I’m currently running a Pathfinder game on Saturdays and I have said I would allow some material from 3.x to be updated to Pathfinder, subject to approval of course. One player already took advantage of that by bringing in a Dragonfire Adept from the Dragon Magic book. This isn’t about that conversion, although anyone who wants to see the changes I made I’ll happily post or email it.
This thread is about another player. One of the players (who is currently playing a monk) asked if there were any good ninja classes. Now you can play a really good ninja by just re-skinning the rogue. If you really want to take 1 level of fighter so you are visibly competent using any martial weapon and all armors, plus 1 or 2 levels of monk so you can beat people with your unarmed attacks. Still people want an actual ninja class, and I answered his question honestly. To me in all the 3.0 and 3.5 books I’ve looked in, including OGL books, I’ve only seen 2 ninja-esque classes that were remotely good. In the Rokugan book there is a core ninja class with some very interesting abilities (int bonus to initiative, 5 x con mod to base speed and a dodge pool that can be divided among multiple opponents are the only ones I can remember.) The other is a 3.0 class called the Ninja of the Crescent Moon. It has some of the coolest abilities over, but is BROKEN. Fighter’s BAB, all saves good saves, 1d6 sneak attack at every odd level, monk AC bonus, minimum of two special abilities per level. You can see the problem. Still it is one I used to love some of the concepts from (especially always sneaky).
He liked the sound of it too and wanted to try to get that updated. I told him there were only 1 or 2 people in the world who could teach him. Thanks to a deck of wonderous things managed to find and convince one of those people. So I wanted opinions on my update of the class:
Requirements:
BAB: +6
Feats: Improved Unarmed Attack, Deflect Arrows, Quickdraw
Stealth: 10 ranks
Other: Evasion class feature, must have a teacher
Stats:
HD d8
BAB: rogue’s
Fort: bad
Ref: good
Will: bad
1st: 1d6 Sneak attack, Monk AC, poison use
2nd: Improved Evasion
3rd: 1d6 sneak attack
4th: fast climb
5th: 1d6 sneak attack
6th: Silencing Attack
7th: 1d6 sneak attack
8th: fast sneak
9th: 1d6 sneak attack
10th:Always Sneaky, Blindsense 10ft radius
Sneak attack: As per rogue
Monk AC: AC bonus as a monk of his level or stacks with existing monk levels.
Poison Use: as per assassin
Improved Evasion: as per rogue
Fast Climb: the character is an expert at climbing quickly and carefully. He can climb at one-half normal speed without taking a -5 penalty and may always take 10 on climb checks. He may choose to take a -10 penalty to climb at his normal movement speed. Further he does not lose his dexterity bonus to AC while climbing.
Silencing Attack: When making a sneak attack the rogue may attempt to silence his target. The target is allowed a fort save DC 10 + class level + int. The effect lasts for 1 round.
Fast Sneak: You can move at your full move while using stealth without taking a penalty, and you are not penalized for hiding quickly when observers are distracted. You may take a -20 penalty to run while sneaking.
Blindsense: You are attuned to your surroundings and able to detect the slightest changes in them. This provides you Blindsense in a 10ft radius.
Always Sneaky: You are considered to be taking 10 on sneak at all times unless you specifically state otherwise. If an opponent is distracted or unable to see you at any time they must roll again to locate you. You can hide even if you have no cover or concealment of any kind, but this is at a -20 penalty. The penalty for taking a sniping shot is reduced to -10.
I took away most of the weird stuff (like being able to hypnotize people with complicated hand gestures or being able to ethereal jaunt).
Let me know what you all think. Is it too powerful? Not powerful enough? Any abilities it seems like they should have?
Oh, and all abilities are extrodinary abilities.
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As has been mentioned in a few other threads in addition to the Pathfinder game I run on Saturdays, I am also currently running a game using the Anima system on Tuesdays. That will soon be coming to an end. Not that I will cease running on Tuesdays, but I've done as much with the Anima game as I feel I want to.
So this thread will be dedicated to the new campaign I am working on for Tuesdays. I will be using the GURPS system, current looking at 200 point characters, 50 points of disadvantages and 5 poins of quirks. Each character must be human and must be from Earth. They can be from past, present or future. It can be an earth with magic or an earth with psychics.
The characters will all wake up togather with only the cloths on their backs and no idea how they got there. "There" will prove to be a landscape completely barren of life with a modern day town in the distance. From there survival will be up to their skills and luck.
The inspiration for this game will be taken from many places, virtually all of which fall into the horror or post-apocalyptic categories. Some of the main inspirations are 28 Day Later, Zombieland, Resident Evil, Biomeet-Necter (manga) and the horror manga of Junji Ito. It's going to be gruesome.
Currently there are 12 players expected to be in the game. It was 11 but Tanis expressed an interest in joining, and is one of the only players I would allow to do so. I am encouraging the players to post journals using this thread. Audience participation would be most welcome. If you have suggestions for horrible things for them to come across in their journey through a destroyed world please feel free, just put in a spoiler tag. Any of my players who read spoiler tags will be docked exp. Also if you have any suggestions for the players go ahead and make them. They will need the help.
I expect a character death or two in the first session. While I’ll do my best to not try and trick the characters into getting killed, it will still be a dangerous world. One wrong move could kill you and anyone nearby.
