Did I mention Kyla and I wanted to play Delta Green? I know we're still LFG, but maybe a blog will help get the word out.
Bear in mind, unlike this blog, there will be no meta-game commentary. In honor of the Lovecraft influence of that game, it's written as in-setting fiction recounting the events of the agent's missions. So look for the force to more resemble: "breathlessly unbelieving and horrified scholar" than "I love this! geek."
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Flaming Skulls of Fire!
For the younger set, due to language (because these monsters are just totally METAL!) this post is PG-13. Just check with your parent or guardian, first, please. I trust you.
Our party continued on after a short rest.
They discovered that a fissure in the rock wall of the room where they had fought the berserkers led outside, then checked the closed doors leading north. There they found a charred body and three skulls wreathed in green flame: flameskulls, because sometimes game designers just rip ideas off from the cover of metal albums. The skulls were watching through nearby arrow slits over-looking the main temple room, almost has if they were going to be sniping at a party of schmoes from there or something!
Blake, forgetting that I was proud of him in the last post, decided to have Amrus sneak past the skulls and explore the other doors leading off the corridor. Little bastard didn't roll anything less than a 20 on sneaking, and the darn skulls only have passive perceptions of 12.
I learned another reason why splitting the party is deadly: when the DM is forced to focus his attention on one player, the other players start to feel left out and restless. This makes people do Dumb Things. Or do what Joseph and Will did: pretend Lop and Ap were playing Cat's Cradle.
After several minutes of Amrus sneaking along and finding a room full of dried out potions an empty corridor, and model of a castle, Alec had Cugel cast invisibility and investigated. Seeing those totally bitchin' skulls and deciding they were dangerous, he positioned himself and hit them with a surprise lightning bolt. This would have been AWESOME. Except the skulls have a feature called magic resistance and are resistant to lightning damage.
Magic resistance is the bane of spellcasters. And this edition features the least awful version of it so far. In 2nd, there was a flat percent chance that the spell just wouldn't affect the target. Period. In 3rd, magic resistance was a DC the caster had to overcome with a caster level check, and there were feats available to increase that bonus. In 5th, the creature just has advantage on saving throws against spells. Meta-note: spells with to-hit rolls or that have no save (like magic missile) are unaffected. This is why it is the least awful version of that feature. So Cugel's lightning bolt did piddling damage, but Amrus finished off the one skull that failed its saving throw with a sneak attack.
However, Amrus saw a chest in that room with the model castle, so he hid from the fight to do some more looting. Again, Blake seems to have forgotten how proud of him I was after the last session.
Since the party is caster heavy: Lop, Cugel, Ap, and Tathora, the skulls proved resilient. In addition to resisting lightning and necrotic damage, they are immune to fire, cold, and poison damage. It's almost like they're snipers built to resist being sniped back. Still, when Sarra stepped in with her radiant melee damage, she managed to finish clearing them out.
The skulls go their licks in, though. One managed to herd Cugel with a flaming sphere. Another used a fireball once the party was suitably clumped in the hallway. They also rolled quite a bit of damage. My dice with the Mickey Head pips were smokin' with all the 6s rolled. However, at 9th level, even wizards can be tough enough to survive a strong hit. Tathora got everyone back up with her channel divinity and a mass healing word.
Once the smoke cleared, it was time for what Amrus wanted: loot. The chest contained a now empty scroll case, but Amrus looked further and found a false bottom concealing a tome of understanding, one of those handy-dandy stat bumping books. In this case, for Wisdom. The consensus was to give it to Tathora.
The party also found a staff of frost in the clutches of the corpse. This ended up in the hands of Lop.
Finally, they examined the model castle more closely. They realized it was a model of Castle Ravenloft itself, probably built by the architect. Lop was already planning to reduce/enlarge himself to see if he could check around inside. Probably hoping it might prove to be a full scale miniature with secret doors and everything.
Unfortunately, it was late enough that we had to break. I won't be running this week due to work scheduling, but this will be the last week where its the case, hopefully.
