Remember how I couldn't find the duration of ghoul paralysis back when I ran White Plume Mountain with AD&D?
Well, Dave Brown did, and sent me this email (posted with his permission):
"I seem to recall you mentioning ghoul paralysis in your White Plume Mountain session a while back.
Today, while looking over a very old issue of Dragon Magazine (#39 July 1980), I found THIS:
Question: In TD-37’s “Sage Advice” there was a question
referring to the paralysis caused by ghouls, ghasts and
carrion crawlers. The reply stated that the duration of the
paralysis was not clearly defined in any of the rule books.
However, a duration for the paralysis inflicted by ghouls is
given on page 15 of T1, The Village of Hommlet. It states that
“Any human or demi-human must save vs. paralyzation or
become immobile for 3-12 turns.” I suppose this is the
official word. Still, what is the duration of the paralysis
caused by ghasts and carrion crawlers?
Answer: According to Lawrence Schick, Vice-President for
Production and Design at TSR Hobbies, the paralyzation caused by
carrion crawlers is of the same duration as that caused by ghouls—
3-12 turns. Paralyzation caused by a ghast takes twice as long—6-24
turns—to wear off.
I don't recall your table ruling, but I thought you might like to see that they eventually patched it."
So, as Dave pointed out in another email, it took several years - and the author of White Plume Mountain - to answer a question left wide-open by the Monster Manual back in 1977. Geez. So while I undershot the number by a lot, hey, I didn't think to read every Sage Advice column for several years of Dragon magazines until I found one.
And for those who don't read playtester lists too closely, Dave was a very helpful playtester on GURPS Martial Arts.
Saturday, June 30, 2018
Friday, June 29, 2018
What next in Gamma Terra?
The other day after game we had some discussion about what to do next in Gamma Terra.
It's been a while since we played, due to a combination of factors. But one of them in us not knowing what to do next.
With a handful of the players around, we had some useful discussion.
We left it at:
- we want to loot that factory. To do so, we need androids.
- we want the Princess, the big floating cruise ship.
- we want to take all of this cool loot home with us.
To do that, it seems like the plan is:
1) Tell our allies we'll provide some androids.
2) Go back on Sweaty aka Warbot and get some of those droids (or send Sweaty back to get them with one of our absent PCs, and bring back Barbie with them along with our new player's new PC.)
3) Find a way to peacefully - hopefully - evict the Little Thieves from the factory.
4) Get the factory running with our androids.
5) Clear the cats off of the Princess.
6) Trade off with the Fit to get someone to help fix the Princess.
7) Load up the Princess with all of our loot, the cars from that lot, the bots we make, etc. - and head back to base.
8) Decide what's next.
Should be doable, right?
We'll see.
I'm not sure when the next session is - probably August - but we've got a rough plan, now, which is far more than we had in the time between last session and now!
It's been a while since we played, due to a combination of factors. But one of them in us not knowing what to do next.
With a handful of the players around, we had some useful discussion.
We left it at:
- we want to loot that factory. To do so, we need androids.
- we want the Princess, the big floating cruise ship.
- we want to take all of this cool loot home with us.
To do that, it seems like the plan is:
1) Tell our allies we'll provide some androids.
2) Go back on Sweaty aka Warbot and get some of those droids (or send Sweaty back to get them with one of our absent PCs, and bring back Barbie with them along with our new player's new PC.)
3) Find a way to peacefully - hopefully - evict the Little Thieves from the factory.
4) Get the factory running with our androids.
5) Clear the cats off of the Princess.
6) Trade off with the Fit to get someone to help fix the Princess.
7) Load up the Princess with all of our loot, the cars from that lot, the bots we make, etc. - and head back to base.
8) Decide what's next.
Should be doable, right?
We'll see.
I'm not sure when the next session is - probably August - but we've got a rough plan, now, which is far more than we had in the time between last session and now!
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Fantastic (Dungeon) Grappling playtest in Felltower
Our group got a preview of Douglas Cole's grappling rules from his new Kickstarter, Hall of Judgment.*
It saw use during a session of our DFRPG game, Felltower.
We had only a single grappling situation come up in play, but it was a critical display of the rules.
A strong and powerful knight had been charmed by some murderous nymphs, and was prepared to march to his doom. "Reward" as he saw it. Another PC, a brand-new swashbuckler, dropped his weapon and grabbed his friend to keep him from doing so. In an amazing series of excellent rolls, he was able to prevent the knight from simply walking away from the group. He held him for a couple critical seconds before the group's most powerful PC, another knight, was able to drop his weapon and grab the charmed knight. Together they pull him from his feet and dragged him bodily to safety.
The Hall of Judgment rules? They were able to support that. They did so . . . okay. Well, but not exactly in a way that gave us results we felt reflected how it should play out. We modified them on the fly to support them. The Fantastic Dungeon Grappling rules were able to take that change without breaking.
