| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We finished the first book of the Kingmaker AP on Saturday night at 3:30 in the morning after a near-five-hour attack on the Stag Lord's fort; the book overall was a blast and certainly the finale carried that through. I figured I would share the results here for posterity. It goes without saying that there are spoilers involved, so read on at your peril. This is a LONG read, my apologies.
The party consisted of four characters, all level 3: female human fighter, female half-elf ranger (archery focus), female human sorceror (Destined bloodline), and male dwarf rogue.
The party discovered the fort just shortly after entering its hex for exploration (they had by this point cleared every other notable hex and a few empty ones) and, upon seeing the fort and looking at their map, deduced this was likely the big confrontation they'd been awaiting. They decided to scout around on all four sides with the ranger and rogue, who kept far enough way to be out of sight but close enough to locate where the gate was and roughly where the towers were located, how many guards they could spot, etc. They did make a check and determined where the guards were "looking," discovering the open-hill area where the zombie ambush lay. Unfortunately, the zombie encounter never happened as after conferring, the party decided to send the sorceror (with high charisma, bluff and disguise skills) alone to the gate in straight view of the guards, making herself look a little more unsavory and beaten up through disguise and wearing one of the captured silver Stag Lord necklaces to help out.
Yup, the most sane plan devised involved sending the nearly-defenseless sorceror whose adjusted attack bonus was +1, up to the guards alone to bluff her way in while the ranger went around to scale the walls in secret, the rogue stayed in hiding right outside the front fort walls (about 100 feet away) in case something went wrong, and the fighter held back out of viewing range of the fort for an opportunity to do... something. Incredibly, the sorceror was able to bluff her way inside the building past the initial guards, telling them her group had been ambushed and scattered by adventurers while they slept. I let the guards slip that "Akiros won't be happy to hear about this," and the sorceror latched onto the name (it later came out that she thought "Akiros" was the Stag Lord's name.) She told the guards she didn't know how many of her group were still coming back, since they had been so scattered from the attack, which made the guards pause in closing up the gate. Feigning fatigue from her escape, she meandered off to a slightly isolated part in the northeast of the fort and used Ghost Sound to make the sound of the fighter outside the gate, calling to "Akiros" and saying she (the fighter) needed to speak with him, presumably to give the fighter more bandit cred. I might have fudged this by allowing Ghost Sound to be cast outside of the fort's walls, but I let it slide a little in appreciation of creative thinking.
The fighter took this as a cue, hastily put on the other Stag Lord necklace (the fighter carries around all the trinkets the party finds that they think might be quest-related), and rushed up to the gate (again in the normal sight range of the guards, bypassing the zombies.) This also meant that one of the bandits in the fort ran off to fetch Akiros.
In the meantime, the rogue rendezvoused with the ranger, filled her in on the situation, and they scaled the east outside wall of the fort. While the ranger (not acrobatic) took a little poke from the fortifications, neither was spotted by any of the bandits that I had determined would be around. They moved to hug the outside of the east inner wall, split up north and south and stayed put for the next development.
The fighter, nowhere near as charasmatic or good at bluffing, was still able to get the guards on her side with a lucky roll (despite a player slip indicating that "We came from west of the bandi--west of the old camp") and said she wasn't aware of anyone else who made it out. The guards closed the gate behind the two of them. The fighter asked the gate guard about the fort's defenses and the guard told her that everyone was in for the night, including all the lieutenants and, of course, the Stag Lord, and if the adventurers came looking for a fight, they'd regret it. When asked about the Stag Lord, the guard grumbled, "sleeping it off, like usual."
The fighter was planning to help the odds with a surprise attack on the front tower guard and actually getting ready to head up the tower under the guise of having something important to show him, when Akiros emerged from his location, asked what was going on and engaged the fighter and sorceror in conversation. The sorceror, already feeling a bit uneasy in the tiger's jaws, left all the talking to the fighter, which didn't work out so well. Akiros saw right through the bluff, especially since the fighter was wearing a Stag Lord necklace but said Akiros didn't recognize her because she was "new" (only experienced members of the Stag Lord's crew get the amulets, I decided) and then tried (unsuccessfully) to convince him that she had just decided to put on the necklace that one of the other bandits in their group dropped. He told her to follow him.
