WTF is that? And Tremors… Session 13

June 6, 2016 rasmusnord011 Comment

The session evolved around exploration of the road to the site of iron ore the players heard about from the elves. It ties in with one of my story-lines, which is the development of the settlement, from very vulnerable to a strong permanent settlement.

The game started right off the bat with initiative rolls for an encounter with two Displacer Beasts. They wounded the characters, but were overcome. I enjoyed that they met a creature they faced before. Meeting one Displacer Beast was a nasty surprise at level 2, but two were manageable at level 4-5. It demonstrates that they’ve advanced in power, which is always a nice feeling as a player. If I had rolled that four Displacer Beasts had shown up on the encounter table instead, it would have been an entirely different kettle of cats…

After some much needed rest, they continued moving south along the ancient road, and came across an ancient watch tower, surrounded by a low wall. Wisely, they decided to scout the place, and north of the ruin they found a tunnel, made by something fairly large. Whatever it was, they opted to draw it out, and using the bard’s bagpipes, the monster was drawn to attack. The monster was a homebrew creation; a large creature I named an Amoured Maw:

“It is the size and about the same shape of a rhino, but with shorter clawed legs, covered in hard, dark reflective scales, has a head that splits wide along its entire length into a teeth filled jaw, while the four fleshy tentacles growing from its back contains its sensory organs, as well as having nasty hooks on them. The Maw can burrow, but doesn’t do it fast enough for it to have a burrowing speed. It is an excellent climber though, using both its clawed feet and tentacles.”

The origins of the creature remain obscure to the characters, so it shall remain obscure here as well. It turned out to be a surprising, but not overly dangerous, battle for the group. The surprise was its reflective carapace (an ability the mighty Tarrasque has), that sent one of the Warlock’s spells back in his face, and the general toughness and damage output of the beast. The whole description and the reflected spell among the very first attacks, gave a nice ‘WTF is that?!’-moment, which I aim to have in this exploration focused campaign. But naturally, being 7 characters, they overcame a single monster, and went back to the tower, after figuring out that its lair was inside the semi-collapsed basement of the tower.

The tower itself was just a shell, but inhabited by 15 Stirges. They overcame a third of the

cong345a — This is pretty close to what I imagined the ancient roadside watch tower looks like.

Stirges with a fireball and took a bit of damage while dealing with the rest. I had hope the party would go to the tower, clear it of Stirges, and camp there, setting them up for a night time encounter with the Maw, but they were smarter than that (which is good, I gues…). The players did note, how the tower is a good site for rest between the settlement and the iron deposit.

The next couple of days the kept moving south towards the site of the iron deposits, and close to the location, they discover a small lake, with a ruined villa sitting on its shore. Imagine a large more or less ancient Roman style villa left in a forest for many hundreds of years. Moving closer, they noticed some weird round areas of disturbed ground.

Tremors in the ground…

tremors1 — The Corpse Worm is obviously inspired by the horror b-movie Tremors. Which I thought was quite scary when I was a kid in the early nineties.

Just outside of the villa a Corpse Worm attack. A huge monstrous worm (but smaller than a Purple Worm), which smelled of rotting meat and had leathery skin, burst out of the ground. It attacked Weylin, the druid, from below and snatched him, and the next round pulled him down to its watery tunnel below. Jarn, jumped after (and rolled a crit). A chaotic battle ensued, with Jarn struggling down the collapsing hole the worm came through, trying to kill it, before it disappeared with Weylin, and the others trying to hit the beast with ranged weapons and magic, illuminating the worm with faerie fire, or helping Jarn getting back to the surface, before the shaft collapsed above him. Weylin manages to escape the jaws of the worm and activate his Staff of the Woodlands and summons a wall of thorns in the narrow water filled tunnel he is trapped in. The combined damage slays the worm, and Weylin finally grasps Jarn’s hand, who can pull him back to the surface with the aid of his companions.

Despite their wounds, they afterwards decided to search the villa, and they (surprise!) find a half-flooded cellar below. They enter the cellar, and soon Arak – the half-orc – falls through a floor into another tunnel, but his comrades manage to get him out, before anything emerges.

Next time, we will see if there are more worms? And what the iron deposit site actually looks like.

Evocative Combat:

I think this session was dominated by a couple of fun and memorable encounters. As I’ve mentioned before, I try to modify and create monsters for around 2/3s of the combat encounters, because I want my seasoned group to never know what they are facing, and rarely know what they are vulnerable against or resists. Fortunately, D&D 5^th is very easy to mold and change, as long as you don’t care about encounter xp and difficulty too much.

The encounter with the worm was the kind of combat encounter that I really like. A fluid scene in multiple dimensions, and not simply minis being moved tactically around the map (which also has its place, and is fun). It can be difficult as the DM to clearly give everyone a sense of what is possible, and where everyone is, but having only one opponent makes it a lot easier to manage – and combat happens quickly compared to moving minis around. I may not have followed the ‘say yes’ rule as much as I should, but I think it had tense and fun action – and a real danger to one of the characters.

The Wall of Thorns spell also showed itself as a ‘getting out of deep trouble’-spell.

Goodberries and Mayonnaise

May 24, 2016 rasmusnord01Leave a comment

The group spent one month in the settlement, working on down-time tasks and talking to NPCs, while eating Goodberries drenched in mayonnaise.

