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Nagash is slightly less despised, but then, so is Archaon these days. But there’s still a lot of folks who would love to see more Death factions that don’t have to work directly for Incel Skeletor, including me,
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Aug 21, 2020 21:12
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KittyEmpress posted:Nagash sounds really boring and annoying, and reading about him reminds me of reading stories about Acheron or whatever the 40k Chaos champion who keeps being talked up in all 40k lore as the coolest dude to ever exist in Chaos. I cited the idea of Adventure Time's Lich because Nagash is pretty much the same thing. Figure the Chaos gods don't really exactly know what they want except at any given moment in time. Nagash is much simpler. He wants every life, every sentient being aside from himself to die/be destroyed. Of course, the question to ask is "And then what?" The funniest thing to me about characters like Nagash is that if they succeeded in their "missions," the end result would be to create their own Hells. "Congratulations, oh Undying Lord of Death. You won. You get to stagnate alone forever. Enjoy."
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Aug 21, 2020 21:21
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PurpleXVI posted:The Illithiad  quote:
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Aug 21, 2020 22:17
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FMguru posted:Each PC in Call of Cthulhu (going back to the very first version from 1981) has three metagame skills (Know, Idea, and Luck) that are meant to goose a party along when it hits a dead end. Everyone has them, and they're usually at or above 50%, so when the adventure seizes to a halt, the players or even the Keeper can call for Luck and Idea checks until someone succeeds and they get a clue they need to bump them along in the scenario. Really, it's a formal mechanic that allows the Keeper to fudge outcomes in order to keep a session on track. This is a page back, but 7e CoC specifically and explicitly calls out failing forward when using Idea rules. If you succeed in an Idea roll you get the solution or the connecting piece the players missed or whatever, if you fail you still get the solution of the missing piece of whatever at some sort of cost. The example given is rolling Idea to figure out that a cult is running a particular bookshop, with a success being a character remembers the bookshop is important and a failure being "You walk into the bookshop four weeks later after an exhausting period of hitting dead ends and are set upon by cultists." The book explicitly calls out Idea rolls as a method to get the game moving along, you only call for one/are asked for one if the players are totally stumped and have no idea how to go forward, and the GMing chapter says that you should set the difficulty of the roll based how obvious the clue was, with it being easier if the players completely missed the clue and much harder if it's been called out repeatedly. I still have some issues with how the book frames it though. For one, in the example they use the idea roll is at Hard difficulty (you have to roll under half your skill, equivalent to an INTx3 test in previous editions) because the "clue" was mentioned once, but said clue in the example is that they saw the bookshop owner at a cultist meeting. Problem is that the play example points out that the players actually don't know that because they flubbed a Spot Hidden roll, and while the book says that calling for a roll was a mistake and that the GM did bring up the owner a couple of times it still reads like the players are paying for failing a different roll which seems pointlessly mean spirited. Why shouldn't it be at regular difficult considering the players totally missed this clue? Additionally the book points out that since failing to hit an idea roll can be real bad players may not want to do it, and its suggestion to the GM at this case is "End the session right there, ask what they'll do next, and if you're not happy with the responses force an idea roll." Call of Cthulhu is the sort of game that demands a certain amount of buy-in from the players, and while I like fail forward Idea rolls the GM advice feels a little bit too adversarial to me. I honestly don't get why they put in the idea of scaling difficulties for Idea rolls, surely the price of failure is inherently bad enough that you don't want to push the button unless you feel you really need to? It's just like Pushing Rolls, it gives the players more options and more tools they can use, but it also creates more stress because the possibility of a pushed failure can be real bad. Moreover the book suggests to the GM that you foreshadow what would happen in case of a pushed failure, whereas RAW the players have no input on how a failed Idea roll will hose them.
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Aug 21, 2020 22:36
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Everyone posted:Of course if the party psionic is also the party bard, you get this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkUAzcja74Y I mean, no one ever said your wizard's verbal components couldn't be lyrics and that the somatics couldn't be jamming out on his guitar.  I would absolutely allow it if a player of mine suggested it.
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Aug 21, 2020 22:43
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Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Legions of Nagash spoop  The Nighthaunt (TM) are ghosts. They got their own army book in 2e (and new Mortarchs, for a ghost-focused Legion of Grief). But some of them show up here as general support for everyone. Cairn Wraiths are the ghosts of executioners, mass murderers and others who have caused huge amounts of death personally. More than that, they desired to continue killing, even in death, and that awakened them as cold, murderous ghosts. They wear shadowy robes and wield immense scythes, because they're patterned on the classical figure of Death aesthetically. Mortal weapons can barely touch them, and their glowing scythes cleave flesh easily. Tomb Banshees are those who were betrayed or tortured in life by those close to them, and now they desire vengeance not only on their tormentors but on all living things. Their sorrow and anger anchor them in the material world, and in their natural state they are typically found in ruins of their old homes, attacking any mortal that gets close. Necromancers often recruit and bind them because their screams can freeze blood, killing people instantly. The most feared ghosts are probably the Hexwraiths, ghostly riders that emerge from underworlds to hunt for souls. In life, each was a knight of immense pride and cruelty, and they retain their fighting skills, they they typically replace their swords with scythes, now able to sever the bond between flesh and soul. They are always surrounded by flickering lights that resemble flames. They aren't flames - they're the souls that the Hexwraiths steal from the living. They're incorporeal, so they're very hard to hurt conventionally, and they can pass through walls, stones or even whole mountains to hunt wherever they choose. Their ghostly mounts can even fly, galloping on air. A Black Coach bears the remains of a powerful Soulblight vampire. When these vampires are finally slain for good, their bodies often crumble to dust, burst into flame or erupt into worms and maggots. However, these remains still have value if they came from a sufficiently powerful vampire. A Black Coach is a funereal carriage that bears one of these corpses, preserved by necromantic rituals. The driver is a Cairn Wraith, and the vampire's will survives beyond the loss of its body, commanding the coach and its driver even in double death. This drives the Coach on to battle, where its dormant passenger may absorb the energies of dying mortals, recovering from death by glutting on the souls around it. It's a slow process, but it works. It works best when the Coach itself kills, trampling the living beneath its wheels, which are bound in iron, or its driver's scythe removes their heads. The necromantic aether around these coaches grows very thick, a cyst of dark power in the Winds of Magic that makes it very difficult to damage or stop. The most common ghostly troop is the Spirit Host, a swirling mass of ectoplasm and souls. The spirits within the host have been enslaved and stripped of identity, merged together into a ghostly cloud of roiling magic, half-formed faces and angry claws. The souls within have no thoughts and only one feeling: utter hatred for life, because they can barely recognize that they are no longer alive, and they hate and envy that spark. They are incorporeal, but the claws of the ghosts in the cloud tear at souls, able to still the hearts of their victims when they get close. The Deathrattle (TM) are skeletons. Their greatest are the Wight Kings, undead rulers who command entire empires from their barrows. In life, each was a mighty general and conqueror that crushed armies and seized land. In death, they are largely unchanged, and they lead vast hordes of skeletons to seize the lands around their graves. They conquer and enslave the living as their subjects, when they don't just kill them and raise them as new recruits to the armies. Most mortal nations tend to assume these skeletal hordes are utterly mindless, a swarming mass with no tactics. This is both untrue and foolish. A Wight King is intelligent and able to command the Deathrattle legions with extreme precision, enabling tactics that are normally beyond the mindless undead that make up their troops. They make expert use of feints, flanking and cunning plans, outsmarting their enemies as well as being nearly unstoppable in combat. A Wight King has unnatural strength and vigor, and while their armor is often rotted and ancient, the dark magic that animates them sustains and empowers it, and their bones are hard as iron. Each has centuries of experience in battle, moving with terrifying speed and wielding their weapons with expert skill. These weapons are relic blades, enchanted by age and necromancy to seek out necks to chop and heads to sever. Most Wight Kings are ferociously independent and refuse to serve any necromantic master, however. Only Nagash has been able to bend them to his will. No normal vampire or necromancer can bind them, and trying is an easy way to have the king capture you and sentence you to some horrific torture for your arrogance. Easier to befriend them. While Nagash can bind and enslave the Wight Kings, he rarely does. It's easier for his lesser servants to approach them as allies, offering them new lands to conquer and corpses to fill their armies. The Wight King named Cortek has been a long servant of Neferata, not due to any necromantic slavery or oath to Nagash, but because her command has led his domain to increase in size by a factor of ten, and she allows him free choice of the dead to join his ranks. The strongest of a Wight King's army will typically be the Black Knights, skeletal riders who once rode at their master's side in life. They remain peerless warriors, killing in service to their king from atop skeletal horses. Practically speaking, the only real change is now, they can't talk back or betray their master. The other elite forces serving the Wight Kings are the Grave Guard, infantry wearing ancient, rotted armor and wielded cursed, necromantic blades. Despite their age, they are very hard to damage and are impossibly skilled in battle. Each one was entombed alongside the Wight King, with dark rites performed over their bodies and gear to ensure that even in death, they would be faithful servants. Their armor is enchanted to stop attacks even when rotted out and rusty, and their weapons are forged from shadows, despair and magic, striking at souls rather than flesh. The mass hordes are mere Skeletal Warriors, the undead remains of the old levies and foot soldiers that served a Wight King in life. They are silent, perfectly ordered and unrelenting in their attacks. They have no pity, no remorse and...honestly, no real thoughts. They don't even bother to defend themselves from attack - they just keep attacking until their bones are broken and shattered. When not at war, they labor. Much of the Realm of Death relies on skeletal labor - a skeleton will gather wood, make armor and farm land until it is told to stop. It needs no rest, no food. It will keep going until its bones collapse to dust. These are the hands that build up the empires of Shyish, and they are as at home with a blade as they are with a hoe. The appearance of the bones often varies by realm. In Ghyran, a skeleton is often full of fungus and creeping vines that writhe among their bones, while in Chamon, the bones are often gilded or coated in metal and gemstone. In Aqshy, the bones may smoulder or burn, especially if the necromancer or Wight King commanding them wants to scare the enemy.  Necromancers are usually mortal, usually alive at first. They may seek vengeance for some wrong by raising the dead, or they may seek immortality in death. Some even had noble reasons for pursuing their interest in dark magic, perhaps restoring life to fallen family. The problem is that the power of necromancy is corruptive, so even those with noble goals will eventually become monsters. To learn more about death, they must kill or observe and study killing, and each fresh atrocity hardens them and makes them colder, more driven to pursue their obsession over all else. They typically become contemptuous of other mortals, seeing the living as nothing but fresh bodies for their experiments. Their goals drive them to always need more, more knowledge and power over death. Their magic suffuses their bodies, and even before they become undead, their skin grows cold and waxy, their hair thins and their teeth yellow and rot. Eventually, their heart stops, and they continue on, undead and monstrous. It is worth it, they say, for the power they wield. They can animate corpses with a gesture, blast people with undeath lasers, raise shields of bone. The most ancient and magical of these necromancers become liche-lords, their bodies often sealed within Mortis Engines, reliquaries carved of bone and sinew. These are necromantic machines as well as beds for the mage's bones, powered by the magical energies that surround the liche-lord within. They fly easily, and many of these ancient necromancers ride their engines into battle, carried aloft on a tide of spirits bound to them in slavery. The leaders of these spirits are Corpsemasters, undead attendants immune to the deathly energies that pulse from the engine. Necromantic armies are often followed by Corpse Carts, wagons stuffed to the brim with...well, corpses. At the back of the wagon, the necromancer mounts an Unholy Lodestone, a magical relic. A Corpsemaster rides the cart, driving it along. These drivers seek out damaged points in the army's battle lines, where the magic has ceased to flow or the undead have been destroyed, and they direct the Lodestone in restoring the magical energies and animating new corpses to rejoin the fight. Some are lit by braziers that blaze with unnatural flame. The smoke contains tiny amounts of burning realmstone, corrupted by necromantic energies. This smoke burns at the minds of wizarsd and causes them horrific agony and great mental pain, giving the Corpse Cart a secondary role in disabling enemy magic. Zombies are most frequently found in armies led by necromancers. They're low quality undead, raised only from recent corpses and stinking of rot but still resembling their living selves. They're clumsy and slow, they have no magically boosted strength, and they're not very effective, but they are entirely fearless and will easily march to their own dooms if ordered to. No matter the threat to their safety, a zombie doesn't care. About anything. Their purpose is to choke the foe with their numbers, to bear them down with the weight of bodies, and to leave the corpses behind so their master can raise them. Necromancers are also fond of Dire Wolves, which are what you get when you raise a wolf as a zombie. Like a human zombie, they aren't granted many capabilities beyond their natural ones. Unlike a human zombie, a wolf is naturally a good tracker with a bite that can crush bones when the creature need not concern itself with pain or muscle tearing. Their endless stamina in undeath proves useful in hunting the living, and these creatures are also commonly found around Soulblight vampires that like to hunt, using the undead wolves as pets and hunting dogs.  Lastly, we have the monsters often found among Nagash's armies. Terrorgheists are some kind ancient bat-creature that once existed in the dawn of history. They were huge things that fed on the blood of megafauna, and...well, they all died out at some point. Their animated corpses are all that remains. They are woken from death and given something akin to the Soulblight curse, filling them with an insatiable hunger that drives them onwards. Their claws are the length of swords, their jaws able to smash steel, and their scream can stop hearts and collapse skulls by the sheer pressure of the sound. When their bodies are defeated, they burst and explode as the necromantic energies animating them are unleashed in a blast of bone and fluid. Entire flocks of bats then emerge from the body, attacking anyone nearby. Zombie Dragons are perhaps the most terrifying. In life, the dragons of the Mortal Realms are already potent monsters, able to take on entire regiments. They are majestic, dangerous creatures that live for vast periods of time, and their lives are unimportant to necromancers. What matters is that dragons do age, and when they are dying, they often seek out secluded areas that serve as their ancestral boneyards, where they die in the company of their fallen kin. These are of interest to necromancers and vampires, because the bones and flesh of dead dragons are very valuable. With careful rituals and sacrifices, they may be raised in mockery of life, unnaturally strong and fierce. Unlike a living dragon, they have no mind - they are mere vessels of their master's will, and if their creator is killed, the dragon itself will collapse. Despite being tattered, rotting hulks, they can still fly on broken, worm-eaten wings, and they retain the immense killing power and resilience of a dragon. They can breathe blasts of pestilential death energies that wither living flesh, as well. Many vampire lords consider them the only mounts truly worthy of a vampire, and a dragon ridden by its vampiric master is amazingly deadly, even more than the dragon by itself. The End Options for next are: Order (Cities of Sigmar, Daughters of Khaine, Fyreslayers, Idoneth Deepkin, Seraphon, Sylvaneth) Chaos (Beasts of Chaos, Blades of Khaine, Disciples of Tzeentch, Hedonites of Slaanesh, Maggotkin of Nurgle, Skaven, Slaves to Darkness) Death (Flesh-Eater Courts, Nighthaunt, Ossiarch Bonereapers) Destruction (Gloomspite Gits, Ogor Mawtribes, Orruk Warclans)
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Aug 21, 2020 23:12
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Gits Gits Gits
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Aug 21, 2020 23:25
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So I checked out the I, Tyrant trilogy to see if it was as good as the Illithiad trilogy and... it's not quite as good, but it's still pretty genius. Firstly, the details on beholders are less interesting overall, mostly it's an extended guide on how to roleplay them(paranoid, egomaniac, arrogant, not as smart as they think they are, prone to micromanaging their minions, easily deceived if you can turn their own xenophobia and arrogance against them) and what cool things their lairs tend to contain(for instance, as most of them have an antimagic eye, they often build large parts of their lair from magical Blackstone that temporarily ceases to exist while hit with antimagic, which means they can use it to trigger traps, serve as doors only they can open, etc.). The adventure, however, is pretty brilliant. The players are contracted by the mighty wizard VELINAX THE VERMILLION to hunt a beholder that's terrorizing a rural community. Velinax, however, disappears, and the players end up having to deal with another party present for the same job(who don't want to share the pay), and all the clues seem to be planted, but even so, there is a beholder at the end of the clues, an undead Death Tyrant, for them to fight. At the end, as they return to town, they're told that they just missed Velinax, who's gone on to a nearby town. Most parties would chase after him to get their drat pay. They show up, ask around a bit, and it turns out the local mafia, the Unblinking Eye guild, are out for Velinax's blood. And they assume the players either know of Velinax or are his cronies, so now the party has a good reason to root out some of the city's organized crime. They fight, or sneak, their way to the inner sanctum of the mysterious guild leader, The Faceless Man, whom they see turn into a beholder and vanish down a super villain-esque passage into the caves beneath the city. They probably give chase. There, they find Velinax the Vermillion, imprisoned by beholders, and pleading for them to accompany him into the caves beyond, to smite the foul things before they overrun the town. Of course Velinax was a beholder polymorphed into a human guise all along, and the whole thing is literally just a fight between the polymorphed beholder and its queen. The queen wants to eradicate all humans on the surface, "Velinax" on the other hand, just feels all humans should be enslaved. So he's been looking for an appropriate party to assassinate the queen and leave him in charge. The only thing that disappointed me was the conclusion where Velinax just polymorphs back after the party kills the queen and tries to murder them, too, rather than a chance to make a new friend or just... anything else. It feels a bit too simple. Really well-made modules otherwise, though, that clearly pay attention to the fact that players may not take the first bait offered or that things may go off the rails in a variety of ways.
