Apologies, then. It certainly wasn't my intent to make things world-endingly difficult =\
No need to apologize. Smenk is a very bad man with very bad friends. You don't get to punch Capone and walk away.
The way Smenk was introduced to the story is going to make it practically impossible for Ratchet to be willing to work for him. From the looks of things, Ulfak and Travigan share that sentiment.
I am interested in the Age of Worms storyline. I'm just not interested in doing it in a way that puts us into the employ of Smenk. Is there any way to avoid that, or is it written in to the story without any other options?
Smenk is the hook for this adventure. There's a nasty cult percolating beneath the town. I didn't realize that there was such a bunch of paladin's in this party. If you're only going to work for people you like well....this could be a long AP.
A paladin would probably be willing to put aside differences for the greater good. Ratchet isn't that reasonable.
Threatening Travigan (or his family) is not a good way to motivate him to do things. It is, however, a good way to make him angry and hit things. I think Smenk tried to apply the pressure he'd be used to applying and I think I had Travigan react honestly to it. /shrug
I do wish the author had included some other angles besides Smenk though, because I think Ratchet and I are of the same mind in this respect.
GM, you played Smenk very well. So well that now at least two of the party members primary goal now is to take him down, even at the expense of anything else going on.
Ratchet wants to find out about Smenk's operations and dismantle them. The other party members have been hired to investigate the mines. That is fine, it is a good angle to learn things from. Cults are bad and need to be stopped. I think it will be possible to render the entire mine unusable and learn more about Smenk's businesses while we work.
We might even be able to implicate Smenk in the cult's operations or something like that. We already know he works with necromancers. Evil cults are nicely in character for him. The authorities would probably buy it if the evidence was good.
I made my previous post prior to realizing you'd updated the gameplay thread, Fanguar. I'm perfectly happy with how you resolved it.
Smenk can make what threats he wants now. He (and Travigan too) doesn't realize it yet, but he's poking a dragon.
I'm curious to see if Sandra and Erethyn will negotiate our release to help investigate the mine and, if so, how good a deal they'll be able to broker. =)
@ Sandra:
Would you like to discuss our tactics for talking to Smenk here, or should we just role-play it out and see what happens?
i don't mind having a tactic before talking to Smenk... :)
Sandra is a rather amendable person
Oh I might have played Smenk up a bit, and really I could have had anyone pass along the information, but where is the fun in that? Now you have an NPC that you really hate.
Those of you who made a stink will at least need to pay some lip service to him (or commit another felony) to be able to help save the town from a danger much more serious than a local crime boss. Fun fun fun.
Is escaping from Smenk's jail really a felony?
Lack of trust makes it very hard for Ulfak to pay lip service to Smenk. He has no honour and will probably turn on us the moment we do whatever he wants.
It would be naive to expect anything else. I say we break out and find a way to bring him down without killing him. He must have enemies, especially in jail. People who can give us leads to the damning evidence we need.
Cheers
Oh, Travigan intends to pay the oily <redacted> lip service alright! One good, solid punch to the kisser should service that <redacted>'s lips plenty well!
=P
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That's not helping!
Why bother escaping? He's the one with a cult in his business. There's no pressure on us. We can afford to sit in a jail for a few months.
We crawl around in filthy trap-filled ruins for a living. A stay in a jail will be like a vacation.
With the information we've gotten from him, it would be difficult (to say the least) for us to get anywhere alone.
We could try really hard to smooth things over with him from earlier but that's going to be tough considering everyone else's reactions.
That said, we do have the advantage of a really dangerous cult. We might be able to get our allies back with that.
The idea of routing a bunch of cultists then emerging from the mine to a waiting Smenk as the whole network of tunnels collapses behind us with a dramatic cloud of dirt and dist billowing up only to then shrug and offer a nochalant "Shame about the mine, huh?" quip as the slimy <redacted> quivers with anger... that idea delights me.
You would be breaking out of the sheriff's jail. Who is an official of the greater Greyhawk and thus you would be labeled fugitives of the law, which would make it pretty hard to get around, especially if any deputies dies during the escape. It is workable.
In the end though, you aren't really 'working' for Smenk, you are paying your debt to society for the crimes you committed. However good your justification was and however corrupt Smenk is, in this particular case, the PCs are, legally, in the wrong. If evidence was found that Smenk had been knowingly helping out these cultists, well that's the kind of thing that could get a man in trouble.
*Shrug* I would like nothing more than for Celeador to pop back up and resume his game. I think he had big plans. I don't think that he planned on disappearing and it sounds like there might have been a bit of personal tragedy involved. I do know that he just moved to a new city, so maybe he might settle back in. Regardless, the WotW is a pretty awesome campaign, and if I can't play it, I'm going to run it.
My idea is to do a quick reconnaissance in these mine and then turn tail and come back to talk to Travigan, Ulfak and Rob and convince them that there is real Evil and great danger and appealing to their sense of the Greater GOOD pay lip service to smeck wo then has them released.
And with the party full again head back to the mines and kiss ASS :)
Nope. They can get someone else to "work off the debt to society." I'll sit in jail, thanks. They want my help they can pay me for my time and stay out of my way while I solve their problems. If they think they can handle it without me, great. Less working for jerks is fine with me.
Hello to all
I will be away until Tuesday so expect very very little posting from me.