To make the timeline move forward and to make sure that the characters have a more natural progress these interludes are important. Often, players have this sense of urgency, and think if they don’t spend every day adventuring, somehow they are going to miss something or become penalized in the story, for example by bad guys spending that time plotting against them and building their strength. I hope they will learn that that is not the case. As one of the goals of the campaign is for the characters to become older and the settlement to grow around them, spending down time, building a home, or a base of operations even, and gathering resources is important. It is also good from an overall pacing perspective. And lastly, I dislike characters going from 1^st to 20^th level over a few busy months. That just seems quite unrealistic – if such a word can be used for fantasy roleplaying.

A significant element of the 12th session was the practical issues when you are an adventurer in a small settlement, on a far off continent, with no trading partners and everyone being self-sufficient: How to get food, build a shelter and craft better armor and other stuff?

Mayonnaise_(1) — A liter of mayo is about 9000 calories, or 3 times the need of an adult male.

The adventurers decided to solve the food issue with the Goodberries spell, which can sustain their entire group every day. The joke was that since the have the wonderful Alchemy Jug which can produce 2 gallons (8 liters) of mayonnaise every day they would be supplementing their diet of a single daily goodberry with a liter of mayo – each – which turned into jokes about offering presents of mayo and goodberries to the honoured elven guests and what the characters would look like when they started adventuring again after eating mayo non-stop for a month. Jokes aside, the Alchemy Jar continues to be a valuable item, as it can produce a lot of valuable liquids, when you are in an isolated settlement, such as honey, wine and vinegar.

There were a few key events and discoveries during the session:

It was a surprise to some that their gold and silver was worth very little in the settlement, but that everything had to be bartered for. I hope it provides a different perspective on what is valuable to them.
The group read the books they discovered in the hag lair, and the wizard, who wisely picked cartography as a proficiency, was able to determine the approximate location of some of the places named in one of the books, including the Colourless Bridge, which is inside the forest, and they learned the name of the ruined city nearby: Ivanith’laril. They could also see that the elves had made war against the Bones of Sarakhon and that they were undead.
The druid learned the local elven dialect, so now the risk of confusion is minimized when parlaying with the elves.
Iron ore: almost as valuable as gold at this stage in the campaign.

They wanted to craft a full plate armour, but were horrified at the time it would take them to craft it themselves, so they made a deal with the dwarf family living in the settlement. The dwarves would help them craft 2 full plate armours during the coming year, and they would assist exploiting the iron ore deposit that the group had learned about from the elves, and in return, the dwarves would get 1500 gp. and their iron bars. The gold they could send back to their clan, who could use it to get more dwarves to migrate to the settlement.
A trio of goblins scouts snuck into the settlement, but the characters captured one and killed the rest, and learned of some of the other goblin tribes and that their own tribe the Red Fangs, had an ettin ally and powerful goblin witches. And more importantly, that there is a town at the edge of the forest where the goblins trade with the hobgoblins of the plains.
The elves visited with an ‘official’ delegation, and they told them the location of the site with iron and that there is an ancient road leading there. They also learned that the edge of the forest was about 400 miles from the settlement, and that the area around the Colourless Bridge is haunted.

Displacer_Beast_MM_4e — Roll initiative losers!

At the end of the session the group began their journey south through the forest along the ancient road, and during the first night Sir Jarn was jumped by a couple of Displacer Beasts – which means next session begins by rolling initiative.

I actually love starting a session with combat, and in one campaign had the rule, that all sessions started with an initiative roll, potentially as a flash forward scene, because the combat really gets the players focused right away.

Positive aspects

A couple of things worked really well this session:

Letting them research old books and speak to the locals and from that begin to fill in some blanks on the vast hex map is fun and tantalizing. The only down side is that every time I bring up a new location they haven’t visited, half the group immediately wants to go off and explore it right away… But that is also kind of the point of the campaign!
The moral and societal choices that happened when the Europeans came to the Americas are beginning to show themselves. For example, it is clear that the goblin tribe nearby will never let them farm and prosper in peace, so at some point they have to be destroyed, even though they are the natural inhabitants in this place – the situation is very similar to the one describe in this podcast Apache Tears between the Apache and the Mexicans and U.S. settlers. Furthermore, the friendly elves certainly don’t mind some powerful allies against the hobgoblins, as the settlement has a minute impact on the forest, but what happens years down the road when more and more settlers arrive?

Negative aspects:

It isn’t negative as such, but the reality is that if you have a large group doing down time and NPC interaction in a settlement, the actual ‘screen time’ of each character is reduced significantly. As a change of pace the session was good, but we all prefer more action and adventure.

Session 11: A big signal fire

May 9, 2016 rasmusnord01Leave a comment

The game session became a sort of ’in-between game session’, where the group finished looting the dungeon, met the local elves and had a long talk with them for the first time, and got into another big fight with the undead, where the power of the Staff of the Woodlands was demonstrated.

I’ve also been looking at making a post about magic items, and how you can make the discovery of powers progressive, spurred by the comments in for the last post (here The last post), but I haven’t had enough time to finish it.

Events of the session:

At the end of the previous session, the group had killed the aberrant plant monster that lived in the ruin, and they commenced looting and exploring the final sections. They went outside a couple of times, but neither the ranger nor druid passed their wisdom check, so they failed to notice something important. They discovered a statue of an elf, which held out a stylized map with a mountain chain with the mark of the throne on it. They found a secret room with treasure, including 50 pounds of iron and finally a room where dark seeds of the abomination were grown. They decided to burn the seeds, but the group was low on resources and had no fire magic left, so Arak, the strong half-orc cleric and Jarn, the ranger and leader, goes into the forest to get firewood. That is when they see the column of smoke that rises from the pyramid from all the burn vines inside the dungeon. They drop all the collected firewood and race back to the pyramid (I must say I liked this moment, when it dawned on the players what their actions meant).

