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BioTech posted:This is what I try to do, but my players won't have any of it. My players try to have none of it, but they usually break down and use their encounters at least. Anything upto the BBEG fight I try to make very doable without Dailies. Well, here's the question: Do your players mix their tactics, or is it the same sort of strategy? If my players don't vary their tactics, I will craft the boss encounters to be resistant to their chicanery, and explain it in game as "BBEG knew what to expect and prepared for it". Give the boss helpers - minions are meant to be tossed into the grinder to give the main guy more time to act.
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Jun 13, 2013 20:09
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Rocket Ace posted:He might not have taken any damage, but he just witnessed his 4 companions get slaughtered. The odds aren't good... Keeping in mind that I'm talking in the specific context of the "5 on 5" situation I described... It's bullshit in the sense that the encounter is built/budgetted around the assumption of X number of monsters with Y value of XP; if you "win" the encounter by defeating X-1 number of monsters for Y*4/5 XP, then why the gently caress is that 1 extra monster even there? I guess the answer is "actions" but at that point, why not use 4 monsters instead of 5 and say "a random badguy gets 1 extra attack per round" and scale down the XP, or something? I get that 4e is all about alpha striking and focus fire because action economy blah blah, but seriously, how can you rationalize encounters with the built-in assumption of "one guy with full HP will run away or surrender, but you get full XP for him because actually fighting him would be boring"? I'm less perturbed about "this is a good way to resolve this" than the "it is assumed/necessary that things be resolved this way" even with the encounter XP budgets and other guidelines. e: Guesticles posted:What about instead of two hit minions, you give your minions a one-time Save-vs-Death at -2 if they're hit with an AoE at will? Because this gives me something I have to track, from minion to minion. This is something I want to avoid. As I said, 2-hit is easy to track with monster tokens. more edit: I guess either thing could be tracked the same way, but I think I like 2-hit minions better, in the sense that I'm seriously considering using them in place of minions and elite minions/lesser monsters AND below-level monsters. I just have to get the defenses right. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Jun 13, 2013 |
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Jun 13, 2013 22:01
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P.d0t posted:It's bullshit in the sense that the encounter is built/budgetted around the assumption of X number of monsters with Y value of XP; if you "win" the encounter by defeating X-1 number of monsters for Y*4/5 XP, then why the gently caress is that 1 extra monster even there? I guess the answer is "actions" but at that point, why not use 4 monsters instead of 5 and say "a random badguy gets 1 extra attack per round" and scale down the XP, or something? I think you're over thinking it. XP budgets help determine how difficult one encounter is compared to another. If one encounter is three times the budget of another, I know it's roughly more difficult (though probably not precisely 3x more difficult because no system is that perfect). If I have to choose between maximizing the efficacy of the XP budget or shortening combat and increasing my enjoyment of the system as a DM, I know which one I'm going to choose. I get what you're saying and I certainly wouldn't call you out as a bad DM or whatever for having our hypothetical 5 doods fight to the last drop. To me combats in 4e are at their best when tension is running high; once tension has started to run low, players mindlessly roll dice until the last guy drops anyway. Ensuring I 'use up' my XP budget helps with a few things. It ensures all encounters are truly balanced against each other (so mindless characters like undead aren't somehow suddenly all messed up XP wise because they will fight until dead). It ensures that my PC's 'earn' all of their XP, etc. I'd still choose to cut the encounter short, I think. Particularly if I drop XP as a leveling mechanic. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jun 13, 2013 |
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Jun 13, 2013 22:13
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Guesticles posted:Well, here's the question: Do your players mix their tactics, or is it the same sort of strategy? If my players don't vary their tactics, I will craft the boss encounters to be resistant to their chicanery, and explain it in game as "BBEG knew what to expect and prepared for it". It is almost always the same. Order may differ, but when this thing goes off nothing is left standing. Warlock pulls him forward with Diabolic Grasp into range of the Fighter/Warlord, does the Flame of P thing on him. Warlord does Warlord's Favor and Lead the Attack, unleashing his Flaming Sword on the first hit. Rogue goes in with Dazing Strike and Blinding Barrage Fighter does Steel Serpent and Comeback Strike Wizard then does Fire Shroud and Acid Arrow I think that is like 7D10, 13D8, 4D6 and 1D4 including Curse/Sneak Attack, but without what is about 40 flat ability damage. Not everyone hits, but the whole party gets +4 as soon as the Warlord hits his Daily, if he misses usually the Wizard gets the one +4 through the Encounter move. And it all stacks with the +3 from Tactical