0Megabyte
2012-02-07, 01:18 AM
Okay, so, my current Eberron D&D/3.P game is entering somewhat new territory for me: The party has split, but because of the way they split, and how far afield they are from each other, I not only couldn't get them back together by the end of the session... I dunno if they'll be able to come back together anytime soon at all.
To be honest, this seems closer to a "breaking of the fellowship" situation than anything, or at least it has the potential to become this.
Anyway, let's get some background set up! (Note, if you want to get straight to the request for advice, go to the bottom of this post.)
Dramatis Personae
Everyone is currently level 6.
K -- He is playing an an assassin, a rogue member of House Thuranni. Thanks to his mark of shadow, and his talent for disguise, he has always managed to stay disguised. In fact, nobody in the party has ever seen his true form.
He's always, like, an old elf man, or one of the red shirts, or a warforged, or a perfect replica of a nobleman they're talking to, or whatnot.
The player himself is quite responsible, and is the co-DM.
E -- She plays a bard. Or should I say, a rock star? Clever and quick to take the praise, this bard has finagled her way into a role as high priestess of a Cult of the Dragon Below, after K killed their leader. While working to reform them, they've essentially become her followers and cohorts. She's also very good at lying. The bard is... in a relationship with the wizard, below.
G -- He plays a Divination specialist wizard. The player always has a trick up his sleeve, some clever, not-too-powerful combination of techniques that always result in crazy outcomes. He's using a Drow wizard, and I allowed him some feats and such from Drow of the Underdark and other sources. He acts as spy satellite/boomstick, this time. He can also turn into a spider. The wizard is... in a relationship with the bard, above.
M -- He plays a semi-crazy half-orc Fighter. His family was destroyed in a freak accident, and he now rides into battle on his mighty ox. The most eccentric member of the group (and that's saying something), he is also ready for battle.
Damien - A paladin who acts as E's cohort. He is level four, and dedicated to her. Played by K. In battle, the rest of E's troops follow Damien.
Terra - A rogue archer, also level four. Played by E when her bard is busy. In battle, E's archers follow Terra.
Lars, the battle hardened Deneith mercenary who was sent with the party to make sure they get the artifact they're after. He leads a force of mercenaries, who were essentially sent with the party and E's troops, to make sure they would actually come back.
Magewrights -- saved during a previous session, they've been sent by House Cannith, armed with wands, and serve as artillery. In battle, they follow the wizard's orders. (As, for practical purposes, do the two wizards among the Deneith mercs.)
Background
To keep a long story short, these are a band of mercenaries of chance. After doing several missions together, they got wrangled into a quest for Merrix d'Cannith: Find an ancient artifact known as the Spellrend, a peculiar schema, probably of Giant origin, to help deal with the nasty side effects of a certain creation forge experiment Merrix wishes to continue. Keep in mind the experiment was originally done in Cyre, shortly before the creation of the Mournland. (No, it didn't create the Mournland. But the experimental data Merrix received may have been tainted by the horrible place...)
The party was sent to a small city on the eastern edge of Breland, Veyas, where the artifact is said to be hidden. They went by way of airship, and first landed at Kennrun, where they found the military force almost completely absent. Whispers spoke of a terrible monster coming from the Mournlands... powerful enough that all of Breland's military in the region was being mobilized to fight it.
Disturbed, the PCs and their (large) entourage set off for Veyas. Where they encountered more and more refugees fleeing the city... which had apparently been attacked, as soon as the Brelish army forces stationed there had been mobilized to fight the Mournland thing. Disturbed and concerned, they head on, and finally approach the city...
And... with the set-up complete, on to the session itself, or: Why 0Megabyte may be over his head.
Destinations
When our heroes (so to speak) reach Veyas, near sunset, they find a town under siege. Smoke rising due to the fires caused by battle. Buildings in rubble. The entire place deserted.
Before entering the town, the wizard casts a spell to spy into the town, to see what's going on. He finds the military fort completely destroyed, and sees that civilians are being held in camps, rounded up and kept prisoner. He also sees that there are armed men in the streets. He also recognizes that the soldiers in the street are not Brelish troops... whoever's here, is here illegally.
Skirmishes
After arguing with Lars and dealing with the logistics of setting up a base camp for their, let's be frank, minor military force, K decides to head in first, to scout the area.
Rolling ridiculously well with his hide checks, he's still almost spotted by several patrols in the southern half of the city. Patrols march the streets, five-man groups, spread out enough that a single fireball couldn't take them out. Three armed men, and three unarmed, each -spellcasters- make up the groups.
