Our journey through Murder in Baldur’s Gate began this weekend. I’m running it as part of the D&D Encounters program at my local gaming store, and so we all participated in the Launch Weekend event. My biggest worry going into the event was one of numbers; we’d been sent two copies of the special adventure for the launch, and I was extremely worried there would be enough players for three tables!
It was a close thing: we ended up with two DMs and twelve players, which allowed two six-player tables. A couple of our regular players weren’t able to make it, and we got one new player... the mathematics is looking very wonky for the game in future weeks, but at least we have extra copies of the actual adventure. Working out who will run the third table is something I’ll worry about if the problem eventuates.
Paul and I were the DMs for this event. Paul felt much happier running the 4E system, and took with him a number of players who were happy to revisit that system – our last three Encounters seasons have been run with the Next playtest system, so it’s been a while since they’ve had a chance to play it. I’m happily running my regular Greyhawk campaign with 4E, so I was up for running D&D Next, and I had no problem finding players who wanted to test the newest version of the system with me.
The biggest difference between the two systems was immediately obvious as we proceeded to character creation – D&D Next at present has a fairly standard selection of races and classes available. D&D 4E is a mature system, and it has a lot of options, which meant that Paul had a player playing a pixie monk. I’ll ask him when I next see him what the other characters were.
Character creation was a little tough for us due to a lack of copies of the playtest materials, but as Rich and Callan had already created their characters, I was able to concentrate on the other players. At the end of it we had the following characters: Half-Elf Ranger, Half-Orc Barbarian, Human Mage, Human Cleric, Dwarf Druid and Half-Elf Monk. (At least, I think Rich’s Mage was human – it may have been an elf). I showed everyone where Baldur’s Gate was on the map of the Forgotten Realms, and Callan and Grant perused the 4E guide to discover what gods they should worship; Callan eventually went with Selune – his cleric was using the light domain, which he explained was moonlight.
Backgrounds for the characters were sadly lacking – partly due to the adventure not giving any real suggestions, and partly because I was so busy getting six PCs ready as soon as possible that I couldn’t spare more time for that. The adventure has the group having already met and having come to the great city of Baldur’s Gate to become caravan guards. The caravan they’re meant to be meeting is, unfortunately, delayed and so they have a few days to kill.
It’s Founder’s Day in Baldur’s Gate, the day the citizenry commemorate the general Balduran, who gave his home town enough money to build the wall that allowed them to grow from being just a town to a major trading port. The group made their way from the outer city into the privileged Inner City, and to the great square and market place of the city, The Wide.
[sblock]We began with some role-playing interactions in the marketplace, as Grant and Harry went looking for things to buy. Grant bought two bags of acorns (for use with the Fireseeds cantrip) from Maisy, who persisted in calling him “dear”, and Harry wanted a net, and found Redbeard Rum – yes, inspired by the character from Blackadder – who asked him how much he was offering. Harry froze, and offered 5 coppers, which is about 1/20th the value of a net. Rum explained in very loud terms how much he thought of the offer, and said he’d take no less than 50 silvers. Harry, terrified, bought two nets. (I later revealed that one net should sell for one gold or 10 silvers, to the great amusement of everyone).
As the group continued to view what was on offer, an upper class merchant accused Lee of standing on his silk cloak, and the adventure proper began. Lee was happy to engage in an argument with the merchant, with the other players participating to varying amounts. Of course, the encounter was staged – it was a distraction to allow a pair of thieves to steal from the crowd. However, Callan and Rich weren’t distracted, and sounded the alarm, with Callan using his flare ability to temporarily blind a thief just as he tried to take the pouch of an upstanding citizen.
Harry and Lachie, giving chase, were able to apprehend one of the thieves who they turned over to the city watch: the Flaming Fist. This immediately alerted the group to the summary judgement that occurs in the city; the Fist immediately cut off one of the thief’s fingers before escorting him away. Brutal and immediate – this is the law in Baldur’s Gate. It also is part of the set-up to alert the players to the social divisions that will lead to the unrest in the adventure, although it’s quite likely the players haven’t noticed that yet. They will.
With the thief dealt with, the adventure turned to the main event of the encounter: the speech by Abdel Adrien, Duke of Baldur’s Gate (one of four) and the commander of the Flaming Fist. The Duke is well-beloved by the crowd, and this was obvious to the group pretty early on. However, his speech was interrupted as six crossbow-wielding thugs appeared at the windows of building ringing the square and fired on the Duke, the crowd, and the players. Several of the crowd were slain in the surprise attack.
It was time to roll for initiative!
As expected, most of the group immediately made their way to help subdue (or kill) the attackers. The commander of the guards on duty also sent her guards into the buildings. Lachie ran in as well; the other players were content to cast spells or launch missiles as the group or, in Harry’s case, help the members of the public that had been hurt in the initial attack. I threw in a couple of the optional events to spice things up, in particular having one of the market stalls catch on fire, but Harry was able to save it without much trouble. This was actually a pretty good session for Harry – he’d spent a lot of the last Encounters season rolling incredibly low rolls, but this session saw him succeeding a lot more.
I was particularly struck by the lower hit points everything had, which was partly due to having been running a lot of 4th-5th level material in the playtest (and 4E otherwise). However, even eleven hit points seemed to be a lot for the monsters as the group proved very able at missing them. Lee, whose ranger was the most potentially deadly of the group, picked up on the fact that Duke Adrian wasn’t helping his guard – he was just standing on the stage, looking for something in the crowd. Lee tried to find it himself and, despite rolling high, was unsuccessful. I let him know that the Duke didn’t seem to be looking at anyone in particular; rather, there was something in the crowd he could sense and he was looking for it.