However, Kyla and I have started a Delta Green campaign. While currently LFG, we did a test run prelude for her character. Lovecraftian Horror and Government Conspiracies, it turns out, are fun! Look for more information and new blog about that.
Our party continued on after a short rest.
They discovered that a fissure in the rock wall of the room where they had fought the berserkers led outside, then checked the closed doors leading north. There they found a charred body and three skulls wreathed in green flame: flameskulls, because sometimes game designers just rip ideas off from the cover of metal albums. The skulls were watching through nearby arrow slits over-looking the main temple room, almost has if they were going to be sniping at a party of schmoes from there or something!
Blake, forgetting that I was proud of him in the last post, decided to have Amrus sneak past the skulls and explore the other doors leading off the corridor. Little bastard didn't roll anything less than a 20 on sneaking, and the darn skulls only have passive perceptions of 12.
I learned another reason why splitting the party is deadly: when the DM is forced to focus his attention on one player, the other players start to feel left out and restless. This makes people do Dumb Things. Or do what Joseph and Will did: pretend Lop and Ap were playing Cat's Cradle.
After several minutes of Amrus sneaking along and finding a room full of dried out potions an empty corridor, and model of a castle, Alec had Cugel cast invisibility and investigated. Seeing those totally bitchin' skulls and deciding they were dangerous, he positioned himself and hit them with a surprise lightning bolt. This would have been AWESOME. Except the skulls have a feature called magic resistance and are resistant to lightning damage.
Magic resistance is the bane of spellcasters. And this edition features the least awful version of it so far. In 2nd, there was a flat percent chance that the spell just wouldn't affect the target. Period. In 3rd, magic resistance was a DC the caster had to overcome with a caster level check, and there were feats available to increase that bonus. In 5th, the creature just has advantage on saving throws against spells. Meta-note: spells with to-hit rolls or that have no save (like magic missile) are unaffected. This is why it is the least awful version of that feature. So Cugel's lightning bolt did piddling damage, but Amrus finished off the one skull that failed its saving throw with a sneak attack.
However, Amrus saw a chest in that room with the model castle, so he hid from the fight to do some more looting. Again, Blake seems to have forgotten how proud of him I was after the last session.
Since the party is caster heavy: Lop, Cugel, Ap, and Tathora, the skulls proved resilient. In addition to resisting lightning and necrotic damage, they are immune to fire, cold, and poison damage. It's almost like they're snipers built to resist being sniped back. Still, when Sarra stepped in with her radiant melee damage, she managed to finish clearing them out.
The skulls go their licks in, though. One managed to herd Cugel with a flaming sphere. Another used a fireball once the party was suitably clumped in the hallway. They also rolled quite a bit of damage. My dice with the Mickey Head pips were smokin' with all the 6s rolled. However, at 9th level, even wizards can be tough enough to survive a strong hit. Tathora got everyone back up with her channel divinity and a mass healing word.
Once the smoke cleared, it was time for what Amrus wanted: loot. The chest contained a now empty scroll case, but Amrus looked further and found a false bottom concealing a tome of understanding, one of those handy-dandy stat bumping books. In this case, for Wisdom. The consensus was to give it to Tathora.
The party also found a staff of frost in the clutches of the corpse. This ended up in the hands of Lop.
Finally, they examined the model castle more closely. They realized it was a model of Castle Ravenloft itself, probably built by the architect. Lop was already planning to reduce/enlarge himself to see if he could check around inside. Probably hoping it might prove to be a full scale miniature with secret doors and everything.
Unfortunately, it was late enough that we had to break. I won't be running this week due to work scheduling, but this will be the last week where its the case, hopefully.
However, Kyla and I have started a Delta Green campaign. While currently LFG, we did a test run prelude for her character. Lovecraftian Horror and Government Conspiracies, it turns out, are fun! Look for more information and new blog about that.
