal residence -- aflame and partially collapsed. At the gate, the party found Diogenes looking out at the city and smoking a cigarette. Diogenes recognized Bromsby and Ceilthanus, greeting them. When the party asks about a trio of elves coming to the school, Diogenes told them there were no groups of elves that night, just a couple of individuals, Kisdeam and Shealis. However, when they asked about a tiny glowing fey figure, Diogenes identified it as "Shealis's pixie familiar." Explaining the involvement with the Resistance, and getting confirmation from Torrent, the party was invited by Diogenes inside the school to the kitchen on the first floor of the dormitory to have a drink and plan their actions.

The party debated attempting to confront Shealis in her rooms on the third floor of the dormitory, but settled on a plan to confront her during or after a spell duel between Diogenes and Shealis. The party planned to hide in the tower, with Dom and Krombholz hiding in a small chamber on the floor below coming out when the pair of duelers had passed, with the rest of the party in the dueling chamber behind a Silent Illusion of the wall provided by Bosma. Fortunately the floor to ceiling curtains on the floor worked well for this purpose, and Bosma's illusion pass without provoking any notice. Even with the assistance of the azata, Curriel, the party blocked her efforts to escape when confronted. Shealis threw off Diogenes' first efforts of a charm person. However, when he used Suggestion "You've been very clever about all of this. I suggest you tell everything about your spying to show us how clever and effective you've been," she failed her save.

Compelled to monologue about her activities, Shealis revealed among other things the location of her accomplices at Fulshiar Afedera Carpentry & Cabinets, in Gulshineas, an elvish ghetto in town. She explained also that she had been doing this for years, and had no hatred or dislike for Gate Pass, but believed the Resistance was doomed to failure against the Ragesian Army; only Shahalesti could stand against them. She surrendered to the party after asking Curriel, who said that the party did not really appear to be bad. Coming to believe that Shealis was the enemy of their enemy, even if not their friend, the party made arrangements for Diogenes to keep her bound until tomorrow, but to let her out before the army or the inquisitors could take the area. The party then searched her room for information, finding a note the wrote first in one script "Gulshineas Ghetto ~~ Fulshiar Afedera Carpentry & Cabinets", then in another "Remember precautions: Arborea before Elysium before Celestia," within her spellbook. Other than searching her room, and taking that note, the party did not take any of Shealis's possessions.

Act Two, Retrieving the Case - The Hideout

Following the clues gathered, they went to Gulshineas, noting with the secret doors disguising the entrances how insular the refugees from Innenotdar remained, even forty years later. During the travel to the ghetto, Krombholz spotted a raven watching the party, even following them down a few alleyways. Even once he mentioned it, no one else could spot it. Once inside the ghetto's secret entrance, the party looked made their way to Fulshiar Federa's Carpentry and Cabinets near the southern edge of the ghetto. Along the way, they found fewer bombings than in most of the rest of the town, and hardly anyone about even if numerous eyes watched them from windows and doors. One of the few areas of activities in the ghetto was an active fire obviously triggered by a firebombing, with a local fire troop and bucket brigade losing a struggle to put the fire out. Finding the woodworking shop, the party found no one around it save for a single rat that scurried away, but noted the smoke from the chimney. They successfully located the secret entrance without trouble. Bromsby's knowledge of the outer planes and their denizens made bypassing the security on the door possible.

Finding nothing of interest on the first floor, the group proceeded to the second floor, where they found four armed and armored elves huddled in a small circle and talking. The confrontation between the groups escalated quickly, when the elves challenged the assertion from the party that Shealis instructed them to turn over the case. Bromsby choose not to fight, saying that he was against the Inquisition, but did not want to make any more enemies. The party defeated the four warriors, but made a point to stabilize the wounds and not kill any of the elves.

End of Party Summary

Game Mechanics, Adaptations, and Conversions:

The use of Silent Image lead to longer than I liked mechanics discussion in the middle of the game. I asked for a skill check to be made to determine how well the image being crafted resembled the room as it was to function as an opposed skill check against Shealis; Rick (Bosma's player) was not really happy with that relying on the spell description that there was no saving throw if the illusion was not interacted with, and since she was not touching it, she should not get a saving throw. I ruled that this use more closely resembled something like Disguise Self attempting to match a particular and known person, giving the player the choose to describe to me what skill they were using to create their image, and granting a +10 on the the check, but that a person who knew the room might still notice something wrong with it.

Affronts of Opportunity started to get in game play, and the party begin to enjoy that function a lot.

I debated on adjusting Shealis up a level to keep her the same Challenge Rating as in the original adventure, but with Larion out of action, I decided instead to add some allies to her to bring the Encounter Level back up to the original. After some consideration, I settled on two Small Fire Elementals, hiding in Sealis's room as Continual Flame lanterns. The fire elementals will follow her orders to stay behind and block people who pursue her, and will not be affected by a fireball spell. With the change in skills between 3.5 and Pathfinder, I allocated some of her skill ranks into Linguistics, justifying both complex orders to the Fire Elementals with her speaking Ignan and being thematically appropriate for a spy who is gathering information and using cyphers on a regular basis. As for other adjustments for Shealis, I changed her prohibited schools, allowing Conjuration, and also updated her equipment. While the Hand of the Mage is a fun magic item in 3.5, but the unlimited use of cantrips in Pathfinder reduces the player value of the item; I gave her the Concealing Pocket, which seemed a useful item for a wizard spy, though I considered the Bookplate of Recall. However, the Bookplate of Recall would be generally of very limited value through the campaign because of the Burning Sky effect. All of this ended up being moot because of the way the encounter was handled; when they searched her room they did not even note the lanterns as of interest. Nothing else came into play

I really could not find a way to make the celestial badgers work. Unlike the azata, I could not really figure out a way that you would use Planar Ally for celestial badgers, nor was anyone using a Summon Monster or Servitor spell for them. As a result, I replaced them with additional Shahalesti warriors. This also make the battle with them much more reasonable of a challenge for the party's size.

I had the player's roll hit points and begin leveling up their characters for next session. They are not actually level 2 yet, but by the time they deal with the imp Kurychek, the Fallen Devil scene, and Mulysa Bahri at the next session before the safe house, they will be, so after they rest they should be at their next level.

Tactical Notes:

The fifteen feet length of the dormitory rooms with a five wide corridor created a nice option for using the fireball internally in the dormitory by standing in the far corner of the room away from the door and targeting the far back end corner of the square on the other side of the door. Detonating the fireball there covers ever square of the bedroom except that one the caster is in, and a nice forty foot section of the hall. The adventure suggests not having Shaelis use her fireball in her room, and there is some sense in that; there is also the professional spy who destroys all evidence on their way out the door. With the additional hit points the party has effectively at level 1 from the Wounds and Vitality alternate rules, I was considering using it. If her actions had gone a different order in the actual play, she might have used it in the tower, but the party got her fenced in pretty quickly.

Music, Props, Images, Supporting Handouts, etc

Music for this session was


  • Trailerhead: Saga by The Immediate
  • Dragon Age: Origins by Inon Zur
  • Sneakers by James Horner
  • The Adventures of Tintin by John Williams

The Adventures of Tintin proved to be a mixed bag. Some of the music perfectly encountered the "thrilling action" and "hijinks" aspects of the session; but other portions ventured into more comic relief aspects or genre and period clashing. John Williams is great, and even his 'average' pieces are strong; I should have listened ahead of time and removed a few pieces from the list. As is, when those songs drew my attention away from the game, I just hit the "Next" on the shuffle play. Dragon Age: Origins also had a single song that I should have removed, the "I am the One - DJ Killa Remix." It did not match the mood at all.

Images were limited to the extracted picture of Diogenes from the source, and a Google sourced image for Shaelis of a blond elf woman in a red robe (albeit without any hint of armor).

Supporting Handouts, Extra Details, and Story Deviations:

I made a handout for Lyrion's spellbook, but nothing fancy -- just a page with the name of the book, spells, and total value. I did the same for Shaelis, but they did not take her book.

