Deryl's page

From your description I gather, that your party biggest problem is game play experience. The complete lack of strategic planning and sense of danger will prevent any success of your players in the adventures to come, no matter what characters they chose. So before continuing you should sit down together and analyse with your group, where they made bad decisions and how to remedy that in the future.

For your current situation, I think a rescue mission of the Stromblades should be appropriate. What do the survivors plan to do?

Hello fellow posters,

could you please take care, not to use SPOILER info in the header of the post. The recent headers can be seen in the message board overview and I know that some players read that.

So anybody playing in Shackled City and having encountered Orbius in Chapter one, will immediately see the connection between him and Valanthru if he sees this header. This kills one of the biggest plot surprises.

If it is possible, maybe this entire thread should be renamed.

Greetings
Deryl

There has been a lot written over the years about how to run romances in an rpg. On the up side they would add a huge amount value to the game, I mean what movie or book is complete with out one or more? They would add huge layers of fun to a game.

On the down side they are tough to run. So I am curious how yours got going and how you plan on running them?

Sean Mahoney

Hi Sean,

you are right the romance angle is not easy to handle. First of all I think you need the right group for it. My players are between 30-40 and therefore adult enough to handle this. I would never play that out with a teenage group.

Secondly I use the same approach as Lisa. Basically opening opportunities and let the players decide if they want to go along.

In the SCAP I started out with Shensen taking the initiative on the monk in my group by giving the magic boots to him as a present for her rescue. He went along and they met again at the Demonscar Ball. The player seemed to like the idea and invited her to his home afterwards :-))

For the other players I opened up opportunities during the Ball too, but time will tell if the go along or not. But I think they probably will.

I will keep you informed as we continue. At the moment we are pausing and my brother is taking over the DM reign in the AoW campaign, where I am a player.

Good luck
Deryl

Hello Delvesdeep, hello Lisa,

despite my concerns with the Detect Evil spell we had a blast during our session. I basically went with Delvesdeep advice to cloak Valanthru and to let the Paladin detect the others freely. Actually that gave them a couple of headaches and question marks for the next weeks.

The fun thing was, that a lot of romantic involvements started between the characters and the PCs.

Our paladin started to court Jenya. Shensen Tesseril who got an invitation in order to be the eyes and ears for the Striders fell in love with the 1/2 elf monk in our group. And the female character of the party attended in a succubus outfit attracting a lot of attention from Maavu. So this was excellent to foreshadow things and to get the group involved on a more personal level.

The competitions were incredible fun. Unfortunately nobody could challenge Annah Taskerhill in the Song of Heaven contest, but in all other competitions the Stormblades got their asses handed to them. One member of my group is a Basirian Dancer (from the Kalamar setting) and he ruled in every dancing contest. This was his first adventure to really shine and he left my house with a big grin on his face.

Thanks again Delvesdeep for this great side trek
Deryl

Hi delvesdeep,

I am set to run the demonscar ball tomorrow night with my group. But I am wondering how you would solve the following situation:

We got a paladin in our group. How would you handle his Detect Evil ability? There are a lot of evil NPCs there and I do not want to give away too much.

Thx in advance for any input

Well, well I think it was in 1981, when I first heard about a truly original game idea in a German board game magazine. They described the basics of a roleplaying game without getting into details. A guy with a funny name (Gary Gygax) was mentioned as one of the developers. I was intrigued. Having been a gaming geek, inventor and collector, I tried to get hold of it here in Germany, but I could not get it anywhere. So I just made up the rules myself, drew my first dungeon a maze inhabited by a mean Minotaur and send my brothers in to explore it. We had a blast.

A couple of month later, I had the opportunity to go to Oklahoma as an exchange student. I was thrilled. The number one on my agenda was to play that game and get all the books. At the local high school we had a games club and I started playing AD&D as a druid. It was fantastic. I had the opportunity to get to know a bunch of very interesting people, learn a new language and play one of the best games ever developed.

