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thekwp's War of the Burning Sky Unchained
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<blockquote data-quote="thekwp" data-source="post: 6975192" data-attributes="member: 56444"><p><strong>Session 08 - Nov 30, 2016</strong></p><p></p><p><strong>Player Summary</strong></p><p></p><p><em>The Scouring of Gate Pass</em></p><p><em>Act Four: Aftermath of Running the Gauntlet</em></p><p></p><p>After the fight, Bosma started organizing the group. First, Dom and Torrent were tasked with assessing how hurt everyone in the party was, and take care of the healing, with a focus on Gath as the most seriously injured, but including the horses. The horses were picketed, and the trollhound was killed by Ceilthanus after he realized it might be vulnerable to acid.</p><p></p><p>At Bosma's suggestion, Krombholz climbed up the rope to the vantage point that the Black Horse scouts had used to fire down at the party, and Ceilthanus moved down the canyon to the next bend to watch down that path, after picking up one of the bows from the Black Horse calvary.</p><p></p><p>Bosma checked the Black Horse members, starting with Kalthor Danava, to separate the living from the dead. As he approached Kathor's body, the air grew heavier, and Bosma felt a tangible essence of regret and determination like static over his body. Something barely visible, as though an aura or perhaps a ghost, drifts out of Kathor's body and vanished, flying away into the sky. Dom felt a tugging at that very moment, and looked over, pulled by awareness of something unseen having happened, a sensation not unlike that when his waking dreams show him the misfortune that he or his friends had just narrowly avoided.</p><p></p><p>After the healing was completed, Bosma, Dom, and Gath turned to interrogate the Black Horse calvary who had surrendered. The trio were very convincing, and he cooperated with them in every way. While they did this, Torrent and Bosma went through the gear of the Black Horse mercenaries, pulling aside items of note and checking for magic. Gath asked to keep Kathor's blade, hoping to return it to the Danava family someday.</p><p></p><p>With the information from the interrogation, and the revelation that the Black Horse had kept a prisoner at their camp, the party decided to head to the camp used by the Black Horse a few miles up the side canyon. Ceilthanus advocated to "Kill all the slavers." Torrent had disagreed with him, "They are not slavers! But what happens to their prisoners is worse than slavery, I fear." In the end, the party left their prisoner behind to tend to his wounded allies, taking all the horses except Kathor Davan's mount with them; that horse remained exceptionally hostile to the party.</p><p></p><p>The Black Horse mercenaries had placed their modest camp near one of the collection of caves used to store the offerings from Gate Pass's Festival of Dreams, but new locks had been placed on the entrance gates. In one of them, the party found a man dead from exposure, with a gray cat curled up with him, both of them wrapped up under a silk shroud originally used to cover the clay jars stored in the cave. Clutched in the man's hand was a tiny clay jar. Dom decided to read what the man had made as his final offering, accepting the traditional burden for his faith of being obliged to help the fulfillment of the dead man's dreams. In it he found a thin strap of paper with the message "Please don't let my death be in vain."</p><p></p><p>After sorting through the Black Horse camp, the party settled in for the night. In the morning, Bosma and Gath made a grave for the unnamed man, with Dom saying the final prayers and rites for the dead man and the party paying their respects. As they finished doing so, the silk shroud which they were about to replace glowed briefly, the images of the four totem spirits on the fabric momentarily regaining their original vivid glory before fading again. Everyone witnessing it became aware that the ancient shroud had transformed into magical relic, the Dream Shroud.</p><p></p><p><em>Act Five: The Inquisitor</em></p><p></p><p>Heading out toward the Fire Forest of Innenotdar, the passed by the scene of the previous day's battle. The survivor they had left was not there, and one of the other bodies was gone. The rest were there, dead of exposure. Kathor Danava's body was there, but his horse was not.</p><p></p><p>After almost a full day's ride through the mountain, the party began to descend from the peaks into the hills. The frigid air grew notably warmer, with red flowers dotting the yellow grass on the roadside. Cinders drifted in the sky, and forest fire itself came into view, with tall pine trees stretching down into a valley, all of them burning across the horizon.