As noted in the previous summary, I gave a name to the azata (Curriel), as she was interacted with a few times, including by Shealis as she attempted to determine if she could surrender to the party and Curriel used her Detect Evil abilities on the party.

I had the handout for the note they found in her spellbook. In it, I identified both which Ghetto and which carpentry location; as indicated in the player summary above, I had named both. I used a different font for that than the additional note on the planar order, to hint that someone had provided the location, and Shaelis had jotted down the reminder. No one commented on it, so I do not know what conclusions they drew about the note. The used the handout as a reference when working to bypass the trap while opening the secret door.

I went looking to see what else is referenced in The Scouring of Gate Pass that shows up later. The largest amount of information shows up in adventure 9, The Festival of Dreams; unsurprising as that adventure brings us back to Gate Pass. The description of Gabal's School on pg 22 in The Scouring of Gate Pass does not match the map presented in The Festival of Dreams. I decided to go with the map from the later adventure, and have the collapsed tower be Gabal's residence, and possibly some of the other instructors. That's important because I wanted to emphasize it burning and being in the process of collapsing when the party visited 'the Castle' on the first night of the assault. I printed out the map of Gabal's School from the later adventure (though included in this section in the Complete Campaign PDF), and gave that to the Alex and Steven, who's characters Ceilthanus and Bromsby were students of the school. Not marked on the map in tFoD are the windows referenced in Shealis's planned reactions. Since no windows are marked on the map at all, I described the windows and made sure they understood verbally that all the rooms in the Dormitories had windows, and that none of the maps showed windows. I verbally commented and explained that the kitchens were on the first floor of the dormitory position; the map of the dormitory included neither the stairs or windows for the its multiple floors. Emphasizing that the maps do not show windows was very good, since it turns out that there is an ENORMOUS ALL ROUND WINDOW on the 3rd floor, the floor I used for the dueling chamber. That really should be indicated on the map.

As a result of looking ahead to the Festival of Dream, I want to talk about the presence of the Spire Clocktower. It did not come up in this session at all as the party did not get to Summer's Bluff. As the lair of the future dragon Vorax-Hûl in the Festival of Dreams, I feel it should get mentioned now on the party's first pass through. Given the DC of the frightful presence, the dragon that overflew the party in "Terror in the Skies" cannot be Vorax-Hûl; so I think it likely to one of his spawn working in the army now; that detail idea may never matter one way or the other though. The campaign time line for the presents Gabal's death happening while destroying the siege equipment of the 2nd Army, so I presume that Vorax-Hûl is involved now or arriving soon. As an early side note, the Mask of Vorax-Hûl is awesome. I am going to have to do some significant preparation with my change to divine casters being Words of Power casters, to make that battle as memorable as it deserves to be. When they pass through Summer's Bluff later, I will make a point about the Spire Clocktower.

I missed my very small window to have Kurychek interact with the party. I regret that, because now having the interaction will present less of a choice for the party. However, if it is an outright fight, it may pull Steven back into the party group better. I would really like to have a way to have Guthwulf, the Minister of Pain, referenced somehow to the group as part of foreshadowing.

I like the fact that we are given Shealis's contact, Clathan, but there are no other references to him. However, if I need to pull out a name for an elf wizard spy who has an opinion about the party, Clathan is now it.

Notable Player Reactions

Steven is wrestling with Bromsby's conscience in dealing with the elves of Shahalesti. They are the enemy of his enemy, but he feels like the party is going around making enemies instead of gaining friends. I feel gratified that at least one person in the party noted and feels that conflict. I found it interesting that Ceilthanus (Alex) had much less trouble attacking his fellow country men. The feelings of both as they discovery the true history of Innenotdar will prove fun, I think. I need to spend some time soon on fleshing out some more of the details of the character backgrounds to support this.
 

T

thekwp

First Post
Session 04 - Oct 5, 2016

Player Summary

The Scouring of Gate Pass
Act Two, Retrieving the Case - The Hideout (cont.)

After subduing the Shahalesti agents hiding out inside of Fulshiar Afedera Carpentry & Cabinets, in the elvish ghetto Gulshineas of Gate Pass, the party began to search the area. Soon they discovered a black metal case about a foot long and wide, about half a foot deep, with a built in lock, hidden in a pile of lumber. Just as Dom is picking it up, a tiny humanoid figure with bat wings and a scorpion's tail appears next to him, and whispers "Well done on bringing me here to my goal. My master Guthwulf will be pleased! I suggest you hand that over to me." Magic filled his voice, and Dom was compelled to turn the box over to the fiend.

Before he could do so, however, Bosma spoke with inspiring oratory, and countered the fell influence on Dom's mind. Realizing this chance of easy access to the box was foiled, the creature vanished, but several keened eared members of the party heard the flapping of his wings. Despite their efforts, the fiend was able to escape from the area unharmed by the party.

Act Two, Retrieving the Case - Fallen Devil and Reaching the Safe House

The party departed from the woodworking shop, leaving the elves their alive and stable, albeit beaten and injured. They took the weapons from the elves, but left them downstairs for their rivals to retrieve later. The group left Gulshineas, with snow starting to gently fall, and headed to the gate to head east again toward the residence of Councilman Menash, but the alarm had been fully raised across town. The Gate Pass guards had closed the gates, and refused all pleas to transit sections of the city. Even Dom's diplomatic passport would not let him through the gate at night.

Denied access through the gate, the party decided to take refuge at the Hall of the Lucky Drunk, a temple to Cayden Cailean. As they traveled through the city, they saw two flying shapes clash overhead -- one with feathered wings, the other with bat wings -- then a load crack sounded. The bat-winged shape spiraled out of control and crashed onto the roof of a building further down the street, while the shattered lance of a Gate Pass griffin rider fell out of the sky, it's tip having snapped off.

The party hustled down the street, and round the alley to the area they think the creature fell. They found a rope dangling down the from the top of a building; Gath and Ceilthanus climbed up the rope to confirm the wyvern lay dead there, but discovered despite the blood no rider. Krombholz and Bosma followed the trail of the injured rider down through a turn of the alley, leading the party to another street. Not more than a dozen feet from the alley, they party found a middle aged man brutally murdered by an axe. Continuing the trail down the street, down just three doors to inside a building.

Wasting no time, they move into the building cautiously and find an injured man in full plate armor with a bloody axe standing near an unconscious young teenage boy, going through the contents of a wardrobe. Before the party can surprise him, same voice from earlier called out to the Ragesian soldier. "Lt. Flaganus Mortus, these people carry stolen intelligence vital to the Empire. Aid me in recovering it, and I will help you escape and survive this night!" The small flying fiend appeared over the heads and behind the party members outside on the street. The fight that followed was short but extremely brutal. Despite his injuries, Flaganus Mortus proved difficult to injure and very dangerous with his axe, brutally injuring Ceilthanus in an exchange of blows. Meanwhile, the flying fiend proved a sorcerer as well, using magic missile against Bromsby after his spell stunned Falagnus. When the party defeated Flaganus, the small fiend lost his temper, and attacked again rather than flee. The party cleverly closed in him, and then Gath came up and grappled the tiny creature preventing his escape. Soon after, the party had killed it, despite its remarkable healing ability and resistance to injury.

They brought the boy with him, locking the house up but leaving a note for the hopefully surviving mother on where they were taking the boy. No other difficulties occur, and the party finally reaches the sanctuary of the Hall of the Lucky Drunk. Shakur Biggs, the high priest has been a mentor to Bosma, and worked with Dom preparing for this year's Festival of Dreams, but was not apparent when the party arrived at the packed temple. At least a hundred people were squeezed into the circular prayer chamber and adjacent rooms, all nervously waiting for news, many huddled around the two empty kegs.