K decides to wait until one of them goes to take a leak, hoping to take them out swiftly. Being a first level assassin, he chose sleep as his spell. Unfortunately, when they go, they go in pairs. The buddy system is well in place with this mercenary company...
And more importantly, each of them had 3 hit die. He cast sleep on one of them, the wizard... and the wizard made his roll. K quickly hid, and the warrior steps in front of the wizard, who knows someone cast a spell on him.
The wizard, of course, promptly casts... dancing lights. The signal message alerts everyone in the area to the attack, and the rest of the squad quickly approaches the area.
Down the street, K sets one of his two remaining blast disks, an item from the MIC, to proximity in the street. He gets two soldiers with the blast, one down in negatives, the other nearly defeated. With this, as other soldiers converge, K realizes he can't quite handle the heat, and in true Solid Snake style, hides in a building to wait things out.
Meanwhile, E sent Terra to trail K, to have his back if things went wrong. She keeps track of events, and goes back to report... at which point E herself enters the field!
After taking some time to make a disguise based on the design of the enemy uniform, E sneaks through the city, trying her best to avoid the alert patrols.
At the same time, G and M decide to make their own attack. G casts Fly on M's ox, and they both ride the thing, and find the enemy base-camp: They're using a large stone building, which is still cracked from the fighting.
G uses some alchemists fire, and dumps it into the open hole in the roof. The building itself may be stone, but the things inside aren't... and it starts a fire. The ox and M, with G's help, take out the sentries on the roof, and G even counterspells another dancing lights spell, to keep their attack a secret just a tad bit longer!
Masters of Disguise
After they hide, using an invisibility sphere, the fire is noticed, and the base is set in chaos. E sees it from a distance, and slips into the base itself in the confusion. She even enters the building itself during the evacuation -
And meets someone she knows. An Aundairan nobleman, Herran ir'Barid. she knows, and had... been close to. He's not a warrior himself, but he IS rich. But there he is, in uniform, clearly one of the leaders of this mercenary company.
Does he recognize E? The roll said no, even though he had a +10 for being, ah, intimate. (What can I say, she made a good disguise check!) Even so, he felt she was familiar... in kind of a Futurama, Zap Brannagan and Lee Lemon sort of way. She quickly uses her familiarity and promises of information on the attack to become his adjutant/secretary.
While all the ruckus is going on, K decides it's time to act. He manages to sneak up on a member of a patrol, and takes him out, silently. And uses the chaos as an opportunity... to replace him. He uses his disguise self dragonmark, plus taking the clothes and even using his disguise kit, to make himself look just like the soldier he killed. And then he meets up with the patrol again, and heads off with them towards the base. He gets there just in time...
...for G and M to launch a new attack. They wait for a relatively powerful wizard to appear, and launch a fireball, then charge him, taking out the wizard immediately and appearing... in the middle of the base. Surrounded by something close to forty enemies.
During the surprise round alone, 7 arrows, 2 magic missiles and 1 fireball hit them. These guys do not kid around.
Luckily, one of G's tricks comes into play: It automatically casts darkness around him (and the ox and M) when struck, and they use the opportunity to escape. K and E watch, both unaware (in character, anyway) that the other is there.
Misdirection
As the mercenary company starts is evacuation to their secondary position, G drops a hoe into the crowd from above... a hoe with darkness cast upon it.
Naturally, two fireballs hit it within 3 seconds. These guys don't mess around. The soldiers crowd around it, ready, and eventually it's K who walks in to see if they're dead... and finds that it's just a farming utensil.
Also, it soon turns out that the person K replaced... was the sergeant in charge of the patrol group. He also turns out to be a better leader than the real sergeant, and his men actually love him more now that he's a fake.
Furthermore, G manages to cast a spell, which ends up on E... that allows him to see through her eyes. Useful for later.
G and M reach the PC's base camp to heal, and find Damien and Lars arguing over who what to do. Damien believes E has been out there too long, and wants to go in fighting. Lars is wary, and knows how tough and professional these mercenaries and hobgoblins are. He's not about to risk his forces in a suicide attack. (K plays Damien during this exchange. He decided what Damien was actually proposing.)
During the reorganization, K and E meet up, and recognize each other. They touch base, exchange information, and decide to keep up the charade. Just in time for the hobgoblins to launch an offensive. K goes off with his force to join the other patrolling groups, heading off to the front line to in platoon strength to reinforce the front lines.