</p><p></p><p>About a half mile from a steaming river that marked the border of the forest lay a small farm with a simply fashioned stone house. A young woman stood in clear view, with dark hair and wide blue eyes. As the party approached she said in strange tone "The Scourge comes, and the skulls of the dragon pursue you. I saw it in a dream." She shook off the strange spell that had overcome her, apologized, and pleaded with the group for their help.</p><p></p><p>Introducing herself as Crystin Ja-Nafeel, she explained that she knew the Ragesians were coming, and that she and her father needed to flee. She wanted to go with the group, whichever direction they were headed, to escape the fate she had seen for her and her father here. She was shocked at first when she was told they planned to travel through the Fire Forest, but soon resolved herself to go with the group if they would let her. She then admitted that she would need help in convincing her father to come.</p><p></p><p>Haddin Ja-Laffa proved to be something of a small challenge. Bosma and Ceilthanus recognized the stories associated with the man and his name, informing the group of the rumors surrounding the man, and the tragedy that befell him and his brother Mandragore. Haddin immediately dismissed the idea out of hand of fleeing from the Scourge. Upon hearing that their plan was to cross the Fire Forest, he remarked "You've impressed me already; your plan is actually stupider than you look." After some persuasion by the group, and the promise of access to the magic that would let them cross the Fire Forest, he seemed to agree to their request. Ceilthanus gave him the scroll of Stand the Heat, so that he could study and learn the spell, while Haddin ordered his daughter to fix dinner for their guests.</p><p></p><p>Almost an hour later, a loud voice proclaims "Haddin Ja-Laffa, you are hear by claimed by the Inquisition of Ragesia. Come out and peacefully submit to our custody, or the consequences will be fall all in this abode!" An unseen force opened the door, revealing six skeletons arrayed out the front door backed by two emaciated figures. Behind them near the one of the mounds were two half-orc soldiers in Ragesian uniforms, one orc with silver greataxe, and one orc wearing a bear-skull mask dressed in leather cords and bear skins, with a three-pronged claw on his hand.</p><p></p><p>Bromsby identified the orc in the bear skull mask as Inquisitor Boreus, one of the youngest Inquisitors authorized to run independent operations, but known to be patient and cautious. Dom happened to be at the door when it was opened, and responded to the threat of skeletons and ghouls at the door by channeling positive energy at them. Boreus ordered half of the undead to head around to the back, but before they could move Torrent followed up on Dom's lead, and destroyed most of the skeletons. The soldiers and the orcs approached, and Boreus turned to the orc with the silver axe, saying "You're up, Smiley." The orc got a tremendous, if ugly, grin on his face. He drank a potion, and began to enlarge.</p><p></p><p>Before Gath could move in to replace Dom, the now enlarged orc hit Dom with his greataxe, several hurting him. After Brosmby successfully used his Ear Piercing scream on Smiley, stunning him for a round, the party managed to finish off the ghouls. Dom felt back into the room, letting Gath take his place, with Bosma moving in beside him, getting his spear from Torrent. Inquisitor Boreus casts a Silence spell into the house. Gath closed the door, and held it successfully against an attempt by a Ragesian soldier to push through which nearly opened it.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Krombholz checked the back door, and a crossbow bolt nearly hit him. Krombholz spotted the attacker as a goblin atop the stables. Behind him Ceilthanus came up, and opened the bedroom door to where Haddin had been studying. Ceilthanus told him of the attack and called him out to help with issue, but as the man came into the hall, both of them were caught in the Silence effect. Haddin gestured angrily at Ceilthanus, and appeared to be speaking, but the Silence prevented anyone from hearing what he said.</p><p></p><p>As Krombholz moved out the door, he was attacked by bugbear and a goblin, both of whom appeared at they attacked. Soon after, a skeleton following the Inquisitors earlier order came around the edge of the house, and attacked Krombholz. Ceilthanus interpreted Haddin's gestures to mean he should get out of the way and let Haddin into the space which was clear of the Silence spell. To do so, he tumbled through Krombholz and out past the enemies. Krombholz maneuvered as well, so that the two were flanking the skeleton. Haddin stepped forward into the space by the door clear of the Silence spell, and used a spell on the bugbear. The bugbear stopped attacking, and Haddin ordered him to kill the goblin.