When I came home one year later, I was infected with a very contagious virus. In no time I had a big gaming group set-up and we started to play on an almost daily basis with me as the DM. My parents still talk about it as the "locust" years, because during our marathon sessions we would drink and eat up everything in the house.

During that time we played only two campaigns. The first one ended after a couple of weeks with the "magic-item-power-gamer-munchkin-death". That was the point when we realised, that we should have reasonable limits on available magic items and establish some semblance of an economy. So we made a fresh start and I DMed the entire against the giants, drow, Lolth campaign. We finished with a climactic battle against Lolth and Tiamat shattering the structure of the universe and imprison one of the characters a powerful wizard in an intelligent two-handed sword known as the "SAW".

Today I still play ones a week currently DMing the SCAP and playing a gnome mystic theurge in AoW.

Thanks for your stories and Greetings from good old Germany
Deryl

Here's our current formation:
1. Paladin
2. Rogue
3. Shadow Caster (from Tome of Magic) [a very weak character that should be replaced]
4. Necromancer (uses summon undead and has no area effect magic, high damage spells, or access to any illusions)
5. Shugenja (from Complete Divine) [the weakest party member; has never inflicted a single point of damage over the course of play]
6. Favored Soul (from Complete Divine) [even though he's effective, he will be cut from the party because he's drawn from a supplemental source]

I am not too familiar with Shadow Caster, Shugenja and Favored Soul, but I can clearly see, that the group is lacking fighting power. One paladin as a front runner is not enough. A paladin is only a support fighter. Given his need for high scores in CHA, WIS, CON, DEX and STR, he will never match up to a specialised Fighter or Barbarian killing machine. In my group I have:

1. Barbarian (deals massive amounts of damage and can even overcome damage reduction in some cases).

2. Paladin (He does not deal enough damage, but can hold the line thanks to Combat Expertise).

3. Fighter/Basirian Dancer (Basically a fighter mage. He also has Combat Expertise and some good support spells).

4. Monk (Another good 2nd rank support fighter).

5. Brigand/Infiltrator (Which is like a fighter/thief. Makes good use of flanking and sneak attacks).

6. Sorcerer (with good fire power).

7. Cleric (Healing, Turning and good second rank fighter).

So as others already pointed out, as a DM you have to take care beforehand, that the party is balanced. That is not the case in your group. I suggest to drop some of the weaker characters and probably the Necro (it will not work with a properly played Paladin) and replace them with at least one Fighter or Barbarian and other Core class characters.

I do some rotating with my brother. I am running the Shackled City Adventure Path. He is DMing the Age Of Worms campaign. We alternate chapter by chapter. So at the time being, we have played chapter one in both campaigns and I currently torment them in Drakthars way (SCAP).

As a twist we both use the same campaign world (Kalamar). But his adventure plays at a later time. There are some references between our campaigns though. For example in the AoW I play a gnome, who originally comes from Cauldron.

Another thing I did a couple of years ago, was running alternate short adventures in the City of Thieves setting. That worked well too. Especially if you have players who cannot dedicate time on a regular basis. In a City Setting it is easy to drop out and integrate players on a session by session basis. And if the GMs share the same world and environment it might be fun to flesh out that setting from different point of views. The only tricky things are big political changes, which might rearrange the complete setting.

We played the 2nd session in Drakthars Way yesterday and it was a blast. In the first session the players killed a whole bunch of goblins in the first area and retreated, when Drakthar send bat swarms after them. Some of them retreated into the sleeping rooms of the Goblins and the Paladin in the group went into the Bathhouse, where a bunch of town guards were waiting to prevent any goblins from fleeing that way.

So Drakthar went gaseous and harrassed the Paladin and the guards. Since the Paladin had a magical silver weapon and the town guards opened the doors to let the sun in, Drakthar retreated and decided to check our the other part of the group. He took some damage from them and decided to get reinforcements and set-up an ambush in area 19.

