OotS #462

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I enjoyed that!

It's nice that Rich keeps blurring the lines between "PC" and "NPC", and doesn't insist that the same groups of special snowflakes always have to be involved in every single climactic scene. Stops it getting stale.

Or he took a page from 2nd edition adventures. Why have player participants when you can have puppets?

Whee! Vecna Lives! I played this crappy adventure and all I got was watching 2 uber NPC's duke it out.

Whee! Howl from the North! I played this crappy adventure and all I got was railroaded by Iuz!

Whee! Desert of Desolation! I played this crappy adventure and all I got was to have Al-Minster fix everything.

Whee! Shadowdale/Tantras/Waterdeep!

 

[Elemental]

I also have a terrible feeling that Miko is actually a PC. I had a player like that in the last campaign I ran. Most of the players hated him, but his antics made my job worthwhile, not to mention a whole lot easier! The adventures wrote themselves.

My guess is that the GM set things up so that the new PC would meet the existing ones, and get on with them after the initial hostility. However, the player was a total ass under the excuse of "I'm just playing my character!". Things were getting tense when the player unexpectedly left the group, so the GM decided to change the character into an NPC antagonist.

What interests me is the phylactery. It seems to be common knowledge that it would bring a lich back, but Miko seemed really surprised on finding out Xykon had come back, several strips ago.

This was a pretty good strip - thankfully no Blackguard plot - YEAH RICH!!!

It is nice to see that cliche being avoided, hopefully for a while longer.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The OOtS were surprised too. Did they know he was a lich?

 

[jeffh]

Xykon is more powerful than Redcloak.

After the last several strips, I wouldn't be too sure about that. I think Redcloak is going to end up being the real BBEG.

 

[LoneWolf23]

The OOtS were surprised too. Did they know he was a lich?

The existance of Liches is mostly general knowledge in a fantasy world, but the knowledge that Liches have their lifeforces tied to phylacteries, allowing them to regenerate from death, probably isn't.

In game terms, one fact is DC 10, the other is DC 15.

 

[wingsandsword]

The existance of Liches is mostly general knowledge in a fantasy world, but the knowledge that Liches have their lifeforces tied to phylacteries, allowing them to regenerate from death, probably isn't.

In game terms, one fact is DC 10, the other is DC 15.

Since it's an Undead, that would be Knowledge (Religion) too so V wouldn't necessarily know it either, and it was established early on in the first encounter with the Linear Guild (and Hilga being a Cleric of Loki) that Durkon doesn't (or didn't at the time) have a particularly high K: Religion skill.

Hence the OotS being surprised the first time he came back.

Then again, he's just learned secret lore about an entire pantheon that once existed and was wiped out, he's definitely had an in-game reason to raise his Knowledge: Religion score since they got to Azure city. . .but that's neither here nor there.