For any reader curious about what I might do other than gaming in my spare time, I spent this morning walking dogs for the Pima Animal Care Center. Getting the animals some exercise and companionship was well worth it, and I recommend it for any dog person out there.
Plus, if any of you are fans of any combination of the Dresden Files and co-operative board games, be sure to visit Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game Kickstarter and back it.
As I mentioned before, Vallaki is an event based portion of the new Curse of Strahd. As a DM, I always enjoy these sorts of adventures because they let the players make (a)moral (and sometimes stupid) decisions. These always end up being a little more interesting than the basic "left, right, or center at the fork" decisions provided by dungeons.
The day dawned gloomy and cloudy even by Barovia standards, and the party joined the rest of the town in the square for the Festival of the Blazing Sun, the greatest festival of the year! ALL WILL BE WELL! They watched a parade of children dressed in shabby flower costumes bring up a wicker sun (no, there wasn't anyone inside) that was then doused in oil. The burgomaster of Vallaki, the self-styled Baron Vargas Vallakovich rode into the square bearing a torch sputtering in the sudden downpour. He attempted to set the wicker sun ablaze, only to have it sputter and go out. This drew a tepid, fearful laugh from one of the assembled town guards. The baron accused the offender of "malicious unhappiness" (This is in the adventure itself. No, I don't know if the writers know Paranoia, but I'm betting they do.) and had him hog tied and attached to the Baron's horse. The baron then dragged the hapless guard around the muddy square for the "entertainment" of the assembled crowd. Ap cast mage hand to free the guard. As you might expect, this redirected the Baron's ire onto the party. He ordered the guards to surround the party, disarm them, and lead them from the town, which they would henceforth be banished from.
Tathora tried to calm the guards, but her words (and low die roll), failed to sway them from the fearsome Baron. Cugel cast invisibility, and from that cover cast rope trick. This handy spell suspends a rope in mid-air that leads to a small pocket dimension that lasts for an hour. If you pull up the rope, you close off the pocket dimension. It allows the party to take a short rest without worry of having to deal with a random encounter (at least until the spell ends and they have to leave the dimension). The party all scrambled up the rope to safety. The incensed Baron wanted them found, stripped, and left in the stocks for a week.
Everyone except Ap, who decided to peacefully accompany two guards to the gates. His original plan was to use crown of madness with the Twin Spell metamagic (a sorcerer feature in this edition-its exactly what it says on the tin: the spell effects two targets). This spell charms a target, and forces it to spend its action attacking a target of the caster's choice before moving. Presumably, Ap planned to have the guards knock each other out before returning to the party. But after seeing them disappear up the rope, he walked the rest of the way, allowed himself to be taken out the gates, then doubled back, found a clear area along the walls (with some Dexterity (stealth) checks) and climbed back over. He spotted a raven watching him, and used chill touch on it, which it took in stride and flew off. That was no ordinary raven!
In the mean time, the rest of the party relaxed in Cugel's bubble while a pair of guards stayed below where they disappeared. Help arrived in the form of Rictavio, who offered the guards some wine (laced with a harmless sleeping toxin) to ease their parched throats. The guards nodded off, so the party left the bubble and joined Rictavio, who asked them a favor. He had been keeping a saber-tooth tiger in his carnival wagon, but some idiot had broken the lock, and the beast got out. He wanted them to recover it before it hurt anyone. He told the party the coffin maker had been found dead, his throat torn out. Everyone was blaming the tiger. Except Rictavio managed to get a glimpse of the body, and he had been dead too long for it to have been the tiger. However, he knew the baron's guards meant it harm, so they had to find it before they provoked the beast. He gave the PCs some wolf steaks to lure it, and went to his wagon to prepare to leave. Since I like narrative coincidences to get a party back together, Ap returned just in time to meet Rictavio.
I ran this as a series of opposed tests. The Baron's bodyguard, the deformed and amoral Izek Strazni and a pack of guards were searching for the tiger while the party searched. Fortunately, the party found it first. They then needed to make some Wisdom (handle animal) checks to calm it and encourage it to follow them. I rewarded clever ideas and role-playing (using mage hand to scratch it behind the ears) and use of tools (tempting it with a wolf steak) with advantage on the roll. They accumulated enough successes to get it following them. However, they failed to evade Izek and his guards on their way back to Rictavio's wagon.
Ap tried to open the fight by using some spells to make himself spark like a thunder cloud. Of course, his bad luck (two threes when rolling with advantage), meant that none of the guards had seen the tale he told of his birth at the tavern. Plus, those guards were genuinely more scared of Izek and the Baron than they were of the PCs. The party opted to rely on non-lethal finishes for the guards, knocking out three (with the help of their cat) before dropping Izek.
I wished I had gotten to use Izek a little more. This brutish thug came complete with a tragic back story: losing his arm and family at a young age and a monstrous deformity: a demonic replacement arm grown for him by the Dark Powers ruling the Demiplane of Dread. The arm let him shoot fire, but the players were aggressive enough to get him melee right away. Of course, he had a big bucket of hit points and hit like a brick. He nearly dropped Sarra in a couple of hits. Cugel once again used Tasha's hideous laughter, but this time had to cast it twice, thanks to Izek rolling a natural 20 on his first save. In the meantime, Tathora got to break out the nuke heals to keep Sarra up. She also got to use spiritual weapon, one of the cleric's best early offense options, allowing ten turns of spell attacks doing 1d8 + Wisdom mod force damage. The best part is that it doesn't require concentration, so it can be used in conjunction with other duration spells, like many cleric buffs and the incomparable spirit guardians.
As Izek fell, he warned the party to watch out for his sister. They searched him for valuables,\ but only found a doll that looked suspiciously like Ireena Kolyana. They managed to surmise (with some Int rolls to remind them of previously revealed plot information) that Isek's sister is none other than Ireena. Tathora used spare the dying, a cleric cantrip that stabilizes a dying individual, to keep Izek alive and left a note on him letting him know that he had been shone mercy.
The rest of guards backed down and offered to cover for the PCs while they escaped. They lead the cat back to the wagon where Rictavio led the tiger in and locked it. They rode the out of town, where Urwin Martikov met them. He renewed his request investigate the winery, both for the sake of a parched Barovia and for the sake of checking on his estranged family. He let them know that they might need the wine to get Ireena and Ismark into Krezk, and told them he would keep the two safe until they returned. Rictavio told them to proceed on Urwin's errand, and to meet him at an old wizard's tower on the shores of Lake Barotok.
As they left, Urwin told Ap that ravens are a sign of good fortune in Barovia, and ought not be attacked, while he rubbed an obvious pain in his thigh. They guessed (correctly) that Ap had attacked none other than Urwin, though they figured he'd use a spell (such as polymorph). They weren't quite accurate, but I'd rather not spoil anything. (Though I think that teaser might be spoiler enough!)
The PCs were done with Vallaki (for now). They've earned the Baron's ire, but managed to save St Andral's church at the cost of the coffin maker's life. They've certainly affected the guards, but only time will tell if they left a mark on Izek. They haven't met with Lady Wachter yet, but may later.
I gave them a milestone, and helped them level up. Fifth level marks the start of the second "tier" in 5th edition. First, the proficiency bonus goes up, making everyone better at (nearly) everything. Second, dedicated spellcasters get access to 3rd level spells. This is where staples like fireball and lightning bolt live for arcane casters. Clerics get spirit guardians (a spell I waxed poetic on in previous posts, but I love it so much I'll talk about it again when Tathora uses it). They also get a raise dead: revivify that works if the target has been dead less than a minute. Also for spellcasters, cantrips get an extra damage die at 5th level. Rogues also get their third sneak attack die. Plus dedicated fighters (Fighters, Barbarian, Paladins, and Rangers) get their second attack. I think I forgot to tell Hillary this, so I'll be sure to let her know when next we meet. I also found I'd been an inattentive DM, and Kyla was further behind in her spellcasting than I thought. I broke out my cleric spell cards and sat down and (hopefully) got her squared away.
I also found out the kids ages, and they were about what I guesstimated. I found that the opportunity for a fight seemed to help keep Blake more attentive and less disruptive. Plus Alec had him sit next to me, which also help, I think. Plus, the last two sessions Hillary sat next to Kyla, who helped her out with combat rolls and kept her on track, too. I'll say it here and say it again in person: thanks Kyla!
The Winery will prove interesting, I think. Since they have another journey ahead, I'm going to pre-calculate travel times and roll for encounters ahead of time like DJ did back during Tyranny of Dragons. I tried the rest, so now I plan to try the best. I think I'll also try inserting some encounters from one of Goodman Games Fifth Edition Fantasy modules to shake things up. I know its technically unofficial, but I doubt Wizards' will send officiality police to stop my game and confiscate my gaming stuff. Plus they'll fit with the overall gothic horror mood of Ravenloft.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Vallaki, Part 1
You'll recall our heroes reached Vallaki last time. I know I used a Final Fantasy VII analogy before, but now I'll use a Fallout 3 analogy. Leaving Death House is like getting out of the Vault. Reaching Vallaki is like reaching Megaton. There's a ton of new NPCs, side quests, and options available. Most importantly, its a place where investigation and role-playing will serve better than combat.
I did a little more prep work than usual for this session. And the players, being players, did thing I didn't expect.
The guards offered them two choices for initial places to visit: the Blue Water Inn and St. Andral's church. They opted to visit the church first. There they found some townsfolk gathering for the nightly service, along with Father Lucian Petrovich, his altar boy Yeska, and frowning, brawny young man with a shovel. After some introductions, Ismark and Ireena went to the altar to say some prayers. Lucain recognized Lathandar's iconography on Tathora's vestments as a deity close to the Morninglord, the primary deity of Barovia. He confided in her a terrible secret: a relic had been stolen from the church, the bones of St. Andral, for whom the church was named. He suspected the culprit was the angry young man, Milivoj. Tathora agreed to help, and the party convened.
They found Milivoj out in the church's graveyard, doing some last minute weeding. Cugel cast charm person. Milivoj failed his save, and Cugel started asking questions. Milivoj's motivations are somewhat muddled in the adventure as written. He despairs over being powerless to help his family against the evils of the valley, but agreed to steal the relics for the coffer maker for a profit. Still, I tried to sort it out and role-play an angry, mistaken young man.
Among other things, he showed the PCs one of the Baron's proclamations:
After crumpling up the poster, Milivoj sullenly told them that all is not well. He did confide in Lop that the coffin maker Henrik Van Der Voort paid him to steal the bones. He provided directions to the coffin shop, and even offered to accompany his new ghoul-cloaked friend in retrieving the relics to atone for what he'd done. He's only a little better at thing killing than a typical commoner (all 10s for ability scores and +2 proficiency bonus; Milivoj has Str 15 and wields his shovel like a club), but they took him along anyway.
Along the way to the coffin maker's they (sigh!) split the party. Ap and Tathora accompanied Ismark and Ireena to the Blue Water Inn, while Lop, Sarra, Amrus, and Cugel went on to the coffin maker's shop.
Splitting the party is, indeed, often unwise. Especially since most parties are heavy on strikers and short on healers and tanks, essential to combat survival. Granted, 5th edition brings back some of the rocket tag aspects of combat lost in 4th edition, but once strikers start falling, without a tank or a healer it starts a rapid domino effect. However, having watched DMs deal with split parties and having had to deal with split parties myself, I also know that DMs kill split parties out of spite. Contrary to popular opinion, a DM is not a WoW server, and can only see to so many things at once. So I told the people going to the inn that they would have to wait while I dealt with the coffin maker party. Fortunately Joseph and Kyla were able to sit relatively quietly and watch their fellow players' half of the story. I did make a pithy reference to the multi-party dungeons from Final Fantasy 6, and we moved on.