they get anyway when they use the Action Point. Enemy is blinded, dazed, slowed, cannot shift, marked, 5 ongoing fire damage (twice in case one misses), 5 ongoing acid and what I guess is about 150 damage on average? Rocket Ace posted:Then again, if your players are giving each other high fives and cheering after they one-shot your boss... Then they're having fun, so mission accomplished as a GM, I guess? They love it, but I'm afraid it'll get stale real fast. The first time this happened it was hilarious. They fought their way deep into abandoned Dwarf mines with demon spawning hellportals in the forge to face the Tiefling Pyromancer trying to build an army and after he got one spell off he just exploded. I was mid-cackling about how they could barely stand after coming this far and he would rule the world when the dice started rolling. Now it happens every time and it is kinda boring. Tomero_the_Great posted:Send them the boss first. Iunnrais posted:Seriously, this. Send in a boss first, and then make more encounters during their "escape" or whatever. And if you think they can survive it (and only if), then send in a second boss before they can rest. That is a really good idea. Have them be outclassed, blow their moves, then realize they have no chance and fight their way out. It won't work every time though.
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Jun 13, 2013 22:15
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P.d0t posted:Keeping in mind that I'm talking in the specific context of the "5 on 5" situation I described... You seen really angry about 4e. 4e's combat is about these setpiece things, and if you're not having fun, it's probably not the right system for you to GM. To answer your question, though, 4 guys where one gets another attack is not the same as 5 guys, even excluding "actions." An extra body makes all the difference in Combat Advantage, auras, triggered effects, area attacks, and opportunity attacks. It's an extra bag of HP, too, but that's boring. As far as making it interesting, if you make fights about more than who beats whom (that is to say, secondary objectives) you may have more fun, because there you can play optimally to beat the PCs.
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Jun 13, 2013 22:22
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homullus posted:You seen really angry about 4e. 4e's combat is about these setpiece things, and if you're not having fun, it's probably not the right system for you to GM. I wouldn't say angry so much as disappointed; I feel like I'm trying to colour outside the lines just a little bit, and the much-touted system is just falling apart everywhere because of it. There just isn't support for the type of battles I want to run, and IMHO it's not even that far off from the baseline. I've played lots of 4e and loved it, but getting into DMing and finding out "5 on 5" doesn't work is just weird. I don't get how combats can supposedly be composed all sorts of ways, but not that way 
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Jun 13, 2013 22:36
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BioTech posted:It is almost always the same. Order may differ, but when this thing goes off nothing is left standing.
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Jun 13, 2013 23:33
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P.d0t posted:I wouldn't say angry so much as disappointed; I feel like I'm trying to colour outside the lines just a little bit, and the much-touted system is just falling apart everywhere because of it.
Honestly, it just sounds like you need to prep more content or put more effort into playing your NPCs so you're not stuck getting mad at the maths for not spitting out solutions to an impossible problem. If you can't do either of those things then it's not really a flaw in the system.
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Jun 13, 2013 23:41
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Talkie Toaster posted:'Long (>4 turn but not grindy) tense fights against small numbers of monsters that are easy to use'- is a combination that can't really lie within the lines of any system, and certainly not an explicitly 4-5 turn encounter-based crunchy tactical combat game. This bolded stuff is pure bullshit. But to say something more constructive: I don't think a big long "grindy" fight is bad or "not tense"; if the players get the feeling of like "oh poo poo why aren't any of these guys bloodied yet?" I feel like that's plenty tense. Admittedly, a long fight will inevitably turn into trading at-wills and fun circle-strafing flank-trains, so any advice on known/successful houserules that might fix that would be appreciated. Talkie Toaster posted:
I don't even know what you're saying with that last bullet point, but I'll respond to this section by saying this: I'd rather have fights that are tense because both sides are trading blows and slugging it out, than fights that are tense because "whoops the badguy's AC is high and I rolled low so I whiffed a daily." Missing causes frustration, not tension. It kinda leads into my point wayyy back of "why am I even drawing a map?" Like, if I want fights that are tough because they take lots of rounds to get through and burn lots of resources, then yeah, they'll get sorta uninteresting in terms of positioning. At that point the map just seems like another layer of cruft. I can't get my head around the idea that there isn't a simple hack to make this work. I have basically one day a week to work on D&D, and I don't like that in the past, that has turned into a 1:1 ratio of preptime to gametime, if I'm lucky.
