Alienist
2013-03-10, 10:20 AM
So I had my first session as a DM in about oh ... nearly 20 years. Let me know if you think I shouldn't give up the day job ...
The characters woke up. Always a good thing. As part of their backgrounds I'd slipped in questions like "where are you sleeping?" and "who do you know?" And I'd dropped some pretty heavy hints that I have no material prepared for outside Sharn.
Since Sharn is in a manifest zone for the realm of light, air and fluffiness (rainbows and unicorns optional), we decided to give Legend a try. I don't really know Legend very well, so my basic task resolution is just opposed d20 rolls and keep the momentum going.
Interestingly, both of the players decided that they were dirt poor. Of course, at first level you get a magic item and all the mundane gear you want.
One of the characters is a Halfling Rogue Lucky-Bomber, (kind of like a cross between a rogue and pathfinder's alchemist) so he wanted to know stuff like how many vials he had, how much replacement vials cost etc.
I tried explaining that Legend doesn't even bother tracking your money, as a system it just doesn't care. I got a lot of pushback on that point though, so yeah, okay, you get your basic gear and 1gp 10sp and 10cp
Basically they just wandered around Sharn, looking for something that interested them. Since it was a first session I wanted to give them time to find their feet (they're both better role-players than I am), but also convey just how big the city is.
They were both dirt poor, and looking for some action. Well, not really looking for action, but with a bit of DM prodding they got out the door (the party is split and nobody knows each other).
The Rogue doesn't even have somewhere to live, he just breaks into your house while you're gone and does the goldilocks thing. On the way out the door that morning/afternoon, he snapped off an ornament to sell.
He wanders down to the market to sell the ornament.
Along the way, he spots a minotaur and an ogre arm wrestling. There's a small crowd, and they're taking bets. He bets 10sp on the Minotaur.
Unfortunately there's no stats for a generic Minotaur or Ogre, so I just tell him I'm going to roll a dice for it (all bar one or two of my rolls were in the open). Odds the Minotaur wins, evens he loses. Sadly, my dice decide they hate my players, and the Minotaur loses at arm wrestling.
At the market there is a chap selling a magical sword that glows blue in the presence of goblins. The players are intrigued (lol metagame trolling lol), but the asking price is 5,000gp. Just a tad out of his range. He tries to argue the price down but fails (seller keeps rolling natural 20s and piling up the poker chips). He gives up the negotiations, gets frustrated and tries to sneak up behind the vendor (in order to set a vial/bomb thingy on his cloak), rolling a nat 1 on stealth. So ... no. Now the vendor is suspicious.
Player stomps off to find their contact, a hot dog seller (don't ask what's in the meat) (very CMOTD I know)
At the vendor he complains about his luck, the vendor ask what's wrong, he says he lost betting on a minotaur and ogre arm wrestling match and she says immediately:
"Oh, everyone knows you should bet on the Minotaur!"
"I did!"
"It must have been rigged then!"
"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGHGGHGHGGHGGHNNNNGGNGNGNNG"
(DM lol troll)
So he heads down into the cogs, where I run one of my favourite set-pieces ever. Credit for this one goes to the guys that did the Shadowrun 100 crappy little random encounters book. Man they had some good supplements.
It's a Toll Booth, or more technically, a Troll Booth. (In the Shadowrun version the troll is up on an adjacent building with a sniper's rifle with wonky scopes for crappy accuracy).
The young troll and his enterprising young changeling friend have set up a tollbooth and are charging an "air tax 1 sp". The player interacts with various people in the crowd (there's an angry crowd, and a queue of people waiting to pay), trying to convince them to attack the troll. "Surely you and fifty of your mook friends can take him on?" for some strange reason (and my dice hate him) this fails (I thought it was a good attempt). He finally gets up to the front of the crowd, and interrogates the two entrepreneurs.
He wants to make a skill check, and jokingly suggests knowledge geography. I say sure. He rolls okay but not great, so I tell him that people building bridges often have trouble with trolls living under them.
