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End of the Adventure

My new players finally made it through the adventure Relb's Revenge from HackJournal #1. This small group of only four players (temporarily augmented by two additional players) took a couple months of gaming, and four PC deaths, to make it through. Now, to be totally fair, this group only meets for 2 hours at a time (gaming for probably only 90 minutes at a stretch) and this group is relatively inexperienced. They do game, but they were used to D&D and Vampire, so their focus is much more of role-playing than hack-n-slash.

I have no problem with this at all....in fact they do a great job with role-playing and for once I don't have to worry about munchkin players conveniently "forgetting" about their quirks and flaws. Some of the highlights from this group (more later) come straight from the superb role-playing.

Progressing through the dungeon they started out at a big disadvantage: the party had no cleric and no thief. The starting party consisted of a general Magic User Pixie Fairy, an Elven Archer and her Wardawg, a Half-Elven Bard, and a Human Bounty Hunter. They did have some very limited thief skills between the Bard and the Bounty Hunter. After the very first combat encounter they almost lost two PCs and the lack of healing became very abundant. I let them trade some of their pay/bounty towards some non-magical alchemy healing potions. Funny thing was that most of them were given to the Bard who did a header off of a 50' balcony. That was the first PC death.

The next session the player of the now-deceased Bard brings in a Cleric and I introduce two new player's PCs: a Dwarven Fighter (Battle-Axe Specialist) and an Elven Battlemage. After some more exploration, a fire, and some frustration leading to the Battlemage's death, we were back to 4 players. Due to the Bard's death, they had been avoiding one area of the dungeon like the plague and even with a couple of Elves they had difficulty finding the secret door down to the next level.

Last night's session the group actually made good progress. They found their way down to the next level, avoided the almost-painfully-obvious trap, had a very interesting fight against a not-so-inanimate object, helped the damsel in distress, and fought valiantly against the hideous BBGs (Big Bad Guy: often the climatic final battle of the adventure). They lost two PCs in the final battle. It could have been worse. I basically held one BBG back to feast upon the first fallen PC while the other one wailed on the party. It made sense to me with the encounter as it was set up and throwing both in at once would accomplish little more than earn me a TPK (Total Party Kill).

That's right folks.....I'm not really out to get the party of adventurers. It's my job to challenge them and give them enough rope to hang themselves. If they still had the Dwarf with them I totally would have thrown both BBGs at them. They would have had the means at their disposal to triumph over their enemies.

After the game I tried to give them a brief run-down of what they could have done better. Their tactics needed some work....some work. It's not like they were all messed up or anything. If I was to sum things up I'd say that they need to hone their roles within the party and play to their strengths. The Archer should be trying to engage enemies at a distance, the Bounty Hunter (a fighter-type) should be up-front and engaged in battle, while the other two should be taking active supporting roles. The Cleric can fight decently well, so can flex there, but should be keeping the party full up on HP. Unfortunately the PF Magic User didn't have much for initial starting spells, so they could have been best served by the PF using her flight ability to scout out some.

I mentioned earlier that I'd note this group's role-playing. These guys are pretty good. I have to give props to the player of the Pixie Fairy. This player took a good amount of Quirks and Flaws (actually had a generous helping of mandatory extra rolls and did not spend any Build Points on re-rolls). Quirks and Flaws bring a little life to the PC, but can also get the character killed much more easily. The PF is a Pyromaniac, which has been AWESOME! I had to chuckle when the party thought it was a good idea to let her be the torch bearer....the player was quick to volunteer and nobody else wanted the job.

In one encounter the PF was blasted by a Magic Missile for a decent amount of damage, and retaliated by breaking a lantern on the offending Magic User and setting him on fire. Once he's lit up, she starts throwing everything else flammable she can find onto the burn pile. Pretty soon the whole room is ablaze and the rest of the party has to push her out the door and try to contain the blaze to that one room. In a later encounter the PF decides to take a sock she had taken off of a human corpse, set it on fire with the torch (which by now is being carried by the cleric), and try to use it as an improvised weapon. On her first and only attempt to battle the not-so-inanimate object she needs a 15 to hit. With the non-weapon proficiency penalty of -5 for being a Magic User, that means she needs a 20 to hit.....a crit. Of course she crits, dealing triple damage...and this thing takes double damage from fire. Since it's only a burning sock I decide that a 1d4-3 is appropriate and make it a 1d4-2 for the double-damage (less chance of penetration than allowing 2d4-3). In the end that PF did 5 or 6 points of fire damage against the not-so-inanimate object. Once the encounter was over the party decides to rest and the PF sets the now very inanimate object on fire so she has light to study her spellbook. Fortunately the PF made her roll to see if she was tempted to toss her spellbook on the fire......