They arrived at the coffin maker's shop to find it closed for the evening (this is still part of the same day they spent travelling to Vallaki, remember). The owner angrily shooed them off, even after they had Milivoj try talking to him. So Amrus broke out the thieves' tools and picked the lock. Henrik proved to be a cowardly creature, surrendering right away and spilling the beans about where the bones were hidden: upstairs in the wardrobe. He also warned them about the vampire spawn hiding in the storage room. Our ever intrepid heroes sent Amrus upstairs by himself to retrieve the relics. Amrus went up to Henrik's meager apartment over the shop, found the wardrobe, and relieved it of the hidden bones and some of Henrik's savings. He did explore the vampire infested storage room, exploring two crates marked junk closest to the door. He found some junk, and re-joined the party. He taunted the coffin maker about bluffing about the vampires, and the PCs departed.
We switched back to the Inn. Blake, being a less experienced player, had some trouble understanding that his character wasn't there and kept trying to participate. Fortunately, Alec helped out with this.
They found a crowded tap room with commoners crowded around listening to a half-elf tell tales of life as a circus master. Ireena and Ismark went to secure room and board while Tathora and Ap listened to the circus master's tale of an ill-tempered "oliphant" that liked to stick people into its mouth (yes, I watched The Simpsons when I was younger), and how they had to butcher it for meat. And because I am at heart a terrible person, Rictavio regaled the party with the wonders of ivory and showed them some dice made from the elephant's ivory. I wanted to make sure Rictavio left an impression; he's an important character in the story line (I won't say more for fear of spoiling it for my players following this blog). He asked the PCs to share a tale. Ap told a story and Tathora told a joke. Rictavio recognized them as "not being from around here," and asked Ap and Tathora about their homes in Faerun. They told him a little about the Sword Coast and Waterdeep. I think I might need to loan Joseph and Kyla a sourcebook or two to round out their Realmslore.
The other party members returned the bones to the church off-stage and rejoined their companions at this point. It was dusk, and Rictavio took a wolf steak and a couple of apples from the kitchen for his friend the toy maker. The party retired to their rooms for the evening. Their rest was interrupted by one of those vampire spawn that Amrus was so sure didn't exist. As a DM, I'm a firm believer in making sure that PC actions have later consequences. Fortunately, the Inn was homey enough to count as a ban for vampires getting in without an invitation, so I didn't have to run a battle. But it did scare the bejesus out of them; job done!
The next day, the PCs found Rictavio retrieving more food from the kitchen. Feeling a little suspicious at this point, the PCs had Amrus try to shadow him. Unfortunately, he failed his stealth roll. Rictavio confronted him in a side alley, revealing that his cane was a sword cane (because honestly, he should be that awesome). Rictavio warned Amrus not to make an enemy. Again, I'm hoping Rictavio is leaving a strong impression.
Lop and Cugel both have the incredibly useful identify spell, but lack the material component: a 100gp pearl. Barovia being a bottle, with the only people with the power to leave being the Vistani, the NPCs suggested the party visit them at a camp southwest of town. They journeyed there and found one of the Vistana leaders, a brute named Luvash, lashing another Vistana, Alexei, with Luvash's brother, Arrigal, tries to get him to ease up. The PCs learned that the inebriated Luvash blamed Alexei for losing track of his daughter, Arabelle. The PCs, being mostly good, offered to help find the girl. Luvash agreed to get them a pearl in exchange. Since the other Vistani were drunk when Arabelle went missing, they suggested talking to the dusk elves living nearby.
They met a dusk elf living in a hovel built into the base of the hill the Vistani had camped on. The middle aged male elf suggested they visit Kasimir Velikov, their leader. They met more middle-aged male elves guarding his hovel. They allowed the party in to speak with Kasimir, and they all gave quite a bit of deference to Sarra. At this point Joseph realized that all the elves were male. Kasimir asked them their opinion of Strahd. When they responded that they weren't fans, he hinted that he knew a secret that might help them defeat the vampire lord, and he would tell them once they were more powerful. He let them know that his scouts last saw Luvash's daughter headed north, toward Lake Zarovich.
They tracked the girl to the lake. They found a lone fisherman and a couple of boats on the shore. The boats were five person, but their were six people in the party. After the fisherman proved unresponsive, they waffled between taking two boats or casting enlarge on one boat. The decision was made after they checked duration on enlarge: 1 minute. They rowed out towards the fisherman, who dropped a squirming burlap sack into the lake. Sarra dived in and pulled the bag into their boat, finding it contained a 7-year old Vistani girl, Arabelle. She thanked them. Then Sarra jumped into the fisherman, Bluto Krogarov's boat. She quickly knocked him out, something easy in this edition since when you reduce a foe to 0 hp or less, you can opt to knock them unconscious and stable rather than killing them. I explained this fact to the players, and they captured and interrogated Bluto. The man wanted to try and catch fish to trade for wine, but the lake's fish aren't biting. He intended to sacrifice Arabelle to the lake because the Vistani are "lucky."
The Vistani had also hinted at the recent wine shortage. The PCs seemed to pick up on a theme of alcohol abuse. Not sure how it emerged; unlike Stephen King I've never been an alcoholic. Still, after the now hung over Luvash gave them their pearl, he suggested he talk to the Martikovs about the wine shortage.
They returned to town and spoke to Urwin, who mentioned that the recent wine shipment has been late, and wants the PCs to investigate. However, since it was late in the day, he suggested they wait until after the Festival of Blazing Sun tomorrow.
Lop had one more itch to scratch: finding a history book on Barovia. He was told that only the Burgomaster and the Wachter family are wealthy enough to afford libraries. Rictavio told him about Nikolai and Karl, Lady Fiona Wachter's sons. They're fascinated with the half-elf's tales and would like to know more about the PCs adventures. Ap, having the highest Charisma in the party, told them the story of their adventure in the house with a little bit of spell casting help from Lop. It impressed the Wachter brothers, that they agreed to introduce Lop to their mother at the festival.
The players are a bit frightened. Considering that the adventure is Gothic horror, this is good. I mentioned before the players took their own path. I had dropped a hint for them to meet the toy maker while Rictavio was watching Ireena, but they ignored that to hunt for their pearl. I've also told PCs that the Festival of the Wolf's Head was last week, and the Festival of the Blazing Sun is coming up, and that the town has been enduring weekly festivals for years. I think I'll need to drive this home when they attend the festival next time. The thing that should scare them isn't what will happen to the PCs, but rather the decisions they'll have to make.
I've also begun looking ahead. The festival and the events around will give them a milestone. They're set up to handle the Wizard of Wines next, most likely followed by Krezk. Those two should be another milestone. I much prefer it to counting Xps to make sure they have enough to be an appropriate level for the encounters ahead.
I did a little more prep work than usual for this session. And the players, being players, did thing I didn't expect.
The guards offered them two choices for initial places to visit: the Blue Water Inn and St. Andral's church. They opted to visit the church first. There they found some townsfolk gathering for the nightly service, along with Father Lucian Petrovich, his altar boy Yeska, and frowning, brawny young man with a shovel. After some introductions, Ismark and Ireena went to the altar to say some prayers. Lucain recognized Lathandar's iconography on Tathora's vestments as a deity close to the Morninglord, the primary deity of Barovia. He confided in her a terrible secret: a relic had been stolen from the church, the bones of St. Andral, for whom the church was named. He suspected the culprit was the angry young man, Milivoj. Tathora agreed to help, and the party convened.
They found Milivoj out in the church's graveyard, doing some last minute weeding. Cugel cast charm person. Milivoj failed his save, and Cugel started asking questions. Milivoj's motivations are somewhat muddled in the adventure as written. He despairs over being powerless to help his family against the evils of the valley, but agreed to steal the relics for the coffer maker for a profit. Still, I tried to sort it out and role-play an angry, mistaken young man.
Among other things, he showed the PCs one of the Baron's proclamations:
Come one, come all,
to the greatest celebration of the year:
THE WOLF'S HEAD JAMBOREE!
Attendance and children required.
Pikes will be provided.
ALL WILL BE WELL!
--The Baron--
After crumpling up the poster, Milivoj sullenly told them that all is not well. He did confide in Lop that the coffin maker Henrik Van Der Voort paid him to steal the bones. He provided directions to the coffin shop, and even offered to accompany his new ghoul-cloaked friend in retrieving the relics to atone for what he'd done. He's only a little better at thing killing than a typical commoner (all 10s for ability scores and +2 proficiency bonus; Milivoj has Str 15 and wields his shovel like a club), but they took him along anyway.
Along the way to the coffin maker's they (sigh!) split the party. Ap and Tathora accompanied Ismark and Ireena to the Blue Water Inn, while Lop, Sarra, Amrus, and Cugel went on to the coffin maker's shop.
Splitting the party is, indeed, often unwise. Especially since most parties are heavy on strikers and short on healers and tanks, essential to combat survival. Granted, 5th edition brings back some of the rocket tag aspects of combat lost in 4th edition, but once strikers start falling, without a tank or a healer it starts a rapid domino effect. However, having watched DMs deal with split parties and having had to deal with split parties myself, I also know that DMs kill split parties out of spite. Contrary to popular opinion, a DM is not a WoW server, and can only see to so many things at once. So I told the people going to the inn that they would have to wait while I dealt with the coffin maker party. Fortunately Joseph and Kyla were able to sit relatively quietly and watch their fellow players' half of the story. I did make a pithy reference to the multi-party dungeons from Final Fantasy 6, and we moved on.
They arrived at the coffin maker's shop to find it closed for the evening (this is still part of the same day they spent travelling to Vallaki, remember). The owner angrily shooed them off, even after they had Milivoj try talking to him. So Amrus broke out the thieves' tools and picked the lock. Henrik proved to be a cowardly creature, surrendering right away and spilling the beans about where the bones were hidden: upstairs in the wardrobe. He also warned them about the vampire spawn hiding in the storage room. Our ever intrepid heroes sent Amrus upstairs by himself to retrieve the relics. Amrus went up to Henrik's meager apartment over the shop, found the wardrobe, and relieved it of the hidden bones and some of Henrik's savings. He did explore the vampire infested storage room, exploring two crates marked junk closest to the door. He found some junk, and re-joined the party. He taunted the coffin maker about bluffing about the vampires, and the PCs departed.
We switched back to the Inn. Blake, being a less experienced player, had some trouble understanding that his character wasn't there and kept trying to participate. Fortunately, Alec helped out with this.
They found a crowded tap room with commoners crowded around listening to a half-elf tell tales of life as a circus master. Ireena and Ismark went to secure room and board while Tathora and Ap listened to the circus master's tale of an ill-tempered "oliphant" that liked to stick people into its mouth (yes, I watched The Simpsons when I was younger), and how they had to butcher it for meat. And because I am at heart a terrible person, Rictavio regaled the party with the wonders of ivory and showed them some dice made from the elephant's ivory. I wanted to make sure Rictavio left an impression; he's an important character in the story line (I won't say more for fear of spoiling it for my players following this blog). He asked the PCs to share a tale. Ap told a story and Tathora told a joke. Rictavio recognized them as "not being from around here," and asked Ap and Tathora about their homes in Faerun. They told him a little about the Sword Coast and Waterdeep. I think I might need to loan Joseph and Kyla a sourcebook or two to round out their Realmslore.
