Cast:
Ardan, an amnesiac elven monk.
Nissa, the versatile elven ranger.
Perra, a noble, if angry, dragonborn paladin.
Indus, the clever minotaur artificer.
Klemnon, stingy pacifist kalashtar cleric.
These 5 make up one of the newer squads of Whisps. They are played by people with experience ranging from last played 2e to "wait, I add my strength to my attack?" It looks like a solid group--both PCs and players.
Game Report:
Ardan slipped ahead of the group to see what the fire was about. Upon arriving he saw a large group of orcs terrorizing a small family of four. He tweeted a warning back to the group and together they charged into the clearing just as two of the orcs slit the throats of the old man and young girl and the teenage boy was placed on a wolf and sent into the forest.
The battle was fast and furious as the Whisps broke the orcs' line and ripped them apart. As the orc leader fell the remaining orcs fled.
The party helped the old woman out of her restraints and she begged them to save her grandson. They were on their way to the capital to ask the king for advice about some strange markings that appear on the boy's back during storms. She gave them a journal and pushed them to hurry after her grandson while she went to the road for help.
Klemnon's eyes lit up for a moment upon hearing about the mark, but none of the others saw it.
They set off to find the boy and before long found two cave entrances. One was above them on a small ledge. The other was a quarter of the way around the hill and heavily guarded by a group of human thugs.
Nissa went up the cliff to investigate and immediately spotted a gelatinous cube in the middle of the entrance. She dropped down quickly. They decided to go through the cube instead of the guards. Ardan lead the way using his stealth. He almost made it past the cube when he woke up a couple burrowing kruthiks and was slammed by the cube.
The group rushed in and was promptly engulfed by the cube as the kruthiks and bats swarmed. Despite conflicting priorities among the party they prevailed and rallied to knock the cube off the cliff and ready attacks against the bats' flyby attack.
They rested a moment before moving deeper into the cave. They shortly came into a large cave used for storage. Within the cave were a few men and a goblin. Tied up and gagged nearby was the teenage boy. A tall, handsome man with dark hair and gray eyes was reprimanding them before he saw the Whisps. He slew his failed minions with a wave of magic and ran out of the other exit tossing the boy over his shoulder as he ran. The party set off in pursuit.
The man made it out of the other entrance--surprising the human guards--leapt over a fallen log and suddenly changed into a huge steel dragon. With the boy in his claws he shouted to the guards, "KILL THEM!" as he flew east.
Best moments:
Knocking the cube off a cliff.
Batting a bat into a wall to kill it.
Nissa's sharpshooting from the woods.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
...with a simple narrative hook
King Garvan has ruled Faringdale for almost 50 years. The first 5 years of his rule were tumultuous, but he succeeded in consolidating his rule and growing his small kingdom into a wealthy land. The main method by which this consolidation prevailed was by his use of a black group of mercenaries chosen from the best soldiers and adventurers around. This group operates entirely outside the constraints of the law. None of its members bear any insignia or other physical manifestation of their group yet they each know when another is present. The king quietly divides them into squads, often pairing new recruits with older members and rotating parties around so that no alliance within a group can threaten the others or the king. This group's primary mission is two-fold. Keep the peace. Protect the borders. To keep the peace they eliminate rebellious tendencies in the population--particularly the nobles--by means ranging from a letter of gratitude from the king to poison. The borders are protected by an extensive network of spies in all of the neighboring countries including the Metes Empire to the west of the Storm Horn Mountains, the dwarves of Adkar Keep to the north, and the island of Waverly off to the east. This group of mercenaries is completely loyal to the king and none are able to gain any unbalancing power due to the fragmented nature of the group. In the rare cases that a squad has gone rogue the other squads have fallen upon them with the force of a thunderbolt and removed the threat. If there was a name for this group it would be the Whispered Sentinels.