Just inside the front door, a dark-skinned and dark-haired young woman dressed in black played a depressing tune on her guitar. Bosma challenged her, but she replied in a snarky tone the sheet music for all of her happy songs at her house when it burned down. Choosing not try to argue with her, Bosma instead began an inspiring oration, attempting to lift the spirits of the town folk taking shelter here. Soon the attitude of the citizens seemed much improve, and the brooding young lady gave up her efforts.

Shortly there after, Shakur came into the common area, carrying a mound of blanks and another keg. He handed off the blankets to an acolyte to help distribute while tapping the keg and lifting a drink for a blessing. Seeing the party, he approached them and escorted them to a basement chamber, where many of the more critically injured had been gathered. Explaining the situation with the lad they brought with them, the party them went to a small side room and spoke in private with the Shakur for a bit.

He offered healing to the group, and then asked for details on all that had happened. He was greatly pleased that the party had recovered the case successfully. He identified the body of the fiend as an imp, saying that the Ragesian Minister of Pain was known to consort with devils a great deal, often enlisting them to support the Ragesian cause. A supporter of the resistance, he reiterated the importance of getting help from the Lyceum, and the hope that the information they brought with them could prove vital. Speaking on behalf of the Resistance Leaders, Shakur placed Bosma in charge of the mission, representing Gate Pass to the Lyceum and petitioning for help, explaining briefly the thinking of the resistance for choosing him. He also gave the party a small packet of supplies, then wrote them a letter of introduction for Councilman Menash. The priest them urged them all to get some sleep, as they would have an early and likely very busy day.


Story Deviation & Extra Details

I dealt with the conflict between the Player's Guide describing the gates as shut at night and the adventure calling out for movement between segments of the city by assuming gates were open for certain New Year's Eve and Festival of Dreams activities. At the appropriate plot point, the alarm from the Ragesian attack had all the gates closed.

Kurychek made his move with the Suggestion use, and nearly succeeded. Dom had failed his save and was going to hand over the case. If the initiatives had been different, Dom would have completed his action and Kurychek would have attempted to flee with the case. However, Bosma's use of Countersong broke the suggestion, and forced him to flee. Following the party again, he knew they were headed to a temple as a safe house. Worried that the area might be hallowed and prevent his entry, he seized the opportunity when the party confronted Flaganus Mortus. This was his last chance to retrieve the case before he would likely loose track of it entirely.

Because of the party's use for Torrent's safe house to drop off the injured wife and children from earlier in the evening, I relocated the events and descriptions for the Safe House from Buron Watcher to involving Shakur Biggs, with the additional details of the Hall of the Lucky Drunk as a temple to Caydean Cailean. Shakur Biggs actually works well for my group; his role in the upcoming Festival of Dreams creates a relationship with Dom, who has the trait Blessed by Dreams and thus is involved in said festival. Likewise, Bosma is a devote Caydeanite, plans to pick up a level of cleric, and has the trait Mentored, so Shakur Biggs is his mentor.

The players had discussed having a designated party leader of some kind, so I worked with the setting and the character backgrounds to arrange one. Torrent, Ceilthanus, Dom, and Krombholz are all foreigners; Bromsby has made it clear he does consider himself particularly loyal to Gate Pass, just strongly opposed to Ragesia; and Gath has the Xenophobic drawback and low charisma. For the Gate Pass Resistance leaders the choice of Bosma -- who's background includes a stint into helping with the local militia and serving alongside Dom and Gath -- becomes clear as leader of the group and envoy to Lyceum.

Tactical Notes & Conversions

I modified Kuyrchek to have a level of sorcerer. This allowed me to add him to the encounter with the downed wyvern rider Flaganus Mortus and create a good threat for the oversized party. I also gave him a Heavyload Periapt, which grants the same properties as a Muleback Chords, to justify him having the carrying capacity to transport the admantine case the same size as himself. For some reason, I had written down "Swarmbane Clasp" for Kurychek on my conversion notes. This made no sense, and I told the players when they attempted to identify the amulet I had described him wearing that I would get back to them before the next session. I did, and worked out an issue that came up in game play in the process, but I hate it when I do something that later makes no sense!

Flaganus Mortus proved a dangerous foe in the short encounter. His heavy armor negated most of the damage the party could do, and his power attack allowed him to inflict heavy wounds in return. A lucky critical hit from Ceilthanus while using his Arcane Pool, combined with Flaganus failing the save against Bromsby elemental bloodline converted Ear-Piercing Scream turned the battle in the party's favor, but they all felt like luck had been on their side and it could have been much worse. They began to realized how difficult recovering from Wounds has become, and that is a good cautionary element for a low level party to learn.

In part because the party has been so careful with dealing with Shahalesti, they have considerably less gear than they might otherwise. I decided to have the resistance provide them with extra resources, giving the group 4 potions of Cure Light Wounds, 4 Oils of Magic Weapon, 2 Healer's Kit, and an Arcane scroll of Sending to notify Gate Pass when the contact the Lyceum.

This ended up being the right moment to force the party to rest. They had exhausted most of their resources, many were still slightly injured, and they had enough experience points to gain their next level.

Mechanics Issues

The critical hit mechanism of the Armor as Damage Reduction rule set is proving awkward. Every time a critical threat comes up, we have to stop, do a calculation to determine DC for confirmation, then have a separate role by another party with a different bonus against that DC. The players have expressed some support for increasing the general risk for critical hits by just using a static calculation for the confirmation DC rather than raw rolled number.

After the session, I felt like I had not handled the issue with Vigor points with Wounds quiet right, and reread the rules. Indeed, I had mishandled that. Getting wounded does have much more severe penalties, and adding Vigor at that point lets you take another hit but does not undo your wounded status. I will clarify with the party before the next session, which should make them that much more cautious about getting wounded.

The Armor as Damage Reduction rules seem to completely eliminate the threat of small venomous creatures. They generally cannot do enough damage to overcome medium armor or many light armor, and without inflicting some damage, there is no risk for poison. I am going to house rule that swarms that are too small to suffer from weapon damage are small enough to ignore Armor for damage reduction, but that does not change the impact for small and tiny creatures with poison threats, like imp, snakes, scorpions, spiders, etc.

Notable Player Reactions

Several players where impressed with Bromsby's magical support during the fight with Flaganus. His earlier reluctance to act against Shahalesti made him hang back in those encounters, but against a violent Ragesian, he acted promptly and decisively, which made a sharp contrast for some of the players.

The players have not yet made much commentary about the scale of the battle yet, but it seems to be starting as a factor in their discussions.

I was pleased with Bosma stepping forward with the smallest of promptings to quash Mulysa's demoralizing efforts. Likewise, I was pleased with how Krombholz felt justified in his earlier jitters about spotting things following the party. The player has begun to play up Krombholz's cautiousness and distrust, and it is always good fun to see a player evolve character traits based on game play.

Props, Music, Images, Supporting Handouts, etc

Music for this session was:

  • Avengers by Alan Silvestri
  • Van Helsing by Alan Silvestri
  • Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Fernando Velázquez
  • Captain America: Civil War by Henry Jackman
  • Man of Steel by Hans Zimmer
  • Trailerhead: Saga by The Immediate
The list was not carefully selected; I hit a time crunch and just quickly modified an existing list. That said, most of the music is very good, and worked well. It ended up probably a touch more action orientated than the session justified.

I had an image for Kurychek, which allowed me after I described it to just refer to it as the fiend. I accidentally referred to it as an imp, though, but the players tried to avoid playing that knowledge until they got confirmation from the Shakur Biggs.

I wish I had an image for Mulysa; I did not find one in the quick time I took to look for one. I also had planned, but failed, to select the kind of music being played by her at the temple. Given the use constant use of background music, that might have added nicely but honestly they dealt with her quickly enough that it hardly merited any attention.

The party requested a regional map of the area they will cross on their path to Seaquen. This seemed very reasonable, so I had Shakur commit to getting them one. For overnight, it obviously will not be an ideal map, but I plan to print out a general geographical map to give the players something to work with.
 
