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AlphaDog posted:You will not be able to have a perilous overland journey again without taking the airship away or disabling it. That's something you're going to have to live with. Absolutely this. Any flying fortress which isn't gimped is going to remove a lot of the interesting parts of overland travel. If all you're interested in is giving your players a mobile home base, you could consider doing it in ways which don't have the utility of a flying fortress. You could give them a magical mansion which they access through a magical doorway they can carry around, or a magic key which lets any door open onto their mansion. You could make a castle which can be summoned to any location with sufficient space with the press of a button on a magic rod, or a castle made of clouds that can be stored in a bottle. There's some interesting ideas in this thread about how to create challenges using the airship, but all of them still result in the PCs being able to fly over a good percentage of the scenery. There's lots of different alternatives which can make transporting and summoning the base as easy or difficult as you like, and you wouldn't have to take on the task of trying to limit something as campaign-defining as an airship.
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Jul 4, 2011 17:15
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Yeah, it's the "flying mounts in world of warcraft" thing for sure. On the one hand, it will trivialise moving around, but on the other hand AIRSHIP. Moving from place to place is often boring anyway. At it's worst it's "20 days in the jungle, 4 random monster checks a day, if nothing is rolled nothing interesting happens again". At it's best it's usually handwaved as "you travel for 20 days and nothing happens" and it doesn't matter if you do it on an awesome fantasy airship or in the back of an awesome fantasy turnip cart. The campaign will be forever remembered as "the game where we had the airship" (or flying castle or whatever). That sort of thing is necessarily the thing that the whole game is designed around, but it's such a cool, memorable idea that it's worth the extra hassle. Except if all your games are airship based or something, I guess.
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Jul 4, 2011 17:30
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Wow, thanks for all the great ideas, everyone! I'm thinking of combining altitude limitations with need for occasional landing (either recharge or just supplies). But I'm totally going to allow them to start adding to ship to make it a flying fortress over time - because that's awesome.Sir Kodiak posted:Any flying fortress which isn't gimped is going to remove a lot of the interesting parts of overland travel. You're right, and that's something I'm still struggling with a little. I've wanted to give them some sort of iconic form of "I'm awesome now" travel upon reaching paragon tier, though. I think I can work through the fact that it removes the challenges of overland travel with a combination of small limitations on the airship and just changing my own assumptions about the game (dungeons, infested cities and mountaintops are the new scary forests, etc.). Having said that, the magical key that makes any door into a portal to a specific place is really cool. I might have to steal that anyway.
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Jul 4, 2011 17:32
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Let some of the bad guys have airships and let them have airship to airship swashbuckling battles.
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Jul 4, 2011 18:01
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I want to do Planescape again because everyone has good memories of it. I do NOT want to deal with 2nd edition again if I can help it (again, good memories but I've been re-reading the rulebooks and seriously, gently caress that). I'm also not running it in 3.5 because nobody I know likes 3.5 at all (myself included). I want to do it in 4th ed. We haven't played much 4th ed but I have faith that's it's an acceptable system, and I think starting at Paragon tier will work out really well with the whole Planescape setting. Problem is, nobody wants me to use 4th ed because it's "too wargamey". These guys aren't really grognards, they've just played through Keep On The Shadowfell with very stereotypical characters and thought the combat was same-ish and boring. I've tried explaining that it's just the module, not the system as a whole, and that Paragon tier will bring way more options, but it's not working. They want me to run Planescape in Hackmaster (because the last Hackmaster game I ran was really fun for everyone) but that's frankly a nightmare scenario for me. There'd be a serious amount of work that I simply don't want to do. I've promised them a new Hackmaster short-campaign soon (and it will be fun), but how do I convince them that Planescape in 4th ed is a good idea? I will be running with the setting information and fluff from the 2nd ed Planescape books but making the monster/NPC stats up from scratch rather than trying to convert 2e to 4e directly. I know I need to talk to everyone carefully before I bother writing anything.
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Jul 4, 2011 18:05
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One more airship idea - you could make it relatively vulnerable to damage (e: or that its magic can be dispelled), so they can't cruise right up to the Fortress of Doom in it. They'll need to moor the sucker at a safe distance and approach overland. I am 100% with AlphaDog that it is definitely worth making this work because "The Airship Campaign" is way more memorable than "We set camp, we set guards, do I sleep in my armour" voyage #782. Unless you're really playing out wilderness survival most overland journeys are just an excuse to run into whatever cool encounters the GM has designed, and you can find reasons for the players to run into those even if they do have an airship.