Good times....good times indeed. I'm looking forward to seeing how this group develops.

Idea for a Table

When putting together a table, my first thought is about making the GM process easier. With that in mind, I also have to consider the amount of work that goes into the table-making process vs. the reward a GM would get out of it.

The Magic Item tables took a LOT of work, and if not for the inclusion of items from the Knights of the Dinner Table Magazines, HackJournal, and KenzerCo adventures, it really wouldn't be worth it. I'd love to put all the Hacklopedia of Beasts entries for a huge table of monsters, but the effort isn't worth it.


I am thinking, however, to create a table for random events while traveling. There is a HackJournal article about overland travel (more about using horses and wagons) and the GM shield (and probably the GMG) has when to check for wandering monsters based on time of day. What I need is some sort of weather generation table and I'd be set. I think I could use the old Wilderness Survival Guide from AD&D 2.0

This table would have parameters for climate, terrain, and distance to be travelled (or even just time to be travelled). A couple clicks and you'd have a table of events to help describe the journey. If any wandering monsters are indicated I'd even have it roll the number for you and maybe have some basic data (probably not much more than which HOB to grab as typing all of the entries is a bit much). I would need another parameter for Ave party level for that often forgotten bit about wandering monster adjustment.



I have also been thinking of making a "table" to help GMs determine average party level, Honor rating, and alignment. Basically it'll be setup with a bunch of parameters that only need to be adjusted when thinigs change for the party.

Florida Pics!

I thought I'd try something new and put up a little slideshow for you to see the many pictures Carolyn took of our trip to West Palm Beach, FL for an intervention conference I helped put on. Aside from helping with registration, I helped "take care" of some of the speakers, checked in on our booth and my boss, and even spoke at a session myself.

My session wasn't attended very well....which is what you get when you're in the last time block of the conference. People tend to leave early and this year people left real early...quite a few simply skipped the last day.

We left the day after, in the afternoon, so we had time to hit the beach.

WARNING: MANY ANIMAL PICS AND SOME OF YOUR'S TRULY IN A SWIMSUIT!!!!

Consider yourself warned!

Player Frustration Kill

Well....for better or for worse I got another kill with my emerging group. We got the Colgrove's and my other small set of players together so we have a nice party of 6 (7 if you count the Elven Wardawg) triapsing through "Relb's Revenge". They've done a decent job so far.....they've missed some stuff, but I won't post any type of spoilers until they've finished and just had their second death. This second death bugs me a bit becuase it was Amie's Battlemage. It was a pretty cool PC and had lots of potential, but it didn't need to die.

The party had discovered the eeeeeevil magic-user's sanctum and what appears to be his spellbook is lying on a table very obviously guarded by four magical glyphs. The adventure text is very clear on the fact that I need to make sure the players realize that it is a VERY, VERY bad thing to touch the book. I came just short of reading the consequences of touching the book to them.

Now Amie is a new player, but I would have to admit that I've been guilty of the same "crime" when playing. Actually I'm a bit worse if I'm playing in a tournament since I know there is a time limit involved. The players were huddled around this book assuming that it is the answer to the problems they've been hired to investigate. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. They know there is more to the complex, but they've been avoiding the one side and the door to a balcony where the Bard fell to her death.

They know there is another chamber, but they've been avoiding it like the plague. Since they've got their sights on this super-duperly trapped book...BTW, they have no true thief in the party......they've got tunnel-vision. After wisely deciding to not touch the book they stand around and discuss the matter ad-nauseum. Time is running out on the night's session and Amie decides "screw it" and has her PC touch the book.

One failed save vs. death and we have another dead PC.

I like Battlemages, but they kind of suck all on their own. I'm hoping that the experience doesn't put Amie off of gaming. We had started rolling up a spare PC and with any luck we'll finish it off this next week so she can bring it in. I've already decided where I'll introduce it.