Once again, more nerdy observation.
In previous posts we talked about narrative, simulationist, and gamist design philosophies. Now we're going to talk about something a bit more nitty-gritty in the way mechanics are actually designed.
Good storytellers will tell you that great stories always involve the character being forced to make sub-optimum decisions. The same goes with great game design. A good game or gaming scenario relies on the idea that players have a limited number of choices to make as they proceed, and that the utility of some choices, usually all of them, is limited.
How games manage these suboptimal choices can generally be categorized in one of two ways: risk management and resource management.
Resource management is, not unsurprisingly, fairly common across all games, but it bears a little bit of discussion for any rank amateurs coming upon this blog. The idea is to provide players a resource or resources, then limit their access to those resources, forcing them to spend those resources carefully to obtain their goals.
Table-top RPGs typically use character-centered resources. These can be "action points," that help a character achieve success (such a Inspiration in 5e, or Willpower in Onyx Path's Storyteller games, for example), direct resources that are spent on taking certain actions (weapon ammo, spell slots), and "time" resources for combat, sometimes referred to as an action economy. More narrative games will focus on more player-centered resources: "drama points" that allow them to control the shape of the story. In narrative games these point economies often ebb one way then another: as players spend their points, the GM accumulates them and vice versa. This is meant to simulate the turns of fortune found in most stories. The heroes score a victory, are dealt several defeats, then come back to achieve victory (generally).
Risk management is also common, but again, deserves some explanation. Every action a player chooses to take carries with it a risk of failure. The player has to judge if the odds of success are worth the effort to seek success. Anytime a player rolls a die or draws a card, they're engaging in risk management. Risk management in games is incredibly popular. Not only because our brains go haywire from random reward cycles, but you have to admit that rolling dice and drawing cards is FUN.
Many narrative games, even if they rely on resource management to drive the story, will still incorporate risk management to help add that uncertainty to the outcome. In the end, nothing beats those improved moments of dizzyingly high success and crushing abysmal failures that you experience at a game table. Further, many of the better narrative games relying on risk management, also focus of "fail forward" and "succeed at cost" mechanics. Apocalypse World and FATE both incorporate this. When player's "lose" a confrontation in FATE, they are rewarded with fate points and an opportunity to dictate the terms of their loss. So instead of dying, they might be captured with an opportunity to escape. Apocalypse World has the players only achieve complete success on the highest rolls. With merely average rolls they only achieve a part of the goal of their move, or are forced so spend a resource to achieve the goal.
These interplays aren't really good or bad; that is a matter of preference. But, system matters. And how the system emulates the kind of game will matter. Superhero games often use dice pools because its fun and powerful feeling to pick up a big old pile of dice and roll it. Apocalypse World, FATE, and d20 are so popular as open systems because they're fairly easy to hack AND have very intuitive measures for calculating risk. Collectible card games, deck building games, and assymetrical card games are fun because they rely on an interplay of risk and resource management.
As I've already said, as a DM I strive for the narrativist ideal, even when I'm hampered by more gamist mechanics. That said, 5e's risk and resource management interplay is one of the more robust in the history of the game. It also is fairly "hackable." And while third-party material is trickling onto the shelves, we're not seeing the storm we saw with the introduction of OGL in 2000. That's probably for the best. The OGL market bubble burst pretty quickly and pretty hard. In fact, that third party trickle, combined with the fact that OGL d20 hacks, like Pathfinder, DCC RPG, and 13th Age, are still being supported by their creators is a good sign that maybe after 40 years, the RPG industry has managed to mature somewhat and realize its limitations.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Saturday, August 27, 2016
One Day I Will Read Stat Blocks More Thoroughly
When we last left our heroes, they had killed the ancient Baba Lysaga and recovered the Martikov's magic grape growing gems from her "Not Baba Yaga's Hut at All" hut.
This week, Joseph and Blake weren't feeling well. So they were missing a rogue and one of their blasters, but they had a tankish character in the form of Sarra.