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Jul 4, 2011 18:32
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AlphaDog posted:
Is there anyway to make travel interesting and really feel like travel? In the Fallout game I'm preparing to run, the theme of the game is pretty much going to be cross country apocalyptic road trip, I've got a road atlas that I've got all marked up with caravan routes and post-war settlements and the party is pretty much going to pick a direction or route and set forth. Is there any way to convey the feeling of long distance exploring as opposed to saying "you travel 8 days south into the Carolinas and were not attacked by raiders" or rolling random battles. I suppose I could roll random encounters and have a good portion of them be non combat?
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Jul 4, 2011 18:36
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AlphaDog posted:
Play a quick one-shot in 4e to get them used to the idea that the system doesn't have to suck, but this time don't have it be Keep on the Shadowfell. Do you have a DDI subscription? There's an amazingly good module called Lord of the White Fields if you have access to it, and it's quite possibly the best module I've ever seen. Ever. It really captures the horror feel and it should be very different from a slogfest like Keep on the Shadowfell.
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Jul 4, 2011 18:47
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Epi Lepi posted:Is there anyway to make travel interesting and really feel like travel? In the Fallout game I'm preparing to run, the theme of the game is pretty much going to be cross country apocalyptic road trip, I've got a road atlas that I've got all marked up with caravan routes and post-war settlements and the party is pretty much going to pick a direction or route and set forth. Is there any way to convey the feeling of long distance exploring as opposed to saying "you travel 8 days south into the Carolinas and were not attacked by raiders" or rolling random battles. I suppose I could roll random encounters and have a good portion of them be non combat? Assuming the group is into it, especially in a setting like Fallout looking for water, food and campsites can be challenges. You can also throw some physical obstacles at them like a flooded river that needs to be crossed (ford it, obviously) or (for Fallout) a collapsed bridge over a gully they need to get over somehow. It's a long book but Lonesome Dove is about a cattle drive from Texas to Montana and contains all kinds of travel related things that might inspire you. Another of McMurtry's books which is not as good, Dead Man's Walk, has a great description of just trying to get through the desert in Mexico. If the campaign is really going to be about travelling and getting the caravan from Point A to Point B then that's the kind of stuff I'd consider, although it presumes a playing group that is ok with challenges other than combat. If the caravan is just a mechanism to get them from settlement to settlement and explorable location to explorable location then I would just handwave the actual travel with some description until you'r ready to have something happen.
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Jul 4, 2011 18:58
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Epi Lepi posted:Is there anyway to make travel interesting and really feel like travel? In the Fallout game I'm preparing to run, the theme of the game is pretty much going to be cross country apocalyptic road trip, I've got a road atlas that I've got all marked up with caravan routes and post-war settlements and the party is pretty much going to pick a direction or route and set forth. Is there any way to convey the feeling of long distance exploring as opposed to saying "you travel 8 days south into the Carolinas and were not attacked by raiders" or rolling random battles. I suppose I could roll random encounters and have a good portion of them be non combat? I mostly go with interesting scenery + hostile wildlife. A simple trudge through a swamp(and off roading) exposes them to a variety of exotic wildlife, plants and a veritable infestation of fey, while weird plants and stuff keep them engaged. Generally I just make a region with a general archetype of interesting sights and then mix one or two of each point of interest into each type of random encounter. Encounters don't have to be combat either. So in general I have these: -Interesting local terrain features. Whether magical glow rocks, weird plants, strangely shaped terrain, etc, they tend to keep PCs occupied for the roadtrip and if they really show interest, possibly a sidequest. If all else fails theres always the rock mysteriously shaped like a dong(you see those on roadtrips!) -Fellow travelers. Just throw in a few personalities on the road to chat with at times, so it doesn't feel like "just us, the road, and everything trying to kill us". In most settings these would probably be traders(everyone stops to check out the goods), fellow adventurers(brag swapping time! or else plot hook droppers), couriers(also plot hook droppers, plus they can share interesting sights on the road or bitch about masters) and random hostiles like bandits who might case the PCs before attacking. -Locals. Whether a farm, a roadside inn, an outpost, shrines, local fairies or some kooky spellcaster's abode, theres always sidequests, and gives a little feel to the region. If its a do-gooder party they could be hired to clean out the local random encounters for some pay if they aren't in a hurry. If not theres always local delicacies etc for players who like such things. -Trouble sites. Haunted areas, hostile tribals, etc. Just some organisation to the things they'd no doubt be splattering. -Rest stops. Abandoned buildings, etc, generally some place more interesting and safer to rest in than some hole in the woods. Could mix it up with one of the above. -Random Trinkets. Dump a lot of single use trinkets along the way, with negligible market value. Its like souvenirs. Generally it works a bit better if the area you travel in is somewhat untamed. You can just fast travel through civilized areas save for the odd bandit or village. EDIT: Food and water management is something I hadn't gone into with my group though. They don't seem too interested in trivia like that.