The other party members returned the bones to the church off-stage and rejoined their companions at this point. It was dusk, and Rictavio took a wolf steak and a couple of apples from the kitchen for his friend the toy maker. The party retired to their rooms for the evening. Their rest was interrupted by one of those vampire spawn that Amrus was so sure didn't exist. As a DM, I'm a firm believer in making sure that PC actions have later consequences. Fortunately, the Inn was homey enough to count as a ban for vampires getting in without an invitation, so I didn't have to run a battle. But it did scare the bejesus out of them; job done!
The next day, the PCs found Rictavio retrieving more food from the kitchen. Feeling a little suspicious at this point, the PCs had Amrus try to shadow him. Unfortunately, he failed his stealth roll. Rictavio confronted him in a side alley, revealing that his cane was a sword cane (because honestly, he should be that awesome). Rictavio warned Amrus not to make an enemy. Again, I'm hoping Rictavio is leaving a strong impression.
Lop and Cugel both have the incredibly useful identify spell, but lack the material component: a 100gp pearl. Barovia being a bottle, with the only people with the power to leave being the Vistani, the NPCs suggested the party visit them at a camp southwest of town. They journeyed there and found one of the Vistana leaders, a brute named Luvash, lashing another Vistana, Alexei, with Luvash's brother, Arrigal, tries to get him to ease up. The PCs learned that the inebriated Luvash blamed Alexei for losing track of his daughter, Arabelle. The PCs, being mostly good, offered to help find the girl. Luvash agreed to get them a pearl in exchange. Since the other Vistani were drunk when Arabelle went missing, they suggested talking to the dusk elves living nearby.
They met a dusk elf living in a hovel built into the base of the hill the Vistani had camped on. The middle aged male elf suggested they visit Kasimir Velikov, their leader. They met more middle-aged male elves guarding his hovel. They allowed the party in to speak with Kasimir, and they all gave quite a bit of deference to Sarra. At this point Joseph realized that all the elves were male. Kasimir asked them their opinion of Strahd. When they responded that they weren't fans, he hinted that he knew a secret that might help them defeat the vampire lord, and he would tell them once they were more powerful. He let them know that his scouts last saw Luvash's daughter headed north, toward Lake Zarovich.
They tracked the girl to the lake. They found a lone fisherman and a couple of boats on the shore. The boats were five person, but their were six people in the party. After the fisherman proved unresponsive, they waffled between taking two boats or casting enlarge on one boat. The decision was made after they checked duration on enlarge: 1 minute. They rowed out towards the fisherman, who dropped a squirming burlap sack into the lake. Sarra dived in and pulled the bag into their boat, finding it contained a 7-year old Vistani girl, Arabelle. She thanked them. Then Sarra jumped into the fisherman, Bluto Krogarov's boat. She quickly knocked him out, something easy in this edition since when you reduce a foe to 0 hp or less, you can opt to knock them unconscious and stable rather than killing them. I explained this fact to the players, and they captured and interrogated Bluto. The man wanted to try and catch fish to trade for wine, but the lake's fish aren't biting. He intended to sacrifice Arabelle to the lake because the Vistani are "lucky."
The Vistani had also hinted at the recent wine shortage. The PCs seemed to pick up on a theme of alcohol abuse. Not sure how it emerged; unlike Stephen King I've never been an alcoholic. Still, after the now hung over Luvash gave them their pearl, he suggested he talk to the Martikovs about the wine shortage.
They returned to town and spoke to Urwin, who mentioned that the recent wine shipment has been late, and wants the PCs to investigate. However, since it was late in the day, he suggested they wait until after the Festival of Blazing Sun tomorrow.
Lop had one more itch to scratch: finding a history book on Barovia. He was told that only the Burgomaster and the Wachter family are wealthy enough to afford libraries. Rictavio told him about Nikolai and Karl, Lady Fiona Wachter's sons. They're fascinated with the half-elf's tales and would like to know more about the PCs adventures. Ap, having the highest Charisma in the party, told them the story of their adventure in the house with a little bit of spell casting help from Lop. It impressed the Wachter brothers, that they agreed to introduce Lop to their mother at the festival.
The players are a bit frightened. Considering that the adventure is Gothic horror, this is good. I mentioned before the players took their own path. I had dropped a hint for them to meet the toy maker while Rictavio was watching Ireena, but they ignored that to hunt for their pearl. I've also told PCs that the Festival of the Wolf's Head was last week, and the Festival of the Blazing Sun is coming up, and that the town has been enduring weekly festivals for years. I think I'll need to drive this home when they attend the festival next time. The thing that should scare them isn't what will happen to the PCs, but rather the decisions they'll have to make.
I've also begun looking ahead. The festival and the events around will give them a milestone. They're set up to handle the Wizard of Wines next, most likely followed by Krezk. Those two should be another milestone. I much prefer it to counting Xps to make sure they have enough to be an appropriate level for the encounters ahead.
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Out Into the World
The players completed the Death House, and stepped out into Barovia proper. To use a mid-90s Final Fantasy metaphor, they just got out of Midgar.
This makes my job harder, but more fun. Sandboxes give players a lot of leeway to explore, but also leeway to wander into places they could get themselves killed. Or worse. Rather than railroad, I prefer to let NPCs and the setting itself to drop hints pointing the PCs in the right direction.
We had left our players on the doorstep of the house with a small group of villagers across the street, deep in discussion and exchanging a few coppers. Put out, Tathora confronted them. The commoners sheepishly apologized; many outlanders go into the Death House, the name given to the old Durst manor. They pointed out there isn't much more for entertainment aside from wine, which there is a shortage of. Blake asked if they seemed rich, probably planning on having Amrus rob them. Of course, the Barovians wore frayed, heavily patched, hand-me down garments. Lop asked how long the Dursts had been dead, and the Barovians told him for generations. They advised the adventurers to go the Blood of the Vine tavern. They made that their next stop.
The Blood of the Vine tavern is a fixture in the Ravenloft modules, Barovia's run down tavern. There, they met Ismark Kolyanovich, the burgomaster's son. He bought them a pitcher of wine from Arik, the rather mechanical behaving barkeep. Ismark spoke with them, and learned that they had escaped the Death House and found the message from his father. He asked them to help with his sister, Ireena Kolyana. Fortunately, the party was good aligned, and agreed to help. Ismark also told them about the Vistani, including pointing out that the dusky-skinned, brightly clothed women that owned the bar, were Vistani.
Ismark led the PCs to the burgomaster's mansion. It had been recently attacked, and the scars of violence covered the outer walls and grounds. This had the desired effect of unnerving the PCs. Fortunately, Ireena, one of the central characters of the Ravenloft module, managed to charm them with her honesty and courage. They discovered the former burgomaster already dead in a homemade coffin. Ireena refused to leave until they had given him a proper burial. Lop cast levitation on the coffin, and they carried it to the church.
The church, like the mansion, bore the scars of recent attacks. Upon entering the church, they heard prayers and an inhuman scream. This put them on edge during their interview with the mad old priest, Donavich. He agreed to bury the burgomaster, but not until the next morning. When confronted about the scream, Donavich admitted that it was his son, but that the PCs shouldn't convern themselves with that. Amrus probed a little to far into the issue, getting him banished from the church. The PCs made a few guesses about Donavich: that he's in league with Strahd in some way, or that he's using dead souls for some fell purpose or another.
They tried to find lodging at the tavern, but the owners couldn't be persuaded to give them room space. They did advise them to visit Madam Eva at the Vistani encampment by Tser Falls. They told them that outlanders who do so tend to live longer. They ended up staying with Ireena and Ismark at the mansion. When they conferred with Ismark about the Vistani, he warned them away from visiting the encampment with Ireena. The Vistani are spies for Strahd.
Next, to add some ill omen, I had them witness a harmless, but eerie march of the spirits of dead adventurers from the Barovian graveyard up to Castle Ravenloft above. This only furthered the PCs belief that Donavich was in league with Strahd. None-the-less, he performed the burial as agreed the next day. Afterwards, he pulled Tathora aside and advised that they take Ireena further than Vallaki, but all they way to Krezk and the Abbey of Saint Markovia. Returning to the rest of the party, they mulled it over, even considering their suspicions.
They left the village of Barovia then. Curse of Strahd calls for frequent random encounter checks: every half-hour of travel. But it calls for no more than 2 random encounters in a 12 hour period. This means travel is rapid but dangerous enough. Plus, when using the milestone rules, it mean the players shouldn't be dependent on the Xp from random fights to acquire levels.
Their first encounter occurred as they crossed an old stone bridge over the Ivlis river. They met a trapper with glorious mutton chops: Alexandrej Petrovich. He sized up the party and offered to sell them furs. Lop bought an over-priced but warm fox-fur cloak. In Barovia, most available goods are available if their under 25gp in the PHB and even then at ten times the price. I used traveler's clothes (cost 2 gp) as my guideline for price. So Alexandrej wanted 20gp. The party managed to bargain him down to 10. He did find Lop and Cugel entertaining. Fortunately, they entertained the trapper and he never saw Amrus's silver shortsword. The encounter could have gone south very quickly in that event.
After journeying through mountains and the forest, they came a crossroad with an empty gallows. They followed Ismark's advice and went left, avoiding the Tser Pool Encampment encounter for the moment. I'm not afraid to say I went OOC to let the players now that I'd like to have the Tarokka deck before running the reading. Fortunately, there are many options to for the reading other than Madam Eva if they never bother returning here. As they passed through the crossroads, they heard a body fall in the gallows behind them. Everyone saw a featureless body, but Lop saw the body as himself. They traveled past Tser falls, the cross roads leading up to Castle Ravenloft itself, and through another of Barovia's gates.
While passing through the forests, they had their second encounter: with a cackling mad druid and a pack of twig blights. Once again, Cugel broke out his favorite spell: Tahsa's hideous laughter to incapacitate the druid. We had a closer reading of the rules and learned that damage also grants a saving throw against the effect. This didn't matter much in this encounter, but it could have changed the encounter with the shambling mound. The reason it didn't effect this encounter: the first hit on the druid from Sarra was critical and took the druid down to half his hit points in one go.
Ismark and Ireena helped in the fight, Ismark using the fairly powerful veteran stat block and Ireena using the slightly less powerful noble stat block. I should have done a good DM thing and copied the blocks for the PCs to use, giving them more options in combat and making less work for me at the table.
The short version is that the druid died before contributing, and the PCs killed the twig blights before they could inflict any damage. I actually don't mind that Cugel is using Tasha's hideous laughter to good effect. So few players use these sort of control spells with no damaging effects. It's refreshing to see the tactic pay off at the table.
The rest of the journey was uneventful. They arrived in Vallaki. The guards sized them up, and decided they weren't dangerous enough to keep out. Contemplating the wolf heads on pikes surrounding the wooden stockade of the village, the PCs entered. They reached another milestone. The guards suggested the PCs visit the Blue Water Inn, and we broke for the night so people could level up.
I'm looking forward to running Vallaki. It exemplifies a good sandbox adventure: lots of options and directions for the PCs to follow, and so many of those wonderful sub-optimal choices to make that makes table-top role-playing worth it.
This makes my job harder, but more fun. Sandboxes give players a lot of leeway to explore, but also leeway to wander into places they could get themselves killed. Or worse. Rather than railroad, I prefer to let NPCs and the setting itself to drop hints pointing the PCs in the right direction.
We had left our players on the doorstep of the house with a small group of villagers across the street, deep in discussion and exchanging a few coppers. Put out, Tathora confronted them. The commoners sheepishly apologized; many outlanders go into the Death House, the name given to the old Durst manor. They pointed out there isn't much more for entertainment aside from wine, which there is a shortage of. Blake asked if they seemed rich, probably planning on having Amrus rob them. Of course, the Barovians wore frayed, heavily patched, hand-me down garments. Lop asked how long the Dursts had been dead, and the Barovians told him for generations. They advised the adventurers to go the Blood of the Vine tavern. They made that their next stop.