**Before reading or posting on this thread please understand that it is NOT a place to complain about the GM killing your favorite character or being unfair in the game.**
Something that has been bothering me for a while now as I have run into it several times is an occational lack of basic courtesy by GMs. Mainly I'm refering to GMs who can't make a session for whatever reason but don't bother to tell the players ahead of time, or explain/appologize for what happened afterwards.
The players are planning their time around the game and all their plans are screwed up when the GM doesn't show. I personally feel I have a commitment to my players to at an absolute minimum let them know as soon as humanly possible when a game has to be canceled. Unless you are in the hospital or prison it's simply a matter of picking up your cell phone and calling someone in the group to say "no game today".
The worst example of GM and frankly player discourtesy I've ever seen involved a fairly large gaming group. A very limited number of the players got togather (including the current GM) to decide on a new game and to only invite their very favorite players. the majority of the group was not invited to this meet, the details of what happened where kept secret so that no one would actually have to tell anyone to thier face that there was a complaint. Further those not invited to the new game were never told when the current game would end, and in fact were were rediculed and insulted when they asked about what was going on.
I myself am not and have not been a perfect player or GM. I will admit that when I was younger I was not as mature or entertaining as a player as I am now. I also understand that thing happen in RL that over rule running a game. Still a simple call saying it is canceled or an appology and brief explanation afterwards doesn't seem to much to ask.
What is the basic level of courtesy you expect from the other people you play with? For the players out there what sort of courtesy to you expect from your GM? For the GM's what sort of courtesy do you feel you owe the players, and for that matter what courtesies do you feel they owe you in return?
Well I’ve got me a job. Afta’ leavin’ home I ended up headin’ way North. Afta’ a time I came ta’ country with a temptin’ offer. I got me a writ that says I’m the new authority up furtha’ North, that is assumin’ I kin “civilize” tha place. Now that’s a tall orda’ for big ole me, so I got me some help. O’ course after meetin’ ‘em….
First up der’s Psycho-M. I call her a psycho cause I just know she is one. That calm smilin’ little face don’t fool me, dat lady is CRAZY. Y’all see what I mean when I get ta what we was doin’. Still and all I kin deal wit’ crazy. I t’ink she’s da one I can trust most. Maybe it’s cause she’s a chanter like my daddy was. O’ course she don’t follow Kord. ‘Stead she’s got some weird goddess o’ life n’ death. I can respect the big ol’ blade she totes around, even if looks like some sorta’ farm tool.
We do have a finger wiggler in da party, and a pretty competent one so far. His name’s Lewy. He don’t say much, which I count as a good t’ing. We’ll see how he shapes up.
We also go two point ears in da party. Da first one is Pretty Boy. Now when he first showed up he was wearin’ some wolf skin mask, so I kinda’ assumed he was ugly which is how he got da nickname. Well he asked me about da nickname and I explained. At dis point he pulls back da mask to show he was a looker, which means da nickname isn’t as funny, but it still works. As for his fightin’ ability he brings ta mind my daddy’s tails of one a’ his old adventurin’ buddies named Sir Ineptus. Hopefully he’ll prove ta be a bit less dumb.
Finally we got ZZ-Bottom, our otha' pointy ears. His names Zar-somethin’ or Zon-somethin’ that I ain’t ever gonna remember. I’d call him ZZ-Top but I got this feelin’ he’s more of a bottom if ya get my meanin’. The way he caresses dat’ long boy a’ his don’t help none. When he gets up close and personal like he tends to whip out two blades and use bot’. Still he’s good at all dat woodsy stuff, which I can tell is gonna be important.
Supposedly some otha's might be joinin’ us latah, but dose in-tro-ductions will have to wait till latah.
((Interesting how the character has ended up with what seems to be a Cajun accent….))
So my name is Jorli, and this is a journal I’m making for my recent adventures. Someday I may fill in the details of how I ended up here, but not for the moment. Recently I’ve been living as a citizen of Lazlo and training in magic. Of course now my apprenticeship is over, and more importantly my money is almost run out. Oh, and something is definitely out to screw with me and my new “friends”.
I know this for a couple of reasons. First there is the fact that about a week ago I woke up to find myself in a strange town somewhere in Canada. I wish I could say what town, but since it was in the middle of being destroyed I didn’t stay around to find out. Then a rift opened in the sky and dropped two of my new traveling companions at my feet. Over the course of the next week three more rifts have deposited three more companions with me. I really don’t think this is coincidence.
My guess is that some “higher power” wants something from us. Now if they had approached me with a regular job offer of babysitter, which is my current role in this happily ignorant band, then I might have been interested. After all this sort of control over rifts is exactly what I need to achieve my goals. This little side show is something else. I definitely do not like whatever sort of smart@ss that is trying to throw us all together. Especially since these rifts also seem to enjoy spitting out demons after our new friends arrive. Multiple demon and bug attacks over a short interval make me really suspicious and pissed off.
So far there is a goblin who has suit of power armor that has one hand replaced with a chainsaw. He is always smoking cigars. Pretty fun guy to have around so far.