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Jun 14, 2013 00:08
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Well, if you're open to house rules, why don't you just secretly adjust the HP pool of the baddies on the fly? Or use a tracker of sorts to keep a tally of the total amount of damage dealt by either side? You could have a handful of milestones that trigger events that alter the conditions of the fight. See WFRP 3rd edition for details. Or you could trigger special these events based on your evaluation of the current flow and "feel" of the battle? I mean, if you secret adjust the encounter on the fly if you think that things are taking too long, or going too quickly or starting to get boring, the players might not even notice.
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Jun 14, 2013 00:33
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Rocket Ace posted:adjust the encounter on the fly This seems like a can of worms; ignoring my own personal biases and game-style preferences, it seems really swingy and unreliable. Either it could be overpowered and cause a TPK, or it could be too weak and not come into play in an appreciable manner before the enemies get curbstomped. And in either case, if it's not subtle or smooth, it comes off as arbitrary/unfair bullshit to the players. More to what I've said before, I wish the system provided advice for how to do this, and not have it turn out poorly. Should I reward more XP when I have to make monsters tougher on the fly? Or should I just take it to mean "well, clearly this level 4 encounter wasn't really up to snuff, so this 'fixed' version is still only worth level 4 encounter XP"?
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Jun 14, 2013 00:48
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P.d0t posted:This seems like a can of worms; ignoring my own personal biases and game-style preferences, it seems really swingy and unreliable. You should award no XP for fights at all, it's a fool's game. Use the XP guidelines to make encounters and level them at appropriate times narratively and end fights when it makes sense to end fights, when everyone's dead or somebody surrenders or when the mission objectives are met. You may also want to look into Lair Assault rules for session-long combat guidance.
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Jun 14, 2013 01:41
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sebmojo posted:The OG 1e version is surprisingly rules free, tbh. You'll just need to stat out a few fights. I ran it a couple of months back and it's fun as hell. There's a lot of design smarts encoded into it that you don't see until you play it. I'm reading over the OG 1E version, and I'm liking the save-or-die aspect (not so much the guess-the-right-combination-out-of-125-possibilities "puzzles"). Replacing monsters doesn't seem like a problem but I'm wondering about scale. My players will be bringing an endless barrage of level 14s. In the material it says a 100 foot fall could result in anywhere from 10 to 100 damage. That wouldn't even knock out most characters. What sort of conversion should I be translating these damage amounts as (aka how much HP did the average Tomb-ready 1st Ed character have?) I know I could BS it to make it as deadly as I imagine/want it to be, but I want to get an idea of how lethal everything is supposed to be as a whole.
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Jun 14, 2013 01:52
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homullus posted:You should award no XP for fights at all, it's a fool's game. Use the XP guidelines to make encounters and level them at appropriate times narratively and end fights when it makes sense to end fights, when everyone's dead or somebody surrenders or when the mission objectives are met. I've been giving out XP so far because that's what my players preferred. If anything, I'd be more likely to turn this around and say: "Make the fights as hard as I feel like (gently caress XP guidelines) but make each fight worth 1/5th of a level" or whatever the going benchmark for 'XP per encounter' is, or 0 if I somehow manage to still make a fight that was too easy
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Jun 14, 2013 01:55
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Just so I'm clear (not trying to be pedantic!) you need a fight that: a.) Is 5v5 b.) Is tense c.) Goes on for a while d.) Is easy to run. My first thought is the classic rival adventuring party scenario, but that fails the test of (d). I'll give it some thought.
