Running the Chaos Scar - Experiences.

[Hussar]

Well, I've taken a bit of a dive into some beer and pretzels old school style goodness. I'm going to be running my bunch through the Chaos Scar adventures. We've just gotten started and it's been interesting. I actually side tracked a little bit right off the bat and ran Neurglyph Games NEUROGLYPH Games A Curse at the Old Inn Curse at the Old Inn. I set it in the Stumbling Giant and it's been a lot of fun.

First time in a very, very long time that I've actually seen PC's hit something with a chair or a bench.

Interestingly enough, when I suggested the CS adventures, I didn't put too much of a limitation on Chargen. Everyone came back with woodsy concepts (great minds think alike) but, wow, talk about a menagerie. Between the dryad, the Vryoloka (sp) and the orc shaman, this is a pretty diverse group.

That got me thinking - the Keep as presented is pretty much human only. Blow that I thought, if the players want to go wahoo, I do too. So, now Mother Aran, the innkeeper of the Stumbling Giant, is a Githyanki and the patrons in the bar (about 20 of them) were split pretty evenly between a number of races.

I'm going to make sure that the racial diversity thing gets played up in the future.

First session today, so we didn't get too far. Mostly character introductions and about halfway through the Curse at the Old Inn. We'll see how things go next week.

For those who are interested, here's the Campaign file I use for Maptools (build 86). So far it has the goodies for Restwell Keep, and adventures A1 and A2, as well as the Curse at the Old Inn.

Note, this is my play file, so, it might need a bit of tweaking for you to use. Things get messed up as I use them. Also, it's using DN's framework.

Hussar's December 14 Chaos Scar Framework

 

[Rechan]

Woo! Good luck Hussar. Glad to also see you're dropping maptools support in here.

 

[OnlineDM]

I'd XP Hussar if I could - huzzah for folks putting their MapTool files out there!

 

[I'm A Banana]

We ran into a bit of a hiccup even getting to the place, as to set up the big inn combat, Hussar had us drop all of our weapons, etc., at the gate.

Of course, playing a swordmage who thinks of her sword as part of her soul, my character was...reluctant....

We eventually hashed it out by having her break the sword into shards, and carry around a small shard with her, to re-constitute it later via swordbond, but it made me suddenly very aware of how certain characters can be pretty significantly equipment-focused, and how hard it is to futz with their equipment as a DM.

Because saying "leave your weapons here, for safekeeping" is a great big neon sign in D&D that says "you will have to fight without your weapons."

But perhaps I am too genre savvy...

 

[OnlineDM]

I will say that I've run at least one adventure where the party had to leave their weapons someplace for safekeeping for a while and were not forced to fight or anything like that. So, it doesn't ALWAYS mean "read up on the improvised weapon rules." But yeah, usually.

 

[Hussar]

Funnily enough, as presented, you really shouldn't be getting into a fight without your weapons. The Inn module that I ran basically has people put their weapons in a holding area at the door, Mad Max style. But, since the Keep does actually do this right out of the gate, I figured, what the hell, it works.

That Cursed Inn module is a ton of fun though. They have SOOO many props in the inn for fighting without weapons. It's an old module though, written with only core 4e in mind. Lots of the newer characters don't really even need weapons or implements in order to use their powers. Sigh. Fun little fight though.

When I have the energy, I'll clean up the original download a bit and keep adding to it.

 

[Klaus]

Just a quick note: vryloka can pass for human (in fact, they get a +5 bonus on Bluff checks to appear human).

There are a few quite good Chaos Scar adventures, and if I ran them I'd include chaos shards in most end-fights. Just feels right.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That Cursed Inn module is a ton of fun though. They have SOOO many props in the inn for fighting without weapons. It's an old module though, written with only core 4e in mind. Lots of the newer characters don't really even need weapons or implements in order to use their powers. Sigh. Fun little fight though.

By RAW, any spellcaster is fine without their implement, and weapon-weidlers can use their fists if they have to (though they take a big damage and accuracy drop, usually -- I went from +3 proficiency and 1d12 damage that I spent a feat on to...+0 and 1d8).

Which is part of why it's hard to design good terrain powers and use Page 42 and the like. The choices are between these generalized, generally less-effective powers, and your specific, selected, more-effective powers. It's a problem big in scope, since a simple change can't easily fix it -- powers from your class are almost always better choices than anything the terrain or improvisation can offer up.

Still, I am having fun beatin' things with benches.

 

[Klaus]

By RAW, any spellcaster is fine without their implement, and weapon-weidlers can use their fists if they have to (though they take a big damage and accuracy drop, usually -- I went from +3 proficiency and 1d12 damage that I spent a feat on to...+0 and 1d8).

Which is part of why it's hard to design good terrain powers and use Page 42 and the like. The choices are between these generalized, generally less-effective powers, and your specific, selected, more-effective powers. It's a problem big in scope, since a simple change can't easily fix it -- powers from your class are almost always better choices than anything the terrain or improvisation can offer up.

Still, I am having fun beatin' things with benches.

Belt of the Brawler, dude!

 

[Hussar]

Well, honestly, the solution works from the other side of the screen too. Since the monsters were non-standard, simply dropping down their defenses and hit points when you build the monsters has the same effect.

Not sure if the creatures hit points were seriously changed, but their defenses are certainly on the low side, as I'm pretty sure you saw. Well, you would have seen KM, had you actually rolled about a 5 the entire night.