There is a girl with silver eyes, white hair and some serious strength and speed. Her habit of using a claymore one handed and cutting threw demons like they were paper, seems both useful and dangerous, especially in light of her apparent ignorance of anything technological or highly magical.
We have a human wilderness scout with some martial arts skills. He seems the most normal one of the bunch, and his skills will probably come in handy.
There is a guy who claims to be an archeologist and superhero from another world. Nice guy, but a little weird. He is always muttering about it being a “bad day”, which admittedly is usually true. Apparently he can magically power up, at which point he is hellishly strong.
A friend of the archeologist also popped up recently. He looks like he was carved of obsidian and against is damn strong. Not as quick on his feet as the other two though, and that may cost him in a fight. Doesn’t matter how hard you hit if you never land a blow. Still superheroes like him can be useful, and easy to manipulate.
Lastly we’ve got a techno-wizard. Use stuff, but strangely enough he isn’t from this world. Last I heard not many places in the multi-verse had discovered that. Hopefully I can trade spells with him or something. My training focused heavily on dimensional magic. I’m not that useful in a fight yet, although my martial arts training and working knowledge of how to shoot a laser rifle both make up for it somewhat.
Right now were are escorting a team of scientists to what they think is a pre-rifts city. I need the money and maybe archeology boy can find something useful. So far in the trip we have been attacked by bugs, demons and some sort of D-bee I don’t recognize that managed to grow an organic plasma cannon. Not the mention the exploding Nazi blimp and falling destroyer that on rift spat out. I am no longer surprised that the last missions never made it back. I’m still pretty confident we will, but then again we aren’t even half way there yet.
Well, I'm back to running 3.5 D&D with a whole new group. It's one of the best groups I've run for so far, and I'm looking forward to it. The campaign setting is about 30 or so years after my last D&D campaign ended. Several of the players seemed very interested in having a campaign journal, so hopefully you all will get to see the player perspective on all this. So let’s introduce our cast:
Wiz is a human wizard. He is a nice guy and so far the only party member to prove himself to be very good. He grew up on a farm located near the Valley of the Mage. He is a follower of Ian, although not the most devoted one so far. His familiar is a celestial hawk. His desire for knowledge has and probably will again lead him to some dangerous situations. It’ll be interesting to see how he develops.
Droodad is a female human druid (also the only female player). She has so far shown a great fondness for nature and animals, but that doesn’t seem to extend to intelligent creatures quite as much. She is a childhood friend of Wiz, although her family isn’t originally from the area.
Kitty is an anthropomorphic tiger monk. He was captured as a child for experimentation by the father of Ryzzym Jaderanai. When Ryzzym and his companions fought and killed Ryzzym’s father he was freed. He grew up in Furyondy, in the city where Ryzzym created his magic guild.
Sneaky is the son of Ryzzym Jaderanai. He was a drow rogue/sorcerer. He has however quite the game recently.
Silent Man is a swordsage who unbeknownst to the party was raised by goblins. He rarely talks to others, and has yet to tell anyone his name. He does seem to get along pretty well with Kitty. So far the only one to turn in a back story, and weird one. I hope to have fun with it.
Magic Girl is a human favored soul of Ian/warmage and is going for mystic theurge. She is the primary healer of the party, although Droodad is close to as good. The player likes the character, but hasn’t really gotten into the character’s background so far, but still very handy to have around.
Tin Man is a human knight. Tough as nails, but not the most dangerous opponent in the part. He’ll makes an excellent tank once he figures out the tactics for one. He also has some of the worst luck at die rolls I’ve ever seen.
I’ll be posting their adventures so far as the week goes on. Hopefully I’ll be caught up by next Saturday, but we’ll see.
Our happy trio was well on their way to Magister, but just as they were about to turn east they ran into a little encounter that changed their plans drastically. The Borg was keeping an eye on the path ahead, which let him spot someone hiding in the trees. He fired a “warning” shot with his ion cannon at its lowest setting. Fortunately his target was wearing armor, unfortunately said armor was metal. He fell to the ground screaming and then swearing as the shoulder of his armor turned cherry red with heat from the blast.
Had this been the only ambusher the party would have had no trouble at all. Unfortunately they quickly realized they were surround by at least a dozen people all armed with bows. The spokes woman for the group stood up where the group could see her. She was clad in a close fitting metal armor and glowing translucent sword sprang easily to her hand. To the two more experienced members of the party the immediate though was “cybernight,” from Kalyn (aka Fan Lady) the though was “how can I do that.”
After some very nervous words were exchanged it was established that the trio were simple travelers trying to find safety, while their ambushers was a guard patrol for Ripton’s Landing, a small town nearby. The party was quickly escorted to the two where they would be able to get lodgings with someone named Billy.
Billy as it turns out was an entrepreneur who ran the local armor smithy, inn, bar and bathhouse. They parked what was left of Kalyn’s car in his garage and then went into the bar to meet Billy himself. Billy was a huge individual with a massive beard and a pronounced Russian accent. Only Kalyn actually recognized what the accent was, since her two companions had never even heard of Russia. Billy himself was shocked to find out that she not only recognized his origins (she was the only person to do so for the entire time he had been on this continent), but also was from the past and knew of Russia’s great golden age. The two would end up having many longs talks on the subject, especially once she started working at the bar for a little while in exchange for him crafting her a suite of armor and a magical fan.