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Jul 4, 2011 19:11
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incogneato posted:You're right, and that's something I'm still struggling with a little.
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Jul 4, 2011 20:58
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incogneato posted:Having said that, the magical key that makes any door into a portal to a specific place is really cool. I might have to steal that anyway. It's a neat enough concept that the Sci Fi Channel made it the basis of a mediocre miniseries.
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Jul 4, 2011 21:21
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Fellow DMs... what is happiness? Happiness is having your hapless adventurers be so sure the rebels they've murdered local nobles to aid are the good guys. "Its like the French Revolution! They've got to be good guys! Viva la revolution, down with the bourgeoisie!" Happiness is their faces when they work out, slowly but surely, the rebel leader is a drug addicted madman who has been warped by ambition, capturing local mages and enchanters to build himself an armoured suit to take over the country, forcing druids to poison the harvest to make the King look incompetant and cruel when he has to take austerity measures. Happiness is their faces when they venture into the rebel leader's mine complex and discover the mages, only to have their erstwhile (and extremely extremely beloved) NPC ally, who they "rescued" from the "evil bourgeoisie" get brutally murdered by the rebel leader who is upset they're interfering in his mage buisness. And then the ensuing combat where they lose all tactical sense and get the Defender killed, barely escaping through a portal to emerge, oh yes, in the capital city of the bourgeoisie elite whose compatriots they murdered without thinking because being rebels is "of course" better than working for 'the man'. I love being a DM when my players don't look before they leap. Next session they try to sweet talk an angry King and work out how to defend against a walking technomantic monstrosity they've helped a lot by accident. -- On the subject of technomatic monstrosities, what do you guys think of this? Totally made on my own, trying to balance it for 6 level 8 PCs, none of whom are very experienced or competant (running it for some friends who've played like 3-4 sessions of DnD each. They know what theyre doing but lack the nuances of a powergamer) code:Lord Twisted fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jul 4, 2011 |
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Jul 4, 2011 23:24
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Thuryl posted:It's a neat enough concept that the Sci Fi Channel made it the basis of a mediocre miniseries. It was also the premise of an ancient Disney movie with talking multicolored cartoon dogs, whose name I can't remember (my little brother watched it nonstop in the early 80s)
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Jul 5, 2011 03:28
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Lord Twisted posted:Markus the Horrific Wow. OK, off the top of my head, an AoE at-will prone as a minor action is crazy overpowered at this level, the aura gives all ranged PCs the choice between being worthless and getting splattered by one of his AoEs, and 10 damage is an obscene amount of damage to be throwing around the first time somebody hits him every round, especially with that HP total. You said your party doesn't really know what they're doing? Then this guy's going to pick his golem-teeth with their bones. I'd say reduce the penalty on the aura to a -2 at most, redo the ground pound to not knock all melee characters prone, and lower the damage on the counterattack and maybe the grab to 5 On the flip side, if your party's got some way to keep him dazed, he's seriously handicapped. Like, to the point that the fight becomes a boring slugfest that he'll invariably lose, but only after a long grind of a fight. If you want to stop that, instead give him some extra partial turns every round. Like, say he gets a free standard action on his initiative count plus five and his initiative minus five that aren't affected by daze. That'll make sure that whatever happens, he's doing something on his turn I feel like if you do all this, he's still going to need a few more actions, and ones that don't just do damage. Maybe some ways to create difficult terrain or throw out some status effects? Or maybe throw in some terrain for him and the PCs to interact with.
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Jul 5, 2011 04:48
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You probably don't want to make anything but Slam and Pinning Fire basic attacks. The way it's written now he gets to use Frenzied Swings as an opportunity attack, which seems harsh.
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Jul 5, 2011 07:11
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Alright, I'm building an encounter for some PCs around level 7, and I've decided to throw in some carrion crawlers. In their stat-block, they've got listed "Climb 6 (spider climb)." I tried Googling the term, but it keeps leading me back to either 3.x edition or the Warlock utility. Does all it mean is that it can walk on ceilings with no penalty, or is there something else to it?