Some of our experience was colored by the fact that we've been using a modified and simplified set of the rules from GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling for a while. Rules, in fact, developed by Doug and I, then simplified even further and twisted into shape by repeated contact with the PCs. So we already know that using Control Points is awesome and enhances the game - they've been doing so in our own game for a while. We already knew what kind of CP effect calculations we liked, how to resolve grappling as an attack and how to simplify the myriad of details in Technical Grappling into a DFRPG-friendly roll-and-resolve speedy system of play. We came into it with our own homebrew knowing what works and what was clunky. We already knew that CP make the game better and more fun. They add a small amount of detail and tracking for a lot of drama and excitement.
So naturally, therefore, there were bits to Fantastic (Dungeon) Grappling that didn't appeal to the Dungeon Fantastic family of adventurers. Mostly, areas where the new rules were very close to ours, but differed in little ways that didn't appeal to us as much as our own. But there were plenty that did.
Where we'd been using a calculation to determine DX penalties and movement penalties, Doug had a simplified table written. We found the table was much faster. No longer would we calculate everyone's CP, their modified DX, their modified ST - we could just record CP and check the table. Much better than before. We also liked the simplified bonuses for skills. We'd done basically the same thing a while back, so we really liked seeing that integrated into the system. The system changed some little things that we'd house ruled away in the past, too.
Our older rules didn't really address forcing someone to move around with you. These did - and as you can see, it was a big deal. That we came up with suggested changes to them shows how valuable we recognize they are - they're going to keep playing a role in our game. We sent Doug a long list of suggestions, questions, and comments that he integrated into the rules (or rejected, or modified) as he saw fit. I think we gave Doug the tools to make the Fantastic Dungeon Grappling rules a bit better. And I like that his version of "simplified Technical Grappling" meshed well with ours, which will make our game better.
So overall?
These are good rules, and you should consider backing Hall of Judgment just to get them.
* Not really a surprise, is it? Doug and I have co-written some material, we playtest each other's stuff - we even worked on grappling articles together and have done some basic work on a modified version of Technical Grappling for Dungeon Fantasy. He is even responsible for the name Felltower and the name of Sterick and hence Stericksburg. So this is news like "fire is hot" is news. But hey, for folks who don't know us - fire is hot.
It saw use during a session of our DFRPG game, Felltower.
We had only a single grappling situation come up in play, but it was a critical display of the rules.
A strong and powerful knight had been charmed by some murderous nymphs, and was prepared to march to his doom. "Reward" as he saw it. Another PC, a brand-new swashbuckler, dropped his weapon and grabbed his friend to keep him from doing so. In an amazing series of excellent rolls, he was able to prevent the knight from simply walking away from the group. He held him for a couple critical seconds before the group's most powerful PC, another knight, was able to drop his weapon and grab the charmed knight. Together they pull him from his feet and dragged him bodily to safety.
The Hall of Judgment rules? They were able to support that. They did so . . . okay. Well, but not exactly in a way that gave us results we felt reflected how it should play out. We modified them on the fly to support them. The Fantastic Dungeon Grappling rules were able to take that change without breaking.
Some of our experience was colored by the fact that we've been using a modified and simplified set of the rules from GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling for a while. Rules, in fact, developed by Doug and I, then simplified even further and twisted into shape by repeated contact with the PCs. So we already know that using Control Points is awesome and enhances the game - they've been doing so in our own game for a while. We already knew what kind of CP effect calculations we liked, how to resolve grappling as an attack and how to simplify the myriad of details in Technical Grappling into a DFRPG-friendly roll-and-resolve speedy system of play. We came into it with our own homebrew knowing what works and what was clunky. We already knew that CP make the game better and more fun. They add a small amount of detail and tracking for a lot of drama and excitement.
So naturally, therefore, there were bits to Fantastic (Dungeon) Grappling that didn't appeal to the Dungeon Fantastic family of adventurers. Mostly, areas where the new rules were very close to ours, but differed in little ways that didn't appeal to us as much as our own. But there were plenty that did.
Where we'd been using a calculation to determine DX penalties and movement penalties, Doug had a simplified table written. We found the table was much faster. No longer would we calculate everyone's CP, their modified DX, their modified ST - we could just record CP and check the table. Much better than before. We also liked the simplified bonuses for skills. We'd done basically the same thing a while back, so we really liked seeing that integrated into the system. The system changed some little things that we'd house ruled away in the past, too.
Our older rules didn't really address forcing someone to move around with you. These did - and as you can see, it was a big deal. That we came up with suggested changes to them shows how valuable we recognize they are - they're going to keep playing a role in our game. We sent Doug a long list of suggestions, questions, and comments that he integrated into the rules (or rejected, or modified) as he saw fit. I think we gave Doug the tools to make the Fantastic Dungeon Grappling rules a bit better. And I like that his version of "simplified Technical Grappling" meshed well with ours, which will make our game better.