While random encounters had been few on some of their more recent journeys, this one proved to be an exception. While taking the gem back to the vineyard and winery, the ran into Kasimir Velikov, the leader of the dusk elves, surrounded by needle blights at the Luna River Crossroads not far from Vallaki. This was really a curb stomp battle. The blights really couldn't provide an adequate threat to a group of 8th level adventurers. Of course, the players ought to enjoy the benefits of being high level. Like steam rolling encounters that might have been challenging at one point.
Velikov told the characters he had learned that Strahd discovered the secrets of Undeath in a place called the Amber Temple high in the Tsolenka Pass on Mount Ghakis. He wanted to visit the place, hoping that there he could learn the secrets of returning his sister, whose soul has been imprisoned in Strahd's castle, to life. Since, naturally, sometimes you gotta do an escort mission, he wanted the PCs to accompany him. The group agreed, and they set off.
First they needed to return the gem to vineyard. Along the way they found another bundle of clothes hidden by a lycanthrope. They also met a group of Vistani at the Raven River crossroads, but the party declined their offer of guides.
They returned the gem to the vineyard and Damian Martikov rejoined the group for the next leg of their journey up Tsolenka Pass. For the most part, the journey was uneventful. They found another hidden bundle of clothes. At Lop's insistence, they had Damien examine it, and he instructed the PCs on markings left by members of the Order of the Feather when they hide their supplies, so the party could distinguish between clothes left by wereravens from ones left by werewolves. Later, thanks to Sarra, they spotted a hunting trap hidden in the road. Lop set it off with a stick, and the journey continued.
Tsolenka pass is everything a mountain pass ought to be: cold, misty, and snowy. It also proved to the home of a giant goat that Kasimir identified for the party as Sangzor, an old terror plaguing the mountain pass. The goat's schtick is to ram a party member and push them off the narrow mountain path and into the ravine. Unfortunately, it rolled last for initiative, so a pelting from the party killed it before it could make its charge. Still, if it had succeeded, a hundred foot drop is 10d6 damage. Still in the realm of debilitating or deadly to 8th level characters.
They reached a gate house and wall in the pass with an old guard tower just beyond. The portcullis in the gate house opened with a screeching of metal as they approached, but the archway beyond was filled with green flame. Not sure how to handle the flame, the party dallied. After a minute, the portcullis closed.
Here's the hint: yes that green flame was going to be damaging, but probably not as troublesome as what ended up happening. Cugel used levitate to reach the top of the wall, then slung a rope for everyone to climb over. Once the party was passed the gatehouse, two stone figures of vulture-like humanoids came to life as vrocks and attacked.
Vrocks, sometimes called vulture demons (since that's what they look like), are demons. These are the first fiends the PCs have met. And in fact, I think these are the first fiends this group of players has squared off with ever--they didn't play through Out of the Abyss. They can fly, have plenty of hit points, and can hit pretty hard. They have two schticks: a stunning screech, which they opened with that proved surprisingly uneffective, stunning only Damian, and a cloud of nasty, icky spores. This managed to poison Lop and Tathora. Of course, being a bad DM, I missed something important in their stat block.
I did note they have magic resistance. In previous editions, this meant they have a chance to ignore a lot of offensive spells just out of hand. No longer. That feature simply gives them advantage on saving throws against spells. It makes them less likely to be fully effected by certain offensive spells, but perfectly susceptible to spell attacks.
But I missed an important bit: Kasimir opened with a fireball, because not all escort subjects are weak and useless. It was a surprisingly effective opener. He rolled decent damage and one of the vrocks actually failed its save. However, they had, in addition to being resistant to non-magical weapon attacks, resistance to fire. I skimmed that on their stat block because those two types of resistances used to be sorted in completely different parts of the stat block. In my own defense, I'm also playing in a 3.5 game and a Pathfinder game, so I read a few too many stat blocks to keep all the formatting straight.
