Actually that has already happened. One of my players asked "Who is this person" and immediately got chastised by another who said it is "The personal ship Mage of the villain, gosh, didn't you do the homework from the facebook group".
It was pretty funny. I also use it to keep a record of NPCs they have met, their factional alliances when it becomes relevant and their ships crew/statistics.
Man, you guys expect your groups to pre-read? If I could get mine to give me an updated character sheet and a wish list I am doing awesome.
Yeah, about the most I expect (and I've known/been friends with all of them for most of my life now) is that they remember to bring their sheet and have leveled up if they gained a level last time. Expecting anyone to remember important details or read anything ahead of time just doesn't work with these guys. But it's okay, as it just means I don't have to sink as much time into developing the lore of the world outside the game itself.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
To be fair, 90% of the reason I do it is for my own benefit because it makes keeping track of everything very easy. I just make the same resources available to my players whenever they want them.
I find that having a folded card with the portrait and name of NPCs hang on my DM screen goes a long way for the players to remember details about NPCs. Low effort for the DM and none from the players but it yields a high reward especially when you're having an investigative game with a lot of NPCs. I can't really do voices like a boss so having more than a name and game context to remember NPCs helps out a lot.
My group used to use Obsidian Portal to host the world overview, session notes, track NPCs, charactersheets, etc. Or, at least I did. I felt lucky if I got most of the players to accept the damn invite. But that was before the update last year that broke the site. The update caused me to lose a massive amount of the wiki pages I had created. I lack an online tool to do that now. I've passed the torch for time being anyway, though 13th Age makes me really want to pick it back up. He's having fun running Shadowrun right now though so I will wait.
I am having fun running Shadowrun, it's true! I know that my bi-monthly round-ups aren't the same as the in-depth stuff on Obsidian Portal, but I like to remind the group of things that have happened, are happening, and provide a hook or two for future if I need.
I am having fun running Shadowrun, it's true! I know that my bi-monthly round-ups aren't the same as the in-depth stuff on Obsidian Portal, but I like to remind the group of things that have happened, are happening, and provide a hook or two for future if I need.
What worked for me may not necessarily work for you, buddy. And honestly I love those news report emails, makes the world feel more alive. I always wanted to do something like that but I could never find a way to make it feel organic.
Edit: Well, I guess I could have done handwritten letters but that would have just been torturous, not fun. My handwriting is awful.
Mikey CTS on
// PSN: wyrd_warrior // MHW Name: Josei //
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
I find that having a folded card with the portrait and name of NPCs hang on my DM screen goes a long way for the players to remember details about NPCs. Low effort for the DM and none from the players but it yields a high reward especially when you're having an investigative game with a lot of NPCs. I can't really do voices like a boss so having more than a name and game context to remember NPCs helps out a lot.
This is a really great approach. Having artwork for NPCs is extremely helpful for players. I ran an excellent session a few weeks ago that involved two PCs tracking down their wizard-college classmates in order to solve a magical murder. I gave each of the players a stack of cards with a portrait and short description of the NPC. They were instantly engaged and the whole group enjoyed conferring about who should be spoken to in what order, and how each NPC should be approached.
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
So one of my players asked to be a minotaur, and linked me the dandwiki entry for the 3.5 minotaur PC race. There is also apparently a 5e one already constructed, and it didn't seem too unreasonable compared to a Half-Orc.
I swapped the Labyrinth ability for simple proficiency with Perception and took away the knock back, but it seemed like my player would like it, and fills my desire for a +str/+wis race for my players to choose from.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited December 2014
Curse of the Black Pearls: Where we discover that Skype + Mutiny is a recipe for Betrayal.
This session was one where I had been sweating an enormous amount of bullets over for a while, because there has been a secret in this game: One of the players characters had decided to work for Talitha (the villain) and betray the party. In the previous escapades you'll remember that the bard Amaund ended up with the Black Pearl. This situation wasn't actually set up by me at all, rather the cleric Narvarie was the only character who didn't vote for themselves to get control of the pearl when they found it. It just happened that the Pearl ended up right in the hands of the traitor.
Now, allow me to preface this with a general discussion on "Should you ever let your party betray one another?" as the answer to this is generally "No, you really shouldn't". It's usually a completely terrible idea, will give players an out of game grudge against the player (depending on how poorly it works out) and may break down the entire game if it goes really badly. Plus it kind of defeats the whole "Team sport" thing that Dungeons and Dragons on the whole has going on. So these are all brilliant reasons why you shouldn't ever allow someone to betray the party in a major way, but I promptly decided to ignore all of those reasons.
Hopefully you aren't too confused.
I allowed the player to do this for a few reasons:
1) I felt that story wise, it was actually perfectly on theme and worked brilliantly for the progression of the plot. It ensures that the Pearl gets into Talithas hands, which is basically justification 101 to make her a much more powerful antagonist. Originally I wasn't running this game long term, only for a few sessions, but now I've decided to make it go longer I've got to add more oomph to her so she's a more relevant threat later. This was a good story justification for changes in how she works mechanically from the first time to later. Plus it's a game about Pirates and everyone in Pirates of the Caribbean just about stabs one another in the back consistently - not that I want it to continue of course, but it sets an interesting precedent and tone.
2) Removes the Black Pearl from the players possession early and gives more impetus to find (and retain) the others.
