Cramulus's D&D Game

[Don Coyote]

FUCKING AWESOME

[Telarus]

FUCKING AWESOME

[Cramulus]

Great event last night, probably the most fun event of the campaign so far.

My out-of-game goals for the event were to (a) let the players perform some "intrigue"... ie, let them acquire some secrets of their own (b) clue the players in to what's really going on in the city of Ave Sestina.

Encounter 1:

The party is hiking north out of the city. They eventually get attacked by Nashrou -- these are demons from 3rd edition which I've rewritten to be aberrations.

Nashrou are swift, tenacious predators that have been known to pursue days or weeks, and even across planes. Often attacking in packs, they will launch themselves at the center of a group, disrupting formations and dealing as much damage as possible with their claws. Smaller and weaker members of the pack are sent ahead to scout for prey, while larger members (called "stalkers") pursue and harry chosen prey, exhausting it. once prey has been worked into a frenzy of fear, "slayers" (the highest rank) moves in and kills the prey. Lone nashrou are more catious, usually stalking solitary prey from the shadows. They exist only for the pleasure of violently killing anything they come across. They do not derive nutrition from their food, but do take joy in devouring their prey.

The encounter began when the party accepted a traveler at their camp fire. It was a frazzled halfling adventurer whose party had just been devoured by these creatures. They let him stay, even though they were going in the opposite direction.

On the first shift of night watch, the party heard these whispers, "Nashrou... Nashrou..." this animal noise coming from the woods. They woke up, got their gear on, investigated the area... and nothing was there.

Second shift - same thing happened.

Third shift - same thing happened. The halfling said, "They're not going to let us rest." So the party decided to just strike camp and start moving towards their goal even though it was like 3 in the morning. The adventurer called them crazy, waved goodbye, and took off in the other direction.

So eventually, after trying to panic the party, the Nashrou attack.

I have like 20 Nashrou tiles of various sizes from a previous campaign. I decided that due to their huge numbers, this would be a minion fight.. each nashrou only takes one hit to kill, but there are 15 of them on the board at any time, and four to eight more enter every turn.

By the end of the fight, the party had killed like 20 to 25 nashrou. It was kind of like one of those scenes in a movie where Blade kills like 3 vampires in one swing. The Nashrou are super easy to kill, but they keep coming, and coming, and coming... How many of them are there in this horde?


At the end of the fight, Gehentir (their aberrant artifact sidekick) was very pleased. He approves of the slaughter of aberrations (he calls creatures from the far realm Quo'na'ri). His concordance rating went up, giving the Tiefling paladin who carries him access to another teleport power. He also granted the party access to a ritual they can use to reach into the fourth dimension. This ritual could be used to store things in a very private space outside of 3D reality, or if they use it to lift Gehentir into the fourth dimension, it could be used to draw more aberrations into the area.


After dealing with the Nashrou, the party found the spot where the other party died and scavenged the corpses. They found a few magic items, some cash, a bag full of Venetian carnival masks, and a note. The note was a warning to stay out of the city, and an invitation to come to this chateau in the mountains for more work. It also said to come en masque, as usual.


So the adventurers decided to disguise themselves as this dead party, and go get their missions.


Encounter 2

This was a social encounter. The party showed up en masque at this decadent chateau in the mountains. They said the right password and were taken to a drawing room where their "employers" were waiting. The employers were all en masque too, and were in the midst of an argument about whether or not it was a good idea to work with the devils. Apparently the aberration attacks which have plauged the city for the last few weeks were the devil's idea. These masked figures are capitalizing on the chaos, but they kind of hope that it'll end soon.

The party had to make bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate checks to pass themselves off as these employees. Each time they succeeded, they got a little more info about what's going on.

A man a gold mask mentioned that Councilman Kelson [the player's employer] has been making trouble in the council house. He has Council Record LV and is seeking council funds to pay adventurers he's hired.

A man in a silver mask said that Kelson won't be a problem – but they should really neutralize the adventurers and get a hold of council record 55. (flashback: the adventurers recovered this book from the Lyceum two events ago, it details the situation with the bridges of ave sestina)

Second piece of info....

"We caught a fae spy. He was following around Chemellon. Probably trying to figure out who that bastard meets with. My men bound him in irons and locked him in the moat cell at Sovrano castle. We're still deciding how do do away with him. We think the fae are being employed by the Cloth faction. Which would mean they're being summoned by the Lyceum. Do you know anything about this? Or what fae are in the city?"

Third piece of info....