I did catch it. But only to reduce the fire damage on a fire bolt spell on the last vrock. It really only made it so it took one more attack to kill it. That said, aside from turning away good old fashioned fireballs, that resistance was probably also to discourage tactical minded PCs from relying two much on pushing the things through the wall of fire. Actually, I'm surprised no one thought to try that.
When we return, they'll continue their trek up Tsolenka Pass. Who knows, maybe one of them will catch frostbite?
This week, Joseph and Blake weren't feeling well. So they were missing a rogue and one of their blasters, but they had a tankish character in the form of Sarra.
While random encounters had been few on some of their more recent journeys, this one proved to be an exception. While taking the gem back to the vineyard and winery, the ran into Kasimir Velikov, the leader of the dusk elves, surrounded by needle blights at the Luna River Crossroads not far from Vallaki. This was really a curb stomp battle. The blights really couldn't provide an adequate threat to a group of 8th level adventurers. Of course, the players ought to enjoy the benefits of being high level. Like steam rolling encounters that might have been challenging at one point.
Velikov told the characters he had learned that Strahd discovered the secrets of Undeath in a place called the Amber Temple high in the Tsolenka Pass on Mount Ghakis. He wanted to visit the place, hoping that there he could learn the secrets of returning his sister, whose soul has been imprisoned in Strahd's castle, to life. Since, naturally, sometimes you gotta do an escort mission, he wanted the PCs to accompany him. The group agreed, and they set off.
First they needed to return the gem to vineyard. Along the way they found another bundle of clothes hidden by a lycanthrope. They also met a group of Vistani at the Raven River crossroads, but the party declined their offer of guides.
They returned the gem to the vineyard and Damian Martikov rejoined the group for the next leg of their journey up Tsolenka Pass. For the most part, the journey was uneventful. They found another hidden bundle of clothes. At Lop's insistence, they had Damien examine it, and he instructed the PCs on markings left by members of the Order of the Feather when they hide their supplies, so the party could distinguish between clothes left by wereravens from ones left by werewolves. Later, thanks to Sarra, they spotted a hunting trap hidden in the road. Lop set it off with a stick, and the journey continued.
Tsolenka pass is everything a mountain pass ought to be: cold, misty, and snowy. It also proved to the home of a giant goat that Kasimir identified for the party as Sangzor, an old terror plaguing the mountain pass. The goat's schtick is to ram a party member and push them off the narrow mountain path and into the ravine. Unfortunately, it rolled last for initiative, so a pelting from the party killed it before it could make its charge. Still, if it had succeeded, a hundred foot drop is 10d6 damage. Still in the realm of debilitating or deadly to 8th level characters.
They reached a gate house and wall in the pass with an old guard tower just beyond. The portcullis in the gate house opened with a screeching of metal as they approached, but the archway beyond was filled with green flame. Not sure how to handle the flame, the party dallied. After a minute, the portcullis closed.
Here's the hint: yes that green flame was going to be damaging, but probably not as troublesome as what ended up happening. Cugel used levitate to reach the top of the wall, then slung a rope for everyone to climb over. Once the party was passed the gatehouse, two stone figures of vulture-like humanoids came to life as vrocks and attacked.
Vrocks, sometimes called vulture demons (since that's what they look like), are demons. These are the first fiends the PCs have met. And in fact, I think these are the first fiends this group of players has squared off with ever--they didn't play through Out of the Abyss. They can fly, have plenty of hit points, and can hit pretty hard. They have two schticks: a stunning screech, which they opened with that proved surprisingly uneffective, stunning only Damian, and a cloud of nasty, icky spores. This managed to poison Lop and Tathora. Of course, being a bad DM, I missed something important in their stat block.
I did note they have magic resistance. In previous editions, this meant they have a chance to ignore a lot of offensive spells just out of hand. No longer. That feature simply gives them advantage on saving throws against spells. It makes them less likely to be fully effected by certain offensive spells, but perfectly susceptible to spell attacks.
