Hey guys thanks for your help with Adventure two. Just been reading through adventure 3 and keen for advice on how to play out some themes. First off though, some context as this party had a ROUGH encounter at the Church which went roughly like this:
Trigger happy Constable ticking off his table-mates aside, I am starting to prep Adventure Three and way back when the Cleric made his char, he described his NPC daughter to me. She's 28, an archeologist, and teaches at a university/goes on excavations and digs. Wow I thought, there's a perfect NPC to template swap for her - Xambria Meridieth! And I worked this into the story.
Now after still reeling from a couple of very grim sessions, with my Cleric hell bent on vengeance for Leone killing his NPC wife... I read adventure three properly and now realise that his daughter is central to the plot, and going to be the unwitting villain!
- Go in, find wolfgang, convo went well with him and when asked wolfgang used disguise self to show his attacker, tieing creed Creed to the Consulate
- Wolfgang started to go get the papers, the trap with Creed was sprung (canary went black to warn them)
- Party went out and fought Creeds aides, while he cruised behind them, knocked out then collected Wolfgang
- Combat ended party realised Wolfgang was gone, started exploring and found the church sealed and met Leone
- Minor split while the Wizard read the docs for info, two of the party talked to Leone, two climbed the chimney they'd found and started a plan to assault those in the street
- Tried to establish Leone as powerful but they ignored the hints
- Wizard finished reading and joined the others up top. They put all of the docs in a pouch with the wizards familiar and told it to fly them back to HQ.
- Convo at the door went poorly, Leone shortened their remaining time and brought out his hostage: One the Cleric PC's Wife
- While the pair at the door were frantically trying to figure out how to deal with this, the three who left via the chimney sprung an attack using feather fall. The instigator here really did not listen to the number of people in the description.
- The fight was a slaughter, with Darkness running rampant and the party split, Leone sat in his chair and drunk wine, ate cheese while his minions wiped out a lot o the party.
- Leone killed his hostage in front of the PC Husband who was behind bars
- At some point the players realised their mistake but the Wizard PC refused to snap the documents back
- Leone caught some of this convo, and i gave him an arcana roll which he got 27ish on, so he understood how find familiar works in 5e, and killed the wizard (continuing beyond saving throws)
- This caused the familiar to die mid-flight, and the papers to be scattered across the Nettles
- The other two players fighting in the street only survived because one of them got a nat 20 on his final death save and managed to heal the other (both were at 2 pass 2 fails, was a very tense session)
- The two inside, one panicked and tried to climb the chimney which failed, the other threw grenades and everything he had at the steel but couldn't get out in time
Trigger happy Constable ticking off his table-mates aside, I am starting to prep Adventure Three and way back when the Cleric made his char, he described his NPC daughter to me. She's 28, an archeologist, and teaches at a university/goes on excavations and digs. Wow I thought, there's a perfect NPC to template swap for her - Xambria Meridieth! And I worked this into the story.
Now after still reeling from a couple of very grim sessions, with my Cleric hell bent on vengeance for Leone killing his NPC wife... I read adventure three properly and now realise that his daughter is central to the plot, and going to be the unwitting villain!
- Any tips on how adventure 3 plays out?
- I see there are paths for her to survive and don't plan to change anything, but would like to ensure the players see the path to save her, they're pretty shook about the NPC wife
- Any tips on playing Reflavored-Xambria?
- She will be in Flint a few times during my downtime recap, home for her mothers funeral early in Summer (after she opened the Zig in spring but before the seal is opened)
- Could be good opp to do some world building/foreshadowing, thinking they talk about work to take mind off things after funeral and she is going on about the Ancients?
- When she comes back on 51 summer, her dad will be keeping an eye on her and worried if she has strange behavior, any ideas? At this point she's possessed and acting weird, but I need him to not delve into it too much?
- Suspect the start of the adventure will short cut a little and they will want to talk to an Ancients expert asap, happy to adapt this but keen for any tips or things to watch
- I understand Leone doesn't make a comeback until far later in the adventure, any hints or near misses I could add to help curb the players bloodlust as he will want to take steps to track Leone down haha
