Jul11

Musings on Our Sixth Session

Posted on July 11, 2011 in Advice, Campaigns, Sessions | 0 comments

Session 6 was a spectacular session! My closest friend and the best man at my wedding, Jeff Farnsworth, sat in as a guest player; he portrayed the role of Artimus, Rivereye’s old friend. This was lucky, as Brian was unable to make it out. Additionally, our session took place on my birthday—I am now the ripe old age of 32. Lastly, we lost Arender, finally outed as a spy for the Shahalesti government. He fell in combat against eladrin terrorists who were trying to undermine the King of Shahalesti, Lord Shaaladel.

Best of all: though the session was eight hours, only one of those hours consisted of combat.

Session Summary

Session 6 took place on Sunday, July 10, 2011.

After Shealis’ death, the group called upon Diogenes to disable the ritual of sealing surrounding her chambers. They were quick to explain that the encounter was over—but had gone badly; in the end, they had killed the eladrin wizardess in self-defense. Despite their justifications, Diogenes was aghast that it had come to this and he was ashamed at his involvement. In Diogenes’ eyes, magic was life and the death of Shealis suffered a blow to the continuance of that life.

He immediately ordered the group to leave Gabal’s School and rushed away to deal with his guilt. The party quickly searched Shealis’ chambers but didn’t find the case of military intelligence. Instead, they discovered several important pieces of evidence. First, there was a torn map leading to the elven ghetto. Could this be the final location of the case? On it, in elven script, was written “Fey before World before Chaos.”

Second, Shealis’ devious plot was unearthed through documents she had planned to burn before being interrupted. The papers detailed her organization—the Exodus Alliance—and their plans to forcibly relocate the entire eladrin nation into the Feywild, thought to be their ancient home. A portal called the Singing Chasm was to be their route into the this new world, a doorway that would be open within days.

As the group searched, Kara arrived with sad news—Rivereye’s wizard friend Artimus had been abducted and the halfling took it upon himself to track his old comrade down.

Suddenly, the group remembered what Shealis had said about Arender; they turned towards him and slowly backed away, their hands near their weapons. After a few minutes of interrogation, the truth came out—Arender was a spy, sent by the Shahalesti government to secure the military intelligence stolen from Rageisa. His mission was to deliver it to an eladrin contact in Lyceum.

Though a trator to the group, Arender passionately explained that the more he saw of the world’s plight, the less he believed in what he was doing. Unfortunately, he wasn’t simply a spy—he was an indentured servant, carrying out the penance for crimes he had committed in Calanis. He couldn’t just disregard his orders without serious repercussions, up to and including exile.

Thoughtfully, Ykoren was the first to speak of his cousin’s courage and honor. Kara, though moved by Ykoren’s speech, asked the most important question: Would Arender betray the group if asked to? Would he betray the Resistance? When Arender firmly answered in the negative, the group visibly relaxed and allowed him to see their mission to its conclusion.

The group then followed their only lead: the map into the elven ghetto. As outsiders, the elven population looked at them with stony eyes and angry glares. When the party realized that they couldn’t pinpoint the map’s final destination, they decided to ask for help—only to be turned on by the elves as soon as it was determined that there were eladrin in the party.

The group then learned firsthand that the eladrin people hadn’t simply taken over their neighboring brother’s lands a thousand years ago; the Shahalesti had utterly destroyed their way of life and the elves were still picking the pieces of their lives up from that encounter. With no home to return to, many cities had ghettos such as this.

Before the situation could come to blows, an elven woman came out, spoke sharp words to both sides, and pointed to a doormaker’s shop—that is where the party would find two of their eladrin “friends.” So it was true—eladrin were hiding out here and it’s possible these were the eladrin who had helped Larion capture the intelligence from Rivereye at the Depository!

The doormaker’s shop seemed normal enough; a door and a few windows faced the street. A chimney belched black smoke into the wintery air. However, after a quick search of the perimeter, a secret door was discovered in the back. Carved into the door was a scene of elves and eladrin fighting against demons. Remembering the clue written on the torn map—Fey before World before Chaos—Maril reached out and pressed the carvings in the order of eladrin, elves, and demons. Silently, a handle formed in the stone.

Without warning, Asher opened the door, revealing a group of Shahalesti: a Mystic, a Lieutenant, and four scouts. The Mystic and Lieutenant were embroiled in conversation, wondering what to do in light of Shealis’ tardiness. At the group’s sudden appearance, the eladrin drew their weapons, but Asher was able to deftly convince them that the party was sent by Shealis.