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Aug 21, 2020 23:56
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Will also go for Gits. Everyone posted:I cited the idea of Adventure Time's Lich because Nagash is pretty much the same thing. Figure the Chaos gods don't really exactly know what they want except at any given moment in time. Nagash is much simpler. He wants every life, every sentient being aside from himself to die/be destroyed. For Nagash that is probably his ideal. What motivates Nagash is an obsession with control that has not changed since he was mortal man. The idea that people are moving and doing things without his direct permission is anathema to him. Free Will is something that he views as unneeded, all things should just do as he commands and nothing else. Nagashizzar was called the silent city cause nothing made a single sound in the place without Nagash's say so. Some of his forces like the Vampires and Bonereapers have limited free will, but it's stated to be something he will remove from them once he no longer finds it useful.
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Aug 21, 2020 23:57
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MonsterEnvy posted:Will also go for Gits. And that's what's funny to me. Nagash's "ideal" is to be the creepy cat-piss man living in his (dead/undead?) mom's basement playing with his action figures.
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Aug 22, 2020 00:08
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Omnicrom posted:Call of Cthulhu is the sort of game that demands a certain amount of buy-in from the players, and while I like fail forward Idea rolls the GM advice feels a little bit too adversarial to me. I honestly don't get why they put in the idea of scaling difficulties for Idea rolls, surely the price of failure is inherently bad enough that you don't want to push the button unless you feel you really need to? It's just like Pushing Rolls, it gives the players more options and more tools they can use, but it also creates more stress because the possibility of a pushed failure can be real bad. Moreover the book suggests to the GM that you foreshadow what would happen in case of a pushed failure, whereas RAW the players have no input on how a failed Idea roll will hose them. As for the sanity stuff in 7E: There is an explicit cataloguing of the sequence for when you lose your poo poo. These are basically, the brief "bout" where you lose some control over your character; a period where you regain control but may be prone to further relapses/bouts/other things; and then the recovery period. During the bout of madness (which is supposed to last 1D10 combat rounds, or if not in combat, basically just be a brief acting-out) there are rules that touch on something that came up with building character connections in character creation, which I did not describe. (The TLDR is that you have important personal touchstones and you may lose these touchstones in the course of getting up to horror poo poo; for instance, you may poison your relationship with your spouse and ruin your small business.) SAN point recovery rules do touch on the positive role of theraputic care and I believe this is the same text as the blue-and-gray copy I used to have - which I think was 5E too. You can also regain points directly by either keeper award ("you foiled the Deep One plot to become The Sucker MCs without doing anything horrifying yourself -> 1D6 SAN points!"), improving a skill to 90% (2D6 award - represents self-mastery), and engaging with your backstory mentioned above (SAN check; success regains 1D6, failure loses 1 additional point and impairs the connection; if it is your key connection, success also resolves any indefinite insanity conditions).
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Aug 22, 2020 00:11
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I will say the recent trend in gaming towards “therapy will not completely restore your SAN but it will mitigate the worst effects” is a promising sign.
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Aug 22, 2020 00:27
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Night10194 posted:That's about where I am, with the added effect of being very annoyed that CoC also influenced the development of stress/mental health systems in RPGs very heavily, leading to many, many imitators. Which annoy me on both the ethical/problematic level, but also that it depicts mental struggle purely as 'now you have major penalties/extremely anti-social or troublesome behaviors'. I think I made an error calling it a loss of 'control' in the review, when what I'd be interested in is a model of stress and distress that centered around retaining player agency. On a recent bus trip I reflected on how I felt that a lot of things, especially of the "keeping up appearances" kind, were things I found really difficult now but treated as second nature before I got sick. My mind then immediately leapt to how I could mechanize this as an RPG experience, and I had this idea that like... when you get put in a stressful situation in a game and need to draw on some extra reserves, you could tag an Issue and just get those reserves. But in return, the Issue is now, well, an issue, and you have to deal with it. Because, like, there's aspects to my social anxiety, autism, and depression that I used to just handle without thinking about it. But then fell apart, and now suddenly things that felt so easy to do are insurmountable tasks, and it feels like I flipped a switch that made it go from "a bit tiresome" to "exhausting" when I went through a depressive period. And that's something I know other people experience too, often described as "falling back in" or a relapse. You've managed the situation, it's manageable, you're at the point in your life where you can manage it as a matter of course--then something stressful happens that needs those resources invested into "not falling apart" and you manage the stressful situation, but are now falling apart.
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Aug 22, 2020 00:56
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HOW TO HOST A DUNGEON - PART 7: Building ANGUISHEDWIRES In this post, we're going to take one of our How to Host a Dungeon dungeons and convert it to a playable RPG dungeon. For reference, this is the map we’re working off  CONCEPT Let’s think back to the story of ANGUISHEDWIRES. What was the story of our fortress?
What geographic features are worth keeping?
Who lives in our dungeon?
Looks good. Let’s get to work on the map. DRAWING THE MAP The map is usable only as a basic template for our dungeon. It doesn’t have enough detail, but more importantly it’s a horizontal cross section. We have to convert the dungeon to top-down maps, and we have to add enough detail to make it traversable as a dungeon crawl. I didn’t do the maps on grid paper, because I didn’t want to drill down to that level of detail just yet. I imagined this whole process would be relatively quick and easy. Surface I turned the surface lake into a river, with the colony city of Brazenkragg built atop the water exchange tower from the powerplant in the magma sea below. The farmers got moved to the East side of the river, with a wood on the West. I threw in a logger camp and some charcoal burners (based on the ones in Devil in a Forest) to add some flavor on the West side. The dungeon entrance (the one the players will first use, anyway) is an excavation by some other adventurers, by the second cooling tower (from the reactor complex) in the Southwest.  Level 1 Level 1 has the Fiend, the Fungaliths, and the old plague fortress, sealed off by the original colonists to keep the wasting sickness contained. It’s got dormitories, vaults, a drinking hall, a tomb, and a couple passages down to level 2.  Level 2 This level is mostly taken up by exploratory mines and coal seams. The Rat People live in a secret area behind the hidden temple, where the dwarven scientists once worshipped the God of Enlightenment, bringer of knowledge that destroys the recipient.  Level 3 This floor has the train station, railroad tracks, and a hotel and bar for visitors to the fortress. There are also mechanical systems for harnessing power from the generators in the magma lakes of the glass desert. The Antling burrow is mostly on this floor. There are two downward passages to the lower levels of the fortress, plus a few improvised ones to increase the number of routes the players can take.  Level 4 Level 4 is split into two areas: the Cold Lake and the Glass Desert. The Glass Desert has the old power plant that once harnessed the power of the magma lakes for the dwarves’ great engines of constructions.  The Cold Lake has the reactor complex, the test lab, and the ore duke’s throne room (mislabeled as a baron on the map) Those pink letters and numbers are our key. They allow us to quickly reference what’s in a room, using an attached document. KEYING THE DUNGEON This is where I got into trouble. Keying the dungeon is where you go room to room and decide what’s inside each one. You place treasure, traps and monsters, and write descriptive text. That means a quick description of what the players see immediately on entering the room, hidden stuff they can discover through investigation, and DM-only information. Keying is the most labor intensive part of creating a dungeon, because you’ve got to do it for every room. Some rooms are simple and don’t matter. Many are not only complicated in their own right, but also require that details be added to other rooms. The four adventurers made a camp on the surface, tunneled down into the dungeon, explored, and got ensorceled by a Fiend. That’s four key entries that need descriptive text updated to reflect this. About a third of the way through, I realized many of the important NPCs and Monsters had too much going on to be described in a key entry, and moved them to a dedicated NPCs and Monsters section in the back of the book. Some of the complexity was self inflicted. I could have saved a lot of work by eliminating Brazenkragg and all its associated detail from the surface and just putting the dungeon out in the woods. But the spirit of How to Host a Dungeon is about denizens inhabiting the ruins of an advanced civilization. A frontier town in the old Dwarven cooling tower was an integral part of the original run of ANGUISHEDWIRES. So here’s the complete key. I’m not transcribing it into the thread because it’s over 16,000 words long. There are shortcuts. Most of the original D&D editions had “dungeon stocking” systems to quickly populate rooms. Once the DM had drawn the map, there were formulae that used die rolls to populate rooms with monsters, traps and treasure. The DM only had to manually key a few important rooms, and the system did the rest. These shortcuts are still usable today, if you’ve got the treasure and encounter tables all set up. I could have used them here, but I’m not reviewing any of the Basic books. I’m seeing how useful How to Host a Dungeon is at making a playable dungeon. (I did cheat and use some draft B/X Essentials pages I saved as a rough guide for monster stats and treasure, but not as a system for populating the whole floor). OVERALL This is all standard stuff for dungeon design, and that’s my point. How to Host a Dungeon generates ideas and narrative summaries, but does absolutely none of the heavy lifting necessary to translate those into a complete dungeon. And that’s fine, since the product was never intended to create fully playable dungeons, and never advertised an ability to do so. The DrivethroughRPG page says “When you finish, you'll have a complete dungeon map for a world that you created” but I think the definition of “complete” used here isn’t intended to imply “completely usable as an RPG map”. By the time I finished with the key, I had another problem. The key was constructed to a much higher standard than the maps, making them look low effort by comparison. Because they were. I could have gone back and redone them, but then I’d probably have had to redo the key to fit with the new maps. As a proof of concept, it’s fine the way it is. I’ll put the session report of the playtest game in the next post. mellonbread fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Aug 22, 2020 |
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Aug 22, 2020 01:46
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mellonbread posted:I’ll put the session report of the playtest game in the next post. This is amazing and awesome.
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Aug 22, 2020 03:27
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“A vampire in the train station” is the sort of thing I’d expect out of urban fantasy and NOT high fantasy, but here we are  e: could you link back to the original post or something so we don’t have to go digging through the thread to find it?
