Post by Dungeon Master on Nov 2, 2016 11:09:08 GMT -8
We didn't get a whole lot done this last session... Ulric decided to show up, when I let him know there was a pretty good chance everyone would be making brand new characters for next session (he does his best to play a single character, all the way... in whatever we're doing).
We ended up starting late and ending sort of early. That said, it was a fun session.
The party continued exploring Area 01C-X 'The Mouth of Doom', and found the 'Chamber of Magic Pools'. They discovered the adjacent nest of Stirges, but the player trained in Knowledge Nature rolled poorly so overestimated how many of them there were. They closed the door quietly, and did their best to not awaken them.
I've let the players (who are not versed in dungeon-crawls) know that deeper is nastier... and have expanded the relative depths of each level... ie 1, 1A, 1B etc might be at one depth, but 2, 2A, 2B is drastically deeper (200 ft. or so, on average).
They discovered the illusionary fountain, with a ladder (leading down 200 feet) to the next sub-level. Some of them wanted to explore it, while others wanted to 'clear' the current level first. The guy who wanted to explore opted to start the descent. He used a grappling hook and rope to prevent a nasty fall. I decided on 1/6 (D6) chance of a loose ladder rung, per 50 feet of descent (so 4x D6 rolls, 1 is bad). The first 100 ft., was fine, but the third roll indicated a loose ladder rung, which I rolled as almost at the top. Poor Silk was anchored to his 100 ft. length of rope and fell 90 ft. (still achored) to his death. (Two of his three deaths, have been fall related).
The party decided to go down and get him... The corpse was too heavy to pull up (200 lb dwarf, with 250 lbs of gear). A party pet (Psi-Crystal) ascertained that there were four creatures holding onto the rope, hoping to be pulled up along with Silk. The party archer climbed downwards (using 20 ft. lengths of rope, instead of 100 ft. lengths), and attempted to dissuade their interest in Silk, as the party hauled him upwards.
The unknown creatures (intelligent undead, but no one has the relevant knowledge) basically used the corpse as a vaulting point, to get up onto the ladder rungs and assault the archer. The rest of the group was all for a shooting match, Archer vs 4x unknown creatures, in melee... but Ulric decided to cut the rope, which resulted in the four falling (along with Silk's corpse) to a point where they could not jump upwards to where Thor (the Archer) was hanging.
Not too much happened aside from that... they discovered and by-passed three traps. They were ambushed by some wandering Rogues (who are allied with the larger group, in a room that the party has not yet found), but managed to deal with that group. The traps were worth twice as much experience, and so far have been a significant source of experience whilst in RA.
Short session, and didn't really get too far.
Silk's replacement (his fourth character (six deaths in total)) will be Essen Diese (German for 'Eat This') who is a Rogue 01 / Fighter 02 (going to Fighter 19) <Two-Handed Archetype> || Soulknife 03 (going SK 20). He has maxed Perception/Disable Device, along with Skill Focus in both skills... he is not planning on scouting (as that is his perceived cause of death, although I think aggressive/independent play away from the party is the true culprit... while scouting alone... moving into three flanks, to land 'Sneak Attack' damage because you won initiative against creatures you've never encountered and have no clue as to relative strengths/weaknesses... was a tactic he used). He hopes to cover the Trap Monkey role.
No true scout, and only the almost brand new player (the Zen Monk|Ranger) with partial scouting skills, is going to make for an interesting next little bit.
On any death, the player can bring in a replacement character (same level as the group, but 1/2 the total wealth), who knows (up to that point, anyway) exactly what has happened with every character to date... a Scout or an AoE Caster type might appear in the near future...
I did a spreadsheet for wealth; giving a new character 50% of average wealth... and assuming the party loots the corpse of the newly deceased character... if one in four corpses (over the course of the campaign) prooves to be unrecoverable, that results in close to expected wealth. Silk is the first death (out of six) where the corpse is not recoverable.
