nib's page

I'm still reading, but haven't even thought of promoting my own version by posting under different names (No worries, I saw the smiley ;-)

Just to clarify:
The whole Redgorge siege possibly wouldn't even have been mentioned at all in my campaign if not for Delvesdeep's brilliant and continuous side-trek motivations. Clearly his work has made my own excursion into warfare at all possible.

I was just under pressure to get it ready since it seems I'm about to overtake DD's group (we play weekly ATM) and I put the event before TotSE which also made many tune downs necessary and the need for cutting it much shorter, although I think, for realism, it should last at least as long as DD is suggesting.

I wouldn't even have posted my version, if not for the fact that I got the feeling there was about a 50/50 decision amongst board members about whether to play this trek before or after the Occipitus adventure. Mine is based before, while DD's is clearly after (hence the different CR's)

Cheers,
Nib

I also have an extremely suspicious lot. They only got one piece of information about some well-known Lord, namely the fact that he was quite benevolent and that nobody seems to know exactly from where he appeared or why. Since then, I had to really slowplay and gradually get them to at least accept the fact that he might not be evil after all. Anyway, it was pretty clear to me that the whole, NPC shows up to get them to Occiptus, who even registers as evil and everyone tags along while Redgorge is being blasted to bits just after they had found some friends there was not gonna happen.

What rescued me was that a player, who is on and off the game due to other commitments, wanted to play a sorcerer type and already had a nick for evil characters anyway. I embraced the opportunity and let him play Kaurophon. All background information and the awkward railroading theme suddenly wasn't a problem at all. The players probably blamed it on the fact that I had to bring in a new player after all. For once, meta-gaming was used to the story's benefit. I can't wait to see their faces, when they learn what the third part of the test is all about. Even the player doesn't yet know. He was quite concerned (actually almost bailing out of the game) about the hints I gave about the possibility of him eventually betraying the party, so I told him that a betrayal may not be necessary and they might let him have his rulership of Occipitus voluntarily. That is, as far as Kaurophon's knowledge goes, correct.

Maybe, you could do a similar thing (sometimes friends show up for a single session or two) and after the new player leaves the game, you just take over the character as an NPC, "because it would ruin the logic too much, if he were to leave now, that you have embarked on the plane journey".

We've completed the first part of the test this week and are just before the plain of cysts. I guess, we'll be finished right before Christmas.

Cheers,
Nib

Hi,

Nabby's AC also troubled me for a while and what I came up with (using PCGen and own calculations based on its output) was 31. That's plenty sufficient. My group peed their pants when they fought him. If you want him to be lethal, just take out the one or two characters who have holy/good-aligned weapons with stun/reverse gravity and then go full attack every round. With his +22 / +17 ... attacks he will likely lash out more than enough damage the average lvl9 party can take comfortably.

My party only got him down (during battle of redgorge) since I had him behave overconfident, ignoring their puny magic missiles (which rarely penetrated his SR), using unholy blight to tease them (that's quite crappy compared to a full fledged full-attack action) and then getting flanked by 2 rogues with Alakast on one side and a holy longsword on the other, which critted, all in one round. He tried to teleport away after those 120 points of damage, but was taken down by a readied action in response to his casting attempt.

In hindsight, I could have easily killed one or two had I put more focus, but the group had desperate need of a victory there, or they would never start to *do* heroic things, but just discuss what could go wrong. ;-)

Cheers,
Nib

In terms of your write up nib - I really like it. It shares the same framework that I have written up here but with a significantly reduced timeframe. I find the reward system you use to figure out how the party has faired in the seige a bit complicated and confusing but I'm a fairly simple fellow at the best of times so this could be just me.

I agree that this could be much simpler, but ...

... it was a quick and dirty attempt to get many on the fly decisions that I usually make into some sort of rules framework with a way to predict the outcome or at least get an idea of how the characters actions are reflected in terms of comparing of the two (three) opponents to each other.

I probably should have reworked this after I was finished with the side-trek to be more transparent for the uninvolved. Some numbers (e.g. demon army power) were fixed only very late during my game and thus, much work could still go into determining adequate starting levels.