3) May work to provide me with a recurring antagonist that the PCs have a real reason to want to hate and hunt down.
4) This is more of a meta reason, but I felt that another front line type character would balance the party better and give them some more survivability. Amaund had reasonable AC, but terrible HP and so couldn't stand at the front line very well at all. With only 2 real characters that engage in melee, I felt this was much better balancing with the new characters concept (which is a Monk or potentially Fighter, the latter of which becomes a lot better due to certain houserules I've implemented such as changing opportunity attacks and soon adding the marking variant from the DMG).
Overall I was worried how this would work out? Would everyone just get so annoyed it broke the game? Would everyone just die due to how hard the encounter was? Would it just not really accomplish much at all? Time would tell.
Returning to the session, the players debated what to do for a while before they went back to Ezrakiel. Ezrakiel was delighted they had survived and rewarded them for opening the chamber, but they carefully avoided (or nearly did, Calliara almost told the truth this time and got them in trouble, AGAIN!) mentioning the Black Pearl. The crazed beholder cultist rewarded them with two potions of Greater Healing and a Trident of Fish Control. Yes, THAT item. It's amazingly useful in my campaign! Seriously! 90% of it happens in water!
In any event, the Kuo-Toa were nowhere near as stupid as they appear and their vile Archpriest recognized the power of the pearl immediately, rallying some fishy forces to attack and head after the retreating characters. Upon reaching the surface of the now exposed lighthouse tower, the characters had mere moments to prepare to defend themselves as the Kuo-Toa reached the top and poured out to attack! This encounter wasn't really meant to take that long and frankly, I wanted the funny option to succeed: The party teleporting the Kuo-Toa straight onto Talitha's ship. Unfortunately, I didn't anticipate the party actually staying around to fight them straight up and so it was a couple of rounds before they used the staff Uldarin (Talitha's ship mage) gave them. It was also a couple of rounds before they then discovered it had become damaged due to the underwater escapades and needed to be corrected before it would work. Some terrible rolling on the half of the Gnome Wizard delayed out the fight, with the Kuo-Toa really taking it to the PCs (particularly with a nasty aura spell the Archpriest had, which I will detail in my monster spell list below for anyone curious).
They actually were able to kill nearly all of the monsters in this encounter though, which initially was 4 kuo-Toa, 2 whips and the archpriest (so basically all the Kuo-Toa, all the time). However, this encounter had a hugely negative effect on what I actually wanted to focus on: Which was the moment of betrayal. For one thing, while I initially was happy to have people Skype in this method slows the game down considerably: Skype turns take on average about twice to two and a half times as long to complete, especially compared to players at the table. It also makes communication a bit difficult as I have Skype on my PC and the PC naturally faces me (away from the others), so communication with the skype players and those at the table was nigh impossible. In any event, the PCs really wrecked the Kuo-Toa eventually and the Archpriest chose to run.
It's never a good sign for PCs when a devious antagonist chooses to run and fight another day instead of dying.... just saying.
This meant I had 1 hour of a 3 hour session to really get around what to do about the Betrayal and so certain aspects ended up forced feeling. Most notably, once the staff worked and the signal was given, the players ended up on the ship roughly split apart but with Amaund nearest to Talitha. Naturally Amaund then put his plan into action and gave Talitha the Pearl she wanted, to her delight. Without a need for the characters anymore and knowing they were spying on her for Rygar (due to previous betrayals on top of betrayals) she told her crew to kill the PCs (despite Amaunds protestations to spare the Barbarian Glorkk).
However Rygars forces rapidly leapt into action and initiated a rescue. One that was immediately doomed to failure as Talitha had already prepared a trap for the attacking ships. One ship was assaulted and annihilated by her pet Steel Kraken (you might recall a while ago I mentioned something Talitha had not wanting to approach the temple underwater, hence why it worried her), another was assaulted by 2 of her other vessels (lying in wait). This left only one ship of Rygars ambush to actually do anything and they focused entirely on getting the characters off the boat for whatever information they held. Many of Rygars men sacrificed themselves to buy enough time for the damaged ship to limp away.
The players are at the top, Talitha's pirates are in the middle with Amaund and the Contessa (all the way from the first session) in there as well. Talitha is at the other end of the ship supervising the other two battles, believing that her pirates will easily take care of the rest of the players. The basic goal here was simple: Get the hell off the boat, but the players of course had something else in mind, murdering the hell out of Amaund first. The war cleric naturally obliged, with Narvarie shooting an accurate crossbow bolt into him and then finishing him off with a +10 to hit guided bolt, dealing easily enough damage to drop him in one round.
A subsequent crossbow bolt/critical hit later and then Glorkk sealing the deal and Amaund was slain before the richness of his betrayal even had a time to get cold. My players evidently believe that revenge is a dish best served extremely hot and immediate, with a dose of setting people on fire to complete things. Personally, I found this pretty disappointing as I had plans to turn Amaund into a recurring villain for the players, but that's the thing when you roll dice and I like to live with the consequences. Besides, I know for a fact when I've just enabled a betrayal like this in the first place the last thing I want to do is then ensure the PCs couldn't kill him! Unfortunately very high damage rolls and that War Cleric Domain thing of "I really can't miss" ensured I didn't get any real chance to do anything about it. Even the rogue rolling with disadvantage on his ranged attack (unconscious characters are prone) hit him easily (critically so, inflicting two failed death saves) and as I mentioned, Glorkk finished it.
