I was planning to reanimate the old The Styes thread, but it appears to be quite happy in the afterlife of the archives. So how about a new thread?
Thats realy nice of you Morrow and Rauol, Porphyry is one of my favourite dungeon adventures, its got a great grimness and taint about it which i think is a marvellous setting for adventure as no-one can be trusted - Morrow, let me know how your players get on! I'm thinking of unleasing my players on Freeport soon, its a great setting, with some fantastic adventures - not to mention some superb artwork.Rich
Nearly two years ago I promised to check in with a status report when my players completed The Styes and Porphyry House Horror (both transplanted to Freeport). It took us quite some time to get here, but better late than never.
Both adventures went very well. In both cases the PCs managed to circumvent some parts of the adventure, but it just meant they got to the hurting faster.
In the Styes the PCs started their investigation by shaking down Constable Jute. High intimidate rolls and threats of violence lead them directly to Mr. Dory. The wizard's quasit familiar scouted the warehouse invisibly and spotted the manticores. The party decided to bypass the warehouse and fly and dimension door to the hulk, to my eternal regret. I had planned to blow up the warehouse at the slightest provocation.
The running battle aboard the hulk ended when the party's undead-lovin' cleric subdued Mr. Dory. During the subsequent interogation Mr. Dory managed to convince the cleric that even though he was a murderer and cultist he was really just a misunderstood member of the undead community who deserved compassion and mercy. I practically cackled with glee when the cleric slapped a mark of justice on him and told him to take the first ship out of Freeport and never come back.
The following day the PCs took the fight to the Whisperer. Sadly, I wasn't as prepared to handle its many illusions as I thought. However, although I know things could have gone better, the players still had a challenging and satisfying final battle. Two PCs were blind and several others had unloaded a fair portion of their resources on illusionary cultists and shark-golems before they ever discovered their true target. In spite of a hearty round of, "Slime for everyone!" they managed to hang in there long enough to take down their foe. The poor thing could have gotten away, but I got cocky. "I can take it for another round," I thought, "I'm going to dominate the fighter!" Unfortunately the fighter had protection from evil up. Oops- squish.
With the enemy directly in front of them defeated the PCs went home to celebrate, never bothering to investigate further. So the baby kraken is still out there, growing. I've worked up 30-HD and 60-HD versions of a half-starspawned kraken, ready to spring on them when it strikes my fancy. Right now they're just hearing rumors about some sea monster sinking ships and plucking people off the docks. They don't seem concerned.
Porphyry House Horror started with a bang when the PCs decided to use their newly acquired lute of building to tunnel into Porphyry House from an adjoining building in the middle of the day. This quickly brought down half the population of Porphyry House down on their heads. They faced waves of pureblood and halfblood Yuan-ti, a Yuan-ti abomination cleric, a stone golem, and a huge fiendish half-dragon viper. While I didn't manage to kill any of them, I eventually wore them down to the point that they ran away.
Comically, before they left the cleric managed to control the corpse creature sucubus, so yet again the party ended up making nice with an undead monstrosity. Firmly controlled she gave up alot of information about the Yuan-ti's plans, their remaining forces, and the 'back door' leading to the chambers beneath Porphyry House. She also had plenty of opportunity to gloat and describe, in graphic detail, what the Yuan-ti, and their demon allies, were going to do to the PCs.
The next day the party returned and headed straight for the final battle. Even the Retriever, which I was looking forward to running, didn't last a round. One Dismissal, one failed save, and off they went.
The final battle was pretty tough. The orlath demon opened up with a Blasphemy, which made everyone very unhappy. Ultimately what decided the battle was the large number of friendly forces involved. Four PCs, three cohorts, and the sucubus- that's a lot of actions every round. It also helped that they hit 11th level before the final battle. The cleric's 6th level spells and the fighter's extra attack were huge. The fighter pretty much waited it out until the strength drain from Blasphemy wore off and then chopped everything into little bits.
I made some mistakes in the final battle, I let the fighter get close enough to Wulvera for a full attack and forgot the orlath demon's gaze attack. I also waited too long to use the abomination clerics special abilities. I was too enamored of their spells and big swords. By the time I used aversion on the fighter and turned the rogue/ sorceror into a snake it was too late.
All in all, both adventures were quite satisfying. I think my players, not a group notable for their weak stomachs, did find PHH somewhat 'icky'. I'd say that The Styes was easier to run, the huge number of varied opponents running around in a relatively small space in PHH made it difficult to track. Both adventures left me with loose ends that I can follow up on later, a boon for any DM. Many thanks to Rich and James for a couple of excellent adventures.