(DM META-Troll lol)
Well, I thought it was funny, but that player missed the reference (the other one got it).
Anyway, he decides to stick his hand into the bowl of silver coins, and "pay" with one but use Larceny to sleight of hand two back out. Love it. Good thinking.
I remind him that he's out of silver.
"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGHGGHGHGGHGGHNNNNGGNGNGNNG"
(DM lol troll)
He wants to use copper. I say that will make the DC higher. He thinks about using gold. I remind him that gold >>> silver. So copper it is then.
He screws the roll up, but I say he gets the two silver out, they spot his trick, yell "hey!' and by the way, can you roll initiative please.
He wins initiative, hurls the bowl of silver into the crowd, and then double moves (escape stage left) through the crowd. Basically at this point he's free to go, but he decides to stick around. I describe a riot breaking out. He hurls one of his bombs over the crowd and sets the barricade on fire.
Yay for freedom and all that jazz! (This was (at player's request) supposed to be an evil campaign. ... Okay ... )
Now the other character is an Orc Swashbuckling Barbarian (anyone complaining about sub-optimality can just not do that please).
She goes and talks to her contacts, but hasn't really warmed up into the role yet, but I toss out the following tidbits:
On the way from A to B
She sees a pickpocket
Someone in a shadowy cloak asks her if she's interested in a slave auction
She gets pestered by an Aberrant Dragonmark rights activist (with pamphlets). (I played this for a bit and then had the other player take over, I thought he did okay).
(The idea was they could trade off and roleplay the other one's NPC encounters, to take pressure off the DM. The problem with that in Legend vs regular D&D is that in regular D&D I could dangle a 100xp carrot each time, in legend you can't really do that at all. I've started giving out poker chips for good/funny roleplaying instead)
A Summoner summoning animals and then making them do magic tricks to amuse a small crowd of cynical children (was originally going to be a pathfinder campaign, and many of the random encounters are slanted that way)
Random (or are they, muahahaha!) rumours she heard along the way:
There's a black dragon in the sewers
It's not safe to walk the streets anymore if you're a gnome
The paladins, cavaliers and inquisitors are all going to band together in a crusade against the hags, witches and oracles
One of her contacts suggested that she could make a killing breaking up teen romances on behalf of angry parents.
She heard a rumour about a riot in the cogs, and one of her contacts was willing to pay her 1gp to find out why the Daask (one of (at least) four large crime organizations in Sharn) seemed to be so upset lately. She decides to head down into the cogs.
The Rogue decides to head back to the market to sell his ornament. While he's there, someone in a shadowy cloak asks him if he's interested in the slave auctions. He isn't.
So he finds a buyer for the ornament, and tries asking ridiculous amounts of gold for it, the buyer keeps rolling nat 20s and beats him down to 1 gp. He offers 5sp, and I am literally right in the middle of accepting the offer when he decides "screw it! I'll sell it to someone else!"
Okay ... so he finds an artificer going through the crowd, buying up junky old magic items to melt them down for materials. The artificer sneers, but eventually agrees to buy the ornament for 3 sp. (Yes, I know)
The player and the Artificer still have one poker chip each left in their social pools. I point out that he can ask the Artificer for a favour. He decides to ask the artificer where he can get more vials. So the artificer shrugs and points out that lots of people sell them in the upper parts of the city. The player complains that they will probably be expensive. Artificer shrugs again.
The player is about to move on, when I hold up the Artificer's poker chip ... and point out that now that he's spent his chip, he can't counter when the artificer asks for a favour.
Player has a brown trousers moment
(lol troll)
And the artificer asks "so... do you know where I can find any magic items in this dump?"
Player (breathing audible sigh of relief tells him about the guy selling the magic shortsword which glows blue in the presence of goblins (on the other side of the market)).
Artificer goes "hmm... could be from the ancient wars... worth a look"
Player goes "but he wants 5,000gp", expecting the artificer to spit a spleen. Artificer is unphased.