The players then used the swirling melee of pirates as a distraction to jump ship and Rygars captain saw fit to spirit them away from the battle, with the steel kraken finishing off one ship and the other dramatically sinking. Thankfully for them, Talitha was sufficiently distracted with her victory that she didn't need to pursue any further (plus it was the end of an intense session, so I didn't want to add anything else at this point).
Overall I think it worked out pretty reasonably, not as well as I hoped especially as the betraying player had to actually commune in through skype - so it was difficult for him to convey the real villainy of the situation in many ways. It certainly made for a very dramatic and intense session, with the stakes raised sky high now their enemy has command of three pearls now. Oddly enough though, Amaund dying does have one advantage to the PCs: Talitha will have no knowledge there are actually eight pearls, not seven and this might be very significant information in the later part of the game. If you have to have a betrayal like this, at least it should be dramatic and in service to the story - which I think overall benefits from this more than anything else.
From a time point of view though, having players through Skype didn't work well at all. 10 minutes was the average turn on skype, much of it just me reexplaining things because I couldn't easily show the map or needing to clarify questions. Then looking up rolls, waiting for rolls to be posted on invisible castle and so forth. Bandwidth was also a bit of an issue and players frequently dropped out, leading me to do at least two turns for them just to keep things moving. I think we would have been done with the first combat in less than half the time due to this, which really took away from the dramatic moment I wanted. Then again, perhaps I should have simplified or made the first encounter more clear that "Getting out of here now is the most important thing". Either way, I think now we will be making this game only flesh and blood, because it honestly makes the game easier to and quicker to run - which is very important for progress when you only have a 3 hour session every week.
Now to plan the real part of the campaign: When the players finally get their own ship! Plus now they are level 5 and so get a bunch of extra stuff (I believe proficiency increases to +3 at this level). It will be interesting to see what long term consequences this has: I already gave the "Don't blame players for their characters actions" speech and of course, this sort of thing only happens when the DM decides to actually let the player do it (so it's also mostly my fault in the first place). I think everyone took it pretty well, though I think one player is more than distinctly mad about it: But hopefully such actions will be looked back on (in time) as moments that really helped define the game and make it more interesting in the end.
That's an amazing write up. I have one player Skyping in to my Shadowrun game, and it works ok. Not as well as having him at the table, but I want to include him in the game so we work with what we have. There's a lot less positioning type stuff in my game and he's a rigger so I just kind of tell him what enemies have cover and what range his drones are at.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited December 2014
Yeah, I have made 5E considerably more fiddly over time but the real barrier was the Skype players couldn't easily communicate with the other players and vice versa. Much of this isn't their fault, for some reason I cannot log into Skype on any other device but my PC for the moment - so they were stuck facing away from the other players (my computer is used for very important tasks like sorting initiative and tracking HP). Rolling die and sometimes managing to easily hear/be heard by them was also a pretty big impediment, so turns slowed down a lot. Plus for some odd reason the skype dropped out a bit as well, which was equally frustrating (and led to some lengthy delays as I didn't realize it had done so).
Overall it was best to have everyone at the table or able to participate for that session, given what happened, but I don't think I will allow skype in future now. It's too much hassle and distracts me considerably.
I can imagine. I use my tablet for info tracking and index cards for initiative. That way my laptop is just sitting there with his mug staring at a couple of the players.
Funnily, the biggest distraction from Skype is one of my players just rambles on about his dog instead of staying focused on her stuff. I'm going to make sure she sits on the other side of the table next session.
I can imagine. I use my tablet for info tracking and index cards for initiative. That way my laptop is just sitting there with his mug staring at a couple of the players.
Funnily, the biggest distraction from Skype is one of my players just rambles on about his dog instead of staying focused on her stuff. I'm going to make sure she sits on the other side of the table next session.
Yeah what was that about? Sure, okay, dogs are great. Let's move on now. Clearly it can't hear you, the Skpyee has headphones on.
// PSN: wyrd_warrior // MHW Name: Josei //
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
I also have some intra-party conflict on the horizon.
The last session was a low-combat, investigative mission in which the PCs had to solve a murder. I mentioned this briefly in a post above.
Backstory: The PCs live in a kingdom where arcane magic is rigidly regulated by law, due to the infamous excesses of the magocratic empire that used to rule the land with an iron fist. There is a secret society/terrorist organization of wizards dedicated to restoring the magocracy called the Fraternity of Boccob. The PCs had already foiled the Fraternity's plan to assassinate one person. This session began with the news someone -- almost certainly a Boccobite -- had succeeded in killing the baron's son in a magically gruesome fashion involving a polymorph potion.
The PCs were called upon by local subarchon (magical law enforcement official) to pin the murder on someone fast, before the Church of St. Cuthbert could get royal approval for an inquisition. (In this kingdom, wizards try to forestall persecution by policing their own. Ancient treaties preserve their right to do so, but the church is always angling to get into the wizard-prosecuting business.)