Saturday, September 10, 2016
The Game Disintegration
Even though I couldn't run my regularly scheduled game yesterday, I did get to play Betrayal at House on the Hill. It is a fantastic board game. One of my favorites. I highly recommend it. I was going to talk more about that, but instead I bore witness to the disintegration of a table-top game over the past couple of days, and I decided to share my ponderings.
We were using Roll20, which has some great tools, but for some reason I was having connectivity issues with it. That isn't what caused the problem. Or maybe it contributed to it. We'll come back to that.
The GM was running a game based on Ghostbusters using the Savage Worlds game engine. The franchise is fun (yes, internet assholes out there, I did like the new movie), but that engine, as much as I like it, is problematic. We'll come back to that, too.
During our last session, our busters were investigating some rival ghost hunters who were clearly up to no good. However, we were having a hard time convincing the general public at large that was the case, but we had been mounting some evidence against them. But the last encounter of the session was what tore up the game.
We found these rival ghost chasers, the Ghost Dudes, consorting with a shadowy character in the parking lot of a church. My connectivity issues were heightening at this point, but as I understand it, the shadowy character was helping the Ghost Dudes conduct occult rituals to summon up ghosts for the ghost dudes to put down. When someone in the party moved to confront them, the GM called for initiative.
Needless to say, everything went ploon-shaped. Two of our team kidnapped that shadowy occult character in broad daylight, while I (supposedly playing the smart lawyer character; yes, sometimes I suck at role-playing) broadsided their van with a proton pack. We got in trouble with the law. Probably not as much as the EPA messed with them in the first film, but more than what happened after the very suspicious death of a character played by a high profile cameo in the new one.
The next day the GM sent an e-mail asking everyone what happened. He had been hoping we would approach the situation more realistically and not break a bunch of laws. He wanted us to focus on running our own business and using legal means to fight shady competitors. I actually, privately, e-mailed him some of my suspicions on what happened. He thanked me for my input, and waited to hear from everyone else. As I watched the other players, I had my suspicions confirmed.
From running and playing World of Darkness and running Deadlands, I've learned a simple truth when it comes to players and investigative games: when the investigation (i.e. the game's actual story) stalls, players become frustrated. And when players become frustrated they often revert to the old D&D standby: getting their murder hobo on! And when murder hobos run roughshod in a setting with a semblance of normal reality, like actual law enforcement and violence-fearing inhabitants, it can derail an adventure or a whole campaign. Sometimes this isn't bad! It might have been something the players wanted (or the best thing they never knew they needed). The GM did asks us if we wanted to start down the new direction: becoming fugitive Ghostbusters with stolen tech and no franchise backing. The group decided not to take that new direction. (As interesting as it could have been. Ghostbusters 2 was almost that story, and thinking about it now, if it had been the movie might have been much better. Maybe passingly mediocre instead of "God why!?" mediocre.)
But there is an important lesson here: in my last post about gaming with kids, I talked about the importance of gaming as a social teacher. A tabletop game is literally friends and family sitting around a table to have fun together. And for all that we're social animals, we seem to suck at one important facet of socialization: communication.
It's why I have no problem employing one of Gumshoe's core concepts: everything faces the player. I've learned from hard experience sometimes as a GM you just need to tell players, "You found everything there is to find here/learn everything you're going to learn. Next scene." Too bad as a player I have yet to learn to ask "What exactly is our goal here?" (If I had asked that in the GB game, my character would have acted a lot different.)
So, from all the advice in "how to role-play" and "how to GM" that's been written over the years (I've read a lot role-playing books, kiddies. I started when I was 10 and haven't stopped. Honestly, I think I might have a problem.) one thing that seems conspicuously absent is communication.
Now I'm going to go back to another thread I've talked about before: system matters. And part of why the system matters is because different systems communicate with the players differently. For example, Savage Worlds and d20 games use structured time (initiative and rounds) primarily during combat. So when initiative cards are dealt it's easy to assume hostile activity is taking place. (For this Ghostbusters example it didn't help that my audio kept cutting in and out, so I had no idea that our "opponents" weren't taking any hostile actions but were merely trying to run away. I didn't help by not asking for a recap of what I had missed, either.)
