Pathfinder 24-25 – Speed Run!

Alright, not much time to write this stuff up, so we’re going at turbo speed today!

Session 24:

Started book 6.  Needed to figure out how to get to Mhar Massif, where Karzoug is in the city of Xin Shalast.  Went back to Sandpoint, talked to the historian dude (Brodert Quink/Gune) to get more info.  Apparently it’s fucking impossible to reach, but two dwarf brothers may have.  Went to find them up near the mountains.

Both Dwarves are dead, one a cannibal ghost.  Yeah.  Creepy house, haunts, missing notebook pages, beat up a ghost.  Get the lost notes from the brothers.

Battle in book: Wendigo

Not ran.

Wendigo has 1 or 2 actual interesting abilities, all of which are 100% negated by the party’s nice new weapons.  Wendigo becomes a flying bite/claw/claw monster.  Yawn.

Session 25:

Followed directions in notes.  Followed river up to icy lake.  Found naked ice chick (nymph) who just happens to be the cousin of the nymph we saved before.  Yay coincidence!  Naked ice chick gives the party a safe haven in her little ice lake.  Warns against going north, but casts spells to help group anyways.

According to directions, party fasts and takes starvation damage, and halucinates a ghostly river.  The dwarves really never should have found this out, if they weren’t retarded.  Yay starvation!

Following halucinations!  Seems like as good idea as any.

Hey look, a city!  Fought some birdy men, helped a creepy, ugly dude to free his people, beat up an invisible demon to do so.  Found a ring with the Sihedron rune (seven pointed star).

Original creature they were supposed to fight:

Advanced dread vampire decapus sorcerer 10

Ring of invisibility, plus Greater Invisibility spell.  Plus reach, and 10 tentacle attacks each round.  Oh yeah, and energy drain!

Yeah… that one didn’t stay in the game.

Ugly dude that they helped showed them a faster way through the city, and a tunnel to further up the mountain in thanks.  Fought an evil ice witch (originally ice devil and wights, but this lady (Frostwind Virago) was just too much fun).  Another similar ring, and a +4 icy burst returning spear.

Lessons learned:

• School takes too much time.
• Campaign almost over.
• News about the convergence of those two items will come soon.

My players will hit me for doing this…

…before I put up the latest session writeups, but I have news!

I got fanmail!

Real, legitimate, non-spam fanmail!

I know!  I can’t believe it either.  It even included phrases like:

“Reading your response method was very refreshing… very pleasant.”

“I can’t believe the ease with which you speak of 4e, and haven’t even cracked the core books open!  You write like one of the game designers, and you write much more maturely than a college student…”

“I can’t wait until you have played it a while… I think your intellect and your personality will become a valuable resource for those of us who need a bit of re-set perspective.

It’s nice when someone says, “Did you look at it this way?” in a teaching, sharing sort of way.  And then, with delight, you say, “Oh!  No.. but.. wow!  Cooool!” “

“Your site, and your comments on other blogs, are fresh, witty, and enrich the people who read them, encouraging critical, creative thinking.”

and

“Be careful, because if Mearls reads your posts, they might try to kidnap you and let your vision guide the development of this edition over the next few years. :)”

It was in response to some comments of mine that I left on another blog, rather than this site in particular, but still.  It always surprises me that people read what I write.

In the same email exchange, however, I got asked some questions.  It seems that, despite the fact that I have yet to do a full readthrough of any of the three core 4e books, I have become somewhat of an authority on the subject, specifically character design.  If you disagree that I have become such an authority, shut up, I’m having a moment here! :annoyed:

So he asked me for my advice on converting two of the favourite characters/concepts of his group and players from 3e to 4e.  Well, I’m all too happy to oblige!

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Apparently there’s a carnival in town…

So, Donny began the second edition of an RPG Blog Carnival.  The topic this week: Homebrew.

I read his original post, and then NiTessine’s post on a campaign world I really, really want to play in some day.  And between the two, they inspired me to share my own dip into a homebrew world.

It was when I first started GMing, which was admittedly not that long ago.  I was trying to run the group through the WotC adventure “City of the Spider Queen.”

Now, this wasn’t the first time we had tried to get through this particular adventure, nor was it the last.  Not all that far in we were sick of it again, myself especially.  So we wandered back out of the Underdark, and I switched dimensions on them.

(Note, during this swapping of worlds, before they got to the other one, I also managed to spring a Wight Dragon on them, followed by a Gold Golem.  I also managed to send them through a reality-warping series of hallways on their way.  I realise now that I wasn’t so much bored with CotSQ as bored with standard fantasy tropes in general, and wanted to mix it up a bit.)

This new world had next to nothing written about it, and most of what was written happened after the group arrived there, but I had it all made in my head.  I even made a map within a few weeks.  I dubbed it Generica, since there was nothing specific or extraordinary about it.