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Jun 14, 2013 04:41
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P.d0t posted:Because this gives me something I have to track, from minion to minion. The problem with 2-hit minions is that unless your melee members have a lot of multi-target at wills, they are going to feel really worthless in minion combat.
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Jun 14, 2013 08:26
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Guesticles posted:The problem with 2-hit minions is that unless your melee members have a lot of multi-target at wills, they are going to feel really worthless in minion combat. What if you had minions who have two hit points, and take 1 damage from any ability that hits an area or multiple targets, 2 damage from abilities that hit a single target (and no damage from abilities that miss, like normal?) Controllers remain better at mopping up lots of minions (as long as there are more than two, I guess) but melee / single target types don't feel like they're wasting an action to whack a minion that's in the thick of things and getting in the way.
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Jun 14, 2013 08:31
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Rocket Ace posted:Then again, if your players are giving each other high fives and cheering after they one-shot your boss... Then they're having fun, so mission accomplished as a GM, I guess? Don't be a wuss. If a PC dies, it's not the best outcome, but poo poo happens. Make a battle something that really challenges them. Make them earn a win. Make getting further in the game feel like an accomplishment. It'll be far more memorable in the long run.
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Jun 14, 2013 08:38
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In regards to 2-shot minions. I'm a fan of the zombie type minions. On a non-critical hit you force the player to make a secondary attack. If he fails it the zombie is staggered(perhaps knocked prone or dazed) but is still coming after you. My one gripe with it is that if you're using more than 3 or 4 of the things they REALLY bog down combat with the secondary rolls. Since 4e is easy to make sloggy I'd recommend starting with 1 or 2 of them among other minions(say the Necromancer is empowering zombies as a minor) and then decide if you like doing it. Also in regards to making the bad guys retreat. When I do it it's not "I planned ahead to make this one guy escape for some odd reason." It's "Oh holy gently caress it's 11:30 and I have to work. Pink Dwarf books it." And I thought the DMG explicitly states that XP is awarded for overcoming the encounter. So if there's someone alive but the players have clearly won then they get the experience. Having the Bard talk the guys down after they're bloodied is technically viable(I just make the DC for that stupid high because with Words of Friendship my last player with a Bard had like a +20 at level 3.) Of course this is all assuming you're not doing "Level up at Milestone/after surviving 4 sessions". Razorwired fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Jun 14, 2013 |
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Jun 14, 2013 08:54
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Heart Attacks posted:What if you had minions who have two hit points, and take 1 damage from any ability that hits an area or multiple targets, 2 damage from abilities that hit a single target (and no damage from abilities that miss, like normal?) Controllers remain better at mopping up lots of minions (as long as there are more than two, I guess) but melee / single target types don't feel like they're wasting an action to whack a minion that's in the thick of things and getting in the way. That's why I suggested a one-time -2 save vs. death for minions hit with at-will Burst/Blast. After you cast thunderwave or whatever, 40% of the minions will still be on their feet, and the survivors don't get to save vs. death again. So you still clear the minions out in two hits, but you maybe feel a little better about yourself when over half of them drop with the first hit.
