(Spoilers) My experience with Reavers of Harkenwold - Updated

[Nemesis Destiny]

The Aftermath of Liberating the Keep

Still no Encounter B5

The reasons for this are many, but mostly I've diverted the story for campaign reasons, and unfortunately, things are dragging out longer than expected.

While travelling in the intervening sequence I've inserted, the PCs got in a random encounter which killed one of them (she got better - sort of). And the travel times are kind of lengthy, so that took up a lot of time as well. I'm not even sure that we'll get to B5 next week, but we should at least be close.

As for the aftermath, they executed Tyranda/Morda, and freed the baron/jarl. He gave them whatever worldly gifts they wanted, which for most of them consisted of recognition of their bravery rather than any material reward. Two of them joined his household guard, and one of them asked for his grand-daughter's hand in marriage. She is also a PC so this was extra hilarious and was also a DM machination in disguise.

Shortly after this, they left to tell their king of their exploits. While they were gone, the evil spirit of Malkos/Kalevi had left the PC he was inhabiting (the one who asked to marry the jarl's kin) and entered the jarl instead. He then buggered off with the jarl's body, using a Magic Jar ritual to trap the jarl in his own sword. Conveniently, Malkos left this behind.

When the PCs returned, I knew they would inevitably set out to find the jarl (even if they hadn't quite figured out what was going on). Now, the player who had been playing the grand-daughter of the jarl has been unhappy with this character for some time, and has a new one waiting in the wings. I've been telling him that soon I will be introducing his new character, but he's been getting impatient and trying to kill her off, so I had her father ask her to carry the sword with her, as she is blood of the jarl and he is not, so it would be more fitting for her to carry it. I had a feeling this would be useful.

It was. In a random encounter with barbarians to the south, he got her killed off, so at this point, I had her grandfather's spirit enter her dying body. Heh. Now he has to play a 60+ year old man trapped in his 17 year old grand daughter's body. That's what he gets for being impatient. All it did was slow down the introduction of his new character.

After this little tragedy they continued on after their quarry. I've been dropping subtle (and some not-so-subtle) hints that it would be fruitless, but they've been nothing if not persistent. They've found evidence that the jarl's body, piloted by Kalevi/Malkos, rode his horse to death and has turned it undead and is travelling non stop now. Then, I had them find out (through tracking rolls) that he is making time on them. Then, I had them come up against the next kingdom over, which is infested with horrid shadowy tendrils sprouting from the ground (a major thing in the other campaign I ran here). Despite warning from a non-evil death knight and an encounter with some kind of undead wisp spirit swarm, they're pressing on.

I don't want to kill them to make my point, and I don't want to run a combat here because it will make them less fearful of the evil. I plan to do a skill challenge next game that will hopefully sap them of a lot of healing surges. I will then drop my next plot-bomb which will certainly distract them from the chase. This is actually the event I've been waiting for, but my issue all along has been getting the timelines of the two games to line up right. I guess I miscalculated a little bit.

Next week, they'll meet the main thread of the arc I'm running and that will be that. When they return home, I will do B5, but before I can do that, my next plot thread is going to be introduced with a fight of its own. I usually don't have time to do two fights in a session, so I doubt I will get to B5, but if all goes well I might.

That's pretty much where I'm at now.

If there is any interest, I can go into greater detail, but generally I find that campaigns you aren't playing in to be a rather dry read, so I'll only do it if someone asks.

Later this week I may also preview my encounter because I don't think any of my players read this (except my wife, and I trust her not to look).

Cheers until next post.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

The Aftermath of Liberating the Keep

Still no Encounter B5

The reasons for this are many, but mostly I've diverted the story for campaign reasons, and unfortunately, things are dragging out longer than expected.

While travelling in the intervening sequence I've inserted, the PCs got in a random encounter which killed one of them (she got better - sort of). And the travel times are kind of lengthy, so that took up a lot of time as well. I'm not even sure that we'll get to B5 next week, but we should at least be close.

As for the aftermath, they executed Tyranda/Morda, and freed the baron/jarl. He gave them whatever worldly gifts they wanted, which for most of them consisted of recognition of their bravery rather than any material reward. Two of them joined his household guard, and one of them asked for his grand-daughter's hand in marriage. She is also a PC so this was extra hilarious and was also a DM machination in disguise.

