Further Adventures in Playing God · 9:04pm May 15th, 2013
So since I last posted I've had a couple of more D&D sessions between endless college essays and job-hunting (which has been putting off the next chapter of ALBHO. Terribly sorry about this, but the chapter is at about 15-20% done. I'll work on it more once finals are over next week). Since my exploits of screwing with my players seem to amuse a few of you I'll make these a bit of a regular thing.
So, at the end of the previous blog, my group fought The Tainted Man (Bryan the overpowered character now has cancer) and uncovered more government secrets involving the Projects. Behind these projects is a mysterious character whom they know as Minister Goldwright. Many questions remain, such as "Who is Goldwright? What were the other projects? What happened to the Phoenix Talisman? What is Enervation and where does it come from? Where does Taint come from? Seriously, What the hell does IC-1101 do?"
I'll answer some of these as soon as I figure out the answers to them myself. Most of them I already know, at least.
We then entered session #9, also known as "Into The Toxic Jungle"
This was a great worldbuilding session for me and the group, because I got to show them the toxic jungle and explain more of the game mechanics. In this session we had Greg as The Knight and his cohort The Hood, Bryan as Domino the Summoner, Ryan as Vaste the Fighter (with a robot dog companion), and Conor as John with his Inquisitor Cohort.
This session started off saying goodbye to Bartholomew who ventured off in order to go on a spiritual journey and hopefully kick his drug addiction. Nicholas Cage the sorcerer also departed temporarily in order to further pursue his acting career. (This is the fancy way of saying that these two people were absent for the session)
First off, the group went back to a city called Menethil on the coast, where they have a good acquaintance known as Liam Voruus, one of the most prestigious authors on the continent and a professor of just about everything. From him they learned some more about the dangers of Enervation, and the toxic jungle. Equipped with Knowledge, they then went to the town of Market, in the borderland wastes, in order to acquire equipment they would need in order to survive.
Now, my group has been trying very very hard in order to avoid as much npc contact as possible. It's grating really, because I need them to run into/kill a certain character so that I can further advance the plot and mystery surrounding IC-1101. So when they went to Market, the first thing that they suggested they do was sneak in and steal the environmental tent they needed. They only didn't do this because I threw my fist down and said that I was stripping them of their lawful and good alignments if they did that. So, grudgingly, they paid the entrance fee into the town and bought the tent. All prepared to further the plot at this point, I stopped them right outside the town and confronted them with the man that has been chasing them across the continent, Deus. (Immediately dubbed Douche. And none of the characters will use his real name now). He had fifteen people with him, all low level grunts with rifles. Since they were missing Dave the AoE dealer, the group instead cast haste and booked it before any conversation could happen.
Oh well. I'll have him come back later. The gorup then went into the jungle and got in a couple of fights with a few Preying Mantis before reaching some ruins of the old world Another interesting encounter with some undead Treants later, they found themselves in front of Ironshod Firearms. Once inside they made their way up to the top floor, where they found cleanly melted hole through the back wall the size of a person. In the wall to the CEO's office there was a smaller hole about the size of a head, blasting through the foot-thick iron walls. Inside the office they found the skeleton of Jeremiah Krauss, who left behind a suicide note in the form of a video on his computer.
Krauss was the head researcher of Project Megaspell, and also committed treason early on in the war by giving megaspells to all of the countries of the world in hopes of forcing them back to peace talks. Long story short, he was shut out of the projects and swore revenge on the person who ruined him; Minister Goldwright. He spent the next few years developing a megaspell pistol and made nine pieces of ammo for it. The gvernment found out, got pissed, and took all of research and the products thereof. However, he managed to smuggle away one bullet, and had handed over a copy of the gun. Before he could use his weapon on Minister Goldwright, however, the seven days of fire began, and Krauss turned the gun onto himself as the world ended.
So the highlight of this session was that I basically gave my group a superweapon... and no ammo for it. They did get to see a memory orb that recorded the gun firing though. Basically, it ripped through the top floor of the building as a humongous laser that got only bigger the farther away it went. After about a mile (Half a second) it reached one of the Giant Warriors that was rampaging across the earth. The laser blew a hole fifty feet wide in it's chest and then kept going. Fun times.