This town provided a well-deserved rest for our heroes and they lingered here for several weeks. During that time Smiley worked as a robot mechanic, while The Borg worked on the few computer programming and repair needs the village had. The Borg also made friends with the local cyberdoc, a lovely young woman who was also a powerful psychic. Eventually they were offered citizenship in the town, which required them to contribute to its defense each year, either with money or guard service. They declined, but were declared friends of the town and given the recognition words to be recognized by the guard patrols.
Eventually they decided it was time to end their stay and move on. The Borg and Smiley wanted to get out west, and Kalyn was reluctant to be left behind by her friends. Doc decided to tag along with them, which was fortunate since she was the only one of the four with a working vehicle. From here they were determined to head north to New Lazlo, then turn west and cut between what was left of Tolkeen and the Coalition. Since they were headed to New Lazlo one of the guys in the Ription’s Landing offered them very good money to deliver a strange wooden box marked with symbols drawn in chalk.
Most of the trip to New Lazlo was uneventful, at least until they were ordered to pull over by a coalition patrol. They decided to try and avoid trouble, so they pulled over. The officer in charge was, frankly, a prick. With him was a very grizzled sergeant, and five dogboys. One of the dogboys was apparently a wolf breed and very twitchy. Everyone except Smiley climbed out of the Doc’s wilderness rover, although the Doc took time to disguise her psionic abilities before climbing out. The Borg decided that brown nosing the officer was the way to go, and it worked wonders. They officer was ready to let them head on their way when the wolf insisted that some very, very powerful magic was onboard the vehicle. The officer’s reply of “Hell, fido” proved to be a grave mistake when the wolf calmly shot him in the head.
At this point all hell broke loose. The wolf sprinted for the vehicle door while the sergeant dove for cover behind a tree. The wolf stopped at the door of the vehicle to open fire on his fellow dogboys. Smiley stepped to the doorway, tossed The Borg his weapon and then the pair also opened up on the dogboys. Doc cut loose with her psionics, but Kalyn was too confused to do much of anything. The fight was very, very short and everyone was surprised when the sergeant himself finished off the last dogboy. From his hiding place the sergeant offered them two options. First they could grab Butch (the wolf-bred dogboy) and leave, or two they could try to kill him and flee before he could call in backup from the SAMAS patrol that was in the area.
Wisely the party decided it was in their best interest to head out. Butch proved to be a very quiet companion, although he very much enjoyed Kalyn scratching behind his ears. They made it to New Lazlo without much further incident. The security around the town was pretty high and they were not able to bring in their vehicle or most of their gear. They weren’t question too closely as it turned out that The Borg and the security guard shared a love of pre-Rifts movies, there was even a theater in town that played them. The package when they delivered it turned out to be a very impressive techno-wizard sword commissioned for a dangerous looking man dressed in some sort of scaly hide armor.
They took some time here to do a little work for extra money and something usual cropped up when The Borg was working on the city’s computers. In a very old and outdated file he stumbled upon what appeared to be the algorithm used by the New Lazlo city security system to determine it’s daily password. This program changes the password needed to turn off and bypass the cities main defenses and detection systems. By itself it isn’t any good, but with this program and knowledge of the password used on a specific day, it would be possible to determine the current password, no mater how long ago the other password was in use.
Realizing both how valuable and illegal this information would be The Borg went about attempting to sell it very carefully. He used his skill in cryptography to hint at what he had on a trading message board. He did get a contact, but was a bit clumsy in responding, and so end up scaring off his buyer. Of course he still has the information.
Since money is always a good thing, before leaving they checked to see if anyone had any jobs that needed doing out west. After a little negotiation they were hired by Doctor Pada Windbird (a former character of the Doc’s and a Native American, Doctor, Mindmelter) to deliver a cargo of medicine to some relatives of hers out in what used to be Wyoming. At least they now had a destination besides “west”.
Gorna and Geoff
The recent history of the kingdom of Geoff begins roughly 150 years ago with the Giant Invasion. Swarms of Giants poured out of the mountains around Geoff, leveling the countryside as they came. This continued until they reached the city of Gorna. A desperate defense of the city was mounted, led by a group of powerful adventurers. The army of giants was demolished. More than 2/3 of the giants were slaughtered and while the city was damaged, it did survive. The giants that survived turned south and fled to Sterich.
In the aftermath the city of Gorna has survived and even thrived. It is known as the city of adventure and many hopeful new adventurers have begun their travels there. It has become almost independent of the surrounding country of Geoff. The city is governed by a city council, almost all of whom are former adventurers of much skill and renown. Officially the council members hold power in the name of the King of Geoff. In practice the council is willing to accede to the King’s every order so long as he does not issue any orders and they send him a small portion of the taxes. The King for his part spares the council the need to refuse his orders by not issuing any.
The city has a predominately neutral good alignment and with few exceptions almost anything can be found for sale or trade. In recent years traders from two very unusual groups have started coming to Gorna since the Undead War ended about 50 years ago. The first group that has set up trading outposts is the Giant Empire. A treated between Geoff and the Empire was reached during the Undead War and the giants have been using it to expand their trading. Most of their products are shipped from Gorna to other lands by human traders. In the past few years a number of Drow merchants have also started showing up. Their presence has met with a lot of resistance, especially from the elven citizens of the city, but the council has subtly made it know that the merchants have their approval and will have the full protection of the town guard. The Drow merchants have not been upset about their cold welcome, and seem to consider it the price of doing business.