During this, E is presented to the other leaders of the mercenary company: A wizard, and a strange, cloaked man. The cloaked, whispering man is suspicious, but ir'Harid tells her to inform them and the rest of the command of the information she received.
Ambush
She crafts a lie that the attacks are a hobgoblin plan, that they really have a strike force camped and ready in the forest near the city, to attack the base and take out the leadership. That the attack on the front is misdirection.
She points out a place on the map (a fake place) as where the hobgoblins are preparing. I rolled to see if it was where the PC's camp was. It wasn't, but it was relatively close!
Naturally, G is drawing out the maps and patrol information and troop numbers for the PC's. It turns out there's about 6 platoons of about 40 each, on the mercenary side. Four platoons at the front line, one platoon that was patrolling the city, and a final patrol at the base. He also sees exactly where E places the fake enemy encampment on the map, and informs the PC force.
He also sees that the mercenaries immediately send their 6th platoon to take it out, right then and there.
Knowing this, Damien, Lars, G and M agree to launch an ambush.
The place E chose wasn't even a clearing, and as the 6th platoon starts marching back, the PC's and the cohorts, and their entire force, attacks. They manage to kill the two fifth level wizards in the surprise round, though a stinking cloud is laid over the magewrights and wizards, crippling them.
The surprise round ended, but so did the session, and here we are.
---
The Part Where We Get to the Point
So, if you took my advice at the top, or if you read all the way through, here we are.
Tl;DR - The party is split. The bard is a mole in one of the enemy sides' main command, the assassin is pretending to be a sergeant on their front line, and the others are launching an ambush in a completely different part of the area.
Things are insane, and I'm not sure what the best approach is.
It feels more like a novel like Game of Thrones, where everyone's scattered and only tangentially related, than a normal adventure, at this point. Splitting the Fellowship, instead of merely splitting the party.
I don't even know if they'll all reunite before the end of the next session? Is it bad if they don't? If they have fun, if they continue to enjoy it the way they seem to be, is that a problem at all?
I need advice. How do the rest of you handle situations where the party is split? What do you do when things look as though the split is gonna be a bit more permanent than you originally planned?
I made this adventure with the assumption that there'd be some scouting and things like that, but I never dreamed half the party would end up moles in an enemy camp. I expected they'd have joined up with the third group -the resistance group fighting both of the invading forces- by the end of the session.
How would you other DMs handle this?
To be honest, this seems closer to a "breaking of the fellowship" situation than anything, or at least it has the potential to become this.
Anyway, let's get some background set up! (Note, if you want to get straight to the request for advice, go to the bottom of this post.)
Dramatis Personae
Everyone is currently level 6.
K -- He is playing an an assassin, a rogue member of House Thuranni. Thanks to his mark of shadow, and his talent for disguise, he has always managed to stay disguised. In fact, nobody in the party has ever seen his true form.
He's always, like, an old elf man, or one of the red shirts, or a warforged, or a perfect replica of a nobleman they're talking to, or whatnot.
The player himself is quite responsible, and is the co-DM.
E -- She plays a bard. Or should I say, a rock star? Clever and quick to take the praise, this bard has finagled her way into a role as high priestess of a Cult of the Dragon Below, after K killed their leader. While working to reform them, they've essentially become her followers and cohorts. She's also very good at lying. The bard is... in a relationship with the wizard, below.
G -- He plays a Divination specialist wizard. The player always has a trick up his sleeve, some clever, not-too-powerful combination of techniques that always result in crazy outcomes. He's using a Drow wizard, and I allowed him some feats and such from Drow of the Underdark and other sources. He acts as spy satellite/boomstick, this time. He can also turn into a spider. The wizard is... in a relationship with the bard, above.
M -- He plays a semi-crazy half-orc Fighter. His family was destroyed in a freak accident, and he now rides into battle on his mighty ox. The most eccentric member of the group (and that's saying something), he is also ready for battle.
Damien - A paladin who acts as E's cohort. He is level four, and dedicated to her. Played by K. In battle, the rest of E's troops follow Damien.
Terra - A rogue archer, also level four. Played by E when her bard is busy. In battle, E's archers follow Terra.
Lars, the battle hardened Deneith mercenary who was sent with the party to make sure they get the artifact they're after. He leads a force of mercenaries, who were essentially sent with the party and E's troops, to make sure they would actually come back.
Magewrights -- saved during a previous session, they've been sent by House Cannith, armed with wands, and serve as artillery. In battle, they follow the wizard's orders. (As, for practical purposes, do the two wizards among the Deneith mercs.)
