Messing up Shelter From The Storm

[Fredrik Svanberg]

I'll start writing a bit about the campaign we're playing here. I'm starting at the third adventure since I've forgotten too much details from the first two, but I might fill them in as I recall them later on. Anyway, the title of the thread is referrig to how I've messed up the campaign by managing to kill off characters, and complicating things even further with the new characters who replaced them. Since I can't be sure my players won't read this too soon I will have to leave some spoiler information out until they figure it all out.

Let's begin with my first mistake: messing with the Swamp Witches. As the lazy GM I am I didn't want to run a fight with three casters with different kinds of spells and abilities - especially since I knew that the characters would slaughter them easily, seeing how weak and pathetic npcs usually are. I decided to simplify things to hopefully make the fight more fun and easy to run, so I replaced the witches with a harpy, a green hag and an annis.

With hindsight I should have dropped the Spell Resistance from the hags, but that's easy to say now.

The fight was a disaster, for the characters. They had made camp on an island, setting up tents and boats around their fire to hide it from the goblins they had seen signs of during the trip (totem poles, taboo markers, etc - actually goblin warning signs to not go into the witches' territory). Hiding the fire would have worked if it wasn't for the harpy witch seeking out fresh victims from the air. Once she had located the camp she went back to get the hags and they approached by boat.

The witches were described as they were in the adventure, I merely used the stats for a harpy and the hags, so the players couldn't be sure what they were up against. They soon figured it out though. I started by having the harpy sing to them from the boat, 300 feet away from the island, hidden in obscuring mist. The characters had guards, of course. At the time of the attack it was Gogar the half-orc barbarian and Torrent.

They heard the song before it was close enough to affect them, but debated about what to do about it long enough for the witches to come within range. I had almost expected the barbarian to fail his save, but then Torrent rolled a 1 and was entranced as well. Both the guards splashed into the water and disappeared in the mist, where the green hag easily drained their strength to zero and the annis stuck them in the boat.

During all this the other characters had made some succesful listen checks and awakened. Some of them were affected by the song but the others stopped them and tied them up to keep them safe. The knight Athelstone, and the druid Luna were the only player characters able to defend themselves when the witches' boat reached the island. The annis immediately called up a fog cloud, effectively preventing all ranged attacks and spells. Haddin managed to dispell the cloud, but by then it was too late.

Athelstone had been sleeping and was out of his armor, so when he charged to attack the annis witch he was strength drained by the green hag, slammed and grappled by the annis and effectively beaten down in a couple of rounds. As for the rest of the characters and npcs, they were all casters and failed to do much against the aforementioned spell resistance of the hags. The harpy was almost killed by a few lucky spells but she didn't really matter once the fight was up close and personal and she had stopped singing.

In the end Gogar, Athelstone, Luna and Torrent were all taken away by the witches to be boiled alive, while the remaining character, Mistral the warlock, ran away with the remaining NPCs, Haddin, Crystin and Tiljan. Luna later escaped by wild shaping into a bird and flying out of her cage, but not before witnessing the boiling of her friends in the witches' cauldron. She also lost the Living Blade which she had been entrusted with in the fire forest. Luna rejoined the other survivors and they continued the journey to Seaquen while the players of Gogar and Athelstone rolled up new characters.

The fight would have been fine if both the guards hadn't been affected by the song, if the knight had been able to keep his armor on and if I had reduced or dropped the spell resistance altogether. I had failed to take the weakened state of the unarmored characters into account, but I think they could have survived and won the fight if even one of the guards had made their saves. In the end it all came down to bad luck, and perhaps Gogar's decision to not wake up and warn everybody when he first noticed something.

Next: new characters!

 

[Fredrik Svanberg]

The surviving characters and npcs arrived at Seaquen with no more trouble (since I forgot about the elven patrol *sigh*) until they had passed through the refugee camp. I had decided to use a bandit attack to introduce the new characters, so a couple of thugs who had been charmed by the devil Jeszka decided to retrieve the case themselves. They ambushed the party and demanded the case. That was when the new characters showed up - Achandae (another knight) and Khelic (half-orc cleric), escorting a new npc, Cole. With very little effort the combined force of the two parties dismissed the bandits, but not before finding out about their enemy hiding in the house of Auyung.