If there is enough interest, I could do so and simplify or at least standardize the rules so they can be tested.

Cheers,
Nib

Hi,

just wanted to mention that the "railroad" comment was probably mainly based on my dislike of the "sudden" appearance of Surabar's weapon cache, when this was not considered in the earlier event on how to imnprove the defenses.

Stormblades are a PITA to many groups, I can imagine. My group embraced the chance to pay something back (newspaper journal entries are a great way of setting such things up). And it seems, many players are not used to the idea that their characters are NOT the most important (or even the only) adventurers around. I must say that this Stormblades idea from the SC is in this respect just brilliant.

As far as Raise Dead and stuff is concerned. My group didn't have a cleric with them until recently, so they didn't spend much time on thinking about how to raise or how to prevent raises. That may have made them oblivious to the fact that Skellerang might have been raised. But they probably would have been too stingy to pay for it anyway. However, they didn't try to kill them outright, they were even a bit shocked, when Todd dropped like a wet paper towel after he got hit by the double scorching ray. And then they tried to convince the SBs to switch sides (at least the girls) which succeeded for a while. (I had the SBs leave the siege the next day to return Todds body to town).

My version (including a write-up of my game, lots of examples and a usable battle system) of the Battle of Redgorge has gone online at the rpgenius.com

Cheers,
Nib

Hi DD,

I have finished my abbreviated version of the Redgorge siege yesterday. My PCs were level 9 throughout, but they had Kaurophon which made quite some difference.

Since I had muchly reduced stats in my version (5 Vrocks would mop the floor with a 9th level party), I can't comment on the number and strength of opponents, you have used.

My group had to spend quite some resources to battle a few measly Babau. And that with 3 holy weapons at their disposal (holy longsword of Alek, Alakast and Star of Justice), which sliced through the demons' damage reduction like a hot knife through butter.

Spending spells and wand charges on the Babaus put them into a not so brilliant position when it came to the fight against Nabthatoron. At times, you should make it clear that the battle will only end if the demons are defeated and that this will most likely only be possible if their leader is defeated, so that they can at least conserve some spells for the showdown.

The captain's betrayal went brilliant for my group. They sent people to confront Terseon only to see him being attacked by half-orcs. They figured to try to help him, but I had them drop a few beads from a necklave of fireballs (while under a fire resistance spell) and they were able to follow their mission through. It made a big impact for the group seeing this to think different of the Blue Duke than they had done before.

They also happened to kill Todd (how convenient) by chance. They brought both girls into the negatives, but I let them survive, since the group then invited them into Redgorge. What I'm trying to say is: Don't expect the Stormblades to be around for the whole time, if there was already tension between the groups. A battlefield is just the perfect excuse for lawful characters to kill off NPCs their players despise. Alternatively: protect them much better (they are adventurers and would prepare in a battle they can foresee).

I think your outline is a bit too much railroaded, but that may be just my preconception. It certainly was nice for me to overwhelm them with a lot of options so they have to make up their mind on what to do first.

My group had (foreseeable) great lack in skills like Knowledge (Architecture & Engineering) so they had to rely completely on the Chisel to help out and more or less ignored all the opportunities to construct anything. Those events / options have to be tailored to match the respective parties abilities.

My party, having two rogues and other characters who CAN do a stealth mission, embraced the "destroy siege engines" option and also went for the "battle plans of your enemy" eventually, although it wasn't too obvious to them that there should be any. (Maybe your spy needs to tell them)

Be careful to stress the fact that the party's presence is important and thus avoid them running off to do things that spoil the fun as soon as they know they got 2 weeks. (especially since they probably have means for planar travel at this stage).

Hope you're doing well and have fun !

Nib

NO deaths yet. And we are already on the way to Occipitus ... (after chapter 5).

But I have this house rule called drama dice (you may amplify your d20 once per session with a d20 boost if you announce it prior to the roll + you have one action per level where you can do this even after the roll is on the table and doesn't look so good (3 on a fortitude save against a targeted spell...). Alternatively you prevent massive damage, get a free spell, and the like. this is only once per level per character).

