D&D 5E Using the Acquisitions Inc book

[Eltab]

Am preparing to run my first session on Saturday. One of the rumors in Episode I mentions a half-elf who tried to assassinate someone. This points to an injured half-elf in a shop near the starting point of the adventure. The half-elf uses the assassin statblock. I'm not sure encouraging 1st level PCs to try and take on an assassin is a good idea, so I'm going to either ignore that rumor or use a different statblock.

The shopkeep uses non-lethal damage and he has a mean right hook. After taking down any foolhardy PCs, he shakes them awake (one at a time) and bodily throws them out the door, yelling "and STAY out!" Your players get to see how non-lethal combat works and find out that some foes are tougher than they appear.

 

[Weiley31]

I'm not sure encouraging 1st level PCs to try and take on an assassin is a good idea,

"PC: Oh come on, we're the heroes of the story. Four to five people in the whole world who are the protagonists. Us. What could possibly go wrong?"

Undertaker: Are you guys SURE you want that written on the tombstone like that? Not most cherished party member, savior of the pig, faithful frie-gets handed gold all right, suit yourself.

 

[Weiley31]

The shopkeep uses non-lethal damage and he has a mean right hook. After taking down any foolhardy PCs, he shakes them awake (one at a time) and bodily throws them out the door, yelling "and STAY out!" Your players get to see how non-lethal combat works and find out that some foes are tougher than they appear.

And if your players roll a nat 20, you tell them a Dice fell down on your characters head, knocking em out which then prompts the Shopkeeper to go, as he tosses them out, "That's what ya get for using loaded dice!!"

 

[pukunui]

We started the campaign last weekend.

My players enjoyed introducing their PCs and sharing the rumors from the adventure, which I had copied onto notecards. That was a fun little icebreaker.

My wife is having her PC keep a journal, and I'm posting the entries here, if you'd like to follow along: www.bungleinthejungle2020.wordpress.com

Cheers!

 

[skotothalamos]

I’m running a Ghosts of Saltmarsh game where the PCs have acquired a ship and aren’t sure what to do with it when they don’t need it for an adventure. I had hoped that GoS would have some info on running a ship, but it’s very rules-light outside of combat.

AI to the rescue! I now have a whole system in place for running their new import/export business! I’m really only using the “Running a franchise” rules (minus all the AI silliness. They don’t need a decisionist and a secretarian and all that).

Next week will be interviewing the 9 candidates I’ve put together for their Business Manager (majordomo) position!

 

[pukunui]

Having now run through half of the opening episode of the Orrery adventure, I have two thoughts:

1) This seems like a really long adventure for 1st level PCs. There are ten encounter areas in the dungeon, plus the various encounters in the Dock Ward before and after. It feels like the PCs ought to hit 2nd level halfway through.

2) The adventure fails to account for how the two missing Watchmen got through most of the encounter areas that the PCs have to go through. This is not something that occurred to me when I was reading through it, but it kept coming up during play. In order to get as far as they did, both Watchmen would have had to figure out the puzzle in the pool room and acquire a key,* then get past the traps, then the zombies that look like mummies.

In the trap room, I gave the PCs some clues by having green rat foot prints appear suddenly in area C. Made sense to me, even though it isn't mentioned in the adventure. It was a way for me to telegraph the trap's presence.

Trap D is hard to adjudicate, since it requires PCs to be standing in a specific place at the specific time that one of their party touches the doors. I had my players roll randomly. Luckily only two were deemed to be in the area and both made their Charisma saves.

Also, four zombies against 1st level PCs is quite a tough fight, especially if the PCs have only taken short rests up to this point in the adventure. Two PCs went down and a third was on 1 hp, so I had Otis the Grey Hand spy show up and come to their rescue. He's going to stick around for now, but he says he will only help if they need him to, as he'd prefer it if they get all the glory. Then of course they'll also potentially get the goblin and the wyrmling dragon to help them through the rest of the dungeon.




*The adventure seems to suggest that completing the pool puzzle causes a key to materialise out of nowhere. The key is stated to be worth 25 gp. If a new key is created every time the puzzle is completed, one could abuse that. I'm not expecting it to come up in play, but I think I will make it so there is only one key and that it is teleported to the chamber whenever someone completes the puzzle. So the PCs can go up and sell the key to someone, and then later, if someone else where to come along and complete the puzzle, the person who bought the key would find that it has suddenly disappeared!