The two groups start talking and learn that they are all heading for Lyceum. Achandae has been paid to escort Cole there, and Khelic carries a message for Lee Sidoneth. On the way Achandae manages to insult Haddin enough to make her totally accepted by the other player characters, while Khelic keeps up a reserved front. Once at the academy the characters meet with Kiernan and Simeon. They deliver the case and finally get to see what it contains. Simeon casts a few divinations and tell them as much as he can find out about it, and then he casually dismisses them. He suggests that they all go visit Lee Sidoneth to let him know that his old apprentice Torrent has died, and to deliver Khelic's message. Cole, Haddin and Crystin leave the party at Lyceum but Cole offers to help them if they are going back into the swamp to deal with the witches.

(A quick note about Cole: he was originally a replacement character of one of the players but after their introduction had already been played the player decided to go with a different idea. I decided to keep Cole around as an npc in case I needed someone to guide them now that Torrent was dead and they hadn't rescued Katrina yet. Cole is a Favoured Soul from Sindaire, associated with the monastery of the two winds, sent to Seaquen on a fact-finding mission.)

The party passes by the Wayfarer guild's audition on the way to Lee's home, and Tiljan is encouraged to try to join the troupe. She agrees, for various reasons, and stays behind while the rest of the party goes to talk to Lee. They find him in his home. Upon hearing about the ordeals of the party and the fate of Torrent he becomes sympathetic to their plights. He asks them to avenge Torrent and their friends and to recover her remains so he can care for her. He offers them a handsome reward for this mission and even provides a few potions to help deal with the hag's strength damage. He even lets them stay the night in his home.

Khelic delivers his message to Lee who reads it and finds out who Khelic really is: one of Emperor Coaltongues sons. Khelic was a member of the inquisition until the death of his father, when Leska had him captured and tortured in order to find out more about the Torch of the Burning Sky, and to get him out of the way as she grabbed the power. Khelic's allies managed to free him from his prison, faked his death and sent him away to get out of Leska's immediate reach. Khelic is a true patriot. He is determined to dethrone Leska and bring Ragesia back to its former glory, but to do that he will need his father's artefact and an army. Lee gives Khelic some advice: the hags are likely to be looking for more victims during the night, and sleep during the day.

The next day the party reunites with Cole and Tiljan, who tells them that she was accepted into the troupe and will start rehearsing today so she can't join their adventures anymore. With all the extraneous npcs from previous adventures finally out of the way the party rests and replenish their equipment for the rest of the day before heading back to the swamp in the evening. They want to catch the hags asleep, and when they find the witches' island it's late morning.

This fight is just as lopsided as their first was, but in the other direction. The hags manage to fail every listen check to wake up during the party's fight with the guardian skeletons, and are only finally roused by Luna calling down a bolt of lightning on their cabin, which promptly causes the stored supply of Tidereaver's Tears to explode and blanket the area in a rain of blood.

The witches are surprised, unarmored and half asleep. A brutal attack by the mounted Achandae kills the Annis in the second round while a barrage of spells finish off the harpy. The green hag makes a futile effort to escape but Mistral the warlock can see invisible creatures and reveals her position with some well-aimed eldritch blasts.

The witches are dead and the party finds Katrina in one of the shacks. They gather the remains of their friends - skeletons boiled clean and lain out to be reanimated later, which makes for easy identification. They build a funeral pyre, encouraged by Katrina, to burn all the skeletons and the hags, with Cole praying over the fallen. The pyre burns through the night and the next day the party heads back to Seaquen with the remains of Torrent and their new friend, Katrina, as well as a lot of loot.

Next: the war council!

 

[amethal]

Ouch!

Still, I suppose that's why you need reliable sentries. When I ran it the sentry woke up all the others immediately (partly because her character enjoys an excuse to kick people when they are down).

The fight itself as written wasn't too bad. I didn't bother with the shield other spell, as I felt it was an unnecessary complication. Other than that I cast the NPCs spells in whatever order seemed to make sense from round to round.

We didn't have Tiljann, and Haddin and Crystin made their usual contribution (i.e. none), and it was a pretty good fight. I particularly enjoyed having Crikey the crocodile erupt from the swamp to attack the psion, who had thought he was a safe distance from the bad guys. The psion spent the rest of the fight being chased around the small island by Crikey. Reminded me a bit of any Scooby Doo episode .