It makes the game more survivable without imbalancing things too much (NPCs have the same options).

My party of 5 currently has 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 such "level actions" left.

So they do need them (Aushanna, I think required 4-5 in total ;-), an occasional critical typically takes up one for the character in question and very rarely, such a die is used on bardic knowledge or other skill checks, which are deemed important enough.

Cheers,
Nib

Hi,

I'm currently in the process of running the Redgorge invasion for my party (who is between chapters 5 and 6). We had one session already with 2 more to follow it through.

I started out using Delvesdeep's brilliant suggestions and added some of my own concoctions. I'm about to finish up the document (which is currently weighing in at 26 pages, with at least 5 more to be added).

What I chose to be substantially different from Delvesdeep is the duration of the siege. I didn't want to spend weeks (of game time) but only days, since Kaurophon is with the party and the PCs are supposed to accompany him to Occipitus as soon as possible. Plus, if the party gets 2 weeks of potential time to organize things, they could come up with all sorts of plans (including going back and forth to Cauldron a few times), although I fully agree that a 14 day timeframe is much more realistic than my "patch the wall in half a day", "create stone golems between breakfast and lunch" approach, but I don't care as long as my players (and I) have fun.

I have already realized that many events need to be brought up on the fly or in changed order. While the Demonskar ball had a very simple railroading theme due to the ball being completely governed by tradition, this battle is completely open and can change in multiple ways very quickly.

Just one example. My party immediately hit upon the possibility of damaging siege weapons, but were completely ignoring the option to steal the battle plans, although they had plenty of distraction after they had set huge fires to the siege towers and the trebuchet and could have infiltrated the camps relatively simple.

I presented them with a ton of options what they could do and they started randomly with something close by (getting stones to patch up walls from the quarry) to continue with a trip to the Stone giants and finally met the first wave of attackers that reached the walls. The PCs defended against the most visible attackers (Stormblades) and convinced some of them to at least visit Redgorge for the night (they didn't have much choice, being near or below 0 hp).

What I'm trying to say is, that anyone running this, should NOT expect to be railroading the group, because if you did, it would definitely show. It's probably better to have a large list of events to pick and chose as they become relevant.

Of course, there should be milestones, like the arrival of the demon army or the first approach of Cauldron's forces, with the killing of Skellerang or Todd (or both). But there are bound to be many additional unrelated events which should be as universal as possible to allow them to be used whenever necessary.

Anyway, I'm planning to be finished with my document by tomorrow (game is on Wednesday) so expect something on rpgenius this week...

Cheers,
Nib

Hi,

while looking for tips about the upcoming visit to Occipitus with my group, I realized, that there might be a really bad situation coming up. What would you do, if a player is a bit unhappy with his character and sees the final test as the perfect opportunity to role-play his character's death (in order to start a new one back in Cauldron) just to suddenly become the key figure to the whole AP, who can't die anymore...

If this happens, I'm hoping that the new twist will make the character a lot more interesting to play, but what if not...

Cheers,
Nib

How did the battle with the hags work for those who have already run it?

It was a really great (and tough) fight. I (DM) was getting frustrated with the ease with which my PCs were getting along, so I had something planned for them. After the hags were correctly identified as false sisters, they retreated to the room and made preparations. My PCs were not directly following, so they had the time. They used their polymorph covey ability to turn one of them into a huge monstrous spider, all turned invisible and then they waited...

With a web on the floor for the first unfortunate PC to step into. With the spider, waiting on the ceiling, invisible. The PCs only luck was their wizard who had see invisibility active and immediately sent Magic Missiles onto the two hags he discovered after the door slid open.

The others were still surprised and the party tank got dominated right away. Then they split. I don't know why, but they started to attack here and there, not knowing what they were up against and not knowing about the brutal covey abilities, missing to penetrate spell resistance, shooting while they were still invisible (miss chance), running in to get into melee, which the hags countered simply by flying away in time. The web on the floor didn't get noticed, so it also caused some delay.