Coming soon - the Weavers. It looks like the PCs will be 12th level by the time we get to it. Any additional ideas to beef it up (beyond the 'scaling the adventure' sidebar) would be welcome. And by the way, where do I find weapon stats for the scourge?
Morrow
The Scourge can be found in Complete Warrior p.154 & p.158.
Morrow,
Don't be so hard on yourself for errors during game play. I often forget that a creatures has an ability that can change up a fight. As long as the players are having a good time and in your campaign it sounds like they are!
I like Freeport bunches but thought it was a bit too civilized to stand in for Scuttlecove. Are you dropping all the elements of Scuttlecove into Freeport (Monks of the Dire Hunger? Drugs? Wicked population?) or have you trimmed it back? I always thought that Freeport would make a good base for PCs to adventure from and return to.
I'm actually pretty happy with the way the campaign is going. The players are really enjoying it. Grumbling about things that go wrong just inspires me to do better next time.
I've used some of the Scuttlecove elements in Freeport but dropped others. For example I used Kedward Bone, but not the Monks of the Dire Hunger. I played up the drug element quite a bit. We already played Gangs in Freeport from Adamant Entertainment, which actually ended with the party's rogue/sorcerer and his small criminal gang (thank you Leadership feat) taking over a drug cartel. It set up Porphyry House Horror pretty well. The PC made a distribution deal with Kedward Bone, who subsequently clued him in to a new competitor in town.
I also added a few Freeport specific elements to the adventure. For example, rather than employing polymorphed monsters, Porphyry House's employees were primitive serpent folk whose shapeshifting abilities and limited intelligence made them ideal pawns.
While the party has saved Freeport from destruction on a number of occasions in such adventures as Porphyry House Horror, Madness in Freeport, and Black Sails Over Freeport, they haven't exactly made it a safer place to live. They've started a criminal gang and a drug cartel, allied with a diabolist and drug lord, left a major threat alive at the end of The Styes, sat out a major riot which lead to the death of the head of the Sea Lord's Guard, and failed to save the lives of numerous clerics of two different major good temples (the God of Knowledge during Terror in Freeport and the God of the Sea during Crisis in Freeport). In a way the PCs have helped make Freeport more like Scuttlecove, so I intend to add more Scuttlecove elements over time.
I'm thinking of dropping Freeport in to my home campaign with STAP and keeping both Sasserine and Scuttlecove. My idea is that Sasserine is an older colony and has been cleaned up a little more. Freeport is like Port Royal, rough and wild but still has few major people who have good hearts. Scuttlecove is the wicked port city visted only by the very evil and the damned. Going to Scuttlecove is a worse than any gang ravaged/ war torn section of the world.
I also hope to place the Styes on a nearby island as a colony that is in its final stages of decay before it is abandoned. Maybe the next big storm with wash the Styes clean.
What is Porphyry House Horror from? Dungeon? Scuttlecove is part of this adventure yes?
I'm looking to run some pirate based adventures in a homebrewed IronHeroes campaign, and I'm looking for things like the Styles and the Freeport adventures for insperation.
What is Porphyry House Horror from? Dungeon? Scuttlecove is part of this adventure yes?
I'm looking to run some pirate based adventures in a homebrewed IronHeroes campaign, and I'm looking for things like the Styles and the Freeport adventures for insperation.
Issue #95. Intended as a sales gimmick, that adventure turned out to be an absolute masterpiece once James Jacobs finished writing it. I just got my copy and it was worth the deuced inconvenience in sawing it open with a dull knife (resulting in many mutilated pages I was forced to tape back together).
I too went and bought issue #95 after getting into the STAP. I enjoyed the 'twisted' setting of Porphyry House, it read like a novel.
And Scuttlecove is soon to return in the pages of Dungeon with even more creepy things!
Thanks for the answer.
*off to go place an order*
I'm getting ready to run The Weavers in a couple weeks. Has anyone run it already? How did you deal with the tower full of Kenku Thief-Acrobats? The fight looks cool, but I need a way to help the players visualize what is going on. I suppose the ideal solution would be a 3D model of the tower, but I'm reluctant to put in that much effort (and doubtful that my nonexistent artistic skill would be up to the challenge).
