[UPDATED] Campaign journal - First Session, comments appreciated. [3.5e]

[Adumbration]

So here's the deal. This Saturday we will begin a new campaign, and I thought I might keep a campaign journal, starting with describing what I know of the characters and the premise.

First, the characters. This is the part that concerns me, becouse, well, you'll see. This game begins at level 1.

- First, we have a Lawful Good Wizard. All nice and dandy. Has given the background to the DM but no one else so far. Has barred Illusion and Necromancy, specializing in Evocation. Nice rolls for stats, at least 3 over 15, none below 10. At this moment, his AC is 10 and HP 6. The player is fairly new to the game, but is usually the voice of reason in the party.

- My character, the gray elven Spellthief. More on his background later. 6 HP, 15 AC. Chaotic Good.

- Half-orc Cleric of Kord. He is our sole melee type, with a fairly experienced player. Not much information on his background either.

Now we get to the heart of my worries.

- A human Sorceror. With an intelligence of 3. He is called Simo Koistinen, which sticks out like a stick in the eye if you know the language. The player is very new to the game, and doesn't really take it seriously. I'm expecting this to be the comic relief, but somehow I'm filled with dread.

- And the final character, brother of Koistinen, who supposedly keeps his brother out of trouble. No idea what class or race, the player hasn't even made them yet. Probably a caster, though. Another new player, who tried to persuade the LG wizard to join in a tactic called 'Magic Missile Barrage' where they waste all their spell slots within the first few rounds.


The campaign itself seems to be forming nicely, revolving around a conflict between a technological, totalitarian nation called Soltyria and another nation that is a mageocracy. We start smack in the middle of it, in separate places. The DM will then let us find each other, one by one, with a specific scene planned for each.

[mikej]

how did the sorcerer manage to get an intelligence of 3 ?, correct me if I'm wrong but anything that low should get a reroll.

we have the exact same kind of player in our group, never takes it serious and bogs down good role-play events. he can be funny at times but sometimes his idiotic remarks aren't need when serious players are role-playing. to put it simple, I just give him a coloring book ( something to amuse himself ) and continue. once in awhile when he makes a wise crack just remind him that he not there.

[shadowfox]

Intelligence of 3? So, he's on the verge of being an animal intellegence-wise. As a player, I'd seriously ask for a reroll on that; as a DM, I'd tell the PC to reroll that, or up it to something more... reasonable.

If your DM is expecting you guys to role play, there's no way that can be done accurately... Even if the player were to take things seriously. Honestly, I'd be filled with dread too, no matter if I was another PC or the DM.

I'm guessing you're starting at low levels... Now, according to some of my friends, playing a wizard/sorcerer that's out of spells is one of the most enjoyable role playing experiences there is. But using all of your spells for the sake of using all your spells isn't worth it. That, and although your party contains a number of spellcasters, they can't leave it up to the rest of the party to pick up the slack.

On the Positive Side (players):
The wizard is playing his alignment right if he continues to be the voice of reason. I've never played a spellthief before, but you seem to know what you're doing, so I'm going to rule that you don't need to worry about yourself too much (I'll get to that later). As for the half-orc cleric, that's always good. I hope he can channel Cure spells (Kord's CG, if I remember correctly), and having someone experienced can never hurt.

On the Negative Side (players):
Well, Intellegence of 3 is something to worry about, but so are PCs who do nothing but fool around the entire time. At the very least, they need to know when to be serious... And if your DM cracks down hard on them, they'll need to learn when to be serious quickly. For the sorcerer, well, I can't offer much advice. For the fifth PC, if he wants to waste all of his spells early on, let him. It makes him that much easier to get killed later on in the day. The death of a character is usually a sign, but can mean one of many things. In his case, it'll probably mean that he needs to not be stupid.

Possible Problems:
Well, above all else, your Cleric is going to be the tank. Since he's played by an experienced player, he should pick decent armor, possibly a shield, have a decent weapon, and might prepare buff spells. A PC in my current campaign is playing a buff cleric. With a couple feats from Complete Warrior, he can dish out a lot of damage in a single attack.