But also, where games sit on the Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist continuum (really, I almost imagine it as a triangular graph), will depend on what the rules sets focus on. Savage Worlds has a lot of material written for it, but it is definitely very gamist with a more simulationist than narrativist bend. It focuses a lot on combat, and in particular mass combats. This focus is why it really wouldn't be my first pick for an investigation or horror focused game, even though it grew out of original Deadlands, which was very much a horror focused game. Gamist is fine in horror and investigation, but the bend needs to be more toward narrativist than simulationist.
So what would I have picked? Gumshoe or FATE probably. Hell, Kyla is interested in playing Delta Green, and I recently picked it up to. And they did some really nice hacks of the venerable BRP engine to make it more narrativist.
Plus, there's making sure as a GM you are up front with your players about what a campaign entails. After I had finished the starter box with my encounters group, I offered them some options: Go into one of the published campaign threads with their characters, and I told them about Elemental Evil and Rage of Demons and what each would entail, or create new characters for Ravenloft, a horror focused campaign. They opted for Ravenloft. It's why as a player, if I'm joining an established group I will often ask "what do they need?" before making a character.
Well, that's today's nerdy life observation. See you next week, when the party will have delved deeper into the Amber Temple.
We were using Roll20, which has some great tools, but for some reason I was having connectivity issues with it. That isn't what caused the problem. Or maybe it contributed to it. We'll come back to that.
The GM was running a game based on Ghostbusters using the Savage Worlds game engine. The franchise is fun (yes, internet assholes out there, I did like the new movie), but that engine, as much as I like it, is problematic. We'll come back to that, too.
During our last session, our busters were investigating some rival ghost hunters who were clearly up to no good. However, we were having a hard time convincing the general public at large that was the case, but we had been mounting some evidence against them. But the last encounter of the session was what tore up the game.
We found these rival ghost chasers, the Ghost Dudes, consorting with a shadowy character in the parking lot of a church. My connectivity issues were heightening at this point, but as I understand it, the shadowy character was helping the Ghost Dudes conduct occult rituals to summon up ghosts for the ghost dudes to put down. When someone in the party moved to confront them, the GM called for initiative.
Needless to say, everything went ploon-shaped. Two of our team kidnapped that shadowy occult character in broad daylight, while I (supposedly playing the smart lawyer character; yes, sometimes I suck at role-playing) broadsided their van with a proton pack. We got in trouble with the law. Probably not as much as the EPA messed with them in the first film, but more than what happened after the very suspicious death of a character played by a high profile cameo in the new one.
The next day the GM sent an e-mail asking everyone what happened. He had been hoping we would approach the situation more realistically and not break a bunch of laws. He wanted us to focus on running our own business and using legal means to fight shady competitors. I actually, privately, e-mailed him some of my suspicions on what happened. He thanked me for my input, and waited to hear from everyone else. As I watched the other players, I had my suspicions confirmed.
From running and playing World of Darkness and running Deadlands, I've learned a simple truth when it comes to players and investigative games: when the investigation (i.e. the game's actual story) stalls, players become frustrated. And when players become frustrated they often revert to the old D&D standby: getting their murder hobo on! And when murder hobos run roughshod in a setting with a semblance of normal reality, like actual law enforcement and violence-fearing inhabitants, it can derail an adventure or a whole campaign. Sometimes this isn't bad! It might have been something the players wanted (or the best thing they never knew they needed). The GM did asks us if we wanted to start down the new direction: becoming fugitive Ghostbusters with stolen tech and no franchise backing. The group decided not to take that new direction. (As interesting as it could have been. Ghostbusters 2 was almost that story, and thinking about it now, if it had been the movie might have been much better. Maybe passingly mediocre instead of "God why!?" mediocre.)
But there is an important lesson here: in my last post about gaming with kids, I talked about the importance of gaming as a social teacher. A tabletop game is literally friends and family sitting around a table to have fun together. And for all that we're social animals, we seem to suck at one important facet of socialization: communication.