The bard meant to be more intelligent and used his boots of spider climb to get into the room and fire off a spell at the hags, only to meet an attack of opportunity and a regular bite from the waiting spider. He made both saves against the poison, but failed the later ones. Including a weakness attack, he went to STR 0 at some point.

While some characters were spreading out, two stayed close together, ideal target for the forecage. And it came, thanks to the wand of magic missiles, rarely penetrating the spell resistance and thus not foiling any spell attempts. It looked very grim for them at that point.

They were assuming to lose at least one or two characters, when the rogue/fighter got in a pretty hefty sneak attack (I think he hit twice for a total of 30 or so). They eventually brought that one down. The remaining two might have still killed two or three PCs (with two more in the forcecage), but at that point, I ruled in the party's favor and had the forcecage disappear. They were already severely hurt and I didn't have to push it.

It was mopping up time. The third one tried to flee, but failed her concentration check (DC17 for invisibility) and received more attacks, which after the magic missiles got luckier was enough to end the fight for good. (They will still meet the nerra and the skeletons...)

Anyway, if your party seems rarely challenged and you need to teach them a lesson, look through the monster manual, pick the monsters with great extraordinary abilities (you get those, when you polymorph, without losing your other abilities in the change) and make them afraid, very afraid of losing their characters...

Cheers,
Nib

3. Allows the caster to tie one spell of a set of spells to the location.

Is it me, or has this last element been missed?

Is this third element taken up by Aushanna's summoning?

This is exactly how I interpreted it. The spell is basically the summoning of the devil. Aushanna is badass enough to challenge the PCs considerably. My group only survived by making heavy use of a house rule similar to action points. It is not necessary to punish them further.

Nib.

2. I have an elf Rogue in the party, he hasn't choosen his trait, though i'm thinking of him being a alleybasher where if he survives maybe become leader of the guild of some point. Though he could be in the last laugh, though it might interfere to much, what would someone suggest?

I run this campaign as well (currently entering chapter 5) and I have a female elven rogue in the party. She's good-aligned and as such, I didn't want to put her in the LL. I set her up as a barmaid of the Alleybashers where she "learned her thing". She tried to use the guild for gathering info, which was fine until... after the Lucky Monkey incident. When she was thinking, she could argue with her guild getting them to stop helping the evil guys, she got kicked out of Minuta's board with a line: Don't ever try to make an appearance here again.

She followed suit and concentrated on adventuring since.

It worked nicely that way. I could let the group know about the involvement of Alleybashers in the Lucky MOnkey raid and spread some rumor about Triel without too much suspicion amongst players (I have a heavily META-gaming bunch).

Anyway, it worked well. Good luck on your campaign.

Nib

Delvesdeep,

hang in there ! We'll wait a little longer, as we know it will be high quality stuff.

I just started my own foreshadowing through our (now very regular) newspaper (I blatantly copied "scroll & feather" for the first few issues and then stuck to that name), but supply has dried out a bit, so I continue on my own, however, I'm going to give it a different name, when I start uploading to RPGenius, so it does get its own face.

While I do share your concerns about the "too many villains" and thought long and hard about adapting your brilliant cut-down version, I finally decided against it, as I loath having to spend tons of hours familiarizing myself with the new setup and parts of my campaign (we're starting Chapter 5 now) have run different ways so it would be quite some work to just adept your work without screwing up the story.

Instead I'm going to try to foreshadow as many cagewrights (and criminals of the Rhiavadi house party) as possible (through rumors, stories and some specially crafted events (and handouts), material poised to appear at the RPGenius site, of course. I hope to get a feeling for the more memorable villains, who I think my group knows and has some open issues to settle and use primarily those in "13 cages" and "Strike on Shatterhorn". The others will be replaced using your lead from the "alternate version" document.

I'll be glad to report how that went, although this may take a little while, since we only play about 4-5 hours per week (with holiday downtimes where nothing happens).

Anyway, just wanted to cheer you up and keep you writing as I bet, there's (in addition to the people already praising your work) tenfold more who use the material and don't post...

Cheers,
Nib

Hi,

I'd just thought I add my 0.02 EUR to the thread.

