NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="evilbob" data-source="post: 4009153" data-attributes="member: 9789">more resultsThey moved on through the mountain pass, and were attacked by the imps and the old man's cat simultaneously.  They fought them off without much trouble, although the hardest part was just staying literally -on- the path in order to fight.  The cat was turned to dust once they discovered (via spot checks) that it was undead (I figured the cat wasn't trying -too- hard to disguise itself) and the imps were chased away.Next they hit the "crossroads" which was there partially as a plot device and partially as a place for the third head's treasure.  They almost had the wrong character grab the loot again - again, not due to greed but efficiency - and so another hint was dropped to help them recall what had happened last time.  They successfully grabbed the item and continued on their way.This next encounter was particularly interesting because one player immediately recognized the character of the green knight from the tales of Sir Gawain.  However, none of them picked up on the clue to use only the copper coin (even the guy who had been in Merchant!).  The way it went was:  they quickly deduced the head's clue, and asked the green knight for a game.  He said, "Ah, so you too enjoy a good game of chance?  Very well.  The rules are simple:  we both flip a coin; the side with a visage wins.  Three times we flip, and he who wins the most flips wins the game.  If you win, you shall receive a prize worthy of the coin you pick.  If I win, then you must accept my previous offer.  Since you have issued the challenge, I shall allow you to choose your coin first.  You may choose from the humble copper, the stately silver, or the kingly gold coin.  Choose your coin, and accept that which fate plays you."Even with all that hinting, they still went for the silver coin - partially because they fell for the "prize worthy of the coin you pick" bit which was specifically there to distract them.  Needless to say, they lost.  This caused them to get rather worried; they figured out that he was angry due to the "turnips" they carried (they hadn't eaten any, but they still had them) and the knight was not being persuaded otherwise.  They REALLY didn't want to trade blows with this fellow.  So, they decided to call Bryne of Lig again to help them out.  I considered this a fair usage, so I had them make another Diplomacy check with his help.  I said that Bryne added a choice word here or there, eventually suggesting whole phrases, and by the time the speech was done he had somehow managed to make it sound like the players had specifically brought these heads here to give them to the green knight in order for him to properly bury them, while they would of course try to hunt down the crone responsible.  The green knight accepted their gift gratefully, and allowed them to continue on their way.  (I thought that was pretty fair, as Bryne is specifically there to give them "outs" when they need them - so I just ruled that they didn't get any XP for this encounter and counted it good.)The players quickly caught on about the longstones, however.  They recognized - partially because the "clues" were all done - that these were the gates of faerieland, or at least they strongly suspected.  However, this didn't really dilute their desire to stay on the path.  But they were confident enough that they called Bryne of Lig one last time in order to identify the staff.  I figured that was fair enough, so when he came he examined the staff closely all over for several minutes and then promptly said, "I have no idea."  However, he did say that he had heard that such a staff might do X...  And so they got the information they wanted.  However, they knew they had used up all their opportunities with Bryne of Lig.They continued through the stones and met the party of bees.  Even though they were very sure they were out of faerieland at that point, the "off the path" experience from before was so heavily stuck in their heads they did not want to leave it and discover they were wrong - so there was still an encounter to be had.  However - and again, this comes more from the characters' level - it was easily overcome.  The arcane caster simply cast "rope trick" and the characters climbed up into an extradimensional space and allowed the party of bees to move through.  They had not "left the path," but neither side had to cede or fight.  (They were a bit worried about fighting at that point, because even though they suspected they could heal their wounds, they had not.)  In the end, I thought that was such a good use of a spell to avoid an encounter they received full XP for defeating it.Later that evening it got dark and they were very happy to have left faerieland.  However, the funny thing is that even days later - in another part of the country far away - there was a battle where one of the characters was still very apprehensive about leaving the path.  Talk about a pavlovian response!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />In the end, everyone had a really good time and they enjoyed the heavy role-playing and "puzzle-solving" aspect of the game quite a bit.  The entire thing was probably a bit easier for them, due to their higher level, but overall it scaled pretty well - and many of the challenges are effectively "level neutral."  Overall:  a great bit of storytelling!</blockquote>

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