I'm getting ready to run The Weavers in a couple weeks. Has anyone run it already? How did you deal with the tower full of Kenku Thief-Acrobats? The fight looks cool, but I need a way to help the players visualize what is going on. I suppose the ideal solution would be a 3D model of the tower, but I'm reluctant to put in that much effort (and doubtful that my nonexistent artistic skill would be up to the challenge).
If you have a big enough battlemat, I'd divide it into clearly labelled quarters (? I don;t remember offhand how many floors there were) and draw out each floor on a different section. And also include a quick sideview which includes the distances/heights between floors.
I've used a similiar setup for towers, sinkholes, etc, and I find it works reasonably well, but it requires a pretty big battlemat. And it doesn't hurt to draw everything out ahead of time, and just reveal each floor as necessary.
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I'm getting ready to run The Weavers in a couple weeks. Has anyone run it already? How did you deal with the tower full of Kenku Thief-Acrobats? The fight looks cool, but I need a way to help the players visualize what is going on. I suppose the ideal solution would be a 3D model of the tower, but I'm reluctant to put in that much effort (and doubtful that my nonexistent artistic skill would be up to the challenge).If you have a big enough battlemat, I'd divide it into clearly labelled quarters (? I don;t remember offhand how many floors there were) and draw out each floor on a different section. And also include a quick sideview which includes the distances/heights between floors.
I've used a similiar setup for towers, sinkholes, etc, and I find it works reasonably well, but it requires a pretty big battlemat. And it doesn't hurt to draw everything out ahead of time, and just reveal each floor as necessary.
Great advice - exactly how we ran the playtest and a few other things coming your way soon...in such big combats I generally draw out the encounters first - to which of course my players always say something along the lines of - 'hmm, well we've decided not to attack Mr Dory's and instead we're going to attack somewhere else Rich hahahaha m'naaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!' And burst out laughing, whilst making copious amounts of roper jokes.
We've been gaming together too long:)
Rich
I'm getting ready to run The Weavers in a couple weeks. Has anyone run it already? How did you deal with the tower full of Kenku Thief-Acrobats? The fight looks cool, but I need a way to help the players visualize what is going on. I suppose the ideal solution would be a 3D model of the tower, but I'm reluctant to put in that much effort (and doubtful that my nonexistent artistic skill would be up to the challenge).If you have a big enough battlemat, I'd divide it into clearly labelled quarters (? I don;t remember offhand how many floors there were) and draw out each floor on a different section. And also include a quick sideview which includes the distances/heights between floors.
I've used a similiar setup for towers, sinkholes, etc, and I find it works reasonably well, but it requires a pretty big battlemat. And it doesn't hurt to draw everything out ahead of time, and just reveal each floor as necessary.
Great advice - exactly how we ran the playtest and a few other things coming your way soon...in such big combats I generally draw out the encounters first - to which of course my players always say something along the lines of - 'hmm, well we've decided not to attack Mr Dory's and instead we're going to attack somewhere else Rich hahahaha m'naaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!' And burst out laughing, whilst making copious amounts of roper jokes.
We've been gaming together too long:)
Rich
Depending on how big the levels are (I don't have the issue handy), it might also be feasible to just print off copies of the maps and then place them on the table as necessary.
Ooooh! Good idea. I've been sort of cooking up a composite "AP" out of old dungeon adventures to run in the northern reaches of Greyhawk. I had thought of incorporating the Styes and the Weavers, with the Styes being a decaying, half-abandoned city on Lake Whyestil, perhaps in Furyondy, but too near the front with Iuz's forces to prosper. Adding PHH to that mix might be quite cool indeed, if I can think of a way to tie in a Demogorgon-themed adventure to a campaign in which Iuz/Grazz't/Iggwilv are the main villains.
*Begins turning gears and wheels*
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Great advice - exactly how we ran the playtest and a few other things coming your way soon...in such big combats I generally draw out the encounters first - to which of course my players always say something along the lines of - 'hmm, well we've decided not to attack Mr Dory's and instead we're going to attack somewhere else Rich hahahaha m'naaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!' And burst out laughing, whilst making copious amounts of roper jokes.We've been gaming together too long:)
Rich
Those bastards!!! (lol)
Uhh...suddenly there's an invisible force field, surrounding the encounter area...it's being generated by the brains hovering in jars of nutritive ichor...they're betting in quatloos over whether or not your party will be victorious.
I just love these settings with 'grit'. I like the PCs to see the dark side of life with the knowledge that they can't change/ fix everything.