I had determined at this point since it was the middle of the night, several bandits would be asleep, including Dovan and Auchs (possibly even Akiros before they woke him up) and of course, per the AP, the Stag Lord was passed out from a binge. The fighter and sorceror hadn't caused a significant disturbance at the gate and no alarm had been sounded, so I figured those bandits asleep either didn't wake up or did, but saw that nothing was going on and rolled back over.
Sensing that something was going wrong with Akiros, the fighter managed to use bluff to send a pre-arranged hand signal to the sorceror for her to try knocking some folks out with sleep. The bandits that were awake in the common room weren't particularly observant and the sorceror was some distance away when she cast sleep on them. Both got lucky rolls and stayed awake. I don't think the books tell you how to adjucate how someone feels and reacts when they successfully save against an unseen mental compulsion, but I at least put them on their guard. Meanwhile the fighter went back with Akiros to just outside the Stag Lord's door where Akiros demanded to know who the fighter really was and called out the bluff. With (at least honorary) balls of steel, the fighter stuck to the story, which Akiros didn't believe at all. At this point, knowing that Akiros would throw in his lot with the party eventually anyway, I decided to have him come clean and offer to join them in cleaning out the fort. Although the player was suspicious, the fighter's sense motive check said she could trust him, so she went along with it.
They started with Auchs, who was asleep on his own and, when the fighter asked if anyone would come running if he yelled out, was told that he was "prone to fits" and it seemed unlikely. Although he was asleep clutching his club, noise wasn't a concern as between Akiros and the fighter making good rolls, he was cut down in a single round.
The two emerged from his room, went to the sorceror and told her to use sleep again. This time, the folks in the common room were wary and became hostile when she started casting the spell. Before they could fully react, one was out cold while the other yelled out about intruders and attacked. He was swiftly cut down, but Dovan and the other bandits awoke and a general melee ensued. Hearing that it was hitting the fan, the rogue, from his position at the north side of the east inner wall, shot at the gate guard and front tower guard, while the ranger started exchanging shots with bandits coming down the southern walkways from the other two watchtowers.
Dovan, while not in danger of destroying the party, was surprisingly difficult for them to put down, dying on the round right before the Stag Lord appeared outside his door. He (the Stag Lord, not Dovan) stepped to the 10' wide entryway and took a shot at the fighter with his bow, just missing thanks to her new +1 scale mail from the tatzylwyrm den. The sorceror recited a scroll of grease on the 10' area the Stag Lord was in and he failed his reflex save, falling prone. The rogue, who had by this point circled around to inside the fort, threw an alchemical fire into the area and I, having never seen a form of grease that doesn't burn, let it catch fire, doing damage to the Stag Lord. He got up on his next turn, tried to move beyond the area, and took a 5' step forward before (lacking any acrobatics skill) falling down again, still on fire. He fell a third time before he finally managed to get out of the grease location. This had the effect of basically turning the Stag Lord into WCW's 1993 debacle, the Shockmaster.
During the Stag Lord's last bout of falling down in shame, the fighter ran up to make a dramatic blow on him (taking a swipe from the Stag Lord's AoO attack in the process), only to roll a natural 1 followed by a natural 2. She jarred her hands from striking the ground with her sword (fumble deck card said that the fighter would do non-lethal damage for the next three rounds), which didn't please her at all. With all the other bandits cleaned up by this point, the party converged on the Stag Lord, with Akiros and the fighter attacking in melee, the rogue closing in to flank and sneak attack with his battle axe, the ranger shooting from a distance, and the sorceror utilizing the rapidly-depleting wand of magic missile picked up earlier in the campaign. The battle was suitably dramatic, and the Stag Lord eventually fell.