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T

thekwp

First Post
Session 05 - Oct 19, 2016

Player Summary

The Scouring of Gate Pass
Act Three: Escaping the City -- The Dawn of War

Having recovered from the late night efforts, the party took a few moments in the morning to asses their situation. Bosma spoke of Gate Pass and their situation, saying "I plan to do everything in my power to protect Gate Pass from any antagonist." He pointed out that last night they had all acted in the urgency of the moment, but now they had a moment to deliberate on their actions, and what would come next. Bosma then asked the party for their support on the mission from the Resistance, noting "If you want out, now is the time."

Most people in the party agreed, each for their own reasons; some from a sense of honor such as Ceilthanus, some from a love of their home like Gath. Bromsby refused, however, believing that Gate Pass was doomed and wanting the opportunity for negotiations with others, but promised to oppose Ragesia. Dom and Ceilthanus argued that was good enough, and suggested the group could address the issue again if it came up.

The party made its way through the city in the cold morning light. The dusting of snow in the night added a layer of delicate frosting to the destruction from the previous night, and the air had the smell of cold smoke coming from the west portion of the city. As they made their way through the city, they could see how the firebombing had impacted portions of the town in this district, more than 3 miles far from the West Gate. While some people where out, the town was generally very quiet.

Act Three: Escaping the City -- Councilman Menash

They had no difficulty passing through the gate this morning, and then finding Councilman Erdan Menash's garishly painted green, yellow, and purple house in the next district. The guards at the low iron fence around the house were dressed in livery with the same colors, and allowed the party inside to the Entry Hall of the three story manor while they waited for Erdan Menash to return from a council meeting.

The Entry Hall of Menash's manor was filled with outlandishly decorated weapons and armor. Bromsby passed a little bit of the time the party waited for the Councilman by sketching some of the weapons, while Bosma looked around the place. They waited less than an hour for the councilman, who came in venting his frustration, complaining in a high-pitched, wheezing voice about the nincompoops in charge of the city. He gave a double take upon seeing the party, apparently surprised to have guests.

The party introduced themselves, and turned over the letter of introduction that Shakur Biggs had written for them. Erdan read it, then asked each of the party members their names and their purpose. He seemed agreeable to their goal but challenged each person to explain why they should be allowed out, apparently trying to asses if they wanted to flee the coming army or wanted to help Gate Pass. Erdan listened carefully to the responses, and seemed satisfied with the answers each person provided. He agreed to not only help the party leave the city, but also offered each person a selection from his collection of weapons and armor.

Bosma took a longspear, decorated with bright candy stripe spiral pattern in green and purple. Bromsby took a light crossbow, made in the likeness of a sandy orange scorpion. Ceilthanus selected a chainshirt including a coif, lacquered black and yellow like a large bee. Gath also selected armor, a breastplate decorated with vines and grapes, like an overdone vineyard. Dom declined to select anything for himself, but noted Gath eying a heavy shield made to look like rounded pig, and chose that. He then gave it to Gath. Torrent selected a falchion with a blade in the shape of a dolphin.

Discussing the other gear they had, Erdan offered to buy all the extra equipment off the party, and to let them buy from his extensive equipment of other undecorated gear in exchange. While doing so, he continued to discuss some of the details from last night's attacks. A few fellow council members died during last night's attack when a huge earth elemental arose from the ground and attacked their estates. Erdan apparently considered one of the lost council members, who rose to prominence during the Ragesian occupation forty years ago, a critical lose and likely to shift the council's votes. Some of the information he mentioned was already known to the party in one format or another, such as the fires that raged across the western most districts.

The councilman then gave the party a letter of introduction to Captain Herreman, with two sets of orders. One authorized a patrol of 15 members to venture out of the city, and other authorized a patrol of 8 members on the same mission. By presenting one pass to leave, traveling pass shift time, and then returning using the other pass, Erdan thought the Captain should be able to get the party members of the city without too much difficulty. The group thanked him for his assistance, then left to head to the barracks near the south gate heading to the old Elfroad that leads through the Fire Forest of Innenotdar.

Act Three: Escaping the City -- Street Ambush

After passing through Summer's Bluff, between the Coaltongue Statue and the Spire Clocktower, the party noticed they were being followed by a group of guardsmen. After only a few moment's observation, Krombholz and Bosma were confident that the guards were actually fakes; small details like their boots being calvary boots, and their insignia marking them for a western district would have its hands fool with the invasion right now. They party guessed that these were likely mercenaries. Since they were headed to a district barrack, they decided to wait and see what the group would do. When several members broke off, the party readied themselves for an ambush. Soon, three of the false guardsmen approached the party from a side alley a little in front of the group.

When they called out that the elf and gnome would need to come with them under suspicion of being mages, Bromsby responded without warning by casting a color spray in their face. This caught a few members of the party, like Bosma flat footed, but completely surprised the faux guards, dropping all three into unconsciousness. The party turned and confronted the remaining six behind them, and decisively defeated them. The party's suspicions were confirmed upon finding the Black Horse insignia armbands under the guard uniforms. Using the manacles the Black Horse mercenaries had on them, the party left their wounded and unconscious behind, notifying the guards as they went along but not willing to waste any time in their efforts to leave Gate Pass.

Act Three: Escaping the City -- A Rogue's Request

Just before arriving at the barracks, another stranger stepped out of the shadows. Krombholz and Ceilthanus recognized the man as the well known local rogue, Rantle. The charismatic young man complained good-naturedly that he had been trailing the party waiting for the chance to swoop in and save the day, but they had never been at risk! He outlined what he suspected the party was up to, and explained that he wanted them to deliver a message to his sister, Katrina, who last he heard was headed to Lyceum. “She’s about five and a half feet tall, with long red hair, and she looks too good for her own good. In short, she’s pretty much the stereotype of a fire mage. It’s kinda embarrassing.” Without confirming that they are headed to Lyceum, Bosma accepts Rantle's sealed scroll case, and agrees to deliver it if they meet her. With that, Rantle thanks them, then leaves them returning to the alley he came from.

The party spent some time examining the scroll, attempting to determine if it could be used in some way to track them or watch them with magic. Detecting magic from inside the case, Ceilthanus and Bromsby confirmed that the aura was evocation in nature. The only way that it seemed an evocation aura might be used to locate the party would be if it exploded in a pyrotechnics display of some sort on remote command. Deeming that unlikely, they concluded that it was more likely a trap set to destroy the contents if opened by anyone else.

Act Three: Escaping the City -- Captain Herreman's Barracks

Arriving at the barracks, the party was directed to Captain Herreman without issue. The middle-aged bearded half-orc sported a dagger that like a peeled banana, and upon looking for the party in their new equipment, accepted the letter of introduction from Councilman Menash without challenge. He then proceeded to get the party uniforms and gear to support their disguise as guardsmen, and got them access to the stables to let the party pick out mounts for their trip. Leaving them there, Herreman gathered a hand picked crew that he could trust to keep the secret of the deception intact.

Several hours later, the party left the barracks with Herreman's hand picked crew, making an effort to blend in with the other guards and not arouse any attention. They head toward the old Elfroad gate. Along the way, a single bell from the West Gate rang out ominously and mournfully. Captain Herreman suspected this meant that the Inquisitors had finally been let into Gate Pass. Herreman hurried the group to the gate, and handed over his orders to the gatekeepers. Menash's authorization got the entire group of the city without much commentary, except a wish of good luck in dealing with the necromancer.

Proceeding at trout for the next 20 minutes, Captain Herreman led the group well away from the gates and within eyesight of an old watch post. He warns them against traveling at night, saying the parts of the passes stayed icy in the winter and became near impossible to spot at night with such quantities of light as to make their presence and movement obvious for miles around. Wishing them luck on their travels, the stoic half-orc took his leave of the group and continued on ward. The party, at last, was out of Gate Pass.


Story Deviation & Extra Details

I had fun making up the outlandish details for Erdan's equipment, and I think the party enjoyed the humor as well. I think a chart with random ideas and motifs would be fun to include in a revision.