I'm running the SCAP with a group of 5-7 players, currently 5.

I am trying to run the path as much BY THE BOOK as possible. No trimming down, no scaling up. Currently we're nearing the end of chapter 4 and we have only had a single party member die (though a few close calls and some, mostly UNintentional fudges saved a few days).

The only kill so far came by Aushanna and was supported by a DM decision (as the character's player was going to leave anyway). Aushanna took a full round action for a coup-de-grace, while at least 2 more combatants were in melee range already to avoid the fighter being healed back up from his negatives, fully risking to die in the next round. (BTW: Aushanna disappeared one round later before taking the lethal hit due to her alloted time).

How could this happen ?

First, I have to say, the group, while being led by an experienced min/maxer, is not optimized for full synergy. Most of the characters buff themselves with potions if at all. The reason I attribute much of the fun and survivability of the group is their access to a house rule similar to the action point system.

Once per session they get the opportunity to enhance a single d20 roll by d20. That means truly heroic deeds. (Break spell resistance of 35 ? Gotcha, Jump that 50 feet chasm, Check, make sure that threat converts to a critical, easy). Most of the time, those dice are spent on saving throws, though. Rogues with evasion reduce the 10d6 fireball to nothing, fighters shake off the strength denying poison with ease.

And for every level-up they receive an additional die which does not renew when spent. I allow to use that, even on the occasion of a roll already made. When you realize, that the attack is gonna kill you, you can try and see if you save by a natural roll, but if you don't you add another d20 and survive.

Of course, for dramatic effects, the NPCs get the same, as soon as the players have used some.

The fighting inside the Kuo-Toa complex has a) been exhausting two wands of healing b) depleted all spellcasters of their magic c) took about 10 level-only drama dice (and numerous session based ones) and d) required a very valuable item to be left as a security deposit with Dhorlot, whom they had been talking to using Diplomacy 35+ rolls to avoid the fight.

Basically, they had to tear through most of their resources, only to fail on bringing Zenith out and still having to deal with the black dragon (return trip coming up this week).

So: The SCAP is very difficult, but this is stated in its foreword. I deem some encounters completely impossible with core rules only (Aushanna). Although I am not allowing any classes outside PHB & DMG and I can keep things running without increased lethality but it requires said house rule to the fullest.

Cheers,
Nib

Finally,

I, too, had the pleasure of running a powerful, threatening, I would actually state, overpowered NPC. I believe, that standard rules characters on 7th level which is exactly what the AP demands at this stage, will (barring a specialist magic user, grappling monk or fantastic roleplay) are killed within about 15-20 rounds.

Statistically, you expect the group AC to be at 22/23 for the fighter types, 17/18 for the rogues/bards and 13/14 for the wizards. That means with her +16/+16/+11/+6 she scores on average 2-3 hits per round, dealing 8-20 (14 on avg) damage, that adds up to about 40 points per round. A group of 6 characters will have 60, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20 hp = 250 hp, leading to a kill of everyone on round 10 or so. Give and take a few terrain delays and move actions to come up with a 50% higher number, ergo: 15 rounds.

You need to either be much higher level or have a huge damage dealer with power attack, greatsword, bull's strength and rage *AND* get this monster into melee range of Aushanna. And you need to achieve this before she takes out half the party. Even then she can just defensively (easy with concentration of +20) teleport away to return at a better vantage point and continue the bloodbath.

A standard erinyes would IMHO be dangerous enough and an adequate opponent. The advanced erinyes just slaughters a party of 7th level, if you don't fudge rolls or severely restrict her tactics.

---

So how did my group do then ?

Since I had warned my players about playing by the book and threw plenty of meta-game remarks about the imminent danger, they knew it was going to be tough. That knowledge and a particular house-rule saved the day for them multiple times.

--- variant rule: Drama Dice ---
Similar to action points, the drama dice are meant to spice up things (on the offensive) and save characters from dying (on the defensive). Each player is awarded a session drama die and 1 level drama die per level advancement. The session dice renew, the level drama die don't. when they are used they are gone.