Places in Gorna
The Emporium is a huge selling place for magic items. The items are rarely of the most expensive kind (rarely over 30k), but they do get the occasional large item. They are known buying from adventurers for good prices (65% of market value) and they sometimes take commissions (max of 10th level caster, 150% mark up).
The Dragon’s Horde Inn is the most famous of the local inns. It is huge, having over 50 rooms of good quality and cost (1-50gp per night). It is most famous for it’s tavern where many, many adventurers have started their careers. This reputation is important enough that they actually screen those they allow to offer work within their walls. The jobs offered must be decent pay, and something that relative new comers to the adventuring profession could handle. Those want to offer or take more dangerous or higher paying work will be directed by the management to specific other establishments.
The Forest of Towers is a section of town frequently also called the mages quarters. At least a dozen powerful mages have towers there where they have retired to after years spent adventuring. One of them, a lord Harolin, is on the council. The mage’s guild also has it’s own tower in the area. Even the businesses in the area all have a magical bent of some sort. It’s claimed that even the whores in the local brothel use magic (which is true).
The Flying School is one of the most unusual structures in the entire town. It is a school for experienced fighters founded by one of the heroes of the Undead War, the dwarf king Oscar Feykill. The stone building does not look unusual except for the ballistae on the roof. However a strange device the owner found in his travels allows the whole building to fly away. Student who have been there during the outings tell stories of strange worlds and places they have visited while gone.
People of Gorna
Lord Harolin is an ancient human, supposedly one of the adventurers who save the city from the giant army. Rumors of his death are common, especially when he misses most of the council meetings. However he always seems to turn up when the council faces major concerns. Those who have seen him report that he looks so old and withered it seems like a strong breeze would turn him to dust.
Jalom the Halfling is the current leaders of the thief’s and assassin’s guild. Jalom’s grandfather was one of the adventurers who saved the city from giants, and once the city was safe he promptly turned around and took over the running of the thief’s guild there. Jalom’s father was the one who decided to branch out into assassination and took over the assassin’s guild in a very bloody struggle. His family is careful to maintain public respectability, but it is an open secret that he heads the thief’s guild. This public respectability is necessary for the family to retain their hereditary seat on the council. This has also led the thief’s and assassin’s guild to shape some of their policies to try and help prevent the city and it’s economy from coming to harm.
While our friends have had a number of adventures before attempting to start this rebellion, the importance of those adventures pale in comparison to this great undertaking. It began when the King and Queen of the Shield Lands who raised Serine almost as if she was their own daughter asked her to call those companions she could trust to meet with them in secret. Gathering her adventuring companions she and they went to the meeting and were surprised to find the King and Queen accompanied by an old and grizzled looking man. At this point the King and Queen finally related to Serine how she came to be in their care, and who her parents truly are. At this point the group consists Serine, Quarion, The Great, Bobby, Ryzzym and Carinia (mystic theurge played by Ebil M, I may have the name wrong).
The truth revealed was that Serine was actually the daughter of the King and Queen of Furyondy. Merely an hour after Serine was born the King and Queen of Furyondy were killed in a fire that consumed part of the royal castle. It is believed by all that this is the result of foul play on the part of the Empire of Iuz. The fact that the Empire invaded the next day with the help of three of the great noble families of Furyondy certainly supports that. It’s likely that Serine herself would have been targeted for assassination if the Empire had known of her. Unfortunately for the Empire almost everyone who knew of her birth died in the fire that killed her parents. She herself was born with complications and the castle mage personally teleported her over to the Shield Lands where a renowned healer was staying at the castle. They kept her identity secret even from herself in the hopes that she could one day free her people and take her rightful throne. It was also the sole reason that they did not adopt her and proclaim her their heir. They believe now is the time since the Empire was thrown into confusion by the recent death of the god Iuz.
The older gentlemen with them listened to this tale without much surprise. He it turns out is Lord Samuel Geraldon, the last lord of Furyondy. His province is the only part of Furyondy that remains unconquered. This is in part due to the fact that it borders the Shield Lands, but has more to due with the fact that he is a cunning and tenacious warrior and leader. He admits that there is a possibility that the tale is true, especially given Serine’s close appearance to her mother. He also dearly hopes that his people can be freed.
However, Lord Geraldon has a condition attached to his aid and support. First the Lady Serine must prove her worth. He will not lend is support to a cause that cannot win, or a person who cannot leader her people. So first she must lead a rebellion in Windilema, the coastal province of Furyondy, and she must do it without the aid of any troops from the Shield Lands.
The party spends only a few days preparing before setting out for Furyondy. Unfortunately they don’t bother to take any of that time to buy or request such things as Hats of Disguise or up to date intelligence reports. This proves to be something of a mistake because they would have learned that the Empire requires everyone to have travel papers, and extremely useful tidbit. Their path will take them through the area controlled by Lord Geraldon directly into the province of Windilema.