I had Menash challenge each character for their individual reason in part to let the player's follow up from the earlier in game discussion, but also to give them a chance to express their in character motivation and remind themselves why they were doing this. I had hoped that this might lead to more discussion with Erdan. However, I had trouble getting party to do more than ask for the pass out of town, and then for the supplied; as a group they were too goal focused to let Menash engage in much talking about the state of things, so I was not able to go into some of the other details provided about the war's activities the previous night. I did manage to work in the part about unknown hero's when the party presented the wyvern's rider full plate for sell to Menash.

Steven had his character Bromsby look the Black Horse thugs over for rope or something after knocking out three with Color Spray, and it struck me as being very logical that if they were intending on turning casters over alive to Ragesian forces, they would have a means to secure them. So, manacles were added to the entire group.

Tactical Notes and Conversions

I scaled the encounter with the Black Horse thugs in 'Street Ambush' up from 6 to 9 to adjust for the size of the party. Even at that size, they party teamwork and abilities gave the Black Horse members little chance. I don't think any significant damage was done by the party's opponents.

From a pacing standpoint, I had thought we would get to The Gauntlet tonight. Dealing with the role playing, and handling the selling and buying of gear, took up more time than I expected. However, I think the role playing was valuable, and the timing will work well to start the gauntlet next session.

Mechanics Issues

I was glad the fighter in the party, Gath, declined to take the Full Plate armor. I could not find anything in the rules for how to deal with Full Plate armor that has not been resized, and Full Plate is the only armor which requires resizing. Well there is a defined cost for doing so, there is no time given for how long, and the crafting rules could have it taken weeks; weeks the party will not have for a while. I had decided on a House Rule that until resized, Full Plate could only be Hastily Donned, but I am not entirely comfortable with that. The player opted not to take the armor on the basis the once sold they could pick up multiple suits of medium armor, which was better for the party as a whole, and that he wanted to take advantage of his Armor Training at third level with medium armor to increase his mobility in combat. The Revised Action Economy seems to have raised the value for speed and mobility in the minds of several of my players.

At what point is a surprise round triggered? Steven said "Bromsby steps forward and casts Color Spray on them," immediately after the Black Horse faux guards asked for "the gnome and the elf." When we positioned figures on the board, he would have to take a five step and then cast, which the alternate Revised Action Economy would not allow. I ruled that it was not his movement but the spell casting that started the surprise round. Since there was no effort to communicate among the party first, I had everyone in the group roll a Sense Motive (DC 10) to anticipate his actions enough to act in the surprise round.

The evocation aura is from the scroll of fireball within, of course. The party spent a modest amount of time musing over that, and I enjoyed that they were both cautious and willing to follow the request.

I wanted players to be more creative in their use of skills and abilities, and have invited them several times to tell me what other skill they might use to accomplish something. I was pleased when Rick had Bosma used Professional (Soldier) in place of Bluff when trying to pass without notice from the other guards.

The timing was excellent for Bosma who took cavalier for level 2. His mount is the steed he picked from the stables.

Notable player reactions

The party discussion at the start of the session turned out to be interesting in many ways. Alex has taken to playing Ceilthanus as a noble, with a fine sense of honor, and pledge to support the effort. J.T. played up Gath's distrust of outsiders but also his loyalty to Gate Pass, his home. In response to those players, Chris had Dom play up his own pledge of honor to his "adopted city," being of the gentry class but from Dessen. Kirk was unable to make the session. Steven, who had been the one to first voice support for the idea of a party leader, was the only player to dissent. I am not sure how much was based on Steven's view of the events so far, and how much it is because Steven and Rick have been on opposite sides of most discussions in the groups many years of history. Regardless, it was a nice little bit of role playing by the players, and one that should prove something to play off of as the secrets of the campaign world are revealed. In particular, I am looking forward to shifting reactions regarding Shahalesti as they uncover information in The Indomitable Fire Forest of Innenotdar.

As I mentioned above, the player's really took to Erdan's outlandishly decorated gear. Later, the peeled banana was a party favorite as well.

Looking forward to the shifting reactions regarding Shahalesti as they uncover information.

Props, music, images, supporting handouts, etc

Music for this session was:


  • The Last of the Mohicans by Joel McNeely
  • Dances with Wolves by John Barry
  • The Bourne Identity by John Powell
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by Patrick Doyle
Removed the "Weird Sisters" rock songs from "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" ('Do the Hippogriff,' 'This is the Night,' and 'Magic Works'), and also removed the mermaid song 'Underwater Secret.' I selected the music for this play list to a bit more "wide outdoors" atmospheric for getting out of the city. I should have had something for activities inside the city, and then change play lists when they got out of the town.

For the regional map asked by the party, I had Shakur provide them the map I printed out pg 2 from the Maps bundle with The Scouring of Gate Pass; the one that is the Regional Map with political borders and cities, not the adventure icons (though the Monastery of Two Windows shows up anyway). I need to review if there are any better regional maps they should have before the next session.

I used the image of Rantle from the adventure, extracted and posted for the players as well. I wish we had an image of the banana dagger.

(Need to get detailed maps and timing for party and timing for Black Horse Gauntlet ready before the next session.)
 

T

thekwp

First Post
Characters at Level 02

Links to the party's 2nd level character sheets, after they have finished meeting with Councilman Erdan Menash and successfully left Gate Pass, i.e. completing Act 3, Escaping the City, of Adventure 1, The Scouring of Gate Pass.

Bosma Caladen, a human bard 1 / cavalier 1 (Order of the Dragon), played by Rick

Bromsby Tarken, a gnome sorcerer 2 (Elemental Air bloodline), played by Steven

Ceilthanus, an elf magus 2 (Bladebound), played by Alex

Damier Westgard ("Dom") a human cleric of Desna 2, played by Chris

Gath Finherum, a human fighter (Martial Master) 2, played by J.T.

Krombholz Berryman, a dwarf gunslinger (Bolt Ace) 2, played by Kirk

​
 

T

thekwp

First Post
Session 06 - Nov 2, 2016

Player Summary

The Scouring of Gate Pass
Act Four: The Gauntlet

The party proceeded away from Gate Pass. Given that half a day was left, the decided not to stay at the old watchpost just a few miles out of town, and instead push on until dark. There about 30 miles until the edge of the Fire Forest of Innenodar, and that may take a full day or more of travel to get there.

A little before dusk, about ten miles into the trip, the party had moved up into a winding section of canyons where the old Elfroad cuts over and through the Otdar mountains heading to the northern border of Dassen. As they came around a bend, Krombholz spotted a few small objects hurled from the top of the canyon at the party and called out a warning. The thunderstones landed distributed through the party, and the resulting noise startled the horses badly.

Bromsby, Ceilthanus, Krombholz, and Torrent were all deafened by the explosive noise. Torrent and Ceilthanus's horses also spooked, and the riders were unable to control them. Seeing some of the party having difficulty with their horses and being under fire from above, Bosma calls out for the group to ride ahead together. Gath moves to 'plug the gap' of a narrow side canyon near the area where the thunderstones came from.

By the time Bosma, Ceilthanus, and Torrent have all moved down the canyon and round a bend, a group of horsemen where the Black Horse Mercenary bands start to come up the canyon, ready to pursue the party. Gath blocked them from going further, and came under fire from a pair of other Black Horse members on top of the canyon, while a third member with them blew a signal horn. Seeing Torrent and Ceilthanus's horses bolt with them, and seeing Bosma's wave to the group before riding along with them, Krombholz followed. Meanwhile, Dom moved to back up Gath. Seeing an opportunity, Bromsby moved to a position next to the side canyon's entrance to use Color Spray on the horsemen in the canyon. Despite being deaf, he succeeded in casting the spell, dropping the horse into unconsciousness but not the rider.