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Aug 22, 2020 14:27
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No thief ever puts points into The Deck of Encounters Set Two Part 45: The Deck of Endless Thief Kits 222: Quest for Ramael The PCs are accosted by a super-famous bounty hunter named Alakabon of the Legion, who is in pursuit of the mage Ramael the Reader, and suspects one of the PC spellcasters of being him in disguise, because ???. She sneaks up on the suspect when they’re alone, surreptitiously slaps a pin enchanted with an antimagic shell on their back, and accuses them. So magical disguises would be dispelled, but she still suspects the PC of bring non-magically disguised. Ramael only has one eye though, so demonstrating that the PC’s eye is real and not glass is enough proof for her. She’ll ask them to keep an eye out for the “renegade mage” and promise a reward. Seems kind of arbitrary - why is the PC a suspect again? And there aren’t really any interesting choices here, are there? But I’ll play along and keep, I guess - just need to follow up on that “renegade mage” plot thread. P.S. “Alakabon is detailed in the Rogue’s Gallery accessory.” I’m shocked that they’re referencing a supplement other than the Handbook series! KIT CORNER: Bounty Hunter (PHBR2 Complete Thief’s Handbook) Bounty Hunters are ruthless mercenaries who hunt down targets, either dead or arrive. Because the job is “rigorous and demanding at every level,” you need at least an 11 in every stat except for Charisma. That’s a new one! You’re also not allowed to be Lawful, apparently because Bounty Hunters are, like, loners or something? I don’t quite follow. You’re encouraged to take a non-Thief weapon to make yourself look cool, even though that takes two weapon proficiency slots; but you do get a bonus slot as well. You have to take Tracking as a NWP. Under the optional rules, they get +5% Find/Remove Traps, and -5% Climb Walls. They also get a +5% bonus to Pick Pockets rolls specifically for slipping poison into food or drink. That’s it. Remember, you’re a total badass and need at least an 11 in each stat to unlock such power. 223: Visitors in the Night An enemy of the PCs has dispatched an assassin by the name of Mendloe Sparson (Thief 10) to kill them. Mendloe has hired eight hobgoblins to attack the PCs’ camp noisily from one side (and then flee), while he sneaks around the side and poisons a PC’s trail rations with Type G poison (20/10 damage, onset 2d6 hours.) Not particularly deadly to medium-level PCs like these are assumed to be, especially since the card gives the PC a ½ Wisdom roll to notice. If that fails, the assassin will come back in another night and try to backstab someone with a type-C poison-coated short sword +2 (25/2d8 damage, onset 1d4+1 rounds), then flee himself. He’s got elven boots and a ring of invisibility to help with that. I like it. Using hired thugs as a distraction makes sense, and it’s nice to fan the flames of a PC-NPC enmity sometimes. Keep. I would strip Mendloe of his magic equipment - he’s a level 10 thief, let him just sneak into the camp! After all, the PCs are likely to kill him and take his stuff, and let me tell you, if you give a PC a ring of invisibility, it’s never coming off again. Look how much trouble Tolkien had in taking it away from his players. KIT CORNER: Assassin (PHBR2 Complete Thief’s Handbook) A thief specialized in killing people for money. (Though as all D&D players know, you can do that even without the kit.) Assassins need STR 12, DEX 12, and INT 11, and have to take Trailing and Disguise. They get +5% Find and Remove Traps and -5% Read Languages if the DM wants to let such massively unbalancing rules into the game. They also get +5% when using Pick Pockets to slip poison into food, but for no other purpose. Speaking of poison, here’s the Assassin’s main benefit - they can try to identify poison used by others. This takes nine (admittedly short) paragraphs of mechanical description (with percentage chance modified by the Assassin’s level, INT, proficiencies, and which sense they’re using to try to identify the poison). After that, it refers you to a Herbology NWP addendum about creating antidotes if the poison is properly identified, and I am already so done with this subsystem that’s going to be used like once in a campaign at best. They’re also sort of vaguely supposed to have better access to purchasing poison for themselves. In exchange, they recieve about two thirds of the thief skill points that everyone else does. OUCH. Maybe I’d make that trade for a Dark Sun bard’s easy poison acquisition, but not just to become a poison nerd. 224: My Purse is Empty? A cutpurse is trailing the party. “The cutpurse, Harspell, is no fool. He uses his observation proficiency to size up the party. He has an observation skill of 16. Two checks are made, one to determine class, the other for level. failure means that he is off by as much as he failed the check by.“ (It’s a little unclear how that works in regards to class, but details on this ability are in The Complete Thief’s Handbook - buy yours today!) The fun thing is that there’s no indication of what he does with his level estimate. Does he aim for higher-level people because they might have more wealth, or lower-level because he thinks they’re easier targets? He goes after priests and mages and avoids violent maniacs like berserkers. He needs to make two 68% pick pocket checks to cut the pursestrings and then hide the purse. I thought making one pick pocket check covered all that, but okay. If he’s successful, he shouts “stop, thief!” and blames a fictitious child pickpocket for the theft, hopefully making the PCs run. He joins in the run, then falls behind deliberately and fades away. Sounds rather convoluted. Strip away a bunch of unnecessary, DM-facing information, and this is “a cutpurse cuts your purse.” Which is uninteresting to me. Pass. KIT CORNER: Cutpurse (PHBR 2: The Complete Thief’s Handbook) Apparently “the most common sort of thief,” devoted to petty larceny and sometimes snitching for profit. Sometimes they’re thieves’ guild members, sometimes they’re freelancers, and they don’t get cracked down on much because their thievery is such small potatoes. The thief needs to take Observation AND Trailing as NWPs, which is a little restrictive, but because they specialize in sizing up marks, they get to use their Observation proficiency as described above, to guess people's’ class and level. That actually sounds pretty useful in an adventuring context, though class should be obvious from context a lot of the time. (“They’re wearing robes and carrying a staff… I’m thinking… paladin?”) Under the optional rules, cutpurses also get +10% Pick Pockets, -5% Climb Walls and Read Languages. Their downside is that they don’t get a lot of respect in the criminal underworld. I tell ya, my cutpurse character don’t get no respect. I stole this ring, see? And my fence said that he’d take it off my hands for fifty gold. And when I said I didn’t have fifty gold on me, he didn’t even let me put it on my tab! I tell ya, no respect at all. 225: Shoe Tax Outskirts of a city. The PCs are accosted by a gang of ten thugs (humans and half-orcs) who declare that they’re tax collectors and everyone needs to pay them 1 gp per shoe. Otherwise they brawl! Pretty boring. But wait! This is listed as a medium-level encounter. Was that a mistake? No! For you see, all of these thugs are 5th-level thieves who are also MASTER PUGILISTS. They all have “three slots in punching” (per the Complete Fighter's Handbook) and fight with their fists even if the PCs use swords. You have to use the DMG Punching/Wrestling chart, on which “the thugs can raise or lower the roll by two” and “get four blows per round.”. With that modifier, a successful punch has a 11.7% chance of KOing someone (stunning them for 1d10 rounds). +3 to damage on each blow, too, so it’s 4 or 5 per hit. Their THAC0 is only 15, but still. Offer these guys jobs as hirelings, stat! If they beat up the party, they take their gold and shoes. They each carry 23 gold, so I guess this is a moderately lucrative business. On the one hand, “toll” encounters aren’t great in general, and the most interesting things here come from weird game mechanics. But the fact that these jerks are, without exception, genuinely excellent brawlers charms me and makes me want to put them in my game. Keep.
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Aug 22, 2020 16:15
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I can't remember, did 2E have a chance to notice being pickpocketed based on level differential? Because I imagine duder the cutpurse is probably going for small change rather than high risk.
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Aug 22, 2020 16:33
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My first ever PC was a Cutpurse because I didn't notice how awesome Swashbuckler would've been instead, and I will say 'I can tell what level that rear end in a top hat wizard is' did turn out to be a worthwhile trick up my sleeve. E: Also the amazing swarm of martial arts master shoe collectors is the kind of thing that makes me come back to the Deck of Encounters.
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Aug 22, 2020 16:50
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Bieeanshee posted:I can't remember, did 2E have a chance to notice being pickpocketed based on level differential? Because I imagine duder the cutpurse is probably going for small change rather than high risk. 3% chance per level of the target that they notice, you're right. Makes sense to reduce that risk.
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Aug 22, 2020 16:50
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Night10194 posted:My first ever PC was a Cutpurse because I didn't notice how awesome Swashbuckler would've been instead, and I will say 'I can tell what level that rear end in a top hat wizard is' did turn out to be a worthwhile trick up my sleeve. Man, I would want that kit just for the chance to give Sherlock Holmes explanations about how you figured it out.
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Aug 22, 2020 17:02
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Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Gloomspite Gitz In theory, this is the sourcebook on the Gitz grots (read: goblins) and specifically their split between the Moonclans and the Spiderfangs. In practice this is a book about the Moonclans, and the Spiderfangs are also present. (This is actually a recurring issue with Destruction - the Orruk book is the same, it primarily is about one of the two kinds of Orruk and the other kind is just also present.) And, to be fair, in both cases it's because the group the book focuses on is just more interesting than the other...and to be further fair, in both cases, the writers could have granted equal focus and interest but did not. Anyway. The Gitz are Greenskins, which means that like orruks, they're fungal life. They have existed since the Mortal Realms began, flourishing in the deep and wild places and attacking stuff whenever they get bored. In the Age of Chaos, some Greenskins (mostly orruks) survived by just never stopping fighting, either nomadically traveling the realms or settling into some primeval corner and being so dangerous that Chaos just kind of went around them most of the time. Most grots weren't tough enough to do that, and they fled into the darkest, most hidden places. Included among this number were the ancestors of today's Moonclan and Spiderfang grots. They were largely ignored, because a grot is not especially strong or brave on his own. What a grot is, however, is cunning, spiteful and violently mischevious, and that often makes up for their lack of courage and size. Most of all, though, they are survivors. The grots vanished in the Age of Chaos by going literally underground, hiding away in places that mighty warriors of Chaos never tought to check. Even in the best of times, the Moonclans avoided sunlight anyway, as it tends to burn their skin and blind their eyes. Hiding in the dark was already their favored strategy. The Moonclan are notable for their worship of the rogue celestial object called the Bad Moon and their hatred of the sun, which they name Glareface Frazzlegit and envision as an evil, sentient ball of hateful light. They found it simple to go deeper in their caves and continue to raise their squigs and mushrooms, attacking the surface only when they saw some plunder they couldn't resist. The Spiderfangs don't really like brightness and civilization any more than the Moonclan, but they mostly live above ground. Their society is built around the worship and raising of giant spiders. Most of these spiders grow best in dark, secluded lairs - deep ravines in dark forests, jungles, swamps, cave networks, ruins so large they get their own microclimates. They're places that most non-grots just don't want to go, and the Spiderfangs love them. Besides the grots, these places are often home to the Troggoths, an ancient race of strange fungal creatures that emerged wherever the stuff of primal creation was left in the dark and dank. Troggoths can eat pretty much anything, and over time they made their way from their deep and ancient caverns to swamplands, the fungal caves of the grots, and more. Most spend all their time hibernating until their hunger grows too great. At that point, they wake up and start attacking anyone they find to try and eat them. The grots have made a tentative alliance with these ancient, massive creatures largely by throwing food at them and yelling, but in the Age of Chaos the Troggoths largely were left to themselves even by the grot clans. The grots and troggoths couldn't avoid everything, of course. Sometimes a Fyreslayer lodge would break into their caves or a skaven burrow would want the same land - or the grots would stumble on some hidden camp or city, for that matter. Then, they would have to fight, and more than a few clans were entirely wiped out by this. On the other hand, they also overran a decent number of cave-cities and lairs, establishing themselves wherever their enemies had been before. The Moonclan were the most expansive of the three groups, and they eventually stumbled onto the spider-farms of the Spiderfang and the hidden caves of the troggs. Being less warlike than their orruk cousins, they attempted alliance first rather than immediate attack - and succeeded. The three groups had much to gain from it, after all. Moonclan fungal brewing is extremely advanced, and their brews, drugs and potions are highly prized by the Spiderclan, who exchange them for hallucinogens and poisons milked off their giant spider friends. The Moonclan's loon-shamans adore these for...well, all kinds of poo poo. Despite distrust and early conflicts, the Moonclan and Spiderfang grots found themselves more powerful when they fought together than when they each worked alone, and the troggs found they liked eating what the grots gave them. This led to the formation of the first Gloomspite alliances, hordes of grots and troggoths who worked to help each other and attack anyone that wandered into their territory. While the Gloomspite worship the Bad Moon and the spiders, they also venerate the god Gorkamorka, like any greenskin should. (Or Gork and Mork, depending on interpretations.) However, they have their own religious teachings about the Greenskin God(s), and for the Moonclan, the Bad Moon is the form of Gorkamorka, an immense wandering thing in the sky that blocks out starlight and radiates a sickly greenish-yellow light that nourishes strange mushrooms and drives mortals insane. The Spiderfangs have largely adopted this view as well, though they generally consider the spider god-beasts that were the progenitors of their arachnid pet-allies to be more immediately important. Either way, while the nature of the Bad Moon and its erratic and unpredictable path through the stars is in question, its power is not. In the modern age, the Bad Moon is ascendant. Omens and visions assault mortal seers across the Realms, showing them horrible things that go on in dark places. The dead rise, souls hang in the balance. The celestial void shifts under the weight of portents never before seen. And the Bad Moon? Well, it just barrels through the sky as it likes, interrupting all that stargazing with its malign light and maddened grin. Scholars of the Free Peoples and even many grots have never really understood the Bad Moon and its seemingly random path through the sky, nor why its light presages madness and destruction. Some say that it has been empowered by the Arcanum Optimar, that it has always been a sort of ancient living spell that has now grown even more powerful than it was in times past, and more prone to rampage. Some of the grots argue that Gorkamorka just doesn't really care who wins the current wars and is using the Bad Moon just to start fights, or that it feeds on the energies released by conflict. Either way, the frequence of the Bad Moon's activities now has emboldened the Gloomspite Gitz. The squigs and spiders grow more aggressive as the Bad Moon nears, and the shamans begin to feel visions of its coming shortly before it appears in their skies. Their faces twist and warp into a mirror of its curving, leering form, and they generally start shouting at the other grots about the Bad Moon. Then the war drums are taken out, and the Gloomspite falls on the clans, an urge to get out there and break things, to cause mayhem while cackling. As the Moon rises in the sky, its magic descends deep into the ground, calling to the Gitz. Hordes ranging from the hundreds to the millions burst forth, grots, squigs, spiders and troggs, even some gargants caught up in the madness. They emerge from the dark to kill and burn and loot and laugh. Under the light of the Bad Moon, all things feel dank and clammy, and the sky fills with loonstorms. Gravity shifts without warning, cracking the ground and allowing even more unpredictable squig leaps. Looncaps, a form of foul-smelling fungus, sprout everywhere - on stone, dirt, metal, flesh. The normal cowardice of the grots fades away into maddened frenzies of destruction and insane joy. The Gloomspite hordes burn towns and cities, topple temples and attack anyone, regardless of who they are. This, say the shamans, will impress the Bad Moon by showing devotion. This will slow it in the sky, as it stops to savor the rampage below. And so, the Gloomspite will convince it to usher in the Everdank, an endless twilight of wet, fungal paradise that will let them conquer all in the name of Gorkamorka, or possibly Gork and Mork.  Next time: No, seriously, what the gently caress is the Bad Moon Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Aug 22, 2020 |
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Aug 22, 2020 17:09
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I love that D&D has such a bug up its butt traditionally about Assassins, when as you point out most characters are already defined by how they do violence and kill people anyway.
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Aug 22, 2020 17:10
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Honestly the grots are already way more fun than most orks. They have a big grinning evil celestial body, they love mushrooms, and they throw awful parties. Just add a little more options for diplomacy and you have a pretty compelling bunch of goblins. Also, what the gently caress is the bad moon????
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Aug 22, 2020 17:26
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That is going to be talked about next time. But it be creepy. Anything in it's light starts growing mushrooms and other fungus. 
MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Aug 22, 2020 |
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Aug 22, 2020 17:41
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Joe Slowboat posted:Also, what the gently caress is the bad moon???? Trouble on the way.
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Aug 22, 2020 17:42
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MonsterEnvy posted:That is going to be talked about next time. I want it to just be a giant, moon sized fungal mass. Like the Brethren Moons from Dead Space, but less "Everything in the games was for nothing and everything is hopeless, get hosed for playing these games."
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Aug 22, 2020 19:02
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Epicurius posted:Trouble on the way. There's a bathroom on the right. 