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Jun 14, 2013 09:41
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Guesticles posted:The problem with 2-hit minions is that unless your melee members have a lot of multi-target at wills, they are going to feel really worthless in minion combat. [edit] I would like to add that the Paladin was the player who requested more minions. [/edit] Well, just some eyeball/napkin-math... I'm thinking of building encounters with either like, 2-4 normal-to-elite monsters, and around 3 of these minions per "other" monster. Like I said, I'd make them die in one hit from a crit, an Encounter, or a Daily. I want them to be sort of all-purpose fight filler that's tough-ish but doesn't require HP tracking. I think this'll hit all the marks, so I'm going to try it out. And, perhaps I'm being a dick about this, but the Psion in my party is the main offender in "making fights boring/unfun for the DM" so I don't have enough pity to worry about balancing encounters around "let's not make the Controller feel useless" Mendrian posted:Just so I'm clear (not trying to be pedantic!) you need a fight that: From what I've heard (and just eyeballing the math) this will play out like initiative-dependent rocket-tag. Like, PCs don't have a ton of HP compared to monsters, so if they have higher to-hit it makes it easier to focus-fire someone down. Death Spiral, other buzzwords, etc. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Jun 14, 2013 |
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Jun 14, 2013 15:40
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P.d0t posted:Like I said, I'd make them die in one hit from a crit, an Encounter, or a Daily. I want them to be sort of all-purpose fight filler that's tough-ish but doesn't require HP tracking. I think this'll hit all the marks, so I'm going to try it out. I get that. The problem is, assuming at-wills and no crits, if your paladin winds up in combat against 3 minions, it takes him 6 attacks to kill them. In the meantime, your psion is still able to hit multiple minions with AoE. As long as the psion can get 2 or more minions in range of one attack, they are still going to rip through through even your two hit minions like nothing. Trust me, I know your problem very well. Our wizard has basically made minions completely worthless with his spell selection, and anything (short of ganking the wizard first round)I've thought of to try to counter the Wizard's ability to just lay waste to large numbers of minions only makes things that much harder for the the rest of the party.
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Jun 14, 2013 18:43
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Razorwired posted:My one gripe with it is that if you're using more than 3 or 4 of the things they REALLY bog down combat with the secondary rolls. Have you tried having your players roll both at once (with different colored dice if they're both d20s) and ignore the second one if you have a confirmed crit or whatever? When I play in person, which isn't too often anymore sadly, I always roll my hit and damage dice at the same time to speed things along, and it really helps.
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Jun 14, 2013 20:15
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Just popping in to this thread to talk about my current campaign. I'm curious as to how consistent it seems to an outsider and maybe get some fresh advice/inspiration. The last campaign I ran was a morally gray nightmare rife with murder-hobos. The group has since opted to establish clear moral guidelines and shared backgrounds at the campaign start to keep this game more focused. Its going much more swimmingly this time around, both thematically and gameplay wise. The last party, which ended in a TPK, lacked any healing abilities. The party: all Good aligned, mostly quite righteous Human Cleric of Bahamut (whipfighter with heals and buffs, inspired by Simon Belmont) Tiefling (counts as Aasimar) Paladin of Bahamut (tank and offhealer) Human Warlord (heals, buffs, decent damage. face of the party) Dragonborn Wizard (virtually all fire spells) Party background: everyone in the party is associated with an Abbey on the borders of the theocratic country they hail from. The cleric is sworn to thwart evil and destroy any/all undead, the paladin is sworn to protect the weak and smite the wicked, the warlord is personally dedicated to protecting the nation from lawlessness and the wizard was a slave in his youth and now uses his freedom and arcane talents to punish the wicked. quote:Day 1:  TL:DR (the party stops a slave raid and discovers the local city mayor is corrupt and facilitating slave trades for an unknown third party in the east. also, necromancers and cultists are operating openly, raising the dead for reasons unknown) Thats the game SO FAR. What I need input on is how I'm picturing it shaping up. I'm keeping everything fairly loose in case PCs throw a curveball with their actions: Basically, the mayor is corrupt and working for a vampire lord in the east. The vampire has grown aware that by the end of winter, the savage humanoid tribes to the north will invade the southlands with such force that he doubts the savages can lose. The vampire fears that without an army for defense and feeding stock to outlast a siege his domain will be invaded right alongside the human nations. As a result, the vampire is gathering what slaves and undead he can now, before the orcs come and pillage everything. The mayor, in exchange for providing slaves, will be spared when the vampire lord sends his cultists to infiltrate the town and occupy it from within. The townsfolk will be taken as feeding stock except for those with valuable skills who will perform forced labor for the mayor and his newfound cultist allies. Do you guys feel as though this campaign is shaping up to be more or less sound? The group is enjoying it so far but I'm paranoid about writing myself in to a corner or falling back on cliches. Basically, what would you guys do with this plot or expand upon?
