Well, I thought I was going to get to play yesterday, but instead I ended up GMing. I have met all the requirements for a level 3 GM and will be upgraded soon enough. I don't think I deserve the title yet, but I'm working on it.
I did manage another kill yesterday though. I know that I shouldn't be proud of them (the kills), but proudly displaying my kill stickers helps a bit with the us vs. them mentality that is important to the game. I had a decent enough level 2-4 adventure planned out. I'll give the players credit that they (for the most part) had some good tactics and played it smart. If they dived in like I had planned, I may have gotten a couple more kills in. I really wasn't too concerned that the players would have problems because they are slightly munckined. Nothing wrong with that as they are all sanctioned PCs. The party is made up of a Level 2 Grel Swashbuckler (very hard to hit -3 AC), a Level 2 Half-Ogre Fighter (specialized in a Giant Sized Battle -Axe), a Level 1 Zealot of Kishjonen (Gawdess of Luck), a Level 1 Magic-User, and my wifes 5th Level Cleric. Between the tank and the cleric, they don't have much to worry about. Sure they'll walk through most lower level adventures, but they role-play well and as the difficulty level rises, they wil have more to worry about.
I had already capped one Half-Ogre who didn't do as much damage as the current one, but who was a healing machine........I just remembered that the Cleric still has his magic items. The players withdrew and had a second go at it. They found the evil temple and decided to rest up before going in.
I'll be the first to admit I wasn't very sharp on the temple as I hadn't prepped as much as I would have. Fortunately I had a lot of legwork done previously. The players missed only one magic item on a corpse and did a good job of looting the place. The only thing they didn't do (not for lack of trying) was open up one tomb which they really didn't want to if they knew what was in there. There was only one way to do that and they tried about everything else.
On getting back to their home base of Goblin's Tooth, the Half-Ogre goes off to get armor repaired and tries to use that chance to increase his skill with blacksmithing tools (failed) by helping out the blacksmith. The rest of the group exchanges all the artwork they've found in exchange for having their 2 magic items (a potion ID is thrown in) identified. The magic-user retires to a private room to examine the scrolls they found.
The last scroll is cursed, and the GM is supoosed to determine the effects of the curse. As they give 16 examples in the GMG, and I have a 16 sided die......I let the player roll it, and he gets "monster is summoned and attacks" curse. I roll on the random monster chart and get Perpetual Sword. After rolling for the sub-type and other pertinents, I determine that this rogue sword fights as a level 6 fighter (2 attacks per round) and only needs to be struck twice to become inactive.
The poor mage is suprised for two rounds worth of actions but gets capped in two blows from the sword (penetration can make even the strongest PC die quickly if rolled often enough!). He lets out a scream that alerts some of the other party members. The Grel makes it to the room first and a rather long battle ensues. Even with a -3 AC the sword is kicking his butt and he lands only 1 blow in the first 5 rounds. If not for the cleric and the zealot behind him trying to lob in cure spells (lots of misses) and heal spells, he'd have gone down too. The player needed a roll of 9 or better but was having difficulty getting better than a 5. On the sixth round he managed another lucky blow that causes the sword to fall to the floor.
Now the PC has a sword that happens to match his alignment, but there will be issues. A meta-game issue is that the sword is too powerful (EPV wise) for a sanctioned character of his level. I would need a way to rid him of the sword, but something else came up when rolling specifics that'll solve this issue without me needing to do much.....things would happen even if he was sufficient level. I feel kind of bad since what makes the most sense would seem like favoritism...so I'll probably run it by my fellow GMs.
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