But I was wrong.  Looking back now, I see that in my desire to escape from standard fantasy, I had actually created a very different, very unique world.  The portal to this world deposited them in a desert.  As they crossed a dune, they came to an arabian-inspired city… of Dwarves.

The Elves were plainsmen, I believe.  The Halflings, savage jungle-dwellers (if I remember correctly).  I basically took every standard fantasy trope I could think of and turned it on its head.

The main plot was centered around dragons, and could have been quite good with a bit more work.  We stopped playing that game before we got too far, though.

In the time since, whenever musing about where to set the next game, I’ve often gotten had a player suggest Generica.  I always assumed it was in jest, and perhaps it is.  But someday, maybe I should call their bluff, and return them to the land of Generica, where everything is most definitely not generic.

Pathfinder 22-23 – Many options, obvious choice

Phew!  Two sessions to report on this time.  Both took place in the same dungeon.

I said last time that I post faster if I have things to rant about.  That holds true, as the last two weeks were quite good.

If you remember, last time, the party stood at the mouth of a swirling portal, about to enter the demiplane of Runeforge.

Present for session 22:

• Nonnie, Halfling Sorcerer
• Reza, Dwarf Cleric
• Thorbar, Dwarf Barbarian
• Eretri, Aasimar Warlock

The group stepped through the swirling vortex and emerged in a hallway.  The portal closed behind them, leaving no sign of an entrance of any sort, and no visible way of getting back.

I’ll note that for this dungeon, you are supposed to assign each PC a primary sin.  They then gain bonuses when in that sin’s area, and take penalties in the areas belonging to opposed sins.

This was in-fucking-credibly easy for our group!

• Nox – Greed (“Lewtz!”)
• Thorbar – Wrath (Barbarian who likes to smash things.)
• Nonnie – Pride (If you aren’t sure about this one, wait for the pride section below and it will be clear.)
• Eretri – Gluttony (Also includes lust for power.  Greed and wrath were also possible, but both of those, for Eretri, are in the search for personal power.  Also, Warlock.)
• Ristan – Lust (Bard.  ‘Nuff said.)
• Reza – Envy (This one was difficult, as Reza was actually fairly virtuous, or at least not exceptionally sinful.  Especially not in any one specific way.  But I then ran it by the other players once Reza’s player left during session 22, and we decided on envy, due to, well, comments like this one. 😆 )

They followed the hall to a central room with seven statues in front of seven hallways and a bubbling pool of prismatic liquid in the center.  Thorbar pulled a rat out of his bag of tricks and shoved into into the pool, splashing some of the scalding hot liquid onto himself.  The rat screamed in pain and skittered off once released.  Nonnie’s further examination revealed that the pool was used for enchanting items.  On this, Eretri dipped his mace in, getting splashed with burningly cold liquid, with little other effect.

Hot… cold… sufficiently confused, the group turned their attention to the statues and hallways.

The seven hallways each are valid options from the players’ points of view, and of course they pick the ones that I had spent the least amount of time prepping.  The seven rooms take up 2/3 of the adventure in this book, however, so it’s difficult to adequately prepare.

That said, the hall they chose should really have been obvious.

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Pathfinder 18-21 – Fuck, it’s been a while

Yeah… so it seems that “a day or two” translates to a month, when I’m working 10 hour days.

So, we’ve had 4 sessions in that time.  I’ll go through them as if they were one, and I’ll be fairly quick about it.

One thing I noticed, though, is that I blog much faster when the module really pisses me off, which it hasn’t been doing as much recently.  Huh.  I wonder what that says about me.

When we last left our intrepid heroes, they had finished off an annoying part of Book 4, and were continuing on after a room of zombies.

From there, they entered a hallway with a big inscribed (locked) door at one end.  They ignored it, assuming it to be Mokmurian (Stone Giant leader), and went the other way first.

(I should note, if you haven’t figured it out yet, that my players tend to play D&D like Diablo or NWN.  Perhaps a comparison to WoW raids could be made, but I’m not the one to do it.  Explore and loot everything before hitting the boss to end the dungeon.  This will possibly change once we’re playing 4e and they realise how treasure works in that edition, though that’s doubtful.  ^_^   (Note for my players who read this, most enemies don’t have magical treasure in 4e.  You won’t walk out of a dungeon with 50 +1 rapiers to sell.  You’ll walk out with a smaller number of more useful items instead.))

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Stupid Monsters ahoy!

Log of the last session will be up in a day or two.

For now, I’m sure most of you have seen Jared Hindman’s Dungeons and Dragons: Celebrating 30 Years of Very Stupid Monsters.  If you haven’t, go read it now for context.

You see, after writing that article, it took off beyond Jared’s wildest expectations.  To the point where he got brought into a local (Berlin) D&D group, and has been playing for the last 6 months, including GMing at D&D Game Day.