Mildred and Kiel, the party's wizards, reach out to their contacts in the barony's magical community to get some leads. At this point I handed Mildred and Kiel's players cards with the portraits, names, and brief descriptions of some people their characters know. (Dropbox link to the NPC cards: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ep9vxp2ydudfvkw/8 mages.docx?dl=0)
This was not a difficult mystery to solve. Each NPC from the NPC cards had a piece of the puzzle. The culprit was Thavior Floros, a formerly wealthy wizard who had become increasingly unhinged as his family wealth dwindled. He had come to resent the anti-magical laws that he believed impoverished him (in reality he was just fantastically bad with money), and joined the Fraternity of Boccob to pursue violent action against the church and state.
He was not a terribly subtle assassin. A time-delayed polymorph potion was an essential part of the murder plot. Brewing the potion required him to import a rare ingredient form oversees. By talking to every NPC, the PCs had more than enough information to put things together. (One contact was the murderer's daughter, who told the PCs her father was had been acting erratically; another contact was the smuggler who imported the rare spell component, who could be bribed into revealing her client's name; another contact was an alchemist who could explain what the rare component is used for; and plus a couple red herrings.)
One of the NPC contacts (Galen Calabreen) turned out to be a low-level Boccobite with a hankering for recruiting. Kiel and Mildred feigned interest in joining the Fraternity, knowing that they could find Thavior in one of the group's secret meetings. In blindfolds, they were led to the local chapter's meeting place. The rest of the PCs followed stealthily, of course.
While Mildred and Kiel were forced to endure long readings from Boccob's sacred texts, the rest of the party worked on breaking into the secret meeting place, which of course was in an underground crypt full of magical traps.
What I planned to happen was for the dungeoncrawling party to reach the Fraternity's meeting room, and there would be a battle royale as the party reunited to defeat the Boccobites and apprehend Thavior.
What actually happened: Mildred decided that continuing to infiltrate the Fraternity of Boccob was a far too valuable a strategic goal to throw away lightly. Through magical communication, Mildred told the dungeoncrawling party to GTFO ASAP. This was not the time for swords.
Mildred's plan: Frame the smuggler that Thavior used for the murder. Offering up a scapegoat suspect will keep the church off the wizard community's backs for a while, and also allow the party to continue gathering intelligence about the Fraternity's activities in the kingdom.
The dungeoncrawling wing of the party didn't know the whole plan, but they decided to go with Mildred's wishes and quickly escape the crypt without confronting the Boccobites. In-character, only Mildred and Kiel knew about the framejob. Which I allowed them to carry off more or less without a hitch.
So two PCs framed a (semi-)innocent for murder. Next session they need to convince the party paladin that they did the right thing.
Which is why most climbers would remind you to get three.
Side note: never give a Gnome three immovable rods.
it would still be tremendously awkward to move three rods around one by one in the air while balancing on them. especially if you want to go upward.
moving horizontally would be easier, as you could just use them like monkey bars, swinging forward with one arm at a time, but it would still be quite draining
the more fun uses are holding doors open/closed, pinning people to the ground, making traps by having them support a platform that's juuuust under the weight limit so they collapse when someone walks on them, creating anchor points to swing from or hop to, etc.
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
Rock climbers don't generally have to push a button near a given limb before they move it though
Picture it: you're standing on one fixed rod, and holding onto another one for balance. You have a third rod in your hand, unfixed. How do you proceed? How, especially, do you move the rod you're standing on?
There was a "Challenge of Champions" (from Dungeon Magazine) that used an immovable rod in one of its challenges. I can't recall off the top of my head which one it was, but I think it was one of the 2e versions.
There was a "Challenge of Champions" (from Dungeon Magazine) that used an immovable rod in one of its challenges. I can't recall off the top of my head which one it was, but I think it was one of the 2e versions.
Err....I thought immovable rod was a 3e-ism. Don't think it was core before then, might have been from somewhere else though.
Rock climbers don't generally have to push a button near a given limb before they move it though
Picture it: you're standing on one fixed rod, and holding onto another one for balance. You have a third rod in your hand, unfixed. How do you proceed? How, especially, do you move the rod you're standing on?
You have one you're standing on, tied on a limb-length rope, one by your waist on a limb-length rope that has a loop hooked tight to your harness, and a third free on another limb length rope
Step 1) Position the third rod at head height and activate it. Remove the clove-hitch from the second
Step 2) Step off the bottom one letting the ropes take your weight, reach down and deactivate the bottom one. If you fumble no worries it's still tied to you.
Step 3) Pull up on the now fixed third one and get your legs on the second one. Standing up the third one will now be waist height and you should hook the third ones loop tightly to your harness.
Sounds less draining than normal methods of ascending a rope via friction hitches.
Sailors had this figured out before there was writing.
Rock climbers don't generally have to push a button near a given limb before they move it though
Picture it: you're standing on one fixed rod, and holding onto another one for balance. You have a third rod in your hand, unfixed. How do you proceed? How, especially, do you move the rod you're standing on?
You have one you're standing on, tied on a limb-length rope, one by your waist on a limb-length rope that has a loop hooked tight to your harness, and a third free on another limb length rope
Step 1) Position the third rod at head height and activate it. Remove the clove-hitch from the second
Step 2) Step off the bottom one letting the ropes take your weight, reach down and deactivate the bottom one. If you fumble no worries it's still tied to you.
Step 3) Pull up on the now fixed third one and get your legs on the second one. Standing up the third one will now be waist height and you should hook the third ones loop tightly to your harness.
Sounds less draining than normal methods of ascending a rope via friction hitches.
Sailors had this figured out before there was writing.