Now, in my defence, I never implied that the artificer would be willing to pay even that much, but player suddenly gets the idea the sword is worth much more than that.
So suddenly he wants to get to the seller first (this is a classic example of me using opposed d20 rolls because I have no idea how Legend actually works). He rolls higher, and so gets first crack at it.
He's begging the sword seller to sell it to him, and promising him all sorts of things, 1 gp now, 6,000 by the end of the day (etc etc) He's working it so hard, very impressive roleplaying. He says how can anyone even carry 5,000gp (a fair point) and I mention the use of letters of credit (a commonish practice in Sharn)
Not being a complete troll (despite evidence to the contrary), I say that he can see the artificer coming over. His desperation doubles! Eventually I put the poor s.o.b. out of my misery by having the artificer turn up. He rolls a really low d20 to attempt to recognise the halfling, mutters something about how they all look the same to him, and then after a bit of negotiation and appraising the item, declares it is simply a normal sword with an enchantment to glow blue all the time. He offers 20gp. The con-man accepts. Money swaps hands, and they go in different ways.
The player wants to follow the 20gp and do some pick-pocketing, but other player convinced him to follow the source of the money.
The source of the money goes to a booth where they are selling used wands, buys up the stock and heads over to where they have really cheap rings of feather fall, 200gp each or my names not cut my own throat ring-seller-dude.
The artificer wants to have them demonstrated, but the seller refuses to jump off a bridge saying that he would - if he had an assistant. Player misses his straight line/setup. Okay, no problemo.
He follows the artificer back up to the middle level. Outside of house harkonnen's tower, I play the following cut-scene:
Two wizards on flying carpets collde because neither of them gives way. They start biffing various 4th edition spells at each other, then eventually run out of daily and encounter powers and have to (shock horror!) resort to at-wills.
While this is going on, two laconic police-officers on the ground are talking about how this is all very illegal in the city limits, and somebody should do something about it. "Call that a fireball? Couldn't even cook my tea with that" etc.
One of house harkonnen's wand mages puts her head out a window of the tower, yells at them to eff off because she has some very delicate experiments going on, and starts letting rip with both barrels. They dive and swoop and take evasive maneuvers and get away ASAP.
The dust settles, the player turns to me and says "oh! The artificer got away, didn't he?"
"Yup"
**facepalm**
(DM lol troll)
Now, back to the other character. She's on a warpath to find out what's up with those pesky Daask. Unfortunately, she failed her google-fu, so doesn't really know what they are. Lolburgers.
Randomness (or is it?) that she runs into in her quest for the mighty 1gp:
A wizard or a sorcerer arguing about which is more powerful, the wizard says he is more powerful because he has more flexibility, the sorc says "yea, but not today" and also points out the the spellbook is a weakness which can be exploited (DUNH DUNH DUNH)
A changeling acting strangely. I turned to my page of changeling npcs, and picked Otto, aka Mirrorman. He was stealthily walking along behind people, imitating them and their mannerisms. The player decides she wants her character to imitate the imitator, but with a complete lack of stealth) so he does. Eventually they do the
"Stop imitating me!"
"Stop imitating me!"
"I'm stupid"
"You're stupid!"
"Nobody imitates Mirrorman!"
"Wait, that's your name? That totally lame!"
"Why won't you leave me alone!"
(etc)
conversation.
She heads down into the cogs, perhaps the riots are linked to the Daask thing? (uh... no... but they don't help)
She interrogates some hapless random NPC about the riots.
"This is the cogs, which ones?"
"From earlier today?"
"Narrow it down for me?"
"Unusually large ones?"
"Still not helping" (etc)
(DM lol troll)
Eventually between them they narrow it down to one of two, one close and one on the other side of the city.
The close one was caused by some goblin kids throwing refuse (that is, garbage, for our English impaired cousins across the pond), the Paladin chased after them, people objected.
She wanders over to the other side of the city, encountering several random people/rumours along the way.