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Jun 14, 2013 20:48
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Purgey posted:Just popping in to this thread to talk about my current campaign. I'm curious as to how consistent it seems to an outsider and maybe get some fresh advice/inspiration. This sounds pretty good for me. I might make the Mayor a mini-boss of sorts, and set him up as like an Ex-soldier; maybe he fought against the Orcs and doesn't think the Kingdom will hold this time, hence his willingness to toss in with the Vampire Lord. You've also set up good non-combat solutions to a lot of your larger problems (even if your party's alignments might not let them use them). PS: make sure of the fights at the Vampire Lord's Place is the animated corpses of the previous party.
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Jun 14, 2013 21:18
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Guesticles posted:I get that. The problem is, assuming at-wills and no crits, if your paladin winds up in combat against 3 minions, it takes him 6 attacks to kill them. In the meantime, your psion is still able to hit multiple minions with AoE. I think you're missing the forest for the trees; if a Paladin is fighting a normal below-level monster, he'll probably have to hit it twice to kill it anyway (maybe 3 times). Same thing for the Psion; he's always (mostly) going to be able to nuke multiple enemies with a single attack, whether they're 2-hit minions or normal monsters. The difference is the DM doesn't have as much HP to track. I think having 2-3 "unique" elites and a bunch of easy-to-operate mooks is going to work well for my preferences. Maybe I can't use "dozens and dozens" of 2-hit minions, like sebmojo suggested doing with regular minions, but that's fine. They aren't really intended to fill the same niche as minions, they're intended to be more like below-level monsters but with less bookkeeping. edit: Specifically, the way I track HP and initiative all in one spreadsheet, each monster that has HP has to have it's own initiative entry. Something minion-like doesn't have this requirement, so I can chuck as many of them into a fight as I want. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Jun 14, 2013 |
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Jun 14, 2013 21:38
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Sounds good to me. Doesn't presume any player actions, which is always the biggest DM trap. From an interesting NPC standpoint I'd probably try and make the Mayor like the Mayor in Buffy. Sort of bizarrely sympathetic and friendly rather than moustache twirling. And introduce the Vampire early rather than late, as a character rather than a plot device. Maybe he could warn the PCs about the orcs? Hm... Jocular friendly vampire overlord...
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Jun 14, 2013 21:50
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Guesticles posted:PS: make sure of the fights at the Vampire Lord's Place is the animated corpses of the previous party. Sadly, the last party died ignoble deaths in a swamp on a different continent, devoured by lizardmen. I do like the idea of making a cinematic encounter with the remains of previous heroes that tried to put the vampire to death, though. sebmojo posted:Sounds good to me. Doesn't presume any player actions, which is always the biggest DM trap. I haven't seen Buffy before and I'm afraid I was a bit too hamfisted with my Mayor. The party pretty much suspected he was a shithead the moment he started talking.  Maybe it was the description that he had the demeanor of a professional politician who loves the sound of his own voice. I like the concept of the vampire being charming and relatively fair handed! Heck, the motivation I've set in my mind for his actions is largely pragmatic and not megalomaniacal. He doesn't want to conquer the realm and rule uncontested, he merely wants to be in a strong position when the orcs come down from the north to invade. I could see him in a moment of desperation warning the PCs of the coming invasion in hopes of diverting their attention. The only reason the vampire lord would not have warned the local kingdom is that the government there is highly theocratic and would likely try destroying him if he made his presence known. But if he reasons he might be overthrown by the PCs regardless, well, theres no harm in letting the invasion info slip. An idea. Would this be too "morality trolling"? Maybe the slaves the vampire takes as feeding stock actually enjoy a quality of life thats greater than they'd ever know as peasants in their kingdoms! Maybe some of them will even fight to protect their 'patron'. Would the lawful and righteous PCs fight back against slaves that protect a vampire lord that treats them well? Ultimately I doubt the PCs will tolerate a vampire or his machinations but I'm enjoying idea of them pausing for a moment to question their justifications. As to the whole vampire introduction, he has been alluded to since Day 1 as the mysterious power in the east. He's something of my Chekhov's Gun. I look forward to a legitimate reveal but I'm confused as to how to go about it. My thought is that when the party is fighting their way to the cornered Mayor he could use a magical ~thing~ to basically talk to a ghostly image of the vampire lord like some kind of magical video phone. Then again, I'm open to other ideas. I'm not opposed to vampire flunkies, I picture the Lord having a small 'court' of lesser vampires who he delegates most of his tasks to. Vampires strike me as management types that rarely get their hands dirty if they can help it. Lords delegating to Barons who in turn pawn their assignments off on Subordinates, etc.