Ah, I see, you mean full on climbing gear. Absolutely. Without gear it would be very dangerous/difficult.
A thief who burgles using elaborate immovable rod climbing techniques is a lot more fun than a wizard solving a problem with a single spell, to me.
This is part of why DMing at higher levels is going to be a pain in the ass. You have to study the complete spell lists for every character in your party and make sure they can't trivialize an encounter, puzzle or challenge with a single spell or combination of spells.
There was a "Challenge of Champions" (from Dungeon Magazine) that used an immovable rod in one of its challenges. I can't recall off the top of my head which one it was, but I think it was one of the 2e versions.
Err....I thought immovable rod was a 3e-ism. Don't think it was core before then, might have been from somewhere else though.
oxybeEntei is appaled and disappointed in youRegistered Userregular
edited December 2014
I remember a story one of my regular D&D mates told me about an immoveable rod.
I don't remember the setting, but it had trains, or train-like things (and was pre-eberron). The party was having a showdown in one of the cars and losing when one of them took the rod out and snapped it in place, about twenty feet in front of the enemy.
The enemy ended up going sternum first on the wrong end of the immoveable rod.
oxybe on
you can read my collected ravings at oxybesothertumbr.tumblr.com
There was a "Challenge of Champions" (from Dungeon Magazine) that used an immovable rod in one of its challenges. I can't recall off the top of my head which one it was, but I think it was one of the 2e versions.
Err....I thought immovable rod was a 3e-ism. Don't think it was core before then, might have been from somewhere else though.
Nope. Old, old item.
Do you know from where?
When my group made the 2e to 3e conversion I remember the older members like the concept of that rod so I'd be surprised if it were in some common source before that.
There was a "Challenge of Champions" (from Dungeon Magazine) that used an immovable rod in one of its challenges. I can't recall off the top of my head which one it was, but I think it was one of the 2e versions.
Err....I thought immovable rod was a 3e-ism. Don't think it was core before then, might have been from somewhere else though.
Nope. Old, old item.
Do you know from where?
When my group made the 2e to 3e conversion I remember the older members like the concept of that rod so I'd be surprised if it were in some common source before that.
I'll have to look in my 2E books at home, but I'm pretty sure I remember it popping up in a 1E game way back in the day.
oxybeEntei is appaled and disappointed in youRegistered Userregular
Someone in our group did a similar thing to that once.
Guy went ethereal, moved into monster belly, unetheral, opened a bag of holding full of miscellaneous stuff and ethereal'd out.
You can do the same concept with the rod: ghost in, set it up, ghost out.
Unfortunately in pathfinder and 3rd ed, the UR isn't actually immovable. A DC30 strength check can force the thing along, but if you let that thing go inside a person? I don't think your stomach lining can safely do a DC 30 check, regardless of strength score.
you can read my collected ravings at oxybesothertumbr.tumblr.com
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Yeah, about the most I expect (and I've known/been friends with all of them for most of my life now) is that they remember to bring their sheet and have leveled up if they gained a level last time. Expecting anyone to remember important details or read anything ahead of time just doesn't work with these guys. But it's okay, as it just means I don't have to sink as much time into developing the lore of the world outside the game itself.
What worked for me may not necessarily work for you, buddy. And honestly I love those news report emails, makes the world feel more alive. I always wanted to do something like that but I could never find a way to make it feel organic.
Edit: Well, I guess I could have done handwritten letters but that would have just been torturous, not fun. My handwriting is awful.
This is a really great approach. Having artwork for NPCs is extremely helpful for players. I ran an excellent session a few weeks ago that involved two PCs tracking down their wizard-college classmates in order to solve a magical murder. I gave each of the players a stack of cards with a portrait and short description of the NPC. They were instantly engaged and the whole group enjoyed conferring about who should be spoken to in what order, and how each NPC should be approached.
Here's a Dropbox link to the document I made for this, if anyone's interested:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ep9vxp2ydudfvkw/8 mages.docx?dl=0
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Half-Minotaur_(5e_Race)
I swapped the Labyrinth ability for simple proficiency with Perception and took away the knock back, but it seemed like my player would like it, and fills my desire for a +str/+wis race for my players to choose from.
This session was one where I had been sweating an enormous amount of bullets over for a while, because there has been a secret in this game: One of the players characters had decided to work for Talitha (the villain) and betray the party. In the previous escapades you'll remember that the bard Amaund ended up with the Black Pearl. This situation wasn't actually set up by me at all, rather the cleric Narvarie was the only character who didn't vote for themselves to get control of the pearl when they found it. It just happened that the Pearl ended up right in the hands of the traitor.
Now, allow me to preface this with a general discussion on "Should you ever let your party betray one another?" as the answer to this is generally "No, you really shouldn't". It's usually a completely terrible idea, will give players an out of game grudge against the player (depending on how poorly it works out) and may break down the entire game if it goes really badly. Plus it kind of defeats the whole "Team sport" thing that Dungeons and Dragons on the whole has going on. So these are all brilliant reasons why you shouldn't ever allow someone to betray the party in a major way, but I promptly decided to ignore all of those reasons.
Hopefully you aren't too confused.