The wizard’s familiar, Steven the sea gull (pun intended), is sent out to scout and Arak stands guard on top of the pyramid. Steven spots a large-ish band of goblins heading towards the pyramid, and Arak actually notices one of the local nomadic elves hiding in a tree. As the group is low on HP and spells they decide to retreat. After a while they make a short rest, the druid gains access to ‘pass with out trace’ and they escape the goblins, who spent some time scouting the ruin (if the characters had decided to stay other interested parties would have shown up, which would have been all kinds of fun!).

dead undead — I’ve never regretted getting the undead army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle back in the mid 90s. Those minis have been used countless times!

After escaping the goblins, on their way to the place where they met undead the first time, they are attacked again by a group of more than 20 undead, marching towards them. There is a 5^th level spell caster and the equivalent of a boosted Wight among them. It turns out that even though skeletons aren’t that dangerous to 4^th level characters, if enough attack, they become a problem…

This is where my concern from last time, concerning the Staff of the Woodlands, was partly laid to rest. The druid use the Wall of Thorns spell from the staff and kills 6 skeletons with it, and a further two are pushed into the wall with a Gust of Wind spell. It doesn’t break the encounter at all, but it takes it down to a more manageable level. They are still under a lot of pressure, but they survive. If he had used it on the two ‘bosses’, they would take significant damage, but wouldn’t be killed outright. Obviously, in open terrain it is less effective than in a dungeon, where you can seal off passage ways.

The leader, who seems to be an undead orc with a magical scale mail, has a message crystal (like a simple recording device) with the following message:

“Deploy your companies north west of the city, and keep our lines of communication open with Fort 25. Commander Osandros will deploy to the south towards the Colorless Bridge. Reinforcements will be allotted as they arrive. This is the order of Belsokh Six Fingers. For Sarakhon!”

The characters who have been studying the books they found in the hag lair, recognizes Sarakhon from the name of the enemy an elf led an army against – they were called The Bones of Sarakhon.

The next day they locate the cave where the undead came from, and where they had been lying for several centuries. They also find a copper sheet, with an etched map showing the location of both Fort 25 and Fort 26 and the ruined city they’ve passed by earlier. They speculate that the undead were making war on the elves in the area long ago.

When they emerge from the cave, an arrow with a flower attached to it, is shot at the feet of Jarn. He shoots the arrow back, and a small group of elves emerge. They proceed with a trade, and then they begin talking. The elves clearly find their settlement unwise.

The group learns some important information though:

Hobgoblins live on the plains beyond the forest, and come into the forest to capture slaves. At some point, if they wish to live in peace, they have to deal with that threat.
There are many goblin tribes and they are sure to end up fighting them.
To the south lives Osganithmoth Suneater, an old green dragon, which fortunately sleeps right now, but its offspring infests the forest.
They watch over the ruined city, to guard against the creatures coming out of it. The demons that dwell within cannot get out though for some reason. Inside there are many monsters, among others a group of giants that wandered in from the hills to the south west.
They don’t have access to metal and are interested in trading.
They know of a source of iron, but it is a dangerous place.
The location where Fort 25 is supposed to be is a dangerous ashen wasteland.

When they were done speaking with the elves, we ended the session.

Perhaps Osganithmoth looks something like this… Scale seems pretty accurate! Art by Mike Azevedo. Check out more of his very cool stuff here: Link to Mike Azevedo’s art

Next time:

We will finally have an extended period of down time, and they can use some of the time to get to know more of the local inhabitants. It should strengthen their connection to the community and make them feel more a part of the settlement.

The campaign also opens up, and they discussed what should be their next target: the iron mine, fort 25 or the ruined city. They decided upon the iron mine, as it would be an important resource for the settlement.

Perhaps this will be our first session without an initiative roll…? But then again, maybe not…

Session 10: Too fat loot?

April 27, 2016April 27, 2016 rasmusnord014 Comments

After our last session, where the main focus was the characters purging an aberrant plant monster from a dungeon inside something akin to a large stone foundation, my thoughts have centered around magic items and treasure.

the_old_huge_oak_tree_by_williamsnape-d3enn3q — A planted Staff of the Woodlands – in my mindland.

At the end of the session, they discovered that this abomination had gained energy or the like from a tree, which turned out to be a Staff of the Woodlands (a Rare item). My idea was that the creature sort of fed from this tree and almost had withered it. Thus, my concern about the balance of the staff was secondary. But avoiding highly imbalancing fat loot, and avoiding a monty haul campaign, is important. But I have a few considerations that I need to take into account.