So the group rested and went down again the next day. Quickly they arrived in area 19, but succeeded in hearing some of the goblins up on the ledge. They wanted to climb up there and all hell broke loose. We played the fight for three hours, before we had to quit. And I pulled no punches. Drakthar got all mercenaries for the fight, plus additional goblins as reinforcements. I used all kinds of nifty maneuvering to unsettle the group. Drakthar turned gaseous, dropped behind them. When he got damaged he retreated running up along the wall and ceiling, just to heal and come back. The mercs used missile fire and the goblin adepts fired scorching rays. When we stopped a handful of goblin sneaks and an adept had fled. The half-orcs are down, Xoden is dead and the sorcerer badly wounded. Kallev is still up together with two goblins a wolf and of course Drakthar. I am considering using darkness from Kallev and summoning bat swarms again to cover another retreat. The group also wants to get out, because one of them is down and they are running out of heal spells and potions.

So I am wondering, what Drakthar should do then. His hideout is no longer safe. He should be able to figure out, that the PCs will most likely keep coming back. Would it make sense to relocate to another place in Cauldron? Any suggestions from you guys?

Tough situation for you, but frankly from what you describe there is only one solution. Kick that player out or stop playing yourself with that group. I am a player and game master for 25 years now and I have seen it all. In the end it all comes down to the point, that we all invest hours over hours in our beloved hobby. But if that time is not enjoyable do something else. If you think about it, there are probably a lot of better things for you to do instead of putting up with that jerk.

And another thing is group composition. Never allow opposing alignments and never play in an evil group unless the players are experienced and mature to handle it. I have only mastered one game with evil characters. That was a one time special scenario, where everybody was out to kill the others or at least foil their plans. We played that as a long weekend birthday special. Otherwise I strongly believe an evil group is simple not going to work.

My PCs are currently in Drakthar's Way, and since I'm going to be doing the hit-and-run thing I was planning to make extensive use of <i>gaseous form</i>, until I read it over and determined that it sucks. I mean, really, the only advantage for Drakthar there is that he can pass through nearly anything- he still has the same DR and he can only move 10 ft. in an action. I mean, does anyone else think it's odd that he can turn gaseous and still be hit with normal weapons, assuming you do enough damage? The barbarian in the party does 10 damage minimum with no magical enhancement. It would be smarter for Drakthar to just do a full retreat and turn gaseous only if he accidentally runs into something he can't climb over.

I personally think <i>gaseous form</i> should render you invulnerable to non-magical attacks, or at the very least give you the same benefit as being incorporeal. I dunno, maybe that's a game balance issue, but it raises a serious "this makes no sense" issue with me.

What you describe is not entirely correct. First of all the Gaseous Form Speed for a Vampire is 20 feet. That means with two Move actions he can cover 40 feet per round (hustle speed). Than if you consider him in light armour he would get a running speed (x4) giving him 80 feet travel distance per combat round.

But a much better option to get away would be to turn gaseous first, get out of weapon reach, turn into a bat and fly away.

I will have this encounter tomorrow and let you know how it went.

Ok.. so in typical party fashion, my players have managed to pretty much skip Jzadirune. They found it, chased/killed the first two Skulls just off the first room (J3??), found the tunnels, found/subdued the Skulk with the key for the rat, negotiated with the mimic, rescued the rat and were lead to the elevator by the skulk with the key.

So.. two hobgolbins later, they are decending to the Fortress, all at 1st level...

Anybody else have this happen? Any suggestions on how to keep the plot moving but not kill everybody off with the first encounter?

If the party retreats, I can delay them with beefed up guards in Jzadirune and in Keygan's but its going to pretty hard to make that work AND keep the players interested in pursuing the kids.

I had the exact same experience. But it did not matter so much, because they started the adventure being 2nd Level already. So they solved everything concerning the kids, headed back up and were celebrated by the people in Cauldron.