"We know your guild has been hurting for work since the shadow people came at last year's Festival. We have a lead for you. We know that the shadows are employed as assassins by the Lemitri bank. They use the shadows to act against their enemies. For example they were the ones who kidnapped Councilman Roland Clay. People are just figuring out that he's missing. The Halflings have probably buried him by now. Anyway, I have not heard much about the shadows. Tell me about them, or your run-ins with them."

after the skill check -

"oh," adds the man in the silver mask, "one of your guild contacts was here yesterday. She asked us to relay a message. She has more work for you – she said you can meet her under the rose at the Cloak and Swagger. Meet her en masque, and wear a rose too."

Fourth bit....

"We have some work for you. You need to renew the pacts at Wailing bridge and Lindgate bridge. We think that this will remove the Fae and Shadows from the city, respectively. We expect you will be able to research what needs to be done and then do it. Return here when this is completed and you will be rewarded. Will you be capable of doing this?"

Fifth bit....

"Another task is to keep an eye on Wolfbridge and Bainsgate. If you see anybody snooping around there, investigate. Throw them off the trail or take them out. But be aware – we have other parties keeping an eye on those bridges too. Will you be capable of doing this?"

Sixth bit....

"Very good.. You've served us well. We will not forget this in the coming months as we put down our enemies. For now, you may want to stay out of the city. The devils in the basement have just made something terrible. They captured some primal city spirit and showed it its reflection in the far realms. It went mad – they have it in the basement right now, and hopefully they're releasing it tonight. They call it a Thought Scourge."


The party left the drawing room and discussed what to do next.
They agreed that they wanted to keep masquerading as this party, keep these employers (whoever they are) thinking that they've got more control of the city than they actually do. The party will try to spread misinformation about themselves, and possibly make some cash through these guys too.

They decided that the next step was to find a route underneath the Chateau and put down the creature the devils have made.


Encounter 3

The party found their way underneath the chateau, and were immediately attacked by undead.

This was a really rough encounter! here were some of the monsters they fought:

Deathgaunt Madcaster - has an aura 2 squares around him. If you start your turn in the aura, you're confused by his mad chattering - you take 5 psychic damage and -2 to all die rolls for the turn. He has some gross ranged attacks too.

Wraths - these are like undead rogues. They move around really easily, they get bonus damage while flanking, and they regenerate quickly unless you hit them with radiant damage. When they hit you, you're weakened, so all your attacks deal half damage until you make a saving throw. This affects you tactically because you don't want to drop your nasty attacks when they're only going to do half damage, and then half again if you're hitting an insubstantial target.

Silver Seeker Wrath - a wrath variant with the same insane flavor as the madcaster. It deals psychic damage, it has an aura that decreases you will defense if you end your turn near it (which is nasty because all of the madcaster's attacks target your will defense). It's also nasty because if it hits you, it is able to keep you prone and keep you down.

Cauldron Corpse - an elite brute (elite = 2x as tough as a regular monster. brute = high HP and a nasty melee attack). The Cauldron Corpse started far away from the party. It moves very slowly (only 4 squares per turn), so the group saw him making his way towards the fight. They had 3 rounds before it was able to attack. The real challenge here was to get control of the battle before the cauldron corpse arrived, because he is nasty as hell.

The Cauldron Corpse has a cool ability.. every time you damage him, it sprays the squares adjacent to him with necrotic sludge, and he spawns a Cauldron Mote minion in a square adjacent to him. This means that you really have to hit him with strong attacks or area effects, otherwise you'll get overwhelmed by minions pretty quickly. It also means that if you're smart, you can force him to hit his allies by pushing them into adjacent squares before you hit the corpse. Cool tactics!

Luckily the party kept the corpse clamped down by creating difficult terrain and acid pools. The minions would start their turn in the acid pool and die instantly. After the PCs dealt with the madcaster, they were able to focus on the corpse. They dealt 160 damage to the corpse in like 3 rounds. It died and everybody cheered.




All in all, a very fun event!

We had some rough combat, some great roleplay, the party got a million ideas for what to do next, and now they have some cool secrets and insider info about current events in the city.

[Triple Zero]

Sounds great, Cram!! And those Venetian masks ... where have I seen them before?

[Cramulus]

update for this week: http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/ave-sestina/adventure-log/a-little-bit-of-the-city-died-today


Great event! The PCs are really starting to sink their teeth into the plot. They're slowly morphing from a group of cutthroat sell-swords into a group that has a stake in the future of the city.