So overall?
These are good rules, and you should consider backing Hall of Judgment just to get them.
* Not really a surprise, is it? Doug and I have co-written some material, we playtest each other's stuff - we even worked on grappling articles together and have done some basic work on a modified version of Technical Grappling for Dungeon Fantasy. He is even responsible for the name Felltower and the name of Sterick and hence Stericksburg. So this is news like "fire is hot" is news. But hey, for folks who don't know us - fire is hot.
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Speeding Up In-Town Logistics - the GM's to-do list
I posted the other day about speeding up in-town logistics largely aimed at what the players need to do.
I have some of my own work to do, and I'm getting on with it.
- emailing people about research requests, special orders, and XP early. As in today, weeks out from next game day. If they need to get in their requests, so do I.
- following up on previous requests for information and pricing.
- ensuring the players and I are on the same page about what they want for the next game.
- start writing the rumors earlier.
Not a big list, for sure. But I do tend to put away my Felltower stuff after the game, write the summary, and then leave it sitting for weeks until 2-3 days out from game day. Then I start to do my pre-game prep. I need to get on that faster, as the players really held up their end of the "let's speed this up" bargain.
I have some of my own work to do, and I'm getting on with it.
- emailing people about research requests, special orders, and XP early. As in today, weeks out from next game day. If they need to get in their requests, so do I.
- following up on previous requests for information and pricing.
- ensuring the players and I are on the same page about what they want for the next game.
- start writing the rumors earlier.
Not a big list, for sure. But I do tend to put away my Felltower stuff after the game, write the summary, and then leave it sitting for weeks until 2-3 days out from game day. Then I start to do my pre-game prep. I need to get on that faster, as the players really held up their end of the "let's speed this up" bargain.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Advanced Labyrinth Lord
I backed this:
It would be nice to have a one-book LL that combines both the basic rules with all of the Advanced Edition Companion rules in one volume.
It would be nice to have a one-book LL that combines both the basic rules with all of the Advanced Edition Companion rules in one volume.
Monday, June 25, 2018
Basilisk
Here is that basilisk that the PCs encountered yesterday. I'm sad that I only own one of these:
He's just a series of layered browns, brushed with brown magic wash, with metallic peridot eyes.
I probably should have painted his talons a different color, but the mini is pretty small and looks good on the table.
I should get another one or two of that mini.
He's just a series of layered browns, brushed with brown magic wash, with metallic peridot eyes.
I probably should have painted his talons a different color, but the mini is pretty small and looks good on the table.
I should get another one or two of that mini.
Sunday, June 24, 2018
GURPS DF Session 105, Felltower 77 - For Want of Dispel Magic
Date: June 24th, 2018
Weather: Very warm, partly cloudy.
Characters:
Alaric, human scout (262 points)
Galen Longtread, human scout (372 points)
Gwynneth, high elf wizard (250 points)
Hayden the Unnamed, human knight (277 points)
Hjalmarr Holgerson, human knight (341 points)
Brother Ike, human initiate (160 points)
Jasper, human swashbuckler (250 points)
Vryce, human knight (509 points)
We started in town, gathering rumors and buying potions. All went pretty smoothly and very quickly, all things considered. Brother Ike tried to make holy Continual Light stones, but the Good God was clearly not happy with Mr. Hjalmarr, and punished him by taking the spell away from Ike for a while (he rolled an 18.) Gwynneth stepped up and made some.
The group headed right off to Felltower Castle, passing the headless statue of Sterick unmolested - none of the usual vandals were with the group, and Hjalmarr no longer even shakes his axe at the statue.
They climbed the castle easily enough, with Gwynneth lowering a rope after using Levitate. They climbed down the trapdoor entrance, and worked their way to the bottom of the giant staircase with no difficulty.
From there, they headed right for the giant orichalcum doors they'd previously discovered, since Jasper insisted the key they'd just found must be for those doors he'd heard them discuss.
They made it there pretty easily, and didn't hear a click or anything of the sort. No traps on the stairs, either. They did hear some distant scraping noises, but disregarded them. They found one of the black hemispheres they'd shattered was now fully intact. So the scouts shot it apart from a distance. After that, they made it to the big doors.
The doors are maybe 18' tall and 9'+ wide each, made of orichalcum, and covered with pictographs of birds, animals, fish, and weird symbols and squiggles connecting them all. Someone had painted a white triangle across the midpoint of the doors around arm level for a normal person. Hayden identified the pictographs as being from a lost civilization in the western deserts near Sham.
They began to search them for a keyhole. None was obvious. Hjlamarr took the key and touched it to the doors.