The trouble first begins as they approach the border to Windelima in the form of a barricade across the road. It isn’t much of a barricade, considering it consists of a few trees that appear to have been pulled up by the roots. Behind it is a troop of orcs with spears and longbows commanded by a hill giant. They quite openly fly the banner of the Empire of Iuz. They of course immediately demand to see the party’s travel papers. When no such are forth coming they demand the party surrender.
While a few in the party begin to prepare for battle, The Great has other plans. He proclaims himself to be an author, here to write a book about the great defenders of this border. He is of course sure that such a great and noble leader as the giant would be a major character in the book. The giant starts to preen and smile as The Great lays it on thicker than a 200-horse parade with diarrhea.
The giant is in the middle of offering the party lodging and food for the night and a personal escort into town when disaster strikes. Apparently a very small band of rebels had snuck up on the rocs from behind, and a young mage took advantage of the situation to plaster the lot of them with a fireball spell. This sets off the druid who was hiding in the woods, ready to Entangle the entire party. Which in turn sets of Ryzzym who has a lightening bolt prepped and ready to thrown at the giant. Unfortunately Ryzzym lets fly the lightening both and catches both Serine and The Great who are between him and the giant. This kills Serine’s horse, but since both of them are stuck fast in the vines called up by the druid, neither actually falls down. Instead Serine must sit out the fight on top of a dead horse while wrapped up in vines, not something she appreciates.
Seeing that his friend The Great was struck by the lightening bolt as well assumes treachery and calls his new friend over to where he can protect him. The giant is quite surprised that upon riding over The Great promptly cuts his head off. Ryzzym and the rebel wizard quickly dispatch the rest of the orcs, although the standard bearer proves to be able to dodge almost all of their effects. Unfortunately he is not able to dodge Quarion’s arrows with nearly as much skill.
The few rebels quickly begin talking with the party and the two groups decide to work together. Among the rebels is a champion of freedom named Asmodius (played by the player of Sandra). Their first joint target is brought to their attention by a rebel scout to informs then that he has found a major camp, with roughly four times as many troops as were here. As hasty plan is concocted in which Bobby and The Great will use illusions to appear as wounded orcs and gain entry to the camp, to see what information they can get, as well as be inside the lines to add confusion when the fight happens.
When they arrive at the camp, which has wooden walls similar in construction to the barricades they faced before, they see about 40 orcs, two hill giants and a small stone building. A spellcraft check enables them to realize that the building is due to one of the Leomund’s spells. The orcs have a careful watch set up, which does not worry our party.
Bobby and The Great march up as planned, while the rebels hang back in hiding. Carinia drops and invisibility spell and starts sneaking around to one side of the camp. Quarion in the mean time sneaks up to take sniper position in one of the trees. Had this been all the party’s plan might have worked. Unfortunately both Ryzzym and Serine also decide to sneak up. Ryzzym uses levitation to hide in one of the trees, while Serine places herself at the base of the tree that Quarion now resides in. The orcs in the mean time prove to be better at spotting than either Ryzzym or Serine do at hiding and proceed to start shouting at the tops of their lungs about an ambush.
The fight looks like it should be an easy one until those in the stone house start coming out. The first person to step out is an orc who touches a rod on his belt and rapidly throws down two spells. One member of the group recognizes the spells as Recitation and Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, making the whole camp much more formidable. Shortly after Carinia throws a spell in the cleric’s direction and human steps out of the building. He strips her of her currently active spells, including the invisibility, thanks to a Greater Dispell Magic. Following him out is a pair of Fire Giants. In the meantime the battle at the front of the camp has been joined in earnest. However the orcs are staying together and moving a bit cautiously. Their archery proves capable of riddling Ryzzym with a few arrows, although no others are harmed. Ryzzym manages to ignore the few arrows that come his way and instead concentrates on his Channeled Pyroblast spell. Quarion his still hiding, waiting for a Giant to get close while Serine and Asmodius attack the orcs. In the meantime Bobby and The Great have gone undetected and are only 10 feet from the edge of the camp, actually behind several orcs.
While a few archers and the mage quickly reduce Carinia to unconsciousness, but not before her lightening bolts rake the enemy lines. The cleric strides forward while casting two spells, one of which makes him grow as larger as the giants in the camp. The two fire giants peel off to each deal with one side of the camp. At this point Ryzzym finishes his fully powered up Channeled Pyroblast, which since he miss aimed it lands square on top of Bobby and The Great! While his later attacks are more accurate, he has earned a reputation for “friendly fire” that will be hard to live down. (The player thought it hit a bigger area than it does, so he thought it would do the most good there, oops.) This breaks the illusion spells protecting Bobby and The Great, but they are ready to act in any case. Both of the hill giants have been dispatched by this time, and many of the orcs have died in the ferocity of the fighting.
Quarions bow cuts a hole in the orc line which lets The Great charge him and wallop him mightily. Bobby in the mean time proves his mettle by banish one of the fire giants into a Shadow Well spell. The mage is gleefully throwing spells around; quite happy that at the back of the camp he is not suffering any return fire. The cleric heals him self a bit before laying into The Great brutally, but is not quite able to drop him. The Great returns the favor as Serine rushes in to aid and Quarion adds his deadly hail of arrows.