I have seven 4^th level players, and currently four of them have a magic item that aren’t consumable: a shield +1, a Wand of Secrets, an Alchemy Jug and the Staff of the Woodlands. With seven players, I need to hand out quite a lot of stuff, before everyone feels overloaded with magical items, and thus many magical items isn’t unbalanced in itself. It is the fact that I have 7 players that makes the game harder to balance (so I kind of skipped balancing encounters to the party).
Remembering our old AD&D Forgotten Realms campaign from high school (the player playing the wizard Welk was the DM), which I enjoyed very much, magic items were relative scarce, but the ones we had were quite significant to our characters, so at 12^th level I had maybe 3 permanent items. I really liked that, and I think it is worth emulating.
Staff of the Woodlands is on table G, and can be awarded at random at any level (although the likelihood in a 0-4 or 5-10 level hoard is low).
The staff has a limited number of uses per day. It has a number of abilities, including casting Wall of Thorns, which is a 6^th level spell, and very powerful, but the Wall of Thorns takes up 6 of 7 charges. If I run one encounter adventuring days, it can be a problem. But I intend to have multiple-encounter adventuring days, which makes it more of a choice to use the power. Furthermore, as I’ve more or less ignored balancing encounters, it can be important for them to have a method of escaping an encounter or dividing an encounter into more manageable size, if they bite over too much. And as they only gain 25% xp from encounters, but additional xp from exploration, it matters less that they can handle more powerful creatures. The lesser powers, and the fact that it is a +2 weapon, will have much less impact on the story, but will be quite useful to the druid.

My preliminary conclusion is, that I would rather hand out a good number of consumable items and a few relatively powerful items, than scatter many +1 shields, armours, weapons and other uncommon items around the game. If each character has the chance of obtaining one Rare or better item from now and until 10-12 level, that is fine by me. Hopefully, some of these items will become important aspects of their characters, and help it become a memorable campaign of heroic characters. And hopefully, they don’t become too powerful and collapse the ideas in the campaign… We will see how it goes. It is a sand box after all.

And now for the short recap of last session:

Session 10:

mayan-pyramid-unexcavated-best — The dungeon was inside something akin to this – one of my players noted the Earthdawn feel to it. He was not incorrect…

The group discovers the inner laboratory of the witch they defeated in the previous session. Inside they find a number of interesting items, including some sort of silver rod, which appears to be a key to something, a portal to the Warrens (the world between the prime plane and the outer planes) and some ancient elven books. The druid and wizard begin deciphering the content of the books and advance their skill in the local elven language, and they decide not to open the portal, even though it is a possibility (the campaign could have taken quite a turn, had they decided to go through. I know where it leads, but prep is sketchy). Instead they went back to the ruins, with the sort of top less pyramid shaped structure, and went inside. The dungeon contained thick vile creepers that attacked them, and they burned their way through part of the dungeon, reaching the center, where an abdominal plant creature lived. They attacked its pulsating heart and overcame it, and found the Staff of the Woodlands at its heart.

Afterthoughts:

I had, by design, made several entrances to the dungeon, which meant they could clear out all of the abominations pods before they faced the creature itself. For each one they killed, it would have one attack less (minimum 2). It had a ton of damage potential, but it was one of those evening where I rolled poorly, so the group overcame a very powerful creature more easily than anticipated.

I look forward to them delving more into the books they found, and the campaign is opening up to a lot of options now.

It’s a witch! (They didn’t weigh her, or burn her) Our 9th session…

April 11, 2016April 11, 2016 rasmusnord01Leave a comment

We had a really enjoyable 9^th game session, where we managed to get closer to the kind of games that I would like to run, and where I (mostly) followed the ‘say yes doctrine’ for game masters. I also really enjoy the characters the players have made. I think they are a fun and dynamic group – and it works with 7 players, although it is hard to discuss plans where everyone gets their voice heard.

A few of the things that I would like to keep doing was:

When the characters get an idea, go with it.
If a spell or action seems like it should have an effect not written in the rules on a character or environment, go with it.
Keep the players guessing and hungry for information.
Keep making NPCs and monsters that fit with the story, and ignore the monster manual and rules (to an extent).

Events of session 9

In the session the characters met the elf woman, whom they suspected of being a hag, and notice that humanoid forms were inside the water, close to where they met her. After some conversation, where she confirmed that she had rescued the man-at-arms, Renald, and that they were in love. They exchanged information and they were invited into her lair, inside the giant tree stump, so they could meet him. They were very worried about giving information away, but as she did not speak any language that everyone in the group spoke, unified communication was a bit of a challenge.

Inside the giant tree stump, they can tell it is a big lair, with many rooms carved inside the tree, with platforms and bridges linking them. Inside the hollow part of the stump was also a camp of almost a dozen lizardmen, who were her allies. After they’ve made camp, she came down with Renald, and they exchanged more information about the land around them. For example, that a great dragon lives in the southern part of the forest, that there are plains to the west with hobgoblins and somewhere north a forest made from crystal. They challenged Renald, as they saw it as his duty to return to the settlement, but some could see that he was conflicted, but refused.

When they went to rest, the group sort of decided to break their word to her, that they

lizardmen — In this case it was a handsome male fighter who was captured. The picture reminds me of the only ‘real’ D&D modules I ran in elementary school. Can’t remember the name. It was 1-3 lvl. and about a kidnapped elven princess. Wish I still had that stuff…

would maintain peace with her, when they entered her home. They used the newly acquired Alchemy Jug, to produce 4 gallons of beer, and the half-orc, the half-elf druid, who could speak with them, and the dwarf bard, who added a wineskin of brandy to the mix, went and partied with the lizardmen, who, unused to alcohol, got roaring drunk, with a couple passing out, and all the while the dwarf bard is using his bagpipe to mask the noise with his…music. The group arcane trickster sneaked up on the lizardman guard, standing on a platform above the whole thing. His sneak attack fails, but the bard manages to conceal his cry for help with his music, and they manage to overcome the (neutral) lizardfolk.

Subsequently, the party crashes into the bedroom of the (almost), unsuspecting couple. The witch orders her man to protect her, while dispels the grease cast at her feet and turns invisible and flee further up the winding passageways of the tree. A battle ensues. It is a complicated affair, but they pursue her to a menagerie of strange beings, including two cockatrice, a bear with poison fangs and a snake tail and a giant vulture. The hag, who finally shows her true self, tries to flee on the vulture, but is finally brought down, and the bear is killed as well, before we end the session.

