Wofano Wotanto
Hero
I figured, but always nice to have confirmation. Never been able to decide which version of those things is creepier, the 3.5 Lords of Madness writeup or the ones in 13th Age .Just to put your mind at ease, they were Chuul.
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Commentary thread for that “Describe your game in five words” thread.
- Thread starter darjr
- Start date
ichabod
Legned
The first part was just my new player who is playing a neotoman (home-brew rat-man based on pack rats instead of brown rats) being attacked by a mimic disguised as a boat right as the current characters come around the corner.
The side note comes from p. 84 of Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, "Frescoes. The walls are carved with frescoes depicting dwarves ..." I'm about to read that to the players, but I'm thinking, "frescoes aren't carved, are they? Aren't they painted into the plaster?" A quick trip to wikipedia confirms that you paint on the wet plaster and it merges with the plaster to become part of the wall. The words "carved" and "carving" exist nowhere on the wikipedia page for fresco.
Thanks again, WotC.
Wofano Wotanto
Hero
You can't trust wiki without digging deeper on most subjects. While what it says there is broadly accurate, several Renaissance era artists (notably including Michelangelo, whose work is why I knew all this) carved into the plaster before painting to achieve a better illusion of depth. Quoting from this more extensive article on the subject:
So it's entirely possible to encounter a craved fresco if the technique has been discovered (you won't find it in earlier periods AFAIK, but who can guess with fantasy Dwarven fresco painters?) but it'll still be painted. If they're just unpainted carvings or aren't carved plaster in the modules, then yeah, it's not a fresco.
Or at least not a finished one. I suppose a hypothetical Dwarven artist might have finished the carving stage and then gotten eaten by a gelatinous cube or something before doing the painting part of things.
The random things you learn, right?
AnotherGuy
Hero
Finally finished the The Pleasure Prison of the B'thuvian Demon Whore, which I set in Ylaruam, Mystara.
The system we used was a cobbled White-Wolf, D&D 3e & 5e as well as Pendragon RPG.
Although we started with 4 players, scheduling conflicts had me finish it Duet-style, with the barbarian protagonist Klunk entering the fiend's Pleasure Prison in the Alasiyan desert basin alone. I narrated a transparent force field slipped in between Krunk and the rest of the characters disallowing their entrance into the building. Communication, however was still possible. They told him they'd wait for him to find a way out.
He started out strong taking out the ogre near the entrance, used intimidate and the wearing of the golden brooch to get past the kobold welcoming party, found the secret door by the alcove, cleaved the salt mephit before it was able to summon another of its kind - and solved a practical riddle to enter the elven princess's bed-chamber [I removed that whole business with the ash golem].
A great social interplay between him and the elf princess ensued, which FINALLY had her trick him (failed insight against her performance) to sit on the bed. This act saw him transported to the Plane of Temptation/Torment (Naughtiness per the module) and that is where the real fun began.
He walked the long corridor having to deal with various forms of temptation and indulgences, expending all his willpower. Here I used the wonderful personality traits of Pendragon expanding the visuals from the ideas listed in the narrative block of the module. Mechanising the entire experience was definitely the way to go for this. D&D with its limitations does such disservice to this section of the game. It relies far too much on a player to enrich the scene, which experience has shown this inevitably falls flat most of the time.
Next, came the cherry-top chocolate golem with protruding cupcakes, peppermint sticks. Etc. I changed things to suit my cobbled-system and Klunk's +2 enchanted longsword, was stripped to a +1 weapon from being coated with a soft, damaging gloss released with every attack on the chocolate golem. In the end, Klunk was victorious - he used the glazed-cherry which was the only thing which remained of the beast to place it in a small alcove of the only exit which existed and the door opened. This led him to the failed experiments of the demon whore, two strange looking feminine creatures that were both attractive and repulsive at the same time. The creatures were wily and vicious and saw Krunk take some serious lingering injuries. Some smart decision-making by the player just saw him defeat these savage opponents.