Due to amazing good luck, she picks the exact spot where the riot happened, and does the post crime scene investigation. Some house Jorasco halflings are wandering around offering healing for 100gp a shot.
Turns out that apparently some six foot tall incredibly handsome (and masked, so how could they know he was handsome?) dashing swordsman hero has come to the aid of the common people and overthrown their oppressors. Several people are saying that they will name their babies after him, but they can't agree on what his name is. Some say there was a powerful spellcaster involved, and point to the charred remains of the T(r)oll booth as evidence. Neither of the entrepreneurial types are in evidence.
She runs out of copper for bribes, and decides to spend some at a shop. I say there are lots of shops, and even ethnic eateries.
We agree that she heads over to the small eatery selling orkish cuisine, where she overhears someone ranting about how there are rangers and druids in the city, but it doesn't make sense because there is no wilderness (actually there are zoos and parks on the upper levels, but who am I to throw an ugly fact into a beautiful conspiracy theory)
(For bonus irony, in Eberron the Druids are mostly Orks)
The rat on a stick is good. One natural 20 fort save later, it is fantastic, it is the best rat on a stick she's ever had. Burnt to a fine crisp, just the way it should be (the taste is in the carcinogens of course).
There were two combat encounters, and this is where the wheels (of the system) started coming off. I didn't think I could come up with proper NPCs so I picked mooks, and then couldn't figure out some pretty basic things, like what their initiative would be. (Did anybody playtest this thing with noobs? It seems like only someone who is already an expert can find their way around it?)
Anyway, the first encounter was at a warehouse where I was dangling some juicy bait (turns out I actually screwed up the planned order of some of these encounters and rumours (some are supposed to be the consequences of others))
Bait was swallowed, but stealth roll was fumbled. Player decided that they would proceed anyway, came face to face with a worker (level 1 mook) and pummelled the stuffing out of him.
They both ran away.
The next combat encounter was as a result of the "unusual NPC" random roll. I trotted out one of my favourites, the Warforged Druid with a bonsai tree on his head. He does the ministry of silly walks thing to keep it stable on top of his head.
She decides to knock it off his head, and chases off after him through the crowd. I do the opposed d20 thing to see if she can keep up with him, and he rolls a nat 1. Fitting really.
So she catches up to him, he calls her a meat bag and a flesh sack, she knocks his bonsai off his head and then it's all on like donkey kong.
Round 1. level 1 char vs level 3 mook. Fight!
She pummels him and does a bit of moving around, provoking an opportunity attack. He screams that she is a murderer, and casts Entangle.
I try to goad her into entering the square with the smashed pot plant, but she's having none of it. She says she's not a murderer, because its just a plant. He replies that plants are people too!
Next round he casts sanctuary on the pot plant and screams that she's a murderer again
She moves around some more, plinking him with a pistol.
Third round the Warforged unfolds a massive scythe (of scything!) from his exoskeleton.
Non-involved player says it wouldn't be a scythe, because that is for harvesting, e.g. killing plants, surely. I reply that it is for killing those plants which are collaborators with the filthy flesh bags.
He charges. Right over the top of his little buddy. Trample trample trample. "Look what you made me do!" He hits, but because he charged, his AC is lowered (thank effing eff for a search function on the iPad)
I suggested to player that she should vigor again. She didn't think she could (who the bleep knows?) do it more than once per combat. I ruled that I was happy for it, she went for it, which was a good thing because the attack of opportunity from the move means that now they're both on six hit points, and the mook has lowered AC.
She hits. It says "how about we call it a draw?" and then falls over.
I call the session at that point.
It's about 3+ hours of solid play, and I felt they deserved 3 points (probably more actually) each. They thought that advancement was a tad
on the fast side (it's Legend, all the dials are cranked up to 11).
Technically I think I'm supposed to give more xp to the one who actually had some combats, but emphasising combat (by rewarding combat more than role-play) is retarded, IMNSHO.
As it stands, they think 3 is too much, I think it's too little, eh... call it a happy medium.
