sessions 2 + 3
played twice over the Whitsun Weekend ( Memorial Day for you) with interesting results
Fifth player joined the campaign, picked up Rosie (this was pre-arranged) as a Char in mid-storm on day 8. Scourge had just gone afloat in the churning sea, and will be "fondly" remembered.
Mister Plugg went bonkers, blaming each and everyone on said mast and subjected them to five lashings each, "disciplanry reasons". Captain reduced this to three, but Plugg used the "cat" and two of the characters went out. Sandara being "distrusted" kept her from helping and the players tried not to use healing magic to keep their cover (yet). Rest of the storm went smoothly, Conchobar going overboard but being rescued by the fat gnome (rogue) and the Tiefling. This caused some friction with Rosie's player...
The following days were mostly ingame actions, much directed at Kroop about the captain and his crew and at Grok, to regain equipment aided by "Ghost Sounds". The Chef has by now a special place in the heart of our witch, who considers him "her drunken uncle" and get's pretty protective on him
"Boarding Action" was rather eventless, but the gnome, having regained his "trade tools" afterwards used a meeting of the officers ( we play with daytime/nightime watches ) on the quarterdeck to infiltrate the forecastle, to place some choice "stolen tributes" on other's hammocks, intending on a game of blaming the officer crew for stealing....and died messily for not detecting the trap on Longfarthings laboratory !( 22 point of Schocking Grasp proved.... slightly too much for him. very nasty trap that one). Once PCs/NPCs arrived the gnome was already dead, burned to a fine crisp...
Much chaos followed from that, with searches of the ship, up and down and many misgivings by the crew. Bilge services for the entire cast... much grumbling and a mortified gnome player. Actually I am considering giving Longfarthing a scroll of "Animate Dead" to turn the gnome into her personal lackey.
"Bilge Duty" came along, with the Witch (nominally the least dangerous character) being picked and with Mister Plugg giving the female Char a very long "search" for weapons. Tempors were already high....and both crewmates, after the initial moves immediately dropped to the witch's "sleep gaze" Hex. After that she wrapped up both, gagged them tattooed "AsshXXX" on both their faces with oil from the bilgepump, plus ramming their Shivs through their feet and went upstairs, complaining of the guys trying to rape her - carefully picking the first "non-Plugg" Officer.
Things went sideways from there, with Plugg trying to keelhaul her (immediately) with Longfarthing disagreeing. Captain put her in the sweatbox as an initial measure - but since she also is a Tiefling that only meant cramped quarters, also noone really is aware of it yet. Quite a number of NPCs went into grovelling and angry mumblings mode about it (starting from Grok and Sandara, who asked to verify the witches claim the next morning and got turned down by Plugg ), and matters on hand seemes.... pretty unpleasant.
We broke there, with the third season coming up two days later and the gnome picking someone from their "personal" friendly list
A shorter session followed on sunday
....and continued on the next morning with the Rahadoumi merchant on the horizon. Gnome player had picked Rattsberger as his "stand in" (changed him into a fighter/rogue) , and combat proceeded after some stirring speeches and subvocal threads towards Fipps and Maheem. Everybody made the ship except Rattsberger who had a bad time hanging in for a couple of rounds.
Rosie actually saved the captain, earning her some unpleasant stares by everyone else, and the players used the cloudy chaos to dispatch Fipps and Lonegan, keeping Maheem and Fipps (the "bilge" guys) on their personal "to do" list. Demon-Tiefling decided it was "too soon" to get them now, with the captain on high alert and has constant fun at doing intimidating moves and gestures in their direction. The ranger officer almost took down the witch with his... special... pike, which earned him a headlong dive into the sea.
The ship was carried and the "party" for everyone proceeded, with the dead gnome (rogue) now serving drinks to the officers. This raised the PCs hairs as to the ability of the officers and made them re-think their plans of an immediate mutiny. They gained some treasure, everybody envying Rosie for her "special gift" and generally felt good. Tiefling started to make a "I shall woo you" attempt at Sandara, with rather disastrous results, much to everyone's laughter. Witch is still sulky at Sandara, but given that she healed rattsberger and her, is slightly more forgiving.
The shock of leaving the Wormwood the following morning was.... some surprise, but hearing who was actually to man the ship, everybody went into quick motion. Captain's method of winning the Rahadoumi was duly noted, with Rosie swearing to Besmara that if she could, she would. Rosie also started out on a career as part-time bard, btw
One day away from the "Wormwood", with the "bad guys" manning the aft cabin, the players immediately struck at Mister Plugg, which was.... almost too easy, to be honest. First they subdued the helmsman, then rapelled from the poop (the upper aft-deck) straight into the captain's quarters - through the obligatory windows - striking Plugg. Other guys (Rosie, Oracle and the Witch, + Sandara and 2 crew) rammed in the cabin's door with a spar, and seeing Plugg down on round 2, everybody else raised their hands instead of trying to become a corpse. Currently they now have 5 people in chains and a little to few crew, as they notice a bad storm brewing on the horizon, with the first gusts rattling through the rigging and them panically lowering spars and tugging in sails..