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Aug 22, 2020 20:44
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Nobody asked for it, but I'm bored and wanted to do something this week so Thoughts of Darkness. Part One: Introduction Thoughts of Darkness is a particularly infamous Ravenloft adventure that carries you into the heart of the realm of Bluetspur, a desolate mountainous hell hole that is reviled and feared even by Ravenloft's jaded inhabitants. Bluetspur has no native life that anyone is aware of save for the mind flayers that lurk below the surface of the realm. So why anyone would ever go here I haven't got a clue, but that's not a problem when you're DMing in Ravenloft the land of DM fiat and rail-road adventures. So, what is Thoughts of Darkness infamous for? For being deadly as gently caress. This adventure is basically Ravenloft's version of the Tomb of Horrors and the adventure makes no apologies for it. Thoughts of Darkness is designed for a "well-balanced" party with four to six members for levels 12-15. At least one party member should be a priest with the spells cure disease, heal, raise dead or resurrection. The ability to raise the dead is essential because PCs are going to die in this death trap of an adventure. Restoration should be on this list because there's going to be a lot of level draining too once you get about half way into the adventure. The PCs are assumed to have access to magical weapons of around +3 and a decent number of magical items, but no more than maybe six per PC. Like many other Ravenloft adventures this one is rail-roaded all the way. Like, literally, on page one they tell you this is going to be a rail-road and the DM should do their best to make sure that the PCs go along with it. It even goes so far as to suggest that if the PCs do find a way to derail this thing the DM just makes up and excuse, pretends to roll some dice behind a screen, and then makes their efforts backfire to keep the adventure on track. In other words, gently caress your agency we're playing my game and I'm going to torture all of you for however long it takes before you all die or quit. The only saving grace to this is that the adventure points out that mind flayers love high level slaves and thus, when you fight them they will not kill you unless they have no option to knock you out and take you prisoner. The adventure assumes that at some point the PCs will be defeated and end up as captives and this is reflected in the encounters because some of the fights here are almost guaranteed to cause a TPK. If your a sadistic DM who prefers to toy with their players then instead the adventure suggests that the monsters will try to take PCs down one at a time and drag them away, wearing the party down through attrition. If your PC is taken-out don't worry, the adventure still has a way to include you in the action, more on that in the next paragraph. Monsters on the surface will focus fire on downed PCs and then try to drag off their bodies, PCs who separate from the group are picked off by DM fiat traps that pull them underground, and once you get to the heart of Bluetspur and fight the mind flayers in their lair any PC reduced to 0 hp is automatically teleported into the slave pens for brain-washing. Attrition is a big factor in this adventure. As long as the PCs are in Bluetspur the mind flayer elder brain that rules the domain will psychically harass the PCs and prevent any rest. Wizards and priests are limited in their spell recovery and as they progress spell failure chances increase. In addition to this the elder brain will also create hallucinations of monsters drawn from the party's fears and memories to assault them if they do try to take a rest. These encounters are a bit weird and require some explanation. The damage from these hallucination is noted as being real and not an illusion, but only to PCs who were awake when the dream fight occurs. Sleeping characters only suffer faint representations of their wounds and lingering phantom pains. Basically, the exact opposite of Nightmare on Elm Street. And no your magic items and spells can't protect you from this, only items specifically in this adventure will prevent these attacks. Experiencing these nightmares also causes fear, horror, and madness checks that eventually cause insanity (roll on a list). The adventure points out that the insanity and madness are not at all related to any actual medical diagnosis and are here for 'role-playing opportunities'. I guess this is a bit better than CoC 5th? There are six options for how PCs go crazy: Phobia, melancholy, delusions, paranoia, hallucinations, and amnesia. You might notice that four of these options are ways for the DM to break down the players ability to tell what's real and what is imagined and, personally, I would recommend just removing melancholy from the list (I don't think it fits) and going full on with the creeping reality-shattering madness. The one good thing about these nightmare encounters is that PCs who have been lost or captured show up and still participate in them so at least the adventure has some inclusion for players who've been taken down. In the end the idea is to break the PCs down, wear them out, cripple them, and then destroy them. Psionics Thoughts of Darkness is big on psionics. No surprise given that you're in the mind flayer realm. The adventure assumes that you have access to the 2nd edition Complete Psionics Handbook and that you are also using the Ravenloft specific supplement Forbidden Lore detailing the changes to psionic powers that happen in Ravenloft. Obviously, all of the changes are negative and make your life harder because everything is worse in Ravenloft. The lord of Bluetspur is an elder brain and the adventure describes how it's psychic powers work. Short answer: It's omnipotent. It has ridiculous bonuses that make it basically a psychic god capable of crushing any lesser minds with ease. In addition to the elder brain there is also a high-level psionicist mind flayer, but it is far more reasonably powerful and will serve as the adventure's primary antagonist because the elder brain considers you to be naught but insects. There are are also a race of mutants that live in Bluetspur, a result of mind flayer experiments, and they will help you in your fight against their monstrous creators. These mutants have potent psychic abilities of their own and are more or less resistant to mind flayer control, so that's nice. Bluetspur special rules As far as domains go there aren't many worse than Bluetspur. There is no life on the surface and so survival is a matter of bringing enough supplies or grabbing what you can from those who did. The reason there is no life is because every time night falls the whole land is pummeled by lightning blasts that fall every round (no that's not a typo) and force saving throws. If you succeed you only take half damage instead of full from the lightning blasts. Don't go out at night. Besides the natural dangers if you cast a spell in Bluetspur you also have a chance to attract the attention of mind-flayers because of arcane resonance or some nonsense. 2d6 mind flayer slave-takers will teleport to the party's location and immediately attack them if the DM passes a detection roll of spell level x 2% every time you cast a spell (unless you're already fighting mind flayers so there's no chance of accidentally chaining this unless you cast healing spells after a fight). Basically, if you come to Bluetspur expect to die. Whether it's by brain-sucking space monsters, insane death traps, or the wrath of God falling on you from the sky you are going to die here. So, why are we here? There is an extremely convoluted backstory to this adventure about a vampire in Barovia and a mind flayers in Bluetspur working together to overthrow the lords of both domains and take their places. The Barovian vampire, Lyssa von Zarovich, was recruited by the mind flayer High Master (I guess that's it's name?) to create vampire mind-flayers. These vampire-mind flayers would then destroy Strahd, making Lyssa the master of Barovia, and also the elder brain, making the High Master ruler of Bluetspur. It's about as stupid a plan as it sounds, but they have (sort-of, somewhat) succeeded at creating vampiric-mind flayers. Remember how I said restoration was an important spell? Yeah, these level-draining dipshits are all over this adventure and have all the worst characteristics of both vampires and mind flayers. In order to pull off her poorly thought out scheme Lyssa von Zarovich has stolen some artifact-level magic items and robbed a monastery of psionic monks in Barovia of their treasured possession, the Rod of Houtras, a key component in the Apparatus. The Apparatus is a body-switching device that is crucial to the High Master's plan to become a vampire-mind flayer and to usurp the elder brain as lord of Bluetspur. The monks responded by recruiting two adventurers, a paladin and a thief, to get their rod back. The two of them succeeded in getting the rod, but decided to press their luck and destroy the Apparatus while they were in Bluetspur. Of course, they failed and are now two NPCs you will meet in this adventure - maybe. You would think all of this is relevant to introducing the PCs to this adventure. Perhaps they are friends with either Drassak, the high-level crusader paladin, or Annitella, the thief. Maybe the PCs are recruited by the psychic monks to get their artifact back. Maybe the PCs know about Lyssa von Zarovich and her schemes and wish to thwart them. Hell, it could be that Strahd von Zarovich himself is worried about this dumbass vampire spawn of his and her really loving bad idea to create vampire illithids and wants the PCs to stop this before it goes off the rails. Nope. You're wrong. The adventure starts when the PCs are sucked up by the mists and dropping right into Bluetspur. That's it. That's the grand entrance. One night you stop to rest and wake up in Nightmare Stone Hell. And you're fighting dream adversaries drawn from your memories. One for each PC. You only have access to whatever equipment you went to sleep with and even if you sleep with your weapons they are totally useless against your phantasmal foes! No, really, your weapons are useless and you have to use only your fists or spells. If you do draw a magical weapon your dream enemy also draws the same weapon, but theirs works. This is just part one of many (many) encounters that will gently caress over non-magic users. The dream enemies also gently caress over magic users because they are MR 80%. Once you finish this encounter sleeping PCs wake up to find their wounds were only illusions while waking characters on watch suffer actual injuries and hitpoint loss. The adventure specifically includes this so PCs who stand watch will take extra damage over those who stop to sleep. Everyone finds themselves in a new land, prompting you to make horror check after the nightmare fight. Just to make sure that this encounter sucks extra hard any spell-casters who were trying to memorize spells can't gain any past level three from here on out because that's part of the domain's bullshit. Welcome to Bluetspur.
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Aug 22, 2020 22:21
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Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Gloomspite Gitz Hope You Got Your Things Together So, what actually is the Bad Moon? Well, there's several different stories told among the grot clans. Some say that in the Age of Myth, Gorkamorka saw a really big moon floating through space and got hungry, so he decided to go and eat it. He climbed the highest mountain in the Realms and waited until the moon passed by, then jumped at it and bit it. However, it was too tough even for the great Gorkamorka to eat, and he barely broke the surface. It was so tough, in fact, that some of his divine teeth broke off in the moon, scarring it forever. Gorkamorka recoiled and roared in pain, then wandered off. Some of his divine essence was merged with the scarred moon, which was transformed forever into the Bad Moon, the celestial aspect of the Greenskin God. The tribes that hold to this story are quick to point out that it is a universal law among the Moonclans that no one is allowed to try to eat the moon. Other tribes say that once, Gorkamorka saw the reflection of the moon in a deep lake and dove in to eat it, but the violent waves of the lake hurled Gorkamorka's reflection into the sky, where it slammed into and merged with the true moon, transforming it into the Bad Moon. Still others say that the Bad Moon was once a warship, and that Gorkamorka came to the Mortal Realms aboard it. It has since become the Bad Moon for...reasons. Other clans say that the Bad Moon is the manifested power of the souls of every grot shaman ever to live. The Spiderfangs, of course, focus their worship on the Great Spider God, their name for an ancient godbeast that is the progenitor of every kind of giant spider after, they say, it bit Gorkamorka's foot and was infused with his nature. They say the Bad Moon is, in fact, a giant egg sac of the Great Spider God, and one day it will hatch to release an infinite tide of spiders on the universe. Whether any of these stories is true does not actually matter. Each Moonclan has its own version that it believes utterly, to the degree that it is very easy for the Moonclan grots to start doing violence in the name of the moon. It's also true that the Bad Moon somehow causes the phenomenon of the Gloomspite, which as we noted before drives the grots to frenzied destruction and shocking acts of courage. The Bad Moon has no set orbit or path in the sky, that much is clear. It moves seemingly at random, its course and position chosen at some celestial whim. Its appearance shifts easily and quickly, as well. Sometimes it is a shadowed yellow sliver, sometimes a swollen, leering sky orb. The face that marks its surface also changes quickly, though never when someone is watching. When you blink or look away, though, you will find it has shifted when you next look at it, changing expression. Greenskins generally claim that the so-called faces of the moon represent different aspects of Gorkamorka's personality. The Bad Moon also has a tiny orbiting moon of its own, a vaguely potato-shaped, misshapen stone that moves around it at immense speed. Some grots say this satellite is the Bad Moon's pet squig getting exercise. Others claim it is Gorkamorka's mace or fist, swinging around wildly in an effort to smash other celestial bodies for fun. Yet others say that it's Gork's head, and the Bad Moon is Mork's, or possibly vice versa. The Nosebiter grots of the Pointyklaws Mountains say that the orbiting stone is actually the spirit of an ancient Moonclan chief that once conquered eight great mountains and was therefore blessed to eternally accompany Gorkamorka's wars in the skies. It is generally considered impossible to predict the movements of the Bad Moon as it makes its way through the skies and breaks prophetic omens with its mere presence. This is troublesome, as the arrival of the Bad Moon fills the sky not only with its sickly light but with a power that drains away hope and rationality. Non-greenskins that suffer the radiance of the Bad Moon are often afflicted by madness, glossolalia, or violent fungal growths of looncaps erupting from their flesh painfully and sometimes fatally. The Gloomspite, however, causes grots, squigs and troggoths to feel energised and emboldened by this same light. They swarm forth from their caves, their holes and their dank swamplands, wreaking terrible havoc. However, unlike Orruk Waaaaghs!, Gloomspite rampages are rarely done for the joy of violence alone. Each Gloomspite leader pushes their hordes to greater destruction for the goal of becoming the one to herald in the legendary Everdank, the time of eternal mushroom. The grots widely believe that the Bad Moon recognizes and rewards leaders with the wit, vision and madness to foresee its coming and prepare sacrifices for it when it arrives. Many Loonbosses and shamans have claimed to sense the Clammy Hand, laying claim to the blessings of the Bad Moon. Usually, they're lying and just trying to get everyone to listen to them, though it often works. None, however, can deny that there is at least one genuine loon-touched grot in the Realms: Skagrott, who has claimed the title Loonking. He has become the most powerful and widely recognized champion of the Bad Moon thanks to his ingenious ability to guess at where it will next show up and his skill in capitalizing on that.  Skragrott the Loonking rules over the tunnels of Skrappa Spill in Chamon. Deep within the mountain, hidden behind layer upon layer of cunning and vicious traps and guards, there is a secret Realmgate, a glowing portal watched over at all times by four armored Dankhold Troggoths. Captives are held in cages dangling around the Realmgate, waiting and dreading the time when Skragrott will order them thrown into it. The Realmgate is nameless and secret, and it shines with the colors of the Bad Moon. Around it is a maw of stalactites and stalagmites which the grots believe snap shut on any unauthorized intruders - not that this gets tested much. Only a few are allowed through - Skragrott and his loon-addled lieutenants of the Gobbapalooza, and that's about it. The troggoths are ordered to eat anyone else that tries. This is because the Realmgate leads to Skragrott's secret weapon, the fungal asylum. With the rise of the new age, hundreds of seers, prophets, chronomancers and others that foretell the future have had increasing amounts of visions, many of which have been true ones. Some sought secrets in the movements of the dark moon Lunaghast, while others tried to divine the nature of the Bad Moon, and others simply began speaking prophesies without any control over them. Skragrott has become obsessed with finding the most succesful of these diviners, especially those driven mad by their gifts. He launches raids, hires mercenaries and does all kinds of things to kidnap these seers. Each one he inflicts with the same curse - three taps on the head with his staff, Da Moon Onna Stikk. Each seer then transformed, swelling up and becoming thick, rubbery creatures with stretched faces, purple and white skin, and atrophied limbs. They might have been human, aelf or duardin once - but now, they are all mushrooms, able only to move their horrified and distended mouths. Skragrott refer to his mushroom seers as scryshrooms and plants them deep in the fungal asylum. There, they can scream their hearts out and babble as much as they want without risk of anyone but the Gobbapalooza leaders hearing them. The grots that attend them keep them alive and healthy but never speak to the scryshrooms. Each one of the mushroom seers is now plagued by the image of the Bad Moon, and their powers of prediction are keyed to its course. This is the way that Skragrott has been so adept in predicting its path - he has the anguished, insane prophecies of the scryshrooms recorded, and and thus he knows more than any other living being in the Realmss about where the Bad Moon will be at any given time, increasing his likelihood of being the one to enact the Everdank. It should be noted that grots are not the same kind of creature as their orruk cousins. Their smaller size and more cowardly demeanor prevent them from accessing the raw Waaaagh! energies that Orruk shamans are able to tap into and which the Orruks generate when they get rowdy. Grots just can't yell loud enough to generate the power needed, and in general are motivated more by spite than raw aggression. The Gloomspite is a different kind of phenomenon, and a grot under its influence instead finds themselves inspired and able to come up with all kinds of schemes. Their ambition is what is truly heightened during the Gloomspite, their desire to teach a lesson to the rest of the world that sees them as pathetic and small. They often froth at the mouth a bit and may have glazed over eyes during this, their united fury at how they are seen driving them up to the surface to pursue the ambitions of whoever has managed to convince everyone else they're in charge right now.  It is worth noting that if someone were to physically go to the Bad Moon somehow, it is a physical place. It is believed to be composed of a substance called loonstone, also sometimes named madrock, loonyrock or badstone. This is known because as the Bad Moon moves, it occasionally spits out loonstone meteors that come crashing down to the ground. These are called the Fangz of the Bad Moon, and range in size from that of a knife to huge, mountain-sized shards. Occasionally a loonstone meteor will destroy a small settlement or fortress in impact, though it's not common. The Gloomspite Gitz will almost always show up after a major loonstone shower, coming to claim the stuff. It's not clear what the causation of this is - some scholars believe the Bad Moon targets its showers near grot communities, others that the grots are instinctively drawn to the fallen stone. Either way, they're going to show up quickly to erect Loonshrines in honor of the Bad Moon. Loonstone itself is lightweight but impossibly hard, requiring immense strength to crush or carve. It's usually pale in color, almost bone-like but with a sickly yellow glow. The glow is nearly impossible to see under sunlight but swells brightly when in the presence of those with treachery or lies in their mind. The is called the lie-light by the grots, and some Moonclan leaders take to wearing loonstone amulets to warn them against plotters. The problem with this is that it backfires easily - the wearer is themself almost always thinking their own devious thoughts, which causes the amulet to glow constantly and drives the wearer into a state of frantic paranoia. Besides its (only somewhat useful) lie detecting properties, loonstone is an arcane sponge, soaking up any magical energies in the area. Even the mere background aetheric radition of the Realms will eventually seep into the loonstone and imbue it with a powerful magical charge. It is especially good at soaking up Waaagh! energies from orruks, which it can later discharge to drive others to terrible violence or to just make things explode. This sometimes leads Gloomspite raiders to attack nearby orruk communities to steal their Waaagh! power, which they then use to drive their own followers to an orruk-like frenzy that mimics a true Waaaagh!. Of course, while these experiments can lead to great combat boosts, they also sometimes end with the loonstone just exploding or a Weirdnob getting annoyed and killing the grot trying to steal their power. Next time: Grots of the Realms
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Aug 22, 2020 23:00
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Goddamn, Ithle, that sounds just awful to play.