I allowed the player to do this for a few reasons:
1) I felt that story wise, it was actually perfectly on theme and worked brilliantly for the progression of the plot. It ensures that the Pearl gets into Talithas hands, which is basically justification 101 to make her a much more powerful antagonist. Originally I wasn't running this game long term, only for a few sessions, but now I've decided to make it go longer I've got to add more oomph to her so she's a more relevant threat later. This was a good story justification for changes in how she works mechanically from the first time to later. Plus it's a game about Pirates and everyone in Pirates of the Caribbean just about stabs one another in the back consistently - not that I want it to continue of course, but it sets an interesting precedent and tone.
2) Removes the Black Pearl from the players possession early and gives more impetus to find (and retain) the others.
3) May work to provide me with a recurring antagonist that the PCs have a real reason to want to hate and hunt down.
4) This is more of a meta reason, but I felt that another front line type character would balance the party better and give them some more survivability. Amaund had reasonable AC, but terrible HP and so couldn't stand at the front line very well at all. With only 2 real characters that engage in melee, I felt this was much better balancing with the new characters concept (which is a Monk or potentially Fighter, the latter of which becomes a lot better due to certain houserules I've implemented such as changing opportunity attacks and soon adding the marking variant from the DMG).
Overall I was worried how this would work out? Would everyone just get so annoyed it broke the game? Would everyone just die due to how hard the encounter was? Would it just not really accomplish much at all? Time would tell.
Returning to the session, the players debated what to do for a while before they went back to Ezrakiel. Ezrakiel was delighted they had survived and rewarded them for opening the chamber, but they carefully avoided (or nearly did, Calliara almost told the truth this time and got them in trouble, AGAIN!) mentioning the Black Pearl. The crazed beholder cultist rewarded them with two potions of Greater Healing and a Trident of Fish Control. Yes, THAT item. It's amazingly useful in my campaign! Seriously! 90% of it happens in water!
In any event, the Kuo-Toa were nowhere near as stupid as they appear and their vile Archpriest recognized the power of the pearl immediately, rallying some fishy forces to attack and head after the retreating characters. Upon reaching the surface of the now exposed lighthouse tower, the characters had mere moments to prepare to defend themselves as the Kuo-Toa reached the top and poured out to attack! This encounter wasn't really meant to take that long and frankly, I wanted the funny option to succeed: The party teleporting the Kuo-Toa straight onto Talitha's ship. Unfortunately, I didn't anticipate the party actually staying around to fight them straight up and so it was a couple of rounds before they used the staff Uldarin (Talitha's ship mage) gave them. It was also a couple of rounds before they then discovered it had become damaged due to the underwater escapades and needed to be corrected before it would work. Some terrible rolling on the half of the Gnome Wizard delayed out the fight, with the Kuo-Toa really taking it to the PCs (particularly with a nasty aura spell the Archpriest had, which I will detail in my monster spell list below for anyone curious).
They actually were able to kill nearly all of the monsters in this encounter though, which initially was 4 kuo-Toa, 2 whips and the archpriest (so basically all the Kuo-Toa, all the time). However, this encounter had a hugely negative effect on what I actually wanted to focus on: Which was the moment of betrayal. For one thing, while I initially was happy to have people Skype in this method slows the game down considerably: Skype turns take on average about twice to two and a half times as long to complete, especially compared to players at the table. It also makes communication a bit difficult as I have Skype on my PC and the PC naturally faces me (away from the others), so communication with the skype players and those at the table was nigh impossible. In any event, the PCs really wrecked the Kuo-Toa eventually and the Archpriest chose to run.
It's never a good sign for PCs when a devious antagonist chooses to run and fight another day instead of dying.... just saying.
This meant I had 1 hour of a 3 hour session to really get around what to do about the Betrayal and so certain aspects ended up forced feeling. Most notably, once the staff worked and the signal was given, the players ended up on the ship roughly split apart but with Amaund nearest to Talitha. Naturally Amaund then put his plan into action and gave Talitha the Pearl she wanted, to her delight. Without a need for the characters anymore and knowing they were spying on her for Rygar (due to previous betrayals on top of betrayals) she told her crew to kill the PCs (despite Amaunds protestations to spare the Barbarian Glorkk).
However Rygars forces rapidly leapt into action and initiated a rescue. One that was immediately doomed to failure as Talitha had already prepared a trap for the attacking ships. One ship was assaulted and annihilated by her pet Steel Kraken (you might recall a while ago I mentioned something Talitha had not wanting to approach the temple underwater, hence why it worried her), another was assaulted by 2 of her other vessels (lying in wait). This left only one ship of Rygars ambush to actually do anything and they focused entirely on getting the characters off the boat for whatever information they held. Many of Rygars men sacrificed themselves to buy enough time for the damaged ship to limp away.
The players are at the top, Talitha's pirates are in the middle with Amaund and the Contessa (all the way from the first session) in there as well. Talitha is at the other end of the ship supervising the other two battles, believing that her pirates will easily take care of the rest of the players. The basic goal here was simple: Get the hell off the boat, but the players of course had something else in mind, murdering the hell out of Amaund first. The war cleric naturally obliged, with Narvarie shooting an accurate crossbow bolt into him and then finishing him off with a +10 to hit guided bolt, dealing easily enough damage to drop him in one round.