(In Legend you need 6 points to hit level 2, 13 to hit level 3)
The characters woke up. Always a good thing. As part of their backgrounds I'd slipped in questions like "where are you sleeping?" and "who do you know?" And I'd dropped some pretty heavy hints that I have no material prepared for outside Sharn.
Since Sharn is in a manifest zone for the realm of light, air and fluffiness (rainbows and unicorns optional), we decided to give Legend a try. I don't really know Legend very well, so my basic task resolution is just opposed d20 rolls and keep the momentum going.
Interestingly, both of the players decided that they were dirt poor. Of course, at first level you get a magic item and all the mundane gear you want.
One of the characters is a Halfling Rogue Lucky-Bomber, (kind of like a cross between a rogue and pathfinder's alchemist) so he wanted to know stuff like how many vials he had, how much replacement vials cost etc.
I tried explaining that Legend doesn't even bother tracking your money, as a system it just doesn't care. I got a lot of pushback on that point though, so yeah, okay, you get your basic gear and 1gp 10sp and 10cp
Basically they just wandered around Sharn, looking for something that interested them. Since it was a first session I wanted to give them time to find their feet (they're both better role-players than I am), but also convey just how big the city is.
They were both dirt poor, and looking for some action. Well, not really looking for action, but with a bit of DM prodding they got out the door (the party is split and nobody knows each other).
The Rogue doesn't even have somewhere to live, he just breaks into your house while you're gone and does the goldilocks thing. On the way out the door that morning/afternoon, he snapped off an ornament to sell.
He wanders down to the market to sell the ornament.
Along the way, he spots a minotaur and an ogre arm wrestling. There's a small crowd, and they're taking bets. He bets 10sp on the Minotaur.
Unfortunately there's no stats for a generic Minotaur or Ogre, so I just tell him I'm going to roll a dice for it (all bar one or two of my rolls were in the open). Odds the Minotaur wins, evens he loses. Sadly, my dice decide they hate my players, and the Minotaur loses at arm wrestling.
At the market there is a chap selling a magical sword that glows blue in the presence of goblins. The players are intrigued (lol metagame trolling lol), but the asking price is 5,000gp. Just a tad out of his range. He tries to argue the price down but fails (seller keeps rolling natural 20s and piling up the poker chips). He gives up the negotiations, gets frustrated and tries to sneak up behind the vendor (in order to set a vial/bomb thingy on his cloak), rolling a nat 1 on stealth. So ... no. Now the vendor is suspicious.
Player stomps off to find their contact, a hot dog seller (don't ask what's in the meat) (very CMOTD I know)
At the vendor he complains about his luck, the vendor ask what's wrong, he says he lost betting on a minotaur and ogre arm wrestling match and she says immediately:
"Oh, everyone knows you should bet on the Minotaur!"
"I did!"
"It must have been rigged then!"
"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGHGGHGHGGHGGHNNNNGGNGNGNNG"
(DM lol troll)
So he heads down into the cogs, where I run one of my favourite set-pieces ever. Credit for this one goes to the guys that did the Shadowrun 100 crappy little random encounters book. Man they had some good supplements.
It's a Toll Booth, or more technically, a Troll Booth. (In the Shadowrun version the troll is up on an adjacent building with a sniper's rifle with wonky scopes for crappy accuracy).
The young troll and his enterprising young changeling friend have set up a tollbooth and are charging an "air tax 1 sp". The player interacts with various people in the crowd (there's an angry crowd, and a queue of people waiting to pay), trying to convince them to attack the troll. "Surely you and fifty of your mook friends can take him on?" for some strange reason (and my dice hate him) this fails (I thought it was a good attempt). He finally gets up to the front of the crowd, and interrogates the two entrepreneurs.
He wants to make a skill check, and jokingly suggests knowledge geography. I say sure. He rolls okay but not great, so I tell him that people building bridges often have trouble with trolls living under them.
(DM META-Troll lol)
Well, I thought it was funny, but that player missed the reference (the other one got it).