Releaved, though a little confused that Shealis would involve outsiders, the Lieutenant revealed that they had not been able to open the case and that Artimus, whom they had recently captured, had not given up the password. The group offered their services, thinly veiling their intent to torture this Artimus fellow. The Lieutenant allowed them to go upstairs where the prisoner was being held—but not before Asher offhandedly explained that they would need the case; intelligence suggested that it wasn’t just a password that was needed for it to open, but a magical ritual. If they got Artimus to talk, it would need to be in the same room.

The companions swiftly made their way upstairs to see Rivereye’s friend Artimus—also an eladrin—beaten, but not broken. The group quickly explained that they were friends, there to help. The wizard smiled and introduced himself, after which the party sprang into action. Immediately, they opened the case—curious to find out just exactly what was inside. Within the worn leather satchel was a thick steel box etched with swirling patterns and warded with a powerful Arcane Lock ritual.

Hastily, they decided on a plan: replace the steel box with papers detailing fake intelligence. Before they could act, however, they noticed the steel box floating towards the exit! An invisible creature, calling itself Kurychek, explained that it was a messenger from Grand Inquisitor Leska. Having also been tricked to believe the case had been locked, the creature was waiting for the right time to steal the intelligence inside. It thanked the group and silently slipped out the door and down the stairs.

The party rushed to the first floor and managed to convince the Shahalesti that, not only had they opened the case, but an invisible creature had stolen its contents. The Mystic called for silence, cocked his head to one side, and yelled out, “There!” In the direction he pointed, arrows, spears, and magic blasts were directed. The creature, revealed to be an imp, fell to the ground dead; the metal box slipped out of its lifeless hands.

As the Lieutenant went to retrieve the box, Asher also moved to intercept. Though the Lieutenant was able to grab it first, this odd change in behavior gave the Shahalesti pause—who were these outsiders? A long drawn out game of cat and mouse followed as the Mystic and Lieutenant asked the companions probing questions. Skillfully, the party was able to scramble together plausible excuses explaining their presence, including a lie that they were supposed to rescue Shealis after opening the case—and for that, they would need the metal box.

Though the Mystic and Lieutenant were ready to believe this group had, in fact, been hired by Shealis, at no point was the group able to convince the Shahalesti to let them take ownership of the metal box. Finally, the party switched tactics and began to ask of the eladrin’s intentions. That was when the Lieutenant confirmed the Exodus Alliance’s plans to forcibly move the eladrin people into the Feywild. When it was asked why the eladrin left the Feywild to begin with, the Lieutenant was only to happy to explain: Scriptures detailed that before man walked the earth, the eladrin of the Feywild were at war with the demons of the Elemental Chaos. At the end of this war, as punishment for defeat, the demons transplanted the eladrin to the Natural World so that they could never know the true beauty of their homeland.

Finally, the party had found the chink in the Alliance’s armor: “How do you know the demons didn’t kick you out of the Feywild so they could use it for themselves? Perhaps when you get back, the demons will be waiting…” This seemed to coincide with feelings of doubt and guilt already brewing within the Lieutenant, for he turned to the Mystic questioningly. The Mystic refused to answer such a foolish question and demanded unquestioning loyalty. It was too late, however—the seeds of suspicion had been sewn.

For a moment, a tense chord played out across the room as the eladrin scouts divided up to take sides. In the impending conflict, Arender asked a simple question of the Lieutenant: “If you want our help, you have it.” And so, with the party’s assistance, the Lieutenant was able to take control of the situation, finally ordering the Mystic and his men to surrender. Unfortunately, during the melee, Arender fell to one of the Mystic’s men—the first eladrin on eladrin killing in a thousand years.

While the Shahalesti prisoners were dealt with, Ykoren bent over his dead cousin’s body. At this, his mother’s amulet gave off an urgent warmth and began to tug against the inside of his tunic. Ykoren removed the amulet and it popped open; the voice of his dead mother could be heard.

“Nephew, your time here is not finished. Join me; you have much left to do.” With that, Arender’s soul rose up and sank into the amulet.

Artimus and the Lieutenant decided to use the Alliance’s secret escape tunnels under the doormaker’s shop to travel back to Shahalesti. It was their intention to reveal the Alliance’s insidious plot; but would they arrive in time?

