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

[LostSoul]

Did you guys go outside the rules at all during that fight?

 

[Sagiro]

Did you guys go outside the rules at all during that fight?

If you mean "did anyone use stunts?" then no, I don't think so. But we tended to describe our powers in terms of the objects we were fighting -- like Temigent trying to twirl animated clothing up in his flail, or Cobalt swatting down fireplace tongs before kicking them under some furniture.

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post: when we first arrived in the sub-basement, the entire thing was considered Difficult Terrain. Piratecat asked us to outline our method for sorting and clearing, which resulted in a player-determined pattern of both Difficult and normal terrain when the fight broke out. Nifty!

 

[Piratecat]

I do tend to use more minions than specified in the DMG, as per Mearls' comments in one of the podcasts; I find that about 6 per "normal" monster is about right. In this case, I took a lesson from Jeff Quick's old d20 minigame "Hijinx" and let player-described objects be key in the conflict. It was fun, although it broke my mind a little bit to keep coming up with more and more aggressive junk to act as minions.

The sentient history book (reawakened by the evil ritual recently performed by Alene two floors overhead) was effectively a non-enemy; with only 1 hp, you just had to figure out it was there and then find it. Meanwhile, the minions and animated objects were beating on you as you made standard action skill checks. The wizard's spirit (Nithigol the Animate) claimed to be the apprentice of someone known as Inquisitor Zacris, Zacris the Undying. He was sort of peeved when the group suggested that Zacris was, in fact, very dead. Given that Nithigol was surprised that no one was a wizard, it's likely that this tower hasn't always been populated by the Grey Guard.

A few magic items were found in all that mess; a restful bedroll, some dwarven stonemeal biscuits that taste awful but never go bad, a blessed book (containing an old diary) and eternal chalk. I like quirky low-power items that aren't combat oriented. In addition, Temigent found and claimed a black marble egg that contained a fawning, servile shade who would act as his servant. Based on the Prison of Salzacas in AV2, I don't think anyone was sorry that a NPC claimed it; the shade was useful but really annoying in personality! (And ridiculously fun to roleplay. Sniff. I'll miss him.)

The group was really irked to let Scrax the kenku assassin go. They could have killed or tortured him, although it would have been illegal under Imperial law. Scrax's certainty that he would be treated with gentility once he renounced Bramble as his assassination "client" was unexpected by the group. Clearly, not your normal sort of assassin.

We pick up in a month with the group heading south to Halfhammer, to learn a ritual that will be able to prove whether the missing Grey Guard member Caducity Skirr is dead or missing. On the way they've been told to stop by the halfling town of Mudtunnel. Built inside an elemental anomaly, a whirling tube of elemental muck that scares away most natural predators, it's a fairly safe place -- except two of the three Grey Guard members there have recently been slain, and the one remaining member has no idea why.

 

[theskyfullofdust]

I love the idea of using player-described junk as attacking minions. Very cool. And I look forward to hearing about Mudtunnel; sounds cool too. Hell, all of this campaign sounds cool! Plenty of ideas here, lots of good insight to the game, all very useful. Thanks for all of you taking the time out to post these updates, they have quickly become one of my favourite threads

Simon

 

[Rel]

That is a very cool setup for a combat. Nice job!

 

[jydog1]

You aren't planning on playing at set-up? I figured i had a guest NPC role all sewed up.

kidding, of course.

Fine, fine, I'll make potions instead ::razzafrazzagrumblemumble::

 

[Rechan]

Are the players who played in this session getting to level up sooner (since they got more XP, and from a hard encounter to boot!)? Or is there little incentive to get more XP in your game, PC?

 

[coyote6]

I think PC is working on the "level up when it feels right" system of advancement.

 

[Piratecat]

Are the players who played in this session getting to level up sooner (since they got more XP, and from a hard encounter to boot!)? Or is there little incentive to get more XP in your game, PC?

Bob has it right. Being one of those people who at some point went from "I love tracking xp religiously" to "oh my gosh, tracking xp is a giant pain in the ass", I now level the group roughly every 5 sessions. I want a six year campaign; if we play once every two weeks, that's 24 times a year, so about 5 levels a year, which works out perfectly. Levelling generally happens after something dramatic, of course.

So in that sense the players who missed tonight's game still get xp, because they'll level at the same time that the attendees do.

This game was sort of wacky, because I only had about 2-3 days to plan it once I learned that half the group would be absent. I was keeping "clean out the basement" around as a side adventure, but now I had to figure out how some monster could be living in the basement without professional monster hunters never noticing. This was my solution. It's a tiny bit too "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" to be entirely legitimate, but I think it worked pretty well. Even better, I was able to slip in some surreptitious plot -- Hi, Eyrie of Light! Hi, Inquisitor Zacris! Hi, creepy shade in a box! Hi, tower's backstory and history! -- without anyone really noticing.

Ahem.

 

[Rechan]

I was just curious if the players that played got something out of it beyond "Yay I get to play this session" and "Whee fun game".

It's a tiny bit too "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" to be entirely legitimate, but I think it worked pretty well.

To be fair, I heard somewhere that there was a type of demon which lived inside books, and possessed those who read it. Intelligent, evil (or at least naughty) books are in fiction, so it's okay.

Besides. After playing the Library level of Ghostbusters, The Game, I've been wanting to run a "Inanimates come after you" adventure, myself.