They allow to add a second roll of d20 on the first, potentially creating truly heroic results of 30-40 even on low levels. Their use, of course must be kept to a minimum, that's why once a PC has used a die, any NPC can also use one for the same effects. My way of fudging dice rolls: I'll decide not to use drama dice on the NPC side, unless a dramatic effect is adequate for the situation. On the flip side I make most rolls open and that avoids the idea of "players vs DM" and the DM can do whatever he wants a bit.

While a session drama die has to be announced before the actual roll is made, a level drama die can be added, once a roll indicates failure. A level drama die can also do a few other neat things: avoid massive damage (prevent up to 25% of current hit point total from a single attack), change your base AC (which normally is 10) to 2d20 (but not below 10) for 1 round. Get that extra punch when you need it (i.e. for confirming a crit, you roll the 2nd attack roll with 2d20) and any other effect with similar power level. (creative use by players)

I saw many drama die spent over the last two sessions. In a way, this is good, because I don't want to see level 15 characters with 13 drama dice left. It would be unbalancing...

----------

So, many drama die were used to keep some damage from Aushanna at bay, a few were used to confirm sneaky crits with blessed weapons and so on.

But first, they were stupid enough to not care about squieking portcullis or use of diplomacy instead of arrows for the ferryman. Second, they mistook the few clerics and archers for the "big battle" (TM) and spend some firepower on them. Third, they ran ... (which in hindsight was the best decision up to then). In the open space of the statue room, they would have stood not the hint of a chance to escape TPK. In the torture chamber, however, with some help from the water extinguishing flames and an actual possibility of going into melee combat, it was an equal fight. The fighter with overrun didn't quite succeed so the rogue had to tumble through. But they managed to get her flanked in the 5 foot corridor and dealt substantial damage.

When they had thwarted some of her spell-like abilities (unholy blight) with AoOs all the while dealing damage, Aushanna faced real danger when she went to about 14 hp. So she defensively teleported away to make telephatic contact with Mangh-Micto who decided to join her before his buff spells ran out. He healed like 30 hp from scrolls of the whips and his own cure serious and they split up again. While Aushanna closed the portcullis and readied actions for anyone who fled the torture chamber south, Micto assaulted the party from the north. He controlled water up to the ceiling and kept them quite busy with this tactic. But he can't teleport away, so when he was charged and pummeled to the one-digit hitpoint region, he fled - into the water and through. Half the party went through the statue room to circle back to their 2 comrades who had taken shelter in one of the cells, after noticing Aushanna at the ready. Micto after reaching the cell corridor started healing himself, Aushanna giving him cover with her bow. When the rest of the party almost ran in to her from behind, she teleported again. Micto was charged, fired a final lightning bolt, but faced overwhelming opponents. His last action, however, was to cast "deeper darkness", which combined extremely deadly with Aushanna's true seeing. Essentially, she suddenly had gained greater invisibility as the only dispel magic available (without scrolls) had just been cast to render her bow non-magical for a few rounds. As a result, many of the now attempted melee combat attacks failed due to concealment, others due to her pretty good armor class. She was about to hack the party to pieces, after being disarmed of her now less useful bow. After she succeeded to kill the party tank, she took a full round action for a coup-de-grace so the Bard couldn't bring him back to life with his readied wand of cure serious wounds (and because his player left the group anyway). The wizard, previously utterly ineffective at penetrating her SR, came up with a pretty good idea. He attacked the deeper darkness. More precisely, he scorched the wet stone 9which had it cast upon it) with over 20 points of damage and broke the floor into several pieces. With detect magic he identified the one having the spell cast on it and carried it away from the battle. he took it far enough to effectively dispel the darkness. That gave a huge morality boost and Aushanna was again hit by sneak attacks from the now flanking rogues. In the end, I decided that Aushanna's 10 minutes would end the round after and since the group didn't quite kill her, she left with a curse on her lips, but without her bow to the nine hells.

---

Question:
What if she returns due to being summoned again. Will she be fully healed ? have a new bow ? Change tactics ?

Thanks for reading.

Nib