</p><p></p><p><em>To be continued</em></p><p>[HR][/HR]</p><p><strong>Story Deviation & Extra Details</strong></p><p></p><p>I added the bit about the religious implications for opening the sealed jars for dream wishes, and the players seemed to find that an interesting bit for the world.</p><p></p><p>I have described the "Blessed by Dreams" trait as the character having a quick, waking dream foretelling the failure of the saving throw, and them pulling on the Dimension of Dreams to manipulate the fate that would result. The only people aware that it is used is the character and the recipient of the ability; to everyone else, the final result is all that ever happened. My players have enjoyed this interpretation; with role dreams and eventually the world of dreams will play, this will obviously have a bigger role. I have interpreted this to actually be the results of the character's (unknowing) exposure to the the Trillith.</p><p></p><p>I changed the Dream Shroud. First of all, I think the item has very cool flavor and style, but with no paladin in the party, I believe the party would have abandoned the item by selling it, or purely hanging on for sentimental reasons rather than having it really matter to them. I feel like the spontaneous creation of a magic item under unique circumstances at this point in the adventure servers as a useful foreshadowing of the origins of the Burning Torch itself, so I wanted the item to stick around. Finally, I plan to have a particular emphasis on the nature of Dreams and the trillith in the game, to go along with having a cleric of the goddess of dreams. So, the Dream Shroud is a scaling item, using the Pathfinder Unchained rules for a prize. At the moment, all it can do is Align Weapon or Aid, once per day. Both Dom and Bosma are interested in it, more for its relationship to Gate Pass and dreams in general, than for its specific property. Dom is carrying it for now.</p><p></p><p>The description of the farm house in Act Five says it is a two-story house, but the map shows only one floor and no stairs. Since I was using that image directly for the encounter, I went with that skipping the supposed second story.</p><p></p><p><strong>Tactical Notes and Conversions</strong></p><p></p><p>Scaling this battle proved difficult. I tried to get the party the correct amount of experience to get them to level 3 by the end of the adventure. However, that would have ended up with a completely overwhelming assault. I decided to work it by having more distinct waves than the original battle. Then, I augmented the individual waves to be a bit tougher, but more manageable. So, the skeleton numbers were increased and a pair of ghouls added, but an additional round before the Boreus, Smiley, and the soldiers moved into place. I added a bugbear rogue to the goblins, and increased the goblins to three. However, the goblin who opened the door completely botched the attempt to tumble into the room through Dom, and pulled back. So, he ran around the side of the house with the portion of skeletons that attacked the back.</p><p></p><p>In general, converting the NPCs here was pretty straight forward, with just an additional class level for each. I made Smiley a pure barbarian, rather than barbarian/fighter. Inquisitor Boreous is an interesting case, though. The Magic domain mechanics changed for Pathfinder and do not allow him to use arcane spell completion items like scrolls, which would impact the tactics for him. In addition, raising him to 5th level would add 3rd level spells, and in particular, open up fireball for the Fire domain spell. An empowered fireball is a problem for a 2nd level party, of the "return to character generation" type. My answer was to give Inquisitor Boreus one level of Wizard (Necromancer), which grants him the Control Undead feat, the use of the arcane scrolls and planned tactics, and does not open the can of worms that 3rd level spells would be bring. I may post this conversion in another thread.</p><p></p><p>The tactical layout and description for the battle has some difficulties. It describes Krarlrak as climbing on top of the barn to have a view of the front and back of the house. Only, the map has a stable, no barn, and the stable does not have any line of sight to the front of the house. Since I was adding a goblin tot the total, I placed my added goblin on the 10' ft tall hill outside of the house and diametrically opposite the stable, hidden and prone. That gave full coverage for the farmhouse, with one sniper in front, one in the back, and the third to open the door.