RangerWickett
Legend
I'm playing in my friend's Iron Gods Pathfinder campaign (think D&D in the Old West, except the dungeons are wrecked spaceships that crashed millennia ago, and the dragons are robots gone mad). We're just starting the fourth module, heading into a place called the "Felldales," which by name alone is obviously not going to be safe and dandy. Plus we've heard tell of robots the size of houses that can level cities, so we should have reason to be wary.
At the start of the campaign, our GM - whose last game was a pirate campaign that ended in a TPK - says he wants to encourage cybernetic prostheses, so he's using the pirate campaign's rules for delimbing. In addition, once during the campaign if we would die, we can use a 'get out of jail free card,' to instead survive but lose a limb. Why am I mentioning this? Well, I've already got a bionic eye.
(Note to adventure authors: having monsters that blow up when you kill them is stupid if you do not telegraph that threat. But whatever; I got a robo-eye out of the deal.)
Our party's a cowboy cleric, an android swordsman, a 'native tribesman' magus (think a wizard with a sword who casts with one hand, slices with the other), and my blacksmith from Paizo-Japan, who is only here so he can forge a katana out of starmetal to win the approval of his fiancee's family.
So, our magus has his flying familiar scouting a ahead as we trek through this Monument Valley-looking landscape. The GM, knowing the familiar has fire resistance and improved evasion, decides to put the fear of god into us, and says we see four metal spears shoot into the sky from 500 feet away, trailing tails of smoke behind them. They converge on the familiar and explode. The magus freaks out, but even after the familiar fails two saving throws it only takes, like, 20 damage. It dives out of the sky to look for cover.
The GM says we see four horse-sized robots with wings glide up into the air in formation, obviously searching for their target.
The magus's player, fearing for the life of his familiar, shouts, "I fireball them to distract them."
Well, that's the action that initiates combat. From 500 feet out, the magus lobs a fireball that does ****-all against the doom machines from outer space. We roll initiative and the whole party blessedly outrolls the magus. We spur our horses and scatter in three different directions, so when the robot counterattack of four missiles hit, only the magus is caught. Until that moment he seemed somewhat confused that his "I'll distract them" plan could have any negative repercussions.
The rest of us hide amid the rocks. We send our horses scampering away as decoys and two of them get turned to chunky salsa by more missiles. But eventually the robots decide no one is violating their airspace, and they turn around and leave. Somehow the magus has survived, horribly burned, his arm severed after the horse he was riding blew up and its horseshoe sliced through his shoulder like a scythe. I keep the horseshoe since it's obviously lucky.
After we stop laughing out of game and mocking the magus's player for nearly causing a TPK, we set about dealing with the fallout. The only place nearby we can get a cybernetic limb is basically Bad Guy Central. The cowboy and android PCs are wanted criminals by the Bad Guy Overlords, so they lay low in a small town while the magus and I try to buy him a new arm on the black market. Inside the city of Bad Guy Central we witness all sorts of tyrannical acts by their robotic storm troopers, and I have to remind the magus not to pick any fights. Apparently this city is where the plot of adventure 5 happens.
And apparently the GM had always intended for my fiancee to show up in adventure 5 - having decided she couldn't bear to be away from me, but getting arrested by the villains just before reaching me. When we manage to track down a contact in the black market, he's like, "Whoa, another person from Paizo-Japan. What are the odds?" Cue a reckless bit of searching, and I have been reunited with my beloved. Who apparently is a badass freedom fighter. These things happen when you give your GM some backstory notes and trust him to flesh them out.
Alas, she has a duty to help the downtrodden of Bad Guy Central, and we're from Paizo-Japan, so she gets the magus his arm and we part ways.
The GM is thrilled. He got to blow up one PC and hint at future plot points in the campaign, all because the magus isn't afraid of frikkin' Robotech jets. All in all, a solid session.
At the start of the campaign, our GM - whose last game was a pirate campaign that ended in a TPK - says he wants to encourage cybernetic prostheses, so he's using the pirate campaign's rules for delimbing. In addition, once during the campaign if we would die, we can use a 'get out of jail free card,' to instead survive but lose a limb. Why am I mentioning this? Well, I've already got a bionic eye.
(Note to adventure authors: having monsters that blow up when you kill them is stupid if you do not telegraph that threat. But whatever; I got a robo-eye out of the deal.)
Our party's a cowboy cleric, an android swordsman, a 'native tribesman' magus (think a wizard with a sword who casts with one hand, slices with the other), and my blacksmith from Paizo-Japan, who is only here so he can forge a katana out of starmetal to win the approval of his fiancee's family.
So, our magus has his flying familiar scouting a ahead as we trek through this Monument Valley-looking landscape. The GM, knowing the familiar has fire resistance and improved evasion, decides to put the fear of god into us, and says we see four metal spears shoot into the sky from 500 feet away, trailing tails of smoke behind them. They converge on the familiar and explode. The magus freaks out, but even after the familiar fails two saving throws it only takes, like, 20 damage. It dives out of the sky to look for cover.
The GM says we see four horse-sized robots with wings glide up into the air in formation, obviously searching for their target.
The magus's player, fearing for the life of his familiar, shouts, "I fireball them to distract them."
Well, that's the action that initiates combat. From 500 feet out, the magus lobs a fireball that does ****-all against the doom machines from outer space. We roll initiative and the whole party blessedly outrolls the magus. We spur our horses and scatter in three different directions, so when the robot counterattack of four missiles hit, only the magus is caught. Until that moment he seemed somewhat confused that his "I'll distract them" plan could have any negative repercussions.
The rest of us hide amid the rocks. We send our horses scampering away as decoys and two of them get turned to chunky salsa by more missiles. But eventually the robots decide no one is violating their airspace, and they turn around and leave. Somehow the magus has survived, horribly burned, his arm severed after the horse he was riding blew up and its horseshoe sliced through his shoulder like a scythe. I keep the horseshoe since it's obviously lucky.
After we stop laughing out of game and mocking the magus's player for nearly causing a TPK, we set about dealing with the fallout. The only place nearby we can get a cybernetic limb is basically Bad Guy Central. The cowboy and android PCs are wanted criminals by the Bad Guy Overlords, so they lay low in a small town while the magus and I try to buy him a new arm on the black market. Inside the city of Bad Guy Central we witness all sorts of tyrannical acts by their robotic storm troopers, and I have to remind the magus not to pick any fights. Apparently this city is where the plot of adventure 5 happens.
And apparently the GM had always intended for my fiancee to show up in adventure 5 - having decided she couldn't bear to be away from me, but getting arrested by the villains just before reaching me. When we manage to track down a contact in the black market, he's like, "Whoa, another person from Paizo-Japan. What are the odds?" Cue a reckless bit of searching, and I have been reunited with my beloved. Who apparently is a badass freedom fighter. These things happen when you give your GM some backstory notes and trust him to flesh them out.
Alas, she has a duty to help the downtrodden of Bad Guy Central, and we're from Paizo-Japan, so she gets the magus his arm and we part ways.
The GM is thrilled. He got to blow up one PC and hint at future plot points in the campaign, all because the magus isn't afraid of frikkin' Robotech jets. All in all, a solid session.
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