Anyway, he decides to stick his hand into the bowl of silver coins, and "pay" with one but use Larceny to sleight of hand two back out. Love it. Good thinking.
I remind him that he's out of silver.
"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGHGGHGHGGHGGHNNNNGGNGNGNNG"
(DM lol troll)
He wants to use copper. I say that will make the DC higher. He thinks about using gold. I remind him that gold >>> silver. So copper it is then.
He screws the roll up, but I say he gets the two silver out, they spot his trick, yell "hey!' and by the way, can you roll initiative please.
He wins initiative, hurls the bowl of silver into the crowd, and then double moves (escape stage left) through the crowd. Basically at this point he's free to go, but he decides to stick around. I describe a riot breaking out. He hurls one of his bombs over the crowd and sets the barricade on fire.
Yay for freedom and all that jazz! (This was (at player's request) supposed to be an evil campaign. ... Okay ... )
Now the other character is an Orc Swashbuckling Barbarian (anyone complaining about sub-optimality can just not do that please).
She goes and talks to her contacts, but hasn't really warmed up into the role yet, but I toss out the following tidbits:
On the way from A to B
She sees a pickpocket
Someone in a shadowy cloak asks her if she's interested in a slave auction
She gets pestered by an Aberrant Dragonmark rights activist (with pamphlets). (I played this for a bit and then had the other player take over, I thought he did okay).
(The idea was they could trade off and roleplay the other one's NPC encounters, to take pressure off the DM. The problem with that in Legend vs regular D&D is that in regular D&D I could dangle a 100xp carrot each time, in legend you can't really do that at all. I've started giving out poker chips for good/funny roleplaying instead)
A Summoner summoning animals and then making them do magic tricks to amuse a small crowd of cynical children (was originally going to be a pathfinder campaign, and many of the random encounters are slanted that way)
Random (or are they, muahahaha!) rumours she heard along the way:
There's a black dragon in the sewers
It's not safe to walk the streets anymore if you're a gnome
The paladins, cavaliers and inquisitors are all going to band together in a crusade against the hags, witches and oracles
One of her contacts suggested that she could make a killing breaking up teen romances on behalf of angry parents.
She heard a rumour about a riot in the cogs, and one of her contacts was willing to pay her 1gp to find out why the Daask (one of (at least) four large crime organizations in Sharn) seemed to be so upset lately. She decides to head down into the cogs.
The Rogue decides to head back to the market to sell his ornament. While he's there, someone in a shadowy cloak asks him if he's interested in the slave auctions. He isn't.
So he finds a buyer for the ornament, and tries asking ridiculous amounts of gold for it, the buyer keeps rolling nat 20s and beats him down to 1 gp. He offers 5sp, and I am literally right in the middle of accepting the offer when he decides "screw it! I'll sell it to someone else!"
Okay ... so he finds an artificer going through the crowd, buying up junky old magic items to melt them down for materials. The artificer sneers, but eventually agrees to buy the ornament for 3 sp. (Yes, I know)
The player and the Artificer still have one poker chip each left in their social pools. I point out that he can ask the Artificer for a favour. He decides to ask the artificer where he can get more vials. So the artificer shrugs and points out that lots of people sell them in the upper parts of the city. The player complains that they will probably be expensive. Artificer shrugs again.
The player is about to move on, when I hold up the Artificer's poker chip ... and point out that now that he's spent his chip, he can't counter when the artificer asks for a favour.
Player has a brown trousers moment
(lol troll)
And the artificer asks "so... do you know where I can find any magic items in this dump?"
Player (breathing audible sigh of relief tells him about the guy selling the magic shortsword which glows blue in the presence of goblins (on the other side of the market)).
Artificer goes "hmm... could be from the ancient wars... worth a look"
Player goes "but he wants 5,000gp", expecting the artificer to spit a spleen. Artificer is unphased.
Now, in my defence, I never implied that the artificer would be willing to pay even that much, but player suddenly gets the idea the sword is worth much more than that.