</p><p></p><p><strong>Mechanics Issues</strong></p><p></p><p>There was some discussion about the mechanics for delayed versus ready actions in initiative order. In the Revised Action Economy rules, readying an action does not change your order in the initiative. This means that in one case, the enemy delivered an attack by the ready action, and then got his full round action before the player could respond. This caused some confusion, but once we walked through and I reminded the players were they had benefited from it, we got back on track.</p><p></p><p>Despite years of playing with this group, I still struggle sometimes when multiple players are talking back and forth with the NPCs, and handling skill checks. I am trying something a bit different with this campaign, where I am letting the players handle their conversations, and then determine based on who spoke who makes the a Diplomacy (or Bluff, etc) check, and who is assisting. This is an admittedly subjective summary though, and I am not entirely happy with it. I feel like some players, who are a little more polite about letting others speak, may be getting overrun by some of the more talkative players. However, I want to encourage some natural in character conversation from the players with the people they encounter, rather than just "roll the dice."</p><p></p><p><strong>Notable player reactions</strong></p><p></p><p>I was very pleased by how seriously Dom took the somber situation with the dead prisoner, and the Dream Shroud.</p><p></p><p>Steven (Bromsby) seems to have missed the entire discussion in character last time with Kathor, and had J.T. (Gath) repeat the reasons why he thought Kathor might have turned. While Gath presented a lot of the information fairly well, Steven remained dismissive of the possibility. Bosma expressed, in character, genuine regret over Kathor's death, being not only the first person he really killed, but also the someone who was not blindly aggressive to the group. The player talked to me later about it being the first person who's life Bosma has taken, and he the fact that there was a name and possibility that it might have been avoided added a bit to the impact for the character. </p><p></p><p>Ceilthanus seems the most enthusiastic about getting Haddin to travel with the party, which I found a bit surprising. I think he sees the potential of a high level caster that travels with the party, and immediately started negotiating with the idea that a high level wizard could take their scrolls, learn Stand the Heat, and cast the spell many times. In the fight, he interpreted Haddin's angry gestures at him as a clear sign to get out of the way and the let the wizard with Dominate get into play. (And while that was true, everyone in the party was surprised that he ran outside, rather than just stepped back further into the Silence to let Haddin into the area that was not in the area of effect.) I will be curious to see how he handles Haddin's treatment of his daughter as well as his attitude over time. The rest of the party is rather wary of letting someone with a history of Dominate accompany them, and rightful so in this case.</p><p></p><p>Some random quotes from the conversations in the game:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ceilthanus, on Krombholz's suspicions: "The dwarf is a born cynic; it's a thing for his people. I've learned to ignore it."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Bromsby, when talking about wizardry, understanding magic, and the practice of arcane magic with Ceilthanus: "I've studied the Art. I understand your method. I could walk with crutches too, but I don't."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Krombholz, on appreciating the artwork in Haddin's house: "Dwarves are great painters."</li> </ul><p></p><p><strong>Props, music, images, supporting handouts, etc</strong></p><p></p><p>Music for this session was:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Rock by Hans Zimmer</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Samurai 7 by Kaoru Wada</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Spirit by David Newman</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Thor by Patrick Doyle</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Witcher 3 by Percival & Marcin Przybylowicz</li> </ul><p></p><p>I extracted the image from the PDF, resized it to make it about 50 pixels per inch based on the size of the squares, and then created a PDF to print out at the poster sheet printer at Office Depot. It was well appreciated by my party again. The scale of the battle turned out not to need the full scope of the map, at least so far. We shall see how the next part goes. As is typical for ending a session in mid battle, we took several pictures of the map to make sure we could put things back the way we ended them. I'll try to post some of those pictures I collected them from the players from the end of the session which were taken to so that we can get everything set back up for the next session.