The Thought Scourge was a really interesting solo creature. Solos are cool - they're designed to be about five times as tough as a regular monster, a challenge for an entire party. They have the ability to hurt you and screw you up even out of turn.

This one was a primal spirit of the city, a being formed from the emotions of thousands of people engaging in culture at once. The creature had been corrupted by seeing its reflection in the far realms, and went mad like a rabid creature. It looks like a well dressed party goer at carnivale, except that the mask is really its face.


Here's its stat block:



Translation for people who don't play 4e:

Insubstantial - it takes half damage from all attacks unless it's busy feeding on something

Seeds of Despiar - an area of effect centered on the attacker. It affects everybody within 3 squares of him. This "Spreading Despiar" attack keeps the party from standing in close formations. Some of the healing abilities they have require you to be adjacent to your target too, so if you were still hurtiing the people around you with this contagious despair, it might prevent you from healing them. This attack is a minor action (so you can do it even if you've already moved and attacked), and Recharge 5 & 6 means that it's got a 2 out of 6 chance to recharge that power at the beginning of each turn.

Seeds of Discord - this is an immediate reaction which takes place every time somebody misses the thought scourge. If you don't hit him, you often end up hitting a party member. The flavor is that you get lost in this hallucination of Carnivale -for a few seconds, you think you're in a brawl, but it turns out the guy you're fighting is a party member.

[Cramulus]

Notes from this Sunday's game: http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/ave-sestina/adventure-log/enter-the-gate-crashers

[Cramulus]

The party's been trapped in the Shadowfell, here's an update about their adventures.

http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/ave-sestina/adventure-log/fel-sestina

[Cramulus]

We finally wrapped up the Heroic tier (level 1-10) of our campaign.

The climax was pretty cool - the PCs had to find their way through three dungeons stacked vertically underneath the city. The Primal Garden they needed to defend was at the absolute bottom.

The three dungeons were:

The Fathoms - a series of caves. I designed this part based on maps of actual caves, rather than how caves work in D&D. So the Fathoms is kind of like a vertical dungeon - getting in/out of a room involves a lot of dungeoneering and problem solving. The party used about 2000 feet of rope to get through this section. The boss of the Fathoms was a hydra.

I've always liked the Hydra mechanics in D&D. In 4th edition, the Hydra's max HP is broken up into five sections. It loses a head for each 20%. If you don't deal fire or acid damage before the Hydra's next turn, it'll grow TWO heads from the stump (but not regain HP). During its turn, it can make an attack with each of its head. And once you get it down to 1 or 2 heads, those heads get a giant bonus to hit and damage because the hydra can focus on one target at a time. It means the fight is dangerous up to the last round.


Past the Fathoms, the PCs had to pass the Proving Grounds. This is a section of a dungeon from the published adventure Thunderspire Labyrinth. And honestly, it's the coolest boss fight I've seen in a D&D product. Here's a description from a review of the adventure:

The Proving Grounds encounter is so utterly whacked yet awesome I'm going to try to describe it without giving away too many hints. In one encounter, the players basically have to trigger four traps simultaneously in four different parts of the dungeon to move on. Each trap then triggers another trap, plus another trap that makes the connecting tunnels between the four trigger points very dangerous. But that triggers a timer which shows how long the players have to survive this mess before they can even think of escaping. So they're split up facing a host of traps -- did I mention there's two rival adventuring parties trying to get the treasure from the Well of Demons at the same time as the party? And only one of them is made of living beings? And while they may or may not be friendly, helpful, or even interested in the party based on your group's roleplaying, the gnolls who have taken over the site definitely are not friendly, and the minotaur ghosts who still haunt it aren't fond of *anyone* being there? And that depending on the player actions earlier there may or may not be an enraged dire boar roaming the dungeon, looking for its dwarven master (who lives back in the Seven-Pillared Hall, and has a nice reward posted for it, and thus the players may have to keep half a ton of gnoll-tortured pork alive through the chaos)? That the guide recommended to the party to lead them there is, unknown even to himself, a vicious werewolf who tends to Hulk out under stressful moments and chew on anything nearby? And to top it off the hallways of the Proving Grounds are high enough for the master of the Grounds, a young green dragon, to fly overhead and try to mess up *everyone's* plans? And this all goes down at the same time with the party split up to trigger the four original traps? And if the party gets through this then it leads *immediately* to the boss fight with the main gnoll cultist?