Thoughts on the Encounter

All in all, a fun encounter, that highlighted the hag’s ability to deceive and spell bind. I ignored the rules as written about Charm Person, as I think it went against the story I had in mind (and why would people always know they’ve been under the influence of a charm spell? It seems pretty pointless to me then, unless it is simply to get past a guard or something). I also gave her more HP and spells, and plenty of weird pets, as a single monster quickly run out of HP against 7 PCs. As always, they also often had to make all kinds of saving throws (mainly Con). I think rolling a save highlights either a characters strength or weakness, and players either enjoy rolling something their character is good at, or dread rolling saves, when it hits one of their weak sides. This emphasizes the choices they’ve made in character creation, which I think is important.

It was wise of the characters not to take the fight up front, as outside, or flying on her vulture, her Call Lightning spell would have been a big problem for the 3^rd and 4^th level characters. I thought however, that her interest in learning more from them, outweighed her own caution of inviting an armed group into her home.

Next time, we will see what they find in the hags lair, and how the discussion about breaking their word ends up. Furthermore, the group has to figure out what to do next, as no one is there imposing another mission on them.

Session 8: Scorpion trouble and a shield

March 30, 2016 rasmusnord01Leave a comment

The session had a full group of 7 players, and it is very enjoyable, but naturally leaves less time for individual attention and combat takes longer.

It began inside the small (randomly found) adventuring site the group discovered in session 7. They began the evening by identifying the treasure they found – a wand of secrets and an Alchemist Jug. The jug is actually quite a nice wondrous item, when you are in new settlement on a far away coast, as it can produce one type of liquid each day in various quantities, including water, mayo and honey.

alchemy-jug — The Alchemy Jug from the DMG pg. 150.

I like the Wand of Secrets, as it helps me avoid the awful situation where players decide to search after secret doors in the right spot, but rolls too low on Investigation. Secret doors are fun when they are found!

Abbott – the strange warlock and noble son – also drew a question from my stack of background questions, and told us that his most significant memory from the war in their homeland was going through a village that had been pillaged and slaughtered. He declined to say, why that was significant…

From that point they travelled north, and I rolled an ambush in my random encounters, an Ettin in this case, who was arguing with himself. They relatively quickly dispatched him (80-ish HP doesn’t last long against 7 characters), and Arak cut off his heads and put them on a pole as a warning. The wizard, Welk, was a bit upset, as he spoke the language of the giants, like the ettin, and would have liked to gain information from him.

I rolled another encounter for the next day, and this time it was another minor adventuring site, and it turned out to be the lair of a huge giant scorpion with weird lichen and toadstools growing from its carapace. It was lurking in a large copse of toad stools with Shriekers around it. Down in its lair, they discovered a magical dwarven shield, with a throne marked on it, which confirmed to them, that there must be dwarves somewhere in the land they’ve settled in. They were also attacked by 6 scorplings, and was another reminder that 6 smaller foes – particularly when they can grapple and poison you – can be much harder to deal with than one large foe. The encounter had several of the players below 0 HP.

The next days of the journey was uneventful, and Korrick the dwarf bard and warrior, got to tell them, how he was accompanying a dwarven expeditionary force as a record keeper, when they were ambushed, and he was forced to pick up arms and become a soldier. Eventually, they found the old track of the lost man-at-arms,and followed it to a large ruin where a lot of colorful flowers and toadstools were growing. There were many low ruins, but the main one looked almost like a base of a meso-american pyramid with several entrances in it and vegetation growing out of it from within.

Swamp — A dark dank swamp – always a nice place for adventure…

They found two sets of tracks leading away from the ruin and decided to follow the track instead of going into the ruin, which they wanted to return to later. Some miles from the ruin the area became more marshy, and they saw charms in the trees and elven runes in the tree, which they translated into warnings of an ancient fey creature living in the area.

Jarn, the nominal leader of the group, could tell them of how his order once fought a coven of hags, and how badly that went, and that they can take the form of other humanoids. After some deliberation, they wearily decided to move forward and find a small swamp with a 150 foot tall tree stump growing in the middle, which is clearly the home of someone.

Next session is tonight! I look forward to seeing how they approach this challenge?

Session 7: Let the Hexcrawl begin!

February 22, 2016 rasmusnord01Leave a comment

My firstborn arrived last week. I now hope to raise a girl who loves games! Time will tell if she will play role-playing games like her dad. Her arrival means a temporary suspension on my bi-weekly game, but my brain – despite being sleep deprived – is still overflowing with ideas for my campaign world. The challenge will be getting the time to write them down. Part of my current inspiration comes from watching a great blind Let’s Play of Dark Souls by the gamer Kay Watch Kay plays Dark Souls while I cook baby bottles and the like. I enjoy her focus on the lore, which I didn’t dive as deeply into when I played it, and it stokes my brain.

The Session:

The session started after the group defeated the undead that attacked them in the

isle of dread DM map — My own first hex crawl experience was on the infamous Isle of Dread with my first ever RPG character, the thief Falvin. Unfortunately, we only had one session on the island…

previous session. We spoke out of character about how each character probably experienced the last encounter, and consequently what they might suspect the wizard to be carrying in his backpack, which the undead sorcerers were clearly interested in (I chose this approach to avoid differing perceptions among the players creating disruptive conflicts in game. Conflicts between characters can be great, but they can be difficult to handle if players aren’t reasonably aligned on what is happening in the game, in my experience).