The party returned to the safe house, heavy in emotion over Arender’s death. There, with the help of Kara, Rivereye, and Buron, the decision was made to seek Erdan Menash’s help in leaving Gate Pass. During this conversation, a messanger from the front gate arrived: the invading Ragesian force had left an ultimatum. Allow a group of Inquisitors entrance to the city, or Gate Pass would be razed to the ground.

The people have 24 hours to decide.

Changes to the Adventure

The Elves and the Eladrin: None of the material I’ve read for War of the Burning Sky has been specific about how elves and eladrin fit together in the world. Since the campaign was written during 3rd Edition’s reign, I don’t know that the matter was given a lot of thought when it was translated to 4th Edition. What I’ve done over the past few sessions was hint that the eladrin did something bad to the elves. Finally, it was revealing during this session that the Shahalesti annexed the neighboring elven lands and subjugated the entire race around a thousand years ago.

The Doormaker’s Secret Door: I modified the entry into the doormaker’s shop to include some of the elven versus eladrin flavor I’d been working into the campaign. As written, the door was described as carvings of demons fighting from the walls of a citadel, with three figures standing side-by-side: a winged woman with a trumpet (a solon), a noble and muscular man with a lion’s head (a leonal), and an armored eladrin woman with a gleaming greatsword.

First, I’ve taken solons out of the campaign. Second, the players haven’t had any experience with leonals—a 3rd edition monster—so the meaning of including such a creature is lost on me. I realize it was probably just a throwaway description and wasn’t going to have any greater effect on the campaign, but I still try to build on existing backstory whenever I can. The new description was this: “The carving depicts an army of demons scaling the walls of a crystal citadel. Two figures hold them off: a winged eladrin female with a trumpet and an elf male wielding a longsword. The eladrin, elf, and demon figures are raised from the rest of the work.” Since elves are looked down on by eladrin, this carving depicts a time when elves and eladrin stood together against their common foe—the demons from the Elemental Chaos. This was learned during a History check, laying future groundwork for something I have up my sleeve…

Lastly, the clue to enter the secret door went from the adventure’s “Arborenea before Elysiun before Kelesta” to “Fey before World before Chaos,” which of course refers to the Feywild, the Natural World, and the Elemental Chaos. Simply pressing the raised figures of the eladrin, elf, and demons in that order opened the door.

The Exodus Alliance: Shealis’ true plan was finally revealed: her group, called the Exodus Alliance, is intending to forcefully relocate the entire eladrin nation back into the Feywild. They feel that living in the Natural World among elves, humans, dwarves, orcs, and the other races has tainted their species; only the one true home of eladrin will return their culture to a place of enlightenment. I decided to open up the naming of this dastardly organization to EN World. A member there, catastrophic, came up with the awesome-sounding “Exodus Alliance.”

Because the players can’t be everywhere at once, they decided to let Artimus and the Shahalesti Lieutenant return to Calanis to reveal the details of this plot. I really liked how this turned out; it showed that while what the characters are doing is important, it’s not the only important thing going on right now. I will definitely revisit the Exodus Alliance in the future; whether Artimus and the Lieutenant were successful or not will play a major role in how Shahalesti’s involvement in the war factors out down the road.

Unabashedly, this eladrin sub-plot is my favorite addition to the campaign so far.

The Singing Chasm: I was surprised to learn that this “escape tunnel,” only mentioned once in passing during the Depository encounter, was never visited again throughout the entirety of the campaign (I only discovered this after asking the authors). Nevertheless, I knew exactly what my plan for it was. For the past several sessions, I’d hinted that the Singing Chasm was most likely an escape route out of Gate Pass for Shealis and her eladrin cohorts. In actuality, its true purpose as a portal to the Feywild was revealed.

Things That Could Have Gone Better

Time Out: Much like in Session 1, a player had to sit out for most of the game—this time, it was our visiting player, Jeff Farnsworth. What happened was, in Session 5 I had established that Rivereye Badgerface had a good friend living in Gate Pass, a wizard named Artimus. I decided that since the Shahalesti thought there was a spell on the case of intelligence requiring a password, that they would kidnap Artimus if they couldn’t get at Rivereye a second time. And where better to keep their prisoner than their hideout?

Problem is, they group spent a lot of time doing other things and didn’t get to Jeff until 3 hours and 26 minutes into the session! I thought for a long time whether or not this was a pacing problem on the part of the group, but decided in the end that it wasn’t; the group smoothly slid from encounter to encounter, only stopping long enough to enjoy detailed roleplaying where it mattered. No, I think the problem was where I placed Artimus. Instead of having him already captured, I could have had the group stumble upon the kidnapping in-progress. Or, I could have even gone less involved and just had Artimus join the party without any plot complications at all.