Unfortunately, your spellthief might also encounter problems, assuming that your primary opponents aren't spellcasters. I've been in a few campaigns where my melee rogue was a primary source of damage; he could dish out damage, but couldn't take it. In fact, in one campaign, he was the tank (and, at level 4, that's a very, very bad thing, especially since the only character qualified to be a tank, the fighter, was a ranged combatant).

Also, assuming the 5th, unknown player chooses a primary spellcasting class, there's not enough cover for all of the spellcasters (not including the cleric; he should be able to hold his own).

Some of these problems can be avoided if the DM is flexible or willing to cut you guys some slack (as in from "going to kill you" to "going to be a challenge, but you've got a good chance").

Still, I'm interested. Keep the journal up.

[Adumbration]

Yeah, as a matter of fact, the player insisted on the intelligence of 3. He even frequently refers to his character as the 'retard'.

I have high hopes for the beginning of the campaign, however. The DM has explicitly told that there's a good possibility of screwing things up if done wrong, so I have a feeling that if the int 3 fools around too much, events are going to overtake him.

[Adumbration]

So the first session is now over, and overall, I think it went well. Here's what happened.

The game started with the Lawful Good wizard, from now on referred as Erk Gaelwood as per his name. His master had sent him out to the world to become more experienced ('get more xp' :smalltongue:), specifically to an old friend of his in a tower near the town where events would take place. The scene started with the two wizards by the window, where after a few Spot checks, they notice a goblin witch on a broomstick, an old nemesis of the master's friend, with a squad of goblins and bugbears coming to finally end the man.

The senior wizard tells Erk to use the secret passageway to get out and warn the town - specifically the mayor, while he faces up to the witch. Erk, quite wisely, decides that it's time to hit the road, and while the goblins pound down the front door, he flees down the hatch in the closet, with sounds of the wizard and the witch fighting upstairs.

The danger is not over, however, since when Erk steps out of the dark tunnel to the grey, rainy night, a lone goblin spots him and promptly attacks. After a brief struggle where Erk's hawk familiar plays a major role, the goblin flees. Erk decides not to pursue, and makes his way to the village.

Switch of perspective to my character.

Darius Darkspire, the gray elven spellthief, finds himself in a storage room with a big headache, and a bloody dagger at his lap. The blood is not his, and he has absolutely no recollection from the past day, the last memory being him signing into the inn at the town in question. (I still can't remember the town's name.) A dread feeling fills his very soul, and he deduces two options of what has happened: either he has gotten very, very drunk and killed someone - doubtful, since he is not a big drinker - or he is being framed for murder. He wipes the dagger quickly on a covering of a barrel, tearing the fabric and hiding it inside one of the crates.

Then he peers through the keyhole of the only door. He sees a kitchen, with a gnome working at a frier, moving every once in a while between the desks. This allowed Darius to sneak past him, while he had his back at him, slipping into the busy tavern. He makes his way outside without trouble, taking a breather. He finds he still has the key to the room 2, where he initially signed in. He tries to find a way to the upper floor where his room is without detection, but finds no easy way to climb the house. Finally he takes his chances, going back inside and upstairs. There he peers through the keyhole of his room...

There's a corpse inside, one of the town clerics. Dead. Thinking on his feet, he unlocks the door, but leaves it closed. Then he makes his way downstairs, and just as he's about to leave, the innkeeper asks: "Are you going to stay at the deFoe manor, as you said earlier?" Darius remembers saying no such thing. "If you are, you'll have to return the room key." Darius lies, saying that he must've lost the key at some point - but fails at the bluff check. The innkeeper is suspicious, so he tries again, this time emptying his pockets to show that doesn't have it - not mentioning his secret pockets. This time the bluff succeeds, and the innkeeper buys it. The situation is heightened by the fact that the Captain Ironblood, the town sheriff, is sitting by the counter.

