This is the GM's log of my current campaign. I started playing in 1976 and my older son last year, but my younger boy, now 9 years old, wanted to play, too. So with another friend, we're running the Shackled City Adventure Path.
With my encouragement, they decided to only run one character each and have a fourth NPC run by me. The fourth would be dumb fighter-type (actually, I chose to make her a Half-Orc Barbarian) that would provide solid physical support but no brains (or hope/worry of interference by Dad). Since I stressed the deadly nature of this campaign, they elected to run no spell-casters, opting to pick something up later through multiclassing and use a Paladin to cover healing.
Character names were created, but often went unused. The dumb Half-Orc had a nice name, but I can't remember it anymore, succumbing to their nickname of "Thog". The thief had some name that was mispronounced as "Floyd" which soon became "Pink Floyd" and now he's officially known as "Pink", which also describes what he does with his Rapier, I suppose. He turned out to be the weakest fighter in the party, but very useful in finding secret doors. The Paladin's name was supposed to mean "Rabbit" in some language, but never mind that. He's now called "Bunny". Such if the humor of teenagers. My 9 year old's fighter is simply "Smith". The Barbarian uses a Great Axe while the Paladin and Fighter use Greatswords. I don't know why the disdain of shields, but they can do decent damage when they hit. Interestingly, the Paladin, with no prompting on my part, selected Wee Jas, not Saint Cuthbert.
So, they started off as: Bar1, Pal1, Rog1, Ftr1.
Four friends met together in the big city of Cauldron. The plan was to hope the Lord Mayor, or the Clerics of Saint Cuthbert, would be hiring adventurers, as they were known to occasionally do. It had been raining all day and the city looked grey and drab as they hiked the streets, searching for a good inn before finding work.
The gang broke up an intimidation attempt, preventing three thugs from beating a priest. The thugs had been hired to stop the church of Saint Cuthbert from investigating the disappearances of four kids from an orphanage. The rescued priest invited the team back to talk to his boss.
Jil made her speach and got away easily enough. None of the thugs were killed and the Rogue managed to extort money from them to convince the Priest and Paladin to just let them go. My son does understand the meaning of his alignment and how to word the extortion attempt to slip pass his friend, the paladin.
The grateful church and the acting High Priest plied the friends with food and drink while explaining how the city had been hit with a series of kidnappings, the latest being 4 children from an orphanage. The gang accepted the job to find the missing townsfolk and the children in particular.
They picked up on the Acting modifier. It allowed me to do some foreshadowing.
(more still from Session One)
The next morning found the adventurers asking questions of the Headmistress of the orphanage. The most obvious lead from their questions was based that all locks at the orphanage coming from the same locksmith, Keygan Ghelve.
A visit to Ghelve’s Locks that afternoon spawned more questions than answered. The team’s suspicions leaned towards the belief that Keygan was unable to talk freely. They were very interested in what might be behind a curtain, but they failed to find a way to get past Ghelve or his abrupt answers. They did learn that the only time they were likely to get real answer might be after hours. So they planned to revisit Keygan immediately prior to closing for the night.
When they returned, they pressured the locksmith into allowing them in past the curtain behind him. They weren’t passed it very long before the fight broke out. Ghelve conjured a flash of colors that stunned a pair of the adventurers. Some dark creature dropped from the balcony into combat with those still standing. By the time the interloper was slain, the locksmith had disappeared. A search found things of value, but not answers. The entire shop and living quarters above were given a deeper search, with only a map turned up, one supposedly describing the lost Gnome city of Jzadirune, and a hidden, secret door.
The team was very confused how the locksmith managed to disappear. It took an extended search to find the secret door he must have used. This put them in mind to search for secret doors more often.
Since the locksmith still hadn’t returned, it was decided to explore the stairs behind the secret door. A long staircase with two turns at landings led to a large room with giggling masks. Instead of exploring any of the exits from the room, the adventurers returned back to the last landing where a well hidden secret room had been passed by. The hidden room had a pit trap, which was discouraging, but with their perseverance, the team discovered another secret door.
They had found the secret door, but wanted to see the first room at the bottom of the stairs, before backing up.
This time when the adventurers opened a secret door, they were the ones surprised from the other side. Two hobgoblins threw spears and wore armor that turned many of their attacks, but in the end the hobgoblins were killed and one of the church’s potions had been used to heal. A handful of coins were taken, but later the adventurers returned with the idea of recovering the armor, and found the bodies gone.
Inexperience shows. It's a lesson they can learn from.
The room the hobgoblins had been guarding turned out to be an elevator, a wooden platform and chains that could be lowered deeper into the earth. When the platform reached its bottom, the team had learned to spend extra time searching for more secret doors, and another was found. This room held the controls for returning to the upper levels. It was reassuring to know that should they need to retreat quickly, they already knew how to raise the elevator.
The obvious exit led to large room with empty cages and a strange sculpture. As they approached the possible statute, they were surprised to discovered it to be a monster, ready to fight. Their attacks seemed to have little effect. After only a short time, another creature emerged from a side door to join the battle, a huge, filthy Ogre. With solid teamwork, the party defeated the monsters. Beneath the garbage strewn about the Ogre’s room was found an iron chest. It was the rogue that unlocked the chest to reveal over 80 pounds of coins. As the party was out of spells and needed to carry the chest, it was decided to return to the surface and come back to explore again, refreshed in the morning.
It was a good place to stop and allow them to finish leveling up, sell loot and restock. The Rogue really needed to worry less about combat, so he selected a level of Fighter, which also qualified him for the Weapon Finesse feat and greatly improved his combat ability. Meanwhile the Paladin decided his 2nd level would be as Sorceror. The Barbarian and the 9 year old Fighter's just picked up a second level in their same level.