D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)

[Rechan]

When is your next session?

 

[Piratecat]

Thanks for all the kind words! I'm so pleased to know this thread is useful, and am very much indebted to Sagiro. We play next Thursday; we normally play every other week, but last weekend I ran a house-con for old friends (47 people, 26 games, in 14 different systems!) that sort of ate my life for the week.

I have something particularly fun planned for next week, assuming we get to it, but I don't want to give spoilers. Instead, I'll talk a little bit about what's happening in my other campaign, because it's going to be an example of how to re-use and re-purpose a dungeon.

My Merchant Prince game also takes place in Capria but largely on another continent, with 3rd lvl PCs who are scions of one of the most powerful merchant families in the empire (the Ridolfis, purveyors of spice to his most August Serene Emperor.) They're currently on a jungle continent tracking down a missing family servitor who reputedly discovered something incredibly important for the family before he disappeared.

In the last few games, they destroyed a young green dragon who considered himself a God. They tracked back to his lair, a ruined tiefling temple infested by devolved and wyrm-touched kobolds. As they explored the rubble and trap-filled shambles of a once-gorgeous temple, it became clear that it was exceptionally old, tiefling designed, and dedicated to Cenox, hellborn lord of pride, one of the fiends who granted power to Bael Turath so that they could conquer the dragonborn empire of Arkhosia. Yeah, yeah, whatever, nice flavor text. Until they killed the last kobold...

...on the altar...

And something walked out of the fiery pit. Something that looks an awful lot like those statues of Cenox himself. Who then clucked his tongue, raised his hands, and the entire temple changed back to what it was 900 years ago.

We haven't played all this out yet; all the PCs know is that their dragon treasure sitting on a basalt floor just disappeared when the floor turned into magma. Now (assuming they survive a conversation with the fiend) they'll eventually need to leave the temple, and while the physical layout is the same, every monster, trap and challenge has been shifted from something draconic to something fiendish. Ought to be an interesting challenge. And hey, I don't have to draw an entirely new map!

 

[Rechan]

Hey PCat. I didn't realize you ran a second game; I thought it was just yours, and Sagiro's, alternating Thursdays.

Is this second campaign related to the one you mentioned a long time ago, involving albino tieflings in the jungle?

Spoiler

I seem to recall you mentioning a dungeon where a green dragon used a mummified tiefling head to raise lizardfolk zombies.

Until they killed the last kobold...

...on the altar...

Did the kobold intentionally stand on the altar to get whacked, or was that accidental?

(assuming they survive a conversation with the fiend)

Psst.

while the physical layout is the same, every monster, trap and challenge has been shifted from something draconic to something fiendish.

Are the traps the same mechanics? Are they in the same places? Or is it all just refluffed?

 

[Piratecat]

Is this second campaign related to the one you mentioned a long time ago, involving albino tieflings in the jungle?

Not directly; that was my Caprian Foreign Legion "test out 4e" game, that I stopped early. About half of my tieflings are albino, though. Depends which fiendish lord they bargained with.

I liked the setting enough to want to use it, but needed more high society politics. That's where the Merchant Prince game originated. Several of the players are shared with Sagiro, but we run on a different day than he does. No players overlap my Grey Guard game.

Did the kobold intentionally stand on the altar to get whacked, or was that accidental?

In a case of "use game mechanics to justify the desired narrative", it was the safest place for him; the altar was giving him a defense bonus and temp hit points so long as he stood on it. One of the players almost used a power that would have shoved him off. Would have been a different ending if she had, I'm thinking.

And many thanks for the Mearls link. I hadn't seen that.

Are the traps the same mechanics? Are they in the same places? Or is it all just refluffed?

Can't tell you, the players don't know yet. But think of it this way; if the entire temple is reset to how it was centuries before, are a bunch of kobold-constructed traps likely to remain?

 

[Blood Jester]

As one of the players in the game in question, I would love to answer these questions for you.

...Did the kobold intentionally stand on the altar to get whacked, or was that accidental?

Piratecat is a Rat Bastard

...Are the traps the same mechanics? Are they in the same places? Or is it all just refluffed?

Piratecat is a Rat Bastard.

If there is anything else I can answer, please just ask me.

I'm the Defending Fighter with one hit point left, on a team whose healers have burned up all their powers, who is staring at the Demon trying to decide if I'd be able to land a shot before I get killed.
Seeing as all the lovely gold just got dumped into pools of magma, what point is there to life?

 

[Legildur]

As one of the players in the game in question, I would love to answer these questions for you.

....

Piratecat is a Rat Bastard

....

Piratecat is a Rat Bastard.

I'm detecting a trend here....

I'm the Defending Fighter with one hit point left, on a team whose healers have burned up all their powers, who is staring at the Demon trying to decide if I'd be able to land a shot before I get killed.
Seeing as all the lovely gold just got dumped into pools of magma, what point is there to life?

A DC 15 Heal check will stabilise a dying character, so what have you got to lose?

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm the Defending Fighter with one hit point left, on a team whose healers have burned up all their powers, who is staring at the Demon trying to decide if I'd be able to land a shot before I get killed.
Seeing as all the lovely gold just got dumped into pools of magma, what point is there to life?

Sounds like a grand opportunity for the "can we talk our way out of this one" approach!

 

[Iron Chef BBQ]

Sounds like a grand opportunity for the "can we talk our way out of this one" approach!

That's what I'm hoping. My character is the former-diplomat daughter of the merchant (also half-elf), so she is very rapidly running every diplomatic speech she has ever heard through her head. She only hopes she can start speaking before her impulsive fighter or her dragonborn paladin start with the attacking.

 

[Blood Jester]

...impulsive fighter or her dragonborn paladin start with the attacking.

WHAT!?!?!?

WHO charged to the far side of the room and rushed through the (trapped) doors that the (formerly) big baddie had gone through while the rest of us were still fighting the rest of his guards?

Him trapped, us in the room with the exit and all the gold?

And who killed him on the altar?

*mumbles* Impulsive fighter my buttocks.

I may kill whoever gets in our way, but I respect the tactical situation going in.

 

[Piratecat]

Shhh. You're DM is happy. And really, isn't that what's important?