After some in-game discussions of the events, no big conflict erupted, as the gnome rogue was concealing the item the undead were after, but Jarn suspects that the wizard Welk has demon-summoning spells in his grimoire, or the like. The group was smaller than normal, and they decided not to investigate where the undead came from (to my surprise).

They continued back to the settlement, forded a rapid flowing small river and encountered a glade with a huge butterfly swarm. Jarn, who scouted ahead, felt tired when they landed on him (exhaustion level), but nothing happened. The druid investigated, and found a sleeping doe in the glade, but nothing inside the glade was dead.

After several days they finally reached the settlement, and were greeted as heroes. The new arrivals had settled a bit, with the tavern being open under a large piece of sail cloth. They reported back to the governor, and staked out a site for their home (more on that in a future post). They also got a scroll that could heal the wizard’s burnt lungs and remove his exhaustion level.

After some deliberation, they decided to go back north to find the lost bodyguard, who’s trail they were on. They skirted the massive ruined city nearby, and could see that it had been under siege long ago, and that walls and a tower were breached, but that one breach was sealed by a massive wall of fire.

A few miles from the city, they found a small ruin with a hidden staircase to a cellar (random adventuring site). In the cellar there were three rooms, one was empty, another they had to hack their way into as it was blocked by giant mushrooms, and a giant constrictor was lurking inside, and the third they had to dig free. The third room turned out to be a wizard’s laboratory, and a strange stitched creature was huddling in a corner. It was indeed a flesh golem, but the four characters managed to defeat it without too much trouble, and they discovered 2 magic items and some potions and loot.

**A major part of the map, with a small area filled out in advance for the players.**

Hexcrawling:

When the group returned to the settlement I brought out my largest handout to date: a copy of the map I have done using Hexographer (http://www.hexographer.com/), but with more than 99% blank. The map contains 22500 numbered hexes, and I have no ambition that this campaign should reveal even a significant proportion of them. I hope that by providing the blank map, it will inspire them to go and explore, have fun annotating the map, and that it will provide a sense of accomplishment, when they reach new land marks and fill out hexes.

As my players read this blog, I unfortunately can’t share the original…

One thing is pulling in a different direction though. The huge ruined city I placed close to the settlement has a magnetic effect on the players, and I think it will consume many sessions going forward. A lot of my current thoughts are going into how I will run that ruin, and what is contained within. Currently, I’m working with an approach like the Parlainth box set from my beloved Earthdawn game (A Black Gate post on Earthdawn), where each section of the city has certain characteristics, but aren’t mapped in detail (unlike e.g. the Ruins of Myth Drannor box set from AD&D). I think I will add – if I can find the time – random encounters to each section and a few significant land marks. And improve my winging ability…

D&D Session 6: Random Encounters (or is it?)

January 25, 2016January 25, 2016 rasmusnord012 Comments

Wednesday we had one of the best sessions of the campaign so far. The characters have to make their way back to the settlement with the seven survivors of the wrecked ship. It is a week-long trip (at least), and here is where my extensive list of random encounters, locations and events comes into play.

It is a topic I’ve been reading about on the excellent DM David blog (for example: http://dmdavid.com/tag/three-unexpected-ways-wandering-monsters-improve-dd-play/) and I’ve used the same approach without fully realizing all the advantages. One advantage is that the random encounters create a real sense of threat when travelling, but they can also be a reward for exploring, by adding wondrous and strange locations with potential treasure and lore.

I’ve decided to post the random encounter table below, where my players can also see it.

Knowing the rules and being able to make decisions based on rules is already a core part

wilderness survival — I want wilderness exploration to be fun, rewarding and to drive the plot forward.

of D&D. Having a mechanical understanding of the encounter system can add a level of tension and excitement in my view. It should add depth and interesting discussions when the players understand the dangers and potential rewards of travel into lands where they don’t know what awaits over the next hill. It is certainly much more interesting than players with meta-knowledge of the monsters, which is why I alter monsters in almost all encounters in a meaningful way.

Session 6:

The game started after their hard encounter with kuo-toa. The half-orc Arak buried their casualty, while their aspiring leader, Jarn, tries to instill some confidence in the surviving NPCs without much luck (his character is only 16 years old, so that seemed very reasonable). They move their camp away from the carnage and successfully gain a full nights rest while scavengers of the forest fight over the kuo-toa corpses. In the morning they decide to split up (I don’t know how they dare…?). The ranger and druid will try to follow the trail of the final survivor of the ship wreck – a bodyguard of the royal envoy – a little longer, and return to the group before nightfall, as they travel much quicker in the forest. The rest of the group with the NPC survivors travel south.

The druid and ranger follows the trail, find a goblin trap the bodyguard walked into. A little later they find a pink giant mushroom that glows (random encounter), and avoid it out of fear. Finally, they find a place where he rested and were set upon by a goblin hunting party who followed his blood trail. He managed to defeat them, but retreated further into the woods. The two characters decide to turn back and catch up with the rest.

The main group reaches a wide gorge (random encounter), which is basically a skill challenge, which they can decide to forego and spend an extra day travelling, or attempt, where failure means a longer delay. They attempt the skill challenge and manages easily (natural 20), to get all the people across the gorge.

They camp and the ranger and druid catches up with them.