Afterwards, conversation with Akiros was then possible, where he related some of his story to the party. He wasn't sure what he was going to do at this point, but hearing that he had once been a paladin of Erastil, the fighter suggested he go to help Jhod Kavken at the Temple of Erastil, which he agreed he would check out and bid the team farewell, leaving the spoils of the fort to them, as he didn't want any more to do with it.
In the end, more time was spent just planning and getting into the Stag Lord's fort than actually fighting battles, which I think made for a more satisfying conclusion to the adventure. We're now in the process of levelling up the party to Level 4 and I've already been reviewing the next book so that it can be started soon.
That was an excellent write-up, Ultrace, thanks for sharing! Daring planning on the part of the players, and they had some very good luck, but that's what makes it memorable.
My own players were less than inventive than your when it came to the Fort assault. They believed that the zombie area was a weak point that they could exploit, since none of the guards were watching in that direction. So they ended up blundering through the zombies, which alerted the whole fort.
It was a running battle with the zombies to the walls of the fort, with the bandits firing their bows at them at the same time. The party split in two as the faster ones made it to the wall while the slower ones fought off the zombies.
The party found the trap door. Several of the PC had very high strength, so I allowed them to clear it in a number of rounds instead of minutes. Meanwhile, I had a new player joining us that game, so thanks to his backstory, I had him as Akiros' ward, with whom he confided in thinking of abandoning the Stag Lord. So I had Akiros split the bandits, one half would remain inside, while the other half would go out and fight the party at the trap door.
As a result, the party avoided getting swarmed when they popped out of the tunnel and into the camp, and had the heaviest party member stand on the trap door, preventing the outside bandits from hitting their behind. Even then, they had a rough time fighting off the bandits (though Dovan got one shotted coming out of the tunnel).
The Stag Lord finally joined the fight several rounds later, and fewer bandits around. Since I had a larger than average party, I beefed up his levels and equipment, so he was dealing some pretty scary damage. That's when Akiros, his ward, and a formerly imprisoned Kressle (the PCs convinced her to work for them instead, and sent her off hunting her former bandit companions) hit the Stag Lord and his few remaining bandits from behind.
Not an elegant way to get things done, but tough determination on my players' part saw them through to the end.
|
We finished the first book of the Kingmaker AP on Saturday night at 3:30 in the morning after a near-five-hour attack on the Stag Lord's fort; the book overall was a blast and certainly the finale carried that through. I figured I would share the results here for posterity. It goes without saying that there are spoilers involved, so read on at your peril. This is a LONG read, my apologies.
The party consisted of four characters, all level 3: female human fighter, female half-elf ranger (archery focus), female human sorceror (Destined bloodline), and male dwarf rogue.
The party discovered the fort just shortly after entering its hex for exploration (they had by this point cleared every other notable hex and a few empty ones) and, upon seeing the fort and looking at their map, deduced this was likely the big confrontation they'd been awaiting. They decided to scout around on all four sides with the ranger and rogue, who kept far enough way to be out of sight but close enough to locate where the gate was and roughly where the towers were located, how many guards they could spot, etc. They did make a check and determined where the guards were "looking," discovering the open-hill area where the zombie ambush lay. Unfortunately, the zombie encounter never happened as after conferring, the party decided to send the sorceror (with high charisma, bluff and disguise skills) alone to the gate in straight view of the guards, making herself look a little more unsavory and beaten up through disguise and wearing one of the captured silver Stag Lord necklaces to help out.
Yup, the most sane plan devised involved sending the nearly-defenseless sorceror whose adjusted attack bonus was +1, up to the guards alone to bluff her way in while the ranger went around to scale the walls in secret, the rogue stayed in hiding right outside the front fort walls (about 100 feet away) in case something went wrong, and the fighter held back out of viewing range of the fort for an opportunity to do... something. Incredibly, the sorceror...
thanks for sharing. My group had the password and was admitted in. They rolled bluff real well and let the Stag Lord get drunk. The rogue while invisible then killed him. The fight after that was anticlimactic as they were waiting until rogue opened door. They got the jump on everyone.Akiros lasted 3 rounds the owlbear 2 everyone else soon gave up. They felt sorry Ox.