The Blood of the Vine tavern is a fixture in the Ravenloft modules, Barovia's run down tavern. There, they met Ismark Kolyanovich, the burgomaster's son. He bought them a pitcher of wine from Arik, the rather mechanical behaving barkeep. Ismark spoke with them, and learned that they had escaped the Death House and found the message from his father. He asked them to help with his sister, Ireena Kolyana. Fortunately, the party was good aligned, and agreed to help. Ismark also told them about the Vistani, including pointing out that the dusky-skinned, brightly clothed women that owned the bar, were Vistani.
Ismark led the PCs to the burgomaster's mansion. It had been recently attacked, and the scars of violence covered the outer walls and grounds. This had the desired effect of unnerving the PCs. Fortunately, Ireena, one of the central characters of the Ravenloft module, managed to charm them with her honesty and courage. They discovered the former burgomaster already dead in a homemade coffin. Ireena refused to leave until they had given him a proper burial. Lop cast levitation on the coffin, and they carried it to the church.
The church, like the mansion, bore the scars of recent attacks. Upon entering the church, they heard prayers and an inhuman scream. This put them on edge during their interview with the mad old priest, Donavich. He agreed to bury the burgomaster, but not until the next morning. When confronted about the scream, Donavich admitted that it was his son, but that the PCs shouldn't convern themselves with that. Amrus probed a little to far into the issue, getting him banished from the church. The PCs made a few guesses about Donavich: that he's in league with Strahd in some way, or that he's using dead souls for some fell purpose or another.
They tried to find lodging at the tavern, but the owners couldn't be persuaded to give them room space. They did advise them to visit Madam Eva at the Vistani encampment by Tser Falls. They told them that outlanders who do so tend to live longer. They ended up staying with Ireena and Ismark at the mansion. When they conferred with Ismark about the Vistani, he warned them away from visiting the encampment with Ireena. The Vistani are spies for Strahd.
Next, to add some ill omen, I had them witness a harmless, but eerie march of the spirits of dead adventurers from the Barovian graveyard up to Castle Ravenloft above. This only furthered the PCs belief that Donavich was in league with Strahd. None-the-less, he performed the burial as agreed the next day. Afterwards, he pulled Tathora aside and advised that they take Ireena further than Vallaki, but all they way to Krezk and the Abbey of Saint Markovia. Returning to the rest of the party, they mulled it over, even considering their suspicions.
They left the village of Barovia then. Curse of Strahd calls for frequent random encounter checks: every half-hour of travel. But it calls for no more than 2 random encounters in a 12 hour period. This means travel is rapid but dangerous enough. Plus, when using the milestone rules, it mean the players shouldn't be dependent on the Xp from random fights to acquire levels.
Their first encounter occurred as they crossed an old stone bridge over the Ivlis river. They met a trapper with glorious mutton chops: Alexandrej Petrovich. He sized up the party and offered to sell them furs. Lop bought an over-priced but warm fox-fur cloak. In Barovia, most available goods are available if their under 25gp in the PHB and even then at ten times the price. I used traveler's clothes (cost 2 gp) as my guideline for price. So Alexandrej wanted 20gp. The party managed to bargain him down to 10. He did find Lop and Cugel entertaining. Fortunately, they entertained the trapper and he never saw Amrus's silver shortsword. The encounter could have gone south very quickly in that event.
After journeying through mountains and the forest, they came a crossroad with an empty gallows. They followed Ismark's advice and went left, avoiding the Tser Pool Encampment encounter for the moment. I'm not afraid to say I went OOC to let the players now that I'd like to have the Tarokka deck before running the reading. Fortunately, there are many options to for the reading other than Madam Eva if they never bother returning here. As they passed through the crossroads, they heard a body fall in the gallows behind them. Everyone saw a featureless body, but Lop saw the body as himself. They traveled past Tser falls, the cross roads leading up to Castle Ravenloft itself, and through another of Barovia's gates.
While passing through the forests, they had their second encounter: with a cackling mad druid and a pack of twig blights. Once again, Cugel broke out his favorite spell: Tahsa's hideous laughter to incapacitate the druid. We had a closer reading of the rules and learned that damage also grants a saving throw against the effect. This didn't matter much in this encounter, but it could have changed the encounter with the shambling mound. The reason it didn't effect this encounter: the first hit on the druid from Sarra was critical and took the druid down to half his hit points in one go.
Ismark and Ireena helped in the fight, Ismark using the fairly powerful veteran stat block and Ireena using the slightly less powerful noble stat block. I should have done a good DM thing and copied the blocks for the PCs to use, giving them more options in combat and making less work for me at the table.
The short version is that the druid died before contributing, and the PCs killed the twig blights before they could inflict any damage. I actually don't mind that Cugel is using Tasha's hideous laughter to good effect. So few players use these sort of control spells with no damaging effects. It's refreshing to see the tactic pay off at the table.
The rest of the journey was uneventful. They arrived in Vallaki. The guards sized them up, and decided they weren't dangerous enough to keep out. Contemplating the wolf heads on pikes surrounding the wooden stockade of the village, the PCs entered. They reached another milestone. The guards suggested the PCs visit the Blue Water Inn, and we broke for the night so people could level up.
I'm looking forward to running Vallaki. It exemplifies a good sandbox adventure: lots of options and directions for the PCs to follow, and so many of those wonderful sub-optimal choices to make that makes table-top role-playing worth it.
Monday, April 4, 2016
Getting Out of the House
We last left our heroes reeling from a long, tough battle. So they took a short rest.
Alec returned with a new player: Jose. He made a human fighter called Simon. He took the Duelist fighting style against my suggestion to take the protection style. The duelist style really works the best with an Eldritch Knight, since you need the free hand to cast spells. It was a quick and dirty creation job, but getting new players into the game sooner rather than later is better. Joseph and Nathan couldn't make it, so they were down two of their four arcane casters. However, Andrew and Ethan made it, so they had an extra off-tank caster and a tank. Being down the arcane casters, however, may have been a benefit. To novice DMs: when designing and running encounters party composition is an important thing to remember.
As they finished their short rest, they finished looting the footlocker in the bad chamber. They found a cloak of protection, which went to Tathora. There was also a chain shirt, a once amazing piece of armor nerfed a fair bit with edition changes. They also found a spellbook that will be useful to Cugel and Lop once they have a chance to copy spells.
They finished exploring the first basement level, finding cultist and initiate quarters and a well. They found treasure, the most useful of which was a silvered short sword. I reminded the party that Ravenloft, being a gothic horror setting, werewolves and the like are likely in the offing. Amrus ended up keeping the sword.
They finally reached level B2. The first room was a reliquary filled with grisly, but otherwise worthless trophies: a mummified goblin hand, a nothic's eye, an aspergillum made from bone, a cloak made of stitched ghoul skin, among others. Cugel took the cloak, Alec's reasoning being that as a Necromancer, he might as well look as metal as possible (he's not wrong; all the best necromancers look like they walked off the cover of a death metal album).
They went down a short corridor that descended into a flooded chamber blocked by a rusty portcullis. Lop squeezed himself through the bars enough to spot a wheel to raise the portcullis. But, without mage hand, he didn't have a way to work the wheel. Ultimately, Tarkir lifted it up with brute force. The room beyond was the source of the chanting, which the party could now make out as "He is the Ancient. He is the Land,": a flooded room with a five-foot high ledge around the outer wall, a raised dais with an alter in the middle, and a hole in the wall filled with a pile of refuse.
The adventure assumed the PCs would examine the altar on the dais. Adventure writers aren't always correct. This party avoided the dais and searched the refuse pile. They found nothing of value, so Rolan cast produce flame and threw the fire into the pile. The adventure writers did figure something like this might happen.
The refuse pile turned out to be a shambling mound the cultists had dubbed Lorghoth. If the party had gone up on the dais, the chanting would have switched to "One must die!" and when the (presumably) mostly good-aligned party backed down without taking a life, Lorghoth would have awakened and attacked. Instead it woke up when the other triggering event occurred: someone attacking the pile. I still hand the chant switch to "One must die!" as the battle started. I figured that they would need to kite the shambling mound. When you have an eight person party, however, they tend to take the third option: swarm it.
Shambling mounds are Challenge 5. Most of this is in the hit points: it has 16d10+48 hit die (averaging 136 hp). It has an AC of 15, so assuming a +5 attack modifier, the 2nd level PCs are hitting it around 55% of the time. Then there's its attack: +7 to hit with 2d8+4 damage, which it can use twice on the same target and follow-up with an engulf if both attacks hit, which does an extra 2d8+4 a round until the engulfed target escapes. It's also resistant to fire and cold damage and absorbs lightning damage (this last part would have made Ap cry, since he's so reliant on it).
I was expecting to kill a party member a round until they started kiting the monster (it's Move is only 20ft). Instead, it missed with its second slam attack against Sarra, then failed a pair of saves against Cugel's new favorite spell: Tasha's hideous laughter. Thus they managed to kill the "boss" with a minimum of resources.
Which was good. This adventure was set-up like a rogue-like. First you get in, then you need to get out. A party of mostly evil PCs willing to sacrifice a member on the altar would have gotten out scott-free. Those kind of parties are, thankfully, rare. So on returning to the attic of the house, they found things had changed. The windows were bricked up, the inner walls had become rotted, brittle, and filled with rats, and all the doors were replace with a platform gaming classic: scything blades of death. The blades require either a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check or an Intelligence check (both DC 15) to navigate without taking 2d10 damage. Technically, it took 1 minute to make the Intelligence check, but since the game called for going round by round at this point, and I didn't want a player sitting doing nothing for 10 turns to use a better ability to accomplishing their goals. The walls are easy to break: AC 5 with 5 hit points, but each 5-foot section broken through unleashes a swarm of rats (these resulted in a near TPK for the first level Tyranny of Dragons party before I joined). This party had less trouble with the rat swarms. I'm guessing being level 2 (and being a little more durable and having a few more options) and there being 8 people helped. Actually, only 6 people. Andrew and Ethan had to meet a curfew, so they left after the shambling mound was killed.
The last discovery awaited them on the lower floors: chambers with fire places were now filled with poisonous smoke. Jose, being a new player, wanted to test the boundaries of the "you can explore everywhere" in a table-top as opposed to a CRPG, and went into these rooms. He failed a DC 10 Con save and took 1d10 poison damage. He learned that sometimes, description tells you to not explore places for a reason.
All in all, they managed to escape the house with only one casualty: poor Tathora was reduced to 0 hp by the last set of scything blades on the way out the house. Fortunately, escaping the house was a milestone, so the party reached third level. I helped level-up everyone before we broke for the night, with the last "shot" being the battered party back on the streets of the village of Barovia and spotting a group of villagers exchanging money and muttering to each other.
In helping the new players level-up, Alec and I suggested that Hillary and Jose take the Champion fighter archetype. It's the simplest archetype, making it good for new players. But it lacks something veteran players often enjoy: a wide range of options, and a change in the power curve. I'll pause to examine the fighter archetypes before concluding.