It's why I have no problem employing one of Gumshoe's core concepts: everything faces the player. I've learned from hard experience sometimes as a GM you just need to tell players, "You found everything there is to find here/learn everything you're going to learn. Next scene." Too bad as a player I have yet to learn to ask "What exactly is our goal here?" (If I had asked that in the GB game, my character would have acted a lot different.)
So, from all the advice in "how to role-play" and "how to GM" that's been written over the years (I've read a lot role-playing books, kiddies. I started when I was 10 and haven't stopped. Honestly, I think I might have a problem.) one thing that seems conspicuously absent is communication.
Now I'm going to go back to another thread I've talked about before: system matters. And part of why the system matters is because different systems communicate with the players differently. For example, Savage Worlds and d20 games use structured time (initiative and rounds) primarily during combat. So when initiative cards are dealt it's easy to assume hostile activity is taking place. (For this Ghostbusters example it didn't help that my audio kept cutting in and out, so I had no idea that our "opponents" weren't taking any hostile actions but were merely trying to run away. I didn't help by not asking for a recap of what I had missed, either.)
But also, where games sit on the Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist continuum (really, I almost imagine it as a triangular graph), will depend on what the rules sets focus on. Savage Worlds has a lot of material written for it, but it is definitely very gamist with a more simulationist than narrativist bend. It focuses a lot on combat, and in particular mass combats. This focus is why it really wouldn't be my first pick for an investigation or horror focused game, even though it grew out of original Deadlands, which was very much a horror focused game. Gamist is fine in horror and investigation, but the bend needs to be more toward narrativist than simulationist.
So what would I have picked? Gumshoe or FATE probably. Hell, Kyla is interested in playing Delta Green, and I recently picked it up to. And they did some really nice hacks of the venerable BRP engine to make it more narrativist.
Plus, there's making sure as a GM you are up front with your players about what a campaign entails. After I had finished the starter box with my encounters group, I offered them some options: Go into one of the published campaign threads with their characters, and I told them about Elemental Evil and Rage of Demons and what each would entail, or create new characters for Ravenloft, a horror focused campaign. They opted for Ravenloft. It's why as a player, if I'm joining an established group I will often ask "what do they need?" before making a character.
Well, that's today's nerdy life observation. See you next week, when the party will have delved deeper into the Amber Temple.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Kids and Gaming
I won't be able to run my game this week, so I figured I would fill the time with more geeky life observations.
I've had the joy of having kids at my encounters table. Beyond that, I also am participating in a D&D game primarily to teach my friend Sheldon's teenagers and their friends the game. I've also recently begun teaching my nieces D&D.
First and foremost, any adult geek with kids in their life not trying to pass on the geeky goodness is doing it wrong. We've come a long way. Michael Stackpole is allowed to write novels instead of essays about how gaming isn't Satanic and doesn't cause psychotic breaks from reality. A cast member of Firefly is a regular in Disney movies. Monte Cook even co-designed a game specifically for introducing pre-schoolers to role-playing.
But there's still a distance to cover. It doesn't help that online games are filled with racist and sexist commentary and that Gamergate was a thing. Companies that put out freemium video games designed to make money on microtransactions certainly can help turn parents and grandparents away from letting their kids game. Last but not least, it doesn't help that so many kids' "games" available in mainstream toy stores don't really have any game play. They just have the "players" generate a random result and move a token around a board with bright, pretty colors.
The best games, of course, teach. Here, I'm defining actual game play as a situation where the player is faced with a limited number of almost always sub-optimal decisions, and the choices have consequences for that player's outcome. This definition is vague enough that almost anything could be made into a game. Indeed, games have been made about almost every experience imaginable. But two real key components are the decisions and the outcomes.
Part of growing up is learning that you have to make choices, and sometimes you won't like everything on the list you have to chose from, but that making those choices will have an effect on your life. That's why a good game is life in a nutshell. And why a kids' game that involves rolling a die and drawing a card and then moving a pawn around a board according to that random result is terrible. My nieces figured out that Candyland and Chutes and Ladders were (language alert, youngsters) bullshit pretty quickly.