New Difficulty Class Rules: Recently, I introduced a new house rule detailing how I will handle future skill checks and DC’s. In a nutshell, I will completely ignore any DC’s listed in the skill chapter of the Rules Compendium and just decide on the spot whether the DC is easy, moderate, hard, or impossible. So far, it’s worked great! We haven’t had to crack open the skills chapter at all, which has really sped up the game—at least, until this session. You see, there are a few other rules hidden in the skills chapter that aren’t DC related, such as whether a skill allows a retry, or whether there are penalties for rolling a failure.

The fix to this is kind of easy and will be implemented immediately. First, any time the DC on a skill check is missed by 5 or more, there will be a negative consequence. If you’re balancing, you fall. If you’re swimming, you begin to drown. If you’re attempting to recall some piece of history, you remember it wrong. The severity of the consequence will depend on how bad the roll was and, I admit, will rely largely on DM fiat and “the moment.”

As for whether retries are allowed, that will tie largely into how badly the roll failed. If it failed by 5 or more, then a retry will almost never be allowed without some change to the situation. If the failure was by 4 or less, then a retry will almost always be allowed. Again, this will rely largely on DM fiat and what makes the most sense to the story and the situation.

The Indomitable Kurycheck: Kurycheck, an imp sent by Leska to retrieve the military intelligence, created several problems during the game.

First of all, Kurycheck caused the first instance of “fluffing myself into a corner.” You see, I love to fluff—and throughout my blog you can find examples of my efforts, from fluffing class powers to monsters; movement to entire encounters. Well, as awesome as all that fluffing can be, it’s bound to be taken advantage of sooner or later.

Let me explain.

If I’ve allowed a player to fluff the description of his wizard’s magic missile into bolts of fiery energy, eventually that player is going to forget that magic missiles are a force effect and not fire. So when the player comes up with the brilliant idea of setting some papers on fire with a magic missile, it’s going to suck to have to remind him that that’s not really possible. It’s not the player’s fault; hell, after all that time of describing it as fire, even I would forget. It’s just natural to think that something that looks like fire should burn like fire.

In the case of Kurycheck, he’s an imp; more specifically, a demon—the first demon the group has met. When Kurycheck began the encounter invisible (as imps sometimes do), the group was confused as to what exactly they were dealing with. That’s when Jeff, playing Artimus—an enterprising young mage—did what all good mages do and rolled an Arcana check. Thinking that this would be a great opportunity to show the party that they were dealing with something new and exciting, I described the effect as a floating black hole; as if all the evil of the world were centered on one point in space.

The problem with doing that is, invisible creatures should never be located by an Arcana check. It defeats the purpose of being invisible! So of course Artimus continued to use Arcana checks to keep a bead on the imp, pointing his location out to Maril, who in turn proceeded to plug away with round after round of magic missiles.

I had inadvertently fluffed myself into a corner.

I was finally able to extricate Kurycheck from his precarious situation, only for the party to run after him, still rolling Arcana checks to pinpoint the invisible creature’s new location each round. Eventually, I had to pause the game and explain that I had made a mistake. Fortunately, I have a group of level-headed players who all quickly understood the ramifications of being able to Arcana check invisible creatures. In the end, we explained it away by the fact that Artimus had initially rolled a 32 on his Arcana check—the impossible DC for level 2 (see my house rule on impossible DC’s here). I explained that it was an impressive flash of insight that slowly faded away after a time. The group accepted the ruling and we moved on

The second bit of trouble ol’ Kurycheck gave me was that he completely caught the group with their pants down. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, per se. What was bad was that the group was so flabbergasted as to how to stop something they couldn’t see from making off with their quest goal, that they rushed into a roleplaying situation that they weren’t ready to deal with. See, they were behind enemy lines, having bluffed their way into a position where the bad guys believed that the group were also bad guys. However, without thinking, Asher ran into the next room, rolled some poor bluff checks, stammered out a jumble of crazy speak, and almost blew everything. Worst of all, none of the rest of the group backed Asher up; they stayed behind, unsure of what to do—which made the halfling look all the more nutty.

A few things went wrong here and it all stemmed from the players feeling out of control of the situation. Again, this isn’t necessarily bad—sometimes the players need to understand that, no matter what they do, some things are out of their character’s control. Of course, this is not something to be dealt with lightly, as deus ex machina can be a stale literary technique not well received by gamers. That being said, at no point was this situation meant to be played or viewed in that way. Nonetheless, the feeling of helplessness was there.