"That's not how keys work" pointed out Vryce helpfully, as the doors failed to open at the touch.
Alaric began to search the doors for a keyhole, inside the various symbols and so on. Naturally they started with the ones inside the triangle but there was nothing noticed there. As they waited, though, they began to hear a drag-stomp, drag-stomp muffled by doors. They immediately hightailed it out of there.
They headed to the trapped corridor. They found the traps they'd so frequently faced had been dismantled and removed, all except for the pressure plate. They avoided that and headed straight ahead. They soon found the corridor ended in caves, and head that drag-stomp, drag-stomp. Uh-oh, it was merely the "back way' to the Lord of Spite's caves. They retreated back and went around to the baffled hallway and toward the gnome's room. They found that the doorway nearest to the gnome's door was trapped with a tripwire leading to a covered tube around head level. "A tube of rot grubs!" suggested Galen, which upset Hjalmarr a lot. That set Hayden off talking about his buddy Quenton's rot grub launching blowpipe, which didn't make Hjalmarr any happier.
They continued on past Phase Snake Junction and past it, despite Jasper's urging that they go to the golems. He said, "I just want to hit something!"
From there they briefly checked on the "prison" and saw it was still there. They moved on. "That area is dead to us" said Hjalmarr, or something to that effect.
From there they found a new corridor they hadn't taken, and headed that way. They found a T intersection and heard scraping and hissing from the left, and smelled a musky odor. Maybe snakes or lizards? They formed up and headed that way, since anything in that direction was clearly stirring.
They moved down the hallway with the heaviest fighters in the lead, and Jasper impatiently moving up in the rear. They came to the corner of a room with a pair of pillars (a gate?) and two hissing eight-legged lizards.
Basilisks!
They shot their death gazes at Hjalmarr and Hayden, who both resisted and took some injury (2 and 5, respectively, if I recall correctly.) The PCs charged. They couldn't reach either on the first move, and Vryce and Hjalmarr took death gazes and again resisted, taking some injury but not the drop straight to near-death that basilisks are infamous for. Galen shot two arrows at one's eyes, missing one and hitting with the other, but the nearsighted basilisk managed to see the arrow in time and dodged! Alaric moved up and shot the same one twice and injured it badly. Jaspar ran up, just short of the basilisks. But even as they death-gazed the PCs, Hjalmarr closed in and chopped the wounded basilisk in the neck twice, with each blow being serious enough to probably kill it. It dropped, dead. Vryce sliced in the other apart with two serious blows (one did 32 damage, and his poorer one in the low 20s) and it died. Jasper was inconsolable, he didn't get to hit anything. The group tried to tell him that they couldn't spare even a split second, as the basilisks could kill them far too easily.
They searched the room, which thanks to a mispronunciation by Hjalmarr, is now called the Basilika. They found two unhatched basilisk eggs, and one with a split in it. Ike, meanwhile, was tasked with cutting out the valuable eyes. He managed to remove 3 of the 4, and they packed them in a cut up sack in the bottom of an empty quiver. The unhatched eggs they wrapped in Alaric's owlbear pelt cloak and put it in Vryce's backpack. They debated about what to do with the other. Hatch it? Keep it? Destroy it? Leave it alone? Hjalmarr really wanted to keep it. Someone argued it would bond with them when it was born, and they'd have a basilisk. Wiser heads prevailed and Hjalmarr reluctantly sliced it in half, finding after that he'd killed a nearly-hatched infant basilisk.
From there they examined the columns but whatever gate was there, was dead.
They found another nearby corridor and moved down it. Along the walls, increasing in numbers as they headed down it, were sigils, runes, and symbols of all kinds. Gwynneth said they weren't hazardous. By the end of the corridor, the walls and ceiling were covered with them. They clearly denoted strong magical power and affinity with water. Gwynneth detected the area was strong aspected pro-Water college spells and against Fire college spells.
Ahead of them was a "landing" in a water-filled cave. The land was just damp/wet cave floor that trailed off into water. The water was cobalt blue. They decided this was clearly "the water gate" since they'd found the air gate. They backed off without much exploration or examination.
The area they were in had no other ways out, so they moved on.
They eventually found themselves in an area they thought looked familiar on their map. So they spent about 20-30 minutes neatening up the map. Luckily for them nothing turned up to try and eat them.
They moved into some nearby caves, certain it was near the sinkhole they'd found a while back.
They took a tunnel they'd avoided before, and down a slippery slope to a damp room where they heard water dripping. In it was a small pool and a larger pool. Again, they decided to back off as they had nothing like Breath Water to explore with. But Jasper wanted to find out how deep the pools were. So he rushed in and dipped his staff into the smaller pool. It went all the way down without touching bottom! He moved to the next one and stuck in his staff. As his hands reached the water, a watery hand reached out and touched him! He felt momentarily paralyzed but snapped out of it in an instant. He stood, swept his staff up out of the water and around and hit the hand - he swung three times but the first splashed the watery hand into droplets. A moment later three beautiful watery forms rose from the pool - water nymphs!