Taking a 10-minute breather (short rest, to reclaim a Second Wind) did nothing to alleviate the injuries he had sustained and the sentient Plane swallowed up what had come before leaving him only with the way forward and no place to rest further...(in-game justified railroad). With no choice but forward he entered the throne room where the B'thuvian whore (essentially a spell-wielding tiefling of sorts) declared her intentions and offered him, as a proven worthy mate, a seat by her side (until she likely tired of him - his Insight revealed) in her dreams of conquest and glory.
Perhaps it was his lingering injuries, his spent willpower, his lack of inspiration, the fact that his weapon had been diminished OR the cheesy-yet-humourous narrative block that described her magnificent allure OR a combination of it all, that had him yield and join her to fulfil her grand plans for Ylaruam and the Known World at large.
My Ylaruam now has a future villain (Klunk and his Mistress).
Overall Review: The module is light-hearted, rich in ideas and enjoyable but one can build a deeper adventure within an established setting and certainly requires better mechanics to really flesh out the temptations of the Plane of Naughty - otherwise those temptations become window dressing with no actual bite. I'd definitely recommend it. Setting it in Ylaruam also helped with the struggle of desert travel (use Journey Rules in A5e), scarcity of water and the mysteries hidden within the sands.
The system we used was a cobbled White-Wolf, D&D 3e & 5e as well as Pendragon RPG.
Although we started with 4 players, scheduling conflicts had me finish it Duet-style, with the barbarian protagonist Klunk entering the fiend's Pleasure Prison in the Alasiyan desert basin alone. I narrated a transparent force field slipped in between Krunk and the rest of the characters disallowing their entrance into the building. Communication, however was still possible. They told him they'd wait for him to find a way out.
He started out strong taking out the ogre near the entrance, used intimidate and the wearing of the golden brooch to get past the kobold welcoming party, found the secret door by the alcove, cleaved the salt mephit before it was able to summon another of its kind - and solved a practical riddle to enter the elven princess's bed-chamber [I removed that whole business with the ash golem].
A great social interplay between him and the elf princess ensued, which FINALLY had her trick him (failed insight against her performance) to sit on the bed. This act saw him transported to the Plane of Temptation/Torment (Naughtiness per the module) and that is where the real fun began.
He walked the long corridor having to deal with various forms of temptation and indulgences, expending all his willpower. Here I used the wonderful personality traits of Pendragon expanding the visuals from the ideas listed in the narrative block of the module. Mechanising the entire experience was definitely the way to go for this. D&D with its limitations does such disservice to this section of the game. It relies far too much on a player to enrich the scene, which experience has shown this inevitably falls flat most of the time.
Next, came the cherry-top chocolate golem with protruding cupcakes, peppermint sticks. Etc. I changed things to suit my cobbled-system and Klunk's +2 enchanted longsword, was stripped to a +1 weapon from being coated with a soft, damaging gloss released with every attack on the chocolate golem. In the end, Klunk was victorious - he used the glazed-cherry which was the only thing which remained of the beast to place it in a small alcove of the only exit which existed and the door opened. This led him to the failed experiments of the demon whore, two strange looking feminine creatures that were both attractive and repulsive at the same time. The creatures were wily and vicious and saw Krunk take some serious lingering injuries. Some smart decision-making by the player just saw him defeat these savage opponents.
Taking a 10-minute breather (short rest, to reclaim a Second Wind) did nothing to alleviate the injuries he had sustained and the sentient Plane swallowed up what had come before leaving him only with the way forward and no place to rest further...(in-game justified railroad). With no choice but forward he entered the throne room where the B'thuvian whore (essentially a spell-wielding tiefling of sorts) declared her intentions and offered him, as a proven worthy mate, a seat by her side (until she likely tired of him - his Insight revealed) in her dreams of conquest and glory.
Perhaps it was his lingering injuries, his spent willpower, his lack of inspiration, the fact that his weapon had been diminished OR the cheesy-yet-humourous narrative block that described her magnificent allure OR a combination of it all, that had him yield and join her to fulfil her grand plans for Ylaruam and the Known World at large.
My Ylaruam now has a future villain (Klunk and his Mistress).