Aside from that important life lesson, what else do we want games to help us teach? Any game that offers a random outcome as part of the decision-making process can help teach math skills. More importantly, it can teach probability, a subject people are pretty stupid about if the money made by casinos and lotteries is any indication.
Any game that teaches verbal skills is important. And not just Scrabble, but one of the joys of a game like D&D is coming to a description including a teachable vocabulary word: crenelation, censer, or gazebo, and pausing to tell the kids what the word means.
Last, but not least, the best games are social. In our increasingly online social environments, it's important to expose kids to activities that require them to meet other people in person and interact with them. There's definitely a few parents out there going: "What about sports?" Not every kid likes sports. Not every kid is good at sports. And those kids deserve a chance for healthy human interaction, too.
But these are the great moments when playing an RPG with kids. I've seen it a few times, and the first is that look of glee when they realize that they can have their character literally do almost anything. Frequently they'll do something they know will be disruptive to the other players at that point. However, they soon discover the consequences: the other players won't want to play with them anymore, and this is a game that they need to play with other people. So they start amending their actions. Usually, they're still looking for ways to push in their own direction, but they begin to understand why compromise and working with a team is better.
If, as a DM, I can foster that sense of the importance of teamwork in at least one kid gaming at my table, I think I've done my job.
I've had the joy of having kids at my encounters table. Beyond that, I also am participating in a D&D game primarily to teach my friend Sheldon's teenagers and their friends the game. I've also recently begun teaching my nieces D&D.
First and foremost, any adult geek with kids in their life not trying to pass on the geeky goodness is doing it wrong. We've come a long way. Michael Stackpole is allowed to write novels instead of essays about how gaming isn't Satanic and doesn't cause psychotic breaks from reality. A cast member of Firefly is a regular in Disney movies. Monte Cook even co-designed a game specifically for introducing pre-schoolers to role-playing.
But there's still a distance to cover. It doesn't help that online games are filled with racist and sexist commentary and that Gamergate was a thing. Companies that put out freemium video games designed to make money on microtransactions certainly can help turn parents and grandparents away from letting their kids game. Last but not least, it doesn't help that so many kids' "games" available in mainstream toy stores don't really have any game play. They just have the "players" generate a random result and move a token around a board with bright, pretty colors.
The best games, of course, teach. Here, I'm defining actual game play as a situation where the player is faced with a limited number of almost always sub-optimal decisions, and the choices have consequences for that player's outcome. This definition is vague enough that almost anything could be made into a game. Indeed, games have been made about almost every experience imaginable. But two real key components are the decisions and the outcomes.
Part of growing up is learning that you have to make choices, and sometimes you won't like everything on the list you have to chose from, but that making those choices will have an effect on your life. That's why a good game is life in a nutshell. And why a kids' game that involves rolling a die and drawing a card and then moving a pawn around a board according to that random result is terrible. My nieces figured out that Candyland and Chutes and Ladders were (language alert, youngsters) bullshit pretty quickly.
Aside from that important life lesson, what else do we want games to help us teach? Any game that offers a random outcome as part of the decision-making process can help teach math skills. More importantly, it can teach probability, a subject people are pretty stupid about if the money made by casinos and lotteries is any indication.
Any game that teaches verbal skills is important. And not just Scrabble, but one of the joys of a game like D&D is coming to a description including a teachable vocabulary word: crenelation, censer, or gazebo, and pausing to tell the kids what the word means.
Last, but not least, the best games are social. In our increasingly online social environments, it's important to expose kids to activities that require them to meet other people in person and interact with them. There's definitely a few parents out there going: "What about sports?" Not every kid likes sports. Not every kid is good at sports. And those kids deserve a chance for healthy human interaction, too.