The party turned to run, and Hjalmarr yelled at Jasper to run. He backed off so he could keep hitting the nymphs. One tried to reach him and he parried aside the hand and splashed it away. One of them, however, cast a spell on him. He resisted, thanks to Luck, despite his average Will. He started to run. Hjalmarr had been close behind. As Jasper ran she tried again, and he resisted. The nymphs turned on Hjalmarr in a moment, and cast on him. Hjalmarr resisted, thanks to Luck. A second later, though, he failed, and was charmed! He began to head toward the nymphs. Jasper dropped his staff and grabbed at Hjlamarr, and put 6 CP on him - his maximum. Hjlamarr tried to tear away from his grip and march away, but despite the odds (ST 13 vs. ST 18) Jasper handily kept him from moving! He did so again a second later, all the while resisting another Charm. Vryce grabbed Hjalmarr for another 10 CP, and he also resisted a Charm, barely (despite his Will 16.) With both holding Hjalmarr, they dragged him away.
As this was happening, Galen ran up and took two shots through the crowd at the main nymph. He hit her once, to no real effect . . . but missed the other because he slammed an arrow into Gwynneth, who was partially blocking his aim. Oops. He rolled maximum damage and Gwynneth dropped, barely making a death check. He sighed, stopped and grabbed her, and dragged him away.
They made it to safety and then Gwynneth snuck up closer and used Apportation to retrieve Jasper's staff from where he dropped it to grab Hjalmarr.
They sat on Hjalmarr and tried to figure out how to help him. No one knew Remove Curse or Dispel Magic. No one had an Alchemical Antidote, and it wasn't clear it would help (it wouldn't have.) So they tried slapping some sense into Hjalmarr. Hayden took off Hjalmarr's helmet as Hjalmarr said the nymphs were friendly, and had treasure and "other things" they wanted to share with him. Hayden slapped him. "I'll pull it to 1d" said his player. 6. BAM. Hard enough that it would have been a major wound on a normal person. It didn't work. He balled up a fist to "help" further. Ike used Command to Sleep, but that didn't work as it's an impossible command.
In the end, though, they decided to choke him out so they could put an unresisted Healing Slumber on him, and did so. They tied him up in any case, and made a litter out of a cloak - no one ever explained whose cloak - and two staves. Hayden and Jasper carried him.
They went and rested for a bit, but still Hjalmarr was still charmed. So Hayden choked him out against and they repeated the process. Down effectively three fighters, they had to be careful. No Dispel Magic meant they couldn't solve this problem in the dungeon, unless the charm timed out on its own. It became clear it would not.
They explored after this, finding a few more areas:
- the sinkhole.
- a set of windy, possibly natural stairs down a short distance. At the end of that was a cave, and there was a natural-seeming pair of columns embedded in the upper-right wall with a shimmering between them. Another gate! "Earth gate," they decided.
- they found the narrow passage that had frustrated them in the past, and Jasper suggested Shape Earth to widen it. They did so.
Beyond that, they found a nook with a skull in it, with a dagger rammed into the crown. They backed up a bit, carefully looking it over. Detect Magic revealed the dagger was not magical. So what was up here? Should they take it for Gerry to question?
Jasper strode forward and grabbed the skull.
And set off the deadfall rockfall trap. Stones crashed down on him. He blew his Per roll, and took 26 damage - he used Luck to re-roll that, and got it down to 22, half to his torso and half to his skull. Thanks to some solid skull DR (6) he wasn't killed outright, but was forced to make a death check. He passed that, but failed the KO roll. He dropped under a pile of rocks. They dug him out, and were relieved to find him still alive. Ike went to work. His skull - like the one he'd tried to retrieve - was broken. But a series of healing spells, First Aid, and a touch from the Staff of Healing brought Jasper back to full. But as they rested and healed, a sharp and acrid - yet faint - odor was detected. Several of the PCs took some FP loss from their long-term pile. They felt uneasy.
They moved back and headed back the way they came. They eventually decided on a shortcut, gambling that their map was right and they were close to the exit. They were, and found their way to the octagonal room by the other door. From there they headed to the stairs. They spent about 20 minutes debating going to explore elsewhere, but then decided on just heading home. They did so, stopped at the secret room with the red hand so Gwynneth could touch it.
They made it back safely to town, and got 580 sp for the two eggs and three eyes. They divided it up amongst everyone but Vryce.
Notes:
Spending XP by email actually sped things up a lot. We'll keep doing that.