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Jun 16, 2013 08:15
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Purgey posted:An idea. Would this be too "morality trolling"? Do it sort of like the Aztecs: Until the Vampire Lord needs to feed on them, his 'chosen cattle' live like royalty for a year. Servants attend their every need, the finest food and clothes, maybe he even has a magic portal to some warm tropical island. But not too long after that year passes, they are killed for food. The Vampire Lord gives his stock this life of luxury that they'd never, ever be able to attain to ease his conscience. Or mix in some Hunger Games - when the Vampire Lord kills a peasant for food, the family gets a supply of food and gold - more gold than that peasant would have earned in his lifetime. So he's not really good, he's still killing the population, but he's not straight evil either.
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Jun 16, 2013 08:40
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Guesticles posted:Do it sort of like the Aztecs: Until the Vampire Lord needs to feed on them, his 'chosen cattle' live like royalty for a year. Servants attend their every need, the finest food and clothes, maybe he even has a magic portal to some warm tropical island. But not too long after that year passes, they are killed for food. I love it. I didn't know Aztecs had that practice, either.
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Jun 16, 2013 09:39
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I would say that if you're worried about it being a morality gotcha for the players, you need to have a plan ready for what to do if they try to talk the peasants out of it. Just 'You fail!' is no fun, but you could enable some good diplomacy rolls to get to some of the vampire's servants -- so they want to surrender, but the others are keeping them in line. Then if it comes to a fight, they still get to play heroes and rescue some peasants. Just not all.
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Jun 16, 2013 09:43
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Guesticles posted:Do it sort of like the Aztecs: Until the Vampire Lord needs to feed on them, his 'chosen cattle' live like royalty for a year. Servants attend their every need, the finest food and clothes, maybe he even has a magic portal to some warm tropical island. But not too long after that year passes, they are killed for food. To expand on this, one of my favorite issues of the Darkness is when The Sovereign is introduced. Now the Sovereign himself is another villain altogether but the first mission he sends Jackie on is a hit on a demon that has possessed a Mother Theresa stand-in and has kept her body going after Theresa's soul had passed on. The demon actually kept the hospitals and shelters going and from all outward appearances was being very Catholic, humble and righteous. To keep the body going he would take the life of one of the comatose patients in the infirmary once a month. Beyond this everyone he took into the shelter had a better quality of life. When the demon is confronted by Jackie he kills off the entire infirmary to become powerful enough to fight Jackie off. If it were my campaign I may find it interesting to use this bit. Say the vampire is draining some poor sap when the party gets to him. Say there's half a dozen already dead peasants on the floor. Have the vampire explain that he's usually pretty conservative but the intrusion made him desperate. Your players might appreciate the opportunity to have their characters interpret that in their own ways.
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Jun 16, 2013 11:23
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Razorwired posted:To expand on this, one of my favorite issues of the Darkness is when The Sovereign is introduced. Now the Sovereign himself is another villain altogether but the first mission he sends Jackie on is a hit on a demon that has possessed a Mother Theresa stand-in and has kept her body going after Theresa's soul had passed on. The demon actually kept the hospitals and shelters going and from all outward appearances was being very Catholic, humble and righteous. To keep the body going he would take the life of one of the comatose patients in the infirmary once a month. Beyond this everyone he took into the shelter had a better quality of life. That's such a wonderful situation, thanks.