Overall Review: The module is light-hearted, rich in ideas and enjoyable but one can build a deeper adventure within an established setting and certainly requires better mechanics to really flesh out the temptations of the Plane of Naughty - otherwise those temptations become window dressing with no actual bite. I'd definitely recommend it. Setting it in Ylaruam also helped with the struggle of desert travel (use Journey Rules in A5e), scarcity of water and the mysteries hidden within the sands.
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ichabod
Legned
I stand corrected. Okay, I'm sitting down, but I still admit I was wrong.
Wofano Wotanto
Hero
Had to admit the same thing myself last week over Planet of the Apes, of all things. Learning something new about fine arts is better than SFX trivia about a campy 70s movie franchise, right?
I didn't realize Michelangelo hadn't originated the technique until I dug into it myself. Always thought it was his innovation until today, but no, lots of folks were experimenting with it around the same period and there's no definite first example. Doesn't make him a less awesome artist, though.
aramis erak
Legend
Sun D&D
Amuse sprites for needed info.
Amuse sprites for needed info.
“cleric stabbed a surrendering bandit”
Today was a pretty exciting session. We had three combats, which might account for 20~30% of all combat we’ve had all campaign (~40 sessions).
We picked up after last session when Firlax (the fire dragon) left. The PCs returned back to their settlement, met up with Sona, then headed out east back to Finland (the main garrison town). The plan was to spend some time in Finland training then head north to meet up with the raiders. The PCs aren’t quite sure what their plan is going to be. They talked about quite a few possibilities from trying to infiltrate and subvert the raiders to trying to assassinate the leader (who was retconned to a 15th level knight because it didn’t make sense that she’d have her position and be as old as she is without advancing all the way) to putting everything out in the opening. Anyway, none of that came up.
On the first night of their trip, they camped at their usual spot outside the forest where Roy and his family of weretigers lived. The camp had become infested again with fire beetles, so Dingo (the thief) took care of those while Deirdre (the barbarian) made friends with Sona and Tama (the cleric) took care of grazing their horses. The night was mostly uneventful, but Deirdre heard voices and saw lights in the distance. The party prepared themselves, but the voices withdrew. It was the result of a mixed success event roll. They got evidence of potential problems, but the problem hadn’t found them yet.
The next morning, the party decided to visit Roy and his family. They went north into the forest, but they had no idea how to find them. Deirdre looked for tracks while Tama tried to call out for the family (so using Tracking to set up Rapport with the goal of finding the family). One of the consequences on the table is the party wouldn’t like some of the tracks they found. The result overall was a mixed success¹. They found tracks and someone from Roy’s family. His little sister Kelly was slumped against a tree. Uh, oh.
Tama cast Cure to heal Kelly. She was at low HP, so not dead thankfully. The party noticed that Kelly had a large scorch mark on her chest. That drew a WTF from the players. Kelly said her family had been attacked. She took them deeper into the forest to the cabin where they lived. When they got there, they found a body in the clearing outside the cabin. Tama went to check it out, but the person was dead. Kelly ran towards it, howling with grief since the body was her mother’s. She’d been shot repeatedly by the bandits and had her throat slit. Deirdre ran up, covering Kelly’s mouth to keep her quiet and move her away. She rolled Rapport and rolled well enough to keep Kelly quiet. While Deirdre did this, Dingo (the thief) snuck around the side of the cabin through the brush to see if he could find out more about the cabin (just Sneaking).
The front door to the cabin was open partially, and one of the windows was destroyed. Dingo could hear voices inside. He heard two similar to what he heard last night. He also heard others (which were the siblings, though he wasn’t aware at the time). Dingo scaled the tree (using Athletics) up to one of the branches where he was able to signal successfully to the party that there were at least couple of bandits inside. It was about this time the bandits came to the window to check what was happening outside.
It was at this point we had our first real combat of the session. (Technically the fire beetles was the first one, but it was trivial.) Dingo equipped his short bow from his position in the tree (thanks to the critical success from his Athletics skill check), Tama got her obsidian dagger and shield ready while Tama drew her axe. Sona was left back at the camp with the horses, so she wasn’t involved with this combat. Dingo and Tama won initial while Deirdre lost. Dingo jumped out of the tree onto the roof, moved to the edge, and readied an action to shoot the first bandit that popped out. Tama moved to the left side of the cabin.