But I missed an important bit: Kasimir opened with a fireball, because not all escort subjects are weak and useless. It was a surprisingly effective opener. He rolled decent damage and one of the vrocks actually failed its save. However, they had, in addition to being resistant to non-magical weapon attacks, resistance to fire. I skimmed that on their stat block because those two types of resistances used to be sorted in completely different parts of the stat block. In my own defense, I'm also playing in a 3.5 game and a Pathfinder game, so I read a few too many stat blocks to keep all the formatting straight.
I did catch it. But only to reduce the fire damage on a fire bolt spell on the last vrock. It really only made it so it took one more attack to kill it. That said, aside from turning away good old fashioned fireballs, that resistance was probably also to discourage tactical minded PCs from relying two much on pushing the things through the wall of fire. Actually, I'm surprised no one thought to try that.
When we return, they'll continue their trek up Tsolenka Pass. Who knows, maybe one of them will catch frostbite?
Sunday, August 21, 2016
How do you "enter" A Creature that is also a structure?
Unfortunately, Hillary was ill and could not make it. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: going without a tank is a Bad Idea.
The party's journey to Berez was mostly uneventful. The did find a defiled grave along the side of the road. Cugel didn't have anything to do with this particular corpse going missing, at least this time.
Berez is a ruined village partially sunk into a swamp. The group investigated some ruined buildings, then approached the ruins of the burgomaster's mansion on a small hill. Ignoring the nearby goats enclosed by a pen where the fence posts were topped by bleached human skulls, Lop peered over a crumbling stone wall and into the overgrown garden, seeing a few marble statues of nude male and female human forms. Despite the party's initial fears, the figures were in classic poses, not the shrinking away and screaming poses you'd expect from the victims of petrification.
They then moved on to the ruins of the house proper. They entered, Cugel using improved invisibility. Of course, improved invisibility isn't good for scouting, it's a combat spell. It only lasts a minute, but isn't undone by attacking like regular invisibility. Eventually the house's inhabitant, the ghost of the village's last Burgomaster, Lazlo Ulrich, materialized and confronted our fast-talking necromancer. The ghost, of course, wasn't too pleased at interlopers rooting through the remnants of its belongings looking for valuables. Fortunately, the party mentioned their own feud with Strahd.
Lazlo's shade was tied to the village for all eternity because he took the life of a girl named Marina before she could fall to the depredations of Strahd. The vampire lord then flooded the village. When the party asked about Marina, the ghost gave an exact description of Ireena Kolyana. Tathora mentioned that they had removed Marina from Strahd's grasp forever. The ghost only partially believed her, but it was enough for him to point them towards Baba Lysaga's hut built on the stump of a very large tree.
The PCs approached the shack, which had an upside down giants skull in front of the front door. Inside they saw ramshackle furniture bolted to the floor, and a crib bearing a cherubic looking baby not bolted to the floor. An old lady was singing lullabies to the child. Amrus asked who she was. The old lady leered at the party and replied, "I've been expecting you." She then called for her "children," and what was possibly the hardest battle the group has been through (so far) commenced.
High level spell casters are brutal. First off, she has scrying on her list. This is the DM's excuse to have an NPC know exactly how the party will fight and plan accordingly. Second, she casts at 16-th level. So she can open with some seriously deadly spells. Third, her hut, with the mystic gem she stole from the Martikovs in it, is a Creature in and of itself, and a brutal one.
Baba Lysaga opened with power word: stun targeted at the fire wielding Lop. She didn't want him burning her scare crows before they could join the fray. Fortunately for Lop, she rolled very poorly on initiative, so Lop had taken a turn and had his reaction available to cost counterspell. It involves a little bit more than spending two blue mana. He needed to make a caster check with a DC of 10 + the spell's level--in this case 18. The diviner power is very handy for these moments sometimes. He had rolled a 19, so used that roll to guarantee his defense.
In the meantime, while the scarecrows slowly closed in (slowed down by the boggy terrain), the hut wailed on the PCs still outside. This proved a bit disastrous, because Baba Lysaga's next move was to cast finger of death at the already weakened Tathora. Going without tanks is a Bad Idea. Being without a healer is a Worse Idea. But the PCs got in their licks, too. Cugel managed an incredible 53 damage with a lightning bolt and also cast one of his newest spells, blight on Baba Lysaga.