Background
To keep a long story short, these are a band of mercenaries of chance. After doing several missions together, they got wrangled into a quest for Merrix d'Cannith: Find an ancient artifact known as the Spellrend, a peculiar schema, probably of Giant origin, to help deal with the nasty side effects of a certain creation forge experiment Merrix wishes to continue. Keep in mind the experiment was originally done in Cyre, shortly before the creation of the Mournland. (No, it didn't create the Mournland. But the experimental data Merrix received may have been tainted by the horrible place...)
The party was sent to a small city on the eastern edge of Breland, Veyas, where the artifact is said to be hidden. They went by way of airship, and first landed at Kennrun, where they found the military force almost completely absent. Whispers spoke of a terrible monster coming from the Mournlands... powerful enough that all of Breland's military in the region was being mobilized to fight it.
Disturbed, the PCs and their (large) entourage set off for Veyas. Where they encountered more and more refugees fleeing the city... which had apparently been attacked, as soon as the Brelish army forces stationed there had been mobilized to fight the Mournland thing. Disturbed and concerned, they head on, and finally approach the city...
And... with the set-up complete, on to the session itself, or: Why 0Megabyte may be over his head.
Destinations
When our heroes (so to speak) reach Veyas, near sunset, they find a town under siege. Smoke rising due to the fires caused by battle. Buildings in rubble. The entire place deserted.
Before entering the town, the wizard casts a spell to spy into the town, to see what's going on. He finds the military fort completely destroyed, and sees that civilians are being held in camps, rounded up and kept prisoner. He also sees that there are armed men in the streets. He also recognizes that the soldiers in the street are not Brelish troops... whoever's here, is here illegally.
Skirmishes
After arguing with Lars and dealing with the logistics of setting up a base camp for their, let's be frank, minor military force, K decides to head in first, to scout the area.
Rolling ridiculously well with his hide checks, he's still almost spotted by several patrols in the southern half of the city. Patrols march the streets, five-man groups, spread out enough that a single fireball couldn't take them out. Three armed men, and three unarmed, each -spellcasters- make up the groups.
K decides to wait until one of them goes to take a leak, hoping to take them out swiftly. Being a first level assassin, he chose sleep as his spell. Unfortunately, when they go, they go in pairs. The buddy system is well in place with this mercenary company...
And more importantly, each of them had 3 hit die. He cast sleep on one of them, the wizard... and the wizard made his roll. K quickly hid, and the warrior steps in front of the wizard, who knows someone cast a spell on him.
The wizard, of course, promptly casts... dancing lights. The signal message alerts everyone in the area to the attack, and the rest of the squad quickly approaches the area.
Down the street, K sets one of his two remaining blast disks, an item from the MIC, to proximity in the street. He gets two soldiers with the blast, one down in negatives, the other nearly defeated. With this, as other soldiers converge, K realizes he can't quite handle the heat, and in true Solid Snake style, hides in a building to wait things out.
Meanwhile, E sent Terra to trail K, to have his back if things went wrong. She keeps track of events, and goes back to report... at which point E herself enters the field!
After taking some time to make a disguise based on the design of the enemy uniform, E sneaks through the city, trying her best to avoid the alert patrols.
At the same time, G and M decide to make their own attack. G casts Fly on M's ox, and they both ride the thing, and find the enemy base-camp: They're using a large stone building, which is still cracked from the fighting.
G uses some alchemists fire, and dumps it into the open hole in the roof. The building itself may be stone, but the things inside aren't... and it starts a fire. The ox and M, with G's help, take out the sentries on the roof, and G even counterspells another dancing lights spell, to keep their attack a secret just a tad bit longer!
Masters of Disguise
After they hide, using an invisibility sphere, the fire is noticed, and the base is set in chaos. E sees it from a distance, and slips into the base itself in the confusion. She even enters the building itself during the evacuation -
And meets someone she knows. An Aundairan nobleman, Herran ir'Barid. she knows, and had... been close to. He's not a warrior himself, but he IS rich. But there he is, in uniform, clearly one of the leaders of this mercenary company.
Does he recognize E? The roll said no, even though he had a +10 for being, ah, intimate. (What can I say, she made a good disguise check!) Even so, he felt she was familiar... in kind of a Futurama, Zap Brannagan and Lee Lemon sort of way. She quickly uses her familiarity and promises of information on the attack to become his adjutant/secretary.
