Drakevarg
2011-05-15, 12:03 AM
The handful of you who know of my tendency to post the goings on of my campaign in order to solicit advice/create an opening for criticism might've noticed that I haven't posted in a few weeks. This is because up until now, things have been running pretty smoothly. Of course, no good thing lasts, especially when I'm at the helm. Everybody's dead, Jim.
So for the last few sessions the party has been making their way through a buried city. After taking out a mob of zombies, they decided to take shelter in an old university from a sandstorm. Inside, they met a whole host of nasties including my infamous Chained Man, who strangled and beheaded one of the PCs in two rounds. After they got the hell out of his basement I elected to not send it after the surviving party members, since he was slightly more insta-gib capable than I had initially expected. Also in the university was a pack of gargoyles, the building's guardians.
Lesson learned? Creatures are MUCH tougher than their CRs would indicate when their one (normally quite common) weakness is completely unobtainable by the PCs. Originally I had pegged these things as tough-but-beatable XP-fodder, since although they had DR 10/Magic, most of the party fighters could hit over 10 without much difficulty. (The one who couldn't was an idiot who took a light weapon as his only armament.) Unfortunately, they only actually managed to roll that high about twice, and as such were promply torn to shreds.
Here I offered them a choice. I had been expressing a growing disinterest in the campaign for a few weeks now, citing a nostalgic desire to simply have a straight-up, fun, high adventure type campaign for once instead of this gloomy crap I'm always doing. The only reason I didn't drop the campaign like hot coals was because the PCs were liking how cerebral it was. (Their words, not mine.) But once they were all slaughtered, I offered the following option:
Either continue this same campaign with new characters after a timeskip of a few months, or quit and do a simple, "anything you can find in the books" fantasy pastiche. After assuring them that eldritch abominations and gruesome deaths would be inevitable simply by having me behind the DM screen, they agreed on the latter.
So, next week we'll be starting session one of this new campaign, with the following characters:
NN Tiefling Cleric of Nerull 2
CN Tiefling Warmage 2
?? Warforged Monk 2
?? Gnoll (No class levels.)
NE Changling Bard 3
NN Shifter Rogue 3
NG Human Fighter 3
The session I have in mind is a Cube-esque series of trapped rooms. Only thing still on my mind is whether I should throw in a few save-or-dies or not.
So for the last few sessions the party has been making their way through a buried city. After taking out a mob of zombies, they decided to take shelter in an old university from a sandstorm. Inside, they met a whole host of nasties including my infamous Chained Man, who strangled and beheaded one of the PCs in two rounds. After they got the hell out of his basement I elected to not send it after the surviving party members, since he was slightly more insta-gib capable than I had initially expected. Also in the university was a pack of gargoyles, the building's guardians.
Lesson learned? Creatures are MUCH tougher than their CRs would indicate when their one (normally quite common) weakness is completely unobtainable by the PCs. Originally I had pegged these things as tough-but-beatable XP-fodder, since although they had DR 10/Magic, most of the party fighters could hit over 10 without much difficulty. (The one who couldn't was an idiot who took a light weapon as his only armament.) Unfortunately, they only actually managed to roll that high about twice, and as such were promply torn to shreds.
Here I offered them a choice. I had been expressing a growing disinterest in the campaign for a few weeks now, citing a nostalgic desire to simply have a straight-up, fun, high adventure type campaign for once instead of this gloomy crap I'm always doing. The only reason I didn't drop the campaign like hot coals was because the PCs were liking how cerebral it was. (Their words, not mine.) But once they were all slaughtered, I offered the following option:
Either continue this same campaign with new characters after a timeskip of a few months, or quit and do a simple, "anything you can find in the books" fantasy pastiche. After assuring them that eldritch abominations and gruesome deaths would be inevitable simply by having me behind the DM screen, they agreed on the latter.
So, next week we'll be starting session one of this new campaign, with the following characters:
NN Tiefling Cleric of Nerull 2
CN Tiefling Warmage 2
?? Warforged Monk 2
?? Gnoll (No class levels.)
NE Changling Bard 3
NN Shifter Rogue 3
NG Human Fighter 3
The session I have in mind is a Cube-esque series of trapped rooms. Only thing still on my mind is whether I should throw in a few save-or-dies or not.