Thank you for sharing this.
Indeed it was a good plan and went surprising well for the players and as you said it was made into a very memorable experience
When we went to the Stag lord's fort we dicided to go with a more classic approach, the rogue sneaked in during the night, opened the gate for the rest of the party and we charged in weapons blazing (so to speak).
Nice write up, seems like you guys had a lot of fun with this. My group had fun with this encounter too. Though we made it in with a bunch of poisoned barrels of wine (a delivery we had intercepted earlier in the adventure and obtained poison for) and had the use of a passcode that we took off interogated prisoners earlier was well. So we managed to partially debilitate some of the bandits prior to the inevitable fight for control of the fort. Was a fun and exciting and left a lot of room for roleplay was well as the use of abilities outside of combat.
Thanks for the feedback, all. We had a great time and it was truly a memorable experience with several nail-biting moments, especially in the bluffing-their-way-into-the-fort part. I've read posts where Bluff and Diplomacy become pretty broken at the higher levels and I haven't experienced that yet. Here it made for a great dynamic where your AC and hit bonus meant zilch.
I had a new player joining us that game, so thanks to his backstory, I had him as Akiros' ward, with whom he confided in thinking of abandoning the Stag Lord. So I had Akiros split the bandits, one half would remain inside, while the other half would go out and fight the party at the trap door.
Interesting. One of the things I haven't done at all (yet) in the campaign is to introduce relatives or friends of the NPCs mentioned in the book. I've tossed in a couple of new NPCs for potential future leader-fill, but none of them are significant to the existing NPCs... Also, our party didn't find the trap door, although they did mention the tried and true "over, under or through"...
When we went to the Stag lord's fort we dicided to go with a more classic approach, the rogue sneaked in during the night, opened the gate for the rest of the party and we charged in weapons blazing (so to speak).
Hm, I guess our party could have tried that, but I assumed that with at least a dozen people in the fort, someone would be watching the gate at all times. In hindsight, maybe having someone on the gate and three watchtower guards was a bit much for midnight, but it certainly kept things interesting.
My group had fun with this encounter too. Though we made it in with a bunch of poisoned barrels of wine (a delivery we had intercepted earlier in the adventure and obtained poison for) and had the use of a passcode that we took off interogated prisoners earlier was well.
Any alcohol the party came across was either sold for money, offered up to the faeries in order to stop people from being buried up to their necks while they slept, or consumed by the dwarf to celebrate hard-earned victories, like their fight against the giant centipede. Is your party good-aligned? Is the use of poison just to incapacitate and not kill still considered evil? (No, I'm not looking to start an "is it evil?" thread...)
thanks for sharing. My group had the password and was admitted in. They rolled bluff real well and let the Stag Lord get drunk. The rogue while invisible then killed him. The fight after that was anticlimactic as they were waiting until rogue opened door. They got the jump on everyone.Akiros lasted 3 rounds the owlbear 2 everyone else soon gave up. They felt sorry Ox.
And I thought the Stag Lord falling down three times made him less of a threat. Nothing like not even having a fight with him. I'm kind of glad we didn't end up with that. It really does sound rather anticlimactic.
Great write up Ultrace! I can't wait to run this encounter tonight!
As far as it being anticlimactic, sure the fight wasn't there, but PJs players played it exceptionally well. Sometimes things do go as smoothly as possible. I say HUZZAH to all parties
|
|
Great write up Ultrace! I can't wait to run this encounter tonight!
As far as it being anticlimactic, sure the fight wasn't there, but PJs players played it exceptionally well. Sometimes things do go as smoothly as possible. I say HUZZAH to all parties
I try not to penalize the players for great planning and tactics. Rolls even out after a while so they can ride high for now being the heroes as they should be.
Agreed on all counts PJ