So suddenly he wants to get to the seller first (this is a classic example of me using opposed d20 rolls because I have no idea how Legend actually works). He rolls higher, and so gets first crack at it.
He's begging the sword seller to sell it to him, and promising him all sorts of things, 1 gp now, 6,000 by the end of the day (etc etc) He's working it so hard, very impressive roleplaying. He says how can anyone even carry 5,000gp (a fair point) and I mention the use of letters of credit (a commonish practice in Sharn)
Not being a complete troll (despite evidence to the contrary), I say that he can see the artificer coming over. His desperation doubles! Eventually I put the poor s.o.b. out of my misery by having the artificer turn up. He rolls a really low d20 to attempt to recognise the halfling, mutters something about how they all look the same to him, and then after a bit of negotiation and appraising the item, declares it is simply a normal sword with an enchantment to glow blue all the time. He offers 20gp. The con-man accepts. Money swaps hands, and they go in different ways.
The player wants to follow the 20gp and do some pick-pocketing, but other player convinced him to follow the source of the money.
The source of the money goes to a booth where they are selling used wands, buys up the stock and heads over to where they have really cheap rings of feather fall, 200gp each or my names not cut my own throat ring-seller-dude.
The artificer wants to have them demonstrated, but the seller refuses to jump off a bridge saying that he would - if he had an assistant. Player misses his straight line/setup. Okay, no problemo.
He follows the artificer back up to the middle level. Outside of house harkonnen's tower, I play the following cut-scene:
Two wizards on flying carpets collde because neither of them gives way. They start biffing various 4th edition spells at each other, then eventually run out of daily and encounter powers and have to (shock horror!) resort to at-wills.
While this is going on, two laconic police-officers on the ground are talking about how this is all very illegal in the city limits, and somebody should do something about it. "Call that a fireball? Couldn't even cook my tea with that" etc.
One of house harkonnen's wand mages puts her head out a window of the tower, yells at them to eff off because she has some very delicate experiments going on, and starts letting rip with both barrels. They dive and swoop and take evasive maneuvers and get away ASAP.
The dust settles, the player turns to me and says "oh! The artificer got away, didn't he?"
"Yup"
**facepalm**
(DM lol troll)
Now, back to the other character. She's on a warpath to find out what's up with those pesky Daask. Unfortunately, she failed her google-fu, so doesn't really know what they are. Lolburgers.
Randomness (or is it?) that she runs into in her quest for the mighty 1gp:
A wizard or a sorcerer arguing about which is more powerful, the wizard says he is more powerful because he has more flexibility, the sorc says "yea, but not today" and also points out the the spellbook is a weakness which can be exploited (DUNH DUNH DUNH)
A changeling acting strangely. I turned to my page of changeling npcs, and picked Otto, aka Mirrorman. He was stealthily walking along behind people, imitating them and their mannerisms. The player decides she wants her character to imitate the imitator, but with a complete lack of stealth) so he does. Eventually they do the
"Stop imitating me!"
"Stop imitating me!"
"I'm stupid"
"You're stupid!"
"Nobody imitates Mirrorman!"
"Wait, that's your name? That totally lame!"
"Why won't you leave me alone!"
(etc)
conversation.
She heads down into the cogs, perhaps the riots are linked to the Daask thing? (uh... no... but they don't help)
She interrogates some hapless random NPC about the riots.
"This is the cogs, which ones?"
"From earlier today?"
"Narrow it down for me?"
"Unusually large ones?"
"Still not helping" (etc)
(DM lol troll)
Eventually between them they narrow it down to one of two, one close and one on the other side of the city.
The close one was caused by some goblin kids throwing refuse (that is, garbage, for our English impaired cousins across the pond), the Paladin chased after them, people objected.
She wanders over to the other side of the city, encountering several random people/rumours along the way.
Due to amazing good luck, she picks the exact spot where the riot happened, and does the post crime scene investigation. Some house Jorasco halflings are wandering around offering healing for 100gp a shot.