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Aug 22, 2020 23:01
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PurpleXVI posted:Goddamn, Ithle, that sounds just awful to play. I haven't even gotten to the bad parts yet.
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Aug 22, 2020 23:06
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As said elsewhere, holy poo poo this makes Ravenloft seem very much not fun, dude.
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Aug 22, 2020 23:36
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The Bad Moons whispers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJhyEHSh9DU
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Aug 22, 2020 23:38
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MonsterEnvy posted:The Bad Moons whispers. Honestly this is quite an effective little video, the sound design is pretty nice.
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Aug 23, 2020 01:21
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 Chapter 4: Tools and Gear; Chapter 5: Witchmarks (Marks) The Witches hit Morden right on the cusp of its Industrial Revolution; if its economy was functional, the setting would border on steampunk. As it is, Morden’s tech base is so scattered most people will never see its greatest triumphs. Instead of making you futz around with keeping track of money (despite giving you a page-long essay on currencies and exchange rates), all characters buy and sell things with a Personal Resource Die, an abstract representation of the sort of money a character can throw around. Most characters start with a d6 but it can vary between d4 and d10, going up one die type for every rank automatically (meaning most characters will max out their buying potential by midway through the rank system). To buy something, you roll the die like any other challenge, modifying it by how rare or expensive the item is and situational modifiers like whether characters pass rolls to haggle or recently came into money. On the other hand, instead of giving you set equipment lists or making you roll to buy stuff during character creation, the book just has players work with the GM to pick gear, keeping in mind that most characters will start out with castoffs and inferior equipment.  Weapons technology, obviously, sits on the cutting edge; muskets and bayonets were standard issue in all militaries before the War (and played a key role in its victories), and by its end they had breech-loading rifles, artillery shells, and even a primitive Gatling gun. Most of these never made it to the front, though. While muskets pack more of a punch than any other kind of weapon, they take at least one turn to reload after shooting, making them more practical on the battlefield; in fights players engage in, they are likely to see a few pistols (usually single shot) and a bunch of more traditional melee weapons, usually one-handed. We also get a listing of available armor (none of it particularly tough) and for some reason, artillery, which has its own subtable complete with use information and costs as if players are ever going to get their hands on them. Why do books do this? Off the battlefield, technology has jumped ahead in some areas and lagged behind in others. Hot air balloons have been a thing for decades and saw extensive use during the war, but while a few mines make use of primitive steam engines, they aren’t efficient enough to operate over long distances yet and horse-drawn trams instead of locomotives make use of the growing railroad system. Despite the presence of standardized designs, industrial machinery hasn’t really gotten started; right now things are built by hand or with clockwork, which has advanced far beyond what you’d expect. Oddly, the printing press was only invented a few decades before the war, despite how advanced the rest of the setting is; people have yet to grasp its potential beyond printing pamphlets and novels (which might be part of why practically every invention gets attributed to de Acosta or Nachtmachen; they haven’t been able to spread technical manuals). We also get a brief essay on electrical fluid, a mysterious substance we are assured promises massive leaps forward in technology without the book telling us by. We aren’t even told how it works, just that it maims careless researchers, the Crone used it to animate her creations, and it has some use in alchemy – itself probably the most important field of research in Morden. Given its mixture of natural and supernatural elements, alchemical solutions can do just about anything with enough planning and work, though most of its applications will never figure into a campaign. Instead, we get a list of important alchemical or alchemically-treated substances characters can buy, including a type of wood that can be made metallic, Damascene steel, napalm, nightvision goggles, and patent medicines that actually work.  At the end of the chapter we get the industry-standard massive list of crap to spend money on. Not just, like, weapons, but everything from tools to alchemical substances to horses to services to room prices. It’s something pretty oldschool design in the middle of a more modern game. A survival horror game doesn’t benefit from you rolling to find out whether you can afford to get single rooms as opposed to a room that fits six people or how much it costs to hire a barber (especially since the cheaper services have enough native bonuses that you don’t need to roll to succeed). Anyway, we’ve now at the point where we can finish up Nitemat. She has a pair of Transmute Weapon and Entangle potions each, of course, but she needs some equipment too. So, I give her three daggers (both to give her a ranged option if she runs out of potions and a last resort if someone attacks her when she’s using her sarcophagus to do something), a backpack with traveling equipment because I’ll be damned if I ever track how many torches and bedrolls a character needs, and… that’s it. While I probably screwed up SOME part of the process, Nitemat is ready for action. I included a screenshot of her character sheet below.  Chapter 5 covers the fluff and mechanics behind Witchmarks. Most of the chapter covers a subsystem I adore and want to save for last, but I can go ahead do the rest now. Witchmarks are supernatural sigils that all Accursed possess, symbols of the curse they bear. A person’s Witchmark can reflect not only the circumstances of their creation, but elements of their personality, their history, and their goals, all symbolically represented somewhere on their body. Depending on the Mark’s size, they can usually conceal it, but it always makes itself clear when  This mark belongs to a Revenant in the Order of the Penitent: the Triskelion is the symbol of Cairn Kainen, reflecting their origin; the new moon represents them favoring stealth; the skull represents the Morrigan and the nature of Revenants; the Kainen Knot symbolizes both revenge and the goal they pursue; and the book represents how they value intelligence and learning and can use white witchcraft. While this gives us a sample design, the Witchmark looks different on every kind of Accursed:
Anyway, next time we take a look at Chapter 6 and the Witches and their monsters up close.
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Aug 23, 2020 01:26
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  Basic Resolution Rules Here we cover the core game mechanics of the Nightmares Underneath. Like other D&D-derived games it uses a d20-sided die as its primary means of task resolution, with natural 1s and 20s auto-failing. Instead of hit points there is Disposition, representing willpower, luck, and resilience. Damage beyond that causes more grievous Wounds which can maim and even kill if enough are accumulated. Unlike most OSR games it is possible to suffer temporary damage to one’s attribute scores, which lower the score by a certain number until the character receives rest and/or medical treatment barring some debilitating permanent results. A few classes also have Psychic Armour (not to be confused with the regular Armour Rating score), which act as a sort of “bonus hit points” against all forms of mental and magical attacks and are detracted first before Disposition and Wounds. Overcome Attempts represent opposing and contested actions, where the “overcomer” must roll a d20 + an appropriate attribute modifier equal to or greater than the opposition’s relevant attribute score; some situations allow one to add the level of a relevant profession* to the d20 result. We have a half-page worth of common Overcome results, ranging from spotting someone sneaking (overcome their Dexterity with your Intelligence modifier), Intimidation (overcome their Willpower with your Ferocity modifier), and even attack rolls (overcome their Armour Rating [a non-attribute exception] with your Ferocity or Dexterity modifier depending upon melee or ranged attack). Edit: You add your level on top of the attribute score modifier when the former would apply as a bonus. Saves represent unopposed task resolution where the performer rolls equal to or under a relevant attribute score with a d20. Attempting something beyond one’s normal capabilities rolls against half the attribute, rounded down. *TNU’s term for character class. Advantage and Disadvantage are imported from 5th Edition D&D, and more or less work the same. But unlike 5e there is no Inspiration mechanic to grant advantage on a roll, and ‘vantages can even be applied to non-d20 rolls in a few special cases such as random tables, damage rolls, and determining Disposition. In cases where more than one dice are being rolled already, the ‘vantage rolls an extra die and discards the die with the most/least favorable result. There are more specific examples and cases provided for the above rules: saving throws against spells and traps give the offending effect a level to determine if you save vs your normal or halved attribute (if its level is greater than yours), while saves for risky and dangerous skills determine if you save normally or halved depending on whether you’re skilled or unskilled and if you have a good set of tools at hand (being unskilled and lacking tools is an auto-fail). In the latter example, advantage and disadvantage applies for exceptionally superb/terrible tools or significant assistance/hindrance regarding the task. Finally, there are broad teamwork rules for various things, resolved as either an individual being aided or via a group collective effort. The Nightmares Underneath’s core system is brief and broad, but the scope of it is capable of covering plenty of ground without frequently forcing GM Fiat. One interesting thing that I’ll note is that when advantage is applied on a random table where the player’s rolling, the best or worst result is chosen in the case of good/bad results, but in the case of results that don’t denote gradations of fortune the player can pick in the case of advantage. ‘Vantages are not applied on the part of players for GM-centric tables. Edition Changes: In lieu of Overcome Attempts, 1st Edition had a much simpler Contest/Outcome Resolution where all participants rolled 2d6 and added appropriate modifiers against a static DC or opposing roll. Additionally, advantage/disadvantage did not used to apply to random tables.  Chapter 3: Brothers and Sisters in Arms This chapter covers all of the relevant character creation info. It is similar to OSR character generation in that you roll 3d6 for your attribute scores, choose your class, alignment, and such, although there are some differences. First off, the six attribute scores are slightly different: There’s no Strength score; instead there’s Ferocity which measures your overall capacity to inflict violence and adds to your to-hit rolls for melee and to all physical damage roll both ranged and melee. Health, which is akin to Constitution, determines your carrying capacity on top of how many Wounds you can suffer before death. Dexterity does not add to your Armour Rating but adds to your initiative modifier, surprise rolls, to-hit with missile weapons, and one’s Speed rating (how many squares you can move per round) plus everything else said score usually does. Intelligence also covers perception and surprise rolls as well as general knowledge and “dungeon navigation” stuff. Instead of Wisdom we have Willpower which is more or less your mental fortitude in trying times. Charisma functions more or less the same, but can be used to reduce a community’s Resentment and people with high scores are often believed to be blessed by magic and/or the divine. Certain Professions use one of three mental attributes to determine bonus spells they start with at character generation. Attribute scores have a universal modifier, which becomes more meaningful the lower or higher it is from the 9-12 standard (ex. 6-8 is -1, 4-5 is -2, and every point lower subtracts to 1 at -5), and can go up to 20 (which has a +5 bonus). Overall the six scores are still of relative importance despite their changes. Dexterity not applying to AC anymore makes it less god-tier than it usually is, but is still a pretty strong option. Charisma’s still strong in its use for hireling loyalty, but the increased emphasis on community goodwill in the system makes it even stronger. Folding carrying capacity into Health makes sense thematically, but Ferocity is still like Strength in that it is rather situational to certain characters. Intelligence has been broadened in that languages known are more or less a flavor choice, but it’s useful for about half the classes with spellcasting capabilities (Assassin/Champion/Scholar/Wizard) and covers “dungeon perception/navigation capabilities” which are pretty important in the otherworldly nightmare incursions. Given that Wisdom in most OSR games was most useful for gaining Experience Point bonuses, dropping it for Willpower as an all-purpose “mental defense” was a good idea given that Primary Attributes cover Wisdom’s original role as detailed under Professions. But that’s not all! Attributes can potentially increase as you gain levels. Every level up you choose two of them (one of which must be your Profession’s Primary Attribute) and you roll a d20 and compare it to the (normal, non-damaged) score. If you rolled higher you increase said attribute by 1 if it’s 13 or higher, 2 if it’s 9-12, and 3 points if it’s 1-8. Rolling equal to or lower has no effect, unless it’s a Primary Attribute in which case it increases by 2 points if 1-8 or by 1 if 9-12. I like this: it allows for a sense of progression, and makes it easier to shore up weaker attributes should the player wish to focus on improvement. Thus a mere score of 5 or 6 isn’t a total lost cause. Professions are TNU’s class equivalents, and we have eight of them representing broad archetypes. Each profession has two Primary Attributes (one for Thieves) which determines how much bonus Experience Points one gets for having high scores in related fields (but you’re penalized for having a low score). They also have Hit Dice ranging from 1d4 to 1d8, which not only determines Disposition at the start of a day* but is also used as the primary damage die for wielded weapons: two-handed weapons can deal damage one die higher, but poor-quality, improvised, and unarmed weapons deal damage one die size smaller. This means that a mere dagger in the hands of an Assassin or Fighter can deal more damage than a polearm-wielding Wizard. Classes that deal automatic bonus damage under certain circumstances have a unified progression: +1d8 at levels 1st thru 3rd, +1d10 at 4th thru 5th,** and +1d12 at 7th to 9th. Edition Changes: The automatic bonus damage cases merely rolled normal damage on a miss, but double the dice on a proper hit. In 2nd Edition said option gets stronger as you increase in level, given that there are no profession with Hit Dice greater than 1d8. It was also possible for casting classes with negative modifiers in their relevant mental attribute score to begin play knowing no spells, but in 2nd Edition you don’t “lose” spells beyond your base number due to having a low score. *that’s right, your “hit points” aren’t set in stone. **This seems to be a repeated typo, and I take it that +1d10 is meant to be 4th thru 6th. A few classes also have restrictions, where their special attributes cannot be used if wearing weapons or armor too “heavy” for them, and all classes have automatic proficiencies in related Skills for purposes of saving throws and general knowledge. All PCs use the same experience progression and the “level cap” is at 10. Well technically 10th, but at that point you have “won the game” and you either continue playing as though you’re 9th level or retire to a location with meaning to your PC. Their chosen location is never plagued by nightmare incursions again, and depending on the campaign’s accomplishments may be as large as a kingdom or as small as a farm or single neighborhood. Edition Changes: 2nd Edition added a sort of subclass system for half of the professions in a customizable choice of a unique attribute, represented by a specific order or discipline. Each profession has around 3 options, and the Fighter gets 5. Scholars and Wizards have no subclasses, while the Champions and Cultists already have customizable options in the form of their cause and/or faith. Assassins are part of secret orders that waged subtle warfare against their patron’s enemies. Their history dates