Now we come to question from the title: how do you deal with a Creature that is also a building the characters can enter? Fortunately the hut didn't need to move; it already had its targets conveniently crowded around it. But the party did cram themselves into the hut. Under the theory that nothing would willingly punch itself in the gut or face, I made this a safe area. Other DMs would probably have cooked up a system for the PCs to enter the now mobile hut, but with the challenge (both in the difficulty and number of the monsters) presented to both the party and to me (lots of monsters and spell casters are hard to run) I opted to have them just enter the hut. The last question was one of area spells. Cugel and Ap's lightning bolts hit the hut and scarecrows outside, leaving sizeable holes in the walls. I'm a DM in a more narrative school, and I enjoy cinematic play, so that was how I ran it. Other DMs might have been more simulationist or strict, but I ran it my way.
The team was wise a focused fire on the deadly, deadly spell caster, dropping her before she could unleash some of her other deadly, deadly spells (like the aforementioned blight).
A few other things happened once they were in the hut with the scarecrows approaching. Poor Blake, playing Amrus like a CRPG character, decided to loot the chest in the hut before the fight was over. Also before searching it for traps. Glyph of warding is a heck of a spell. It blasted everyone in the hut with thunder damage and dropped Ap. The team was down their healer and one of their blasters.
However, with the hut squirming around and the party inside, they noticed an important clue: the crib and the baby, whom Baba Lysaga referred to as "Strahd," was an illusion. And a green light was coming up from the floorboards under it. Without any strength-based characters to pry up the floorboards, they used a spell to open it. In this case, Cugel used lightning bolt. The spell probably shouldn't have worked that way, but as I said, I'm sucker for those cinematic moments. And once they took the gem out, the hut stopped moving. Yes. The hut was a puzzle boss.
This gave them some time to revive the party as the scarecrows finally closed in. Lop used potions of healing to revive first Ap then Tathora. She then used her channel divinity followed by mass healing word to bring everyone's hit points back up to respectable. In the meantime, Cugel, Ap, and Lop climbed through one of those holes blasted in the side of the hut to climb to the roof to snipe at the scarecrows.
Scarecrows are among the weaker constructs in the game. One did manage to reach the hut and hit Amrus, inflicting him with an appropriate fear related status effect.
After that long battle with the area's "boss" monsters, the PCs had the gem the Martikovs needed. It was also late enough it was time to call it.
The party's journey to Berez was mostly uneventful. The did find a defiled grave along the side of the road. Cugel didn't have anything to do with this particular corpse going missing, at least this time.
Berez is a ruined village partially sunk into a swamp. The group investigated some ruined buildings, then approached the ruins of the burgomaster's mansion on a small hill. Ignoring the nearby goats enclosed by a pen where the fence posts were topped by bleached human skulls, Lop peered over a crumbling stone wall and into the overgrown garden, seeing a few marble statues of nude male and female human forms. Despite the party's initial fears, the figures were in classic poses, not the shrinking away and screaming poses you'd expect from the victims of petrification.
They then moved on to the ruins of the house proper. They entered, Cugel using improved invisibility. Of course, improved invisibility isn't good for scouting, it's a combat spell. It only lasts a minute, but isn't undone by attacking like regular invisibility. Eventually the house's inhabitant, the ghost of the village's last Burgomaster, Lazlo Ulrich, materialized and confronted our fast-talking necromancer. The ghost, of course, wasn't too pleased at interlopers rooting through the remnants of its belongings looking for valuables. Fortunately, the party mentioned their own feud with Strahd.
Lazlo's shade was tied to the village for all eternity because he took the life of a girl named Marina before she could fall to the depredations of Strahd. The vampire lord then flooded the village. When the party asked about Marina, the ghost gave an exact description of Ireena Kolyana. Tathora mentioned that they had removed Marina from Strahd's grasp forever. The ghost only partially believed her, but it was enough for him to point them towards Baba Lysaga's hut built on the stump of a very large tree.