</p><p></p><p>I really liked the images of Haddin's art from the adventure, and I think my players did as well. I also used some of the original art created by Epiphanis (from his <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?502951-Some-character-illustrations-for-WotBS" target="_blank">Some character illustrations for WotBS</a> post).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="thekwp, post: 6975192, member: 56444"] [b]Session 08 - Nov 30, 2016[/b] [B]Player Summary[/B] [I]The Scouring of Gate Pass Act Four: Aftermath of Running the Gauntlet[/I] After the fight, Bosma started organizing the group. First, Dom and Torrent were tasked with assessing how hurt everyone in the party was, and take care of the healing, with a focus on Gath as the most seriously injured, but including the horses. The horses were picketed, and the trollhound was killed by Ceilthanus after he realized it might be vulnerable to acid. At Bosma's suggestion, Krombholz climbed up the rope to the vantage point that the Black Horse scouts had used to fire down at the party, and Ceilthanus moved down the canyon to the next bend to watch down that path, after picking up one of the bows from the Black Horse calvary. Bosma checked the Black Horse members, starting with Kalthor Danava, to separate the living from the dead. As he approached Kathor's body, the air grew heavier, and Bosma felt a tangible essence of regret and determination like static over his body. Something barely visible, as though an aura or perhaps a ghost, drifts out of Kathor's body and vanished, flying away into the sky. Dom felt a tugging at that very moment, and looked over, pulled by awareness of something unseen having happened, a sensation not unlike that when his waking dreams show him the misfortune that he or his friends had just narrowly avoided. After the healing was completed, Bosma, Dom, and Gath turned to interrogate the Black Horse calvary who had surrendered. The trio were very convincing, and he cooperated with them in every way. While they did this, Torrent and Bosma went through the gear of the Black Horse mercenaries, pulling aside items of note and checking for magic. Gath asked to keep Kathor's blade, hoping to return it to the Danava family someday. With the information from the interrogation, and the revelation that the Black Horse had kept a prisoner at their camp, the party decided to head to the camp used by the Black Horse a few miles up the side canyon. Ceilthanus advocated to "Kill all the slavers." Torrent had disagreed with him, "They are not slavers! But what happens to their prisoners is worse than slavery, I fear." In the end, the party left their prisoner behind to tend to his wounded allies, taking all the horses except Kathor Davan's mount with them; that horse remained exceptionally hostile to the party. The Black Horse mercenaries had placed their modest camp near one of the collection of caves used to store the offerings from Gate Pass's Festival of Dreams, but new locks had been placed on the entrance gates. In one of them, the party found a man dead from exposure, with a gray cat curled up with him, both of them wrapped up under a silk shroud originally used to cover the clay jars stored in the cave. Clutched in the man's hand was a tiny clay jar. Dom decided to read what the man had made as his final offering, accepting the traditional burden for his faith of being obliged to help the fulfillment of the dead man's dreams. In it he found a thin strap of paper with the message "Please don't let my death be in vain." After sorting through the Black Horse camp, the party settled in for the night. In the morning, Bosma and Gath made a grave for the unnamed man, with Dom saying the final prayers and rites for the dead man and the party paying their respects. As they finished doing so, the silk shroud which they were about to replace glowed briefly, the images of the four totem spirits on the fabric momentarily regaining their original vivid glory before fading again. Everyone witnessing it became aware that the ancient shroud had transformed into magical relic, the Dream Shroud. [I]Act Five: The Inquisitor[/I] Heading out toward the Fire Forest of Innenotdar, the passed by the scene of the previous day's battle. The survivor they had left was not there, and one of the other bodies was gone. The rest were there, dead of exposure. Kathor Danava's body was there, but his horse was not. After almost a full day's ride through the mountain, the party began to descend from the peaks into the hills. The frigid