Next month we had session number 10, also known as: "The dungeonmaster can't balance monsters for shit."
I really can't, apparently. This session was supposed to be a short one since we were all busy with school and had other things we needed to do, but we had Dave with us again so the party had their summoner and AoE damage dealer. My plan was a simple one; take them to the capitol of the biggest country on the continent for the next step in their journey, and invent some plot things to do once they were there. There was only one problem... Random Encounters.
Really, I roll to see if encounters happen like a lot of other DM's, with just using a simple d20 and some headwork. If I feel that a certain roll warrants an encounter I roll again to see what type of encounter it is. (1-5 is Meet Traveler(s), 6-10 is Monster Encounter, 11-15 is Weather/Terrain Hazad, 16-20 is Unusual Occurence, which can be any of the above or whatever I feel like.) I would of course roll a monster encounter, so I quickly make up a table in my head, where a low roll on the chart means a harder monster to fight. Right at the bottom of the list is a Deathclaw Hunting Pack.
I fumble, of course. Deathclaws it is! How many Deathclaws? Oh, 1d6 minus one should do it. What do I roll? A six. Five Deathclaws! Ooh... That's gonna be a tough fight. Better nerf em a little bit while I'm doing this (I take away their ability to rend and a little bit of their HP.) Okay
Me: "You lot are travelling through the mountain ranges, which means traveling through plenty of ravines and highlands. While moving through such a ravine, you get the feeling you're being watched... make perception checks."
Bryan: "Ugh, Finally. A random encounter. Hopefully it's high enough to grant some experience."
Me: "I'm sure this will be a learning experience for all of us, Bryan."
*Rolls are made. I rolled crap for the Deathclaws stealth (Even with their racial bonus) and almost all the party saw them.*
Me: "Alright. The majority of you see on the hillside, making straight for you, a deathclaw pack out on the hunt."
Greg: "How many Deathclws?"
Me: "Five."
Greg: "Whelp. GG Guys. It was nice knowing you." (He doesn't know the stats I made them. He just knows I made them scary)
Bryan: "What are you talking about? I can just dimension door away." (He only gets this as a class feature. I'd take it away like I banned all the other teleportation spells but he'd just bitch and moan and I really don't want to deal with this)
Greg: "The rest of us can't."
Bryan: "Oh well. I'll remember you fondly."
The fight begins. I rolled okay-ish on their initiative, with only Dave and Conor's Inquisitor minion beating me. The inquisitor does nothing (Silly cohorts can't do anything when even the higher-level members of the party are outleveled.) Dave goes straight for the fireball and does a small chunk of damage to each of them. Then the Deathclaws go. Three of them charge straight away, two hitting Bryan and one hitting Ryan (Vaste the Warrior). The total damage dealt was... a lot. Fifty or sixty to Bryan, and fourty to Ryan The other two used a double movement to get into position.
The rest of the party went, dealing damage but not downing any of them (It's taking a while, because Conor who plays him and his cohort is sleeping on the floor, and conversation keeps breaking out.) When the Deathclaws' turned rolled around again I was able to attack with all of them, and dealt massive damage to Much of the party. I scored a critical hit on Ryan's robot dog, dealing sixty damage and almost killing the poor thing. When everyone else went again, they started focusing their fire better, and one Deathclaw went down. Bryan, believing himself fully capable of drawing fire without getting injured used Damnation Stride (A spell which he SHOULDN'T EVEN HAVE BECAUSE I BANNED TELEPORT SPELLS. Yes I'm bitter. And so is Bryan. Everyone loses) to drop onto the other side of the three Deathclaws on one side of him. This allowed Greg to run up and do massive damage from the bonus to hit he gets from their teamwork feats. Dave threw more spells and Conor's Oracle healed the party through channeling (After we woke him up from the floor again.)
When the Deathclaws had their turn again, three of them immediately turned on Bryan who had teleported in behind them. Slaughter happened. The combined attacks of the three had him unconscious and nearly dead. (That's what you get for attracting MORE aggro when already at half health.) THerre's a brief argument about how the fight is totally unfair and I'm definitely not disagreeing with them on that point. I then say that I nerfed the monsters right before the fight started, because otherwise they would be rending right now (and both Bryan and Ryan would be dead).