The remaining fire giant has been moving up cautiously and hangs back just a little expecting to be charged by one of the enemy. This proves to be his undoing as Bobby throws a Phantasmal Killer at the giant, literally scaring the life out of him (I need a 4 on the fort save, seriously a 4! Rolling a 3 just sucks sometimes). The Cleric is only barely holding his guts in, so he retreats back towards the mage healing him some. The mage realizes that the fight is going very badly reaches over, grabs the cleric and teleports them both to safety.
The party is easily able to kill the few remaining orcs, but in just a few moments the fire giant will emerge from the Shadow Well. They surround the spot where he will reappear and prepare to offer him a chance to surrender. Not being an utter moron, he agrees. The Great pulls him aside to talk and quickly discovers that the giant is neutral and more than willing to talk in exchange for him life.
The giant reveals that the leader of the province is a human named Serath, who is some sort of fighter-mage. His second is command is a cloud giant named Laroth, who is a bit tougher than his fellow cloud giants. Most of the demi-human troops are kept at the border out of the cities to prevent trouble. In fact a few of the orc tribes are tired of being under the command of the empire, but don’t have any other good option. In fact the banner bearer of the patrol the group wiped out earlier was the son of one of the unhappiest of the orc chiefs. Carinia points out at this time that she actually stuck his body in a portable hole after he was slain.
The Great is not quite finished with the giant yet, they have one more matter to discuss, employment. The Great actually offers the giant a job working to help construct and maintain the keep that The Great is having built. They manage to hash out terms for both the giant and his wife, who happens to be a sculptor. Before leaving the giant offers one more piece of information. Apparently one of the Empire’s tactic for dealing with those who become too big an annoyance is to round up a group of villagers. Then each day they execute a few of the villagers until someone gives up the local of the rebels they seek.
After hearing this, the group decides that Asmodius and The Great will go talk to the orc chief, taking both the son’s body and all the armor they could collect here. In the mean time the rest of the party will head into town with one of the rebels who lives there. It will take a day to reach town and The Great and Asmodius should be able to catch up the next day.
Well Lads and Lasses, it has been an impressive victory for the Admiral and his loyal captains. Yes, I am now the admiral of my very own seven-ship fleet. This wussy little “Crimson Fleet” has been captured and Far Shore is safe.
We spent the last few months building up the village to prepare for this attack. Some of our more last minute changes were the addition of some nets to block the harbor mouth. Plus two stone huts at the outcroppings to raise a lower the net, as well as keep watch. Somewhere along the way blabbermouth managed to find herself a griffin named buttercup, which she wanted to ride into battle.
As we were putting up these little changes Da Fighter mentioned an idea he had heard somewhere, probably a bar. He suggested that one of us take the cloak of the manta and go under the ships and use Lady Tightbutt’s admantine sword to cut the keels out from under them.
After listening to Lady Tightbutt whine for a while about the fact that she didn’t want someone to accidentally lose the sword that she never uses and that she is too fragile to do it herself, the Journalist and I remembered our fun little water breathing spells. Since one casting would keep the whole lot of us from drowning for 3 hours each, we decided to just go after the keels together. We made sure that we stayed in the watch towers at the entrance to the cove once we thought the attack was close. To back us up we made sure that each tower had at least two villagers on watch at all times, plus the fastest runners were stationed there to take word to the village of the attack. Once the pirates showed up we would take out several ships from underwater, then take over the flagship.
Unfortunately the Crimson Fleet decided not to play along with this plan. We saw the huge fog bank roll up in the middle of the night, so the I assumed it was them using magic to cover their arrival. We immediately got ready and set out while making sure to send the runner to the village. As we climbed down the rocks we noticed something we hadn’t thought of, although we should have. The sorry b*stards were sending out launches instead of bringing the ships in. Plus I and some others spotted several figures standing on the flagship that were definitely not usual crew.
This called for an immediate change of plans. Instead of sinking ships that only had skeleton crews on them, I decided we would head directly to the flagship and take out their heavy hitters before they could get deployed. It was the classic tactic of cutting off the head. I took the time to call on a few blessings of Kord on the way there. Sir Ineptus was the first to get to the ship, by a slim margin. He crawled partway onto the ship, hoping to hide. I got there next and was far less subtle. I jumped onto deck and shouted “jump overboard, there’s only sharks there”.
On the deck was Vanthas, looking much uglier than I had heard about before, some sailors and four archers. They were joined rather quickly by three demons and eventually some sort of spell caster. The Journalist took to the air, and Vanthas quickly followed her, thinking her an easy target. Da Fighter, Sir Ineptus and me dispatched two of the three demons in short order and with little injury besides some sort damn vines. You try so hard to keep yourself clean and then stuff sprouts anyway.
Up in the air, Vanthas managed to seriously put the hurt on the Journalist, including using poison to take out almost all her spell casting. Unfortunately for him Buttercup flew down and ripped off the tips of his fingers on his better hand. This sent him fleeing back to the ship.