We had an interesting test of an aspect of Douglas Cole's grappling rules for his new Kickstarter. I'd made my own set of simplified grappling rules off of Doug's Technical Grappling, in collaboration with Doug. But we tried his mostly straight-up and sent along our comments. We really liked one aspect of the rules, and liked the concept behind one of them but the execution left us with questions I sent along to Doug. Hopefully it'll help make our game and his supplement better for having tried them.
I love my version of the basilisk, shown off in DFM3, and I love what it became after Sean Punch weighed in on it and then Christopher Rice suggested upgunning it. They are scary, and even against high-HT PCs it's only a matter of time. The PCs did well to make it a race and stamp on Jasper's player's desire to get some blows in. One extra turn would have been extra damage, and who knows, maybe a PC without Luck would have blown a roll or two and died outright. You can't risk that.
MVP for the session was Hayden. Jasper's player furiously lobbied for himself for all of the truly amazing rolls he made. But he made them all after doing things that stirred up trouble that derailed the ability of the group to explore, so eventually they decided that cancelled out. Hayden's amusing 6 injury slap to Hjlamarr and then choking him out twice so he couldn't resist Healing Slumber was pretty funny, and that got him MVP. Everyone got 1 xp for exploration, and either 2 xp for loot or 0 (Vryce only.)
Fun session, but it was kind of sad that a lasting charm power derailed it. But they did choose to go into the dungeon without any ability to counter hostile spells of the sort. They probably won't do that again. For want of Dispel Magic, much exploration and risk-taking had to be severely curtailed.
Weather: Very warm, partly cloudy.
Characters:
Alaric, human scout (262 points)
Galen Longtread, human scout (372 points)
Gwynneth, high elf wizard (250 points)
Hayden the Unnamed, human knight (277 points)
Hjalmarr Holgerson, human knight (341 points)
Brother Ike, human initiate (160 points)
Jasper, human swashbuckler (250 points)
Vryce, human knight (509 points)
We started in town, gathering rumors and buying potions. All went pretty smoothly and very quickly, all things considered. Brother Ike tried to make holy Continual Light stones, but the Good God was clearly not happy with Mr. Hjalmarr, and punished him by taking the spell away from Ike for a while (he rolled an 18.) Gwynneth stepped up and made some.
The group headed right off to Felltower Castle, passing the headless statue of Sterick unmolested - none of the usual vandals were with the group, and Hjalmarr no longer even shakes his axe at the statue.
They climbed the castle easily enough, with Gwynneth lowering a rope after using Levitate. They climbed down the trapdoor entrance, and worked their way to the bottom of the giant staircase with no difficulty.
From there, they headed right for the giant orichalcum doors they'd previously discovered, since Jasper insisted the key they'd just found must be for those doors he'd heard them discuss.
They made it there pretty easily, and didn't hear a click or anything of the sort. No traps on the stairs, either. They did hear some distant scraping noises, but disregarded them. They found one of the black hemispheres they'd shattered was now fully intact. So the scouts shot it apart from a distance. After that, they made it to the big doors.
The doors are maybe 18' tall and 9'+ wide each, made of orichalcum, and covered with pictographs of birds, animals, fish, and weird symbols and squiggles connecting them all. Someone had painted a white triangle across the midpoint of the doors around arm level for a normal person. Hayden identified the pictographs as being from a lost civilization in the western deserts near Sham.
They began to search them for a keyhole. None was obvious. Hjlamarr took the key and touched it to the doors.
"That's not how keys work" pointed out Vryce helpfully, as the doors failed to open at the touch.
Alaric began to search the doors for a keyhole, inside the various symbols and so on. Naturally they started with the ones inside the triangle but there was nothing noticed there. As they waited, though, they began to hear a drag-stomp, drag-stomp muffled by doors. They immediately hightailed it out of there.
They headed to the trapped corridor. They found the traps they'd so frequently faced had been dismantled and removed, all except for the pressure plate. They avoided that and headed straight ahead. They soon found the corridor ended in caves, and head that drag-stomp, drag-stomp. Uh-oh, it was merely the "back way' to the Lord of Spite's caves. They retreated back and went around to the baffled hallway and toward the gnome's room. They found that the doorway nearest to the gnome's door was trapped with a tripwire leading to a covered tube around head level. "A tube of rot grubs!" suggested Galen, which upset Hjalmarr a lot. That set Hayden off talking about his buddy Quenton's rot grub launching blowpipe, which didn't make Hjalmarr any happier.
They continued on past Phase Snake Junction and past it, despite Jasper's urging that they go to the golems. He said, "I just want to hit something!"
From there they briefly checked on the "prison" and saw it was still there. They moved on. "That area is dead to us" said Hjalmarr, or something to that effect.
From there they found a new corridor they hadn't taken, and headed that way. They found a T intersection and heard scraping and hissing from the left, and smelled a musky odor. Maybe snakes or lizards? They formed up and headed that way, since anything in that direction was clearly stirring.