The first bandit stepped out of the door to take a shot at Tama with his energy rifle and took an arrow himself from Dingo. I rolled badly, so the bandit missed. The other bandit shot at Deirdre from his position in the cabin’s window. Deirdre dashed up to the right side of the cabin. For the next round, everyone except Dingo equipped the same weapons. Dingo equipped his Sabre of Saints. It’s better against undead, but it’s still good for killing bandits. For the next round, everyone except Tama won initiative.
Deirdre moved up to the bandit in the window, and rather than attack, she grabbed his rifle and pulled it out of his hands. Dingo used Tumbling Attack to leap down on the bandit by the door, killing him. The bandit by the window retreated towards the back behind the kids. Tama moved inside and stabbed him with her dagger, which causes a bleed effect (−1 HP at the end of his phase).
For the next round, the the bandit equipped his silver dagger. The play was to use one of the kids as a hostage. His plan didn’t work out. The PCs ended up inducing him to surrender.
Dingo used the bandit’s key to unlock the shackles from the kids, and Deirdre used the shackles to chain up the bandit. Deirdre made it clear that if the bandit wanted to live, he better tell her she’d like to hear. She succeeded at Coercion check, the bandit pissed himself, and he told them (more or less) the plan. They’d come to harvest the pelts from the weretigers. The PCs also got the bandits’ leader’s name (Abram). They didn’t push more than that, surprisingly. Otherwise, the party would have learned that the way they get the pelts is by inducing the lycanthropes to transform and skinning them alive. Surprisingly, the PCs let the bandit go instead. They gave him a warning to take back. I added a tracker based on Deirdre’s success. I started it at 6/12 with the provision that failures pull it back. If it goes to 0, he never returns. If it goes to 12, the bandits are retaliating.
While Deirdre was handling the bandit, Tama took care of Roy, who was on the floor in the back and bloodied. She also took the kids outside to give their mother a proper burial. The player wanted to roll, but I couldn’t think of any consequences to foreground, so no need to roll Rituals this time. After everything was settled, the PCs collected the bandits rifles and spare batteries. Dingo was also very happy the bandit had a large sack. Apparently he didn’t have one, and finding one gives him even more storage for treasure (assuming he actually takes it). Sona was confused by the group that came back. There was going to be a detour. They turned around to return to Cal Maestros, drop off the kids with Seleana, and then headed back to where they were. This whole event cost them a day of travel, basically.
The camp event for the next night was less exciting. With the weretigers gone, the forest was reverting to its primal nature. There’s still some problem inside, which the PCs aren’t all that interested in investigating. Tonight, it’s bears. Who knows what the future of the forest holds. (It should be mentioned the PCs asked if there were other lycanthropes in case they could take the kids there, but the others live in the north past Donarhus [the fallen capital]).
The next day, the party headed east along the road they’d established to Finland. I rolled quite well on the event check, so I put them in a hard spot. The bandits had moved south and were setting up a checkpoint on the road —their road. The PCs were not happy. This time, a plan came together fast. They would approach the bandits, pay the toll, then surprise attack the bandits. The PCs approached, and the bandits demanded 1000 S each, including their horses. Honestly, this was a trivial amount for the PCs. That didn’t matter. They group (other than the horses) rolled Deception as a group check. The results were hilarious. Deirdre took the lead since it was her idea, and she was doing the talking. Everyone but Deirdre failed badly.
Tama got a 2. Sona got a 4. Dingo got a 6. The target was 9. Deirdre got a 9, but the failures pulled the result down to 7. Deirdre could have bought them off with stress, but she chose to take the mixed success. She had the choice, they’d get surprise, or they’d get position. Success would have been both. Failure would have been neither. Deirdre opted for position. The party equipped their weapons. Sona (a dancer) was using a glaive. Tama equipped her shield and dagger, Dingo his sabre, and Deirdre her axe. One of the bandits was on a scaffolding with a rifle. Another on the ground had a rifle while the other two had smallswords.