Turns out that apparently some six foot tall incredibly handsome (and masked, so how could they know he was handsome?) dashing swordsman hero has come to the aid of the common people and overthrown their oppressors. Several people are saying that they will name their babies after him, but they can't agree on what his name is. Some say there was a powerful spellcaster involved, and point to the charred remains of the T(r)oll booth as evidence. Neither of the entrepreneurial types are in evidence.
She runs out of copper for bribes, and decides to spend some at a shop. I say there are lots of shops, and even ethnic eateries.
We agree that she heads over to the small eatery selling orkish cuisine, where she overhears someone ranting about how there are rangers and druids in the city, but it doesn't make sense because there is no wilderness (actually there are zoos and parks on the upper levels, but who am I to throw an ugly fact into a beautiful conspiracy theory)
(For bonus irony, in Eberron the Druids are mostly Orks)
The rat on a stick is good. One natural 20 fort save later, it is fantastic, it is the best rat on a stick she's ever had. Burnt to a fine crisp, just the way it should be (the taste is in the carcinogens of course).
There were two combat encounters, and this is where the wheels (of the system) started coming off. I didn't think I could come up with proper NPCs so I picked mooks, and then couldn't figure out some pretty basic things, like what their initiative would be. (Did anybody playtest this thing with noobs? It seems like only someone who is already an expert can find their way around it?)
Anyway, the first encounter was at a warehouse where I was dangling some juicy bait (turns out I actually screwed up the planned order of some of these encounters and rumours (some are supposed to be the consequences of others))
Bait was swallowed, but stealth roll was fumbled. Player decided that they would proceed anyway, came face to face with a worker (level 1 mook) and pummelled the stuffing out of him.
They both ran away.
The next combat encounter was as a result of the "unusual NPC" random roll. I trotted out one of my favourites, the Warforged Druid with a bonsai tree on his head. He does the ministry of silly walks thing to keep it stable on top of his head.
She decides to knock it off his head, and chases off after him through the crowd. I do the opposed d20 thing to see if she can keep up with him, and he rolls a nat 1. Fitting really.
So she catches up to him, he calls her a meat bag and a flesh sack, she knocks his bonsai off his head and then it's all on like donkey kong.
Round 1. level 1 char vs level 3 mook. Fight!
She pummels him and does a bit of moving around, provoking an opportunity attack. He screams that she is a murderer, and casts Entangle.
I try to goad her into entering the square with the smashed pot plant, but she's having none of it. She says she's not a murderer, because its just a plant. He replies that plants are people too!
Next round he casts sanctuary on the pot plant and screams that she's a murderer again
She moves around some more, plinking him with a pistol.
Third round the Warforged unfolds a massive scythe (of scything!) from his exoskeleton.
Non-involved player says it wouldn't be a scythe, because that is for harvesting, e.g. killing plants, surely. I reply that it is for killing those plants which are collaborators with the filthy flesh bags.
He charges. Right over the top of his little buddy. Trample trample trample. "Look what you made me do!" He hits, but because he charged, his AC is lowered (thank effing eff for a search function on the iPad)
I suggested to player that she should vigor again. She didn't think she could (who the bleep knows?) do it more than once per combat. I ruled that I was happy for it, she went for it, which was a good thing because the attack of opportunity from the move means that now they're both on six hit points, and the mook has lowered AC.
She hits. It says "how about we call it a draw?" and then falls over.
I call the session at that point.
It's about 3+ hours of solid play, and I felt they deserved 3 points (probably more actually) each. They thought that advancement was a tad
on the fast side (it's Legend, all the dials are cranked up to 11).
Technically I think I'm supposed to give more xp to the one who actually had some combats, but emphasising combat (by rewarding combat more than role-play) is retarded, IMNSHO.
As it stands, they think 3 is too much, I think it's too little, eh... call it a happy medium.
(In Legend you need 6 points to hit level 2, 13 to hit level 3)