air grew notably warmer, with red flowers dotting the yellow grass on the roadside. Cinders drifted in the sky, and forest fire itself came into view, with tall pine trees stretching down into a valley, all of them burning across the horizon. About a half mile from a steaming river that marked the border of the forest lay a small farm with a simply fashioned stone house. A young woman stood in clear view, with dark hair and wide blue eyes. As the party approached she said in strange tone "The Scourge comes, and the skulls of the dragon pursue you. I saw it in a dream." She shook off the strange spell that had overcome her, apologized, and pleaded with the group for their help. Introducing herself as Crystin Ja-Nafeel, she explained that she knew the Ragesians were coming, and that she and her father needed to flee. She wanted to go with the group, whichever direction they were headed, to escape the fate she had seen for her and her father here. She was shocked at first when she was told they planned to travel through the Fire Forest, but soon resolved herself to go with the group if they would let her. She then admitted that she would need help in convincing her father to come. Haddin Ja-Laffa proved to be something of a small challenge. Bosma and Ceilthanus recognized the stories associated with the man and his name, informing the group of the rumors surrounding the man, and the tragedy that befell him and his brother Mandragore. Haddin immediately dismissed the idea out of hand of fleeing from the Scourge. Upon hearing that their plan was to cross the Fire Forest, he remarked "You've impressed me already; your plan is actually stupider than you look." After some persuasion by the group, and the promise of access to the magic that would let them cross the Fire Forest, he seemed to agree to their request. Ceilthanus gave him the scroll of Stand the Heat, so that he could study and learn the spell, while Haddin ordered his daughter to fix dinner for their guests. Almost an hour later, a loud voice proclaims "Haddin Ja-Laffa, you are hear by claimed by the Inquisition of Ragesia. Come out and peacefully submit to our custody, or the consequences will be fall all in this abode!" An unseen force opened the door, revealing six skeletons arrayed out the front door backed by two emaciated figures. Behind them near the one of the mounds were two half-orc soldiers in Ragesian uniforms, one orc with silver greataxe, and one orc wearing a bear-skull mask dressed in leather cords and bear skins, with a three-pronged claw on his hand. Bromsby identified the orc in the bear skull mask as Inquisitor Boreus, one of the youngest Inquisitors authorized to run independent operations, but known to be patient and cautious. Dom happened to be at the door when it was opened, and responded to the threat of skeletons and ghouls at the door by channeling positive energy at them. Boreus ordered half of the undead to head around to the back, but before they could move Torrent followed up on Dom's lead, and destroyed most of the skeletons. The soldiers and the orcs approached, and Boreus turned to the orc with the silver axe, saying "You're up, Smiley." The orc got a tremendous, if ugly, grin on his face. He drank a potion, and began to enlarge. Before Gath could move in to replace Dom, the now enlarged orc hit Dom with his greataxe, several hurting him. After Brosmby successfully used his Ear Piercing scream on Smiley, stunning him for a round, the party managed to finish off the ghouls. Dom felt back into the room, letting Gath take his place, with Bosma moving in beside him, getting his spear from Torrent. Inquisitor Boreus casts a Silence spell into the house. Gath closed the door, and held it successfully against an attempt by a Ragesian soldier to push through which nearly opened it. Meanwhile, Krombholz checked the back door, and a crossbow bolt nearly hit him. Krombholz spotted the attacker as a goblin atop the stables. Behind him Ceilthanus came up, and opened the bedroom door to where Haddin had been studying. Ceilthanus told him of the attack and called him out to help with issue, but as the man came into the hall, both of them were caught in the Silence effect. Haddin gestured angrily at Ceilthanus, and appeared to be speaking, but the Silence prevented anyone from hearing what he said. As Krombholz moved out the door, he was attacked by bugbear and a goblin, both of whom appeared at they attacked. Soon after, a skeleton following the Inquisitors earlier order came around the edge of the house, and attacked Krombholz. Ceilthanus interpreted Haddin's gestures to mean he should get out of the way and let Haddin into the space which was clear of the Silence spell. To do so, he tumbled through Krombholz and out past the