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Jul 5, 2011 14:11
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Climb: "A creature that has a climb speed moves on vertical surfaces at that speed without having to make Athletics checks to climb. While climbing, the creature ignores difficult terrain, and climbing doesn’t cause it to grant combat advantage." Spider Climb: "A creature that can spider climb can use its climb speed to move across overhanging horizontal surfaces (such as ceilings) without making Athletics checks. See also climb speed." The main DnD site has a tool called the compedium, which helps a lot when looking for what a term means. http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/database.aspx
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Jul 5, 2011 14:29
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Thanks for the clarification! And sadly, that compendium requires Insider, and to be frank, I don't have the desire to spend the $6 a month when I wouldn't be using it that often (when it's like 2 months between sessions...).
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Jul 5, 2011 19:22
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So what do you people use to create/organize your campaigns and build your adventures? I was just checking out Masterplan and was pleased to see it also had encounter creation tools and apparently it HAD D&D 4e compendium support but then had to remove it because Wizards said so. So now it basically is just a campaign plot tool rather than an encounter creation tool also because gently caress typing in the monsters yourself. Anyone know of a way to easily get compendium monsters into Masterplan or have any other tips for creating encounters and managing your campaign? I've just been typing directly into word and copy/pasting monster stat blocks. But usually I'll make one word file for an adventure and there's no easy way to tie them together into one cohesive campaign and keep general notes.
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Jul 6, 2011 05:10
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GOONS ARE MEAN
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All I had was a master list of NPCs and about 30+ .txt files(for a game with 20 sessions or so) for misc notes. Mostly just to jog memory though.
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Jul 6, 2011 05:44
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gos_jim posted:So what do you people use to create/organize your campaigns and build your adventures? I was just checking out Masterplan and was pleased to see it also had encounter creation tools and apparently it HAD D&D 4e compendium support but then had to remove it because Wizards said so. So now it basically is just a campaign plot tool rather than an encounter creation tool also because gently caress typing in the monsters yourself. Anyone know of a way to easily get compendium monsters into Masterplan or have any other tips for creating encounters and managing your campaign? I've just been typing directly into word and copy/pasting monster stat blocks. But usually I'll make one word file for an adventure and there's no easy way to tie them together into one cohesive campaign and keep general notes. I used to just use a handwritten list of NPCs and monsters and some stuff about the city or forest and roll with that, but times have moved on since 1990. Last time I ran a complicated campaign, I kept everything organised in a master txt file which referenced other files. Location descriptions and NPC stats were kept in word files. Monster stat blocks were kept in excel files organised by location (so I could print them and mark off hit point boxes and stuff right on their stat sheets). Maps were still hand drawn. I guess you could do the whole thing better with a database type system if you were into it. Next campaign I'm running with Word and Excel on a laptop in front of me so I can make notes and changes right in the files as I play instead of writing them on a printout and updating the files later. Maps will still be hand drawn onto graph paper because I'm poo poo at drawing programs. I guess these days you could use one of those online play tools and just run it yourself based on what the players at the table say they're doing.
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Jul 6, 2011 06:23
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I use Word; For complicated games I'll set up in-document hyperlinks so I can reference poo poo easily. The work-flow on it is clunky to do at the table. For 4th edition my gaming group has a big-screen TV hooked up to a computer, so I'll put encounters together in Maptool and we use the TV as our map and minis. It actually works really well. Wizards has the maps for most of their modules (stretching back to 3rd!) online if you have an insider account so I steal maps from there. It's child's play to port 'em into maptool.
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Jul 6, 2011 17:56
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I make a lot of notes, lists of an area's or a location's general traits, history, noteworthy NPCs in a location, then I throw them out the window as soon as we start playing and make poo poo up that ends up being vaguely the same as what I wrote down but diverges in key aspects so much that my notes instantly become worthless.
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Jul 6, 2011 19:05
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For organizing: Have you guys checked out any personal wiki software? I've been using wikidPad for years now and it's pretty sweet. It's easy to cross-reference and search the databases you make on your computer, and you can export the whole thing, or sections, out to HTML at any point if you want to put them on the internet. I've mostly been using it to just put down thoughts or ideas I've had so I don't forget them, but I imagine it'd be pretty good way to plan out a campaign as well.