back to the Age of Chaos, and they now find their influence dwindling in the Age of Law. Still, there’s always a use for their talents, and a few even ply their trade against the forces of nightmare. They cannot be of Good alignment or wear plate armor, but they have a huge amount of automatic Skills and deal bonus damage (even on a miss) against foes they attack by surprise or from behind. They add their level to overcome attempts involving sneaky stuff, physical attack rolls, and attack first when charging foes even if said foe has a longer-reach weapon. Their subclasses represent unique assassin orders, and have overall good choices: adding level to base Armour rating when unarmored, begin knowing and can learn spells, or is never surprised and adds level to initiative rolls. Overall a pretty strong class. Bards are a party’s heart and soul, keeping their spirits up where others may fall. They cannot be of Evil alignment or use plate armour, and their automatic Skills veer mostly towards the performative and social as well as “bardic knowledge” picked up from stories and news. They can transfer their own Disposition to allies on a 1 for 2 basis (lose 1, grant 2) as a simple action, add their level to overcome rolls for performances, and allies gain advantage on re-rolling Disposition in their presence during rest periods. Their subclasses are quite diverse: begin knowing and can learn spells, add level to initiative rolls and a few roguish/thief-like Skills, and add their level to physical attack rolls. The Bard’s rather different in that the default class is more of a morale-based healer, and it’s Skills are better-used in the community than the dungeon. Champions are the setting’s Paladin equivalent. But they’re closer to 4th and 5th Edition D&D’s interpretation of the class, which can hold ideals besides Law and Good. They cannot be of Neutral alignment or use their special attributes while hiding their Alignment (defined as keeping quiet and avoiding displays of religious/ideological symbols upon their person). They don’t have many Skills, their automatic ones in regards to the tenets, rituals, and talking points of their cause plus a single hobby at GM discretion. Their base special attributes include granting advantage on Disposition or Psychic Armour rerolls to companions who share their Alignment, can auto-detect those who share their Alignment, auto-detect the presence of magic that requires or targets their Alignment, and advantage on all saves against magic that targets their Alignment. They add their level to physical attack rolls and social overcome attempts to defend the tenets of their Alignment. Overall a rather situational class best used in parties of a shared worldview. But their subclass options open them up to the meat of choices. Their bonus class features, secondary Primary Attribute, and free equipment is based on whether they champion Chaos, Evil, Good, or Law. Champions of Chaos gain spellcasting capability but cannot cast spells of the Law school, Evil deals bonus automatic bonus damage even on a miss with a certain subclass of weapons (axes, bows, swords, pole arms, etc) chosen by the PC, Good allows the laying of hands to restore lost attribute score points and removal of Wounds, and Law can transfer Disposition to allies much like a Bard can. The Champion is a good combat-heavy class, although it’s a bit mixed in practical play. I’ll talk about Alignment proper later, but Champions of Chaos and Evil are in a sticky situation in that their ideologies can easily generate increased Resentment in communities and as such make things harder for the rest of the party. In Chaos’ case you’re either a pagan worshiper or, if secular, some variety of radical that wants to overthrow the feudal social order. For Evil, you just like to hurt people and spread suffering. In the case of Law you literally follow the principles of the Divine’s Law given that a copy of said holy text is part of your bonus starting equipment. While spells are still an attractive option, about half of the subclasses are much easier to insert into typical adventuring parties right out the gate. Cultists are the Clerics of the setting, but what makes them different is that they serve the pagan gods of old and thus their faiths are illegal. They cannot be of Lawful alignment, and must ‘tithe’ half their earned XP to their cult and ‘buy back’ this lost XP via donations of cyphers (TNU’s gold piece equivalent) towards advancing their cult’s cause. They can use shields and light armour and can choose two types of weapon groups in which to be proficient, but lose their special attributes when using other kinds of weapons and armour. Their automatic Skills include those particular to their religion, how to hide their religious affiliation, as well as one mundane occupation. They add their level to physical attack rolls with proficient weapons, can know and learn spells, chooses one “privileged school” of magic particular to their faith,* and can choose one creature type which they can “turn” much like a normal Cleric. As there are only six creature types in this system (beasts, dwellers in the deep, faeries, golems, humans, undead), the choices are broad in that there are no real bad options. *meaning that when randomly rolling for known spells at chargen, they can roll on a more limited table of relevant spells rather than the entire table. Overall Cultists are decent fighters much like their standard OSR class, although they have more versatility in that their choices for weapon proficiency, turning, and even spells can be customized. They do have a bit of a role-playing challenge like the Champion in that being an illegal faith means that they can get in trouble with the law and generate Resentment more easily. Fighters are exactly what you think, and have absolutely no restrictions for their class. They get a decent amount of automatic Skills related to manual labor, wilderness survival, and generic ‘soldier things’ plus bonus hobby/background Skill(s) at the GM’s discretion. Their special attributes include automatic bonus damage on all physical attacks, can increase their Disposition to their level whenever they start a fight if their current value is lower, and add their level to all physical attacks and overcome rolls involving intimidation. Their five subclasses represent various cultural traditions and fighting styles, and have some good options: advantage on rolls in finding and hiring martial retainers, add level to initiative, grant advantage to ally’s attack roll vs. a target (or group of related targets) you hit, armour is technically weightless for carrying capacity as long as you wear it, or can fight unarmed at no damage penalty and attack first when charging even if a foe has a longer-reach weapon. The Fighter is rather straightforward in what it does. Their automatic bonus damage is a real killer, in that unlike the Assassin’s ‘sneak attack’ they are dealing this bonus damage all of the time. An Evil Champion may hit said the same ratio of damage with the same frequency, but only with a single weapon type, whereas the Fighter is a threat with any non-magical attack. I was a bit surprised that the class is also a very suitable Ranger-type, in that none of the other professions have Skills related to wilderness survival (sans the Bard but for “travelling”). Scholars are the jack-of-all-trades class. They are learned folk who seek to apply their knowledge in solving the world’s problems, be that in a laboratory, the courts, or the nightmare incursions. They cannot be of Chaotic alignment, use their special attributes when wearing non-magical plate, and gain no damage die bonus for non-magical two-handed weapons.* Their automatic Skills are all avenues of law, medicine, and philosophy plus an additional academic field or non-academic hobby or job. Whenever they spend a Turn searching, they always find hidden things in a dungeon of their Level or lower and always save against their full Dexterity score when searching a dungeon regardless of its level.** They also have Psychic Armour and roll their Hit Die (1d4) to determine its value just like Disposition, can use any magic item and its benefits regardless of whatever restrictions it may normally have, and begin knowing and are capable of learning spells. They can roll on more specific tables for spells depending on their alignment should they so choose: Battle for Evil, Healing for Good, Law for Lawful, but Neutral has to do the full d100 randomized results. * a rather unique call-out in that other classes don’t specify the magicness of restricted equipment. **this means that they’re great trap-detectors. Scholars also restore twice as many attribute score points and Wounds as normal whenever treating someone’s injuries, and can auto-restore attribute points/Wounds equal to their level provided their patients haven’t been injured for more than a day. The Scholar can only do the latter once per patient until said patient suffers another injury, and can only tend to a number of patients equal to their level (and can select themselves for self-healing). Despite the lack of subclasses, Scholars already have a lot of things going for them. They aren’t very good in combat, and in D&D terms are akin to a triple-classed cleric/thief/mage (or cleric/thief if they’re Good). They have a bit of a different role than Bards or Lawful Champions, in that they are healers but for the more long-term and debilitating conditions. Thieves cover all manner of criminal professions that require cloak and dagger skullduggery, but aren’t as martial as Assassins. They cannot use their special attributes while wearing plate, and have a Skill list near-identical to that of the Assassin’s. They add their level on initiative rolls and overcome attempts regarding sneaky stuff and social trickery, can search an area faster and more in-depth than other Professions which normally require a full Turn. Thieves also automatically find something hidden in a dungeon of their level or lower if they spend a full proper Turn searching. Like Scholars they save vs their full Dexterity in higher-level dungeons. Their subclasses represent specialized crimes: advantage on perception/search/research for a place they plan on breaking into, advantage on persuasion and social rolls involving deception, advantage on rolls for finding and hiring retainers in the criminal underworld, and advantage on rolls when calling upon favors and contacts among criminals. The Thief, much like the Fighter, is good at what it does. Comparisons to the Assassin will be inevitable; they are much better at finding hidden things and (barring one of the Assassin’s subclasses) can act quicker when it comes to initiative. However, the Thief is like the Fighter in that it’s the one of only 2 classes that cannot start with and learn spells, either by default or via subclass, and the Assassin is overall a better fighter in combat. Wizards are #notlikeotherspellcasters. Whereas a Cultist, Scholar, or other profession can delve into the mystic arts, they typically do so in the pursuit of an unrelated cause. Wizards dedicate themselves fully to the study of magic as an end in and of itself. Their restrictions more or less mandate nothing heavy: can’t be encumbered, cannot wear plate armour, and cannot use a shield if they hope to use their special abilities, and gain no damage bonus from two-handed weapons. Their automatic Skills include science, letters,* magical knowledge, and other hobbies and jobs at the GM’s discretion. Not only do they have Psychic Armour like a Scholar, they begin play knowing spells and can cast spells better than others. If they fail to control a spell they can lose 1d4 Willpower to avoid miscasting,** and if they are at risk of having a spell become corrupted or a formula being destroyed they can prevent this via a successful Willpower save. Furthermore, when rolling to determine what spells they start with, they can choose for each spell whether they roll on the full spell table or the table of a specific school of their choice. This allows them a more tailored variety of spell options than other classes. *unsure if they mean the writing of letters or the written word in general. **which is sort of like a critical fumble in that something bad happens depending on the results of a random table. The Wizard has no subclasses, but it doesn’t really need any. They are defined by their spells, and have a lot of versatility in this area. The only area they can’t fill in for is being anything other than a fragile glass cannon. They aren’t great as mundane skill users beyond a few “smart things” which the Scholar is better at. After the Professions proper we have miscellaneous details, including reiteration of common rules and stats in one location as well as a d100 table of every spell in the book, separated into ten schools of magic with ten spells each. I will cover the spells in question and said schools proper in Chapter 5. Alignment gets a one page write-up, and is a bit different in TNU in that it still has the good/evil/law/chaos axis axiom, but is different in that you can only be one: if you’re Good, you cannot also be Lawful. Alignment represents the highest ideal for a character rather than a mixture of traits. Good and Evil are pretty much the same as in normal D&D, although in the case of Evil it mentions that said individuals are capable of ‘being nice’ or having friends but are all-consumed with a desire to hurt people. They may or may not be able to channel these urges into specific venues, aka a hated group vs. wanting to hurt everyone in general. Chaotic people are individualists and believe in non-coercive and non-hierarchical social structures...although this makes one ask how this factors into pagans and Cultists, who tend to pledge allegiance to a higher power. Neutral characters care mostly about personal gain and/or their own close social circles as opposed to following a greater cause. Law are those who wish to maintain societal harmony, and in the Kingdoms of Dreams often goes hand in hand with following the tenets of the Divine’s Law. This alignment system is bound to raise questions like any other; this section implies that foreigners unknowing of the Divine’s Law can still be Lawful, although the Champion’s bonus equipment being a written copy of the Law seems to tie said alignment to an objective cosmic order. The association of Chaos and paganism elsewhere in the book also hints at this, but Chaotic people (and Champions of Chaos) can also be advocates of secular ideologies. I can see an Evil PC being potentially doable in the vein of a Dexter Morgan who learned to channel their sadism against socially acceptable targets such as monsters and the nightmare incursions. Although like with any gaming group, this requires some Session 0 talk and proceeding with caution.  Money, Equipment, & Social Class rounds out this chapter and is quite lengthy in covering a lot of material. In the Kingdom of Dreams, cyphers are the main currency and represent a variety of metal coins so named for having royal cyphers, seals, and other designations stamped upon them in mints. Paper money in the form of bank notes exists, and coins can be broken up into smaller pieces for fractional costs. PCs start play with 3d6x10 cyphers plus clothes befitting their social station and a home or a job for free. Alternatively they can roll for a random set of starting gear depending upon their Social Class. Carrying capacity is simplified in comparison to D&D. All items are divided into Tiny Items (carry as many as you want provided you have enough pockets and bags), Small Items (anything you can fit into a pocket), Regular Encumbering Items (strapped to body or carried in one hand), and Large Encumbering Items (require 2 or more hands to carry proficiently). You can carry a number of Small Items equal to your Health score and a number of Encumbering Items equal to 4 + your Health modifier, although Large Encumbering Items count as 2 Regular Encumbering Items past the first Large one of its type and 3 for every item thereafter. When your number of Small and/or Encumbering Items exceeds your limit, you become Encumbered. In most cases equipment is on a table and has no description unless a special rule calls for it. Much like OSR D&D, armour is affordable for most PCs barring the heaviest varieties. Unarmoured has a 10 for your AC/Armour Rating, whereas Light and Heavy Armour are 13 and 15. Shields and Tower Shields add +1 or +2 respectively, while plate armour is a hearty 17 but at 1,500 cyphers is well out of a starting PC’s price range. Barding exists for animals but is much more expensive than their bipedal counterparts. Edition Changes: Being mounted used to give you +1 Armour Rating vs attacks from the ground, but no longer. The Armour Rating of more nimble animals such as dogs and horses is lower (now 12, used to be 13). Barding now gives either a default Armour Rating, or increases the base value by +1 or +2 depending on whichever value is greater. Weapons are a bit odd in that we have a table of different types and prices. However, the specifics of weapons are much less important on account that the damage die is guaranteed to be the same due to keying off of a profession’s Hit Die. Basically if it specifies it can be wielded 2-handed, or is a polearm (for changing and guarding against charges) the weapon in question doesn’t really matter. Things are different when it comes to ranged weapons: each entry gives an approximate range in yards, and bows shoot farther than crossbows and firearms. Crossbows and firearms need to be reloaded via one round’s worth of action. On the plus side, crossbows tend to be cheaper, while a bandolier of holstered pistols can be packed together as a single Large Encumbering item. Edit: Heavy crossbows and firearms of all varieties are not done with a typical attack roll. Instead you roll a Dexterity save (halved if the target is using the dodge action, has cover, or is more than 50 feet away) and a success deals damage as usual. However firearms "critically fail" on a natural 20 and need to be cleaned and unjammed in addition to being reloaded. What this means is that regular bows are overall a superior choice unless you’re on a budget or have a really good Dexterity score. Social Class is an optional rule. Depending on the GM, the 3d6 result of someone’s starting money result is their Social Class, which is a 7th attribute score. Or the GM can allow players to choose their Social Class if they’re feeling generous. This attribute replaces Charisma when dealing with legal and social institutions and also on first impressions when meeting law-abiding people of the Kingdoms of Dreams. The middling results (6 to 15) cover a wide range of peasants, middle class, and community figureheads ranging from slaves, laborers, and criminals of varying degrees of “respectability” to knights, wealthy merchants, and barons at the upper end. The outliers (4-5, 16-17) cover most slaves and financially destitute people or nobility and community leaders. The terrible 3 means that you’re a homeless vagrant, an expendable slave, or deemed innately “spiritually unclean” by virtue of birth. 