As the group riding moved around the bend and further down the Elfroad, they were fired on by a pair of crossbow men hidden in the thicket on the sides of the road against the canyon walls. Bosma took a swipe at one with his spear as he road past. Krombholz slowed his horse down to take a measured shot from his heavy crossbow. Ceilthanus got control of his horse, and might have continued onward. However, Torrent failed to get control of her horse and her mount ran across an ice patch. The steed slipped and fell, throwing Torrent and leaving her on the ice.

The Black Horse horsemen struggled to make progress against Gath. The first horse was down from Bromsby's Color Spray, but the horseman behind that took shots at Gath with his bow. A third could be seen behind that second rider. The first horsemen had resisted the spell's influence, and moved to engage Gath in melee. A rough voice behind the horsemen further down the side canyon called out for the ones in front to make room. The three members of the Black Horse mercenaries from the top of the canyon, all half-orcs, laid crossbow fire down upon the party. Dom bestowed the blessing of the Resplendent Goddess of Fortune upon Gath, who proceeded to strike a series of mighty blows upon the party's foes.

Bosma turned back to help deal with the two Black Horse thugs. He attacked the one he had damaged on his first pass, then pulled next to Krombholz to aid him. Ceilthanus dismounted, drew his weapon, and cast a Shield spell to protect himself. Empowering his blade with his magic, he advanced on the Black Horse thug, who abandoned his crossbow in favor of a halberd. On the other side of the canyon, that Black Horse Thug soon brought his halberd to bear as well, taking a swing at Krombholz. Torrent crawled off the ice, and regained her footing, only to come under fire from a pair of additional Black Horse thugs coming around the bend further ahead. They marched slowly at the party, firing and reloading their crossbows as they came.

Realizing that Gath had the riders and other Black Horse mercenaries blocked for the moment, Dom called forth a bank of fog in the air above Gath, blocking entirely the view of the elevated attackers. The half-orcs on top of the canyon abandon their positions, throwing a rope off the top of the canyon and starting to descend. As they did this, a squat muscular vaguely canine beast with scaly skin and oozing sores ran forward down the canyon, growling as it came, nimbly dodging past the legs of the horses. It barreled through Gath and his mount, breaking out to the other side in the canyon, where it turned back to a position to attack Gath. Bromsby got a good look at the beast. He recognized it as a trollhound, a magical beast that he little other knowledge about. The viscous bite of the creature against Gath brought a cheer from the Black Horse mercenaries, and one of the scouts who had descended down to the canyon floor moved up next to the trollhound, unlimbering his greataxe. While Dom used his prayers to bestow healing on Gath, Bromsby again cast Color Spray, this time on the trollhound and the Black Horse scout. The scout collapsed unconscious, but the trollhound was merely stunned and blinded.

Even with the beast temporarily stopped, the tide of battle continued to turn against the three. One of the other scouts moved forward, the greataxe dealing another dangerous blow to Gath. Dom continued to infuse vigor into Gath, keeping him alive and in the fight but was unable to deal much of a blow himself. Gath scored a serious blow on the trollhound, but the party could tell it was starting to recover from the injury almost immediately. Gath began to call out for fire or anything else that might take the beast down permanently. The remaining scout moved into a position to attack Gath as well.

Krombholz and Ceilthanus's combined efforts finally took down one of the Black Horse thugs, and the party turned its attention to the other thug engaged in melee with Krombholz. Torrent moved to support the effort, while the two thugs continued to march advance and fire their crossbows. An additional two thugs came around the bend, also dressed in scale mail with crossbows out, their Black Horse armbands proclaiming them Murderers.

To Be Continued

Story Deviation & Extra Details

The story in the adventure is a little contradictory at this point. Supposedly, Renard has received a sending offering him a 10,000 gp reward for capturing the Case -- the McGuffin of the first adventure. However, the tactics for the encounter still have his group focused strictly on using non-lethal tactics. There are possible explanations: that Renard and his men are particularly greedy and want the 100 gp reward for the casters on top of the grand prize for the case; or that Renard has not told his men the value of the case and plans to keep that for himself. It seems more likely though that Renard would tell his people and they would concentrate on just taking down their opponents. So, in my campaign they stopped trying to take prisoners and were out for to get the case.

Tactical Notes and Conversions

To adjust for the larger party size, I increased the number of Bounty Hunter Scouts (2 to 3), Bounty Hunter Thugs (4 to 6; but see below), and Bounty Hunter Horsemen (2 to 3) by 50%. I converted Renard and Kathor to 4th level characters (see the details in this conversion thread); I opted to go with the alternative version of Kathor I posted there with the Eldritch Scion build. The biggest change was the lack of Spirited Charge -- his spell use was indistinguishable. I opted for this choice because I think it will make for a much more interesting build later on. The final adjustment I made for the over sized party was to add an additional CR 3, thereby increasing by 50% the number of CR3 opponents in the encounter. I settled on the trollhound. I had considered a Hell Hound, but decided to reserve that for possible use in the next adventure. I had also considered an ogre or spriggan as additional thug power, but decided that it fit better for Renard to have trained a magical beast than worked out a relationship with one of those in his mercenary company. However, I thought the threat of disease moving into the next adventure as well as the challenge of stopping the trollhound's regeneration (with only one person in the party, Krombholz, having picked up an alchemist flask) would be interesting threats, plus more of a traditional "monster" after the numerous humanoid opponents.

I should note that I have been using CR 1/2 warriors, i.e. level 2 warriors, for my pathfinder conversion of the Bounty Hunter Thugs. The source material lists only one feat (Animal Affinity). Given the decision to have them use lethal weapons and the impact Armor as DR had so far, I converted these to using Halberds in addition to their saps, short swords, and crossbows. I also changed their feats to Intimidating Prowess and Weapon Focus (Halberd). The Bounty Hunter Scouts received greataxes instead of morningstars, with rogue talent of bleed. The Bounty Hunter Horsemen added Weapon Focus (lance), and bucklers.

I had the Bounty Hunter Scouts throw their thunderstones with the group just before they passed the entry point from the camp site into the main canyon area. When I drew my map I made it moderately narrow, which resulted in the horses squeezing to get through that space. In retrospect, this should be wide enough for horsemen to move at full speed. Either way this creates the scenario where the party did manage to blockade the horsemen in. To get the better reaction a longer delay (round or so) to let party move on might needed

In addition, while I had noted it before hand, I really had not thought about the implications of the thunderstones deafening party members. So far, none of the deafened casters has lost a spell as a result of being deafened. It has complicated communication within the party, though.

The biggest issue that I had not considered -- which should have been blatantly obvious -- is that the bolting horses split the party. As described above, the group is split now with each half mired in their own fights. That changes the encounter from a tight sequence of challenging fights to a parallel run of a challenging and a very challenging encounter.

The party has a few resources they have not made use of. For example, the party has four oils of magic weapon scattered through the group. Under the Armor as DR rules, a magical weapon can bypass the DR of nonmagical armor. So far none of the party members has taken the action to do this.

Renard has not gotten into position to be visible to the party yet, and thus has not been able to use his bow yet. Kathor heard the call, but has not arrived yet. He did managed to successfully cast his spells Shield and Magic Weapon, and should arrive in the round we start the next session. Having the party split up has reduced their ability to focus as a group on individuals, drawing out the fight. In addition, the Armor as Damage Reduction and the Wounds and Vigor system were already making battles run slightly longer. The combined result in this particular encounter runs the risk of reversing the "defeat in detail" aspect of the encounter, which should allow the party to overcome a more powerful force by facing it in smaller chunks, and in turn may allow the Black Horse company to do that to them instead.

Mechanics Issues

"The Plan" section of "Act Four: The Gauntlet" makes references to Point 1, then Point A, which are presumably the same spot. This error is repeated in the Completed Campaign edition as well.