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Jul 6, 2011 19:18
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Obsidian portal has revolutionized my DMing. Seriously check it out. It's essentially just a bunch of wiki templates and a bit of a front-end, but it's so slick and easy to use. They even have tutorial videos on how to use each page! It's also FREE! Obsidian portal!
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Jul 7, 2011 04:55
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Masterplan is pretty drat slick. If your monsters are mostly homebrew anyway (the campaign I'm running is largely against human enemies, so I keep on having to build new and exciting kinds of human to fight), the lack of compendium support isn't a problem. It's also really nice for actually running encounters: you can track initiative, calculate damage after resistances, and be reminded when an effect on a player ends.
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Jul 7, 2011 12:07
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incogneato posted:Airship The airship was the personal property of the DM's girlfriend, therefore she is the captain, therefore we are all subordinate to her. Airship battles are impossible. I don't know if there are rules for it in 4e, but pretty much everyone was just standing around while our crew of NPC's fired the canons, because no one had taken ranks in the proper skill because, well we didn't know we needed to and also, god drat airship. Also jumping from ship to ship was not feasible, and I know I should have died attempting it (I tired after encouragement from the DM, got a 7, and made it across the gap, bullshit). The airship has also now become the solution to al our problems. Zombie fog? Lets just run the airship over it a couple times to displace it, because we don't have a bard with an ability that dose the exact same thing. Our airship also started as a mobile homebase, intended to move us from adventure to adventure quickly, but it has turned it into tabletop JRPG. I am sure it can be done in a super awesome way, but just a heads up, it can also become the most god-awful adventure breaking thing ever.
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Jul 11, 2011 13:12
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That seems more like a problem with the system and your DM, then with the airship itself. EDIT: Also none of those problems have anything to do with JRPGs, what? Hell, Skies of Arcadia is a JRPG with Airship Battles that are pretty fun.
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Jul 11, 2011 14:14
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I am sure it is, but the main issue I see with airships is players taking advantage of them and I think this could happen in any adventure. But maybe the 4e rules accommodate for this where 3.5/Pathfinder dosen't. I am sure if proper precautions and rules were in place it would be fine. And an airship battle would be hella fun, assuming the entire party could participate and make decisions as a group about what the ship was going to do, but maybe that is just my personal problem with airships.
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Jul 11, 2011 15:56
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My players had an airship in a game and if anything it limited them. They were paranoid about losing the thing, so they'd always park it far away before starting an adventure. It couldn't travel over mountains, and would often get grounded or run into trouble in bad weather (requiring a lot of piloting checks, mid-flight repairs). The few times they did get a little cocky with their airship, they'd face intense AA fire from where ever they were attacking that would generally result in them being shot down and having to spend weeks repairing. Just make it reasonably fragile and players will use it as valued transport, not the "solve anything" item.
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Jul 11, 2011 17:04
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kitten princess posted:I am sure it is, but the main issue I see with airships is players taking advantage of them and I think this could happen in any adventure. Isn't this what they're supposed to do with the cool stuff they get in game? quote:But maybe the 4e rules accommodate for this where 3.5/Pathfinder dosen't. I am sure if proper precautions and rules were in place it would be fine. And an airship battle would be hella fun, assuming the entire party could participate and make decisions as a group about what the ship was going to do, but maybe that is just my personal problem with airships. It's definitely your situation/GM. It has nothing to do with rules and everything to do with imagination on making the airship and asset with consequences. If the players start throwing it around add more towns or enemies having ways of bringing them to the earth, or defending against the specific attacks. Create adventures where the airship is used as other things like far off transportation, or finding a hidden floating city in the clouds in the middle of the ocean as the next dungeon delves. You can also just zip ahead a month or so in the timeline and say "Okay, everyone describe one thing you'd specialize in on the ship, you can do that with an appropriate ability check". If there are specialized hirelings to do stuff bring out the issues they may have with the airship going to hell and back or getting into fights all the time (mutiny!). Hell, if there was a fight between airships the last thing I would do would be firing cannons, I'd be creating boarding situations, rope swinging, repairing broken pieces from the underside while hanging from a frayed harness, etc. all while fighting a terrible lightning storm.
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Jul 11, 2011 18:07
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kitten princess posted:Also jumping from ship to ship was not feasible, and I know I should have died attempting it (I tired after encouragement from the DM, got a 7, and made it across the gap, bullshit). I'd like to briefly focus on this for a second. It's utterly foolish to require frequent skill rolls (you seem to imply this happens multiple times per fight) where failure means instant death. Obviously, the only reason you'd call for a roll in that situation is if a failed roll meant you got to the other ship, but in some kind of tense situation (tangled in the rigging, fallen the middle of a group of enemies, hanging from the lip of a loaded cannon, whatever).