The Champion increases the critical threat range to 19-20 at 3rd level and then 18-20 at 15th. It then enhances Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution checks at 7th level, combined with a bonus to jumping distance. Then at 10th level, you pick an additional fighting style. Lastly, at 18th level, you can regain hit points at the start of each of your turns if you're between 0 and half your total hp. It's a very "power" oriented path, but it lacks subtlety or adaptability. The only real choice: the new fighting style, isn't much of a choice. Your initial fighting style guides so many choices right away: what kind of weapons and equipment you'll take and how you'll contribute in combat. As previously said, the Duelist style: +2 to damage when wielding a one handed weapon and nothing in the off-hand, is best for an Eldritch Knight; you need the empty hand to cast spells. The Archery one (+2 to attack with ranged weapons) is good for the Eldritch Knight as well: casting enhances your ranged attack options, making you a better sniper. The Protection style (spending a reaction to inflict disadvantage on an attack on an adjacent target as long as you have a shield), Great Weapon Fighting (re-roll damage dice that come up 1 or 2, accepting the re-roll while using a weapon in two-hands) and the Two-Weapon Fighting (adding your ability modifier to the off-hand weapon when two-weapon fighting) are okay for Champion. Two-Weapon Fighting doubles critical chance, but with the Battle Master Archetype, its two chances for your maneuvers to hit. The only good second choice for a fighting style is Defense: +1 to AC as long as you're wearing armor. Few warm blooded players will take a turtle option for their initial style, but at higher levels a chance to be hit a little less in combat will be a good choice. It's also the only option that wouldn't force a character to change their weapon load-out mid-fight, something a bit easier in this edition, but still a bit problematic.
Well, the adventure has opened up into Sandbox mode starting next week. It will be interesting to see where the PCs go.
Alec returned with a new player: Jose. He made a human fighter called Simon. He took the Duelist fighting style against my suggestion to take the protection style. The duelist style really works the best with an Eldritch Knight, since you need the free hand to cast spells. It was a quick and dirty creation job, but getting new players into the game sooner rather than later is better. Joseph and Nathan couldn't make it, so they were down two of their four arcane casters. However, Andrew and Ethan made it, so they had an extra off-tank caster and a tank. Being down the arcane casters, however, may have been a benefit. To novice DMs: when designing and running encounters party composition is an important thing to remember.
As they finished their short rest, they finished looting the footlocker in the bad chamber. They found a cloak of protection, which went to Tathora. There was also a chain shirt, a once amazing piece of armor nerfed a fair bit with edition changes. They also found a spellbook that will be useful to Cugel and Lop once they have a chance to copy spells.
They finished exploring the first basement level, finding cultist and initiate quarters and a well. They found treasure, the most useful of which was a silvered short sword. I reminded the party that Ravenloft, being a gothic horror setting, werewolves and the like are likely in the offing. Amrus ended up keeping the sword.
They finally reached level B2. The first room was a reliquary filled with grisly, but otherwise worthless trophies: a mummified goblin hand, a nothic's eye, an aspergillum made from bone, a cloak made of stitched ghoul skin, among others. Cugel took the cloak, Alec's reasoning being that as a Necromancer, he might as well look as metal as possible (he's not wrong; all the best necromancers look like they walked off the cover of a death metal album).
They went down a short corridor that descended into a flooded chamber blocked by a rusty portcullis. Lop squeezed himself through the bars enough to spot a wheel to raise the portcullis. But, without mage hand, he didn't have a way to work the wheel. Ultimately, Tarkir lifted it up with brute force. The room beyond was the source of the chanting, which the party could now make out as "He is the Ancient. He is the Land,": a flooded room with a five-foot high ledge around the outer wall, a raised dais with an alter in the middle, and a hole in the wall filled with a pile of refuse.
The adventure assumed the PCs would examine the altar on the dais. Adventure writers aren't always correct. This party avoided the dais and searched the refuse pile. They found nothing of value, so Rolan cast produce flame and threw the fire into the pile. The adventure writers did figure something like this might happen.
The refuse pile turned out to be a shambling mound the cultists had dubbed Lorghoth. If the party had gone up on the dais, the chanting would have switched to "One must die!" and when the (presumably) mostly good-aligned party backed down without taking a life, Lorghoth would have awakened and attacked. Instead it woke up when the other triggering event occurred: someone attacking the pile. I still hand the chant switch to "One must die!" as the battle started. I figured that they would need to kite the shambling mound. When you have an eight person party, however, they tend to take the third option: swarm it.
Shambling mounds are Challenge 5. Most of this is in the hit points: it has 16d10+48 hit die (averaging 136 hp). It has an AC of 15, so assuming a +5 attack modifier, the 2nd level PCs are hitting it around 55% of the time. Then there's its attack: +7 to hit with 2d8+4 damage, which it can use twice on the same target and follow-up with an engulf if both attacks hit, which does an extra 2d8+4 a round until the engulfed target escapes. It's also resistant to fire and cold damage and absorbs lightning damage (this last part would have made Ap cry, since he's so reliant on it).
I was expecting to kill a party member a round until they started kiting the monster (it's Move is only 20ft). Instead, it missed with its second slam attack against Sarra, then failed a pair of saves against Cugel's new favorite spell: Tasha's hideous laughter. Thus they managed to kill the "boss" with a minimum of resources.
Which was good. This adventure was set-up like a rogue-like. First you get in, then you need to get out. A party of mostly evil PCs willing to sacrifice a member on the altar would have gotten out scott-free. Those kind of parties are, thankfully, rare. So on returning to the attic of the house, they found things had changed. The windows were bricked up, the inner walls had become rotted, brittle, and filled with rats, and all the doors were replace with a platform gaming classic: scything blades of death. The blades require either a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check or an Intelligence check (both DC 15) to navigate without taking 2d10 damage. Technically, it took 1 minute to make the Intelligence check, but since the game called for going round by round at this point, and I didn't want a player sitting doing nothing for 10 turns to use a better ability to accomplishing their goals. The walls are easy to break: AC 5 with 5 hit points, but each 5-foot section broken through unleashes a swarm of rats (these resulted in a near TPK for the first level Tyranny of Dragons party before I joined). This party had less trouble with the rat swarms. I'm guessing being level 2 (and being a little more durable and having a few more options) and there being 8 people helped. Actually, only 6 people. Andrew and Ethan had to meet a curfew, so they left after the shambling mound was killed.
The last discovery awaited them on the lower floors: chambers with fire places were now filled with poisonous smoke. Jose, being a new player, wanted to test the boundaries of the "you can explore everywhere" in a table-top as opposed to a CRPG, and went into these rooms. He failed a DC 10 Con save and took 1d10 poison damage. He learned that sometimes, description tells you to not explore places for a reason.
All in all, they managed to escape the house with only one casualty: poor Tathora was reduced to 0 hp by the last set of scything blades on the way out the house. Fortunately, escaping the house was a milestone, so the party reached third level. I helped level-up everyone before we broke for the night, with the last "shot" being the battered party back on the streets of the village of Barovia and spotting a group of villagers exchanging money and muttering to each other.
In helping the new players level-up, Alec and I suggested that Hillary and Jose take the Champion fighter archetype. It's the simplest archetype, making it good for new players. But it lacks something veteran players often enjoy: a wide range of options, and a change in the power curve. I'll pause to examine the fighter archetypes before concluding.
The Champion increases the critical threat range to 19-20 at 3rd level and then 18-20 at 15th. It then enhances Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution checks at 7th level, combined with a bonus to jumping distance. Then at 10th level, you pick an additional fighting style. Lastly, at 18th level, you can regain hit points at the start of each of your turns if you're between 0 and half your total hp. It's a very "power" oriented path, but it lacks subtlety or adaptability. The only real choice: the new fighting style, isn't much of a choice. Your initial fighting style guides so many choices right away: what kind of weapons and equipment you'll take and how you'll contribute in combat. As previously said, the Duelist style: +2 to damage when wielding a one handed weapon and nothing in the off-hand, is best for an Eldritch Knight; you need the empty hand to cast spells. The Archery one (+2 to attack with ranged weapons) is good for the Eldritch Knight as well: casting enhances your ranged attack options, making you a better sniper. The Protection style (spending a reaction to inflict disadvantage on an attack on an adjacent target as long as you have a shield), Great Weapon Fighting (re-roll damage dice that come up 1 or 2, accepting the re-roll while using a weapon in two-hands) and the Two-Weapon Fighting (adding your ability modifier to the off-hand weapon when two-weapon fighting) are okay for Champion. Two-Weapon Fighting doubles critical chance, but with the Battle Master Archetype, its two chances for your maneuvers to hit. The only good second choice for a fighting style is Defense: +1 to AC as long as you're wearing armor. Few warm blooded players will take a turtle option for their initial style, but at higher levels a chance to be hit a little less in combat will be a good choice. It's also the only option that wouldn't force a character to change their weapon load-out mid-fight, something a bit easier in this edition, but still a bit problematic.
Well, the adventure has opened up into Sandbox mode starting next week. It will be interesting to see where the PCs go.
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Three Battles-One Fight
I'm going to start this post off positively: newer and younger players are amazing. They don't come to the table with preconceived notions about gameplay; they they will surprise you with something people way more scholarly than me about gaming call emergent play. In normal speak it means playing a game in a fashion other than how its meant to played, but in a way it can be played. Table-top RPGs are great for this (in theory), because at its heart, they're about cooperatively creating a story about fictional personas in a fantasy universe.
However, table-top RPGs still often have very gamist roots, where the "story" is a challenge created by the DM that the players are trying to win, and its expected that the players will have a fighting chance, provided they don't do something stupid like splitting the party.
So for last session's game, Nathan and his half-elf warlock were back. He chose two very "tanky" warlock invocations: Armor of Shadows and Fiendish Vigor. The first lets him cast mage armor at will (a spell with an 8-hour duration that sets your AC 13+ Dex mod), and the second lets you cast false life at will (a spell which grants you 1d4+4 temporary hp for an hour). Sadly Ethan and Andrew were absent. Especially since Andrew's character, Tarkir, a paladin, would have been super effective in this fight. More on that later.
We had some new players: Alec, and two kids he takes care of: Hilary and Jake. Alec made a human wizard named Cugel, opting for the School of Necromancy arcane tradition. Hilary made a wood elf fighter named Sarra that specialized in two-weapon fighting. Jake made a wood elf rogue named Amrus.
The problem with new players and the Death House adventure is that its set up to be a bottle; the PCs can't get out until they finish the adventure. Presumably, then, no one should be able to get in. Being a DM for a shifting roster of players involves stretching narrative credulity to its breaking point; so the Mists of Ravenloft lured these three people in and drove them to the Death House, and they stumbled on the party just as the fight was beginning. As a DM, I think player participation is more important than narrative credulity.
One last thing: I read the DM's guide to the Ravenloft season of Adventurer's League, and discovered how the one-time return to life works. It provides the resurrected character with a benefit and two drawbacks. I already gave Joseph's resurrected Ap a drawback (a long-term madness with the flaw "I don't like the way people judge me all the time.") I added the perk: he's reading other's surface thoughts, but the first thing he hears is all their judgmental thoughts. So he has advantage on Insight checks, but hence the madness. I'm planning on introducing the second drawback later, when they emerge from the Death House and being interacting with Barovia in general.
So, Lop had grabbed an orb off a statue in a creepy basement, summoning some shadows into the room. The party bottle-necked themselves in the corridor into the room, leaving poor Lop alone to face the shadows.