Next time, when I see that the the train is about the derail, I’ll pause the action and let the group hammer out just exactly what their plan is next. After all, even if the players don’t have Intelligence and Wisdom scores of 17 or 18, the characters do—and they should be given every chance to take advantage of those high scores, up to and including pausing play to allow some extra planning, even when in-game there are only seconds to act.

Things That Went Great

Amazing Roleplaying: Session 6 had no shortage of amazing roleplaying. From the first encounter between the elves of the ghetto and the group’s two eladrin characters, to the interchange between the party and the Shahalesti terrorists. Each time, there was the perfect mixture of Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate rolls, and honest to goodness roleplaying. While normally one or two players will dominate a scene, this session saw all five players taking the lead in exciting and innovative ways. In fact, the group’s roleplaying in one encounter was so good, they made it through the entire situation without having to draw a single weapon.

Terrain Powers: For months I’ve been trying to get the group to use the terrain more than how often they had been using it; in other words, more than none. I don’t expect anything spectacular; the occasional tipped table, rolled barrel, or smashed chair would have sufficed. That’s when I stumbled across terrain powers.

Terrain powers are nothing new; page 62 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2 detailed these little gems when the book was released in September of 2009. In fact, they were even showcased online at the Wizards of the Coast website earlier this year. Somehow, I missed them both times. Now that I know of them, they’ve become an official part of my table and we were richly rewarded by their inclusion.

For those who aren’t familiar with terrain powers, they work like this: you use one of your normal actions (minor, move, or standard) to cause the terrain to do something awesome, like damaging a foe or giving you a small bonus. As someone who consistently uses cardstock terrain, I frequently include little bits like tables, chair, barrels, crates, curtains, and bookshelves—all of which are just waiting to cause some hurt! The problem is, players never really understood what was possible. Terrain powers do just that—they codify what you can and cannot do with a piece of terrain and explain it in the same format as one of your character’s powers.

Typically, the use of a terrain feature is finite (chairs can only be smashed over someone’s head once, a rug can only be pulled out from under an enemy once, bookcases can only be tipped over once), but occasionally terrain can be used over and over—such as kicking up the ash in a fireplace to create a zone of concealment or sliding down a stair railing for an extra boost in speed.

One more note on terrain powers: the rules listed in the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2 attempt to balance them out with normal character powers. I actually up the ante a bit by letting them do more damage or allowing them to be used as minor or move actions. For example, if a terrain power is supposed to do 1d4 damage, I’ll let it do 1d6 damage. Or, if a terrain power is supposed to be used as a move action, I’ll allow it to be squeezed into a minor action. I do this to further encourage use of the terrain; by making the terrain slightly sweeter, the players will be more likely to use terrain powers when moment presents itself.

Download my sample terrain powers here.

Arender’s Death: Though a character’s death could hardly be called something that went great, in the end, it was. You see, Arender didn’t just die due to some freak twist of fate or poor die roll; he didn’t trip off a cliff or drown after one too many failed swim checks. He died in combat, fighting terrorists intent on forcibly relocating his entire race to another dimension. You really don’t get more of a hero’s death than that.

The Impossible DC: Though I already mentioned the impossible DC house rule earlier in this entry, I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight its use in this session: After the group retrieved the case of military intelligence, they found it wizard locked. In the adventure, it’s not really supposed to be opened; though it can be opened, it is better for the plot if it isn’t. For most DM’s, the decision would be easy: “Can it be opened?” would be met by a resounding no.

That’s what the impossible DC is for! I gave the group the possibility—however small—of opening it. Sure, there was only a 5% chance of making the DC, but if they had been successful, it would have taken the story in a new, unforseen direction—which can be exciting in its own right.

Consequences: When the campaign began, I made it clear to the players that this isn’t your typical romp through the dungeon. There probably won’t be many monstrous opponents; most bad guys will be people, just like the PC’s. And since the first adventure takes place in a civilized society, going around and sticking the pointy ends of weapons into things isn’t a good idea. I reminded them that they could always choose to knock an opponent unconscious on the last hit rather than to let it be an outright kill, and then left it at that.

Well, let’s just say… the group’s left a small trail of bodies—and it finally caught up with them. During this session, the party woke to a group of officers of the law on their doorstep. Though they got out of the trouble in the end, it showed the players that this campaign is different than others and that there truly are consequences to their actions.