Adumbration
2008-03-30, 02:00 PM
Now, SoD, and anyone else of my group, avert your eyes.
I DM one of the games that we have been having lately. It features three gestalt goblins: see the spoiler for what has happened so far, told by one of the players:
Well, let's see, an update on how we went...
Presession: At the last moment, I decided, on a whim, to go a swashbuckler//warmage instead of ninja//soulknife, which meant we had an arcanist (I also put ranks into UMD, for a few feats I want to pick up later). It was going to be a suprise for the others about my change in class...but someone grabbed my character sheet to peek at my wisdom score. We also breifly went around and gave a breif discription of our characters.
Rogue//Monk: a wandering goblin monk, who joined up with us. LN (I personally hold the lawful alignment under question).
Cleric (Kord)//Fighter: NG goblin. Out because he like to kill. Upon questioning (from me) about the fact he was neuatral good, that changed to: enjoys overcoming challenges and is out for that reason.
Swashbuckler//Warmage: LG goblin, and wants to become a paladin (there are no paladin goblins in the village), and has to learn from an existing paladin. His name is Thudruk, but upon gaining a level in paladin, he will take on the name 'Prator' after one of the most powerful paladins who ever lived. He, someday, wants to recover the Sheild of Prator (major artifact, DMG). If able to reach paladinhood, he will go up in Paladin instead of Swashbuckler (I want to at least hit Swashbuckler 3 for the int to damage). Oh, it'll be non-spell casting paladin (can you say 6 wisdom?!).
Begining: We were playing 'A Dark and Stormy Knight' (slightly modified). After going in and setting up, and failing to opon the doors, our cleric bull rushed one...and it fell in on him. The 8 rats swarmed out at us, I ran up to them, but didn't have enough to attack or cast a spell, 2 went for the cleric, 2 went for the monk, I got the first kill. Burning Hands scorched three of them at once (all killed), then a forth provoked an AoO when going for the monk, which I killed it with. The cleric dealt with his two, and the monk managed to flurry the other two in one round, up until that, he hadn't hit a single one!
The first doorway: The other two enter, and the vargoulle (whatever) screams and attacks. I hear the scream, and rush up. Cleric casts 'cause fear' and it fails its save. Then I ran in and magic missled it to death in one shot (total of 8 damage [4 on d4, +1 for magic missle damage, +3 int for warmage edge]). We grab the loot and XP.
The second doorway: I see the chest, run up, opon it, and get hit in the face with a dart fullisade. We grab loot and leave.
The third doorway: We enter, and see an elf standing there. He says 'storm peace' and then fires at us. We deal with him easily, but I refuse to let the monk kill him. There is a rope tied to the top of a chute, leading to the surface. I start climbing it. Conversation: 'Where are you going?' 'I'm getting the rope for us!' 'What?' 'Simple, I climb up, cut the rope with my handaxe, then climb down.' '...seriously?' 'Yup.' 'How are you going to climb back down?' 'Down the rope.' '...' '...oh.' Luckily, Mr. Drow had his own rope, so I tied him up with that. They continue on, I stay to tie up Mr. Drow.
The final encounter: They find a bugbear zombie, which knocks out the monk with a javelin, then a hit from its morningstar (I know zombies can't move and attack in one round...does that include five foot steps?). The cleric ran down a small passageway, and it follows him. Then I get there, and block the zombies exit. Cleric turns undead, it runs away...but I'm in the way, so it cowers in front of me. I then start throwing disrupt undeads at it, then, when I was out of spells, hack away with my handaxe. After the turning wears off, it gets up, the cleric aproaches and we flank and hack away at it. It knocks me unconcious, the cleric runs away...fails his spot checks, both to see the spider, and to see the spiders web...and gets stuck. The spider comes down, and bites him (bad roll, thank god). Zombie aproaches and takes a swing at the spider. Spider, seeing it as more of a threat, then tries to bite it instead...scores a critical hit...bypasses the DR...and kills it. The zombie that nearly TPK'd us, knocked two of us out, and made the third run off was killed by a spider. Cleric escapes and kills the spider. Heals the pair of us, I take off the spider to give it a decent burial.
Afterwards: The drow has a map! I interogate him, convince him to help us (although he's leading us into a trap, but I don't know that), and bribe the monk into not killing him (I had to give away my headband! I needed that +1 to will saves! and it ends as we lead off to the drows stronghold.