The PCs approached the shack, which had an upside down giants skull in front of the front door. Inside they saw ramshackle furniture bolted to the floor, and a crib bearing a cherubic looking baby not bolted to the floor. An old lady was singing lullabies to the child. Amrus asked who she was. The old lady leered at the party and replied, "I've been expecting you." She then called for her "children," and what was possibly the hardest battle the group has been through (so far) commenced.
High level spell casters are brutal. First off, she has scrying on her list. This is the DM's excuse to have an NPC know exactly how the party will fight and plan accordingly. Second, she casts at 16-th level. So she can open with some seriously deadly spells. Third, her hut, with the mystic gem she stole from the Martikovs in it, is a Creature in and of itself, and a brutal one.
Baba Lysaga opened with power word: stun targeted at the fire wielding Lop. She didn't want him burning her scare crows before they could join the fray. Fortunately for Lop, she rolled very poorly on initiative, so Lop had taken a turn and had his reaction available to cost counterspell. It involves a little bit more than spending two blue mana. He needed to make a caster check with a DC of 10 + the spell's level--in this case 18. The diviner power is very handy for these moments sometimes. He had rolled a 19, so used that roll to guarantee his defense.
In the meantime, while the scarecrows slowly closed in (slowed down by the boggy terrain), the hut wailed on the PCs still outside. This proved a bit disastrous, because Baba Lysaga's next move was to cast finger of death at the already weakened Tathora. Going without tanks is a Bad Idea. Being without a healer is a Worse Idea. But the PCs got in their licks, too. Cugel managed an incredible 53 damage with a lightning bolt and also cast one of his newest spells, blight on Baba Lysaga.
Now we come to question from the title: how do you deal with a Creature that is also a building the characters can enter? Fortunately the hut didn't need to move; it already had its targets conveniently crowded around it. But the party did cram themselves into the hut. Under the theory that nothing would willingly punch itself in the gut or face, I made this a safe area. Other DMs would probably have cooked up a system for the PCs to enter the now mobile hut, but with the challenge (both in the difficulty and number of the monsters) presented to both the party and to me (lots of monsters and spell casters are hard to run) I opted to have them just enter the hut. The last question was one of area spells. Cugel and Ap's lightning bolts hit the hut and scarecrows outside, leaving sizeable holes in the walls. I'm a DM in a more narrative school, and I enjoy cinematic play, so that was how I ran it. Other DMs might have been more simulationist or strict, but I ran it my way.
The team was wise a focused fire on the deadly, deadly spell caster, dropping her before she could unleash some of her other deadly, deadly spells (like the aforementioned blight).
A few other things happened once they were in the hut with the scarecrows approaching. Poor Blake, playing Amrus like a CRPG character, decided to loot the chest in the hut before the fight was over. Also before searching it for traps. Glyph of warding is a heck of a spell. It blasted everyone in the hut with thunder damage and dropped Ap. The team was down their healer and one of their blasters.
However, with the hut squirming around and the party inside, they noticed an important clue: the crib and the baby, whom Baba Lysaga referred to as "Strahd," was an illusion. And a green light was coming up from the floorboards under it. Without any strength-based characters to pry up the floorboards, they used a spell to open it. In this case, Cugel used lightning bolt. The spell probably shouldn't have worked that way, but as I said, I'm sucker for those cinematic moments. And once they took the gem out, the hut stopped moving. Yes. The hut was a puzzle boss.
This gave them some time to revive the party as the scarecrows finally closed in. Lop used potions of healing to revive first Ap then Tathora. She then used her channel divinity followed by mass healing word to bring everyone's hit points back up to respectable. In the meantime, Cugel, Ap, and Lop climbed through one of those holes blasted in the side of the hut to climb to the roof to snipe at the scarecrows.
Scarecrows are among the weaker constructs in the game. One did manage to reach the hut and hit Amrus, inflicting him with an appropriate fear related status effect.