Shadows are pretty tought for challenge 1/2 creatures. They're resistant to most things, including nonmagical weapons, and flat-out immune to necrotic and poison damage. They are however vulnerable to radiant, and take normal damage from force. They only have an AC of 12, but they have 3d8+3 hit die (averaging 16 hp-I use the averages from the stat blocks to save time). They're attack is only +4, but it inflicts 2d6+2 necrotic damage and does 1d4 Strength damage, which is healed with a short of long rest. The only other balancing factor is Sunlight Weakness, which gives them disadvantage on most rolls (mainly attacks and saves), so daylight (a 3rd level spell) could stop them cold. Still, as kobolds with Pack Tactics and CR 1/8 is a bit of a gross underestimation (see ALL of my posts on Tyranny of Dragons), I think these guys at CR 1/2 is a gross underestimation. Of course, as a DM I know the stat block, so I'm privy to good tactical choices. In this case, focus fire on each shadow in turn to take it out. Players, being players, react to what they can see. So most players (myself included) often see a mob and think: crowd control spells.
Their only source of radiant damage was Tathora, and their otherwise best damage dealer was Sarra, who was hampered by not having magic weapons (no surprise at 2nd level in a bottle adventure designed to take the party up to 3rd by the end) and by a couple of hits that brought her Strength down to 8 early in the fight. On top of that Cinis, Nathan's warlock, boldly stepped into the middle of the fray and was quickly taken to 0 hp. The astounding thing is that he self-stabilized in just three rolls. It also didn't help that (and I didn't realize this until the end of the session!) Alec thought spell slots are spell-dedicated like they were in previous editions. Now that its cleared up for him, I expect he'll play a little differently next session.
The shadow fight would have greatly benefited from Tarkir. Paladins have a nice spike in capability at 2nd. They get their fighting style feature (idenitical to previously discussed fighter features), spellcasting, and divine smite. This feature lets a paladin spend a spell slot after hitting with a melee attack. Spending a first level slot adds 2d8 radiant damage to the attack, adding 1d8 for every slot above 1st spent. Shadows have low AC, 12 to be precise. Plus they're vulnerable to radiant damage. Averaging 9 damage, doubled the 18, plus half of whatever he rolled on the attack's initial, halved damage, Tarkir could have taken out 2 shadows in as many turns.
So the fight with the shadows was a grind. I realized this early and started fudging rolls to have things go a little easier for the PCs. Then Jake and his wood elf rogue Amrus decided to go exploring. His reasons for doing so were right on target for role-playing: his character wants money, so he was looking for valuables to loot. He discovered a den and then a bed chamber with a footlocker. So, looking for valuables, he opened the foot locker. He found some. After grabbing the first item, a potion of healing, he awakened the ghasts of Gustav and Elizabeth Durst, the leaders of the cult that built this basement lair.
Ghasts, for those not familiar with D&D, are tougher palette-swaps of ghouls. They have a few more hit points, hit a little bit more often and hit harder when they do hit. Plus, they can paralyze even those pesky elves. On top of that they have a Stench feature, which can poison anyone standing next to them. Last but not least, they have resistance to Turn Undead, something that they also grant to nearby undead. I fudged the feature a bit-PCs should have had to save against both ghasts before being immune to the feature for 24 hours. With the in-game reasoning that this was already a grind, and the narrative reason that this was a husband and wife team, I let one save work for both ghasts. All these upgrades earn a ghast a Challenge of 2 compared to the ghoul's 1. However, since ghasts aren't resistant to any particular damage type the party was dishing out, their hit points were effectively "lower" than the shadows'. Especially since ghasts' AC is also low, 13 to be exact.
Fortunately, Jake was smart enough to play another rogue tactic right: running, hiding, and sneak attacking from hiding. One particularly lucky damage roll took Elizabeth Durst ghast down to almost bloodied in one hit.
In the meantime, the party's shadow fight continued to grind. First burning hands and thunderwave were used. Unfortunately, shadows are resistant to fire and thunder. So successful saves effectively quartered the damage. Some low rolls led to some shadows taking a measly 1 damage from the attacks. In a bit of role-playing more than tactics, will had Lop use prestidigitation to turn the sheet he had taken into a "ghost." This didn't really slow the shadows down, but it provided some entertaining moments during a tense battle.
Once they had cleared most of the shadows, the Gustav Durst ghast arrived in the room. Cugel disabled it with tasha's hideous laughter, which made dropping it a mere chore rather than a grind. It had a particular string of bad saving throws, too. Other party members decided to help Amrus with his battle with the ghastly Mrs. Durst.
Without maps, it will be a little difficult to explain what happened next, but this it. There are two ways into the shadow room from the cult den and bedroom nearby. One a twisty corridor, the other a short corridor with a door. Gustav Durst took the twisty corridor when entering the shadow room. None of the players noticed the significance of this (they're all kicking themselves for how obvious it was in hindsight, now). Ap decided to open the door.
In a classic moment of the 1st-edition adventure design standard of "The DM is actively trying to kill the PCs," the door turned out to be a mimic. These mean D&D standbys imitate furniture, usually chests but also (sometimes) doors and other frequently used items like tables or chairs, ambushing PCs with sticky skin, psuedopods, and biting jaws. Ap hadn't used his action yet, so he pushed the mimic away with a thunderwave spell. At this point I flat out told the players that I had hoped they didn't pull this monster.
In this edition, mimics are CR 2. They have a low AC (12), lots of hit die (9d8 + 18, averaging to 58 hit points), middling attacks (only +5 to hit) with only middling damage (1d8+3 for a psuedopod and 1d8+3 for a bite that also inflicts 1d8 acid damage). However, they're VERY good at grappling (made MUCH easier in this edition). They're bigger hit point sinks than the similarly challenge rated ghasts, but they're less offensively inclined and have a little less battlefield control.
By this time, the party needed to finish off the ghasts (this included Cugel using his little used wizard stabby dagger! on Mr. Durst) and Amrus continuing to sneak attack Mrs. Durst. Even though poor Sarra had been nerfed by the shadows, she still managed to be effective in mop up. By the end of the night, our table had done something it had never done before: gone longer than any other encounters table in the store. It took close to 2 and a half hours from me arriving around 7:15, to when they finally cleared the encounter at around 9:45. I even spotted them the last hit point of the mimic and fudged rolls left and right to make the monsters less effective and to make the grind go quicker.
One of the more comedic moments was Ap using shocking grasp on the mimic, which only got his hand stuck to it again. In a subsequent, failed attack with the same spell, he missed. I decided that the mimic's adhesive is a resistor, so it gave his electrified hand just enough give to ground out the shocking part of the grasp its slime.
I'm going to take a soap box for a minute hear, and also combine it with some armchair game design. First, is the issue of challenge rating. The idea behind a challenge rating is that a party of a certain level should be able to handle that monster at a certain level of effectiveness. In 3rd and 3.5 it was "the party should expend a quarter of their overall resources on the monster," In 5th, it's the more vague "a fully rested party at this level should have no trouble beating the monster/NPC." The idea of challenge rating is a sticky one, considering how vague it really is, especially since different party builds will have different resources to throw at something. Sure, Tarkir (or any paladin really) at second level or higher would have made short work of the shadows. Or if Tathora hadn't expended her Turn Undead (or refreshed it before this battle with a short rest), they could have isolated the shadows better. Or if they were 5th level or higher and any caster with daylight (its on most of the lists-only bard, warlock, and wizard don't get it) or a cleric with spirit guardians, the shadows would have been dead meat in a turn or two tops. But at 1st-4th level, they're 32 hit point sinks with the potential to make the party's ability to damage them less effective with each attack. So CR 1/2 is a low ball figure, in my opinion. Granted, I think there is a base assumption that somewhere between level 1 and 4 at least one party member will become the proud owner of a shiny magic weapon, and the spell magic weapon is only level 2 (meaning casters get it at 3rd level and higher). Again, we've arrived at vagueness, and that just doesn't sit well with the gamist nature of the rule. The ghast and mimic's challenge rating felt more correct. The ghast for being better offensively and at controlling, and the mimic for its surprise value and being a big old hit point sink.
Lastly, was Jake's little foray that allowed this battle to spiral out of control. And God Bless the noobs. He hadn't played D&D long enough to know that you never split the party. But he was familiar enough with the idea of table-top role-playing games to understand another, and in some ways more important, thing: do what your character would do. He decided that a greedy wood elf rogue would leave an embattled group of strangers to find rich stuff. Tactically unwise, yes, but exactly why we play table-top RPGs and not CRPGs or adventure board games: because our options are only limited by our imagination.
However, table-top RPGs still often have very gamist roots, where the "story" is a challenge created by the DM that the players are trying to win, and its expected that the players will have a fighting chance, provided they don't do something stupid like splitting the party.
So for last session's game, Nathan and his half-elf warlock were back. He chose two very "tanky" warlock invocations: Armor of Shadows and Fiendish Vigor. The first lets him cast mage armor at will (a spell with an 8-hour duration that sets your AC 13+ Dex mod), and the second lets you cast false life at will (a spell which grants you 1d4+4 temporary hp for an hour). Sadly Ethan and Andrew were absent. Especially since Andrew's character, Tarkir, a paladin, would have been super effective in this fight. More on that later.
We had some new players: Alec, and two kids he takes care of: Hilary and Jake. Alec made a human wizard named Cugel, opting for the School of Necromancy arcane tradition. Hilary made a wood elf fighter named Sarra that specialized in two-weapon fighting. Jake made a wood elf rogue named Amrus.
The problem with new players and the Death House adventure is that its set up to be a bottle; the PCs can't get out until they finish the adventure. Presumably, then, no one should be able to get in. Being a DM for a shifting roster of players involves stretching narrative credulity to its breaking point; so the Mists of Ravenloft lured these three people in and drove them to the Death House, and they stumbled on the party just as the fight was beginning. As a DM, I think player participation is more important than narrative credulity.
One last thing: I read the DM's guide to the Ravenloft season of Adventurer's League, and discovered how the one-time return to life works. It provides the resurrected character with a benefit and two drawbacks. I already gave Joseph's resurrected Ap a drawback (a long-term madness with the flaw "I don't like the way people judge me all the time.") I added the perk: he's reading other's surface thoughts, but the first thing he hears is all their judgmental thoughts. So he has advantage on Insight checks, but hence the madness. I'm planning on introducing the second drawback later, when they emerge from the Death House and being interacting with Barovia in general.
So, Lop had grabbed an orb off a statue in a creepy basement, summoning some shadows into the room. The party bottle-necked themselves in the corridor into the room, leaving poor Lop alone to face the shadows.
Shadows are pretty tought for challenge 1/2 creatures. They're resistant to most things, including nonmagical weapons, and flat-out immune to necrotic and poison damage. They are however vulnerable to radiant, and take normal damage from force. They only have an AC of 12, but they have 3d8+3 hit die (averaging 16 hp-I use the averages from the stat blocks to save time). They're attack is only +4, but it inflicts 2d6+2 necrotic damage and does 1d4 Strength damage, which is healed with a short of long rest. The only other balancing factor is Sunlight Weakness, which gives them disadvantage on most rolls (mainly attacks and saves), so daylight (a 3rd level spell) could stop them cold. Still, as kobolds with Pack Tactics and CR 1/8 is a bit of a gross underestimation (see ALL of my posts on Tyranny of Dragons), I think these guys at CR 1/2 is a gross underestimation. Of course, as a DM I know the stat block, so I'm privy to good tactical choices. In this case, focus fire on each shadow in turn to take it out. Players, being players, react to what they can see. So most players (myself included) often see a mob and think: crowd control spells.
Their only source of radiant damage was Tathora, and their otherwise best damage dealer was Sarra, who was hampered by not having magic weapons (no surprise at 2nd level in a bottle adventure designed to take the party up to 3rd by the end) and by a couple of hits that brought her Strength down to 8 early in the fight. On top of that Cinis, Nathan's warlock, boldly stepped into the middle of the fray and was quickly taken to 0 hp. The astounding thing is that he self-stabilized in just three rolls. It also didn't help that (and I didn't realize this until the end of the session!) Alec thought spell slots are spell-dedicated like they were in previous editions. Now that its cleared up for him, I expect he'll play a little differently next session.