While all the ruckus is going on, K decides it's time to act. He manages to sneak up on a member of a patrol, and takes him out, silently. And uses the chaos as an opportunity... to replace him. He uses his disguise self dragonmark, plus taking the clothes and even using his disguise kit, to make himself look just like the soldier he killed. And then he meets up with the patrol again, and heads off with them towards the base. He gets there just in time...
...for G and M to launch a new attack. They wait for a relatively powerful wizard to appear, and launch a fireball, then charge him, taking out the wizard immediately and appearing... in the middle of the base. Surrounded by something close to forty enemies.
During the surprise round alone, 7 arrows, 2 magic missiles and 1 fireball hit them. These guys do not kid around.
Luckily, one of G's tricks comes into play: It automatically casts darkness around him (and the ox and M) when struck, and they use the opportunity to escape. K and E watch, both unaware (in character, anyway) that the other is there.
Misdirection
As the mercenary company starts is evacuation to their secondary position, G drops a hoe into the crowd from above... a hoe with darkness cast upon it.
Naturally, two fireballs hit it within 3 seconds. These guys don't mess around. The soldiers crowd around it, ready, and eventually it's K who walks in to see if they're dead... and finds that it's just a farming utensil.
Also, it soon turns out that the person K replaced... was the sergeant in charge of the patrol group. He also turns out to be a better leader than the real sergeant, and his men actually love him more now that he's a fake.
Furthermore, G manages to cast a spell, which ends up on E... that allows him to see through her eyes. Useful for later.
G and M reach the PC's base camp to heal, and find Damien and Lars arguing over who what to do. Damien believes E has been out there too long, and wants to go in fighting. Lars is wary, and knows how tough and professional these mercenaries and hobgoblins are. He's not about to risk his forces in a suicide attack. (K plays Damien during this exchange. He decided what Damien was actually proposing.)
During the reorganization, K and E meet up, and recognize each other. They touch base, exchange information, and decide to keep up the charade. Just in time for the hobgoblins to launch an offensive. K goes off with his force to join the other patrolling groups, heading off to the front line to in platoon strength to reinforce the front lines.
During this, E is presented to the other leaders of the mercenary company: A wizard, and a strange, cloaked man. The cloaked, whispering man is suspicious, but ir'Harid tells her to inform them and the rest of the command of the information she received.
Ambush
She crafts a lie that the attacks are a hobgoblin plan, that they really have a strike force camped and ready in the forest near the city, to attack the base and take out the leadership. That the attack on the front is misdirection.
She points out a place on the map (a fake place) as where the hobgoblins are preparing. I rolled to see if it was where the PC's camp was. It wasn't, but it was relatively close!
Naturally, G is drawing out the maps and patrol information and troop numbers for the PC's. It turns out there's about 6 platoons of about 40 each, on the mercenary side. Four platoons at the front line, one platoon that was patrolling the city, and a final patrol at the base. He also sees exactly where E places the fake enemy encampment on the map, and informs the PC force.
He also sees that the mercenaries immediately send their 6th platoon to take it out, right then and there.
Knowing this, Damien, Lars, G and M agree to launch an ambush.
The place E chose wasn't even a clearing, and as the 6th platoon starts marching back, the PC's and the cohorts, and their entire force, attacks. They manage to kill the two fifth level wizards in the surprise round, though a stinking cloud is laid over the magewrights and wizards, crippling them.
The surprise round ended, but so did the session, and here we are.
---
The Part Where We Get to the Point
So, if you took my advice at the top, or if you read all the way through, here we are.
Tl;DR - The party is split. The bard is a mole in one of the enemy sides' main command, the assassin is pretending to be a sergeant on their front line, and the others are launching an ambush in a completely different part of the area.
Things are insane, and I'm not sure what the best approach is.
It feels more like a novel like Game of Thrones, where everyone's scattered and only tangentially related, than a normal adventure, at this point. Splitting the Fellowship, instead of merely splitting the party.
I don't even know if they'll all reunite before the end of the next session? Is it bad if they don't? If they have fun, if they continue to enjoy it the way they seem to be, is that a problem at all?
I need advice. How do the rest of you handle situations where the party is split? What do you do when things look as though the split is gonna be a bit more permanent than you originally planned?
I made this adventure with the assumption that there'd be some scouting and things like that, but I never dreamed half the party would end up moles in an enemy camp. I expected they'd have joined up with the third group -the resistance group fighting both of the invading forces- by the end of the session.
How would you other DMs handle this?