First three session : One character down ( stupidity and luckless rolls... plus a utterly high-risk plan), early if obvious mutiny. Characters plan to hand Plugg's corpse drom the masttop by his whip or something equally piraty.
Players really hated the hazing as counterproductive( aka "Why would pirates do that ? We fight alongside each other after all..." ) , and actually found it made them more aggressive overall. There is a lot of wondering about Harrigan, his officers and Mr Kroop and some misgivings about "the ship" as a whole. Let's see how the island turns out.
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Still in the process of writing it up, but we finished our first session... which actually managed to get through the entirety of Part I of the module.
Rough Outline of events...
The dwarf barbarian (Tarmav) refused to climb the rigging for the rigger test, resulting in him getting lashed into unconsciousness during Bloody Hour that day. He did become cook's mate though, as the other characters said they couldn't cook and he said "Maaaaybe".
The ranger (Andre) passed the rigger's test, thus becoming the rigger. The cleric (Garrick) and the aquatic druid (Arland) became swabs.
The second day had the dwarf barbarian drawing two daggers and throwing them at Fipps, taking him immediately out (one hit, one crit) - Jape, Aretta, and Syl backed off pretty much immediately. Later that day it saw the barbarian challenging Tilly to a very nearly deadly game of Heave - the rest of the crew came in for bets until there was a pool of 100 gold for whoever won the contest. Due to some bad rolls on his part and good rolls on Tilly's part, Tilly won the contest as the dwarf forfeited. He had 3 Con left.
By the third day, the cleric Garrick decided that he was going to befriend everyone, and pretty much proceeded to make influence checks for his daily action every day - by the end of Part 1, only Jaundiced Jape, Aretta Bansion, "Badger" Medlar, Maheem, and Slippery Syl Lonegan were hostile - everyone else had been made helpful, especially toward the end when the other party members started influencing people.
Day four saw them going down into the bilges to deal with an infestation of Dire Rats. This was handled fairly easily, but the ranger did come down with filth fever from a bite - he was thankfully able to make a fortitude save later on to rid himself of it. During the night, Arland (the druid) brought some crab's he had snuckily fished up for Owlbear, who happily munched on them. The leftovers went to the alligator (the druid's animal companion) who was locked in a cage nearby.
Day five saw Tarmav going head to head with Owlbear... he immediately raged and did a ton of damage (one crit, one hit), which sent Owlbear cowering back, only to get pushed back in - Tarmav backed off, earning Owlbear's friendship and impressing the rest of the crew.
During the following days, the oncoming storm grew closer and closer - Andre and Arland both worked diligently at their tasks while Garrick proceeded to work his silver tongue on the crew. Tarmav, meanwhile, stumbled across a cookbook in the galley and finally figured out where everything was, netting him a +3 on his cooking checks (book + masterwork tools from galley). Note that Kroop was constantly drunk almost all the time - 50% chance apparently was actually 90%, the way I was rolling, so Tarmav was doing a lot of work.
The day of the storm, everyone worked hard into the night, save for Andre, who dropped from sheer exhaustion. Tilly (who had been made helpful by this point), dropped overboard, leading into the druid going overboard after her. Tarmav, actually thinking before he lept, tied himself off with a rope which was rapidly grabbed by Garrick, Sandara, and Rosie. Tarmav managed to grab a hold of Tilly and get her to safety, but the druid was rapidly drifting away. By the time Tarmav managed to get to Arland, they'd drifted 75 feet away from the ship (thankfully they thought to tie on another rope so it'd extend far enough). Eventually they managed to haul the duo in to safety, only to go to work fatigued the next day. The ranger, unable to work the next day, ended up getting lashed into unconsciousness for not working, thus he ended up missing both of his actions that day.
The following days saw the party recuperating from the storm and swaying more of the crew to their side. On the 11th day they were sent out to snag some crabs, and were soon ambushed by two reefclaws boiling out of the depths. The reefclaws grappled onto both Garrick (the cleric) and Andre (the ranger), dragging them down to the bottom of the reef (20 ft. down). The others dived down after them, along with Sandara. The reefclaws managed to knock unconscious Garrick, but the one grappling him was blasted off with a hydraulic push, allowing Sandara to snag him and get him up to surface and safety. Meanwhile, the reefclaws managed to poison the barbarian (who throughout the entire session, had been taking ability damage from rum rations, or the poison here). Eventually, the party managed to take down the reefclaws, and were rewarded by a potion of cure mod, as by this point they had befriended Grok and gotten their equipment back.