enemies. Krombholz maneuvered as well, so that the two were flanking the skeleton. Haddin stepped forward into the space by the door clear of the Silence spell, and used a spell on the bugbear. The bugbear stopped attacking, and Haddin ordered him to kill the goblin. [I]To be continued[/I] [HR][/HR] [B]Story Deviation & Extra Details[/B] I added the bit about the religious implications for opening the sealed jars for dream wishes, and the players seemed to find that an interesting bit for the world. I have described the "Blessed by Dreams" trait as the character having a quick, waking dream foretelling the failure of the saving throw, and them pulling on the Dimension of Dreams to manipulate the fate that would result. The only people aware that it is used is the character and the recipient of the ability; to everyone else, the final result is all that ever happened. My players have enjoyed this interpretation; with role dreams and eventually the world of dreams will play, this will obviously have a bigger role. I have interpreted this to actually be the results of the character's (unknowing) exposure to the the Trillith. I changed the Dream Shroud. First of all, I think the item has very cool flavor and style, but with no paladin in the party, I believe the party would have abandoned the item by selling it, or purely hanging on for sentimental reasons rather than having it really matter to them. I feel like the spontaneous creation of a magic item under unique circumstances at this point in the adventure servers as a useful foreshadowing of the origins of the Burning Torch itself, so I wanted the item to stick around. Finally, I plan to have a particular emphasis on the nature of Dreams and the trillith in the game, to go along with having a cleric of the goddess of dreams. So, the Dream Shroud is a scaling item, using the Pathfinder Unchained rules for a prize. At the moment, all it can do is Align Weapon or Aid, once per day. Both Dom and Bosma are interested in it, more for its relationship to Gate Pass and dreams in general, than for its specific property. Dom is carrying it for now. The description of the farm house in Act Five says it is a two-story house, but the map shows only one floor and no stairs. Since I was using that image directly for the encounter, I went with that skipping the supposed second story. [B]Tactical Notes and Conversions[/B] Scaling this battle proved difficult. I tried to get the party the correct amount of experience to get them to level 3 by the end of the adventure. However, that would have ended up with a completely overwhelming assault. I decided to work it by having more distinct waves than the original battle. Then, I augmented the individual waves to be a bit tougher, but more manageable. So, the skeleton numbers were increased and a pair of ghouls added, but an additional round before the Boreus, Smiley, and the soldiers moved into place. I added a bugbear rogue to the goblins, and increased the goblins to three. However, the goblin who opened the door completely botched the attempt to tumble into the room through Dom, and pulled back. So, he ran around the side of the house with the portion of skeletons that attacked the back. In general, converting the NPCs here was pretty straight forward, with just an additional class level for each. I made Smiley a pure barbarian, rather than barbarian/fighter. Inquisitor Boreous is an interesting case, though. The Magic domain mechanics changed for Pathfinder and do not allow him to use arcane spell completion items like scrolls, which would impact the tactics for him. In addition, raising him to 5th level would add 3rd level spells, and in particular, open up fireball for the Fire domain spell. An empowered fireball is a problem for a 2nd level party, of the "return to character generation" type. My answer was to give Inquisitor Boreus one level of Wizard (Necromancer), which grants him the Control Undead feat, the use of the arcane scrolls and planned tactics, and does not open the can of worms that 3rd level spells would be bring. I may post this conversion in another thread. The tactical layout and description for the battle has some difficulties. It describes Krarlrak as climbing on top of the barn to have a view of the front and back of the house. Only, the map has a stable, no barn, and the stable does not have any line of sight to the front of the house. Since I was adding a goblin tot the total, I placed my added goblin on the 10' ft tall hill outside of the house and diametrically opposite the stable, hidden and prone. That gave full coverage for the farmhouse, with one sniper in front, one in the back, and the third to open the door. [B]Mechanics Issues[/B] There was some discussion about the mechanics for delayed versus ready