Darius gets out. He finds a quiet place, and buries the key. He pauses away from the spot to think on his next move - and a voice from nothingness speaks out, telling him to go to the deFoe manor, if he wishes to survive. Turns out that there has been a pixie following him, called Kinnim. He reveals that the whole thing is a scheme of a wererat, who drugged him the previous night, and was even watching him in his ratform when he emerged from the kitchen. So he goes to the manor.

More to come, this is just part of the introduction.

[Adumbration]

Switch of perspective.

Now it's time of Drok, the half-orc cleric of Kord. He is at the local church, just finishing up the last prayers in the inner chamber, when he hears noises from the main hall. He goes in, booming "How can I help you?" He finds three people: 2 soltyrian soldiers - the technological nation - wielding muskets and a member of the Grayguard, the only faction in Soltyria allowed to wield magic. The monk/sorcerer/cleric multiclassed - as it turns out later - Grayguard decides to silence the cleric.

Drok casts Enlarge Person, wields his enormous greatsword, and promptly gets shot in the belly for full 12 damage by one of the musketeers. Ouch. He blacks out.

Switch of perspective.

The Koistinen brothers find themselves in the local prison. They are informed that the stupid brother - although he decided to change his Int to 10 to be able to communicate, he is still... not sane - nearly accidentally killed someone. The prison guard, another half-orc, informs them in simple terms - had to be simple, he had 5 Int - that they might be executed, and if they were to escape, he, Grog, would "confiscate their index fingers".

Then Grog leaves. After a short while, an invisible voice speaks to them, offering to free them, if they go to deFoe manor and do a job for Mr. deFoe. It's the pixie again, Kinnim. They agree to the plan, and the door opens. Outside the retarded brother pauses to shout at a goblin prisoner, and they hear chair scrape and Grog yell something about confiscating their index fingers. So they make their way to the other direction, finding the armory with all of their gear. As they pause to pick them up, the half-orc bursts in, waving his short sword.

He gets in one shot that misses, before one of the brothers hit him with Color spray. Then they flee, meeting on their way out Erk Gaelwood looking for the sheriff. They merely storm past him, and by the time Grog comes out, they're out of sight. Grog pauses to question Erk, and sends him to deFoe manor, since the sheriff is out of duty, before running off into the night.

Switch of perspective.

Drok, the cleric, wakes up as someone cuts open the ties that bind him. He finds himself fully healed, and a deputy officer releasing him. He tells him to head to the deFoe manor to meet the major.

Seeing a pattern here? Anyway, there's still about half a session left, but I'm getting tired of writing, so I'll write the rest down only if requested. No point in posting it if no one reads. After this our forces were joined.

[zagan]

Nice start. As far as I know campaign rarely begin with the character separate, it's a nice change.

Keep the good work.

[evil-frosty]

I for one would want to hear more it sounds pretty interesting so far.

[Kaolins]

Switch of perspective.

Now it's time of Drok, the half-orc cleric of Kord. He is at the local church, just finishing up the last prayers in the inner chamber, when he hears noises from the main hall. He goes in, booming "How can I help you?" He finds three people: 2 soltyrian soldiers - the technological nation - wielding muskets and a member of the Grayguard, the only faction in Soltyria allowed to wield magic. The monk/sorcerer/cleric multiclassed - as it turns out later - Grayguard decides to silence the cleric.

Drok casts Enlarge Person, wields his enormous greatsword, and promptly gets shot in the belly for full 12 damage by one of the musketeers. Ouch. He blacks out.

Switch of perspective.

The Koistinen brothers find themselves in the local prison. They are informed that the stupid brother - although he decided to change his Int to 10 to be able to communicate, he is still... not sane - nearly accidentally killed someone. The prison guard, another half-orc, informs them in simple terms - had to be simple, he had 5 Int - that they might be executed, and if they were to escape, he, Grog, would "confiscate their index fingers".