A subsequent crossbow bolt/critical hit later and then Glorkk sealing the deal and Amaund was slain before the richness of his betrayal even had a time to get cold. My players evidently believe that revenge is a dish best served extremely hot and immediate, with a dose of setting people on fire to complete things. Personally, I found this pretty disappointing as I had plans to turn Amaund into a recurring villain for the players, but that's the thing when you roll dice and I like to live with the consequences. Besides, I know for a fact when I've just enabled a betrayal like this in the first place the last thing I want to do is then ensure the PCs couldn't kill him! Unfortunately very high damage rolls and that War Cleric Domain thing of "I really can't miss" ensured I didn't get any real chance to do anything about it. Even the rogue rolling with disadvantage on his ranged attack (unconscious characters are prone) hit him easily (critically so, inflicting two failed death saves) and as I mentioned, Glorkk finished it.
The players then used the swirling melee of pirates as a distraction to jump ship and Rygars captain saw fit to spirit them away from the battle, with the steel kraken finishing off one ship and the other dramatically sinking. Thankfully for them, Talitha was sufficiently distracted with her victory that she didn't need to pursue any further (plus it was the end of an intense session, so I didn't want to add anything else at this point).
Overall I think it worked out pretty reasonably, not as well as I hoped especially as the betraying player had to actually commune in through skype - so it was difficult for him to convey the real villainy of the situation in many ways. It certainly made for a very dramatic and intense session, with the stakes raised sky high now their enemy has command of three pearls now. Oddly enough though, Amaund dying does have one advantage to the PCs: Talitha will have no knowledge there are actually eight pearls, not seven and this might be very significant information in the later part of the game. If you have to have a betrayal like this, at least it should be dramatic and in service to the story - which I think overall benefits from this more than anything else.
From a time point of view though, having players through Skype didn't work well at all. 10 minutes was the average turn on skype, much of it just me reexplaining things because I couldn't easily show the map or needing to clarify questions. Then looking up rolls, waiting for rolls to be posted on invisible castle and so forth. Bandwidth was also a bit of an issue and players frequently dropped out, leading me to do at least two turns for them just to keep things moving. I think we would have been done with the first combat in less than half the time due to this, which really took away from the dramatic moment I wanted. Then again, perhaps I should have simplified or made the first encounter more clear that "Getting out of here now is the most important thing". Either way, I think now we will be making this game only flesh and blood, because it honestly makes the game easier to and quicker to run - which is very important for progress when you only have a 3 hour session every week.
Now to plan the real part of the campaign: When the players finally get their own ship! Plus now they are level 5 and so get a bunch of extra stuff (I believe proficiency increases to +3 at this level). It will be interesting to see what long term consequences this has: I already gave the "Don't blame players for their characters actions" speech and of course, this sort of thing only happens when the DM decides to actually let the player do it (so it's also mostly my fault in the first place). I think everyone took it pretty well, though I think one player is more than distinctly mad about it: But hopefully such actions will be looked back on (in time) as moments that really helped define the game and make it more interesting in the end.
Hopefully.
Overall it was best to have everyone at the table or able to participate for that session, given what happened, but I don't think I will allow skype in future now. It's too much hassle and distracts me considerably.
Funnily, the biggest distraction from Skype is one of my players just rambles on about his dog instead of staying focused on her stuff. I'm going to make sure she sits on the other side of the table next session.
Yeah what was that about? Sure, okay, dogs are great. Let's move on now. Clearly it can't hear you, the Skpyee has headphones on.
I also have some intra-party conflict on the horizon.
The last session was a low-combat, investigative mission in which the PCs had to solve a murder. I mentioned this briefly in a post above.
Backstory: The PCs live in a kingdom where arcane magic is rigidly regulated by law, due to the infamous excesses of the magocratic empire that used to rule the land with an iron fist. There is a secret society/terrorist organization of wizards dedicated to restoring the magocracy called the Fraternity of Boccob. The PCs had already foiled the Fraternity's plan to assassinate one person. This session began with the news someone -- almost certainly a Boccobite -- had succeeded in killing the baron's son in a magically gruesome fashion involving a polymorph potion.
The PCs were called upon by local subarchon (magical law enforcement official) to pin the murder on someone fast, before the Church of St. Cuthbert could get royal approval for an inquisition. (In this kingdom, wizards try to forestall persecution by policing their own. Ancient treaties preserve their right to do so, but the church is always angling to get into the wizard-prosecuting business.)
Mildred and Kiel, the party's wizards, reach out to their contacts in the barony's magical community to get some leads. At this point I handed Mildred and Kiel's players cards with the portraits, names, and brief descriptions of some people their characters know. (Dropbox link to the NPC cards: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ep9vxp2ydudfvkw/8 mages.docx?dl=0)
This was not a difficult mystery to solve. Each NPC from the NPC cards had a piece of the puzzle. The culprit was Thavior Floros, a formerly wealthy wizard who had become increasingly unhinged as his family wealth dwindled. He had come to resent the anti-magical laws that he believed impoverished him (in reality he was just fantastically bad with money), and joined the Fraternity of Boccob to pursue violent action against the church and state.
He was not a terribly subtle assassin. A time-delayed polymorph potion was an essential part of the murder plot. Brewing the potion required him to import a rare ingredient form oversees. By talking to every NPC, the PCs had more than enough information to put things together. (One contact was the murderer's daughter, who told the PCs her father was had been acting erratically; another contact was the smuggler who imported the rare spell component, who could be bribed into revealing her client's name; another contact was an alchemist who could explain what the rare component is used for; and plus a couple red herrings.)