The paragraph description on pg 35 says 4 thugs, the list on pg 36 says 2 thugs, and the Combat Stats appendix says 2 thugs. To make matters even more confusing, the placement paragraph on pg 35 tells us there is a thug at location points 3, 4, and 5 -- location for three thugs. So, how many thugs? Clearly, we should have more than 2, since we have the location for 3 of them. I settled on 4 as the base, as under D&D 3.5 that would give you a total EL of 7, excluding Kathor, then adjusted my scaling for six person party from there; it is however confusing and if ever converted or updated should be corrected and clarified.

Handling the surprise round proved interesting, and while I feel comfortable with some of the judgments I made on the fly there, I really should have had that thought out before the session. Khrombolz got to use his trait this time (Thieves' Guild Sympathizer) , and many people commented how powerful it seemed. I feel like it is on par with the other traits, all of which are advantageous. For my party, with only one character really focusing hard on perception, and a few others dabbling, having the character with the best perception in the party with the trait will let them make the most of it. I think they will need it.

I took the time at the start of the session to review the mounted combat rules with the group, but even then struggling over them a bit slowed down the fight. I should have done that myself seperately to address the Revised Action Economy's impact mounted combat. To handle ranged attacks with horse movements, I adopted the following:

  • Horse takes 1 move, no penalty
  • Horse takes 2 moves, -4
  • Horse takes 3 move, -8
We also had a small amount of confusion over reach, mounted location, and location for attacks, i.e. the old issue on can you attack an adjacent opponent with a reach weapon while mounted. I decided on a house rule that can use a reach weapon while mounted to attack a creature adjacent to the mount, but that the mount grants cover to the target. Essentially, using the normal reach rule you cannot draw a line to the target that will not cross your mount. You can visualize this in real terms as someone standing directly in front of the horse, and you using your reach weapon on the opponent, but having to make sure your mount's head does not get in the way.

One of the player's asked for his character to use a skill to make a tactical assessment at the start of the encounter. I let Bosma use Profession (Solider) for tactical assessment, and Dom decided to roll as well. I didn't mind the attempt for an assessment, as he was mostly asking if there was a major flaw in his intended action. However, letting another player jump in on an action and interrupt the discussion with their own checks and results was not good on my part. If I am going to encourage players to make creative uses for their skills and abilities, I feel I also should clamp down on that sort of jumping in to keep things focused on the character who's action it is.

I failed to have Gath make his roll against disease with the Trollbite at the time of the bite. After the fact, I am considering trying a mechanic for diseases where I will have the player not make their fortitude save until the onset period is handled, or I suppose until the time in which some supernatural means of detect disease is determined. The idea was that an individual would not know if they had contracted a disease or not, and I wanted to use a variation of the affliction poison rules to increase the DC of the save by the number of "doses" (exposures) that had happened. This has a few implications were repeated exposure to low DC diseases can still force someone to make a high DC saving throw, and also for players to have to decide to seek or not seek medical attention without know at first if they are in fact coming down with something. We will see if the booking makes it too much of a pain to track or not.

Notable player reactions

Steven was not there, so Bromsby was run by Alex (Ceilthanus).

The players are genuinely worried. Rick (Bosma's player) keeps going back over and over again in his head, stuck on the fact that in the first serious encounter with him as leader, they split the party. They party as a whole is aware that they have not gotten a full count or assessment of their foes yet, as was highlighted to them by the appearance on the last part of the last round of two additional Black Horse thugs in the long canyon stretch. However, they all had fun and thought the encounter and lay out a real challenge.

Props, music, images, supporting handouts, etc

Music for this session was:

  • Crysis II by Hans Zimmer
  • Godzilla (2014) by Alexandre Desplat
  • Devil's Own by James Horner
  • House of Flying Daggers by Shigeru Umebayashi
  • Mission: Impossible by Danny Elfman
I use a large graph pad for group discussions to create the long strips of maps, and drew them all ahead of time. So, I had four strips for the map, and pulled out the strip for the appropriate stretch of canyon as the party go to it, as they had no idea how long the total run was. I added a couple of ice patches as well on the long 200 ft section for additional detail, which proved to have an impact on the game. I had printed tokens for all the horses and opponents, allowing the miniatures and Black Horse mercenary tokens to be placed on top of the horses easily. This made visual working with the encounter easy and clear.
 
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T

thekwp

First Post
Session 07 - Nov 16, 2016

Player Summary

The Scouring of Gate Pass
Act Four: The Gauntlet (cont.)

(Resumed from the previous session in mid fight)

Bosma called for Torrent to get on his steed so they could rejoin the others, and though being deaf she did not understand exactly what he intended, she understood his gestures. Taking a final swing at a thug, she turned and got on Hitcher behind Bosma. He proceed to take the pair back around the canyon bend to rejoin the Bromsby, Dom, and Gath. Ceilthanus took down the thug that he and Krombholz had been fighting. Krombholz saw the thugs approaching on foot, and turned to follow Bosma again. Before Ceilthanus could remount his stead, Kathor entered from the far canyon mounted on his own steed. While Kathor approached at a rapid rate, Ceilthanus managed to mount and return to the rest of the party before being pulled into melee.

Upon arriving with their allies, Torrent dismounted and healed them by channeling energy. Gath had taken a number of blows, even with Dom's protection and healing, and needed the healing. Assessing the situation, Bosma pulled out his Oil of Magic Weapon and applied it to his spear.

The intense melee around Gath at the canyon entry continued, with the horseman and the the scouts of the Black Horse mercenaries trying to taking Gath down. The horseman on foot retreated back and the next in line approached, trampling the downed horse in the process. With the ongoing threats continuing to wear him down despite the continued healing from his allies, Gath started taking a defensive posture to out last his foes.

Bromsby next used his Color Spray spell on the two remaining scouts attacking Gath, taking one out completely. The remaining scout resisted, calling out the he was surrounded and need help. A voice called back "They're worth 10,000 gold! You keep in there and get them!" Frustrated and incensed by the lack of progress, a helmeted mounted archer for Black Horse mercenaries rides forward boldly. The cries of his voice as he urged his mount forward made it clear he was the one who had spoken earlier. He managed to overrun Gath, and pull into the canyon behind the party.

Gath, Dom, and Bosma all recognized the markings on his shoulders as the insignia for a Captain in the Ragesia army. Dom was unable to maneuver to a position to respond to the mounted archer. Instead, he maintained the cloud in the canyon blocking the archers from back being able to attack. Seeing the trollhound continuing to heal, he struck at it with his spear insuring it would stay down for a little longer in the fight.

Kathor rode hard into the area, catching up and engaging Ceilthanus. He chides one his men for "interfering" in their fight when that thug attempt to aid him, and pushes the troops to confront the rest of the party. One solider attempted to get by Ceilthanus, but suffered a critical hit from Ceilthanus' family blade Meetima Salka, and then was kicked down by Ceilthanus's mount. As he rode over to support Ceilthanus, Bosma began a rallying speech, improving the morale of all who could hear him:
"Midnight mare and blood red roan, fight to keep this land our own.
​
Sound the horn and call the cry, raise the flag up to the sky.​
We fight to keep Gate Pass free, fight the bastards till they flee.​
Black Horse murderers have sold their souls, so make their yellow blood run cold.​
Use your sword and use your shield, fight the bastards till they yield.​
Let not one damn cur pass by, how many of them can we make Die!"
​

Krombholz moved past the knot blocking the side canyon to attack Captain of the Black Horse, and attacked his horse, urging his mount to do the same. Bromsby maneuvered his mount nearby but away from the crossbow fire of the oncoming thugs. He used his last Color Spray on the Captain, blinding and stunning him.

Meanwhile, more of the thugs rounded the bend and took shots at Torrent with their crossbows. Torrent moved away from their line of fire, and delivered a coup de grace one of the downed scouts, preventing him from getting back up. Gath used this to intimidate the mounted horseman near him, demanding his surrender. "The score out here right now is seven to zero," Gath said gesturing at the downed Black Horse mercenaries. Completely demoralized by this, the Black Horse horseman complied, and and slowly sheathed his weapon before raising his arms.