Sona, Dingo, and Deirdre won initiative. Sona cut down the bandit closer to her. She had a margin of 4, which was reduced by the bandit’s mitigation to 2. She rolled well on damage (2d6+2 = 12), killing the bandit in one shot. I have to admit I was surprised because usually I roll like crap in combat. Deirdre used Athletics to push over the scaffolding, and Dingo moved up to the fallen bandit to stab him on the ground. The other bandit with the rifle backed off from the party and shot Dingo. Finally! I hit a PC! Dingo took 7 from the rifle’s energy blast (dealing lightning-aspected damage, which Dingo had no mitigation against). Tama moved up to the other bandit and stabbed him with her obsidian dagger.
The next round, everyone kept their equipment the same. Deirdre and Dingo won initiative and were promptly annoyed that the other bandit with a rifle had moved out of range. If Deirdre wanted to get close, she’d have to dash (meaning she couldn’t also attack). Deirdre decided to do that because she could make an Opportunity Attack. Dingo continued attacking the downed bandit. On the bandits’ turn, the one by Deirdre decided to try to move away from Deirdre without disengaging. Deirdre took her Opportunity Attack to keep the bandit from moving, but her damage was reduced to 0d6 due to the bandit’s mitigation. (Opportunity Attack doesn’t deal margin to damage.) Still, better than nothing.
The bandits took aim at opposite targets. Dingo’s shot at Deirdre and missed. Deirdre’s shot Dingo again for another 6 damage. Dingo has only 29 HP, so he’d lost not quite half. Sona came around to help Tama with her bandit, dealing some but a minimal amount of damage. Her attack just barely hit the bandit, so the bandit’s mitigation had reduced her damage to 1d6.
The next round, Deirdre killed her bandit. There was only one left with a couple of HP. He decided the smart move was to surrender on his turn. Tama had lost initiative, so she went last. She stabbed the bandit and killed him. She wasn’t having any of that. The party did not like how the bandits had treated Roy and his family.
We stopped there for the session. It went a bit long. Everyone had picked goals relating to the raiders, but they ended up going a different direction and opted to spend their time killing bandits instead. The only one who got EXP was Deirdre for fighting a duel against a strong opponent. I think that’s questionable, but I don’t get to decide. The player does, and the group can only override if the consensus is that’s ridiculous. (There was no such consensus.) Deirdre thought Tama and Dingo helped, so they still got 1 EXP. Everyone is getting close to 7th level.
[1]: Due to moving towards using margins for things, I revised how I calculated degrees of success. I hate doing mental division, especially with weird numbers. The ranges are now −4 or worse is failure, −3 to −1 is mixed success, +0 to +3 is success, +4 or better is critical success. This biases things a little towards success, but it should make it easier to adjudicate skill checks going forward.
Today was a pretty exciting session. We had three combats, which might account for 20~30% of all combat we’ve had all campaign (~40 sessions).
We picked up after last session when Firlax (the fire dragon) left. The PCs returned back to their settlement, met up with Sona, then headed out east back to Finland (the main garrison town). The plan was to spend some time in Finland training then head north to meet up with the raiders. The PCs aren’t quite sure what their plan is going to be. They talked about quite a few possibilities from trying to infiltrate and subvert the raiders to trying to assassinate the leader (who was retconned to a 15th level knight because it didn’t make sense that she’d have her position and be as old as she is without advancing all the way) to putting everything out in the opening. Anyway, none of that came up.
On the first night of their trip, they camped at their usual spot outside the forest where Roy and his family of weretigers lived. The camp had become infested again with fire beetles, so Dingo (the thief) took care of those while Deirdre (the barbarian) made friends with Sona and Tama (the cleric) took care of grazing their horses. The night was mostly uneventful, but Deirdre heard voices and saw lights in the distance. The party prepared themselves, but the voices withdrew. It was the result of a mixed success event roll. They got evidence of potential problems, but the problem hadn’t found them yet.
The next morning, the party decided to visit Roy and his family. They went north into the forest, but they had no idea how to find them. Deirdre looked for tracks while Tama tried to call out for the family (so using Tracking to set up Rapport with the goal of finding the family). One of the consequences on the table is the party wouldn’t like some of the tracks they found. The result overall was a mixed success¹. They found tracks and someone from Roy’s family. His little sister Kelly was slumped against a tree. Uh, oh.