So, of course, he wrote another article.  Well, two actually.

A Noobian’s Guide to 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons.

Dungeons & Dragons:  Celebrating 30+ Years of Stupid Monsters:  PART TWO.

Read.  Enjoy.  Comment.

And if you like his stuff, feel free to support him by getting him to custom-paint you a banner ad.  It’s cheap, because he sucks at business. 😛

Pathfinder 16 & 17 – Good sections, but…

Hey look!  I’m not dead!

That’s right, this writeup will include two sessions.  This is for two reasons.  First, it will get us up to date.  Second, the last session was rather short.

Present for both of these sessions:

• Nox, Changeling Swordsage
• Reza, Dwarf Cleric
• Nonnie, Halfling Sorcerer
• Eretri, Aasimar Warlock

So, we teleport as close as we can get to the destination.  This means the giant landmark at the base of the Storval Plateau, the Storval Stair.

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Final thoughts after marathon 4e release day events

In no particular order:

TPK in a casual release game with casual players unattached to the characters, which wins us prizes and status as the (likely) first post-release 4e tpk in Winnipeg = awesome!!!

People have dissed Splug the goblin for trying to be Meepo (Sunless Citadel) for 4e.  Well, for the short time we were with him, he was better!  Not only did the PCs take to him as a slave quickly, he soon assisted in combat (hitting the enemy none of them were hitting, by swinging a bag of rocks), and then saved our Warlord’s life with a heal check to stabilise her.  After this encounter, someone else took over DMing the game, and I joined in as Splug the goblin cleric, inspired to do more healing!  So much fun!

We played 4e with a random pickup group for 18 hours, as level 1 characters.  Never in that time period did the game stop being fun.  That says something.

We played Keep on the Shadowfell for 18 hours, with 2 DMs, without either of us ever having read the adventure.  The town RP was tricky, but not bad.  But the game never slowed down because of this, especially in battles.  The 4e game is just that easy to pick up and DM.  I predict that 4e will see the return of the true D&D pickup game.

Level 1 has never been so interesting.

People have been complaining about things conceptually online a lot, but these complaints disappear once you’re in the game.  Minions fucking rock, and make the battle that much more fun!  The at-will/encounter/daily power split works perfectly.  Clerics and Fighters are cool again!  I would play either again by choice.  Dragons!  Oh, dragons are so much fun!

The complaints:

Not everything is explained perfectly in the books, causing a bit of confusion.  These are minor, however, and just call for a quick ruling most of the time.

Paladins are… well, unimpressive.  I mean, they’re alright and they do what they’re meant to, but I much prefer the battlefield control powers of the Fighter.  This is a personal thing, though.  I probably won’t play a Paladin any time soon, but someone in my group (or yours) might love it.

That about covers it for now.  Caffieeeeeeennnne!!!!!!!!!!

32 Hours of 4e D&D!!!

Well, here we go. Today is the release date for 4e D&D, and we’re having our giant gaming event at Gameknight.

Today is opening up the books and playing for 24 hours. Tomorrow, I’m DMing for D&D Game Day. And the whole time, I’ll be posting occasional updates here with impressions, rants, and notifications of TPKs. Oh, and despite Dave’s assertion, we’ll see just how high level we can get in 24 hours of straight gaming.

You can read the updates here. If you use Twitter, you can also get them at http://twitter.com/ve4grm

(If the widget below doesn’t show up, just refresh the page, or use the link above. Twitter seems to be sketchy sometimes, but it’s the best way I know of to do this from a cell phone.)

Pathfinder 15 – Holy fuck, it’s a dragon!

Now that we’re finished with Book 3 of the adventure path, I want to make my feelings about this campaign series clear. Book 2, as anyone who reads the site regularly knows, had some serious issues, both in the writing and in the monster balance. Some of these were to the point that I was almost ready to give up on the adventure path altogether.

And then we hit Book 3, the Hook Mountain Massacre. Though it isn’t the type of adventure I’d run regularly (it’s a bit too… disturbing at times), this book saved the path for me. It’s creepy, flavourful, fun, and just plain awesome. The writing is great, the monsters are great (including the second Lamia Matriarch), and Nicolas Logue is one warped writer.

As such, the game is still going strong. Book 4 looks to be pretty solid as well. We should be done it this weekend, and aside from one minor issue (which I’ll go into next post), I have yet to see any major problems.

Present this session:

• Nox, Changeling Swordsage
• Nonnie, Halfling Sorcerer
• Reza, Dwarven Cleric
• Thorbar, Dwarven Barbarian
• Eretri, Aasimar Warlock

The party had decided to stay in Fort Prefect, their new home.  The winter passes, cold but enjoyable.  They enjoy their much-deserved downtime.

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