Day 14 saw Riaris taking first Tarmav and Arland out. Tarmav easily grappled onto the ship, but before he even got onto the rope got rotten fish to the face (a crit rolled by the ranger Andre, who was cheerfully lobbing stuff at him). Apparently enraged by this, the barbarian quickly and easily climbed the rope and reached the ship with no problem. Arland, however, took multiple tries to even grapple onto the ship, and soon even Riaris had to admit that it would be fairly hopeless to expect him to actually make it onto the ship (bad rolls and bad climb stat). Then, the party switched out, with Andre and Garrick both easily grappling onto the ship. Tarmav, out for vengeance, lobbed fish and bottles and buckets at Andre, forcing two reflex saves, but the ranger managed to pass both of them. Garrick was hit once by Fipps (who was also throwing), but also made his reflex save, ultimately having both of them safely make it aboard.
By the 17th day, the party managed to get pretty much everyone expect those hostile to them to helpful, and those hostile became permanently hostile. There was much moaning and groaning as the work with the worst saves were chosen, but everyone was still able to make their saves.
Day 19 saw Mr. Plugg and Master Scourge selecting Tarmav (as he had cost them 100 gold and generally been a stubborn, dwarven pain in the rear) for the bilges. He managed to wrestle a dagger away from one of his attackers and made a fairly good accounting for himself, but was ultimately overwhelmed and left for dead (in fact at -1 hp) by his attackers.
Eventually, the others realized that Tarmav was missing and found their way down to the bilges, where they immediately helped Tarmav and Sandara did her healing deal. At this point this firmly put Mr. Plugg in the enemy area to the party - up to this point, he'd been lurking more in the background with Master Scourge doing the grunt work, so they'd been cutting him a bit of slack, which he lost.
The party healed and grumbled and planned... and a ship was sighted on the horizon! And so ended the first session.
Some notes:
1) The rum ration is nasty - the game of Heave very nearly killed Tarmav off, as he'd already taken some Con damage from a bull session with Kroop earlier. That said, due to the gold won I let them move Tilly toward being friendlier for participating in the game. Arland and Garrick both cast purify food and drink, which I allowed to take away the nastiness of the brew. Tarmav and Andre became fairly adept at getting rid of it, until roughly day 14 or so where I handwaved the rum ration away, saying that they had by this time figured one way or another around it.
2) Tarmav was apparently the lightning rod of hate, as Kroop was constantly drunk - he was sober maybe 4! 4! days out of the entirety of Part 1. Furthermore, every time he took ability damage he would end up taking full amounts, every time I hit him with an attack he took full damage... just really good (and nasty) rolls on my part. This continued even to the bilge fight. Still though, he was pretty awesome throughout, basically taking down everything thrown at him until the bilge fight, and he might've even pulled that off had he not had such crap rolls to hit.
3) The group hardly looked around the ship at all, instead focusing on influencing other crew. The only places explored was the galley (mw dagger, cookbook, prosthetic leg, and the steadfast grapple found) and the bilge (where they found everything after the dire rat fight). They've missed out on some stuff, but at the same time only 5 of the crew are hostile to them now. They never tried to steal anything - the keelhauling made them pretty cautious.
4) The group was more or less fine with no equipment save for their daggers for practically the first half of the adventure - they finally (after many failed rolls) managed to bring Grok to helpful right in time for the reefclaw fight.
5) The reefclaws came very close to drowning Garrick - they had no problem grappling the party members and soon drug 2 of them down to the reef. Quick thinking blasted one off of Garrick, and Sandara was able to save him just in time. Funny thing is, Garrick had actually 'killed' the reefclaw himself, but its' death frenzy knocked him unconscious too.
6) I could have potentially killed Tarmav during the bilge fight, except a) I liked the character and b) Note since this happened during 1 session, Tarmav was still level 1 at this point, with no weapon. At lvl 1 it was a pretty nasty fight, and I would've felt like a complete jerk had I done killed him, so I had them beat him unconscious instead.
7) The reason why we made it through Part I in 6 hours was for several reasons:
a) my group are all veterans of Pathfinder
b) we were 2 people down (fever) - I doubt we would've made it if we'd been at the full 6
c) Prep. Can't stress this enough. I had the Ship's Cabins out as the map, all appropriately labelled with pieces of paper, plus task sheets for each job (players rolled their own job and informed me if they failed or passed - all players were trustworthy on this), plus a quartermaster store list, a sheet showing influence status of all NPCs, all heroes inputted into Hero Lab with the encounters already made up... all that prep-work meant that everything went nice and smooth.