But these are the great moments when playing an RPG with kids. I've seen it a few times, and the first is that look of glee when they realize that they can have their character literally do almost anything. Frequently they'll do something they know will be disruptive to the other players at that point. However, they soon discover the consequences: the other players won't want to play with them anymore, and this is a game that they need to play with other people. So they start amending their actions. Usually, they're still looking for ways to push in their own direction, but they begin to understand why compromise and working with a team is better.
If, as a DM, I can foster that sense of the importance of teamwork in at least one kid gaming at my table, I think I've done my job.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Another Battle With Strahd
We had a new player: Ron, a friend of Alec's, who took up Simon. I'm pretty sure a character passing from player to player like that isn't Adventurer's League legal, but there's other things at our table that aren't. Plus, a pre-made character like that is a time saver.
The group decided to check out the bridge before taking a rest in the crumbling watch tower near the vrock-guarded gates. They were in for a surprise.
There was a black-cloaked rider on a flame-wreathed black horse. This was supposed to be an illusion the way the adventure was written. But I felt it was time for another dry run at the final boss. The party needed a chance to use their newly acquired artifacts.
Although the Count was cloaked, the mists of Barovia and the storms in the Tsolenka Pass more than adequately sheltered him from the natural sunlight. He was mounted on Beucelphas, his mount, a fiendish horse-like creature called a nightmare. (Get it? Because a "mare" is a horse?)
Mounted combat in 5e is...interesting, but I think I understand it. The mount and rider are still separate creatures, but whether the mount is an independent creature or not determines the mounts initiative and action options. Since nightmares are intelligent, Beucelphas acted on its own initiative and used its full complement of actions. This became important later.
Dry runs of a boss like this have one important role: they get you an idea of how the party will fare against the real thing. Strahd might need some beefing up. Lop used counterspell to stop Strahd's opening fireball. Next Sara moved in with the Sun Sword and Tathora moved in to summon actual sunlight using the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. The PCs also finally learned why Strahd's enemy is helpful: they can grant a PC Inspiration as an action as long as Strahd is in sight. This proved to be a boon, allowing Tathora to make a save against blight. It also helped that the dice were, for once, in Kyla's favor and rolled low to begin with. I'm not sure if this has been a case of dice hating Kyla, or just hating clerics in particular. My cleric seemed to have the worst luck, too.
Cugel also used magic weapon on Amrus's weapon. A quick review of the Rogue sneak attack feature also revealed how powerful rogues have become in this edition: their sneak attack actually works more like pack tactics. As long as the rogue has an ally within 5 feet of target to get the bonus damage. There is no range limit on this! And since rogues no longer have to sit in the corner and cry during some fights (like against undead, for example), he managed to contribute with a longbow.
Even with Legendary resilience, they managed to get Strahd down to bloodied. There's a reason the party is encouraged to get the vampire fighting relics: they allow them to kick ass for the Morninglord. Of course, no good villain starts a fight without a contingency. In this case, Beucelphas, who the party mostly ignored (they still managed him, anyway!), used an etherealness feature to flee. I had set three timers on the fight: Strahd being bloodied, Beucelphas being bloodied, or 5 rounds. They managed to clear the first two by the third round!
I had expected the Strahd fight to take most of the night, but they had time to reach the Amber Temple, where they gained a milestone, finish leveling up, and start exploring the Amber Temple.
Creepy abandoned temples are a staple of D&D. The Amber Temple is in this tradition. It's even carved from the stone of the cliff, just so it looks like that temple they used in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Rather than taking the shmuck bait and walking right into the open main room, they spotted the arrow slits along the walls and decided to explore the other areas first. They found a group of camping barbarians being "minded" by a dire wolf. I do mean minded: wolves and dire wolves in Barovia are servants of Strahd, and this one growled at the barbarians when they considered not fighting. However, the aggressive dire wolf got dropped on the first round, and Amrus actually managed to use his Persuasion skill! Blake offered them a chance to leave peacefully with some wine. Amrus was on the floor when he made the offer, but Cugel had just filled the room with a cloudkill spell. I was surprised loot and kill happy Blake had bothered to put his Rogue expertise feature (doubling his proficiency bonus) to his Persuasion skill, but he did! And he beat the DC I set for the roll: 20. I have to say I was proud of the boy. He's learning some real role-playing.