The next day I decide that the next time I roll a random encounter, I will introduce a significant random encounter that has a plot relevance. That happens the second night. They camp on a large cliff, and during the night the wizard is haunted by nightmares. He awakes with the sound of claws on rock and seeing empty eye sockets. He immediately casts a spell, and the two characters on guard notice that something is coming up the cliff.

943328-lich — The undead had many game features which interacted well with player abilities.

Combat begins with 15 skeletons and two undead spell casters (5ht level sorcerers) arriving a round later. The plot hook is that they are after an item which the wizard has brought to the new lands (or more accurately, fled…). The two sorcerers are have cast fly, and are only interested in that item, and attacks the wizard. When they defeat him, one of them lands and grabs his backpack. The rest of the combat the undead tries to get away with the item, the fly spell fails however, and the gnome arcane trickster (who helped “procure” the item in the first place), manages to get the item out of the pack. Ultimately, the group defeats the undead, and that is the end of the session.

Next session will feature some pertinent questions for the wizard, and perhaps exploration of where the undead came from. And more travelling and random encounters!

Thoughts on the session:

Several things worked well. The random encounters, and the combat situation were fun and added a lot of flavor. The players were challenged and surprised by the dispel magic and other spells the undead cast. The combat was quite dynamic and tactically interesting, with various spells such as darkness and fog cloud used to protect the NPCs and characters. It worked almost as a game of ‘tag!’ and everyone played an important role.

I also use a bunch of notes with written questions to the characters, which players draw at random, typically when they’ve camped. Questions like: Who do you know who’ve been killed in the war? And: What is your fondest childhood memory? The first question came up in the session, and was great characterization for Jarn Ashford III.

The fact that there had been random encounters meant that the players seemed initially unaware that there was a plot reason for the combat. I really like that. Keeping players uncertain of what is planned and what is random I think will create a very interesting campaign. The players won’t feel the same inclination to go with what the DM presents, because they assume that it is where the plot is leading them, but will go with what their characters desires and thinks (I hope).

The random encounters also add fun for both me and the players, as I won’t know how the session and story will turn out either. I need to add a few things though: more lore connected to the world in the encounters, either via minor sites of interest or NPCs. I should also add actual random events/encounters with deeper plot hooks.

I also need to introduce rules for disengaging/fleeing from combat, as D&Ds movement rules are not useful for that. As there are overwhelming encounters on the list, there has to be a way to also withdraw or flee.

I need to add encountering NPCs to the list, to add variety to the list.

I have to keep being patient and let each session play out at the pace the dice dictates.

The Current Encounter Table:

This is the current encounter table I use. I’ve removed specific names from the list to avoid spoilers for my players. I try to include the distance of the encounter in the encounter description instead of having a separate random table. There is also another list with random monsters for the area they are in, when I roll 7, 10 or 13.

Encounter chance per day is 1 in 6 if in stealth mode or 2 in 6 if travelling normally. Roll twice if forced marching.

Roll (1d6+1d8)	Encounter
2	An XX is devouring its prey, but might become more interested in the characters.
3	They run into a webbed area of the forest. There are X hiding among their webs.
4	The weather suddenly takes a turn: 1: heavy rain, 2 high winds, 3 fog 4 storm 5 roll twice 6: storm. Survival check DC 15 to maintain travel speed. Failure they have to make camp and loose 1 day.
5	The group finds a major random adventure site.
6	The camp is attacked or approached at night
7	The Group finds a site of interest
8	A party member encounters a goblin trap (Dex DC 15 pit trap with spikes 3d6+3 damage)
9	The group encounters an unanticipated obstacle, such as a fast flowing stream, a deep gorge or an area of marshlands. Moving through it requires a survival check DC 15. A success keeps up their speed, failure costs them 2 days of lost time. Moving around it takes 1 additional day.
10	The group is found by a hostile monster during the day.
11	An X approaches (plot relevant)
12	The Group encounters a group of elves, if they can spot them
13	The group is ambushed by goblins or hostile monsters
14	(Something extremely dangerous) approaches.

D&D Session 5: Prison Break!

January 11, 2016 rasmusnord01Leave a comment

Last week we returned to D&D after the holidays. It was an interesting session to me, as I felt it demonstrated some of the strengths in the campaign decisions I recently made, and perhaps showed a couple of places where I need to adjust. I will insert a couple of observations below.

The session was attended by 5 players. The druid and wizard were not present.

The Session
The game started inside the caves of the kuo-toa. They had not yet found prisoners, but had also seemingly avoided discovery. However a guard further down a tunnel had heard the final battle in the last

LeoCarrilloBeachCave-01 — The Kuo-toa caves had a permanently dry section, a section flooded at high tide and a permanently flooded section, which the characters couldn’t access (right now).

session and gone to the nearby priest (known as Whips in the kuo-toa culture). They sent the gnome rogue to scout ahead, who spotted the posse coming at them. He retreated and they made an ambush and relatively easily defeated the kuo-toa, but a couple of them escaped (and ran back to their mama).

However, the gnome who was sent down the tunnel to investigate failed to see the tracks going into an underwater tunnel, where the prisoners had been led. Therefore they moved quickly on, and found beyond some barricades a spawning pool for tad-pool-like kuo-toa. The mama-kuo toa and some friends came and attacked them as soon as they disturbed the pool. She was pretty tough with 3 attacks and high damage and poison. Luck was with the players though, and no-one were knocked to zero. They did expend a couple of the potions they found. After the mama-boss the group retreated, as they were pretty low on resources. As they had not found the prisoners, they decided to go back in, to see if they couldn’t locate them.
They actively investigate the water logged tunnel, the ranger saw the trail and found prisoners in a stockade beyond 10 meters of flooded tunnel. There were 8 or 9 prisoners, some of whom were wounded, and some who were combat able. They gave them weapons and fled from the loot the kuo-toa took from the wrecked ship, and went back to the forest. Here they decided to do a short rest and then take the prisoners along the trail of another survivor for a couple of hours, before they made camp.

murloc Xr9nxAo — Hard not to say like a World of Warcraft murloc when DMing Kuo-toa!