They moved down the hallway with the heaviest fighters in the lead, and Jasper impatiently moving up in the rear. They came to the corner of a room with a pair of pillars (a gate?) and two hissing eight-legged lizards.
Basilisks!
They shot their death gazes at Hjalmarr and Hayden, who both resisted and took some injury (2 and 5, respectively, if I recall correctly.) The PCs charged. They couldn't reach either on the first move, and Vryce and Hjalmarr took death gazes and again resisted, taking some injury but not the drop straight to near-death that basilisks are infamous for. Galen shot two arrows at one's eyes, missing one and hitting with the other, but the nearsighted basilisk managed to see the arrow in time and dodged! Alaric moved up and shot the same one twice and injured it badly. Jaspar ran up, just short of the basilisks. But even as they death-gazed the PCs, Hjalmarr closed in and chopped the wounded basilisk in the neck twice, with each blow being serious enough to probably kill it. It dropped, dead. Vryce sliced in the other apart with two serious blows (one did 32 damage, and his poorer one in the low 20s) and it died. Jasper was inconsolable, he didn't get to hit anything. The group tried to tell him that they couldn't spare even a split second, as the basilisks could kill them far too easily.
They searched the room, which thanks to a mispronunciation by Hjalmarr, is now called the Basilika. They found two unhatched basilisk eggs, and one with a split in it. Ike, meanwhile, was tasked with cutting out the valuable eyes. He managed to remove 3 of the 4, and they packed them in a cut up sack in the bottom of an empty quiver. The unhatched eggs they wrapped in Alaric's owlbear pelt cloak and put it in Vryce's backpack. They debated about what to do with the other. Hatch it? Keep it? Destroy it? Leave it alone? Hjalmarr really wanted to keep it. Someone argued it would bond with them when it was born, and they'd have a basilisk. Wiser heads prevailed and Hjalmarr reluctantly sliced it in half, finding after that he'd killed a nearly-hatched infant basilisk.
From there they examined the columns but whatever gate was there, was dead.
They found another nearby corridor and moved down it. Along the walls, increasing in numbers as they headed down it, were sigils, runes, and symbols of all kinds. Gwynneth said they weren't hazardous. By the end of the corridor, the walls and ceiling were covered with them. They clearly denoted strong magical power and affinity with water. Gwynneth detected the area was strong aspected pro-Water college spells and against Fire college spells.
Ahead of them was a "landing" in a water-filled cave. The land was just damp/wet cave floor that trailed off into water. The water was cobalt blue. They decided this was clearly "the water gate" since they'd found the air gate. They backed off without much exploration or examination.
The area they were in had no other ways out, so they moved on.
They eventually found themselves in an area they thought looked familiar on their map. So they spent about 20-30 minutes neatening up the map. Luckily for them nothing turned up to try and eat them.
They moved into some nearby caves, certain it was near the sinkhole they'd found a while back.
They took a tunnel they'd avoided before, and down a slippery slope to a damp room where they heard water dripping. In it was a small pool and a larger pool. Again, they decided to back off as they had nothing like Breath Water to explore with. But Jasper wanted to find out how deep the pools were. So he rushed in and dipped his staff into the smaller pool. It went all the way down without touching bottom! He moved to the next one and stuck in his staff. As his hands reached the water, a watery hand reached out and touched him! He felt momentarily paralyzed but snapped out of it in an instant. He stood, swept his staff up out of the water and around and hit the hand - he swung three times but the first splashed the watery hand into droplets. A moment later three beautiful watery forms rose from the pool - water nymphs!
The party turned to run, and Hjalmarr yelled at Jasper to run. He backed off so he could keep hitting the nymphs. One tried to reach him and he parried aside the hand and splashed it away. One of them, however, cast a spell on him. He resisted, thanks to Luck, despite his average Will. He started to run. Hjalmarr had been close behind. As Jasper ran she tried again, and he resisted. The nymphs turned on Hjalmarr in a moment, and cast on him. Hjalmarr resisted, thanks to Luck. A second later, though, he failed, and was charmed! He began to head toward the nymphs. Jasper dropped his staff and grabbed at Hjlamarr, and put 6 CP on him - his maximum. Hjlamarr tried to tear away from his grip and march away, but despite the odds (ST 13 vs. ST 18) Jasper handily kept him from moving! He did so again a second later, all the while resisting another Charm. Vryce grabbed Hjalmarr for another 10 CP, and he also resisted a Charm, barely (despite his Will 16.) With both holding Hjalmarr, they dragged him away.
As this was happening, Galen ran up and took two shots through the crowd at the main nymph. He hit her once, to no real effect . . . but missed the other because he slammed an arrow into Gwynneth, who was partially blocking his aim. Oops. He rolled maximum damage and Gwynneth dropped, barely making a death check. He sighed, stopped and grabbed her, and dragged him away.
