Godskook
2010-11-14, 04:04 AM
Ok, figured I'd start writing this game down, in-as-much as it'd help me plot the long and slow demise of my players.the challenges I want the players to face in the future.
Important houserules(in case anyone wanted to know):
1.Each player gets 3 'temp' HD, which amounts to +2 to all saves, +3 BAB, and 3d8 + 3*con hitpoints, maxed.
2.Starting race: Human
3.Generate ability scores as 7+1d6 (I allowed rerolls for the one guy who got less than a total mod of +0)
4.Choice of 8 gems, which each gave some psuedo racial stats, to allow for differences in stats and to make up for the lack of racial choices.
5.Starting level 1
6.Any book, but ToS ban list is used as a pirate-code for what is or isn't allowed.
7.Dead at -Constitution instead of -10, if that's more survivable.
So, first session supposed to start at 7pm. I arrive at ~5pm, and the 'early bird' of the group starts plotting his character out, suggesting various things, such as CW Samurai, Rogue, and Fighter. I offer Factotum and Warblade as suggestions for him, and strongly discourage CW Samurai. I spend time dealing with the nervousness of this being my first session DM-ing ever, playing pinball and grabbing munchies from the counter. 7pm rolls around, and *NO-ONE* is here.........ugh. But they're all 'on their way', so that's good. Everyone shows up by close to 8ish, and begin plotting characters in earnest. I began to get a better idea for the optimization level of this group(not very), and tried to avoid over-imposing my ideas of "optimization" on them. These were their characters, after all. Over all, the char-gen can be described as "And they kept rolling arcanists", since we wound up with 3 int-based casters in the final party. Probably easier to list, I suppose, but for that I'll need names. Since the party insists on naming the campaign "Its morphin time", I'll call them by ranger names:
Tommy - Warblade (The early bird mentioned above)
Jason - Scout
Zack - Conjurer
Billy - Abjurer
Alpha 5 - Wu-Jen
We finished sheets by 10pm, so I figured we had enough time to start the story and have a combat. The prologue:
You guys are scattered around the local coffee shop(not in the dining area), when large cloaked men(actually trolls) break in and start kidnapping people. Among them is Alpha's girlfriend. Those PCs who first check on friends in the shop notice that people are only suffering defensive wounds. Alpha, who took direct chase after his GF, follows the cloaked men deeper into the old-style shopping plaza, where they jump into a waiting magic portal. As the last cloaked man steps through, a curious scroll and bag appear next to the portal. Alpha picks up the scroll, and it gives him some plot-exposition which can be summed up as a wizard named Dominic Alheera was blackmailed into creating the ritual that brought those men here, their group is called the Heralds of Oblivion, and this message and bag of holding is Dominic's vengence/restitution. The content of the bag includes weapons, armor, a few minor supplies(rope/alchemist fire/trail rations), and finally, 8 gems that were mentioned above in character generation. The group gathers, divides the gems up, and gathers a few supplies, particularly the Warblade's grabbing his katana from his trunk and someone else found vodka.
