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Wing Three
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6034349" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 14 - CHALLENGE OF CHAMPIONS II</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard)</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Slayer, half-orc barbarian</p><p> </p><p>I had a pretty good idea that I'd be using one of my "Challenge of Champions" adventures to get the whole group together, as they were perfectly suited to my needs. After all: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They were sponsored by the local Adventurers Guild, and what better way to integrate eight different PCs into a group than by ushering them all into the same Guild?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Challenge of Champions series were each a series of ten puzzles, which played to Vicki's strengths as a puzzle solver.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Anyone could sign up to enter the contest, and if you didn't happen to be a group of four (the required team size) you'd be placed in with a group of strangers to form a four-person team.</li> </ul><p>So, that's exactly what I did. The only real decision I had to make was which one of the Challenge of Champions adventures I wanted to run. The main problem with all of them was the same: my son Logan had run a PC through each one already, having been one of my primary playtesters at the time (the other one being his older brother Stuart). Still, that was easily fixed, as I made him promise not to "solve" the scenarios using his prior knowledge from having already gone through the adventures. I figured I'd game the system as much as possible by using one of the earlier adventures in the series, and since I really liked the "puzzle hook" of the last scenario in the second one, "Challenge of Champions II" it was.</p><p></p><p>I told each of the players that they could run whichever of their two PCs they wanted. Logan opted for Akari, having already decided that Gareth was an "experiment that failed." Dan and Jacob each chose to run their original PCs, possibly because it had been a while since they'd run them. Vicki, however, was eager to try out her new wizard ("witch") PC, Delphyne Babelberi. So I decided that for this contest, you weren't allowed to enter as a team; rather, you signed up individually and were assigned to a particular team by the age-old method of drawing names out of a hat. As luck would have it, these four PCs were grouped together, and we decided that if they placed high enough in the contest, they'd be offered slots in the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild. Furthermore, if they got in (and I already had decided that, barring a horrific end score, they'd be getting in), their other four PCs would likewise have earned high enough scores to be offered a slot in the Guild. (After all, there was no way around it: each player could only run one of his or her PCs in the Challenge of Champions; once they'd run their first PC through, they couldn't very well run their second PC through, since the players would already know the solutions to the 10 scenarios. Four PCs would just have to compete "offscreen.")</p><p></p><p>They did about as well as I had expected - that is to say, very well indeed. Dan got off to a bit of a rough start by having his PC fall into a pit that had been covered over with the illusion of a solid floor, but this was caused by an assumption on his part on just exactly where the clue he had been given was telling him it was. (I even gave him a Reflex save to avoid falling in, but he failed it, and so was declared "dead" for that scenario, and earned no points for that one.) But it was pretty smooth sailing from that point on, and Vicki pretty much aced all of my word-based puzzles, while Dan's prior experience on the workings of (A)D&D spells and magic items aided greatly on that front. (Logan was equally skilled, but was holding back at my request, to give those who had never gone through the adventure before a shot at solving the scenarios. I had made him a deal, that if the party was completely stumped at the 10-minute point - each scenario lasts up to 15 minutes of real time; I had a stopwatch and everything - he could have Akari get a sudden inspiration as to how best to proceed, but I don't think it ever came to that.)</p><p></p><p>So, at the end of the adventure, all eight PCs were ushered into the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild, and I had my unified party at last. Here's how I decided to structure the Adventurers Guild: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Guild was divided into "wings" of 8 adventurers. Our 8 PCs comprised "Wing Three."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Each wing was a section of Guild Headquarters, comprised of the following: eight bedrooms, two bathrooms, a communal living area, and a kitchen. The doors to the eight bedrooms were all lined up alongside each other down a long a stretch of hallway, and despite the cramped positioning of the doors each led into a different extradimensional room, each a square with 30-foot sides. The bedrooms came equipped with the standard bed, dresser, writing desk, and storage trunk, but could be customized to the inhabitant's liking.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Each member of a wing wore an Adventurers Guild ring. (I let Jacob design the logo for the Adventurers Guild between sessions; he came up with a sword and a wand crossed over each other in the middle of an equilateral triangle.) Each ring, at creation, was fused with one other Guild ring, so instead of eight separate rings there were really four sets of two rings each.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">When activated (by a rapid double-touch, not unlike the method by which Spider-Man activates his mechanical web-shooters in the comics), the Guild ring teleported the wearer back to the common living area of their wing.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If the wearer of the other ring in the set was touched to the ring that had just been used to teleport its wearer back to the wing's common living area, the "fresh" ring could be used to "lock onto the coordinates" from which the ring's mate had just teleported. (Obviously, the rings were passed out so that each player's two PCs received a complete set. This was an easy way for the players to swap off PCs during the course of a given adventure.