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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7378037" data-attributes="member: 97077">I finally had the chance to run a version of this scenario last night in my Planescape campaign. True to my gamer nature, I figure I would bore you to tears by telling you about my game!The PCs were hot on the trail of two barmies that had escaped from Harbinger House, an asylum run by the Believers of the Source which secured people who exhibited strange, godlike powers. After banging about the Cage for a while, the party took a portal to the gate-town to Elysium, the pastoral community of Ecstasy, also called the City of Plinths. There they met a friendly halfling, Boy Tuesday, who filled them in on the local goings-on and confirmed at least one of the barmies they were seeking was in town. He also told them of someone who knew the other barmy they sought.At their request, Boy Tuesday took them to the latter person, Miressa, the daughter of the Philosopher King. They spoke to her for a while to gather information when noble Semanticus, breathless with the effort of walking, approached Miressa. He begged her to summon her father to the Philosopher's Court. She told him that her father was seeking retirement and would not attend the day's debates. Semanticus lamented that his debate opponent, Adhomina, had brought with her two stoic warriors and he feared she would advocate violence if the strength of her argument was found wanting.The PCs offered to help protect him while he made his "very important argument" about a "matter of critical import to the age." They went to the Philosopher's Court and the scenario began. I changed up the map a bit. At the center was a 25' stone circle with a spiral of 10' plinths around it. On every other plinth was sat a petitioner (instead of a "lurker"). I revealed the "critically important topic" and everyone as like, "Are you kidding me?"When the Forum Troll appeared, it was breathing down Semanticus' neck right out of the gate. The dwarf bard, a sadistic Athar clown by the name of Bo Low, kicked things off my using his wand of web to jam up the troll, Adhomina - and just to be sure - one of the other PCs, the yeti-costume-wearing human barbarian and Sinker, Skaldi. The troll was unfazed by the web. Adhomina and Skaldi weren't so lucky. The Hardhead fighter Malcer tried his best to protect Semanticus from the troll's attacks with his shield (protection fighting style) and managed to keep the old man alive with just 1 hp. This also revealed that when the troll misses, it takes damage. The strawmen attacked the troll at Adhomina's urging and the PCs witnessed it healing. So they caught onto the puzzle there pretty quickly.That did not stop the hillbilly wizard and recently-minted Guvner, Robert Bob Roberts, from trying to prove Semanticus' point about trolls and fire by torching the troll and the web with a burning hands spell. This sparked a flame war which blasted just about everyone with fire including Robert Bob's Xaositect half-orc half-brother and cousin, Chungus, another barbarian. Semanticus went down and was dying. Bo Low tried to save him with a quick healing spell, but the burning webs activated another flame war at the start of the troll's turn, causing a second explosion. This was enough to take out one of the strawmen and Semanticus went down again, urging before he did, that the argument was the thing that mattered!At this point, they let Semanticus die andbegan to alternate between making arguments and trying to stay alive while avoiding the worst of the troll's attacks. Most of the party is filled with functional idiots or generally unlikable people, so their arguments were causing the petitioners to side with Adhomina. (I changed the failure condition to cause failed arguments to have petitioners support the opposing argument.) Skaldi, having suspected Adhomina was behind all this, broke free from the webs and ran over behind her. That's when he noticed the sock puppet of the troll prince. He rushed toward her and snatched hit from her grasp! The forum troll disappeared!Adhomina, furious, revealed her hag nature and the fight took a turn to what the party likes to call "Putting the boot to someone." See, the party is mostly melee types and so they love grappling a single target, knocking it to the ground, then kicking it to death. Only Adhomina wasn't going to go down that easily. Though she was grappled with some ease and knocked prone, the party was having a problem hitting her while she was on the ground. Then the remaining strawman started paralyzing the grappling PC with its terrifying glare which broke the grapple. Then the hag would rise up and claw the paralyzed target for a nasty critical hit. At this point, Robert Bob Roberts, Chungus, and Skaldi were on single-digit hit points with Chungus the worse off at 1 hp. The party was close to winning the argument at this point as well since Chungus, who ain't too bright, suddenly sided with Adhomina's argument; however, he was so bad at making her case, that he ended up causing people to side with Semanticus!Robert Bob turned the tide by burning the strawman down with fire bolts which didn't take long as they're vulnerable to fire. Once it went down, they went back to putting the boot to the hag. Just as they clenched the debate by winning over the last petitioner to gain a majority, Chungus laid the final blow on Adhomina. It was a hard-won argument with no shortage of fire and blood. A well-earned short rest followed, but the PCs aren't done in Ecstasy by a long shot. They have some barmies to find.But maybe they're really the barmy ones?</blockquote>

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