Tama cast Cure to heal Kelly. She was at low HP, so not dead thankfully. The party noticed that Kelly had a large scorch mark on her chest. That drew a WTF from the players. Kelly said her family had been attacked. She took them deeper into the forest to the cabin where they lived. When they got there, they found a body in the clearing outside the cabin. Tama went to check it out, but the person was dead. Kelly ran towards it, howling with grief since the body was her mother’s. She’d been shot repeatedly by the bandits and had her throat slit. Deirdre ran up, covering Kelly’s mouth to keep her quiet and move her away. She rolled Rapport and rolled well enough to keep Kelly quiet. While Deirdre did this, Dingo (the thief) snuck around the side of the cabin through the brush to see if he could find out more about the cabin (just Sneaking).
The front door to the cabin was open partially, and one of the windows was destroyed. Dingo could hear voices inside. He heard two similar to what he heard last night. He also heard others (which were the siblings, though he wasn’t aware at the time). Dingo scaled the tree (using Athletics) up to one of the branches where he was able to signal successfully to the party that there were at least couple of bandits inside. It was about this time the bandits came to the window to check what was happening outside.
It was at this point we had our first real combat of the session. (Technically the fire beetles was the first one, but it was trivial.) Dingo equipped his short bow from his position in the tree (thanks to the critical success from his Athletics skill check), Tama got her obsidian dagger and shield ready while Tama drew her axe. Sona was left back at the camp with the horses, so she wasn’t involved with this combat. Dingo and Tama won initial while Deirdre lost. Dingo jumped out of the tree onto the roof, moved to the edge, and readied an action to shoot the first bandit that popped out. Tama moved to the left side of the cabin.
The first bandit stepped out of the door to take a shot at Tama with his energy rifle and took an arrow himself from Dingo. I rolled badly, so the bandit missed. The other bandit shot at Deirdre from his position in the cabin’s window. Deirdre dashed up to the right side of the cabin. For the next round, everyone except Dingo equipped the same weapons. Dingo equipped his Sabre of Saints. It’s better against undead, but it’s still good for killing bandits. For the next round, everyone except Tama won initiative.
Deirdre moved up to the bandit in the window, and rather than attack, she grabbed his rifle and pulled it out of his hands. Dingo used Tumbling Attack to leap down on the bandit by the door, killing him. The bandit by the window retreated towards the back behind the kids. Tama moved inside and stabbed him with her dagger, which causes a bleed effect (−1 HP at the end of his phase).
For the next round, the the bandit equipped his silver dagger. The play was to use one of the kids as a hostage. His plan didn’t work out. The PCs ended up inducing him to surrender.
Dingo used the bandit’s key to unlock the shackles from the kids, and Deirdre used the shackles to chain up the bandit. Deirdre made it clear that if the bandit wanted to live, he better tell her she’d like to hear. She succeeded at Coercion check, the bandit pissed himself, and he told them (more or less) the plan. They’d come to harvest the pelts from the weretigers. The PCs also got the bandits’ leader’s name (Abram). They didn’t push more than that, surprisingly. Otherwise, the party would have learned that the way they get the pelts is by inducing the lycanthropes to transform and skinning them alive. Surprisingly, the PCs let the bandit go instead. They gave him a warning to take back. I added a tracker based on Deirdre’s success. I started it at 6/12 with the provision that failures pull it back. If it goes to 0, he never returns. If it goes to 12, the bandits are retaliating.
While Deirdre was handling the bandit, Tama took care of Roy, who was on the floor in the back and bloodied. She also took the kids outside to give their mother a proper burial. The player wanted to roll, but I couldn’t think of any consequences to foreground, so no need to roll Rituals this time. After everything was settled, the PCs collected the bandits rifles and spare batteries. Dingo was also very happy the bandit had a large sack. Apparently he didn’t have one, and finding one gives him even more storage for treasure (assuming he actually takes it). Sona was confused by the group that came back. There was going to be a detour. They turned around to return to Cal Maestros, drop off the kids with Seleana, and then headed back to where they were. This whole event cost them a day of travel, basically.