The main threat to Garvan's rule came in his fifth year as king from the Metes Empire to the west. They thought the young king weak and sent emissaries and spies to the various nobles offering them riches for their allegiance. Their spies also sowed dissension and discord amongst the people calling into question the king's fitness to lead and his birthright while building up the local noble's reputation.
That's when the Whispered Sentinels, or Wisps as the commoners call them, was formed. They quickly and quietly disposed of the spies and the traitorous nobles while aiding the loyal nobles in gaining more presitige and power in the king's new administration. When the Metes marched to invade, the Wisps were ready. Their spies reported on it and King Garvan used it to rally his people. The army was larger than any Faringdale had ever raised before and it camped in a defensible position in the mountains. When the Metes came through, they were ambushed and slaughtered though they numbered ten times the King's men.
The king keeps the patrols of the Sentinels going, but every year around the summer solistice he recalls them all to give them the most important of their missions--survey the land, find corruption, destroy it and report back. This year the king has asked them to pay special attention to any that could be his successor. All of the Sentinels noticed a weakness of heart and sense of urgency in the king's commands. They set out at once.
It's a well known fact that the king is without an heir. His wife died almost 20 years ago during a difficult childbirth. The baby did not survive either. The king, stricken with grief, never remarried and so has no heir. It seems the only thing he fears is losing another wife and child and so he has abandoned that method of obtaining a successor. Instead he has decided to choose one of his nobles. He hopes to find one the other nobles will be able to rally behind. The Metes Empire is still looming, just beyond the mountains, waiting for a moment of weakness to strike.
It's been 5 days since the party left the capital city on your way to Ekros City where the eladrin, Galen, rules. He is a favorite to be named successor to the king. You are still two days out of Ekros when you see smoke over the trees ahead.
The main threat to Garvan's rule came in his fifth year as king from the Metes Empire to the west. They thought the young king weak and sent emissaries and spies to the various nobles offering them riches for their allegiance. Their spies also sowed dissension and discord amongst the people calling into question the king's fitness to lead and his birthright while building up the local noble's reputation.
That's when the Whispered Sentinels, or Wisps as the commoners call them, was formed. They quickly and quietly disposed of the spies and the traitorous nobles while aiding the loyal nobles in gaining more presitige and power in the king's new administration. When the Metes marched to invade, the Wisps were ready. Their spies reported on it and King Garvan used it to rally his people. The army was larger than any Faringdale had ever raised before and it camped in a defensible position in the mountains. When the Metes came through, they were ambushed and slaughtered though they numbered ten times the King's men.
The king keeps the patrols of the Sentinels going, but every year around the summer solistice he recalls them all to give them the most important of their missions--survey the land, find corruption, destroy it and report back. This year the king has asked them to pay special attention to any that could be his successor. All of the Sentinels noticed a weakness of heart and sense of urgency in the king's commands. They set out at once.
It's a well known fact that the king is without an heir. His wife died almost 20 years ago during a difficult childbirth. The baby did not survive either. The king, stricken with grief, never remarried and so has no heir. It seems the only thing he fears is losing another wife and child and so he has abandoned that method of obtaining a successor. Instead he has decided to choose one of his nobles. He hopes to find one the other nobles will be able to rally behind. The Metes Empire is still looming, just beyond the mountains, waiting for a moment of weakness to strike.
It's been 5 days since the party left the capital city on your way to Ekros City where the eladrin, Galen, rules. He is a favorite to be named successor to the king. You are still two days out of Ekros when you see smoke over the trees ahead.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
...4d6 at a time
Wednesday was the opening session for D&D Encounters: Dark Sun: Fury of the Wastewalker.
It was a doozy of an encounter.
The players had just come from Undermountain where they encountered level appropriate fights built with the DMG and MM formulas. This time around the encounter was built with Dark Sun formulas. In order to better match the tone of the setting each monster had the potential to deal 20+ damage with a single attack--more than enough to knock out any PC with a critical hit.