Well, they now enter the portal, but unanimously agree, despite my subtle hinting, that Alpha does so a full minute earlier, at a dead run. Once through, they see the landscape in front of them as complete dead-lands. Behind, there's forests, but the cloaked men entered the dead-lands, and can still be seen off in the distance, with Alpha making a solid run towards them. Oh, and the group notices large runes in a 50' radius, 20' above their heads. Permanent ones, unrelated to their portal, but neither the time nor the skill to decipher them(didn't stop a player from rolling anyway, but that's a PC for you. I should've nailed them down and lit them on fire.). Anyway, back to Alpha. In front of him, he sees the group splinter, as one cloaked figure stays to fight a giant were-eagle. Were-eagle only gets so far as sundering one of the troll's arms before being killed. This is roughly when Alpha runs up, and essentially demands passage so that he can get to his girlfriend. The troll refuses in a gruff manor, and I rule the banter shaves a round off the otherwise 10-round arrival of the party. We go into initiative, and calculate how far out everyone else is, and everyone but Alpha starts praying that he lives long enough for the party to catch up(He hasn't caught on yet). I forget the round-by-round in here, but basically, he opens with shield and a steel-focus spell(ranged attack, not ranged touch), and proceeds to use mage hand to scoop dirt in the troll's eyes(I ruled it into a level-0 1-round glitterdust effect. Billy proceeds to try and upgrade this ruling into a full-on maiming by poking the troll's eyes, causing them to rupture. I explain I'm not allowing a cantrip to be used to that great of an effect.) This proceeds for several rounds as Alpha maneuvers himself to keep the troll away from his severed arm and the party runs at full speed to attempt to be relevant before he dies. Between it all, I am amazed that Alpha lasted that many rounds at all, but I suppose the 32 HP helped a bit. Dropped in the round immediately prior to the party getting there, allowing the troll exactly one turn. Move action to move to the arm, and move action to pick it up. Since I assume it'd take a move action to reattach, he's standing there with it when Billy and Zach show up(Tommy is in medium armor and Jason stalled a few times to shoot arrows at bad range increments). THey're exactly 65' away, which is exactly too far away for Billy to be useful this round, so he casts shield, expecting he'll need it before the battle's over. Zach, on the other hand, is a conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt, and can barely squeeze into range to slap a grease spell down.........which works miracles, as mister troll falls over. Next round, Jason makes it into range, lights his arrow with vodka and a lighter(I called it a move+swift), and shoots the grease spell. When he rolls a nat-20, I hand him 5d6 as reward for his crit-conflagration. The troll drops, and the party cheers. As the noise dies, he gets back up, and I must placate objections with an ooc "he has regen". Another round of attacks plus a coup de gras, and he's down for good. However, its now 1:01am, and the coffee shop closed a minute ago. We hurriedly grab our stuff and clear out, and in the parking lot, I cliff-hanger them with the wrap-up: As you guys tend to Alpha's wounds and begin to set camp, you see a giant eagle, much like the bird-man you saw earlier, flying towards you. OOC: See you next week, guys!
Important houserules(in case anyone wanted to know):
1.Each player gets 3 'temp' HD, which amounts to +2 to all saves, +3 BAB, and 3d8 + 3*con hitpoints, maxed.
2.Starting race: Human
3.Generate ability scores as 7+1d6 (I allowed rerolls for the one guy who got less than a total mod of +0)
4.Choice of 8 gems, which each gave some psuedo racial stats, to allow for differences in stats and to make up for the lack of racial choices.
5.Starting level 1
6.Any book, but ToS ban list is used as a pirate-code for what is or isn't allowed.
7.Dead at -Constitution instead of -10, if that's more survivable.
So, first session supposed to start at 7pm. I arrive at ~5pm, and the 'early bird' of the group starts plotting his character out, suggesting various things, such as CW Samurai, Rogue, and Fighter. I offer Factotum and Warblade as suggestions for him, and strongly discourage CW Samurai. I spend time dealing with the nervousness of this being my first session DM-ing ever, playing pinball and grabbing munchies from the counter. 7pm rolls around, and *NO-ONE* is here.........ugh. But they're all 'on their way', so that's good. Everyone shows up by close to 8ish, and begin plotting characters in earnest. I began to get a better idea for the optimization level of this group(not very), and tried to avoid over-imposing my ideas of "optimization" on them. These were their characters, after all. Over all, the char-gen can be described as "And they kept rolling arcanists", since we wound up with 3 int-based casters in the final party. Probably easier to list, I suppose, but for that I'll need names. Since the party insists on naming the campaign "Its morphin time", I'll call them by ranger names:
Tommy - Warblade (The early bird mentioned above)
Jason - Scout
Zack - Conjurer
Billy - Abjurer
Alpha 5 - Wu-Jen
We finished sheets by 10pm, so I figured we had enough time to start the story and have a combat. The prologue:
You guys are scattered around the local coffee shop(not in the dining area), when large cloaked men(actually trolls) break in and start kidnapping people. Among them is Alpha's girlfriend. Those PCs who first check on friends in the shop notice that people are only suffering defensive wounds. Alpha, who took direct chase after his GF, follows the cloaked men deeper into the old-style shopping plaza, where they jump into a waiting magic portal. As the last cloaked man steps through, a curious scroll and bag appear next to the portal. Alpha picks up the scroll, and it gives him some plot-exposition which can be summed up as a wizard named Dominic Alheera was blackmailed into creating the ritual that brought those men here, their group is called the Heralds of Oblivion, and this message and bag of holding is Dominic's vengence/restitution. The content of the bag includes weapons, armor, a few minor supplies(rope/alchemist fire/trail rations), and finally, 8 gems that were mentioned above in character generation. The group gathers, divides the gems up, and gathers a few supplies, particularly the Warblade's grabbing his katana from his trunk and someone else found vodka.