 

[Fredrik Svanberg]

The War Council

After defeating the witches the party buys a house in the south harbor with the reward Lee gave them. They find out that academy mages have captured a devil based on their report about the thugs who attacked them when they first came to Seaquen. They talked to her and Khelic tried to trick her to reveal her secrets. She was not impressed and was later executed in front of a large crowd outside of town, just before the war council gathered.

I had expected the council to be much more difficult to run than it actually was. It went surprisingly fast, and the players seemed to grasp the various positions held by the npcs, at least well enough to decide that they are all selfish idiots only looking out to protect themselves. The only problem was that the party immediately decided that the only logical thing to do now is to immediately go look for the Torch of the Burning Sky which was dangled in front of them by Xavious and the gnomish diplomat.

Obviously not an option since they are still level 5 and I haven't even bought that part of the adventure yet... but perhaps understandable. Why would they want to stay in a town ruled by what seems like ineffective jerks, surrounded by nazi elves who won't let them gather any troops to the aid of the resistance, when they could be heading for the real adventure to become heroes? Did anyone else have a problem keeping the party from leaving town at first opportunity?

I now have to figure out a way to keep them in Seaquen long enough to make sure that they don't miss the remaining plot there, so that they can earn enough xp to survive the rest of the campaign. To this end I've fleshed out a few of the city encounters which will be introduced in the next session. Desperate cries for a dungeon have also been heard from one player for the last three adventures so I've tried to fix that as well. The horrible plot hook I've got lined up to make them take this bait will have to be described later.

Next: side quests!

 

[RangerWickett]

Easy way to make the party dislike the NPCs less: have the NPCs offer to help them on their mission. Have them say, "Give us a week to round up allies and resources, and ensure that we'll be able to get past the Shahalesti, and we'll help you look for the Torch. Clearly you've got good heads on your shoulders, so you might actually be able to accomplish something useful."

And then tell them about the ly firestorm that none have managed to cross. And tell them they would probably want to wait until they figure out how to get past that. While they're waiting, the hurricane can hit.

 

[RangerWickett]

Oh, and for the record, in the original campaign that inspired the adventures, the party also thought the people in Seaquen were inept, and that the elves were s. I almost wondered if you had some of my old players. A very important thing is to have the NPCs be proactive in trying to improve things, and actually accomplish some stuff. Show that the Lyceum is making things better, and that the heroes can be part of that, rather than them being the only people doing anything positive.

 

[Fredrik Svanberg]

Easy way to make the party dislike the NPCs less: have the NPCs offer to help them on their mission. Have them say, "Give us a week to round up allies and resources, and ensure that we'll be able to get past the Shahalesti, and we'll help you look for the Torch. Clearly you've got good heads on your shoulders, so you might actually be able to accomplish something useful."

And then tell them about the ly firestorm that none have managed to cross. And tell them they would probably want to wait until they figure out how to get past that. While they're waiting, the hurricane can hit.

Yeah, that might work. Thanks for the tip. They didn't seem to be discouraged by the firestorm which the gnome pointed out several times during his speech and afterwards. If anything it seemed to make them even more eager to go.

 

[Fredrik Svanberg]

A very important thing is to have the NPCs be proactive in trying to improve things, and actually accomplish some stuff. Show that the Lyceum is making things better, and that the heroes can be part of that, rather than them being the only people doing anything positive.

Yeah I'll try to make this more apparent. The problem is that some characters think that the council members are idiots because they are trying to help refugees or deal with petty crimes when they have a war to run. I guess I'll have to focus my efforts on the characters who didn't laugh at the notion of finding fresh water and food for the refugees.

 

[Fredrik Svanberg]

I have made a different version of the npc in the end fight, since I feel that the end might be a little anti-climactic if he goes down too fast. If the PCs walk through the last act as easily as I suspect they will (their characters are monsters, really) I will consider using the updated version. If they have unexpected difficulties I'll probably stick to the original version. In any case I will post the stats for my updated version here.

This version can control water as with the spell using the control staff so he doesn't need to cast that spell himself. Rushing Waters replaces the gust of wind effect of the staff since that effect wouldn't affect the characters anyway (they are protected from winds by Indomitability's boon, after all). I have used other spells from the Spell Compendium to make things more interesting and to get some use out of the book before 4E comes around.