Shortly after this, they left to tell their king of their exploits. While they were gone, the evil spirit of Malkos/Kalevi had left the PC he was inhabiting (the one who asked to marry the jarl's kin) and entered the jarl instead. He then buggered off with the jarl's body, using a Magic Jar ritual to trap the jarl in his own sword. Conveniently, Malkos left this behind.

When the PCs returned, I knew they would inevitably set out to find the jarl (even if they hadn't quite figured out what was going on). Now, the player who had been playing the grand-daughter of the jarl has been unhappy with this character for some time, and has a new one waiting in the wings. I've been telling him that soon I will be introducing his new character, but he's been getting impatient and trying to kill her off, so I had her father ask her to carry the sword with her, as she is blood of the jarl and he is not, so it would be more fitting for her to carry it. I had a feeling this would be useful.

It was. In a random encounter with barbarians to the south (44 orc minions - I grabbed a handful of pennies from a jar, and that's how many there were in my fist!), he got her killed off, so at this point, I had her grandfather's spirit enter her dying body. Heh. Now he has to play a 60+ year old man trapped in his 17 year old grand daughter's body. That's what he gets for being impatient. All it did was slow down the introduction of his new character.

After this little tragedy they continued on after their quarry. I've been dropping subtle (and some not-so-subtle) hints that it would be fruitless, but they've been nothing if not persistent. They've found evidence that the jarl's body, piloted by Kalevi/Malkos, rode his horse to death and has turned it undead and is travelling non stop now. Then, I had them find out (through tracking rolls) that he is making time on them. Then, I had them come up against the next kingdom over, which is infested with horrid shadowy tendrils sprouting from the ground (a major thing in the other campaign I ran here). Despite warning from a non-evil death knight and an encounter with some kind of undead wisp spirit swarm, they're pressing on.

I don't want to kill them to make my point, and I don't want to run a combat here because it will make them less fearful of the evil. I plan to do a skill challenge next game that will hopefully sap them of a lot of healing surges. I will then drop my next plot-bomb which will certainly distract them from the chase. This is actually the event I've been waiting for, but my issue all along has been getting the timelines of the two games to line up right. I guess I miscalculated a little bit.

Next week, they'll meet the main thread of the arc I'm running and that will be that. When they return home, I will do B5, but before I can do that, my next plot thread is going to be introduced with a fight of its own. I usually don't have time to do two fights in a session, so I doubt I will get to B5, but if all goes well I might.

That's pretty much where I'm at now.

If there is any interest, I can go into greater detail, but generally I find that campaigns you aren't playing in to be a rather dry read, so I'll only do it if someone asks.

Later this week I may also preview my encounter because I don't think any of my players read this (except my wife, and I trust her not to look).

Cheers until next post.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Encounter B5 and integrating my main plot

So I never got around to doing a preview of the fight I was going to run. So it goes. It took an extra session longer than I thought anyway, though I suppose I could have used some extra tweaking and feedback from others, since it wasn't really a challenging fight.

Picking up where I left off, the players managed to avoid the skill challenge that I'd planned to run if they entered the creepy domain beyond the tower. They simply didn't go in there, and travelled along the base of the wall instead. Not a problem.

After a day or two, they ran into the NPCs which introduced my main plot. They got that this was their clue to abandon their previous quest and turn back. I introduced the NPCs as part of a fight; the PCs happened upon them being waylaid by orcs in the woods. The NPCs were all unconscious when the group arrived on the scene, and it was foggy enough that they couldn't see who the orcs were attacking, other than that they appeared human-sized.

I used all 'stock' Orcs from Monster Vault and other products that use the new math. There were 8 minion Orc Savages, 4 Battletested Orcs, 2 Orc Reavers, and one each Orc Rampager and Archer. They were spread out in a clump with the archer in the back, benefitting from concealment due to the fog. There was a Battletested Orc at the outer edges of the clump, at each "corner" (though I ran this on a hex battlemat), with the Reavers toward the PC side, and the Rampager in the middle.

I managed to bloody just about all the PCs, ran them out of healing, and dropped the Barbarian (he got better). Most of the minions died when the Sorcerer dropped a burst 2 on the baddies from his Boon of Arcane Might. They didn't do a lot of focus-firing, but most of them used an Action Point, which probably helped turn the tide.