Faced with a skilled opponent, only his own cautious fighting stance and Bosma's quick aid saved Ceilthanus from several blows by the powerfully built Kathor. Several, but not all; one of Kathor's attacks landed a fierce blow on Ceilthanus. Bosma challenged Kathor for confronting them again after giving his word, but Kathor disagreed, replying "None of the men under my command are here, and the orders for this fight are not mine. Were I in charge, things might be different, but currently I am not, and orders are orders."

Hearing this, and putting it together with the greedy calls from the mercenary captain, Gath urgently called out "Kathor, end this!" However, before the cavalier could respond, Bosma struck out with his enchanted spear, scoring a critical hit on Kathor that went right through his armor and caused him to drop to ground off his horse.

Krombholz continues his assault on the Captain, and more importantly, his mount. The horse spooked, and attempted to flee. The still stunned and blinded, the Captain took a tumble when his horse was killed out from underneath him as it tried to flee. However, he survived that. Bromsby supported Krombholz, calling the lightening of his blood line out to damage the downed archer. Recovering from his stunned state and getting up, the mercenary captain cursed Kathor for failing him. He grabbed his bow and began to desperately pepper Krombholz with arrows. Bosma moved in on Hitcher, circling past the Captain to flank him. Torrent compelled him with the power of her faith, forcing him to drop his weapon again. Telling Torrent to guard the surrender horsemen, Gath then moved up, and tripped the mercenary leader. Again, he got back up, intent still on Krombholz, but the combined strikes from Bosma and Gath finally take him down.

Ceilthanus and Dom cleared the field of the remaining thugs, while one of the horseman retreated away down the canyon away from the party. Demoralized, the thug that had been approaching Gath's back turned and fled. Ceilthanus rode after him, however, striking him down and ending the battle.

Story Deviation & Extra Details

While the description above covers the general flow of battle, it does not really cover all actions or rounds. I know, for example, that Torrent attempted to coup de grace the trollhound at one point, obviously failing because she did not have a way top stop the regeneration, but I don't have it noted down in the battle that happened. I also know that the party used several affronts of opportunity to demoralize several of the thugs as the battle shifted, contributing to them breaking and run. There were other small actions missed, but the general flow of the battle is captured. I don't generally want to do such detailed summary of battles, but when that is the only thing happening the session, I felt it appropriate.

Kathor should have died from his wounds, I think. The round after the critical hit from Bosma should have seen him die, then have the trillith spirit depart in the battle. However, I did not make a note to myself to prepare for that, sure I would remember it, and of course, by that point in the evening, completely forgot it in the heat of handling the battle. Bosma has indicated that his first action, after getting the party organized and healing started, is to check their downed opponents starts with Kathor. So, I need to either have Kathor's trillith spirit leave at the very beginning of the session, which will make it seem like as soon as they tried to save Kathor, he died without them having a chance; or I need to allow them to save him despite the fact that he should be dead. I suppose I could just have him die without them noticing the trillith spirit leaving; however, I feel that is a plot point that should not really be skipped. I am inclined to go with Kathor being found alive but barely so, with the air heavy and thick around Kathor and something distinctly odd to hint at the presence of the trillith as it keeps Kathor alive for the moment.

Bosma's Inspire Courage oration was contributed by the player, which he admits is shamelessly stolen and hacked from Heather Alexander's "March of Cambreadth." I really enjoyed him coming up with that.

There are some after action emails going on right now, which I will likely post some of the player thoughts and statements.

Tactical Notes and Conversions

I had Kathor's Cavalier Tactician teamwork feat as Calvary Formation. I had hoped he would have a chance to use it as part of the narrow confines of the gauntlet's canyons in conjunction with the Bounty Hunter Horsemen. It never came into play.

The warnings in the adventure about this being a very dangerous fight are dead on. Because Gath was so successful in "plugging the hole," Renard really did not get out into play until the last third of the battle. The party was successful in keeping him very ineffectual worked to take him down. I feel like he was actually a more dangerous foe that what happened in the actual battle, but that is ok. I could have made the battle more deadly by having the Black Horse troops pile in faster, but the point is not to kill the party with an overwhelming encounter. As such, I feel like the ongoing staggered addition of foes created the right feel for mounting pressure and the awareness of the danger in the fight, without immediately dropping the party into the deep end without any chance to handle the fight.

Most the Black Horse troops have lousy ranged attacks, especially for firing into melee action. The general tactic of having them fire their weapons as they approach rather than rushed in works against them, but gives the constant pressure on the party without being too obvious. In addition, when characters moved into the clear and out of melee to do other actions, such as channel energy or cast spells, it made them obvious targets for the ranged attacks, drawing extra attention beyond just being "casters." For groups that need more of a threat faster in the battle, having them engage in melee quicker becomes an easy way to do that.

Mechanics Issues

See Session 06 notes for deployment and layout issues with the Black Horse Mercenary members.

The large number of opponents and the additional staying power created by the combination of the Armor as DR rule and the Wounds and Vigor rule made this battle draw out far longer than normal. That in turned caused some of the players to get distracted in the middle of the fight, which slowed things down a bit more. Overall, considering this one battle was worth about half a level's worth of experience, I cannot complain too much about it taking two full sessions to resolve. I would like to make things flow more smoothly though. I definitely felt like I was juggling plenty in this fight with the multiple types of opponents, locations, etc. I will need to make better hints for tactics and such for my opponents as they get higher level.

The party noted how Bosma's spear, despite having the Oil of Magic Weapon applied, did not automatically overcome Renard's armor. They are already speculating that his armor is magical. An interesting impact of the different house rules is how more apparent (at low level at least) magic weapons and armor are in the battle. I think I like that flavor, as it adds a dramatic flare to the description, but it also immediately focuses the party in the "looting our dead foes phase" after the battle.

Notable player reactions

Gath seemed the only one to put together the conflicting issues for Kathor, and had started to really like the stiffly honorable opponent. He was going to follow up on his round with more about Renard being incapacitated, leaving Kathor effectively in charge for the moment, and that Kathor could stop this battle now before more were killed uselessly. Bosma's critical ended that chance.

As I noted after the last session, many of the players were very worried about this fight. I think it played out well, with the shifting in the battle coming down to two key factors: Torrent's additional healing, and Bromsby's success with Color Spray. They never took victory for granted though, and fought hard through it.

Bromsby pointedly paused several times in the battle and looked at Bosma for guidance. I think Bosma's player, Rick, picked up on that, but he never gave any directions to Bromsby.

Props, music, images, supporting handouts, etc

Music for this session was:

  • Ghost Recon - Future Soldier by Tom Salta and Hybrid
  • The Last Samurai by Hans Zimmer
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest by Hans Zimmer
  • Iron Man by Ramin Djawad
I removed the Tiesto remix from the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, plus cutting the Suicidal Tendencies's "Institutionalized" as well as the "Iron Man 60s Theme" from Iron Man. For obvious reasons, they don't fix together. The more contemporary sound of Iron Man and Ghost Recon mixed fairly well with the more traditional orchestrations from Last Samurai and Pirates of the Caribbean, though the shorter over all play list made for slightly more repetition of themes during the game session, which was noted by a few of the players. In this case it was not a problem, but rather trying to identify the piece. "I know this -- what is it from?" for the repeated motiff in Iron Man.

In preperation for the previous session, I had extracted Renard's hand drawn map from the PDF, and printed it out on a full page as a handout for the party. I also extracted the image of Renard Woodsman to the drive share for the campaign. The image for Renard is one I have mixed feelings on in that I like the artists style a lot, better than the earlier line sketch drawings, but I feel that the image it self does not match Renard very well. This session, I got to post the image, but we ended as soon as the battle was done, so they have not found the map. I will end up posting it to the share before the next session as part of the email exchanges on what the party is doing now.

Continued to use the hand drawn canyon maps from the previous session, but only the first two segments were needed given how the movement worked out. I am glad I had all four segments, though.
 
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