18 means that you’re royalty or belong to a powerful noble house. Being privileged has its privileges. A score of 13 or higher grants you one free piece of non-armour equipment as a family heirloom. Random Starting Gear is divided into a set of tables for each relevant Social Class modifier. And they do a good job of giving balanced, relevant options even if you’re of low ranking. A few results even given unique options that you cannot buy, like a magic item or some special relic with an implied adventure hook. Each table also has automatic free starting equipment based on your class and whether or not you know any spells. I’m not going to go over each of the results, but showcase some interesting options. Barring a few exceptions these are not results in and of their own, but often come with other equipment: A pistol that fires the concentrated anger of a forgotten civilization’s people and never needs reloading. A magical cloak that has the protection of heavy armour and lets one sneak around like a thief. The good will of an innkeeper who can grant the PC free room and board. Rivalry with a noble house that prevents the PC from rising in status. An official deed to an empty piece of land gifted to the PC by their elder sibling. A piece of treasure gained from tomb-robbing: the player tells the GM the name of one person who died on the expedition and why their PC misses them, and the GM then tells the player what item it is. A ring that makes one immune to acid, cold, or heat based damage (player chooses one) when worn. A letter from the nightmare realm offering the PC a crown of their own should they betray their royal kin. Thoughts So Far: There’s quite a bit of changes to a few D&D traditions ruleswise, but in most cases they’re either for the better or better reflect the base setting. I do like the peculiar touch of a world where “arcane magic” tied to science and learning is praised, but religious “divine magic” is distrusted. Each of the 8 Professions have their strong points, and there’s a good bit of options for customization. The compromise between a full skill system vs OSR minimalism is a nice touch too. Breaking off classes from pre-selected spell lists while giving them options to roll on specialized tables, is another “compromise option” between restriction vs. pure versatility. Between that and subclasses, TNU professions are overall broader in scope than their OSR counterparts yet still manage to emulate the functions of said roles in a recognizable way. I have some mixed feelings about a few things. In most OSR games various classes had different “to-hit” progressions in the form of confusing matrices or descending AC. TNU is closer to 5e in having an ascending defense score, which I like. But adding one’s level to physical attacks for the martial classes or for “favored weapons” makes said classes noticeably stronger in a straight-up fight than others as they gain levels. Even a Thief, who is less frail than a Wizard, isn’t going to be hitting any more accurately if both of their Dexterity/Ferocity scores are the same. I’m also a bit unsure whether I like Social Class or feel that it’s an unnecessary complication. Royal status doesn’t count for much when all you have is your party and retainers while out in the wilds or deep in the dungeons, but it does provide some minor yet notable advantages and/or disadvantages and I do like the Random Gear Charts. Join us next time as we cover community support, social institutions, and other Sims-like rules in Chapter 4: Carousing in the Kingdoms of Dreams! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Sep 4, 2020 |
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Aug 23, 2020 01:34
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Ithle01 posted:Nobody asked for it, but I'm bored and wanted to do something this week so I remember waaaayyy back when this first came out I wanted to challenge my players, who had at that point obtained 13-14th level characters by completing a pretty nuts 2+ year mega-campaign comprised of T1-T4 (Temple of Elemental Evil), A1-A4 (Scourge of the Slavelords) and GDQ1-7 (Queen of Spiders, Giants, Drow, all that mess), plus toward the middle or so of the A series, we took a "break" to go through I3-I5 a compilation called Desert of Desolation. And they'd gone through a couple of other "side-treks" that I don't recall right now. So even for 13-14th level this was a pretty god-damned potent bunch. So I bought ToD, read through it... and pretty much stuck it in a box unplayed and unrun because gently caress that bullshit and just kind of made up a couple things to bridge the fairly small gap between their levels and the ones required for the Bloodstone Wars campaign.
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Aug 23, 2020 01:54
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Thoughts of Darkness is going to be pretty much the exact way to not run a high-level horror game. It's filled with enemies that either no-sell or shut down effects, it takes away magic-users spell past level three, and it does it's best to just make sure your character can't have fun. On top of that the encounters are all very similar to each other have no real loot. The DM advice is absolutely atrocious. It's gimmick is lame and un-fun. It's story is non-existent and the antagonists are basically no name assholes who the PCs have no reason to care about. The only reason to go through this adventure is so you can get the gently caress out of Bluetspur. There is one good idea the writers had, the constant decay of character's reality, and it is implemented badly in that it is both not fun and not used the way it could be to make this a fun adventure. Thoughts of Darkness is basically the exact opposite of everything in PurpleXVI's review of a much cooler illithid adventure. I shall enjoy taking a dump on it during my review.
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Aug 23, 2020 02:08
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HOW TO HOST A DUNGEON - PART 8: Playtesting ANGUISHEDWIRES Welcome back to How to Host a Dungeon. In the last seven posts, we created three dungeons with the rules in the solo game. Then, we turned the first dungeon (the fortress ANGUISHEDWIRES) into a dungeon map and key for use in an RPG. Then I playtested that dungeon, to see whether it holds up at the table. This is a report of that playtest. THE RULES I used my own system for the game. It’s my attempt to preserve the stuff I like about old school dungeon crawling, while stripping out the parts I find tedious. In addition to playtesting the dungeon, this was also an opportunity to playtest the rules. THE DUNGEON The dungeon is ANGUISHEDWIRES, an ancient dwarven city beneath the recently founded colony city of Brazenkragg. It’s based on the fortress we created in our first run of How to Host a Dungeon. Here’s the key. It includes links to the necessary maps, but I’ll also include them in this post when they come up. THE PLAYTEST The playtest game had three players
I elided the journey through the wilderness, other than telling the players a little about the route they took (a ferry to the logger camp, then a two hour hike through the forest to the tower). The game began as they reached the adventurer camp by the base of the tower.  In the lower left part of the map The camp was abandoned. All the valuables were gone, but the tents were still up, and there weren’t any signs of violence. The biggest tent had a six foot diameter hole in the ground, perfectly circular, which descended into a smooth tunnel. Monty and Kamilla recognized this as the work of a shamir - a magic worm that burrowed on command. The adventurers had obviously dug this. With no other prospect of finding their meal ticket, the players descended into the dungeon. INTO THE DUNGEON The gang explored the statue garden first. They knew enough dwarven to decipher the runes above the doors, leading to the DRINKING HALL, DORMITORIES and VAULT. The Vault sounded like the most profitable option, so they investigated it first. But before they could go into the strongrooms, Thomas had the idea to douse the torch and see if there was any light coming from anywhere. Without the harsh glow of the torchlight, they could see light coming from one of the dormitory entrances, from under a heavy curtain hung over the door. The DM facing map of the first floor. The players didn’t see this Monty snuck up to take a listen. He could hear the rattle of mail links and the sound of a push broom. He poked his head inside, and found a woman in a completely ridiculous chainmail bikini, pushing a broom around a room filled with candles, beautiful furniture and incense. He introduced himself and asked if she was one of the four adventurers who ordered the items from the Trade Warden. She confirmed that this was the case, but that the arrangement had changed. Luria was the boss now, and had to approve any financial transactions. Then she began obsessively fawning over Luria, who was currently out in the dungeon somewhere with the other three adventurers. Luria came up the stairs from the second level and ran right into Kamilla and Thomas, who were waiting outside the curtained room for a cue from Monty. She introduced herself, along with her three compatriots: a trio of ensorceled adventurers in similarly absurd garb as the first. Luria invited everyone inside for a rough but edible meal of crackers and spicy mustard. The players explained that they were here to drop off the items the adventurers ordered, and take payment of 1,000 silver pieces back to Brazenkragg. Luria gleefully admitted to enslaving the adventurers with magic, and told the players she had no interest in any financial transactions her thralls had agreed to. The players would have to find the money somewhere else. Then she kicked them out of her abode. The players weighed their options. Their chances of victory versus a Fiend and her four servitors were not good. Sam Sump, the Trade Warden they had taken the job from, would kill them if they came back without the thousand silver pieces. Returning the delivery to him was off the table, he had already written them off. They needed to find the money elsewhere. So they got exploring. SCAVENGING THE DUNGEON The drinking hall to the North of the statue garden was empty, looted long ago. The gang slipped into the employees only door and checked out the bar storeroom, which was similarly bereft. They couldn’t believe the place was completely bare, and their persistence was rewarded when a thorough search of the storeroom turned up a loose brick in the back of a shelf. Nobody wanted to stick their hand into the scary hole and feel around for treasure, so they used their crowbar to pry out the bricks over the next half hour. They grabbed the 500 SP bottle of Dwarf Gin hidden in the stash, and avoided the now-exposed poison needle trap. The door North of the drinking hall led to a raised walkway over a natural cave. The walkway led to an old dwarven tomb. The sarcophagi were overturned and empty. The murals on the walls told the story of the fortress:
They noticed a couple irregularities in the murals during their search. A section of wall in the Northwest of the room was inscribed with a dire warning not to breach it, since plague waited on the other side. And a section of wall in the Southeast corner was inscribed with much cruder murals than the rest of the walls. The texture was different too, like dry, spongy wood rather than stone. It wasn’t even stone at all, it was just rock dusted to have the same color as the other walls. The players decided to break it down, but tied cloths around their noses and mouths before doing so. They struck the material with the crowbar, then inserted the shaft into the hole and peeled back the material. A cloud of spores spilled forth from the hole. There was a mushroom man on the other side. The players turned and ran. A single dwarven skeleton blocked their path on the walkway through the cavern, but they quickly dispatched it. Thomas took its two handed maul, reserving his sword as a secondary weapon. In the drinking hall, they weighed their options. Their improvised masks had stopped them from inhaling the spores. How tough could a mushroom person be? They went back into the tomb, where two fungaliths were inspecting the damage to the false wall, which hung open like a door into a secret passage beyond. The mushroom people brandished their spears, but didn’t attack, instead shooting more spores at the players. The masks blocked these, and the players brandished their weapons right back. (The fungaliths were spraying rapport spores, which were harmless and would have allowed them to communicate telepathically with the players) The trio tried talking to the mushrooms, but the fungaliths didn’t understand a word. Kamilla was able to use crude sign language to communicate with them. The fungaliths wanted the players to take off their masks. The players refused. The players asked if the wall they broke belonged to the mushrooms. The mushrooms said yes. The players turned around and left, rather than risking a war with whatever fungal civilization existed in the secret tunnel. They explored the cave below the walkway, and identified a second entrance to the fungus cave, which they likewise decided not to enter. The players explored the abandoned vault and dormitories. The place had been looted long ago. There were a bunch of traps, sprung long ago, and only 19 silver pieces in loose change that the previous vandals missed. Having exhausted the easy options on level 1, the players descended the stairs to level 2. The checkpoint was assembled from mortared slabs, rather than carven from native stone. The players walked out into the exploratory mines, a grid of tunnels which extended in all directions. They found a supply cache, filled with mining equipment but also a few useful items: dust masks, hooded lanterns, and an abacus with semiprecious beads worth 100 silver pieces. They explored to the West and found an access tunnel leading to a metal vault door with a big valve. They could hear a rushing waterfall on the other side. Thomas rotated the valve and the door was instantly forced open by the water, which came up to the characters’ knees. Thomas could see an elaborate waterworks inside, with the water cascading down from above, deflected along different channels by stone buttresses and catchbasins, before tumbling down through a chrome steel grate to the level below. The players decided against flooding the second dungeon level, and between the three of them they were able to push the door closed again. Unfortunately, the noise had attracted a trio of ghouls - dead dwarves reanimated by an endless hunger for meat. Fortunately, Monty and Kamilla convinced them that there was a far easier and tastier target to be had: the servants of Luria the Fiend up on level 1, who weren’t even wearing armor. The ghouls bought it, and raced upstairs to claim their prize before Luria returned. The players followed behind at a safe distance, not sure if they wanted to intervene in the conflict, or seize the opportunity to loot the room. They arrived to find the three ghouls devouring the bodies of the two adventurers Luria had left in the room. Decision made for them, they began looting the place. The silks, furniture and rugs were heavy, but would fetch a decent price if hauled to the surface. Monty peered into a curtained closet and saw a big pile of treasure and items, but wisely avoided grabbing it when he noticed it sparking with electricity in the dark room. BACK ON THE SURFACE The players carried as much stuff back to the surface as they could. It wouldn’t cover the payment they owed Sam, but it would