The next stage of the encounter started with a couple of thugs coming through the crowd, killing unfortunate citizens if they couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. I made the descriptions fairly graphic to emphasise the horror of it, and to make sure the players saw them as a threat. This worked a treat, and soon the group were moving towards the thugs to subdue or slay them. Lachie, who by this stage had climbed to the top of a building to slay one of the crossbow-wielding rogues, now had to climb back down again. He’d used his rage ability in that fight, so he was without it for the rest of the encounter.
Rich and Grant were using their cantrips quite effectively by this stage. The damage they were dealing wasn’t great, but it was fairly constant. Lee then showed us how deadly a two-weapon fighter could be as he attacked one of the thugs, dealing about 13 damage in the attack as both weapons hit. That thug died, rather surprised by it all. Harry took down the other, knocking him unconscious for later questioning rather than killing him.
This had drawn all the characters away from the stage, so they were out of position as the cause of the Duke’s distraction revealed himself, climbing up onto the stage and beginning to fight the Duke, who acted like he knew his attacker. Two more thugs barred the way to the stage as the players ran to aid the duke; the nearest Flaming Fist guards were still in the buildings dealing with the arrest of the initial attackers.
During this stage of the combat, Grant’s druid – already wounded from fire from the buildings – was struck by a crossbow bolt and immediately slain, as his hit points went from about 2 to -10. Certainly a critical hit! I gave Grant one of the pregenerated characters, a half-elf paladin, to play for the remainder of the scenario, describing how this hero came out of the crowd to aid everyone in their fight.
Lee, who had been shooting his bow at the Duke’s attacker, shifted targets to the druid’s
killer, taking him down with a single shot. However, this was enough so that the Duke’s attacker wasn’t slain before he himself took down the Duke. Both of the thugs guarding the stage had been killed, but it was too late for the Duke.
As his killer stood over the Duke’s body, his frame expanded and he became a monstrosity of spikes, claws and fangs. Harry and Lachie didn’t hesitate, but ran onto the stage to confront it. Callan, seeing how badly Lee’s ranger was hurt (and himself rather wounded), ran towards the ranger to aid him, casting a curative spell on himself as he did so. The group – and especially Callan – were shocked to find the monster leaping through the air to land in front of Callan, striking him with a massive blow. (Callan was especially glad to have healed himself – otherwise his character would have joined Grant’s in death!)
This was the last blow the monster got, as the rest of the group took it down. Its body then exploded, dousing everyone within 200 feet with blood, and knocking most of them off their feet.
The fight was over, but the Duke was dead. As the Flaming Fist began to reassert control of the square, the players found themselves being regarded with appreciation by the citizenry of Baldur’s Gate, who had seen their heroism. They were congratulated by members of the public and of the Flaming Fist alike.
Along with the congratulations, they had three other contacts of note. The first was Imbralym Skoond, who implied he knew who was behind Abdel’s killing, and asked the group to meet him at the Three Old Kegs. The second was Ulder Ravengard, the new commander of the Flaming Fist, who was impressed by the player’s actions and wanted them to meet him, as he believed they could be of great service to the city. The final contact, made as they left the square, was a hooded woman (quite likely a thief), who warned the players not to trust either of the men they’d just spoken to – she’d meet them by the gateway to Little Calimsham if they wanted to know what was really happening in Baldur’s Gate.
With that we ended the session. We’ll continue this as the D&D Encounters season continues.
The players seemed to enjoy the session. One said that it felt much like an encounter that could end a season, not just start it. It did have that epic quality and – as I mentioned in my review – it needs it so that the players are regarded as heroes and can thus be dragged into the intrigues that form the bulk of the adventure.
I’m fairly happy with how I ran the adventure, although I would have liked to make more use of the crowd and the optional events that the adventure provided. As it happened, use of more of them felt wrong with the pacing, but I would have liked a little more colour in the proceedings. The first section (with the crossbowmen) dragged a bit to me, but things picked up after that. I’ll reiterate the invitations at the beginning of the next session, so the group are reminded of what their options are.
As for the D&D Next rules – they worked fine. I was really happy to see each character participating effectively, although a few choices made by the players showed their unfamiliarity with the material (or with my style of running the game). There were two particular characters that really stood out. The first was Callan’s cleric, who had a “flare” ability that could be used every turn to distract a character making an attack. This was really good; Callan felt it might be overpowered, but I considered it to merely be good and – what was particularly important – very thematic and flavourful. The other character of note was Lee’s whose damage output seemed substantially higher than the other characters. I suspect this has a lot to do with his weapon choice and some good dice-rolls, I think Lachie’s barbarian would be as effective given the chance.
I was most impressed that, even with the characters having low hit-point totals, they were (mostly) able to survive the entire combat. Poor Grant was pretty unlucky, but I’m much happier killing a character in the first session than in the sixth. (For the final session, the gloves come off again). The combat lasted about eleven rounds in total; 1-3 against the crossbowmen, 4-6 against the thugs, 7-9 with the Duke, and 10-11 against the monster. To have a big combat at first level run this well is quite surprising, and I’m very pleased that it did. The session proper took us a little over two hours to play through.
Paul’s group continued for about 15-20 minutes after us, before wrapping it up. I think they found it much easier; Paul commented that the monsters were having a lot of trouble hitting, while the players were doing pretty well with their attacks.[/sblock]
So, that was our Launch Weekend Event for Murder in Baldur’s Gate. I’ll try to continue to document our play through the adventure. If you played it, please let us know how it went!
Cheers!
This weekend is the Launch Weekend for Murder in Baldur's Gate - well, more properly for the D&D Encounters season that uses that adventure, but the adventure itself will be out in a few days (for regular stores - it's been out for a bit longer for stores Wizards like more). For those stores participating, Wizards have sent them copies of a special adventure. It's the first encounter of the regular adventure, but expanded to give more interest and detail.