Bryan: "Oh, they should be rending? Oh well I'm dead then. Wheeeeee!" (He picks up his miniature and throws it to the other side of the room. He's part bitter about dying and part ready to move onto another character that he thinks will be more overpowered. (Hint. It's not. He's reading the rules wrong again. The character he wants to play is more squishy anyways, and then everybody in this fight would be dead.))
With him down, Greg doesn't get his bonus to hit and the group fails to topple another Deathclaw. The first thing that Conor does (after we wake him up again) is throw another channel out there, bringing Bryan back into consciousness. Bryan immediately resummons his eidolon form and jumps up, re-attracting the attention of the Deathclaws Their turn rolls around again, and they focus him.
I- to my eternal amazement- roll two natural twenties and confirm them. Two crits. Doing triple damage. Bryan's summoner dies. So why does my victory feel so empty?
It's because I killed him too soon. This wasn't a big climactic boss fight on a rooftop, nor against anyone of even remote plot relevance. It was just a random encounter. Killing him off in this manner would just be insulting to both him (although I don't think he cared as much, he wanted to play a new character) and my talents as a dungeonmaster. A DM can't just go "Rocks Fall, [X] dies" whenever he wants to. It's bad form, and I frown upon other DM's who perpetuate this cliche by actively perpetrating it. If you're going to kill off one of your player's characters, you have to do it right (at least in worlds that do not have ressurection spells, like mine). So just in case something like this happens, have a backup plan.
My backup plan? Hydra. A regenerative drug that rapidly heals the body. The group quickly dispatches three of the remaining Deathclaws (they were all pretty weakened at this point) and the fourth runs away in self-preservation. The group, with a little nudging by me, uses two of the hydra they have (They have, like, eighty. They raided a drug factory that was making hydra and they'll never run out now. If they bothered to sell all of it they'd make over thirty thousand gold.) and injects them into both the heart and spinal column. Then Dave gives the heart a little kickstart with some electricity and it pumps enough that the Hydra begins to do it's work, quickly knitting up the broken body.
Hooray! The party tank is alive again! And everyone gets too much experience in an encounter that lasted two-thirds of the damn session. Looks like I'll just have to shorten it then, won't I?
The group made it to the capitol city, and instead of having them fight, bluff, and sneak their way to the top of the Arcane Tower I just let them go into the sewers and used the floorplan for a later dungeon as a baseline and just filled it with random odds and ends for them to look at. There was only one robot inside (no more damn time for encounters!) and they quickly dispatched it. Also inside the dungeon they found a Silver Bullet, one of the pieces of ammo for Krauss's Folly, the superweapon they found in the last session. (I have taken to calling it the "get out of Boss Fight free" card.) And last but certainly not least, they found a bobblehead of a man wearing a blue suit and a golden mask covering half of his face. Holding the bobblehead gives a +2 luck bonus to Charisma, in the style of the Bobbleheads from Fallout 3, or the statuettes from Fallout: Equestria. Now I need to figure out to make them fight Deus next session while railroading them as little as possible. I wish myself Good Luck. I'll need it.
And for those that desire it, my stats for Deathclaws:
In the shadows of the canyon, a huge, hunched figure with gangly arms is stalking you. Standing at nine feet tall, these monsters have wicked claws that can slice through armor with ease and are incredibly difficult to kill. A single one is enough to take out a trading caravan, but unluckily for you, they are pack creatures. As you prepare to turn and run away, the Deathclaw rushes towards you at a frightening speed, followed by three more of it's kin that you didn't see before.
Deathclaw
N Large Magical Beast
Init +11; Senses Low-Light Vision, Scent
AC 25, touch 16, flat-footed 18 (+7 Dex, -1 Size, +9 Natural),
hp 135 (10d10+80)
Fort +18, Ref +15, Will +10
Speed 50 ft.
Melee Two +21(2d6+10, 18-20/x3, claw), and +20(1d8+10, x3, bite)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks Rend 2d6 +15, Augmented Critical(claw), Pounce
Str 30, Dex 25, Con 26, Int 4, Wis 15, Cha 2
Base Atk +10; CMB +21; CMD +38
Feats: Improved Natural Attack, Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (claw), Nightstalker
Skills: Acrobatics+15, Perception+20, Stealth+12, Climb +15
Languages: NoneSpecial Abilities
Rend: Whenever a Deathclaw deals damage with both of it's claw attacks to the same target in a round, the clawss tear and rip into the flesh, dealing additional damage equal to 2d6 +15.