Then Grog leaves. After a short while, an invisible voice speaks to them, offering to free them, if they go to deFoe manor and do a job for Mr. deFoe. It's the pixie again, Kinnim. They agree to the plan, and the door opens. Outside the retarded brother pauses to shout at a goblin prisoner, and they hear chair scrape and Grog yell something about confiscating their index fingers. So they make their way to the other direction, finding the armory with all of their gear. As they pause to pick them up, the half-orc bursts in, waving his short sword.

He gets in one shot that misses, before one of the brothers hit him with Color spray. Then they flee, meeting on their way out Erk Gaelwood looking for the sheriff. They merely storm past him, and by the time Grog comes out, they're out of sight. Grog pauses to question Erk, and sends him to deFoe manor, since the sheriff is out of duty, before running off into the night.

Switch of perspective.

Drok, the cleric, wakes up as someone cuts open the ties that bind him. He finds himself fully healed, and a deputy officer releasing him. He tells him to head to the deFoe manor to meet the major.

Seeing a pattern here? Anyway, there's still about half a session left, but I'm getting tired of writing, so I'll write the rest down only if requested. No point in posting it if no one reads. After this our forces were joined.


D...DeFoe Manor!?!

I -need- to hear more about your adventure now.

You -must- cleanse the evil from this tainted manor, and everything inside.

Just... don't touch the idol, kay?

Srsly, don't do it.

Kill the int-10 player if you have to, just don't.

SUPER SERIOUS.

*Starts seeing welder masks, and runs*

[Adumbration]

Okay. Seriously, though, I'm not 100% sure it was deFoe. It could've been deFoam, as I first thought I heard. But. Where was I? Ah, yes, we're all congregating outside the deFoe manor. We make the first introductions, after which we knock on the door.

A servant shows up and shows us in to the work room of the mayor. Here's where we find out more about this deFoe through Knowledge (local) and Knowledge (nobility). He is a half-elf, who through his successes in the Quan (the magical nation, I'm not quite sure how it's spelled) military earned this manor and the job of the mayor, but who has always been a bit shunned due to his heritage.

The mayor then asks us to do a job for him: due to the recent incursions of soltyrian military, peace is fragile, and so he wants us to take a message to a person in Soltyria, Jon Townsend, apparently a friend of his. Now here's where things get tricky. Of course, Erk Gaelwood, the LG wizard agrees immedietly, as well as Drok the cleric, but my character is far more reluctant. Here Mr. deFoe pulls out a whammer. He tells Darius, that if he will not do this, he will be accused of murder. "There has to be a culprit."

Now read that again. This man, I mean half-man, is blackmailing Darius with a murder he did not commit! And he knows Darius didn't do it, since his pixie saw it all happen! This is where Darius' brains start working again, and things start clicking to place.

The fact is, Darius never did see a wererat in the tavern. How can he know if there even is one? What if it was this pixie, this Kinnim, under orders of deFoe, who killed the cleric and drugged Darius? He certainly had the means. He was invisible. And now as it turns out, deFoe had a motive: he wanted leverage over Darius. Oh boy. Oh boy. This guy is evil.

In no simple terms, Darius accuses deFoe of blackmail and calls him a filthy half-breed. deFoe makes a nasty face at him, but leaves it at that, and presents similar conditions to the mage brothers - do the job or get busted for prisonbreak. It's starting to appear that Captain Ironblood, the sheriff, sits tightly in his pocket.

We are due to leave the next morning, and we are lead to our rooms. The night is fairly eventless, although Darius takes a midnight stroll to find valuables. He finds only a single cache of 10 gps - he hears noises from the office and the bedroom, so he can't go there. Finally he returns to bed.

Early next morning, everyone wakes up to sounds of gunfire. We head downstairs and discover the soltyrian soldiers - and the monk - taking potshots at the house, with deFoe looking out of the window. As per the nature of adventurers, we charge outside to confront them. Lucky for us, they decide to draw their swords instead of using couple of rounds to reload.