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Jul 11, 2011 18:17
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Need some vague suggestions for my BBEG. The end of my campaign will wrap up with the party reclaiming the throne of the country of which one of my players is the exiled prince. They are currently going around the country gathering allies and potential magical items to help bring down the current king and other unknown big baddies. They are currently clearing out a temple for an extinct group of Ioun paladins that's been overrun with necromancers. Ironically, this temple is where the exiled prince's parents were murdered at, so I plan on having some fun with that ("Oh, you think everything is dead except for your reanimated parents corpses!"). They have a few other places I think they could visit to gather allies, (dwarves and elves in various predicaments) and then will presumably head to storm the castle and reclaim the throne in an epic finale. I want to toss them a nice item or two to help with the final battle, but I think I'd like to develop the BBEG in more depth first. What I'm in need of, is ideas for a good BBEG, or collection of BBEG's, to finish things off with. Currently, the only reason they've been able to put together is that his parents were killed and throne overtaken for economic wealth, but I'm open to the usurping king being a puppet for a bigger bad guy. A majority of the party are worshipers of Ioun, so I've been tossing around the idea of having Vecna involved, or an evil dragon of some kind (they seem to really enjoy slaughtering dragons). I'm not looking for too much depth, but once I come up with a BBEG or some sinister motive, I can start tossing down items that can be useful in the final battle as they gain allies, whether they realize it at the moment or not. Also, I want to start designing the final encounters, but I'm utterly terrible at coming up with environment designs for encounters. I've been making a conscious effort to improve, and it's hit or miss. Does anyone have any suggestions for a nice finale showdown? At the moment, I imagine the party storming the throne room, and somehow leading up to a rooftop finale, perhaps having the roof falling apart due to some BBEG influence causing the battlefield to change and require jumps to reach the BBEG, perhaps being followed by a unique battlefield on another plane or taking place above the city for all the citizens to see. I would like to extend the final encounter, allowing the party to take short rests in between encounters to refresh their powers and keep things exciting once they blow all their big spells. They've complained before about the final showdown being too easy, or too quick so I want to potentially spend 2-3 sessions on them storming the castle and taking down the BBEG. Maybe that's too much, but I wanted to give an idea of what I had so far and hopefully give enough background. You goons have helped me making a great encounter and fight before, so I'm eager for more!
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Jul 11, 2011 19:22
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kitten princess posted:Oh sweet Jesus, be careful with this! An airship has ruined the Pathfinder adventure I am currently playing in. The issues we have had include: Definitely sounds DM specific in problems. Especially the bit about the captain(a PC) lording it over the other PCs. The first thing you do with such a thing is define its role with the players. Is it just fast travel between locations? If yes, fast, enormous target and fragile is the key, as well as some startup activity that makes it inappropriate for distances in under a day's travel. Is it a mobile base? If yes, it's simply ENORMOUS, but lumbering hulk. Easy to damage and disable, but not to destroy. Is it PC-owned, or do they just have a pet NPC in charge? If the former, be prepared to have to deal with security issues(Grant Theft Is it a battle station replacing the classic caravan/wagons? If yes, then it's small and lightweight, a gunship rather than a full frigate. In this role, you need to define further rules. Whether 3.5, Pathfinder or 4E, theres plenty of ways to do this. I'll go with 3.5/PF here in a summation. -If it lacks weapons, then you generally need to board. Such a vehicle WILL have boarding aids, boarding harnesses on ropes or chains that you can use to recover if you flub the necessary acrobatics, shipboard harpoons or ballistae to mount boarding bridges. Or heck, get a nice ram and jam it in, then board to fight. This is ideal for parties with a strong melee presence. -If it has cannons, then well you don't need all those skills to load a cannon etc, thats what the NPC crew is for. YOUR PC makes a regular attack roll, using the NPCs loading skills as a bonus on their attack or damage rolls, if theres a PC with the skill, then awesome, he can presumably load it faster/better than the NPCs can! -If it has melee weapons like rams or outlandish weapons like giant extending swordblades, let the melee guy pilot it and translate his skills to the vessel's melee attacks. If you don't, then at least get the boarding harnesses and possibly a man-catapult to launch a Fighter with poor piratical skills of acrobatics onto the enemy ship where he can do the most damage. -Spellcasters have few issues, I think, since their spells work just fine against people and ships alike. Mass buffs are hideously potent when placed on a crew, but be prepared to deal with a lot of math. One adjustment you might make it to treat the entire vessel and crew as a single creature for the purposes of mass buff spells(which becomes effectively single target). -Navigator, if you don't have a particularly good navigator or pilot, pick a blimp based airship. Those might be rear end to maneuver but they generally stay in the air unless intentionally crashed. If you do have a good navigator, work their skills into it by getting extra performance out of the vessel. Or you could just slap an NPC onto it and leave the PCs to the boarding parties. -Engineer, most parties won't bother with this, but if someone invested in the skills, let them soup it up for extra performance etc. Keeps them engaged. If you're just handing a regular party an airship, just make sure it's either lumbering, inconvenient, or give them a full crew and no shipboard cannons. Boarding parties or bust. Its easy enough to justify, airships are difficult enough to fly as it is, but a ballista or catapult represents significant weight increases, and if its lightly armored against small arms fire then its already pretty heavy. If its unarmored against small arms...then why don't you just shoot it with a bow? Just remember to give boarding harnesses, and grapnels. It turns flubbing the jump into an inconvenience. Or parachutes. Feather Fall tokens for single use can be pretty cheap.