Then some time later, they wondered that they must have missed something in Jzadirune and they also realized that they must have missed Kazmojens treasury (they did not find the room with the second mimic). So they decided to head back and explore everything. But I foiled that, because I feared a pretty lame and boring dungeon crawl. So I let Todd Vanderboren buy Keygan Ghelves house. So now the Stormblades are in control of Jzadirune and the Malachite Fortress. I figured that the access to the Underdark might be pretty valuable to the noble power houses in town.

So my players now have already a certain attitude towards the Stormblades, which makes it easier for the conflicts in Flood Season.

Hi all,

I'm a newb DM running SC. I've already run one session, and it was awesome, I got heaps of compliments from the guys playing, so that was encouraging. One thing that is bothering me, however, is that I have one player who likes to play the most powerful thing possible. Now, I might be weird, but I think D&D is more about playing something...I dunno, kind of realistic, and it's not about being the "best". It's about everyone having a part to play.

Anyway, I limited my players to selecting the basic classes out of the PHB (cleric, rogue, paladin etc.) to make it easier for me (rules-wise) and he opted to go for a druid (despite my warnings about druids in cities/dungeons) and get this...got a crocodile as an animal familiar. Ok, so I let him have that, if he could roleplay it. Which he couldn't (i.e. you do not have a croc following you around the city in broad daylight, people would freak). So I'm making him change his character. Now he wants to play another druid, but one with a spirit thingy (I forget what it's actually called). Instead of having an animal companion, he sort of has a spirit inside of him. I read the stats and stuff, and it still sounds kind of overpowered, butttt...it is published in an official D&D book...so that means they thought about balance right?

So my question is...do I assume that this kind of character is going to be ok (in balance with the other members of the party who are a cleric, monk, barbarian and rogue), or do I try and convince him to do something else? I just hate power play! If I should guide him into a different class, does anyone have recommendations on which one, and how I should convince him?

We're playing another session this Tuesday, so hoping to resolve this issue soon. Any help would be welcome! :)

So far you have reacted well. Do not let your game be destroyed by Power Gamers. The best way to handle the situation is to restrict the options, which you already did wisely and finally to talk to the player in question about his playing style. Just tell him that you like to focus more on good role-playing and less on Min/Maxing characters and power gaming.

In my campaigns I award extra XP for good roleplaying. This is even suggested in the DMG. I usually give away 50-100 XP per session. And tell your players about it, so that they see that you award good playing style.

Yes, capturing the Skulk can be very useful. My group did the same and with his help went straight to the Malachite Fortress. They also befriended the Mimic in Jzadirune and left him the captured Skulk for entertainment and nourishment. Roleplaying that was a blast.

What I don't understand about this part of the adventure is why would Vhalantru even appear after the PCs successfully freed Terrem? I assume he's certainly spying on them, so once he learns that the PCs found the children, he should know that they will take Terrem back to the orphanage, which is exactly what he would do anyway. So I think hes just taking unnecessary risk of being revealed, just because the plotline needs this bit of mystery about the beholder.

What did your players say/do when they found out that Terrem has been safely returned to the orphanage?

You are right. That bothered me too. I kept reading the book again and again trying to find out, why Valanthru should do this. So the only reason I could come up with is, that he wanted to be sure, that Terrem is not accidentally killed in that battle with Kazmojen. In fact the book kind of states that attitude: "Get Terrem and do not care what happens to the group or Kazmojen."

My players are also very puzzled, what that all was about. They plan to interrogate Terrem again, in order to find some clues.

I'll try to scale the adventure to 5 players by adding about 25% more hp to each monster (or occationally adding an extra foe).

Wow, since the adventure is designed for 6 players, you will raise difficulty to the "insane" level. :-))

Well if your players can handle that, then they are pretty cool. My group of seven players had problems already without upgrading anything.