Please bot me if needed
Tks
(traveling today and Tuesday, so i might be posting from phone)
So whenever your are ready, I will hand wave your entrance into the mine. Feel free to come up with your own plan if you would like, but I'm fine with just using some exposition to get things going.
Just so you are aware, the entirety of the next adventure will take place in this mine, so stock up appropriately.
*Cough*
Well currently our plan is the the following:
sneak in: hopefully witness some proof of evil being done in these mines / or followers of Hextor and comeback to convince the rest of the party to get out of jail and head back so that we can wipe this evil cult...
@to the one in the cell: can you guys be persuaded to come out and wipe this evil cult ? can we appeal to the good in you?
Ulfak can be persauded. Travigan probably. Ratchet seems a touch more stubborn......I could be wrong and I hope so but I don't see Ratchet showing any give at all. Seems happy enough behnd bars.
Right, sorry about that.
So we did walk away with some treasure before hand. Could we get a listing of that again? It would be helpful. Erethyn needs to get a few things first. Among them, some holy symbols of Hextor. Because if anyone can impersonate some Clerics of Hextor, it's a pair of Oracles.
A way Ratchet could be convinced is to tell him that the plan is to use the mission as a means to gather information on Smenk to take him down.
Then that is what i suggest we do.
(considering the High people skill both oracles have in bluff/diplo etc)
can we assume that both Erethyn and Sandra do come back to you all and persuade each an everyone of you to help taking down this cult of Hextorite who have been cultivating the Zombie Worms?
@ Ratchet since smenk is going to pull some stings to gaining us entry into the mines this serves as some info into his shadowy dealing and corruption... (in order to build a case against him)
Perfect.
If everyone can live with that, we will proceed.
That works for me.
HUZZAH !
Tks to everyone :)
Onward with Evil Cult Stomping !!!!
Agreed then!
Saddle up!
Hoooowwwwlll!
GM can you tell me how many hours of work time I can get between getting out of jail and getting to the mine?
Let's just say 48 minus you rest hours. So brew away.
There were days and days before the initial Smenk incident for crafting as well.
Right. I forgot about that. I even had some notes about stuff I was making. I need to dig those up.
Do we have any real wealth? Ulfak has 25 gold if anyone needs it.
As for things to have gotten in town. GM, were there any potions of Disguise self for sale?
It'll run us 250 gold for all of us, but I think that's a small price to pay to not immediately be known if we are caught.
Possibly, but there definitely wouldn't be 5 of them.
Alright, even if we only get a hold of 2 or 3 that will help a good deal.
I am ready to begin our descent.
Stink Bomb+first on initiative=sad enemies. They're about to have a bad day. :)
I'm going to be transitioning to mapless combat. The below is what I have been using for some of my other campaigns and it has been working really well.
There will be no grid based combat. Combat will be held in the theatre of the mind. I will still post dungeon maps and the like, for orientation purposes, but we won’t be moving tokens on a board. This requires a few alterations to work smoothly.
1. No reach weapons.
2. There will be limited AoOs. Casting or using a ranged weapon in melee will probably be about it.
3. Flanking and the like. In short, gone. I’m going to be co-opting the advantage/disadvantage system from the new iteration of D&D. In brief, either roll 2d20s and keep the highest or roll 2d20s and keep the lowest. I think this system will be great for speeding up PbP combat. I intend to use it for most, if not all , situational combat bonuses. Also, I intend to use it for numerical advantage. More PCs ganging up on a enemy? Then you have the advantage and vice versa.
4. Sneak attacks: Extra dice apply when you have the advantage.
5. Gentleman’s agreement: It will be mutually agreed that casters and ranged PCs and enemies are protected from melee attacks while melee defenders are still standing. I.e. I won’t bum rush your casters if you don’t bum rush mine.
The goal here is not to trivialize combat, but to speed it up. Also, I think that having the advantage/disadvantage system might promote some creative combat set ups.
This may affect the effectiveness of certain builds, and I am fine with people swapping things around.
How about friendly fire and AoEs? <cough> <Ratchet's bombs> <cough> =P
Good question!
really if 5th Ed ok ? (i liked 2ned and 3.X)
Sounds interesting, I haven't tried it before, so let's see how it goes. Generally, I'm in favor of whatever method helps the GM tell their story.
As for AoE, I'll just hand wave what seems appropriate, 2/3 affected, etc. Ratchet's bombs are in the defuff style at present, so you guys would want to lead with them. As for normal bombs, he'll want to grab the precise bombs discovery at some point.
5th ed seems fine, all things considered, and a couple of the new things are just great. The advantage(roll 2d20s keep highest)/disadvantage (roll 2d20s keep lowest)addition is one of the greatest ideas ever. It allows for a DM to adjudicate PC creativity and environmental factors in a super simple fashion.
The again, I thought that 4th ed was a really awesome miniature war game. Non-combat stuff was pretty lackluster but they really nailed the combat. I also loved minions, they were a beautiful thing. They allowed DMs to increase their action economy with legitimate threats without vastly increasing the difficulty of an encounter.
In any case, I love tabletop combat as much as the next guy, and I have the warhammer armies to back up that claim, but PbP just isn't combat friendly. These changes, and my judicious cutting of pointless encounters, should allow the plot to progress at a reasonable pace. In a perfect world, I would like us to knock off an adventure every 6 months or so.
(Necron-Tyranid)
i think they took the minion system from Legend of the 7th Sea Rpg..