That's one of the craziest encounters I've ever come across, and I'm just boggled at the possibilities for a creative DM and players to mess with it. If Irontooth cut the wheat from the chaff in H1, I predict that their hairbrained schemes at ad-libbing the chaos of the Proving Grounds will provide the same stories for H2.

and finally, under the proving grounds, they got to the Primal Caves, a webwork of vine covered rooms which stretch for miles.

The PCs were racing against five other factions to get to the primal garden. During these three dungeons, they had the opportunity to get the jump on the other teams. Maybe they'd knock em off early, maybe they'd just try to beat them there, maybe they'd try to negotiate... my party ended up getting lost in the caves for a while, and lost like six hours of race time due to bad dungeoneering.


The boss fight involved trying to prevent four out of five of the factions from casting a ritual in this primal garden area. If they got three successes on the ritual, a dragon would enter the fight too. The PCs narrowly prevented this (damn it), saved the garden, and prevented the city's factions from acquiring a dangerous and unbalanced amount of power.

It was a cool fight if only because it involved 9 named NPCs, all of whom had been established previously in the campaign. It was like the season finale of a sitcom where they revisit all the cool moments from the previous season.

It was a LONG fight, too. Each faction's arrival at the garden was staggered - the PCs had two rounds before a new faction showed up. The fight was worth as much XP as two fights... so instead of letting the PCs rest between fights, they had these nodes of power they could use to heal themselves and recharge their powers. The enemies could use the nodes too, and tried to fire off their nasty attacks then recharge them. This put the PCs on the offensive - they had to use THEIR nasty attacks and recharge them FIRST!

And lo, twas epic.

[Triple Zero]

Sounds like a great time Cram!!

Though that Proving Grounds description sounds LETHAL .. how do you even beat that?

[Cramulus]

here's the map of the zone...



(the published adventure includes a giant poster-sized map of this area)

two party members tried to follow the dragon and pin it down - this proved hard with the traps in every room.

In the top left room, the rogue and the warden worked together to disarm the two crossbow turrets.
Meanwhile, the mage was stuck in the bottom right room. She used her religion training to quell the restless skeletons who came alive as soon as the ritual started.

The dragon starts in the center and flies around the dungeon, avoiding the traps and using its breath weapon where it can. It tries to lure the PCs into rooms with active traps.

That track around the center hole --- there's a giant boulder rolling in circles around it. It makes fighting in the hall very dangerous because the boulder moves like 20 squares (half the distance around the loop) on its turn. Anybody that gets hit takes a ton of damage and is knocked prone.

After a few rounds of confusion and panic, the PCs managed to overcome the obstacles and keep the dragon pincered in the center chamber. From here, the task became to avoid getting dragged into the pit.  

The dragon itself isn't the difficult part. Getting your party to hit the dragon at the same time is the challenge. The dragon can really fuck up a character if they face him one-on-one, so it takes a bit of tactical planning to survive. Without a little coordination, the dragon will outmaneuver them and slide them into the path of the active traps. If they plan (which they did), they can block the exits from the center room and keep the dragon locked there.

[Triple Zero]

awesome. goddamn I need to start playing again.

the DM of my old group got interested in PathFinder, I hope that might go somewhere. Maybe I should knock off a quick one-night game of Kobolds just to get the group together again. (it's about the only game I'm good at GM-ing because it takes very little preparation)

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

awesome. goddamn I need to start playing again.

the DM of my old group got interested in PathFinder, I hope that might go somewhere. Maybe I should knock off a quick one-night game of Kobolds just to get the group together again. (it's about the only game I'm good at GM-ing because it takes very little preparation)

I approve of Pathfinder. Paizo always produced better stuff than WoTC anyway.

[Don Coyote]

Sounds EPIC!!!!!

[Cramulus]

I found this open source mapping software called AutoRealm. And I am in LOVE with it.

The best feature is called "Fractal Lines". For each drawing tool (freehand drawing, point-to-point lines, curves, polygons, etc), there is a regular version and a fractal version. The fractal version draws nuanced, complex edges. There is a slider bar for how chaotic they are. And if you zoom in, it remains complex, rather than reducing to polygons. It's the perfect tool for drawing roads, rivers, coasts, and political borders.

here's a regional map I was working on.




easy to overlay grids and hexes so you can play on them too.

here, 1 hex = 1 day's travel

[Triple Zero]

Wow that looks awesome! I'm gonna give this to my GM when he wants to start off that Pathfinder campaign.

So these maps are zoomable, right?

(because otherwise I could just as easy make those screenshots with a pen and paper)

idea: you can take those maps and photoshop in more detail and textures and such?