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Jun 16, 2013 15:43
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Slightly unusual request for information: My players have had a few run ins with meteors (one destroyed the tower they were fighting a beholder in at the time, another destroyed a city which they're now exploring...) and when they came across a 7 foot diameter chunk of meteoric iron, perfectly smooth, as a decoration in an old fortress they fell in love. Utilising ossip wax and the retardedly high strength of the Dwarf Fighter, they've adopted this rock and called it Edgar. They want to trick it out with enchantments and stuff. Any ideas? I was thinking maybe giving it limited sentience, variable weight, etc, so that they can then use it how they will. Perhaps a variable size spell? EDIT: Just realised this thing weighs 29 tons. Lot of ossip wax needed then. Changed it to be hollow inside, so still around 2 meters tall but only a (very robust of course) shell. So 438 KG for a decent thickness of iron according to my calculations. Lord Twisted fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Jun 16, 2013 |
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Jun 16, 2013 16:22
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Lord Twisted posted:EDIT: Just realised this thing weighs 29 tons. Lot of ossip wax needed then. Changed it to be hollow inside, so still around 2 meters tall but only a (very robust of course) shell. So 438 KG for a decent thickness of iron according to my calculations. So what interesting thing are you going to be putting inside their new hollow toy? 
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Jun 16, 2013 16:47
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Lallander posted:So what interesting thing are you going to be putting inside their new hollow toy? Kal-El, last son of Krypton, duh.  I like elemental themes. If it gets subjected to some extreme sources of various energy types (and you can go beyond the typical Captain Planet energy types and add in things like positive/negative energy, etc) then let it take on some characteristic of that energy that the players can notice (and assumedly benefits them in some way, like they can get a resistance to a particular energy type charged up from it once a day, which will encourage them to expose it to other energies), and once they catch on, they can strive to expose it to other energies, making the rock itself a sort of ad hoc opportunistic quest. Once it's been exposed to everything on your list, hatch it. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Jun 16, 2013 |
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Jun 16, 2013 17:15
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Bad Munki posted:Kal-El, last son of Krypton, duh. I like this! The Paladins who were using it as a training aid/decoration novelty didn't realise that it was necessarily hollow, and didn't realise something (living or an item) was inside it... I'll have them have to have it be hit by each time of damage to a certain degree.
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Jun 16, 2013 18:49
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I might have DMed myself into a corner this last session of Neverwinter. I based my session today on a dream I had. I had the parties wake up after a bender they went on (they actually had the previous session of their own will so I totally didn't railroad them into this). They found themselves in an unfamiliar room. I described how when they woke up that they felt their skin itch for a moment then I described how they all felt as if they were missing something or that they felt less like themselves. Long story short, it was 3 months later and they don't know what was going on and they were in an insane asylum. Eventually after some investigation and encounters, they find the people who were responsible for their kidnapping who have had a change of heart (more to it than that but it's the gist) and offer to help them. The leader of this group as a token of trust takes them and shows the party... their own corpses. It seems they had been hired to kill the party, not kidnap them. This leads to the interesting question of: if the party died, then who are these people who think they're the party? I don't really know the answer to this question. I want them to still be themselves so I don't want to say they're brainwashed changelings or some other type creature. Basically I think they're clones but I want a way to flavor that in a way that makes sense for Forgotten Realms. Can a powerful mage (like a Thay Lich) or say a powerful devil (perhaps in league with Asmodeus) accomplish such a feat?
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Jun 17, 2013 05:06
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The party's corpses were obviously some sort of illusion. Why would someone want the adventurers to think that they are copies and not the real them? Perhaps to subvert them to an evil cause?
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Jun 17, 2013 05:21
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Rosalind posted:I might have DMed myself into a corner this last session of Neverwinter. I don't know much about Forgotten Realms, but I'd say it was body swap. The minds/souls of the party were put into new bodies, and the hapless fools they swapped with are the dead ones. Like Freaky Friday, only with more murder. This could open up a ton of plot points for you. Maybe the party are now different classes, but maybe with multiclassing feats from their previous classes; shake up the party dynamics for a few encounters: Paladin is now a sorcerer, the bard is now a fighter, the wizard is now a rogue, the cleric is a ranger. The obvious goal of the party would be to get their bodies back - maybe they have to go to the shadowfell to get back the souls of their swap partners, or make a deal with some other entity that has them. Maybe the group running the "aslyum" were told to kill the party, they did a swap instead, keeping the party alive but imprisoned in their new bodies as insurance against who ever hired them. Or maybe the swap was part of the hiring party's plan, because the party fulfills some prophecy or has a greater significance in a larger plan, and whoever arranged this wanted the party sidelined but not killed.
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Jun 17, 2013 05:26
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