actions in initiative order. In the Revised Action Economy rules, readying an action does not change your order in the initiative. This means that in one case, the enemy delivered an attack by the ready action, and then got his full round action before the player could respond. This caused some confusion, but once we walked through and I reminded the players were they had benefited from it, we got back on track. Despite years of playing with this group, I still struggle sometimes when multiple players are talking back and forth with the NPCs, and handling skill checks. I am trying something a bit different with this campaign, where I am letting the players handle their conversations, and then determine based on who spoke who makes the a Diplomacy (or Bluff, etc) check, and who is assisting. This is an admittedly subjective summary though, and I am not entirely happy with it. I feel like some players, who are a little more polite about letting others speak, may be getting overrun by some of the more talkative players. However, I want to encourage some natural in character conversation from the players with the people they encounter, rather than just "roll the dice." [B]Notable player reactions[/B] I was very pleased by how seriously Dom took the somber situation with the dead prisoner, and the Dream Shroud. Steven (Bromsby) seems to have missed the entire discussion in character last time with Kathor, and had J.T. (Gath) repeat the reasons why he thought Kathor might have turned. While Gath presented a lot of the information fairly well, Steven remained dismissive of the possibility. Bosma expressed, in character, genuine regret over Kathor's death, being not only the first person he really killed, but also the someone who was not blindly aggressive to the group. The player talked to me later about it being the first person who's life Bosma has taken, and he the fact that there was a name and possibility that it might have been avoided added a bit to the impact for the character. Ceilthanus seems the most enthusiastic about getting Haddin to travel with the party, which I found a bit surprising. I think he sees the potential of a high level caster that travels with the party, and immediately started negotiating with the idea that a high level wizard could take their scrolls, learn Stand the Heat, and cast the spell many times. In the fight, he interpreted Haddin's angry gestures at him as a clear sign to get out of the way and the let the wizard with Dominate get into play. (And while that was true, everyone in the party was surprised that he ran outside, rather than just stepped back further into the Silence to let Haddin into the area that was not in the area of effect.) I will be curious to see how he handles Haddin's treatment of his daughter as well as his attitude over time. The rest of the party is rather wary of letting someone with a history of Dominate accompany them, and rightful so in this case. Some random quotes from the conversations in the game: [LIST] [*]Ceilthanus, on Krombholz's suspicions: "The dwarf is a born cynic; it's a thing for his people. I've learned to ignore it." [*]Bromsby, when talking about wizardry, understanding magic, and the practice of arcane magic with Ceilthanus: "I've studied the Art. I understand your method. I could walk with crutches too, but I don't." [*]Krombholz, on appreciating the artwork in Haddin's house: "Dwarves are great painters." [/LIST] [B]Props, music, images, supporting handouts, etc[/B] Music for this session was: [LIST] [*]The Rock by Hans Zimmer [*]Samurai 7 by Kaoru Wada [*]The Spirit by David Newman [*]Thor by Patrick Doyle [*]The Witcher 3 by Percival & Marcin Przybylowicz [/LIST] I extracted the image from the PDF, resized it to make it about 50 pixels per inch based on the size of the squares, and then created a PDF to print out at the poster sheet printer at Office Depot. It was well appreciated by my party again. The scale of the battle turned out not to need the full scope of the map, at least so far. We shall see how the next part goes. As is typical for ending a session in mid battle, we took several pictures of the map to make sure we could put things back the way we ended them. I'll try to post some of those pictures I collected them from the players from the end of the session which were taken to so that we can get everything set back up for the next session. I really liked the images of Haddin's art from the adventure, and I think my players did as well. I also used some of the original art created by Epiphanis (from his [URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?502951-Some-character-illustrations-for-WotBS"]Some character illustrations for WotBS[/URL] post). [/QUOTE]
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