Interestingly, the survivors pick over the corpse prior to letting the new guy get anything, even though they know there's a new guy coming the next morning. In a way, that's the penalty the group is imposing on a new character, despite the fact that the new character might be responsible for your life (or death) in the next encounter.
We ended up starting late and ending sort of early. That said, it was a fun session.
The party continued exploring Area 01C-X 'The Mouth of Doom', and found the 'Chamber of Magic Pools'. They discovered the adjacent nest of Stirges, but the player trained in Knowledge Nature rolled poorly so overestimated how many of them there were. They closed the door quietly, and did their best to not awaken them.
I've let the players (who are not versed in dungeon-crawls) know that deeper is nastier... and have expanded the relative depths of each level... ie 1, 1A, 1B etc might be at one depth, but 2, 2A, 2B is drastically deeper (200 ft. or so, on average).
They discovered the illusionary fountain, with a ladder (leading down 200 feet) to the next sub-level. Some of them wanted to explore it, while others wanted to 'clear' the current level first. The guy who wanted to explore opted to start the descent. He used a grappling hook and rope to prevent a nasty fall. I decided on 1/6 (D6) chance of a loose ladder rung, per 50 feet of descent (so 4x D6 rolls, 1 is bad). The first 100 ft., was fine, but the third roll indicated a loose ladder rung, which I rolled as almost at the top. Poor Silk was anchored to his 100 ft. length of rope and fell 90 ft. (still achored) to his death. (Two of his three deaths, have been fall related).
The party decided to go down and get him... The corpse was too heavy to pull up (200 lb dwarf, with 250 lbs of gear). A party pet (Psi-Crystal) ascertained that there were four creatures holding onto the rope, hoping to be pulled up along with Silk. The party archer climbed downwards (using 20 ft. lengths of rope, instead of 100 ft. lengths), and attempted to dissuade their interest in Silk, as the party hauled him upwards.
The unknown creatures (intelligent undead, but no one has the relevant knowledge) basically used the corpse as a vaulting point, to get up onto the ladder rungs and assault the archer. The rest of the group was all for a shooting match, Archer vs 4x unknown creatures, in melee... but Ulric decided to cut the rope, which resulted in the four falling (along with Silk's corpse) to a point where they could not jump upwards to where Thor (the Archer) was hanging.
Not too much happened aside from that... they discovered and by-passed three traps. They were ambushed by some wandering Rogues (who are allied with the larger group, in a room that the party has not yet found), but managed to deal with that group. The traps were worth twice as much experience, and so far have been a significant source of experience whilst in RA.
Short session, and didn't really get too far.
Silk's replacement (his fourth character (six deaths in total)) will be Essen Diese (German for 'Eat This') who is a Rogue 01 / Fighter 02 (going to Fighter 19) <Two-Handed Archetype> || Soulknife 03 (going SK 20). He has maxed Perception/Disable Device, along with Skill Focus in both skills... he is not planning on scouting (as that is his perceived cause of death, although I think aggressive/independent play away from the party is the true culprit... while scouting alone... moving into three flanks, to land 'Sneak Attack' damage because you won initiative against creatures you've never encountered and have no clue as to relative strengths/weaknesses... was a tactic he used). He hopes to cover the Trap Monkey role.
No true scout, and only the almost brand new player (the Zen Monk|Ranger) with partial scouting skills, is going to make for an interesting next little bit.
On any death, the player can bring in a replacement character (same level as the group, but 1/2 the total wealth), who knows (up to that point, anyway) exactly what has happened with every character to date... a Scout or an AoE Caster type might appear in the near future...
I did a spreadsheet for wealth; giving a new character 50% of average wealth... and assuming the party loots the corpse of the newly deceased character... if one in four corpses (over the course of the campaign) prooves to be unrecoverable, that results in close to expected wealth. Silk is the first death (out of six) where the corpse is not recoverable.
Interestingly, the survivors pick over the corpse prior to letting the new guy get anything, even though they know there's a new guy coming the next morning. In a way, that's the penalty the group is imposing on a new character, despite the fact that the new character might be responsible for your life (or death) in the next encounter.