Well, they now enter the portal, but unanimously agree, despite my subtle hinting, that Alpha does so a full minute earlier, at a dead run. Once through, they see the landscape in front of them as complete dead-lands. Behind, there's forests, but the cloaked men entered the dead-lands, and can still be seen off in the distance, with Alpha making a solid run towards them. Oh, and the group notices large runes in a 50' radius, 20' above their heads. Permanent ones, unrelated to their portal, but neither the time nor the skill to decipher them(didn't stop a player from rolling anyway, but that's a PC for you. I should've nailed them down and lit them on fire.). Anyway, back to Alpha. In front of him, he sees the group splinter, as one cloaked figure stays to fight a giant were-eagle. Were-eagle only gets so far as sundering one of the troll's arms before being killed. This is roughly when Alpha runs up, and essentially demands passage so that he can get to his girlfriend. The troll refuses in a gruff manor, and I rule the banter shaves a round off the otherwise 10-round arrival of the party. We go into initiative, and calculate how far out everyone else is, and everyone but Alpha starts praying that he lives long enough for the party to catch up(He hasn't caught on yet). I forget the round-by-round in here, but basically, he opens with shield and a steel-focus spell(ranged attack, not ranged touch), and proceeds to use mage hand to scoop dirt in the troll's eyes(I ruled it into a level-0 1-round glitterdust effect. Billy proceeds to try and upgrade this ruling into a full-on maiming by poking the troll's eyes, causing them to rupture. I explain I'm not allowing a cantrip to be used to that great of an effect.) This proceeds for several rounds as Alpha maneuvers himself to keep the troll away from his severed arm and the party runs at full speed to attempt to be relevant before he dies. Between it all, I am amazed that Alpha lasted that many rounds at all, but I suppose the 32 HP helped a bit. Dropped in the round immediately prior to the party getting there, allowing the troll exactly one turn. Move action to move to the arm, and move action to pick it up. Since I assume it'd take a move action to reattach, he's standing there with it when Billy and Zach show up(Tommy is in medium armor and Jason stalled a few times to shoot arrows at bad range increments). THey're exactly 65' away, which is exactly too far away for Billy to be useful this round, so he casts shield, expecting he'll need it before the battle's over. Zach, on the other hand, is a conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt, and can barely squeeze into range to slap a grease spell down.........which works miracles, as mister troll falls over. Next round, Jason makes it into range, lights his arrow with vodka and a lighter(I called it a move+swift), and shoots the grease spell. When he rolls a nat-20, I hand him 5d6 as reward for his crit-conflagration. The troll drops, and the party cheers. As the noise dies, he gets back up, and I must placate objections with an ooc "he has regen". Another round of attacks plus a coup de gras, and he's down for good. However, its now 1:01am, and the coffee shop closed a minute ago. We hurriedly grab our stuff and clear out, and in the parking lot, I cliff-hanger them with the wrap-up: As you guys tend to Alpha's wounds and begin to set camp, you see a giant eagle, much like the bird-man you saw earlier, flying towards you. OOC: See you next week, guys!