After that long battle with the area's "boss" monsters, the PCs had the gem the Martikovs needed. It was also late enough it was time to call it.
Monday, August 15, 2016
The Tome of Strahd
The party continued climbing Argynvostholt. The spiral stairs in the chapel proved to be a dead end, so they took a set of stairs on the other side of the foyer to the third level of the mansion. Here they reverted to classic "dungeon crawl" mode and started methodically opening doors.
The first door lead to a room with a long table, around which were seated six undead figures (more revenants). While not overtly hostile, one did ask, "Why do the living disturb the dead?" At this, the PCs opted to let the undead lie and closed the door. As Alec pointed out to the group (a little bit of meta-game thinking, but it does point to why I like the milestone system, anyway), since they aren't getting experience for killing monsters, there's no point is starting unnecessary fights. Obviously, there characters might not want to start unnecessary fights, but for more in-setting reasons like wanting to conserve their energy, or, in this case, to retrieve the item they're at the ruins to get and then get out with due haste.
The next door took them to a ransacked study, with empty bookshelves, a pair of empty chambers beyond, and slashed portrait of the mansion in its heyday. They found a scrap of paper, a fragment of an old journal hinting at the true nature of Argynvost, the commander of the knights that once lived here. Ap used mage hand to lift the flaps of the painting to get a better of idea of what it looked like. Then Lop decided to go all out and cast mending, fixing the painting. This summoned an apparition of a silver dragon, Argynvost himself. He tasked the party with retrieving his remains from a "room of ill omen" in Strahd's Castle and returning it to Argynvostholt, its proper resting place. There, the creature's spirit could "bring hope to this dark land."
It's definitely telling that in classic Metroidvania style, the party is expected to make a few forays into and then out of Castle Ravenloft before finally choosing to confront Strahd. Thus far, my group has learned that it needs to rescue Emil Toranescue and recover the skull of Argynvost.
One of the empty chambers was Argynvost's sleeping chamber, the other was lined with lead and had a, now broken reinforced door. The mages could tell that the lead would block detection magic, so that room was probably reserved for the dragon's hoard.
The party continued climbing, reaching the roof. They then climbed the tower at the top of the mansion. The paused to check out some spiral stairs, which lead to archer nests, containing phantom warriors. These new monsters for Curse of Strahd are basically militaristic ghosts that fight with the weapons and wear the armor they wore of old. They aren't otherwise terribly remarkable; the only other note-worthy thing is that they have multiattack and their attacks do force damage. They also lack damage resistance.
The battle was short, and the party continued climbing, eventually finding the Tome of Strahd, the item they had come to find. They learned more of the vampire lord's history and how he had become undead. They learned why Ireena having her soul set free was good for her, but why it angered Strahd so much.
At about this time, Tathora spotted an intruder peaking at them. Addressing the newcomer, they found it was a Vistana woman also interested in battling Strahd. She wished to know more about the book they had found. When Lop had his Strahd dummy speak, the woman threw a handaxe into the dummy's head. (Goosebumps or not, ventriloquist dummies are naturally kind of creepy.) Lop took it in stride, casting mending on his treasure. Eventually, the woman revealed herself as Ezmerelda D'Avenir, Van Richten apprentice.
The party soon learned that she had "borrowed without asking permission" a horse from the nearby Vistani camp and some of the Vistani were on her trail. Looking out the window, the party confirmed that yes, there were Vistani out front, waiting for her to come out.
The party, with Ezmerelda along, went to confront the Vistani. They found a group led by Arrigal, the rogue that had retrieved the wedding dress for them. Tathora particularly put out by his past actions, and told him so. He shrugged it off, and merely asked for Ezmerelda. The party refused to surrender her, and Arrigal wasn't interested in starting a fight, so he left them.
The party returned to Vallaki, hoping to meet with Kasimir Velikov, the head of the elves. They found that he was away, but the Martikovs did have news for the PCs: they had located on of the winery's missing gems in the hut of a hag living in the ruins of a village called Berez.