The two wizards - the brother and Erk - as well as the mildly retarded sorceror shine in battle. Magic missiles, color sprays and sleep spells fly in the air, dispatching the mooks. Meanwhile Darius and Drok confront the monk. The monk proceeds to promptly use flurry of blows on him, dropping him to negatives. Again. I manage to get a potshot at him, dealing full 8 damage. Too bad he went before I did in the combat, so I couldn't SA him.

Now here's the surprising thing. In the midst of the battle, the monk stops to heal Drok! Darius pauses to ponder this dilemma, before shrugging and rolling natural 1 on his crossbow attack. Then the monk flees, seeing the tide turn against his soldiers. We decide not to pursue.

As we wonder what to do with the unconscious/sleeping soldiers, deFoe comes out with a longsword and slits one's throat. I point my crossbow at him, and he mumbles something about us being nondecisive. You know, I'm starting to wonder if we're on the right side. It makes you think when the enemy heals your friend and your supposed ally kills a helpless enemy, doesn't it? Not to mention the whole framejob. I correct my earlier sentiment: deFoe is evil!

Now deFoe hands us the message, before going inside. We might as well get moving too. But what to do with the prisoners? Darius is certainly not going to leave them to the bloodthirsty mayor, but we can't let them go, can we?

Yes, we can. We take nearly all their possessions except for clothes and food, and send the two survivors on their way. I take the three muskets and their bullets and stash them in my sack. They might come in useful.

Now, we have two options on how to go about our quest. We can either trudge by land, or we can go by air. We saw a zeppelin land near the town, and deFoe told us that they might take us. Naturally we opt for the flight.

The short trek to the zeppelin is mainly uneventful, except that I steal the message from the brother wizard with a succesful Sleight of Hand check. I am suspicious: what if the message is not what deFoe tells us? Earlier I tried to persuade everyone that we should open the message, but due to the wax seal they refused. So now Darius is doing it by himself.

And what the message contains? Surprise, surprise. Apparently deFoe was telling the truth. The message is a proposition of creating a clear border between the two nations - so far the border has been very vague, undefined. I show the message to Erk. He is not happy about it being opened, but reads it anyway. It is passed around the group. We come up with a plan: next time Erk sleeps, he will prepare Mending. It will apparently leave a faint magical residue that might be detected with Detect Magic, but hopefully it won't come to that.

Last third is still to be written... I'll do it a bit later.

[Atelm]

I, the DM of this campaign, aprove this thread. Nicely written detailed account of what has happened. Some corrections on the names:

Goblin witch: Viamad the Spiteful
The town: King's Hold
The mayor: Delon deFoe
The pixie: Kinif
Delon's Soltyrian friend: Jean Townsend
Grayguard Monk: Ril the Multi-Talented
Magocrasy southern nation: Quania (Soltyria is written correctly in the account)

As a note: the campaign is taking place in one of the border valleys between Soltyria and Quania.


D...DeFoe Manor!?!

I -need- to hear more about your adventure now.


I see someone got the reference, I'm a fan of 5 Days a Stranger/7 Days a Sceptic; but apart from the name there's no connection. :smallwink::smallbiggrin:

[Ethdred]

Thanks for the journal - going well so far, please keep it up. And congrats to the DM - this sounds interesting

[Adumbration]

So we're approaching the zeppelin. it's a big thing, roped down, we can see gnomes around. We're taken to the captain, and we explain our request - he agrees, but with one term. We have to go to the nearby castle/prison and ransom some of his gnomes out. Fortunately he gives us the money as well.

The trip there is fairly eventless - we had the choice of going by the town, but quite wisely we avoided it. I have a feeling that the encounter with the sheriff wouldn't have gone down too well. The castle is situated in the middle of a large lake, on a rocky island. We hire a fellow from the shore to take us there for 6 coppers. The exchange goes peacefully as well - apparently the castle/prison is disconnected from the town, so they didn't know that there were two prison escapees and an implied murderer among us.