The camp event for the next night was less exciting. With the weretigers gone, the forest was reverting to its primal nature. There’s still some problem inside, which the PCs aren’t all that interested in investigating. Tonight, it’s bears. Who knows what the future of the forest holds. (It should be mentioned the PCs asked if there were other lycanthropes in case they could take the kids there, but the others live in the north past Donarhus [the fallen capital]).
The next day, the party headed east along the road they’d established to Finland. I rolled quite well on the event check, so I put them in a hard spot. The bandits had moved south and were setting up a checkpoint on the road —their road. The PCs were not happy. This time, a plan came together fast. They would approach the bandits, pay the toll, then surprise attack the bandits. The PCs approached, and the bandits demanded 1000 S each, including their horses. Honestly, this was a trivial amount for the PCs. That didn’t matter. They group (other than the horses) rolled Deception as a group check. The results were hilarious. Deirdre took the lead since it was her idea, and she was doing the talking. Everyone but Deirdre failed badly.
Tama got a 2. Sona got a 4. Dingo got a 6. The target was 9. Deirdre got a 9, but the failures pulled the result down to 7. Deirdre could have bought them off with stress, but she chose to take the mixed success. She had the choice, they’d get surprise, or they’d get position. Success would have been both. Failure would have been neither. Deirdre opted for position. The party equipped their weapons. Sona (a dancer) was using a glaive. Tama equipped her shield and dagger, Dingo his sabre, and Deirdre her axe. One of the bandits was on a scaffolding with a rifle. Another on the ground had a rifle while the other two had smallswords.
Sona, Dingo, and Deirdre won initiative. Sona cut down the bandit closer to her. She had a margin of 4, which was reduced by the bandit’s mitigation to 2. She rolled well on damage (2d6+2 = 12), killing the bandit in one shot. I have to admit I was surprised because usually I roll like crap in combat. Deirdre used Athletics to push over the scaffolding, and Dingo moved up to the fallen bandit to stab him on the ground. The other bandit with the rifle backed off from the party and shot Dingo. Finally! I hit a PC! Dingo took 7 from the rifle’s energy blast (dealing lightning-aspected damage, which Dingo had no mitigation against). Tama moved up to the other bandit and stabbed him with her obsidian dagger.
The next round, everyone kept their equipment the same. Deirdre and Dingo won initiative and were promptly annoyed that the other bandit with a rifle had moved out of range. If Deirdre wanted to get close, she’d have to dash (meaning she couldn’t also attack). Deirdre decided to do that because she could make an Opportunity Attack. Dingo continued attacking the downed bandit. On the bandits’ turn, the one by Deirdre decided to try to move away from Deirdre without disengaging. Deirdre took her Opportunity Attack to keep the bandit from moving, but her damage was reduced to 0d6 due to the bandit’s mitigation. (Opportunity Attack doesn’t deal margin to damage.) Still, better than nothing.
The bandits took aim at opposite targets. Dingo’s shot at Deirdre and missed. Deirdre’s shot Dingo again for another 6 damage. Dingo has only 29 HP, so he’d lost not quite half. Sona came around to help Tama with her bandit, dealing some but a minimal amount of damage. Her attack just barely hit the bandit, so the bandit’s mitigation had reduced her damage to 1d6.
The next round, Deirdre killed her bandit. There was only one left with a couple of HP. He decided the smart move was to surrender on his turn. Tama had lost initiative, so she went last. She stabbed the bandit and killed him. She wasn’t having any of that. The party did not like how the bandits had treated Roy and his family.
We stopped there for the session. It went a bit long. Everyone had picked goals relating to the raiders, but they ended up going a different direction and opted to spend their time killing bandits instead. The only one who got EXP was Deirdre for fighting a duel against a strong opponent. I think that’s questionable, but I don’t get to decide. The player does, and the group can only override if the consensus is that’s ridiculous. (There was no such consensus.) Deirdre thought Tama and Dingo helped, so they still got 1 EXP. Everyone is getting close to 7th level.