By the time Vanthas got to the ship, some Spellcaster had stepped out on deck. This promptly got him charged by Sir Hexen who ripped him a new one, of course his return attack did the same to Sir Inpetus. When the archers finally got in their attacks on Sir Ineptus almost putting him under. Lady Tightbutt was replying to the arrow volleys with fireballs, but hadn’t managed to take any of them out yet. I threw a dispel magic over my shoulder at the mage as I turned to deal with the last demon. That plus Da Fighter’s javelin finished off the spell caster before he could do much besides smack Sit Ineptus around.
The Journalist rallied enough to swing down and heal Sir Ineptus with her remaining powers before grabbing some trinket and disappearing. Sir Ineptus took cover from the archers in the cabin. Da Fighter was working on finishing off the annoying buggers as I took care of the last demon, when Vanthas finally returned to the ship.
He pulled out some huge pearl looking thing just before Sir Ineptus emerged from the cabin and chopped him in half. The pearl dropped and started spewing out some sort of acid stuff. Da Fighter recognized it from some cove they went to before I joined the group. He had Torsin slap him with a fly spell, grabbed the damn thing and head out to sea at speed. In the meantime I hopped on Buttercup and me and Blabbermouth head back to town to help against the longboats. Sir Ineptus and Lady Tightbutt stayed on the ships to put out the flames and take over the remaining ones from the skeleton crews they had aboard.
It’s a good thing that Da Fighter flew off with that pearl, it drove everyone on the longboats nuts so they killed each other. It’s only his quick thinking that saved the town from the same fate. The only thing that actually reached the town were four flesh golems, which emerged from the water only to get dowsed with about 20 gallons of alchemist fire each.
In the end not a single one of us even went unconscious. No Farshore inhabitant was even scratched. Not a single pirate managed to escape alive. We have 5 more ships, for a total of seven in our fleet. I am now the admiral of the Farshore Navy. Each of our little crew has their own ship and crew. I of course kept the sea wyvern. I call that a total and overwhelming victory.
This is the GM's campaign journal for one of the two D&D campaigns I am running on alternating Saturdays. It starts in rough 15 hours at this point. This group decided that they would play evil characters, which makes a nice contrast to the other group.
Both groups are playing in a version of Oerth that has been modified by previous campaigns that I and others have run. I've changed the rules slightly to make things more fun. Basically slightly more feats, few more skill points, nice stats, occational rerolls. I also don't run ECL adjustments by WOTC's moronic system. Generally the ecl adjustment is the CR, and can be bought off.
For those of you who follow Turin's STAP campaigns, two of the players in this group are in crew 2 and one is in crew 1. Hopefully you all will enjoy both my GM journals and the player's journals (which I will be encouraging).
It will be interesting to see how the campaign I have planned plays out. The previous D&D campaign I ran went from level 3 to level 24-29 over the course of more than 2 1/2 years. This may or may not go on as long, but I hope it does. Currently everyone is in the level 8-10 range, although I am trying to slow down the creap a little since it has been about six months since the game started. We are now in the really fun levels.
After meeting my new found chums I discovered they had a ship, and one that was sadly lacking a captain. Now I've got quite a bit of experience with ships, and more importantly I like shouting orders at people. So I immediately claimed the position. These fellows might be full of book learning, but common sense tends to be a tad lacking. Fortunately there was no arguements, so I didn't have to show anyone what their liver looks like.
The first mate that our boss had hired immediately caught might attention. A rather good looking wench, but looks aren't everything. I shan't repeat in full what she said, as I don't want to shock the faint of heart, but with apparopriet beeping it goes something like: "Hello you BEEP BEEP BEEPING Captain. The BEEPING crew are BEEP and BEEPING ready. And if you screw with me I will BEEP BEEP BEEP you in the BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEPING with a BEEPING BEEP BEEP. Got that you BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!"
What I can I say, it was love at first cuss. I never thought I'd find a lass to capture me heart the way, but she had. I decided then and there I'd make her mine. The other arrivals were quick and it seemed as if things would be relatively painless. Then I heard that one nitwit hadn't shown up on time. After confering with my employer and finding out that someone had paid very handsomely to make sure this joker ended up far from the city I was forced to wait.
When the inbred twit of a noble finally showed up I easily understand why someone wanted him far from here. The jackenape called himself Avner, but I called several things that can't be repeated in polite copany. Fortunately he doesn't count as polite company. I told him to get his stuff onboard because we were leaving, but the moron was too busy so busy talking about his horse he forgot to relay that order to his servents. So I don't consider it my fault when order us to make sail and they were still sitting on the dock. When the waste of air tried to complain I told him that it would be really hard to talk when he was holding his teeth in both hands. So he went below deck to sulk.
Some how this completely untrue rumor started circling the ship that I was offering money to anyone who could lock Avner in his cabin for the day. This is completely untrue and I have no idea how it started. Although it is true that I have this small hole in my pocket that once in a while a gold piece might fall out near some worth individual. That these individuals just happened to be the ones to lock Avner in his cabin that morning is pure coincidence.
A few days out we brought the ships togather and had a party in honor of our voyage. Thanks to some copious amounts of rum I managed to get Amella to open up to me. After finding out about what happened to her husband I promised to help track down the bastard that did it. I think we should use his chums to chum the water and then throw him to the sharks. Such and interesting word chum. It may take a while for her to accept me, since she still remembers her late husband. But I'll land her for good someday, after all no other man will love her foul mouth the way I do.
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