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Jul 11, 2011 19:39
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veekie posted:some startup activity that makes it inappropriate for distances in under a day's travel. The heroes have parked the Red Falcon, their airship, in a clearing outside the town of Penworth for much needed resupply and repair after defending the town from a large horde of zombies sent by their arch-enemy, the Dread Necromancer. Zaltan, the massive warrior and battlemaster from the North, and Ig'niz, the party's magical expert and ship's engineer, are consulting with the various section heads of the ship. "Well, I suppose we could leave now," says Garren, the navigator. "We've just some comforts to take on. Fresh fruit, Louryenne's wine, a few spare parts, those sorts of things." "Good, do so. Start the elementals warming the boilers," replies Ig'niz. "Assuming the boilers are stone cold-" "They are," interrupts Zaltan. "Had to help repair 'em. Lost six hit points from burn damage first try, so I waited until they cooled off." "Yes, thank you. So that means eighteen hours to warm up. And the sooner the better. I don't like how long it's been since we were actively on the trail of the Dread Necromancer instead of all these reactionary fights. He could be up to anything by now." Just then, a man, bleeding from a dozen wounds and pouring with sweat, stumbles into the clearing. Louryenne recognizes him as a crewman lost overboard in a battle two weeks ago. Rushing to his side, she hears him gasp out, "Dread Necromancer. Mount B-Bhovia. Ritual... almost... done..." His message delivered, he collapses, dead. "Not good," she mutters. Striding purposefully to the others, she passes the message on. "We need to stop him immediately. Ig'niz, can you teleport us there?" Ig'niz gives a low whistle. "Mount Bhovia? Lemme see... If this map is to be trusted, I think I can, but it'll take up all of my magical powers for the day." "Fine. Put us somewhere a couple miles outside and we'll set up somewhere secure just long enough for you to recover your mojo." "You sure? I suppose we could try an assault right away. I'll still have my crossbow and he might not be expecting it." "Yeah," replies Zaltan. "He probably wouldn't expect us to attack him without magical backup. I suppose there's a chance he'll laugh himself to death, but that's about it." "Alright, fine. We'll camp. But Garren, I want you to follow us up. Get the boilers stoked, take on anything we still need, and make best speed for the peak of Mount Bhovia." ********** It is forty-eight hours later. The ritual was disrupted with just minutes to go before its completion, but before the necessary elements could be totally destroyed the Dread Necromancer and his minions overwhelmed the party and forced them away from the Altar of Doom. A running fight ensued with endless waves of skeletons and zombies forcing the heroes further and further down passageways. Finally, exhausted, low on health, low on crossbow bolts, low on magical energy, even low on confidence that they will survive this bout, the party has been forced to the edge of a sheer cliff high up the side of Mount Bhovia. A storm is raging, lightning and thunder battling high above for supremacy as wind and rain lash the rocky outcrop. "Ig'niz, what've you got left?" asks Zaltan, taking out yet another zombie. His massive two-handed sword has enough notches in it to qualify as a saw and he grunts and pulls it free. Even his legendary endurance is beginning to fail, and more abominations are pouring from the hole in the rock wall to surround the heroes. "Not much, a couple Flame Walls, maybe a lightning bolt if the storm comes lower and gives me a hand." He fumbles in his quiver for another quarrel and he finds only two shafts. "Running low on bolts, too. Louryenne?" "Outta throwing knives and the undead don't have squishy bits for my daggers to find," she replies simply. The Dread Necromancer steps out from behind a pair of resurrected ogres. His usual eldritch green glow has turned red and orange, a sign that his considerable anger has been roused. "You three have been a thorn in my sssside for yearssss. And now, you dissssrupt my ritual! Ssssuch persssseveransssse shall not go unrewarded. I shall insssstruct my minionssss to keep your bodiessss intact. Mainly." He lets out a high pitched cackle. "You three shall be my new bodyguardssss, forever bound to my sssservice." "No!" shouts Louryenne. "Never!" The wind is rising, becoming a great, droning roar. "We shall destroy our bodies before giving you