The main goal was two-fold: collect supplies and escape the enemies. This goal caught my players by surprise because that's not the typical objective. In Undermountain the encounters were linear. Kill everything, move on, repeat.
To hammer the goals home to the players, I made sure to play up the fact that they were surrounded and the supply issues they would be facing without the caravan. The result was a bunch of PCs huddled around a cart spending 2 or 3 minor actions each turn to grab stuff. I thought this might be a bad idea with the enemy controller dropping area attacks on them, but they weathered the onslaught and right as enemy reinforcements arrived they were able to escape into the desert.
This encounter has taken a beating online. It seems like every forum has a number of people objecting to the difficulty. One of the more common thoughts was,
"The narrative sets the tone. The monsters don't need to be more damaging."
If you tell them the world is savage and life is extinguished almost effortlessly and then deal 8 damage to them, they will eventually not care what you say about the savagery of the world. Deal 18 damage to them, however, and they will fear every creature they meet.
That seems to have been the main idea with this first session. Scare them. Scare them bad. Unfortunately, many groups are not up for this level of challenge. New players can be turned off real quick when their character spends most of the fight rolling death saves. I regret that earlier today I was not giving any latitude for people who said it was too hard for their table. It definitely can be if the players don't receive the clues about their objectives, don't work together, or any of a number of other things that could go wrong and result in the party getting butchered. New players in particular are likely to be turned off by such an event since they won't understand why things went badly.
Players need to be taught to treat every encounter as obscenely difficult in Athas. This encounter attempted to do that. If they don't, they'll end up skewered and scoured from the earth by the sands when they hit the climatic fights.
DMs on the other hand need to be very careful running this round of D&D Encounters. Make sure they fear Athas's creatures, but make sure the players are having fun. The only way to do D&D wrong is to not be having fun.
It was a doozy of an encounter.
The players had just come from Undermountain where they encountered level appropriate fights built with the DMG and MM formulas. This time around the encounter was built with Dark Sun formulas. In order to better match the tone of the setting each monster had the potential to deal 20+ damage with a single attack--more than enough to knock out any PC with a critical hit.
The main goal was two-fold: collect supplies and escape the enemies. This goal caught my players by surprise because that's not the typical objective. In Undermountain the encounters were linear. Kill everything, move on, repeat.
To hammer the goals home to the players, I made sure to play up the fact that they were surrounded and the supply issues they would be facing without the caravan. The result was a bunch of PCs huddled around a cart spending 2 or 3 minor actions each turn to grab stuff. I thought this might be a bad idea with the enemy controller dropping area attacks on them, but they weathered the onslaught and right as enemy reinforcements arrived they were able to escape into the desert.
This encounter has taken a beating online. It seems like every forum has a number of people objecting to the difficulty. One of the more common thoughts was,
"The narrative sets the tone. The monsters don't need to be more damaging."
If you tell them the world is savage and life is extinguished almost effortlessly and then deal 8 damage to them, they will eventually not care what you say about the savagery of the world. Deal 18 damage to them, however, and they will fear every creature they meet.
That seems to have been the main idea with this first session. Scare them. Scare them bad. Unfortunately, many groups are not up for this level of challenge. New players can be turned off real quick when their character spends most of the fight rolling death saves. I regret that earlier today I was not giving any latitude for people who said it was too hard for their table. It definitely can be if the players don't receive the clues about their objectives, don't work together, or any of a number of other things that could go wrong and result in the party getting butchered. New players in particular are likely to be turned off by such an event since they won't understand why things went badly.
Players need to be taught to treat every encounter as obscenely difficult in Athas. This encounter attempted to do that. If they don't, they'll end up skewered and scoured from the earth by the sands when they hit the climatic fights.
DMs on the other hand need to be very careful running this round of D&D Encounters. Make sure they fear Athas's creatures, but make sure the players are having fun. The only way to do D&D wrong is to not be having fun.
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