Tuesday 28 April 2009

Sculpting and the Like

I can be classed as a fairly lazy DM, perhaps this is the reason why all the sessions of World Top have been ad libbed so far, but this week I am making an extra special effort, the kind of effort I've never made before.

I am making models for the game.

Now I'm no sculptor by any means and my first complete attempt that sits beside me as I write this looks decidedly amateurish, however there is something quite fun about using sculpty. It's like plasticine that you cook in the oven until hard and just using the stuff is cathartic. The model itself might be a bit rubbish but I like it despite that and hopefully my group won't mind fighting it on the night.

Amanda's attempt is on the other side of the room and is far better; she's much better at sculpting than she gives herself credit for and I reckon the party will take one look at her monster and head for the hills... Y'know, if they weren't already in the mountains.

I'll try and grab some pics on sunday so you can see the finished results.

Monday 27 April 2009

No Session This Week

With Hair Dave off fighting at the Black Gate this week we decided not to plunge on without Katarakis and so myself and Amanda enjoyed a day entertaining small children and having the occasional pint of Becks. However since I'm trying to post something every monday I felt obliged to drag myself from bed and put something up here. For a week I've had nothing at all to write about but yesterday following a conversation between myself, Dave and Amanda I got all excited. The reason: I finally get to play a game!

Huzzah

Finally I get to play Vendreth the Barbarian (Vendreth; warrior without fear!) and spend some time cracking skulls and investing in more d12's. Amanda, my long sufferring girlfriend has been elected to run a session or two at some point (Probably after Giz's Fudge Bleach), this promises to be alot of fun since last night I got to watch her tear into my Monster Manual in search of all manner of nasty critters to unleash on our unsusupecting party.

This promises to be alot of fun, Amanda is really starting to get to grips with D&D and its been a pleasure to watch her Dwarf Warlord (Skurmesh Anklebiter) come into his own in the encounters we've fought; saving Du'nn'o from certain death, granting Katarakis all manner of nasty bonus attacks and just generally keeping the party in shape. I'm hoping that she can carry that enthusiasm into her DMing and just have fun with it.

Our party itself seems to be taking shape, aside from my Barbarian Mr. Dave is talking excitedly about an Avenger with a double-bladed sword who looks like Darth Maul and I feel certain Giz will arrive with something musical and leader-ish. That just leaves Rachel who we intend to corrupt into becoming a Defender of some flavour; I personally am voting for Warden.

Now I'm off to go do some planning for next week; here's your sneak peek: It starts with M and ends with -alboro.

Monday 20 April 2009

On Top of the World: Session 3

Easter delayed the next part of our Paragon Tier campaign, with over half the party (and I) sat on a hill drinking cider and watching the sunset rather than trawling the Undermanse in search of treasure. That said we are finally resuming as normal and this week promised some interesting combat.

Or at least that was the plan.

Originally the party were destined to get ambushed by a Lich and its friends when they followed the path after their battle with the (underwhelming) Hydra. Now Liches are usually tough opponents but with two Paladins in the party (Caradoc the Paladin of Redirect and Katarakis the Astral Weapon) I was looking forward to seeing the party take one down ‘old-school’.

Instead Caradoc in a bout of meta-gaming declared that since the cowled figure (read: Lich) had gone through a portal there then there must be a way of opening it through hand signals, gestures, using bits of detritus and the like. In a retcon roll we discerned that Katarakis had seen the moves that the Lich had made before opening the portal.

Dungeon Masters of old will be remembered by the faithful as hateful architects fuelled by malice, every thread and sinew of their being toiling ceaselessly to forge mazes of agony for their friends to stumble through. Fourth Edition tones this down by removing level drain, statistic loss and instant death and you might suspect that this means an age of party friendly Dungeon Masters. I refute this with a single line:

“The figure appears to have made a series of arcane gestures and then ended with some word of arcane power, from your vantage point you could hear something that sounded like... Macarena.”