I think the group felt pretty good about the fight, neither feeling too challenged by it nor like it was a cakewalk. I guess that's pretty much where most fights should be, though according to the numbers, it should have been a really hard fight for them. That said, I do have some houserules for this game which give the PCs a little more power compared to normal characters, and we use themes, so that helps. Most fights don't go longer than 3 rounds, and seldom to the PCs have to fall back to at-will powers. The group also contains several tactical thinkers and overall smart people.

So after that brawl and the associated plot revelation, they turned north to head home. This was where we left off last week. This week started with a bit of campfire roleplaying and idle travel. When they got home to Harkenwold, I had a very unpleasant surprise waiting for them, in the form of a modified Encounter B5. They had been gone a month or so at this point.

For flavour reasons Lividius was instead a Lesser Death Knight. I basically blended his stat block with that of a Death Knight. I also gave him a Skeletal Steed for increased mobility and an extra attack each round. I further complicated things by adding 10 Infernal Mote minions, which he could use to recharge his racial encounter power.

Needless to say, with this group, my plans did not work out. It started out ok - they happened on the scene just in time to watch the death knight deliver the killing stroke to the NPC taking Dar Gremmath's place, Darga Grimasson. Bonus points because he was the father of one of the recently-retired PCs, who was now holding the Baron/jarl's soul. I had him/her valiantly charge in and get knocked out by a well timed pommel strike. Then I called for initiative. I got lucky and rolled a 20 for the death knight and he managed to beat everyone else, so I lobbed his infernal fireball, catching everyone in the blast. My luck was all used up at this point; I rolled crappy damage, and even missed two of the PCs.

I was expecting them to ignore the mostly-harmless motes created by the fireball, but lo and behold during the first round, most of them got wiped out. One of the motes attached to a PC, but as a result, the Death Knight was only able to use his Infernal Wrath once.

He was almost immediately unhorsed (prone) and slowed. The horse was likewise slowed. It got to move and make an attempt at attacking, but it missed, and in any case was much less threatening without its rider. It was destroyed before the death knight could remount.

The death knight started by doing his teleport trick to damage some PCs, righting himself (I cheated ). This got him into a good position to do his Blade of Death attack. He then proceeded to roll like poop, missing half his targets and doing piddly damage. Action Point. Same result, though I did manage to drop the Sentinel druid's companion.

During the next series of PC actions, he became prone again, immobilized, and then, finally dazed, though all these attacks bloodied him. This is when the fight got more interesting for me. He actually became much more effective when bloodied and dazed. The strikers, seeing a bloodied foe, started pouring on the damage, and with him taking only half and them taking the other half, I managed to bloody some PCs, or rather, they managed to bloody themselves.

When the knight acted again, he used his one action to do his teleport trick and get close to the two squishies in the back (sorcerer and invoker). He bloodied the invoker and dropped the sorcerer. The PCs then began really shoving him around the battlefield, again damaging themselves. The invoker then used his channel divinity to try to punish the undead monster. Amusingly, with the help of the death knight's radiant vulnerability, the invoker took return damage from Heart of Nessus that knocked him not just unconscious, but to within a few hit points of death-by-negative-bloodied. Heh.

The slayer followed this up by killing the death knight for real, and almost dropping himself. Strangely, the defender, who normally gets pretty beat up didn't even get bloodied, and the sentinel also avoided most damage.

The group consensus was again that this fight felt challenging but not overkill. Everyone seemed to have fun, which is of course, the main thing. I particularly enjoyed the second half of the combat.

Afterwards, there was some more roleplaying before we called it for the night. I planned to drop the next plot item on them, but it will instead happen at the beginning of next session. When that will be is anyone's guess, since most of us are going to be busy over the holidays.

So that's the end of Reavers. Overall, a solid module that I found easy to adapt to my game's campaign setting. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a sandbox style module to run.

Specific complaints include a lack of incentive to engaging with non-critical NPCs, Nazin Redthorn doesn't get enough set up as a real villain - he's just kind of a stooge, but it does serve to introduce the Iron Circle as a menace if you plan to continue with it.

Other complaints were more related to personal preference than anything. I think bullywugs are silly adversaries. The motivations of Yisarn and the elves were kind of one-dimensional. Stuff like that.

If anyone is interested to hear it, I can continue a chronicle of where I am going from here (in another thread), just let me know. If not, thanks for reading this all the same!

Cheers and happy gaming folks!