Sad thing is that all my players want to be the "main" character. Therefore the boosting and artillery effects of mages and divine casters are shunned like the plague.

I am not sure what the "main" character means, but the adventure path gives every character the opportunity to shine at some point. If your players just want to kill the most creatures in combat, then it seems that they are missing the point of creative teamwork.

I had one cleric before (who died). Now I don't think I'll have any. I had one wizard before (who died) and I don't think anyone want to play one of these either. Seems like I'm gonna have a group of fighters and rouges all around.

Frankly with that group composition, you will run into the next TPK soon. Get a balanced group or do not start on the next adventure. It will be no fun for you and the PCs. Having read a lot of threads dealing with difficulties and TPKs, I realised quickly that most of the time the group composition was unbalanced or the players were making major mistakes (bad planning, ignoring clues, power gaming play style).

I have visited the board for some time and the question of level and party size comes back all the time. From what I have gathered in the various posts, the adventure is designed for 6 players. Therefore if only four characters run the adventures, they will get more XP and be at a slightly higher level. But honestly I think they really need that. The problem with small groups (four players or less) is that there is usually no back-up character for certain skills. So if a crucial character is taken out early (e.g. the fighter gets charmed, the cleric knocked unconsious) it will easily end in a TPK.

So my advice is, take it easy. I think the challenges will be appropriate, even if they are at a higher level. A good balancing device is, to give the monsters higher HP (in the framework of their current Hit Dice). This will not change the CR, but nonetheless beef them up enough. Or use clever tactics.

My group had much better success. Though there were only four of them, they were all 3rd-level by the time they ran into the grell.

I had assumed the grell would wait just above the edge of the second level and would drop silently on the group as it passed below (reasonable - I don't know, but on the spur of the moment it seemed a good plan).

The group was super paranoid that something was on the balconey (afterall why was the area boarded up?). So they sent the human rogue to the stairs to scout it out. He made it up and down with out being heard and reported back to the group.

The group then decieded to send the rogue back up the stairs to move in for a sneak attack (dagger at 20 ft. range if I remember correctly) and move the archer (a half-elf with DEX 17) towards the north end of the west balconey while the goliath barbarian/druid and the human wizard hung back closer to the entrance and made noice like they were searching the walls nearby.

Both the rogue and the archer hit with their surprise attacks and while the rogue did a measely 3 hps, the archer rolled a critical and rolled around 15 hps of damage.

Everyone but the druid/barbarian beat the grell in initiative. The rogue choose to throw again, missed and retreated back to the cover of the stairwell. The archer used his Rapid Fire feat and hit the grell one more time for almost 10 hps. The wizard readied and magic missile for to target the grell as soon as it was visable. The grell move to attack the archer and the wizard's magic missile flew, 6 hps later the grell was down and no one had suffered a point of damage.

Kind of depressing as a DM (I really like grells) but yeah for the players. Two rooms later the rogue died on a crit from the invisible pulvirizer so it all works out in the end.

I would not be depressed. It was a clever tactic by your group. If you read through the thread of PC kills here:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/shackledCity/howManyCharacterD eathsInYourAdventurePath

you have to shake your head at the stupidity of some of the players. I get a higher degree of enjoyment from a clever playing group, than from killing off dumb characters. So again congrats to your group.

By the way my PCs so far never went to the Grell. They captured one Skulk and immediately went down the elevator. They killed the Stone Spike and the polymorphed Oytugh without problem and are now ready to take on Kazmojen.