Pounce: Whenever a Deathclaw charges a target, he may use all of his natural attacks as if he was making a full attack action.
Shredding Claws: A Deathclaw's natural attacks are treated as adamantine for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance.Environment: Usually Wasteland or Desert
Organization: Solitary, Pair, Hunting Party (3-6), or Pack (6-10 Deathclaws, 1 Deathclaw Matriarch, 0-1 Deathclaw Alpha, and 1-3 Baby Deathclaws)
Treasure: Half standard
Yeah, a Deathclaw can, in one turn, take out a fighter of eighth level if they aren't built for taking lots of punishment (not just having lots of armor). Casters and other squishy characters of even higher levels will easily die in one round if caught unawares. Make some clear judgement calls about whether a low to mid level party can handle a Deathclaw as a boss character before doing so. Even a group of level twelve characters might struggle against a group of them.
And in related news, this blog was a little less than three thousand words long. This is about a third of the next chapter I'm still writing, and twice as long as the essay I need to write in the next three hours.
Man. Unless the group has strayed so far from any plot/quest lines I've come up with that I'm literally making up everything about the entire continent they ended up on as I tell them, I tend to soften the blow for random encounter fumbles. Like, instead of a pair of Alhoons, I send them a Lesser Triclopean instead (now I know I have the stat sheet I made somewhere.) If I do end up having to spontaneously create a new continent, however, I send enough (or hard enough) encounters their way to stall them for a session and give me time to draw up the map and a minor quest line for them. Never had any problems with avoiding NPC interaction, though.
By the way, I'm thinking of making a custom setting based in the SCP-verse. Low-to-mid magic, low-to-mid psionic, modern tech. Do you think they'll hate me if I have SCP-682 in there as a threat/reason for quest/thing to run like hell from? trying to attack 682 is like trying to, as a level 1 stereotypical mage, simultaneously tank Chole and Pyroclastic Dragons without any spells prepared. 682 has canonically survived being put in a box that screws with the fundamental constants of physics, chemistry, mathematics, and the universe in general.
1083666 I'll admit, I had to look up what SCP was. I'm still confused, but It really depends how familiar your players are with this other lore and whether they're comfortable with that. Some player groups don't like to "run away" as part of a questline (and some are just too stupid to figure it out.)
Otherwise, no, it looks fine.
1083717 It's the sort of thing I'd lead up to. First, I'd give them a glimpse of some of the easier-to avoid ones (like the one where if one person starts looking at it, it must be watched by 2 or more people simultaneously and without any break (even blinking) or it kills them. Or the one that can phase through walls and put you in a pocket dimension. Or the zombie virus.) Then I'll give them some files on 682 kill attempts. Then I'll let them roll Perception checks to see if they're being followed. I'll nerf 682's speed enough to be outrun. It would probably culminate in them ending up at SCP-001 as it reveals its true nature unto the world (most likely going to be this.) So yeah, they will not survive in the end, but until then, I want to give the illusion that they can. Sort of like a grimdark survival horror RPG. Oh, and I will give them ample amounts of the cure-everything pill (yes, that's a thing in the SCP-verse,) so they can maybe survive to the end.
1083759 I'm reading a bunch of these now, and it could actually be really interesting if you did it right. Good luck to you.
1082721 ok first thing 80 hydra;s? what kinda of Gm lt's this happen. sides it's a factory even if there was some left i'm sure it would of mostly been picked clean >.>
also Deus? someone likes FOE Projects Horizons a little too much XD
1088768 Well, it wasn't picked clean at the time because all of the hydra was still under production. They had to fight the Hydra and everything. It was great.
And, yes, I'm probably pulling too much from Project Horizons
1089561
Well if your gonna do it do it all the way. get stronghoof in there somewhere :)
1090855 He is, under the name Captain Lighthammer, of the Children of the Light. A holy-ish group of warriors, paladins, and inquisitors determined to root up all evil in the world, and with a penchant for hating arcane magic users.
1091359 My hatred of arcane magic has been in the lighthammer line for GENERATIONS!