The kuo-toa sent out a strong patrol to catch their escaped prisoners, and caught up with the group shortly after they made camp. The kuo-toa attacked with numbers in their favour, and with a couple of crits by them, the group was quickly reduced to the Warlock, who used a Darkness spell to conceal himself in, while being able to fire Eldritch blast out of it, and the half-orc fighter/cleric. However, when only the Warlock remained, the kuo-toa had taken heavy losses and had no counter to the darkness, they fled. Leaving the group with one prisoner dead, and a missing finger on the ranger/paladin.

Observations:
I have stopped thinking about balance, and award less xp for fighting monsters. It works very positively in many ways.

– I spend much less time trying to make encounters and monsters and figuring out CR and xp awards. With 5-7 PCs its nearly impossible anyway…
– I worry less that the group easily defeats or are hard pressed by an encounter, and let the dice fall where they may. I’m simply not invested
– It encourages the players to think, and get scared and worried, because they know I haven’t ‘balanced it’ for their sake.

For the big final encounter, I looked at the number of kuo-toa left in the lair, and sent out a good strong group that felt realistic. I counted out a few regular kuo-toa, who would be fighting the NPC prisoners, but 12 kuo-toa, 2 whips and a monitor were a problem for five 3rd level characters.

The Warlock was highly effective the entire session with his darkness/spell sniper/eldritch blast combo. That was good from my point of view. He has built something effective, and he and the group should be rewarded for it. Of course, it could turn into a problem if the entire group feels outshined by it, or if it just becomes a default strategy. At slightly higher levels the opposition can have various counter moves, such as area spells, blind sense, dispel etc., so I’m not overly worried.

All of the characters got to use their special abilities, and getting those into play is important to me as a DM.

I did love that they overcome a very difficult encounter. With only 25% xp given, I felt it was a bit low. That kind of success should perhaps be separately rewarded.

A couple of things could have gone better.
– I would have liked to have had the tidal dynamics in the dungeon more in play.

– The paladin/ranger player felt bored some of the time, partly because he was hit by a couple of crits in the final encounter, and was down in round 2. I really hate when a player is bored.

– Based upon my descriptions the players made some more or less mistaken assumptions. Obviously my descriptions aren’t perfect, and a solution would be to tip our play style a bit more towards how Chris Perkins does it with his Acquisitions Incorporated. The players ask more clarifying questions, if they want information about a feature that is mentioned in the description. I like that a lot, as it lends itself better to improvisation, and the players potentially makes less faulty assumptions.

An Example of Chris Perkins DMing

For next time:
– Encourage players to ask more clarifying questions, instead of making false assumptions.

– Be mindful of the warlocks powerful combo and group dynamics.

– Make a separate xp award for victory against all odds.

*The featured image is a kuo-toa whip and from the 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual.

D&D Session 4

January 4, 2016 rasmusnord01Leave a comment

These are the notes from the latest session of our D&D campaign, which was in December. Our next session is Wednesday and should continue at a regular interval of two weeks.
The notes are not an attempt to be literary or to make for an exciting read. It is mainly a tool for me and my players, so they have a chance to remind themselves what happened last time.

For me, as a DM, I also find that writing a short synopsis of last session is a good way for me to start preparing for a new game session.

Session 4:
The party decides to investigate the grounded ship, leaving behind the female guard and the warlock (as he wasn’t present) at the camp. They make their way along the rocky reef to the wreck and are attacked by giant crabs. After they defeat the crabs they search the ship and locate a document sent for the governor of the settlement, Erin de Vin, and they find a batch of potions in a secret compartment in the captain’s cabin.

Someone, relatively powerful, has also animated the corpses on the vessel and suddenly they spring to life as zombies. They defeat them without too much trouble.

A discussion erupt over the gnome opening the sealed document from the Queen to the Governor. They re-seal the letter with mend, but after the letter is transcribed. It is however in a cipher.

They search another cave along the beach, and find the body of one of the elite body guards and a sailor. They loot them for their valuables.

The group continue their search for survivors, and at the top of the cliffs they look into some ruins and find a small campsite. The campsite had see

big kuo-toa — Big Kuo-Toa. They haven’t met one this size, yet… This illustration is from the 3rd Edition Underdark book for the Forgotten Realms, which I can recommend.

n combat recently, and booted prints flee away from the site and into the forest. After some deliberation, they decided to not pursue the trail now, but investigate the entrance to the cave where the Kuo-Toa probably lives in order to try and find more prisoners from the ship. They send in Horziwer, the gnome rogue, to investigate, is magically disguised as a kuo-toa. He wanders in, meet some guards and finds and odd labyrinth like area, made of drift wood, sea weed and skulls and bones, overlooked by a guard on a platform. The group decides to sneak in using Pass Without Trace. They take out the first two guards and manages to kill the two guards on the other side of the labyrinth and surprise and take out the kuo-toa reinforcements nearby. Here the session ended.

mindlands

Where the mind meets dice and paper

Tag: Dungeons & Dragons