One of the NPC contacts (Galen Calabreen) turned out to be a low-level Boccobite with a hankering for recruiting. Kiel and Mildred feigned interest in joining the Fraternity, knowing that they could find Thavior in one of the group's secret meetings. In blindfolds, they were led to the local chapter's meeting place. The rest of the PCs followed stealthily, of course.
While Mildred and Kiel were forced to endure long readings from Boccob's sacred texts, the rest of the party worked on breaking into the secret meeting place, which of course was in an underground crypt full of magical traps.
What I planned to happen was for the dungeoncrawling party to reach the Fraternity's meeting room, and there would be a battle royale as the party reunited to defeat the Boccobites and apprehend Thavior.
What actually happened: Mildred decided that continuing to infiltrate the Fraternity of Boccob was a far too valuable a strategic goal to throw away lightly. Through magical communication, Mildred told the dungeoncrawling party to GTFO ASAP. This was not the time for swords.
Mildred's plan: Frame the smuggler that Thavior used for the murder. Offering up a scapegoat suspect will keep the church off the wizard community's backs for a while, and also allow the party to continue gathering intelligence about the Fraternity's activities in the kingdom.
The dungeoncrawling wing of the party didn't know the whole plan, but they decided to go with Mildred's wishes and quickly escape the crypt without confronting the Boccobites. In-character, only Mildred and Kiel knew about the framejob. Which I allowed them to carry off more or less without a hitch.
So two PCs framed a (semi-)innocent for murder. Next session they need to convince the party paladin that they did the right thing.
So useful, such an interesting tool, and no direct combat application - but it could be tremendously powerful in the right circumstances
A tricky and exhausting climb, though
Two immovable rods, one inside each of your boots, with a small mechanism allowing you to press the button with your toe.
Boom.
oh, you're
one of those
Side note: never give a Gnome three immovable rods.
it would still be tremendously awkward to move three rods around one by one in the air while balancing on them. especially if you want to go upward.
moving horizontally would be easier, as you could just use them like monkey bars, swinging forward with one arm at a time, but it would still be quite draining
the more fun uses are holding doors open/closed, pinning people to the ground, making traps by having them support a platform that's juuuust under the weight limit so they collapse when someone walks on them, creating anchor points to swing from or hop to, etc.
The ... things...I have seen done with a set of these
thank god @Knob can't really do magic.
I host a podcast about movies.
like glue a guy's hands to his ankles with sovereign glue, and then glue his back to the immovable rod, and then just... hang him wherever you want
...
obviously there will be a prison in one of my games at some point where this is the method for detaining all prisoners
Tie them to you with ropes to mitigate slips and falls and it becomes an easy version of what rock climbers do every day.
Heck have a fourth one so you can sling a hammock and have a rest when you're halfway up
Picture it: you're standing on one fixed rod, and holding onto another one for balance. You have a third rod in your hand, unfixed. How do you proceed? How, especially, do you move the rod you're standing on?
Diablo 3 - ArtfulDodger#1572
Minecraft - ArtfulDodger42
Err....I thought immovable rod was a 3e-ism. Don't think it was core before then, might have been from somewhere else though.
You have one you're standing on, tied on a limb-length rope, one by your waist on a limb-length rope that has a loop hooked tight to your harness, and a third free on another limb length rope
Step 1) Position the third rod at head height and activate it. Remove the clove-hitch from the second
Step 2) Step off the bottom one letting the ropes take your weight, reach down and deactivate the bottom one. If you fumble no worries it's still tied to you.
Step 3) Pull up on the now fixed third one and get your legs on the second one. Standing up the third one will now be waist height and you should hook the third ones loop tightly to your harness.
Sounds less draining than normal methods of ascending a rope via friction hitches.
Sailors had this figured out before there was writing.
Meanwhile the Wizard casts Fly
A thief who burgles using elaborate immovable rod climbing techniques is a lot more fun than a wizard solving a problem with a single spell, to me.
This is part of why DMing at higher levels is going to be a pain in the ass. You have to study the complete spell lists for every character in your party and make sure they can't trivialize an encounter, puzzle or challenge with a single spell or combination of spells.
Nope. Old, old item.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I don't remember the setting, but it had trains, or train-like things (and was pre-eberron). The party was having a showdown in one of the cars and losing when one of them took the rod out and snapped it in place, about twenty feet in front of the enemy.
The enemy ended up going sternum first on the wrong end of the immoveable rod.
Do you know from where?
When my group made the 2e to 3e conversion I remember the older members like the concept of that rod so I'd be surprised if it were in some common source before that.
I'll have to look in my 2E books at home, but I'm pretty sure I remember it popping up in a 1E game way back in the day.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Even checked my AD&D Unearthed Arcana and couldn't find it there, unless it was under a different name back then.
Found the Trident of Fish Command though.
How many immovable rods would it take to immobilize a tarrasque?
Diablo 3 - ArtfulDodger#1572
Minecraft - ArtfulDodger42
Guy went ethereal, moved into monster belly, unetheral, opened a bag of holding full of miscellaneous stuff and ethereal'd out.
You can do the same concept with the rod: ghost in, set it up, ghost out.
Unfortunately in pathfinder and 3rd ed, the UR isn't actually immovable. A DC30 strength check can force the thing along, but if you let that thing go inside a person? I don't think your stomach lining can safely do a DC 30 check, regardless of strength score.