We actually ran a little late, so when the barbarians departed with their secretly poisoned wine, we broke for the evening. Next time we join our heroes, they'll be delving further into the Amber Temple.
The group decided to check out the bridge before taking a rest in the crumbling watch tower near the vrock-guarded gates. They were in for a surprise.
There was a black-cloaked rider on a flame-wreathed black horse. This was supposed to be an illusion the way the adventure was written. But I felt it was time for another dry run at the final boss. The party needed a chance to use their newly acquired artifacts.
Although the Count was cloaked, the mists of Barovia and the storms in the Tsolenka Pass more than adequately sheltered him from the natural sunlight. He was mounted on Beucelphas, his mount, a fiendish horse-like creature called a nightmare. (Get it? Because a "mare" is a horse?)
Mounted combat in 5e is...interesting, but I think I understand it. The mount and rider are still separate creatures, but whether the mount is an independent creature or not determines the mounts initiative and action options. Since nightmares are intelligent, Beucelphas acted on its own initiative and used its full complement of actions. This became important later.
Dry runs of a boss like this have one important role: they get you an idea of how the party will fare against the real thing. Strahd might need some beefing up. Lop used counterspell to stop Strahd's opening fireball. Next Sara moved in with the Sun Sword and Tathora moved in to summon actual sunlight using the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. The PCs also finally learned why Strahd's enemy is helpful: they can grant a PC Inspiration as an action as long as Strahd is in sight. This proved to be a boon, allowing Tathora to make a save against blight. It also helped that the dice were, for once, in Kyla's favor and rolled low to begin with. I'm not sure if this has been a case of dice hating Kyla, or just hating clerics in particular. My cleric seemed to have the worst luck, too.
Cugel also used magic weapon on Amrus's weapon. A quick review of the Rogue sneak attack feature also revealed how powerful rogues have become in this edition: their sneak attack actually works more like pack tactics. As long as the rogue has an ally within 5 feet of target to get the bonus damage. There is no range limit on this! And since rogues no longer have to sit in the corner and cry during some fights (like against undead, for example), he managed to contribute with a longbow.
Even with Legendary resilience, they managed to get Strahd down to bloodied. There's a reason the party is encouraged to get the vampire fighting relics: they allow them to kick ass for the Morninglord. Of course, no good villain starts a fight without a contingency. In this case, Beucelphas, who the party mostly ignored (they still managed him, anyway!), used an etherealness feature to flee. I had set three timers on the fight: Strahd being bloodied, Beucelphas being bloodied, or 5 rounds. They managed to clear the first two by the third round!
I had expected the Strahd fight to take most of the night, but they had time to reach the Amber Temple, where they gained a milestone, finish leveling up, and start exploring the Amber Temple.
Creepy abandoned temples are a staple of D&D. The Amber Temple is in this tradition. It's even carved from the stone of the cliff, just so it looks like that temple they used in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Rather than taking the shmuck bait and walking right into the open main room, they spotted the arrow slits along the walls and decided to explore the other areas first. They found a group of camping barbarians being "minded" by a dire wolf. I do mean minded: wolves and dire wolves in Barovia are servants of Strahd, and this one growled at the barbarians when they considered not fighting. However, the aggressive dire wolf got dropped on the first round, and Amrus actually managed to use his Persuasion skill! Blake offered them a chance to leave peacefully with some wine. Amrus was on the floor when he made the offer, but Cugel had just filled the room with a cloudkill spell. I was surprised loot and kill happy Blake had bothered to put his Rogue expertise feature (doubling his proficiency bonus) to his Persuasion skill, but he did! And he beat the DC I set for the roll: 20. I have to say I was proud of the boy. He's learning some real role-playing.
We actually ran a little late, so when the barbarians departed with their secretly poisoned wine, we broke for the evening. Next time we join our heroes, they'll be delving further into the Amber Temple.
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