[1]: Due to moving towards using margins for things, I revised how I calculated degrees of success. I hate doing mental division, especially with weird numbers. The ranges are now −4 or worse is failure, −3 to −1 is mixed success, +0 to +3 is success, +4 or better is critical success. This biases things a little towards success, but it should make it easier to adjudicate skill checks going forward.
John Dallman
Hero
May 1940. Last session, we were present for the British invasion of Iceland, which was very polite. We were able to foil some German schemes, and stop some of their agents from impeding the invasion. But one of the agents got away.
We split the party, as three of us flew captured codebooks back to London - we had the only aircraft available in Iceland, the Short Empire flying boat Cathay, which the characters operate for MI6 under BOAC cover. The other three stayed in Iceland, scrounging various items the Germans didn't need any more, such as rifles, and attempting to trace the escaped agent. After a day, we got a magical trace on him out on the Atlantic, SSE of Iceland. That general course goes close to the SW corner of Ireland, then into the Bay of Biscay.
We called the other half of the party back, flew the course, and got another trace, near the Rockall Bank. We saw a wake on the sea, and presumed it was a periscope. We then went to the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment at Helensburgh on the Gare Loch in Scotland, since they would have armed aircraft and be more flexible than a regular RAF station. Also, the GM and two of the players are familiar with the place. With help by 'phone from MI6, we got a Sunderland and crew to fly armed escort for us - Cathay is entirely unarmed - and set off. All this had taken several game days, because the flight to or from Iceland takes most of a day at flying boat speeds.
In any case, we flew back to Rockall Bank, got another trace, and found it was on board a fishing boat flying the Icelandic flag. We knew that some Icelandic boats went to the Bay of Biscay for fishing, plus carrying "unofficial cargo" back to Iceland. Sinking it would have been undiplomatic, so we followed it until dawn, controlled the weather enough to allow us to land on the ocean, and hailed it, saying that we wanted their German passenger. After a few minutes, we asked the Sunderland to fire warning shots, which it did with machine guns into the sea. After a few more minutes, the German agent showed himself on deck, so we laid oil to reduce the waves and went over in the inflatable to collect him.
We were careful not to handcuff him until he was aboard Cathay, since there was real risk of the inflatable overturning in the swell. We got him back to Helensburgh, crashed out for 24 hours, and then flew back to our base at Poole. The prisoner was handed over, and we learned that meanwhile the Germans had invaded France and the Low Countries, and the Netherlands had already surrendered. We were told to get some rest and get the aircraft ready; MI6 don't know what we'll be doing next, but they're certain they'll have work for us.
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ichabod
Legned
So this was a new player, and it's been kind of odd with this guy. After his first two sessions he wanted to chat. Turns out he thought I was a "DM vs. player" kind of DM. Which is certainly not the kind of DM I try to be. I've certain pulled back when I could have TPK'd them. I'm not going to do that unless they do something really stupid. I three years with these guys I have yet to kill a character. Anyway, I thought I had reassured him about my DM style.
Last night had some problems that could have made it unfun. There was a fair bit of stunning going on, but if you're going to have three dump stats you can expect to fail some save here and there, and he'd said he understood that. And while one of the stuns was an area effect, the other was targeted at him. But he was doing the most damage, and ended up killing one bad guy all by himself.
But I'm beginning to think that part of why he found it not fun was because I shut down his rules lawyering. He argued with me about shooting a fireball around a corner. Maybe in some other game, but not in D&D 5E. And he wanted the 10 feet on the chosen side of his wall of fire to do damage when the spell was cast. Sorry, no, just the creatures in the actual wall.
I was really feeling down about my game after this, especially because another player fell asleep during the game. But the sleepy head is know to have a weird work schedule and have trouble staying up, and last night his internet connection went down (its a Roll20/Discord game). So he was on his phone with us, doing it theater of the mind with me rolling for his character, and sat down in a comfy chair instead of his desk chair, and zonked out between turns. And he apologized, both after waking up near the end of the game and this morning. So I'm feeling a little better about my game now, thinking maybe I dodged a bullet with a rules lawyer.
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