The shadow fight would have greatly benefited from Tarkir. Paladins have a nice spike in capability at 2nd. They get their fighting style feature (idenitical to previously discussed fighter features), spellcasting, and divine smite. This feature lets a paladin spend a spell slot after hitting with a melee attack. Spending a first level slot adds 2d8 radiant damage to the attack, adding 1d8 for every slot above 1st spent. Shadows have low AC, 12 to be precise. Plus they're vulnerable to radiant damage. Averaging 9 damage, doubled the 18, plus half of whatever he rolled on the attack's initial, halved damage, Tarkir could have taken out 2 shadows in as many turns.
So the fight with the shadows was a grind. I realized this early and started fudging rolls to have things go a little easier for the PCs. Then Jake and his wood elf rogue Amrus decided to go exploring. His reasons for doing so were right on target for role-playing: his character wants money, so he was looking for valuables to loot. He discovered a den and then a bed chamber with a footlocker. So, looking for valuables, he opened the foot locker. He found some. After grabbing the first item, a potion of healing, he awakened the ghasts of Gustav and Elizabeth Durst, the leaders of the cult that built this basement lair.
Ghasts, for those not familiar with D&D, are tougher palette-swaps of ghouls. They have a few more hit points, hit a little bit more often and hit harder when they do hit. Plus, they can paralyze even those pesky elves. On top of that they have a Stench feature, which can poison anyone standing next to them. Last but not least, they have resistance to Turn Undead, something that they also grant to nearby undead. I fudged the feature a bit-PCs should have had to save against both ghasts before being immune to the feature for 24 hours. With the in-game reasoning that this was already a grind, and the narrative reason that this was a husband and wife team, I let one save work for both ghasts. All these upgrades earn a ghast a Challenge of 2 compared to the ghoul's 1. However, since ghasts aren't resistant to any particular damage type the party was dishing out, their hit points were effectively "lower" than the shadows'. Especially since ghasts' AC is also low, 13 to be exact.
Fortunately, Jake was smart enough to play another rogue tactic right: running, hiding, and sneak attacking from hiding. One particularly lucky damage roll took Elizabeth Durst ghast down to almost bloodied in one hit.
In the meantime, the party's shadow fight continued to grind. First burning hands and thunderwave were used. Unfortunately, shadows are resistant to fire and thunder. So successful saves effectively quartered the damage. Some low rolls led to some shadows taking a measly 1 damage from the attacks. In a bit of role-playing more than tactics, will had Lop use prestidigitation to turn the sheet he had taken into a "ghost." This didn't really slow the shadows down, but it provided some entertaining moments during a tense battle.
Once they had cleared most of the shadows, the Gustav Durst ghast arrived in the room. Cugel disabled it with tasha's hideous laughter, which made dropping it a mere chore rather than a grind. It had a particular string of bad saving throws, too. Other party members decided to help Amrus with his battle with the ghastly Mrs. Durst.
Without maps, it will be a little difficult to explain what happened next, but this it. There are two ways into the shadow room from the cult den and bedroom nearby. One a twisty corridor, the other a short corridor with a door. Gustav Durst took the twisty corridor when entering the shadow room. None of the players noticed the significance of this (they're all kicking themselves for how obvious it was in hindsight, now). Ap decided to open the door.
In a classic moment of the 1st-edition adventure design standard of "The DM is actively trying to kill the PCs," the door turned out to be a mimic. These mean D&D standbys imitate furniture, usually chests but also (sometimes) doors and other frequently used items like tables or chairs, ambushing PCs with sticky skin, psuedopods, and biting jaws. Ap hadn't used his action yet, so he pushed the mimic away with a thunderwave spell. At this point I flat out told the players that I had hoped they didn't pull this monster.
In this edition, mimics are CR 2. They have a low AC (12), lots of hit die (9d8 + 18, averaging to 58 hit points), middling attacks (only +5 to hit) with only middling damage (1d8+3 for a psuedopod and 1d8+3 for a bite that also inflicts 1d8 acid damage). However, they're VERY good at grappling (made MUCH easier in this edition). They're bigger hit point sinks than the similarly challenge rated ghasts, but they're less offensively inclined and have a little less battlefield control.
By this time, the party needed to finish off the ghasts (this included Cugel using his little used wizard stabby dagger! on Mr. Durst) and Amrus continuing to sneak attack Mrs. Durst. Even though poor Sarra had been nerfed by the shadows, she still managed to be effective in mop up. By the end of the night, our table had done something it had never done before: gone longer than any other encounters table in the store. It took close to 2 and a half hours from me arriving around 7:15, to when they finally cleared the encounter at around 9:45. I even spotted them the last hit point of the mimic and fudged rolls left and right to make the monsters less effective and to make the grind go quicker.
One of the more comedic moments was Ap using shocking grasp on the mimic, which only got his hand stuck to it again. In a subsequent, failed attack with the same spell, he missed. I decided that the mimic's adhesive is a resistor, so it gave his electrified hand just enough give to ground out the shocking part of the grasp its slime.
I'm going to take a soap box for a minute hear, and also combine it with some armchair game design. First, is the issue of challenge rating. The idea behind a challenge rating is that a party of a certain level should be able to handle that monster at a certain level of effectiveness. In 3rd and 3.5 it was "the party should expend a quarter of their overall resources on the monster," In 5th, it's the more vague "a fully rested party at this level should have no trouble beating the monster/NPC." The idea of challenge rating is a sticky one, considering how vague it really is, especially since different party builds will have different resources to throw at something. Sure, Tarkir (or any paladin really) at second level or higher would have made short work of the shadows. Or if Tathora hadn't expended her Turn Undead (or refreshed it before this battle with a short rest), they could have isolated the shadows better. Or if they were 5th level or higher and any caster with daylight (its on most of the lists-only bard, warlock, and wizard don't get it) or a cleric with spirit guardians, the shadows would have been dead meat in a turn or two tops. But at 1st-4th level, they're 32 hit point sinks with the potential to make the party's ability to damage them less effective with each attack. So CR 1/2 is a low ball figure, in my opinion. Granted, I think there is a base assumption that somewhere between level 1 and 4 at least one party member will become the proud owner of a shiny magic weapon, and the spell magic weapon is only level 2 (meaning casters get it at 3rd level and higher). Again, we've arrived at vagueness, and that just doesn't sit well with the gamist nature of the rule. The ghast and mimic's challenge rating felt more correct. The ghast for being better offensively and at controlling, and the mimic for its surprise value and being a big old hit point sink.
Lastly, was Jake's little foray that allowed this battle to spiral out of control. And God Bless the noobs. He hadn't played D&D long enough to know that you never split the party. But he was familiar enough with the idea of table-top role-playing games to understand another, and in some ways more important, thing: do what your character would do. He decided that a greedy wood elf rogue would leave an embattled group of strangers to find rich stuff. Tactically unwise, yes, but exactly why we play table-top RPGs and not CRPGs or adventure board games: because our options are only limited by our imagination.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
The Death House, Continued
When we last left our heroes, they were taking a short rest. Remember, in 5e, that means resting for an hour.
Of course, the three high schoolers were absent this weeks. So they were down a warlock, a druid, and a paladin. In other words, they didn't have a tank. Those of you who remembered our Tyranny of Dragons tale will know that this is often bad. Also, the tank was the one who wanted to take the short rest to spend his hit die and regain some hit points.
Still, relaxing in the library, they found an iron key they missed before and had a chance to study some ritual books they found and learned that they were bogus. After the short rest, they returned to the third floor and explored the last room: a dust covered and cob-webbed chocked bedroom with an attached nursery. They found nothing of value in the bedroom and approached the nursery with trepidation, recalling the mention of a stillborn earlier in the story.
Their caution was founded, when they opened the nursery a spectre of the dead nursemaid, the dead baby's mother, manifested and attacked. Thanks to some high rolls on my part and low rolls for the players, I almost killed Tathora and did kill Ap. In this edition, negative levels have been replaced by reduction to maximum hit points. It is just as threatening at low levels, but a little bit less burdensome at higher levels. Plus, spectres resist almost everything. Ap used Witch Bolt, a handy little damage over time attack spell. Lop used magic missile, and Tathora used Sacred Flame. Force and radiant damage are among the few things spectres don't resist. They aren't hard to hit, and don't have too many hit points, but can hit like bricks when they connect. I improvised a one-time free resurrection involving a bargain with a mysterious entity, and Ap came back to life with a new flaw brought on by long term madness, an optional rule in the DMG.
Checking the crib, they found it...empty. As Poe said, "Darkness there and nothing more."
They finally reached the attic. They found a dust choked spare bedroom, and a dust choked storage room. In the storage room, they found the corpse of the nursemaid, stabbed to death, wrapped in a blanket, and stuffed in a chest. They explored another dusty spare bedroom, then used the iron key to unlock the padlock on the final room: a room filled with children's toys, and toy dead children dressed in familiar clothes, on clutching a familiar stuffed animal. As they began examining the room, the ghosts of Rose and Thorn rose up from their bones and confronted the party. They revealed some final secrets: including the location of the secret door down to the basement. Thorn possessed Lop after the party promised to take the kids with them. Rose wanted to possess Tathora, but she managed to convince the ghost to just follow them instead. They gathered up the kids bones and opened the secret door and descended the twisting wooden spiral stairs down to the basement. This was their first plot milestone, and they leveled-up. Being a Diablo fan, I also granted them the side boon of getting the benefits of a long rest when leveling up.
The basement was carved out of earth, clay and rock, with narrow, twisting corridors. When they arrived the sound of chanting filled the basement. After stepping off the stair, they found a set of family crypts. They left the parents' alone, but laid Rose and Thorn's remains to rest in their crypts, allowing the ghosts to pass on and earning the PCs inspiration. They found a dining hall west of the crypts with a grick lying in ambush in an alcove. They avoided the grick, and took a corridor around the dining hall, where Tathora fell into a spiked pit trap. After pulling her out, they followed another hallway, and were ambushed by ghouls. The adventure called for 4, but with the party short and down a tank, I decided to reduce it to 2. Tathora used Turn Undead to chase away one of them, allowing them to isolate and take out the monsters. Rather than rolling on tables to determine the strength of the turning, the undead targets just make a Wisdom saving throw to avoid being turned. This makes it more powerful and more useful. Of course, this power upgrade is probably why clerics don't get it until 2nd level now. When they followed the turned ghoul to take it out, they found a room with a shrine dedicated to a statue of a pale figure petting a wolf and holding a crystal orb. Getting greedy, Lop grabbed the orb, summoning up some shadows guarding the shrine. We ended on that cliff hanger.
Hopefully, they'll have more of the party present at the next session. They might need a tank.
Of course, the three high schoolers were absent this weeks. So they were down a warlock, a druid, and a paladin. In other words, they didn't have a tank. Those of you who remembered our Tyranny of Dragons tale will know that this is often bad. Also, the tank was the one who wanted to take the short rest to spend his hit die and regain some hit points.
Still, relaxing in the library, they found an iron key they missed before and had a chance to study some ritual books they found and learned that they were bogus. After the short rest, they returned to the third floor and explored the last room: a dust covered and cob-webbed chocked bedroom with an attached nursery. They found nothing of value in the bedroom and approached the nursery with trepidation, recalling the mention of a stillborn earlier in the story.