We broke at that point as the party prepared to venture to the village of Berez. They had also reached a milestone, so we took a few minutes to level everyone up.
When we return, Berez! And Scarecrows. And not the singing kind either.
The first door lead to a room with a long table, around which were seated six undead figures (more revenants). While not overtly hostile, one did ask, "Why do the living disturb the dead?" At this, the PCs opted to let the undead lie and closed the door. As Alec pointed out to the group (a little bit of meta-game thinking, but it does point to why I like the milestone system, anyway), since they aren't getting experience for killing monsters, there's no point is starting unnecessary fights. Obviously, there characters might not want to start unnecessary fights, but for more in-setting reasons like wanting to conserve their energy, or, in this case, to retrieve the item they're at the ruins to get and then get out with due haste.
The next door took them to a ransacked study, with empty bookshelves, a pair of empty chambers beyond, and slashed portrait of the mansion in its heyday. They found a scrap of paper, a fragment of an old journal hinting at the true nature of Argynvost, the commander of the knights that once lived here. Ap used mage hand to lift the flaps of the painting to get a better of idea of what it looked like. Then Lop decided to go all out and cast mending, fixing the painting. This summoned an apparition of a silver dragon, Argynvost himself. He tasked the party with retrieving his remains from a "room of ill omen" in Strahd's Castle and returning it to Argynvostholt, its proper resting place. There, the creature's spirit could "bring hope to this dark land."
It's definitely telling that in classic Metroidvania style, the party is expected to make a few forays into and then out of Castle Ravenloft before finally choosing to confront Strahd. Thus far, my group has learned that it needs to rescue Emil Toranescue and recover the skull of Argynvost.
One of the empty chambers was Argynvost's sleeping chamber, the other was lined with lead and had a, now broken reinforced door. The mages could tell that the lead would block detection magic, so that room was probably reserved for the dragon's hoard.
The party continued climbing, reaching the roof. They then climbed the tower at the top of the mansion. The paused to check out some spiral stairs, which lead to archer nests, containing phantom warriors. These new monsters for Curse of Strahd are basically militaristic ghosts that fight with the weapons and wear the armor they wore of old. They aren't otherwise terribly remarkable; the only other note-worthy thing is that they have multiattack and their attacks do force damage. They also lack damage resistance.
The battle was short, and the party continued climbing, eventually finding the Tome of Strahd, the item they had come to find. They learned more of the vampire lord's history and how he had become undead. They learned why Ireena having her soul set free was good for her, but why it angered Strahd so much.
At about this time, Tathora spotted an intruder peaking at them. Addressing the newcomer, they found it was a Vistana woman also interested in battling Strahd. She wished to know more about the book they had found. When Lop had his Strahd dummy speak, the woman threw a handaxe into the dummy's head. (Goosebumps or not, ventriloquist dummies are naturally kind of creepy.) Lop took it in stride, casting mending on his treasure. Eventually, the woman revealed herself as Ezmerelda D'Avenir, Van Richten apprentice.
The party soon learned that she had "borrowed without asking permission" a horse from the nearby Vistani camp and some of the Vistani were on her trail. Looking out the window, the party confirmed that yes, there were Vistani out front, waiting for her to come out.
The party, with Ezmerelda along, went to confront the Vistani. They found a group led by Arrigal, the rogue that had retrieved the wedding dress for them. Tathora particularly put out by his past actions, and told him so. He shrugged it off, and merely asked for Ezmerelda. The party refused to surrender her, and Arrigal wasn't interested in starting a fight, so he left them.
The party returned to Vallaki, hoping to meet with Kasimir Velikov, the head of the elves. They found that he was away, but the Martikovs did have news for the PCs: they had located on of the winery's missing gems in the hut of a hag living in the ruins of a village called Berez.
We broke at that point as the party prepared to venture to the village of Berez. They had also reached a milestone, so we took a few minutes to level everyone up.
When we return, Berez! And Scarecrows. And not the singing kind either.
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