Most importantly I gave him a quarterstaff so he can use his power attack with greater effect, and I gave him spells to improve the staff further. I also gave him dodge/mobility/spring attack so he can fight in melee without getting bogged down, and to let him use his Entangling Staff for greater effect.

Entangling Staff is a spell which allows a grapple on a succesful hit with a staff. Success constricts for damage, and then the character can choose to Release (leaves foe entangled) or Maintain (constrict for damage with grapple check every round). (Spell Compendium p. 83) I'm planning to let him rush from one enemy to the next, leaving them entangled as he moves on.

Finally I gave him an animal companion which could actually pose a threat to the characters for more than one round, so he actually has time to cast his buffs.


Big Bad Lawful Guy, Male Human Mnk1/Drd (aspect of nature) 8: CR 9; Init +1; Spd 30;
AL LN; Medium Humanoid; HD 1d8+8d8+18(+36); hp 62(98);
AC 20(24+1) (+4 natural armor, +1(+5) dex, +3 wis, +1 dodge, +2 bracers);
Touch AC: 20; BAB: +6; Melee BAB: +9; Ranged BAB: +7; Grp: +9(+13)(+21 w/ staff)

Unarmed strike +12(16)/+7(11) (1d6+5(9)/crit 20/x2); +2 gr. magic fang
(Flurry +10(14)/+10(14)/+7(11) (1d6+5(9)/crit 20/x2); )
Quarterstaff +12(16)/+7(11) (1d10+13(17)/crit 20/x2); shillelagh, spikes, entangling
(Flurry +10(14)/+10(14)/+7(11) (1d10+13(17)/crit 20/x2); )

(Monks in my group's game can use flurry with all simple weapons and don't get any special monk weapons. I didn't bother replacing his shuriken with any other ranged attack since he can call down lightning which is much more efficient.)


Combat options: Power Attack, Cleave, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Impr. Grapple.

Class Features: Monk Bonus Feat - 1st Level, Flurry of Blows, Unarmed Strike, Proficiency: Monk Weapons, Wisdom Bonus to AC, Improved Grapple, Spells, Proficiency: Armor, Medium, Wild Empathy (8+Cha.Mod), Animal Companion (elasmosaurus), Druidic weapons, Proficiency: Shields, Secret Language: Druidic, Proficiency: Armor, Light, Nature Sense, Woodland Stride, Trackless Step, Resist Nature`s Lure, Aspect of Nature 3/day.

Buffed values in parenthesis (aspect of nature + spells):
SV Fort +11(15), Ref +6(10), Will +11;
STR 16(24), DEX 12(20), CON 14(22), INT 10, WIS 14, CHA 8.

Skills: Balance +5(9), Bluff +5, Climb +7(11), Concentration +14(18), Diplomacy +1, Escape Artist +1(5), Handle Animal +7, Heal +2, Hide +1(5), Intimidate +1, Jump +3(7), Listen +2, Move Silently +1(5), Ride +3(7), Search +0, Sense Motive +2, Spellcraft +8, Spot +2, Survival +4, Swim +20(24), Use Rope +1(5).

Feats: Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Cleave, Armor Proficiency: medium, Improved Unarmed Strike, Power Attack, Shield Proficiency, Improved Grapple, Armor Proficiency: light.

Druid Spells (6/5/4/3/2): ;
1-Animate Water (1), Beastland Ferocity (1), Cure Light Wounds (2), Shillelagh (1);
2-Decomposition (1), Cure Moderate Wounds (2), Resist Energy (1);
3-Entangling Staff (1) (swift), Magic Fang, Greater (1), Spikes (1);
4-Rushing Waters (1), Freedom of Movement (1).

Equipment: Masterwork quarterstaff, Ring of Swimming, Bracers of Armor +3, Amulet of Natural Armor +1, Vest of Resistance +1, Scroll: Barkskin (9), Bear`s Endurance (3) Bull`s Strength (3) Cat`s Grace (3) (already used), Control Staff, Tidereaver's Tears.

 

[Volaran]

I hope they enjoy the end fight. Our group had a lot of fun.

For their sake, I'm hoping your substitutions don't result in quite the party slaughter that the swamp witches did