DF Lost City: Did Hjalmarr Stay Dead?

Busy week this week, mopping up after the last game session.

We ended with:

- one dead PC (Hjalmarr Holgersson)
- two magic items (a shortsword and a ring)
- not enough cash to have Resurrection cast (at an 11 or less to succeed!)
- a character too low in point value (at only 264 points) to make Cut-Rate Resurrection make sense.

What to do?

First things first - does the player want the character back? Yes, he did.

Then, which magic item to sell? Analyze Magic by Hasdrubel followed by some conversations with the locals told them the following:

- The ring is +3 Will plus gives Immovable Stance skill.

- The sword is a magical very fine single-edged shortsword called "The Razor" that is especially good at cutting off limbs and extremities.

After a lot of debate, they sold the sword since no one uses Shortswords as a primary weapon. Plus, there was an impassioned "a good defense is a good offense" argument for the ring. Personally, I'm not shocked - my players are a survival-and-resistance-first group.

Some related questions came up:

There is a guy in a trading camp with Power Investiture 6 and access to 300 energy?

No. But there is a healing for the pilgrims, who are starting to work their way back, who has access to a Charged Scroll of Resurrection. He could use that and a few hours and get the job done.

If it failed, well, they'd use Final Rest, no charge.

We get change, right?

The sword is salable for more than the 15K for the Resurrection spell. But the priest threw in roughly 9-10K worth of healing-related potions, some healing spells on the wounded, and introductions to some potential Ally Initiates specializing in healing. They didn't exactly has 30+ pounds of silver and gold coins to hand over. Giving away the extras they didn't need to use on the trip, sure, why not? Besides, the Church could sell that sword for 100%+ of its value, if they don't keep it for some hero elsewhere in the world, and they don't buy their potions. It's a financial win for them. But the PCs need potions anyway, and these are over and above what they could buy. So it was a financial win for the PCs.

Can't he just make a new character who happens to be Weapon Master (Shortsword)?

No. For a lot of reasons. Partly because it's pretty meta-game-hacky. Second because, realistically, would a bunch of guys with a dead friend, a magic sword they feel they don't really need, and a chance to sell it and get him brought back leave him dead and hand the sword to the next fighter they met? Probably not. Nevermind Sense of Duty and similar disadvantages.

We've been, as a group, pretty generous with bootstrapping but also very strict about making new characters come in ready to go. You can't show up with no sword, or no armor (but just happen to be the same build as a PC who is upgrading to a new suit), or whatever. If you do, expect to spend a delve or two proving you won't die before the senior PCs start to hand you stuff.

But mainly because it doesn't make for a lot of fun.

(It was a good, valid question - it's just we'd moved on past that long ago.)



And the roll? 11 or less (15 skill, 4 days dead) and I rolled a 6, 3, and 1 = 10. Hjalmarr is once more amongst the living.

And spent his points - including the ones he netted this session - on an Ally healer. Heh.


So that's how it went. The stats for The Razor? I'll try to get them in an article or book in the future. Too bad, I was hoping to see it get actually used.