come close. And they didn’t want to go back in the dungeon, out of fear that the Fiend would retaliate for the ghouls and looting. So they came up with a new plan: Monty would sneak into the city with the money and the delivery items, pawn them somewhere, and hopefully the total would be enough to cover the debt. The others would make camp in the woods, rather than waltzing into the city and attracting the Trade Warden’s ire. Monty snuck across on the lumber ferry back to the city, without incident. He couldn’t find any buyers in lower Brazenkragg for the goods (the adventurers had ordered shamir fuel and pellets for their flameless lantern), but he was able to sneak into the upper city and hock them to a mage in Elftown for 200 silver total. That took him over a thousand, so he promptly arranged a meet with one of Sam’s accountants and paid off the debt. Rather than go back across the river and wander around in the woods after dark, he used some of the leftover money to grab a room for the night. Thomas and Kamilla camped in the woods outside the dungeon for the night. They saw a pair of owlbears, thankfully engaged in some complicated owlbear mating ritual and uninterested in eating people. It wasn’t until they went to snuff the fire and go to bed that they were accosted by five constables of the Brazenkragg militia. The sentinels wanted to know if the players had seen a group of adventurers, who went missing in the area around the big tower. The Trade Warden Hiram Xavier was specifically worried about one of his wizards, who had been among the four. Kamilla had an idea. She told them she knew where the four adventurers had gone, if they’d just follow her. She led the group back to the adventurer camp at the base of the tower, down into the first floor of the dungeon. She told the militiamen that the adventurers were behind the mysterious curtain. The officers went into the Fiend lair. Kamilla heard shouts, the clash of blades. Then two of the constables came running out. Kamilla cast Sleep and knocked them both out. Thomas came running down after, and together they tied the officers up. They then left them as an offering to the Fiend, to make up for getting two of her thralls killed - and stop her from going after the players as a replacement. Then they went back to camp and slept until morning. THE SECOND DAY The next day, Monty caught the morning ferry across the river, and hiked out to the tower again. He moved carefully enough to get the drop on a trio of thugs going in the same direction. The three goons were obviously hung over, and obviously headed for the tower. Monty followed them stealthily. The bandits rolled up on Kamilla and Thomas. They were looking for the same group of adventurers as the militia were, but for a different reason: they owed Trade Warden Jan Estoc a cut of whatever they found on the expedition, and the goons were here to remind them of the obligation. Thomas and Kamilla hadn’t seen any adventurers around. They were just here to pick up a few silver pieces themselves. That was alright with the thugs, but since the whole place belonged to the Trade Wardens, there was the little matter of the tax they owed. Just hand over whatever they were carrying, and the debt would be paid. Monty struck from surprise with his rapier, but flubbed the attack. The bandits sprang into action, with one striking back with his falchion while the other two pelted Thomas and Kamilla with arrows. Kamilla cast her freshly prepared Sleep spell, but all three thugs made their saves. One of the thugs took Monty’s arm off with a lucky swing, before Thomas got stuck in with his two handed maul. Monty and Thomas killed two of the bandits in retaliation. The third ran away as fast as possible, vocally rescinding his request for their hard earned treasure. Thomas caught up with him and bludgeoned him to death, to ensure he couldn’t tell anyone the party had killed two of the Trade Warden’s goons. The team took a few silver pieces off the bodies, stripped and dumped them in the woods for the owlbears to scavenge. THE BAR CRAWL Monty was missing an arm. The gang decided to ask the Fiend for help, since she was a powerful demonic being, and they should be back in her good graces after feeding her five new slaves. Indeed, Luria was happy to see them, lounging on her new throne of burly, scantily clad men. But she didn’t have powerful healing magic at her disposal. She recommended the team descend to level 3 of the dungeon and talk to Dario the barkeep, in the tavern North of the citadel. The staircase down to the third floor was located just East of the landing to the second, through a checkpoint where a large circular saw blade extended from the wall, rusted in place. Thomas didn’t take the hint and almost lost a leg to an identical sawblade at the bottom of the stairs, but managed to hop out of the way. The third floor checkpoint offered several choices of direction. The party chose to go North, into the citadel. The first room was a large chamber with a high ceiling. Two metal roads extended East and West out of the chamber, into huge tunnels. Arched footbridges crossed the metal roads, allowing access to the other side of the citadel without walking across the roads. There was a single wagon, decorated like a gaudy stagecoach, sitting on the road. The players crossed the room via a footbridge and headed down the hall, past several rooms labeled HOTEL to a shuttered door that promised access to the BAR. The shutter had BACK LATER written in common, dwarven and orcish. Thomas knocked on it, got no response, and decided to lift it up. A pale, cave adapted dwarf came storming out of the hotel and warned him to put it down, carefully. A guy could get hurt barging into places like that! The dwarf opened the shutter himself, slipped under, and promised to open up in just a couple minutes. The players waited patiently, and the shutter slid open. Dario the dwarven bartender held court over the brightly lit room, with crystal lanterns and a countertop of polished granite. He was happy to have customers, which were quite rare in the underworld. He asked them what they wanted to drink. Monty explained his problem - his arm was gone, and the Fiend upstairs said Dario could help. Dario had a potion for that: a vial of troll blood he kept up in the bitters cabinet. But it wouldn’t be any good by itself, the regenerative juices would give Monty a fast growing cancer that would kill him soon after regrowing his arm. The brew would have to be diluted with something strong. They’d need some serious liquor as a mixer. But he knew where they could get some. Dario told them to head East out the employees only door, down the hall and down the stairs to the Glass Desert, and take one of the barrels Lucilla kept in the water exchanger. That would do the job. Dario also made the trio some normal strength drinks, to fortify them for the journey ahead. As he sipped a dwarven gimlet, Monty had an intrusive thought about Dario biting Kamilla on the small of the back. But it passed quickly. The trio shouldered their packs, hefted their weapons, and headed out the door to the East. They almost immediately ran into a carrion crawler, snuffling and probing down the hall with its tentacles. Thankfully it was almost blind, and they were able to ambush and kill it before it could paralyze them with its tentacle attacks. They could also have just closed the door and waited for it to leave, but they went with the permanent solution instead. The hallway to the downward staircase had a room full of strange machines, which connected gears from the floor below to a huge axle that went into the machinery in the citadel. The room after that was full of old machines for smashing and smoothing rock. There was also hole in the wall, which looked out into a huge natural cavern. They ignored these distractions and went down the stairs to level 4. THE GLASS DESERT They were met with a blistering wind, sweeping over them from a vast desert of fused glass, pierced in four places by bubbling lakes of magma. A huge pyramid stood over the farthest lake, connected by a pipeline to a machine that extended up into the ceiling. The players saw their prize dangling inside this machine: barrels of liquor, suspended in a waterfall by a net, over a catchbasin below. The team hiked across the glass desert, taking extreme care not to shatter the fused dunes and cut their feet to ribbons. Kamila tossed Monty’s grappling hook up to the barrels and got a good solid hold, then began to climb. Monty only had one arm, and Thomas was wearing too much heavy gear. When Kamilla reached the net, trouble emerged from the pyramid on the other side of the desert: A fire giant, clad in a giant bathrobe, carrying a brass boiler repurposed as a bowl filled with steaming magma-crab legs, accompanied by six horse-sized hellhounds that chased each other around her legs. She strode across the desert, bare feet melting the glass, coming straight for the water exchanger where the players were gathered. Thomas and Monty hid in the catchbasin below the waterfall. Kamila crawled into the net and hid amid the barrels. The giantess reached into the net and grabbed a barrel at random, thankfully not the one Kamila was clinging to. Then she walked back across the desert to one of the magma pools, slipped out of the robe, slipped into the magma, and immediately stopped paying attention to anything outside her bowl of crab legs and barrel of whiskey. Kamilla cut through the net and dropped a barrel down into the catchbasin. The players fished it out as a curious magma crab came over the translucent peak of the nearest glass dune. They turned and ran, rolling the barrel with them. The crab followed. Kamilla lagged behind, but the crab wasn’t interested in her. It ran after Thomas, who threw his rations aside in hopes that the crab would go after them instead. It wasn’t distracted, but reducing his equipment load let him outdistance it, barely. (The crab was interested in eating Thomas’ chainmail, Kamilla wasn’t carrying any significant metal objects). Running across the dunes cut up everyone’s feet as they broke through the glass with every step. Thomas went tumbling down the slope, but arrested his downward progress before his fall became uncontrolled. The gang made it into the checkpoint ahead of the crustacean, which couldn’t fit through the door. They caught their breath, hefted their hard-won barrel, and hauled it back upstairs to the bar. There was a large group of large ants patrolling in the cave outside the crushed wall, which the players were absolutely not interested in interacting with. They stumbled back into Dario’s tavern and sat at the counter. Dario removed the stopper from the barrel and found it full of… advocaat? Pre-frothed, by all the rolling around. He mixed the creamy, eggy brandy with just a little troll blood, dry shook and served it up to Monty. Thomas had an intrusive thought about Dario biting into Monty’s raw. bloody stump, but it passed quickly. Monty’s arm grew back before their eyes. Mission success! THE WAY HOME The team paused in the citadel on their trip back to the surface when the strange wagon in the citadel caught their attention. It looked fancy, and it was still sealed. Maybe there were riches inside. The windows were smashed, but too small to climb through. The doors were still shut, and they had nine pointed stars inscribed on them. Kamilla recognized these as the signs of the Starhelm, a chaotic order of anti-undead warriors who had been a passing fad in the Commonwealth during a previous age. Monty ensured the doors weren’t booby trapped, and Thomas levered them open. Two ghouls sprang out. The fight went badly for the players, as the half-starved undead creatures unleashed a flurry of blows, the slightest of which could prove paralytic. Thomas and Monty went down incapacitated. Kamilla, in desperation and remembering the previous anti-ghoul strategy, shouted that there was a juicer morsel upstairs. Incredibly, this worked (I said to myself “I’ll only allow this if the die shows a 20” and that’s what happened). The pair of ghouls grabbed the players by the shoulders and marched them upstairs, so that they could show them where the tasty treats were. On the second floor, the players heard the patter of tiny feet, receding into the darkness. They tried to convince the ghouls that this was something delicious, but the undead husks didn’t buy it. Three adventurers in hand were worth an unspecified number of creatures in a mine tunnel. So they climbed up to the first floor. The players were counting on the Fiend being home, to make short work of the ghouls. The Fiend wasn’t home. She was out in the dungeon, and left only a single militia soldier to tidy up the lair. He didn’t even have his gambeson on, armored only in a mesh vest. The ghouls pounced on him. The players joined the fray, hoping to cut the ghouls down. The flesh eating beasts tore through the militia soldier, then turned on the players. Thomas went down paralyzed, Kamilla suffered a broken leg and fell to the ground insensate. Monty ran for the surface, before the same could happen to him. He got out of the dungeon with his body intact, his pockets full of silver, and his mind shattered. POSTGAME THOUGHTS With no other players to claim the XP reward from the recovered treasure, Monty got the full stack. Enough to take him to level two. Between the five militia, the three thugs, the four NPC adventurers and the two player characters, a whopping fourteen people died or went missing in or around the dungeon over the course of two days. But, the one survivor emerged with some serious riches. Between all the missing persons and the promise of payment, more adventurers are sure to flock from Brazenkragg to the fortress ANGUISHEDWIRES. The players could have run away after introducing the ghouls to the NPC soldier and been fine. Instead, they decided to stay and fight, hoping the addition of the militia guy would turn the tide through sheer action economy (four on their side vs two ghouls). They said afterwards that they stuck it out because they felt bad leaving him to die. After tricking five people into slavery, killing three people over a handful of silver pieces, and feeding two people to ghouls, it was the players’ one act of conscience that doomed them. Ghouls are no joke. They only have two hit dice, but their multiattack and paralysis ability means even a single round in close quarters can be fatal. Unless the players immediately flee, it quickly becomes impossible to make a clean break. Someone gets paralyzed, then the rest of the group follows suit trying to protect them. It highlights why the Cleric’s turn undead ability was so important in the early editions. I was worried that I’d made the dungeon too easy, or that my rules made first level characters overpowered. The final encounter was a serious reality check. But we’re not reviewing the B/X bestiary, or my homebrew heartbreaker. We’re reviewing How to Host a Dungeon. So how did it perform? I’m happy with the way things turned out. Putting a dangerous high level enemy right on the first floor might not have been the best idea. Even if she’s not hostile by default and is easy to avoid unless provoked, the Fiend literally camping the dungeon entrance means that if anything pisses her off, the rest of the map is basically off limits. Sure, there are alternate entrances, but finding them requires the players to explore inside the dungeon. The fire giant encounter went exactly the way I wanted. I filled the dungeon with all the most dangerous monsters from the solo game, but deliberately gave each one a condition that prevents them from immediately attacking and killing the players when they first meet. I don’t know how I feel about Brazenkragg. The introductory assignment worked great, giving the players a reason to keep pushing their luck in the dungeon, rather than retreat back to town when things got tough. But having a settlement with lots of NPCs nearby also robs the dungeon of some of its power. Meeting a single friendly traveler or explorer is no longer a huge deal. The people you do meet are more likely to be “generic guard, generic merchant, generic elf” rather than a smaller number of handcrafted NPCs. Putting the city above the dungeon does have its advantages if you consider crime and faction intrigue to be an important part of the game. It’s hard to attribute any of this to How to Host a Dungeon. As discussed last post, the game doesn’t have any mechanical support for creating a playable RPG dungeon. It gives you an interesting narrative, but if you want to convert that into something you can run at the table, it’s all on you. And interesting ideas, though interesting, are a dime a dozen. Anyone in this thread could come up with a great idea for a dungeon. The real kicker is the laborious mapping and keying of that dungeon, turning the idea into something playable. But again, How to Host a Dungeon never promised to help with that. It’s a solo game, designed from the ground up to do something completely different. How well does it deliver on its original premise? We’ll discuss that in the next post, where we finally wrap up this series. Falconier111 posted:could you link back to the original post or something so we don’t have to go digging through the thread to find it?
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Aug 23, 2020 02:29
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