I am still grinning.

The portal opened and the party wandered through a dreamlike wilderness unique to each of them (with one consistent theme; a dead Peter Andre) until they came out on a ledge far above the Undermanse. The party were stood upon one of the Stalactites mentioned in the last session and below them could see the strange geometric patterns of the Neminoan barrows. Before them is an irregular archway surrounded by mosaics made of irregular tiles (called ‘tessera’ as Katarakis informed me) and beyond a room in which they found a pillar of metal with copper cables coming from the top of it. Blue light pulsed along the cables and was carried along cables bordering a ramp on the far side of the room that led out from this stalactite to another one. From within the pillar came the sound of distant thunder and a dull throbbing.

This room was to be the resting place of the ‘Lord of Thunder’; a maul that was rather good at knocking things down; hence the rumble of distant thunder. I was counting on my party’s natural curiosity (along with the greed that grips all adventurers) to cause them to crack this open and get the aforementioned magical item. The trade off being that doing this would take power that was being bled through the cables to a room further on in which there were sarcophagi containing all manner of nastiness.

As it was after some debate and some ‘advice’ from Caradoc about greed (this being the same player who carved his name onto the family tree in a crypt near Winterhaven and declared himself the lost son of Lord Padraig) the party decided to leave it and I watched my shiny magic item disappear off into the sunset.

After some more walking they came upon the sarcophagus room in which they found a flesh golem (in actuality 2 flesh golems squeezed) in the aforementioned sarcophagus. Again in a fit of common sense they decided to leave well enough alone and walked away without releasing the deadly monstrosities.

I was feeling defeated. The party had evaded 2 combat encounters and the treasure for this week; that said Skurmesh Anklebiter was spoiling for a fight and I didn’t want to end a session of D&D without some actual combat. I toyed with the idea of throwing the Lich back in but that felt a bit cheap especially since the party had been lucky and avoided that encounter.

Instead I decided to let the party out of the mountain in a valley with a river of fire and gave them an encounter worth fighting: a green dragon, specifically Melgoroth of the Eternal Blight. I was wary of running another solo, especially since the hydra was soundly beaten and didn’t provide much entertainment. Mercifully Melgoroth provided much more entertainment.

Now you might be wondering what a green dragon, a race of dragon that commonly makes its home in forests, would be doing in a blasted volcanic waste. Indeed my players were likewise interested in how I planned to dig myself out of this hole. Luckily in the first session Caradoc asked about dragons and I had mentioned they were driven into the north; Melgoroth specifically was driven north by the Knights of the Order Rosenkavalier after it killed the other dragons in the area and gorged itself on one too many local towns.

The party opened poorly, the rogue squandered her surprise round destroying the nearby rock face and everybody else got close enough to cause some damage before it unleashed its breath weapon. Then came Du’nn’o’s (!?) moment of glory as she used her Close Quarters ability to leap on the dragons back and stab it for some reasonable damage. Melgoroth however was having none of this and flew high above the lava and shrugged Du’nn’o off ditching her into the lava.

I wussed out on the lava damage and Du’nn’o actually ended up taking very little damage from the lava and Skurmesh used Knight’s Move to allow her to fey step out of ‘Firey Flamey Death(tm)’. If I should ditch someone into lava again the damage will be colossal; I’m thinking damage, healing surge damage and ongoing damage.

The rest of the fight was a tough affair that consumed most of the party’s resources (the way a good solo should), fortunately Melgoroth’s breath weapon refused to recharge and with Caradoc being a Hospitalier and Skurmesh on healing duty the party was rarely in danger. Melgoroth eventually was felled by Du’nn’o when I forgot about an ability she had in play that dealt damage when it attacked her and it claimed the last of its hit points as she met its incoming attack with her dagger.

Overall this session had a much more satisfying fight and I think I’ve learned what makes a good solo (ready for making my own ‘Hydra 2.0’). However given that I was a little strung out the colour and roleplaying seemed to suffer. The players were all willing but I wasn’t as enthused as session 2; hopefully for next time (a fortnight away as Katarakis is fighting the ‘Black Gate’ at work next Sunday) I’ll be a little more enthusiastic and have some interesting encounters planned out.

Until next time; add parting witticism here.

Monday 6 April 2009

On Top of the World: Session 1 & 2

Long time no see, but lets see if we can get this back on track.

We've just started a new campaign in my current poison of choice Dungeons & Dragons 4th ed. Having scrabbled around a couple of times coming from level 1 (including an extremely brief stint actually playing as a Modron Fighter) I decided I wanted to run a game at Paragon Tier.

For Those of you going 'Para-wha!?' let me explain.

4th Edition is split into 3 tiers of play, 1st to 10th level is heroic tier where you fight goblins and humans and generally faily natural stuff. Next us is Paragon tier from 11th to 20th level where you'll spend alot of time beating up really Harry Housen shit like cyclopses, demons, hydras and the interesting dragons. Essentially Paragon is where you fight big monsters and smite their ruin on the mountain side. Abover this from level 21 to level 30 is Epic tier where you graduate from the school of monsters bashing and start crunching your way through greater demons, elder dragons and occasionally demon princes and gods.

We were part way through our Planar game when I pitched the idea for running a Harry Housen wilderness journey 'Into the frozen north!' and everyone loved it so much that we almost immediately dropped the campaign we were doing so that I could run this one.

I'm a little bitter that since buying the core books on release day I have thus far managed to play only once. Still, looking on the bright side this was a great opportunity to use some of the cooler magic items and monsters on offer and to unleash all manner of nastiness on the party.

Now I'm a bit of a pain for writing things down so I decided to try something with this campaign and adlibbed the first session. I wrote down all the encounters and some basic guidelines to keep things moving but everything else I made up on the fly, just letting my imagination inspire me whenever a question was asked. Thus far its worked quite well and it's helped that a stint playing Dark Heresy seems to have given everyone a bit of impetus to roleplay rather than just move their minis around the battle-mat. Our party then looks something like this:

Dave- Katarakis, the garrulous (and often grumpy) Draganborn Paladin of Bahamut.

Gareth- Caradoc Burrows, Halfling Paladin of the Raven Queen (Aka the Halfling Tank)

Amanda- Skurmesh Anklebiter, Last of the Anklebiters, Dwarf Warlord

Rachel- Du'nn'o Me'name, Eladrin Rogue 'Hassassin' of the Raven Queen

Gareth's Halfling Paladin took me aback when I saw it turn up (and the only mini we had that got close to looking appropriate was the plastic citadel Samwise, which lessens the overall effect) but as you will see its actually quite strong.

Our heroes gathered at the northernmost Dwarven citadel of Farpont, a distant spire of rock (172ft 3in because they always want to know) upon which sits a great temple to Moradin within which the foremost heroes of the Hearthlands now sit around a great octagonal table. They were summoned by Caradoc Burrows an aging Paladin of the Raven Queen to answer his call to arms and he details an audacious plot to travel into the north to seal the Gods Gate and put an end to the threat of an invasion by the gods.

I was shocked, they were roleplaying. Katarakis was garrulous, Skurmesh was possibly drunken and quite hilarious and even Caradoc, played by our resident munchkin, was having a good turn detailing his fears and his reasons for this final jaunt into the north. They interacted well with my NPCs they didn't try to loot anyone who stab someone up just because they were bored. I was pleased.

The party, having spent two days preparing probed King Raminos' Alchemist; Caspian, for information and he advised them upon three known routes into the mountains. The party elected not to go over the mountains (no cyclopses and hill giants for me) and not to go through the Ashfall Forest (Caradoc wisely deciding that nopthing good could come from a place where is rained ash from the sky constantly; they annoyingly missed my Beholder and Basilisk) instead they elected to 'pull a Frodo' and headed through the Neminoan Barrows beneath the mountain.

'It's a barrows, with two paladins undead dont stand a chance!'

I had intended for them to then enjoy a skills challenge, something I'd never really got to do running Keep on the Shadowfell. Now I'd heard that some DM's aren't big fans of the way Skills Challenges work but I was determined to find out for myself and so decided they should wander the wilderness for a while and how well they did would determine whether they found their chosen path or strayed into one of the other ones.

It was at this point, having had the game run far too smoothly that Gareth threw a huge gold-plated spanner into the workings of my mental process: 'Does this place have a library?'

Bugger, I hadn't considered that they might not just womble off into the wilderness and might actually research the location of these fabled barrows. In the past I might have said no but I wanted the players to shape the world with their questions and actions and so taking a bit of advice from the Dungeon Masters Guide I said yes. I retooled my skills challenge and let the players decide what there characters would do in a library that sprung up full of tightly packed shelves with brass bound tomes, dwarven librarians sleeping on some small stacks pipes still in mouths and low slung passageways in what evolved into an almost labyrinthine library. The haracters eventually found their map after Katarakis leafed through a tome and found it quite by accident.

Finally the party was off.

Borrowing horses from the Thane of Farpont, an old ally in their past exploits our heroes rode out to the Neminoan Barrow and found it in the shadow of the northen mountains a long path into darkness overgrown with moss and tall grass. The party were cautious, almost annoyingly so; but I won't blame them since they've met me before*.

Eventually we got going down a long corridor onto which graven images of a god from the beyond Sholonoth the Unnamable were carved representing a journey from life to death and Du'nn'o scouted ahead using her low light vision to discover a chamber in which two skeletal figures stood with some hunched, bloated creature. For the first time ever the party got to launch an ambush instead of being on the back foot and set about their foes with gusto.

Du'nn'o was particularly deadly in the opening rounds and the party spent most of the battle getting her combat advantage to get the most mileage from her frankly rediculous +3d8 sneak attack bonus. Skurmesh was batterred repreatedly by four armed monstrosities that only eventually his by rolling a critical; which Katarakis instantly dismissed by channelling the will of Bahamut.

Caradoc didn't fare quite so well.

The hulking figure seemed to take exception to the champion of the Raven Queen and spent the entire battle enveloping him within black tendrils and imprisoning him in a zone of darkness within his exposed ribcage. This was the Soul Devourer which my party seemed to have some difficulty getting to grips with. That said Caradoc is built as a redirect Paladin, he has four different ways of redirecting an attack onto himself to spare his party members. With a Constitution of 19 and an AC of 28 he's quite difficult to hit and can only get tougher as I found out later.

It took some time for the party to slay the monsters but for their troubles they recieved an ancient ring of dwarven design (which wound up in the hands of Caradoc; not the Dwarf) and got to venture deeper into the Barrow.

The next session saw the party venture deeper into what I've dubbed 'The Undermanse' and came out of the passageway onto a platform with a string of Lord of the Rings quotes. In the darkness the party could see only echoes caught in torchlight of distant buildings; until we remembered that Skurmesh is a dwarf and so has Darkvision. Skurmesh saw distant towers of irregular shapes and relaying it Katarakis and Caradoc managed to work out that they were arranged in a formation that spoke of some sinister mathematics. Hanging from the ceiling of the hollowed mountain were great stalegmites (stalegtites?) between which walkways of stone had been constructed.

The party took a staircase and headed down, stopping only to examine the decayed remnants of a mural which had crumbled into dust of many colours including an 'unnatural' pink which offends Katarakis for reasons he cannot explain. Skurmesh decides to taste the chalk to try and discern its make up and finds it tangy and metallic, although not in a manner like blood. D&D veterans might childe Skurmesh for doing this and rightly so; I decided to give Skurmesh a disease the next time he woke up partly as a warning (It ended up being the non-fatal Cackle Fever) and partly because I wanted to see how they worked; forgetting that Caradoc knew Cure Disease.

The party continued on until they reached a brazier which lit as they approached casting a sickly yellow light; though no device or magic seemed to have activated it. In the distance to the north Skurmesh sees something move in one of the towers and despite Katarakis' grumbling the party head east into a series of passageways and walked for many hours; eventually becoming weary.

They found a room after some searching that was irregular in shape (they didn't ask me how many sides it had, but lets say 17), it had one entryway and spigots of wood were laid about. At one end growing out of the wall was a thick boughed tree that seemed to be made from the stone itself and loomed over the room. On its greyed stony branches buds that glowed with black light hung and the party decided (and their respective rolls confirmed) that this was no tree they'd ever seen.

The party rested for several hours Caradoc shirking his guard duties since Du'nn'o only requires four hours meditation and it was during her watch that she heard the singing, a voice high pitched and distant that at first seemed to echo from outside before coming closer and finally resting in the room with them. A golden light came brom the trunk of the tree and Caradoc identified the singing as being Supernal the language of the gods.

Fortunately Caradoc knows Supernal (along with Common and Halfling) and so heard the voice speaking of plains of forests and trees and of marching at the head of armies and of the slaying of its enemies. Caradoc interrogated it and it answered in more strains of past heroes and of a longing to march once more at the heads of armies and speaking of the breaking down of walls. Katarakis, growing impatiant (and still sulking over the party's decision to not head north and 'crack some heads'), decided the best course of action was to heat the stone with his breath and then hit it with his hammer to release whatever was inside; however at the last moment Caradoc plunged his hand into the tree and pulled out a sword of golden steel which cast a glow about them.

Katarakis went back to sulk in a corner over not getting to hit something.

In the morn, or at least when the party woke up in their twilight underworld, they pressed on and the path began to head north until they came upon a path that opened upon a ledge. Du'nn'o crept forwards and spied a being coweled in a dark robe; which might have been significant had the figure not been stood next to a HYDRA. The figure disappeared into a dimension door and the party prepared themselves for battle.

Now the Hydra is a Solo Brute a level above the characters and can do a ton of attacks per turn; which I expected to put it in relatively good stead and having seen how long encounters usually take my party I decided to adjust its Hit Points down. This was a good idea but not for the reason I thought it would be.

In this session the party really came into its own; the two Paladins set about the beast with gusto; Katarakis making it vulnerable to radiant damage and Caradoc putting his new sword to good use and directing the beasts attacks against himself to force damage on it from Katarakis' divine challenge. Du'nn'o spent the entirety of the fight flanking it as the creature was boxed in between her and the ledge the two paladins were stood on. Meanwhile Skurmesh, despite falling on his face stood tall as a warlord using a clever combination of powers and feats to grant a string of standard actions to Katarakis who smote the beast with holy flame.

I'm glad I reduced the things health as the extra Hit Points could only have dragged the fight out with what was an underwhelming Solo. The Hydra was menacing when it was put on the table, but any party that can heal like mine can soak up the damage it does with ease and after that the Hydra doesn't have that many tricks. That said we were using Dave's converted citadel Hydra (out of a carnosaur no less) which is frankly quite beautiful so I'm glad we got to use it.

I was feeling generous at the end of this session so I handed out two more magic items: Aevis Sandals for Du'nn'o who can now fly, albeit briefly, and the Shield of God's Breath for Skurmesh which wards away arrows with a divine wind.

Katarakis then sulked about not getting any shiny stuff; I now have him down on my sheet as 'Katarakis the Grumpy'.

*I and some of my party had listened to the Podcast of Mike Krahulik, Jerry Holkins and Scott Kurtz taking on the Keep on the Shadowfell so I decided to mix it up a little. In the first room where the false floor put was I replaced it with a poison needle trap (Level 6 Blaster) which almost killed some of the party. Since then they have become suitably wary of a DM who thinks things aren't quite fatal enough.