the chance to destroy our souls!" shouts Ig'niz. "Why don't you come closer and say that?" screams Zaltan, even his mighty voice barely heard above the deafening howl. And then, just as the horde is about to surround the party and carry them off to the dungeons, the Red Falcon, engines fighting desperately for altitude, pops into view along the cliff edge. In seconds, it is above the battle. The side doors pop open and ropes fall out, coiling down to the ground. Even before the ropes reach to the rocky surface, men are rappelling down. The security team of the Red Falcon, led by Aknar, Zaltan's trusted lieutenant, are fully dressed for battle and immediately begin wading into the horde, forcing a path. "Go for the glowing bastard, sir!" shouts Aknar as he brings his cudgel down on a skeleton's skull, turning the abomination into an inanimate pile of bones. "We'll take care of these little bastards!" With a roar of triumph, Zaltan plunges back into the fray, Ig'niz and Louryenne close on his heels. The Dread Necromancer's reign of terror will end tonight. ItalicSquirrels fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Jul 12, 2011 |
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Jul 12, 2011 15:37
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Yarrbossa posted:What I'm in need of, is ideas for a good BBEG, or collection of BBEG's, to finish things off with. Currently, the only reason they've been able to put together is that his parents were killed and throne overtaken for economic wealth, but I'm open to the usurping king being a puppet for a bigger bad guy. A majority of the party are worshipers of Ioun, so I've been tossing around the idea of having Vecna involved, or an evil dragon of some kind (they seem to really enjoy slaughtering dragons). I'm not looking for too much depth, but once I come up with a BBEG or some sinister motive, I can start tossing down items that can be useful in the final battle as they gain allies, whether they realize it at the moment or not. Puppet king + religion will often = the king's advisor/vizier/head priest is the power behind the throne, and his/her goal is basically to present the kingdom to Vecna as a gift in exchange for (power/MacGuffin). Yeah, it's a cliche, but it's a cliche that usually works. To change it up a bit, put a triumvirate behind the throne. You could have the head priest as the top BBEG and give him two somewhat-subordinates: a polymorphed evil dragon as the puppet king's "economic advisor" (not only working for the head priest and thus for Vecna, but also making himself rich in the process) and a third guy who serves as the head of the king's personal guard. First they'll have to go through or around the guard to take down the third guy, then the dragon is in the way, and finally they've got to off the priest.
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Jul 12, 2011 16:05
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tzirean posted:Puppet king + religion will often = the king's advisor/vizier/head priest is the power behind the throne, and his/her goal is basically to present the kingdom to Vecna as a gift in exchange for (power/MacGuffin). Yeah, it's a cliche, but it's a cliche that usually works. One double trick to pull. Have an evil vizer, but ALSO an evil king! Once they get the vizer out of the picture they get to learn how much the two of them have been wasting on clashing resources. Also, that was some awesome airshipping.
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Jul 12, 2011 17:29
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AlphaDog posted:Running a Planescape game in 4E. I just did this for my last game. If you haven't already got a story mapped out, I would suggest using both the Modron March and Dead Gods adventures. I used the Modron March adventures for Heroic, Dead Gods for Paragon, and then used the 3 WotC Epic adventures (Death's Reach, Kingdom of Ghouls and Prince of Undeath), and it worked out pretty well. The 2nd edition adventures need a ton of conversion, but it's worth your while. I would suggest using the character themes from Dark Sun as a basis for Faction mechanics.
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Jul 13, 2011 00:57
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Ballpoint Penguin posted:I would suggest using the character themes from Dark Sun as a basis for Faction mechanics. Whoa, that's a great idea. I . . . wish I had thought of that.
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Jul 13, 2011 01:50
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