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The rings could not be used to teleport between different planes. They could, however, be activated (by someone who knew how) by other than the wielder. This could come in handy in sending a slain PC back to Guild Headquarters and allowing the dead PC's partner to teleport in and take his or her place.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Originally, the rings each held one charge and had to be recharged after each use, which cost 3,300 gp. (Much later in the campaign, I made the rings self recharging, although they could still only be used once per day to either teleport back to Guild Headquarters or trace the teleport of the other ring in its set.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Each ring was personalized by the carved inscription of the wearer's name on the inside of the band.</li> </ul><p>Effectively, that meant that for each adventure, the players would decide which of their two PCs they'd be running for that session. The other four PCs were on "backup duty," hanging around their wing in case they were needed to "bink" back to replace a returned PC. (I don't remember who first coined the term "bink" to mean "use the Guild ring to teleport," but it's a term we use to this day.) The initial expense in recharging a ring meant that they would really only be used in an emergency, but this was a nice way (I thought) to prevent a PC death from forcing the dead PC's player to sit and watch everybody else running through the rest of the adventure. Of course, the system wasn't infallible (if the slain PC's body wasn't retrievable, there'd be no way to activate his or her Guild ring), but I figured it would serve our purposes pretty well. (And I have to admit it really has. Not only has it made it easier to prevent PC death from keeping the player out of the rest of the game session, but it's really given this campaign a much different feel than any other (A)D&D campaign I've ever run.)</p><p></p><p>By the way, as a final comment, you now know why I've chosen to call this campaign "Wing Three." However, the fact that I chose "Wing Three" over any other possible number has a small story attached to it. Dan and I both had the same first job in the Air Force, back when we were brand new Second Lieutenants. We were both trained as missileers at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and then were each assigned to Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, where we pulled combat alerts over the course of four years of crew time. Each missileer would be sent to the field on the average of every three or four days or so, to spend 24 hours in a launch control center monitoring 10 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles with his crew partner. Dan and I were in different squadrons - he was in the 740th Strategic Missile Squadron, and I was in the 741st - and our respective crew times weren't exactly the same (although they overlapped; I got to Minot in June 1987 and he got there sometime in 1988 or so), but Minot AFB is where the two of us first met.</p><p></p><p>So what's the significance of that? Each of the ICBM Missile Wings is given a numerical designator; Minot is "Wing 3."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6034349, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 14 - CHALLENGE OF CHAMPIONS II[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Akari, elven paladin of Hieroneous Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard) Slayer, half-orc barbarian[/INDENT] I had a pretty good idea that I'd be using one of my "Challenge of Champions" adventures to get the whole group together, as they were perfectly suited to my needs. After all:[list][*]They were sponsored by the local Adventurers Guild, and what better way to integrate eight different PCs into a group than by ushering them all into the same Guild? [*]The Challenge of Champions series were each a series of ten puzzles, which played to Vicki's strengths as a puzzle solver. [*]Anyone could sign up to enter the contest, and if you didn't happen to be a group of four (the required team size) you'd be placed in with a group of strangers to form a four-person team.[/list]So, that's exactly what I did. The only real decision I had to make was which one of the Challenge of Champions adventures I wanted to run. The main problem with all of them was the same: my son Logan had run a PC through each one already, having been one of my primary playtesters at the time (the other one being his older brother Stuart). Still, that was easily fixed, as I made him promise not to "solve" the scenarios using his prior knowledge from having already gone through the adventures. I figured I'd game the system as much as possible by using one of the earlier adventures in the series, and since I really liked the "puzzle hook" of the last scenario in the second one, "Challenge of Champions II" it was. I told each of the players that they could run whichever of their two PCs they wanted. Logan opted for Akari, having already decided that Gareth was an "experiment that failed." Dan and Jacob each chose to run their original PCs, possibly because it had been a while since they'd run them. Vicki, however, was eager to try out her new wizard ("witch") PC, Delphyne Babelberi. So I decided that for this contest, you weren't allowed to enter as a team; rather, you signed up individually and were assigned to a particular team by the age-old method of drawing names out of a hat. As luck would have it, these four PCs were grouped together, and we decided that if they placed high enough in the contest, they'd be offered slots in the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild. Furthermore, if they got in (and I already had decided that, barring a horrific end score, they'd be getting in), their other four PCs would likewise have earned high enough scores to be offered a slot in the Guild. (After all, there was no way around it: each player could only run one of his or her PCs in the Challenge of Champions; once they'd run their first PC through, they