We give the money - 500 gps - to the warden for the release papers, and go fetch the gnomes. There are five of them. After that, we get the same fellow take us back to ashore, paying another 5 coppers for the gnomes. On our way to the zeppelin - explicitly avoiding the village again - we encounter two orcs, which are promptly shot down with crossbows - along with my SA one of the mages rolled well as well. I wonder what the orcs were doing there, anyway? Kinda funny, now that I think of it. More raiders? Could the village have been attacked? Hindsight is a funny thing...

Regardless, we make our way to the zeppelin. Shortly after the gnomes are joined by their friends, we take off. The captain informs that the trip will take approximately 10 hours - lucky for us, since our mages have time to prepare their spells and rest again. Erk makes sure to prepare Mending. Meanwhile, Darius attempts to sell off the muskets he acquired - in vain, since the captain recognizes the seals of Soltyria on them. He wants no part with them - he frequently trades with Soltyria. After that Darius goes off to his cabin to whittle the seals off for future use. He rolls 20 (=34 with the varian) on one, and on others lower, but still above ten.

The ADHD mage brother bothers Erk for a while - attempts to Charm Person, sings a song, etc. - but finally relents as well. The resting period otherwise goes uneventfully. And about the muskets. I almost forgot: Darius appraises them, getting various results, getting 100 gps as price for one, 150 on the other, and 500 on the third. Big money for level 1.

After everyone has rested, we gather in to the what's-it-called thingie that hangs below the zeppelin, where two sides are made of glass for viewing leisure. We hang around there for a while, listening to one of the gnomes playing piano and getting bothered by the ADHD case again.

Suddenly Erk gets a bad feeling about things. (No surprise there, music switched from calm to battle. :smalltongue:) A soltyrian airship appears on the horizon. At that moment we were above the mountains. The ship signals us to land - but there's no place to land! One of the gnomes, under orders of the captain, signals back, telling this. Instead of being reasonable, we can see battle stations being manned and guns starting to move around. They're preparing for boarding! The captain tells us that there's two possible places where they may enter: right next to the place we are, and further off. We decide to prepare an ambush at the corridor near us.

A crash reverbrates in the hull. We prepare for attack... But there are no sounds from the other side of the we're expecting them from. Damn. They opted for the other route. We rush back, and encounter four soldiers with weapons. Drok casts Enlarge Person and charges... Missing critically, dropping his greatsword. The next round when he tries to pick it up, the AoOs take him down to negatives. Talk about bad luck.

Darius misses with his crossbows, but the mages save the day again. The Sleep spell drops two of them, Color Spray one more. We pick the last one with ease. I steal a spell from Drok to cure him.

Then, suddenly, we hear another sound, and we see the other ship disengage and move away. We're falling!

That's where the session ended.

[Atelm]

Some additions: You gathered in the lounge room in gondola of the Zeppelin ("Air Swan" was the name of the ship), the Soltyrian airship ("The Firefly") did not simply disengage; it opened fire and thus shot the Air Swan down entirely.

Edit: Also, the Air Swan was above forest during the moment it was shot down.

[evil-frosty]

Well you guys are either going to get really lucky or probably are screwed.
This is very interesting, i would like you to continue typing this up and tell us how it goes. Your DM is doing a great job.

[SoD]

Your DM is doing a great job.

Aww, that makes me proud. I taught him everything he knows :smalltongue: (but not everything I know...:smalltongue::smalltongue::smalltongue:)

[Atelm]

Aww, that makes me proud. I taught him everything he knows :smalltongue: (but not everything I know...:smalltongue::smalltongue::smalltongue:)

Rules/DMing-wize more or less, yes. But the most important bit, the story/plot, is all mine with some references added in to the mix. :smalltongue:

Anyway, we've had a second session since. Hopefully Adumbration will write it down here. :smallsmile: