Primitive Screwhead
First Post
Last night we had a very entertaining adventure, here is the synopsis followed by comments from the group.
Wilderness hex-crawl crossing grassland. The group is back-tracking an evil demon by looking for the damage it did on the way, which means exploring the plains for signs pointing in the right direction.
At the start of the game we walked through the detailed wilderness travel rules and then started off.
Day one, breezy and sunny the group ventured across the first hex {travelling only one hex per day as they are also exploring the area} Everyone succeeded at the Travel check DC 13 and avoiding having a 'bad day'. Rolled a random encounter but it was a Giant Eagle who, while interested in eating the Halfling decided to stay away from the group. If they had a pack-animal it would have attacked and tried to get away with the animal. {I didn't want to go after the druid's companion}
Foraging for food went well with 24 provisions found.
Day two, strong winds whip up, increasing the Travel check to 16. The first two players flubbed the checks, but the last three passed. So a 'difficult' day but nothing bad. Rolled another random encounter that occurred in the evening. Eight Stirges attempted to ambush the group, and failed. They did rush the group and 4 of them latched onto nice healthy targets to suck their life away.
The FireMage tossed a 9 point discerning hell-fire that dealt 32 points of damage to the 4 Stirges he hit, and the Druid wisely Compelled the remaining Stirges to 'get off my freinds!
On the second round the remaining Stirges were handily dealt with and the Ogre Cleric went about healing the health and temporary End damage.
Day three, luck was with the group and the stumbled into the hex where the primary feature was, a burnt down village that is central to the regions plot-hooks. Exploring the area they discovered a small pack of wild dogs were resting a short way south of the village, and they avoiding conflict there. The FireMage used history-sight to determine the events of the past.. a band of Ogres had come through and tortured and killed the farmers here. The Ranger found recent Ogre tracks the lead off to the East.
Further searching uncovered some of the hidden treasures; a small container with 32 silver coins*, a magically sealed root cellar with fruits and other provisions. A cache of Master-Craft weapons {bow, short sword, and shield}.
And then they 'found' the rotted/dangerous flooring in a house that the Ogres had focused their torturing on. The Halfling and Dwarf were the first in and the floorboards broke beneath them, leaving a plume of smoke and ash rising in their stead. Crashing down into the basement they were confronted with a Cinder Ghoul {Pathfinder monster}. Combat ensued with the Druid casting 'Fly' on the party members not yet down below in order to ease the entry into the basement.
Round one: the Halfling charged and nicked the Ghoul. The Ogre fly in to charge missed in the smoke and ashy scene. The FireMage flew in and tried to Transform the Ghoul into a mushroom, but the Ghoul resisted the transformation. The Cinder Ghoul exhaled a heavy cloud of ash and cinder that was breathed in by the Halfling and Ogre {End vs Mental Defense, ongoing 1D Void damage. Instead of the 1 minute duration I used a countdown pool of 5 dice. The target could expend a move action and make a WILL check vs DC 7 to remove 1 dice from the pool.}
The Ghoul also tore into the Ogre with both hands.
The Dwarf Musketeer fired his musket and charged, the musket ball missed by a mile but the sword found its mark due to the flanking bonus dice.
Round two: Halfling battered the Ghoul with his axe dealing damage on each strike, while choking and hacking on the Ghouls fiery stench {1D of will, he has to risk the countdown dice.. which drops to 4}. The Ogre heals himself and strikes at the Ghoul dealing damage, again the flanking dice are doing their work. The druid Quick-casts an Icy Arrow and sends it streaking into the Ghoul's chest where the cold deals 24 damage and the arrow deals 19, releasing the undead's soul from the trap of the physical body. The Cinder Ghoul collapses into nothingness.
Combat damage continued...
The Ogre and Halfling are still choking on the cinders within their lungs. The Ogre quickly overcomes it through Will checks, but the Halfling is at the mercy of the Void sucking his life away... until he remembers that this is the first encounter in the day and he has luck dice. The pool drops to two, and then one, and then gone. Without the luck dice he would have taken a total of 12 rounds of damage and died.
The party decided {wisely} to break and rest.. besides it was midnight IRL
XP total: 4497, broken 5 ways turns it into 899 XP per character
=============================================
Party feedback:
The monsters were a challenge, and the fights feel scary as they are bursts of damage. Had I included a second Ghoul there would have been at least one character down, if not two. Part of this is due to having only one encounter a day, so the casters can go all out and everyone has luck pools to use. Two or three encounters are doable, but four would be lethal.
The advancement rules: We had a 'long break' before the session and the group spent XP like it was going out of style. The 'proud nail' that got stumbled on over and over was the dice pool calculations for skills. Without something better than Mastercraft weapons its pointlessly expensive to go from 3D to 4D in a skill. More so if you can only rank up once per buying session. {Page 73 in the NEW document}
and I just caught the N.E.W. rule of 'leaving a career means not going back...' ouch!
It appears that the advancement encourages generalist, which is good, but the conflict between upping skill ranks and the dice conversion leaves a bitter taste in the players mouths. One of the 'goodies' dropped is a Mastercraft Shield.. not as cool since as no-one has taken the 'Shield' skill. The players have to plan out spending 1,100 XP over the next three downtimes in order to gain the maximum benefit of the shield.
Combat: My group is adverse to detailed miniature combat, so this time I broke out Runeward Zone combat management.
Changes needed to make it work:
It would be nice to see a zone-combat option written into the rules.
========================
I am looking forward to seeing the updated OLD rules!
Wilderness hex-crawl crossing grassland. The group is back-tracking an evil demon by looking for the damage it did on the way, which means exploring the plains for signs pointing in the right direction.
At the start of the game we walked through the detailed wilderness travel rules and then started off.
Day one, breezy and sunny the group ventured across the first hex {travelling only one hex per day as they are also exploring the area} Everyone succeeded at the Travel check DC 13 and avoiding having a 'bad day'. Rolled a random encounter but it was a Giant Eagle who, while interested in eating the Halfling decided to stay away from the group. If they had a pack-animal it would have attacked and tried to get away with the animal. {I didn't want to go after the druid's companion}
Foraging for food went well with 24 provisions found.
Day two, strong winds whip up, increasing the Travel check to 16. The first two players flubbed the checks, but the last three passed. So a 'difficult' day but nothing bad. Rolled another random encounter that occurred in the evening. Eight Stirges attempted to ambush the group, and failed. They did rush the group and 4 of them latched onto nice healthy targets to suck their life away.
The FireMage tossed a 9 point discerning hell-fire that dealt 32 points of damage to the 4 Stirges he hit, and the Druid wisely Compelled the remaining Stirges to 'get off my freinds!
On the second round the remaining Stirges were handily dealt with and the Ogre Cleric went about healing the health and temporary End damage.
Day three, luck was with the group and the stumbled into the hex where the primary feature was, a burnt down village that is central to the regions plot-hooks. Exploring the area they discovered a small pack of wild dogs were resting a short way south of the village, and they avoiding conflict there. The FireMage used history-sight to determine the events of the past.. a band of Ogres had come through and tortured and killed the farmers here. The Ranger found recent Ogre tracks the lead off to the East.
Further searching uncovered some of the hidden treasures; a small container with 32 silver coins*, a magically sealed root cellar with fruits and other provisions. A cache of Master-Craft weapons {bow, short sword, and shield}.
And then they 'found' the rotted/dangerous flooring in a house that the Ogres had focused their torturing on. The Halfling and Dwarf were the first in and the floorboards broke beneath them, leaving a plume of smoke and ash rising in their stead. Crashing down into the basement they were confronted with a Cinder Ghoul {Pathfinder monster}. Combat ensued with the Druid casting 'Fly' on the party members not yet down below in order to ease the entry into the basement.
Round one: the Halfling charged and nicked the Ghoul. The Ogre fly in to charge missed in the smoke and ashy scene. The FireMage flew in and tried to Transform the Ghoul into a mushroom, but the Ghoul resisted the transformation. The Cinder Ghoul exhaled a heavy cloud of ash and cinder that was breathed in by the Halfling and Ogre {End vs Mental Defense, ongoing 1D Void damage. Instead of the 1 minute duration I used a countdown pool of 5 dice. The target could expend a move action and make a WILL check vs DC 7 to remove 1 dice from the pool.}
The Ghoul also tore into the Ogre with both hands.
The Dwarf Musketeer fired his musket and charged, the musket ball missed by a mile but the sword found its mark due to the flanking bonus dice.
Round two: Halfling battered the Ghoul with his axe dealing damage on each strike, while choking and hacking on the Ghouls fiery stench {1D of will, he has to risk the countdown dice.. which drops to 4}. The Ogre heals himself and strikes at the Ghoul dealing damage, again the flanking dice are doing their work. The druid Quick-casts an Icy Arrow and sends it streaking into the Ghoul's chest where the cold deals 24 damage and the arrow deals 19, releasing the undead's soul from the trap of the physical body. The Cinder Ghoul collapses into nothingness.
Combat damage continued...
The Ogre and Halfling are still choking on the cinders within their lungs. The Ogre quickly overcomes it through Will checks, but the Halfling is at the mercy of the Void sucking his life away... until he remembers that this is the first encounter in the day and he has luck dice. The pool drops to two, and then one, and then gone. Without the luck dice he would have taken a total of 12 rounds of damage and died.
The party decided {wisely} to break and rest.. besides it was midnight IRL
XP total: 4497, broken 5 ways turns it into 899 XP per character
=============================================
Party feedback:
The monsters were a challenge, and the fights feel scary as they are bursts of damage. Had I included a second Ghoul there would have been at least one character down, if not two. Part of this is due to having only one encounter a day, so the casters can go all out and everyone has luck pools to use. Two or three encounters are doable, but four would be lethal.
The advancement rules: We had a 'long break' before the session and the group spent XP like it was going out of style. The 'proud nail' that got stumbled on over and over was the dice pool calculations for skills. Without something better than Mastercraft weapons its pointlessly expensive to go from 3D to 4D in a skill. More so if you can only rank up once per buying session. {Page 73 in the NEW document}
and I just caught the N.E.W. rule of 'leaving a career means not going back...' ouch!
It appears that the advancement encourages generalist, which is good, but the conflict between upping skill ranks and the dice conversion leaves a bitter taste in the players mouths. One of the 'goodies' dropped is a Mastercraft Shield.. not as cool since as no-one has taken the 'Shield' skill. The players have to plan out spending 1,100 XP over the next three downtimes in order to gain the maximum benefit of the shield.
Combat: My group is adverse to detailed miniature combat, so this time I broke out Runeward Zone combat management.
Changes needed to make it work:
- Add a Die value to the Speed 'attribute'. If their speed was over the minimum but not to the next level they annotated that they had a free 'engagement' option
- Area effect spells target the entire zone, while longer range can affect multiple zones
- Moving into a new zone cost 1D of movement
- Engaging an enemy in melee cost either 1D of movement or the free 'engagement' option if you had one
- flanking happens, the enemy has to disengage to avoid flanking
- crossfire has to be from adjacent zones, not within the zone
- Stuntways default DC should be 10, not 13
It would be nice to see a zone-combat option written into the rules.
========================
I am looking forward to seeing the updated OLD rules!