Oh, and the cleric leveled up...and we didn't...grr.
__________________
It contains pretty much what happened.
Here's what going to happen next. The three goblins are lead by their drow guide - surprise, surprise - into an ambush. There will be a cleric, sorceror, barbarian and rapier-dual-wielding fighter, alongside with their class-less comrade Fulin, their supposed scout. He'll make a run for it in the beginning of the fight.
I have some questions here:
Is this a fair fight?
What's the CR of this encounter (I'm still new to Dm'ing, so please forgive me)?
How much/what treasure should I give them? Again, sorry for ignorance, but the last adventure was pre-made so I didn't do much preparing.
What tactics should I use?
I expect the two others to catch up in levels in this fight. After the fight, or even during it, it depends, the adventurers will discover that the drow had a prisoner: a young hobgoblin paladin. After releasing him (I hope) he will leave for his own underground city through a portal - the very same that the drow came through. I'm hoping that the PCs will follow, since one of them - the most experience one - has expressed that his character wants to become a paladin. This should hook him, and maybe a couple of promises of rewards will take the rest.
After a few days of travel, they arrive at the goblin/hobgoblin town. It is relatively small, with only a few hundred inhabitants living in a large cave, but it is well-structured due to its paladin chief. They live off a mushroom farm and a small, dammed lake of fresh-water with trouts in it. The dam merely holds the river enough for a lake to form, before it runs into the great underground sea nearby.
There'll be a few possible quests for them. I expect them to stay there for at least a little while, until the to-be-paladin is initiated. Meet quest number one. I am going to adapt the pre-made adventure from the wizards of the coast website "Windswept" into underground conditions.
Basically this means that there is a 10th level human wizard living nearby - underground - that hires the goblins for mining and construction purposes. But something goes wrong, of course. There's a cave-in, and the PCs are needed. The high-level paladin NPC can't participate in this or other quests, becouse he is investigating the possible drow threat.
After that, I'll introduce another pre-made adventure: "Bad light," that takes place near the sea.
Well, this about what I have thought out so far. Any thoughts? Opinions? Would you play this campaign?
I DM one of the games that we have been having lately. It features three gestalt goblins: see the spoiler for what has happened so far, told by one of the players:
Well, let's see, an update on how we went...
Presession: At the last moment, I decided, on a whim, to go a swashbuckler//warmage instead of ninja//soulknife, which meant we had an arcanist (I also put ranks into UMD, for a few feats I want to pick up later). It was going to be a suprise for the others about my change in class...but someone grabbed my character sheet to peek at my wisdom score. We also breifly went around and gave a breif discription of our characters.
Rogue//Monk: a wandering goblin monk, who joined up with us. LN (I personally hold the lawful alignment under question).
Cleric (Kord)//Fighter: NG goblin. Out because he like to kill. Upon questioning (from me) about the fact he was neuatral good, that changed to: enjoys overcoming challenges and is out for that reason.
Swashbuckler//Warmage: LG goblin, and wants to become a paladin (there are no paladin goblins in the village), and has to learn from an existing paladin. His name is Thudruk, but upon gaining a level in paladin, he will take on the name 'Prator' after one of the most powerful paladins who ever lived. He, someday, wants to recover the Sheild of Prator (major artifact, DMG). If able to reach paladinhood, he will go up in Paladin instead of Swashbuckler (I want to at least hit Swashbuckler 3 for the int to damage). Oh, it'll be non-spell casting paladin (can you say 6 wisdom?!).
Begining: We were playing 'A Dark and Stormy Knight' (slightly modified). After going in and setting up, and failing to opon the doors, our cleric bull rushed one...and it fell in on him. The 8 rats swarmed out at us, I ran up to them, but didn't have enough to attack or cast a spell, 2 went for the cleric, 2 went for the monk, I got the first kill. Burning Hands scorched three of them at once (all killed), then a forth provoked an AoO when going for the monk, which I killed it with. The cleric dealt with his two, and the monk managed to flurry the other two in one round, up until that, he hadn't hit a single one!