1) You mean the hobgoblins in M6 hear a battle in M3? Look at the Listen check skill. To hear a battle is DC -10, +15 for the intervening stone door, +1 for every 10 feet (call it 50). That gives you a listen check DC of 10. Give the hobgoblins a listen check each round to hear the battle. (I'd only do 1 listen check)

2) The 3 options you give have the skulks at the elevator. How would they know that the intruders went down the elevator? If they did know that they went down, I don't think they'd pursue, I'd say they are afraid of Kazmojen. Seems more likely that they would check on Ghelve first. If he's not there or something is wrong, they might watch that exit to see who is causing the trouble. (After searching their complex to make sure not still there)

They know that someone went down, because the two Hobgoblin guards are dead and the elevator is down. Seems pretty obvious to me :-))

I think you are right concerning their tactics. the Skulks and Dark Creepers seem rather cowardly. So they will probably first checkout what's going on and deciding then how to proceed.

My players started the first adventure in Jzadirune and were lucky so far. They could quickly overcome the initial two Skulks without raising a general alarm and even succeeded in capturing the one Skulk with the silver key for the rat cage. That one pleaded for his life and told them of the elevator to the Malachite Fortress.

So the group immediately went there, killing the Hobgoblin guards and taking the elevator down. In the fortress they just killed the Stone Guardian and the polymorphed Ogre/Oythug.

Everything went smooth so far. Now my question to you veteran GMs out there.

1. Do you think, that the fight with the Stone Guardian is loud enough to alert the Hobgoblins in the Main Entrance Hall ? And how would you conduct retaliation on the PCs during a general alarm ?

2. Eventually the Dark Creepers and remaining Skulks will find there dead comrades and know that something went wrong. How would you play that out ? Would you let them descend through the elevator ? Setup a trap, when the group comes back ? Or maybe disabling the elevator, to prevent the group from coming back that way ?

Although this last option would force the PCs to take the Underdark passage. And I am not so sure, that I want to get into this.

If you have any thoughts on this or run into some similar situations let me know.

By the way, the group is already 3rd level with 7 PCs, so I think I can give them a hard time anyway. they are a little overpowered, if I play it tame.

Just a side note on the 30 XP short of a level bit.

Do any DMs out there just add an extra 30 XP to the character's total to avoid that? I have found it easier to do that than deal with the metagame possiblities.

Thoughts?

Here some thoughts on the whole "short of XP" levelling issue:

On a side note. In order to save time during a game session. I ask my players to prepare a character sheet with the level advancement prior to the game session. And should it be neccessary to level during a game night, they just need to roll HP and are ready to go with the new character sheet.

I think that Skie will probably refuse to take the items, if she knows their origin. I believe that she probably has heard about the curse and will be wary to touch or get near anything from Jzaridune. Remember that probably nobody really knows how the curse works exactly. Maybe it is already enough to get near the item, maybe it spreads via touch ? In Skies place I would stay away as far as possible. The PCs of course could hide all items until they find a cure for the problem, which could be a nice side trek adventure hook.

We are playing in the Kalamar game world and will be starting the adventure path in the next two sessions:

Sorcerer Gray Elf 2nd Level
Barbarian Half-Orc 2nd Level
Monk Half-Elf 2nd Level
Paladin Human 2nd Level
Cleric Human 2nd Level
Brigand Human 2nd Level (from Kalamar setting)
Basirian Dancer Human 2nd Level (from Kalamar setting)

I know the group is possibly a little strong at the beginning, but looking at the adventurers, it seems easy to adapt the challenges accordingly and eventually it will converge to the correct level requirements.

Thanks for the advice. That takes away some of my concerns. If I find the time I will let you know, how the game progresses.

By the way I am playing in Kalamar. So if your especially interested how to integrate it there or if you have done something similiar let me know.

I got the SCAP hardcover a couple of days ago. The material looks great and I am planning to bring my group into this campaign. What concerns me is the apparently high magic setting. I try to keep magic items rare in my world. Being a veteran player and GM I had a lot of bad experiences with high magic campaigns (overpowerful items and PCs and the item inflation in general).

So seeing a "Magic Shop" (Skie's Treasury) in town immediately made me cringe. Is that store necessary for the campaign setting to work. I would rather drop it or at least tone it done considerably, than risking a magic item inflation.