They made it to safety and then Gwynneth snuck up closer and used Apportation to retrieve Jasper's staff from where he dropped it to grab Hjalmarr.
They sat on Hjalmarr and tried to figure out how to help him. No one knew Remove Curse or Dispel Magic. No one had an Alchemical Antidote, and it wasn't clear it would help (it wouldn't have.) So they tried slapping some sense into Hjalmarr. Hayden took off Hjalmarr's helmet as Hjalmarr said the nymphs were friendly, and had treasure and "other things" they wanted to share with him. Hayden slapped him. "I'll pull it to 1d" said his player. 6. BAM. Hard enough that it would have been a major wound on a normal person. It didn't work. He balled up a fist to "help" further. Ike used Command to Sleep, but that didn't work as it's an impossible command.
In the end, though, they decided to choke him out so they could put an unresisted Healing Slumber on him, and did so. They tied him up in any case, and made a litter out of a cloak - no one ever explained whose cloak - and two staves. Hayden and Jasper carried him.
They went and rested for a bit, but still Hjalmarr was still charmed. So Hayden choked him out against and they repeated the process. Down effectively three fighters, they had to be careful. No Dispel Magic meant they couldn't solve this problem in the dungeon, unless the charm timed out on its own. It became clear it would not.
They explored after this, finding a few more areas:
- the sinkhole.
- a set of windy, possibly natural stairs down a short distance. At the end of that was a cave, and there was a natural-seeming pair of columns embedded in the upper-right wall with a shimmering between them. Another gate! "Earth gate," they decided.
- they found the narrow passage that had frustrated them in the past, and Jasper suggested Shape Earth to widen it. They did so.
Beyond that, they found a nook with a skull in it, with a dagger rammed into the crown. They backed up a bit, carefully looking it over. Detect Magic revealed the dagger was not magical. So what was up here? Should they take it for Gerry to question?
Jasper strode forward and grabbed the skull.
And set off the deadfall rockfall trap. Stones crashed down on him. He blew his Per roll, and took 26 damage - he used Luck to re-roll that, and got it down to 22, half to his torso and half to his skull. Thanks to some solid skull DR (6) he wasn't killed outright, but was forced to make a death check. He passed that, but failed the KO roll. He dropped under a pile of rocks. They dug him out, and were relieved to find him still alive. Ike went to work. His skull - like the one he'd tried to retrieve - was broken. But a series of healing spells, First Aid, and a touch from the Staff of Healing brought Jasper back to full. But as they rested and healed, a sharp and acrid - yet faint - odor was detected. Several of the PCs took some FP loss from their long-term pile. They felt uneasy.
They moved back and headed back the way they came. They eventually decided on a shortcut, gambling that their map was right and they were close to the exit. They were, and found their way to the octagonal room by the other door. From there they headed to the stairs. They spent about 20 minutes debating going to explore elsewhere, but then decided on just heading home. They did so, stopped at the secret room with the red hand so Gwynneth could touch it.
They made it back safely to town, and got 580 sp for the two eggs and three eyes. They divided it up amongst everyone but Vryce.
Notes:
Spending XP by email actually sped things up a lot. We'll keep doing that.
We had an interesting test of an aspect of Douglas Cole's grappling rules for his new Kickstarter. I'd made my own set of simplified grappling rules off of Doug's Technical Grappling, in collaboration with Doug. But we tried his mostly straight-up and sent along our comments. We really liked one aspect of the rules, and liked the concept behind one of them but the execution left us with questions I sent along to Doug. Hopefully it'll help make our game and his supplement better for having tried them.
I love my version of the basilisk, shown off in DFM3, and I love what it became after Sean Punch weighed in on it and then Christopher Rice suggested upgunning it. They are scary, and even against high-HT PCs it's only a matter of time. The PCs did well to make it a race and stamp on Jasper's player's desire to get some blows in. One extra turn would have been extra damage, and who knows, maybe a PC without Luck would have blown a roll or two and died outright. You can't risk that.
MVP for the session was Hayden. Jasper's player furiously lobbied for himself for all of the truly amazing rolls he made. But he made them all after doing things that stirred up trouble that derailed the ability of the group to explore, so eventually they decided that cancelled out. Hayden's amusing 6 injury slap to Hjlamarr and then choking him out twice so he couldn't resist Healing Slumber was pretty funny, and that got him MVP. Everyone got 1 xp for exploration, and either 2 xp for loot or 0 (Vryce only.)
Fun session, but it was kind of sad that a lasting charm power derailed it. But they did choose to go into the dungeon without any ability to counter hostile spells of the sort. They probably won't do that again. For want of Dispel Magic, much exploration and risk-taking had to be severely curtailed.
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