The first doorway: The other two enter, and the vargoulle (whatever) screams and attacks. I hear the scream, and rush up. Cleric casts 'cause fear' and it fails its save. Then I ran in and magic missled it to death in one shot (total of 8 damage [4 on d4, +1 for magic missle damage, +3 int for warmage edge]). We grab the loot and XP.
The second doorway: I see the chest, run up, opon it, and get hit in the face with a dart fullisade. We grab loot and leave.
The third doorway: We enter, and see an elf standing there. He says 'storm peace' and then fires at us. We deal with him easily, but I refuse to let the monk kill him. There is a rope tied to the top of a chute, leading to the surface. I start climbing it. Conversation: 'Where are you going?' 'I'm getting the rope for us!' 'What?' 'Simple, I climb up, cut the rope with my handaxe, then climb down.' '...seriously?' 'Yup.' 'How are you going to climb back down?' 'Down the rope.' '...' '...oh.' Luckily, Mr. Drow had his own rope, so I tied him up with that. They continue on, I stay to tie up Mr. Drow.
The final encounter: They find a bugbear zombie, which knocks out the monk with a javelin, then a hit from its morningstar (I know zombies can't move and attack in one round...does that include five foot steps?). The cleric ran down a small passageway, and it follows him. Then I get there, and block the zombies exit. Cleric turns undead, it runs away...but I'm in the way, so it cowers in front of me. I then start throwing disrupt undeads at it, then, when I was out of spells, hack away with my handaxe. After the turning wears off, it gets up, the cleric aproaches and we flank and hack away at it. It knocks me unconcious, the cleric runs away...fails his spot checks, both to see the spider, and to see the spiders web...and gets stuck. The spider comes down, and bites him (bad roll, thank god). Zombie aproaches and takes a swing at the spider. Spider, seeing it as more of a threat, then tries to bite it instead...scores a critical hit...bypasses the DR...and kills it. The zombie that nearly TPK'd us, knocked two of us out, and made the third run off was killed by a spider. Cleric escapes and kills the spider. Heals the pair of us, I take off the spider to give it a decent burial.
Afterwards: The drow has a map! I interogate him, convince him to help us (although he's leading us into a trap, but I don't know that), and bribe the monk into not killing him (I had to give away my headband! I needed that +1 to will saves! and it ends as we lead off to the drows stronghold.
Oh, and the cleric leveled up...and we didn't...grr.
__________________
It contains pretty much what happened.
Here's what going to happen next. The three goblins are lead by their drow guide - surprise, surprise - into an ambush. There will be a cleric, sorceror, barbarian and rapier-dual-wielding fighter, alongside with their class-less comrade Fulin, their supposed scout. He'll make a run for it in the beginning of the fight.
I have some questions here:
Is this a fair fight?
What's the CR of this encounter (I'm still new to Dm'ing, so please forgive me)?
How much/what treasure should I give them? Again, sorry for ignorance, but the last adventure was pre-made so I didn't do much preparing.
What tactics should I use?
I expect the two others to catch up in levels in this fight. After the fight, or even during it, it depends, the adventurers will discover that the drow had a prisoner: a young hobgoblin paladin. After releasing him (I hope) he will leave for his own underground city through a portal - the very same that the drow came through. I'm hoping that the PCs will follow, since one of them - the most experience one - has expressed that his character wants to become a paladin. This should hook him, and maybe a couple of promises of rewards will take the rest.
After a few days of travel, they arrive at the goblin/hobgoblin town. It is relatively small, with only a few hundred inhabitants living in a large cave, but it is well-structured due to its paladin chief. They live off a mushroom farm and a small, dammed lake of fresh-water with trouts in it. The dam merely holds the river enough for a lake to form, before it runs into the great underground sea nearby.
There'll be a few possible quests for them. I expect them to stay there for at least a little while, until the to-be-paladin is initiated. Meet quest number one. I am going to adapt the pre-made adventure from the wizards of the coast website "Windswept" into underground conditions.
Basically this means that there is a 10th level human wizard living nearby - underground - that hires the goblins for mining and construction purposes. But something goes wrong, of course. There's a cave-in, and the PCs are needed. The high-level paladin NPC can't participate in this or other quests, becouse he is investigating the possible drow threat.
After that, I'll introduce another pre-made adventure: "Bad light," that takes place near the sea.
Well, this about what I have thought out so far. Any thoughts? Opinions? Would you play this campaign?