Their caution was founded, when they opened the nursery a spectre of the dead nursemaid, the dead baby's mother, manifested and attacked. Thanks to some high rolls on my part and low rolls for the players, I almost killed Tathora and did kill Ap. In this edition, negative levels have been replaced by reduction to maximum hit points. It is just as threatening at low levels, but a little bit less burdensome at higher levels. Plus, spectres resist almost everything. Ap used Witch Bolt, a handy little damage over time attack spell. Lop used magic missile, and Tathora used Sacred Flame. Force and radiant damage are among the few things spectres don't resist. They aren't hard to hit, and don't have too many hit points, but can hit like bricks when they connect. I improvised a one-time free resurrection involving a bargain with a mysterious entity, and Ap came back to life with a new flaw brought on by long term madness, an optional rule in the DMG.
Checking the crib, they found it...empty. As Poe said, "Darkness there and nothing more."
They finally reached the attic. They found a dust choked spare bedroom, and a dust choked storage room. In the storage room, they found the corpse of the nursemaid, stabbed to death, wrapped in a blanket, and stuffed in a chest. They explored another dusty spare bedroom, then used the iron key to unlock the padlock on the final room: a room filled with children's toys, and toy dead children dressed in familiar clothes, on clutching a familiar stuffed animal. As they began examining the room, the ghosts of Rose and Thorn rose up from their bones and confronted the party. They revealed some final secrets: including the location of the secret door down to the basement. Thorn possessed Lop after the party promised to take the kids with them. Rose wanted to possess Tathora, but she managed to convince the ghost to just follow them instead. They gathered up the kids bones and opened the secret door and descended the twisting wooden spiral stairs down to the basement. This was their first plot milestone, and they leveled-up. Being a Diablo fan, I also granted them the side boon of getting the benefits of a long rest when leveling up.
The basement was carved out of earth, clay and rock, with narrow, twisting corridors. When they arrived the sound of chanting filled the basement. After stepping off the stair, they found a set of family crypts. They left the parents' alone, but laid Rose and Thorn's remains to rest in their crypts, allowing the ghosts to pass on and earning the PCs inspiration. They found a dining hall west of the crypts with a grick lying in ambush in an alcove. They avoided the grick, and took a corridor around the dining hall, where Tathora fell into a spiked pit trap. After pulling her out, they followed another hallway, and were ambushed by ghouls. The adventure called for 4, but with the party short and down a tank, I decided to reduce it to 2. Tathora used Turn Undead to chase away one of them, allowing them to isolate and take out the monsters. Rather than rolling on tables to determine the strength of the turning, the undead targets just make a Wisdom saving throw to avoid being turned. This makes it more powerful and more useful. Of course, this power upgrade is probably why clerics don't get it until 2nd level now. When they followed the turned ghoul to take it out, they found a room with a shrine dedicated to a statue of a pale figure petting a wolf and holding a crystal orb. Getting greedy, Lop grabbed the orb, summoning up some shadows guarding the shrine. We ended on that cliff hanger.
Hopefully, they'll have more of the party present at the next session. They might need a tank.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Triumphant Return
So after my last post, complications from my surgery put me in the hospital, where I ended up needing another surgery. The Elemental Evil campaign fell apart after that, so I formed a new group and we played through the Lost Mines of Phandelver, the adventure that comes in the Starter Set. It's a tough, but otherwise pretty decent adventure. Much like Tyranny of Dragons its plagued with balance issues, which could be somewhat exacerbated by the mediocre pre-gens (we didn't use those).
On to the main event: Curse of Strahd, 5e's reboot of the Classic Ravenloft has hit shelves. Being a former White Wolf demo guy, I couldn't wait to introduce my players the some bloodsucking horror.
Curse of Strahd features an introductory adventure called Death House, where the PCs explore a haunted house, the ambiance of which becomes increasing terrifying and decayed as they examine the details and move further in. It makes me soooooooo happy.
While some options are available to have the PCs be Barovians, I opted for a more "Silent Hill" approach: the PCs are normal folks who just happened to stumble into the Mists. They built Forgotten Realms characters with extant options.
Meet the dramatis personae: Tathora, played by a newer player Kyla. She's a half-elf cleric of Lathander (the Forgotten Realms deity of dawn, birth, and new beginnings). Next is Lop, played by newer player Will. He's a gnome wizard. Judging by Will' role-playing decisions and the traditional gnomish path, I think he might end up being an Illusionist. Continuing around the table, returning player Nathan is playing Cinis, a half-elf Warlock with Fiendish patron. Next, returning player Ethan is playing Rolan, a wood elf Druid who is planning on taking Circle of the Moon. Next up is newer player Andrew, brought into the group by Nathan. He's playing Tarkir (yes, he does play Magic), a gold-descended dragonborn Paladin. Last, but not least, is my buddy Joseph with Ap, a human Sorcerer with the new Storm Sorcerer and the Outlander background from the new Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. Kyla and Nathan did opt to use a new background option for Curse of Strahd: Haunted One, a background based around the character being the survivor of some horrific event in their past.
We dove in: the group was travelling south from Daggerford, taking shelter from rain in the outskirts of the Misty Forest on the border of the High Moor. However, cold Mist from the Demiplane of Dread descended on them and took them the outskirts of Barovia. The soon found the Old Svalich road and followed it to the gates of Barovia, ancient metal gates that shrieked on rusty hinges as they opened and squealed as they closed behind the party. Travelling through the Svalich woods, they happened upon a corpse bearing a letter from Kolyan Indirovich, the Burgomaster of the village of Barovia. When the pack of wolves responsible for killing the messenger came closer, the party of first level adventurers wisely decided to flee. Eventually the road led them to the village, and Mists guided them to two children, weeping in front of an old row house on the eastern edge of town.
The children, Rosavalda and Thornboldt, or Rose and Thorn, asked the party to go into the house to help their younger brother Walter and to fight a terrible monster living in the basement. Being mostly good, they went in. The house belongs to a clan of minor noble called the Dursts (no relation to Fred) that have a wind mill as their symbol. The house is richly furnished and appointed, but apparently abandoned. After exploring the hall, dining room, kitchen, and den on the first floor, they moved onto the second floor.
The second floor held a servants' quarters, a conservatory, and a study. Here, they began taking a closer look at their surroundings, discovering hidden images of people being attacked by bats in a painting superficially about dancing, and small figurines that turned out to be well dressed skeletons upon closer inspection. They also found a secret room off the study with a now dead adventurer half inside a chest. They rooted through the treasure, finding spell scrolls and deeds to the house and a wind mill. They also found a nice condescending letter from Count Strahd Von Zarovich himself, letting the Durst know exactly how he felt about them (he doesn't like them). The letter also mentioned a stillborn child.
They reached the third floor balcony and the first battle of the session: with a suit of animated armor. They have a high AC (being made of armor and all) and lots of hit points (see before), but don't hit very hard or very often. Still, it made Tarkir nervous. Even first level tanks don't have that many hit points. Upon reaching the third floor, they discovered that everything is now old and covered with dust and cobwebs, as opposed the previous two floors where everything was intact and relatively clean. They explored the master bedroom, looting an old jewelry box. Then they found a bathroom and linen closet. Here, Lop got a bit greedy and tried to grab a sheet from the linen closet, setting off a broom of animated attack. Its a new animated object from Curse of Strahd. Easier to hit and with fewer hit points than the armor, it hits a little more often if a little less hard. After some obligatory Sorcerer's Apprentice jokes, the broom was dispatched.
At that point it was getting late, so we called the session. The PCs were planning on taking an uneventful short rest, so they'll start the next session somewhat refreshed.
I'm excited, folks in internet land. Are you?
On to the main event: Curse of Strahd, 5e's reboot of the Classic Ravenloft has hit shelves. Being a former White Wolf demo guy, I couldn't wait to introduce my players the some bloodsucking horror.
Curse of Strahd features an introductory adventure called Death House, where the PCs explore a haunted house, the ambiance of which becomes increasing terrifying and decayed as they examine the details and move further in. It makes me soooooooo happy.
While some options are available to have the PCs be Barovians, I opted for a more "Silent Hill" approach: the PCs are normal folks who just happened to stumble into the Mists. They built Forgotten Realms characters with extant options.
Meet the dramatis personae: Tathora, played by a newer player Kyla. She's a half-elf cleric of Lathander (the Forgotten Realms deity of dawn, birth, and new beginnings). Next is Lop, played by newer player Will. He's a gnome wizard. Judging by Will' role-playing decisions and the traditional gnomish path, I think he might end up being an Illusionist. Continuing around the table, returning player Nathan is playing Cinis, a half-elf Warlock with Fiendish patron. Next, returning player Ethan is playing Rolan, a wood elf Druid who is planning on taking Circle of the Moon. Next up is newer player Andrew, brought into the group by Nathan. He's playing Tarkir (yes, he does play Magic), a gold-descended dragonborn Paladin. Last, but not least, is my buddy Joseph with Ap, a human Sorcerer with the new Storm Sorcerer and the Outlander background from the new Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. Kyla and Nathan did opt to use a new background option for Curse of Strahd: Haunted One, a background based around the character being the survivor of some horrific event in their past.
We dove in: the group was travelling south from Daggerford, taking shelter from rain in the outskirts of the Misty Forest on the border of the High Moor. However, cold Mist from the Demiplane of Dread descended on them and took them the outskirts of Barovia. The soon found the Old Svalich road and followed it to the gates of Barovia, ancient metal gates that shrieked on rusty hinges as they opened and squealed as they closed behind the party. Travelling through the Svalich woods, they happened upon a corpse bearing a letter from Kolyan Indirovich, the Burgomaster of the village of Barovia. When the pack of wolves responsible for killing the messenger came closer, the party of first level adventurers wisely decided to flee. Eventually the road led them to the village, and Mists guided them to two children, weeping in front of an old row house on the eastern edge of town.
The children, Rosavalda and Thornboldt, or Rose and Thorn, asked the party to go into the house to help their younger brother Walter and to fight a terrible monster living in the basement. Being mostly good, they went in. The house belongs to a clan of minor noble called the Dursts (no relation to Fred) that have a wind mill as their symbol. The house is richly furnished and appointed, but apparently abandoned. After exploring the hall, dining room, kitchen, and den on the first floor, they moved onto the second floor.
The second floor held a servants' quarters, a conservatory, and a study. Here, they began taking a closer look at their surroundings, discovering hidden images of people being attacked by bats in a painting superficially about dancing, and small figurines that turned out to be well dressed skeletons upon closer inspection. They also found a secret room off the study with a now dead adventurer half inside a chest. They rooted through the treasure, finding spell scrolls and deeds to the house and a wind mill. They also found a nice condescending letter from Count Strahd Von Zarovich himself, letting the Durst know exactly how he felt about them (he doesn't like them). The letter also mentioned a stillborn child.
They reached the third floor balcony and the first battle of the session: with a suit of animated armor. They have a high AC (being made of armor and all) and lots of hit points (see before), but don't hit very hard or very often. Still, it made Tarkir nervous. Even first level tanks don't have that many hit points. Upon reaching the third floor, they discovered that everything is now old and covered with dust and cobwebs, as opposed the previous two floors where everything was intact and relatively clean. They explored the master bedroom, looting an old jewelry box. Then they found a bathroom and linen closet. Here, Lop got a bit greedy and tried to grab a sheet from the linen closet, setting off a broom of animated attack. Its a new animated object from Curse of Strahd. Easier to hit and with fewer hit points than the armor, it hits a little more often if a little less hard. After some obligatory Sorcerer's Apprentice jokes, the broom was dispatched.
At that point it was getting late, so we called the session. The PCs were planning on taking an uneventful short rest, so they'll start the next session somewhat refreshed.
I'm excited, folks in internet land. Are you?
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