couldn't very well run their second PC through, since the players would already know the solutions to the 10 scenarios. Four PCs would just have to compete "offscreen.") They did about as well as I had expected - that is to say, very well indeed. Dan got off to a bit of a rough start by having his PC fall into a pit that had been covered over with the illusion of a solid floor, but this was caused by an assumption on his part on just exactly where the clue he had been given was telling him it was. (I even gave him a Reflex save to avoid falling in, but he failed it, and so was declared "dead" for that scenario, and earned no points for that one.) But it was pretty smooth sailing from that point on, and Vicki pretty much aced all of my word-based puzzles, while Dan's prior experience on the workings of (A)D&D spells and magic items aided greatly on that front. (Logan was equally skilled, but was holding back at my request, to give those who had never gone through the adventure before a shot at solving the scenarios. I had made him a deal, that if the party was completely stumped at the 10-minute point - each scenario lasts up to 15 minutes of real time; I had a stopwatch and everything - he could have Akari get a sudden inspiration as to how best to proceed, but I don't think it ever came to that.) So, at the end of the adventure, all eight PCs were ushered into the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild, and I had my unified party at last. Here's how I decided to structure the Adventurers Guild:[list][*]The Guild was divided into "wings" of 8 adventurers. Our 8 PCs comprised "Wing Three." [*]Each wing was a section of Guild Headquarters, comprised of the following: eight bedrooms, two bathrooms, a communal living area, and a kitchen. The doors to the eight bedrooms were all lined up alongside each other down a long a stretch of hallway, and despite the cramped positioning of the doors each led into a different extradimensional room, each a square with 30-foot sides. The bedrooms came equipped with the standard bed, dresser, writing desk, and storage trunk, but could be customized to the inhabitant's liking. [*]Each member of a wing wore an Adventurers Guild ring. (I let Jacob design the logo for the Adventurers Guild between sessions; he came up with a sword and a wand crossed over each other in the middle of an equilateral triangle.) Each ring, at creation, was fused with one other Guild ring, so instead of eight separate rings there were really four sets of two rings each. [*]When activated (by a rapid double-touch, not unlike the method by which Spider-Man activates his mechanical web-shooters in the comics), the Guild ring teleported the wearer back to the common living area of their wing. [*]If the wearer of the other ring in the set was touched to the ring that had just been used to teleport its wearer back to the wing's common living area, the "fresh" ring could be used to "lock onto the coordinates" from which the ring's mate had just teleported. (Obviously, the rings were passed out so that each player's two PCs received a complete set. This was an easy way for the players to swap off PCs during the course of a given adventure.) [*]The rings could not be used to teleport between different planes. They could, however, be activated (by someone who knew how) by other than the wielder. This could come in handy in sending a slain PC back to Guild Headquarters and allowing the dead PC's partner to teleport in and take his or her place. [*]Originally, the rings each held one charge and had to be recharged after each use, which cost 3,300 gp. (Much later in the campaign, I made the rings self recharging, although they could still only be used once per day to either teleport back to Guild Headquarters or trace the teleport of the other ring in its set.) [*]Each ring was personalized by the carved inscription of the wearer's name on the inside of the band.[/list]Effectively, that meant that for each adventure, the players would decide which of their two PCs they'd be running for that session. The other four PCs were on "backup duty," hanging around their wing in case they were needed to "bink" back to replace a returned PC. (I don't remember who first coined the term "bink" to mean "use the Guild ring to teleport," but it's a term we use to this day.) The initial expense in recharging a ring meant that they would really only be used in an emergency, but this was a nice way (I thought) to prevent a PC death from forcing the dead PC's player to sit and watch everybody else running through the rest of the adventure. Of course, the system wasn't infallible (if the slain PC's body wasn't retrievable, there'd be no way to activate his or her Guild ring), but I figured it would serve our purposes pretty well. (And I have to admit it really has. Not only has it made it easier to prevent PC death from keeping the player out of the rest of the game session, but it's really given this campaign a much different feel than any other (A)D&D campaign I've ever run.) By the way, as a final comment, you now know why I've chosen to call this campaign "Wing Three." However, the fact that I chose "Wing Three" over any other possible number has a small story attached to it. Dan and I both had the same first job in the Air Force, back when we were brand new Second Lieutenants. We were both trained as missileers at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and then were each assigned to Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, where we pulled combat alerts over the course of four years of crew time. Each missileer would be sent to the field on the average of every three or four days or so, to spend 24 hours in a launch control center monitoring 10 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles with his crew partner. Dan and I were in different squadrons - he was in the 740th Strategic Missile Squadron, and I was in the 741st - and our respective crew times weren't exactly the same (although they overlapped; I got to Minot in June 1987 and he got there sometime in 1988 or so), but Minot AFB is where the two of us first met. So what's the significance of that? Each of the ICBM Missile Wings is given a numerical designator; Minot is "Wing 3." [/QUOTE]
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