8) The party loves Owlbear, and Owlbear loves the party, since the druid feeds him crabs pretty much the same time he feeds his alligator (who's been continually gnawing at the bars of its' cage, but has yet to break out).
9) Tilly and Maheem have ascended to full NPC territory, as Tilly was the winner of the Heave game and was the first befriended by the party. Maheem, on the other hand, won arm-wrestling twice - the big Rahadoumi is probably number one on enemies under Mr. Plugg and Master Scourge.
10) I set up the Boarding School to make it as fun as possible, pitting PC against PC, which ended up hilariously as the ranger nailed the barbarian, only to get his come-uppance later on. Ironically, the only one who failed was the druid, who fell from a badly failed climb check rather than actually getting hit.
Ultimately, both I and my players greatly enjoyed Part I. Give me a bit and I'll have everything posted to my Obsidian Portal page with the above a bit more in-depth.
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Our group just finished making characters. We just finished the Age of Worms adventure path from Dungeon magazine. I have a feeling that the players of my group are really going to enjoy getting away from the apocalyptic campaign setting and traveling on the high seas. We start our first session tomorrow and I'm extremely excited after reading all these posts.
Thanks everyone for sharing their first few sessions. This has really given me all kinds of ideas and heads up on what to expect from players.
Tierce, I really enjoy reading your campaign journal. I think your party makes me excited to start my own game tomorrow. I have a feeling the person playing a rogue in my party is going to end up doing some of the same stuff your rogue did during the first two sessions. I am sadistically looking forward to using a Cat O' Nine on him!
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I ran our first foray into the Skull and Shackles adventure path this weekend. It went very well!
Characters:
Elven Oracle (Haunted, Waves)
Human Rogue (Pirate Archetype)
Drow Rogue (Thinks he is a wizard)
Human Alchemist
Human Barbarian
The story behind the drow is that he was raised by a small enclave of elves who didn't hate his guts. He just sees himself as an elf with black skin, and apart from his innate drow magic, I've changed a lot of the defaults to that of the elves (Elven weapons = martial, longswords and bows are fine, etc). I figured the enclave is far enough away from the events in Second Darkness that the council never caught wind of this drow child.
The actual adventure went well, they started by waking up on the ship. They took to being pressganged quite well, no one tried anything particularly stupid on their first few days. They started befriending everyone they could, and had most of their equipment back by the 6th or 7th day.
During the fight with Owlbear, the Barbarian scored a critical with his first punch, doing over half of Owlbears HP in one hit. Owlbear retaliated with a critically placed punch of his own, Almost knocking the Barbarian right out. The barbarian countered with another punch, which left Owlbear reeling with tears in his eyes. He tried to back away from the fight, but Mr. Plugg pushed him back into the fight. The group was split, half of them wanted to end the fight there, the other half (well, the drow and the barb) wanted to end the fight properly, Then the barbarian ended the fight with another critical punch. Owlbear didn't even have time to grab up the club that Plugg had been trying to hand him.
I had the alchemist fall off the side of the ship during the storm (instead of an NPC), as he had pulled Lookout duty and failed his climb check miserably (his total skill check roll was 1). Luckily one of the other PCs spotted him splashing about and tossed him a rope and helped pull him in.
We finished up just after the storm cleared.
Overall, this has to be the best adventure path I've played or ran. Can't wait for more!
possible spoilers below (I don't know how to use the show tab sorry)
Entered the game with a certain amount of trepidation due to the amount of NPC's and the very rigid idea of a ships day. But I have to say it works exteremley well and my players loved it.
I have a female ulfen druid, a wizard, drunken cook (no he had no idea about Kroop) which has worked out brilliantly and a swashbuckler rouge who tells tall tales and carries a talking skull (acutaly has perform ventrilquim skill).
First day went well, the wizard got cocky and refused to go out on deck..3 lashes, the Druid failed her first days task (find rats)...3 lashes..
Second day was stunning, some great ideas and fantastic dice rolls. The fight went well, the swashie used ventriliquism to distract one of the thugs (mimicking Rosies voice as he had listened to her the night before), good perform roll and Aretta ran up on deck to punch the lights out of Rosie who had called her yellow bellied chicken (well something like that in typical Rosie fashion), these two now hate each other. One thug was dazed by the wizard and the other two were puched and kicked whilst the PC's ran past them up on deck (very wise as they knew the consequnces of being late) Propably the best and most useful was the influence roll from the Druid on cut throat, she managed to get her to helpful with one dice roll. Another diplomacy check later and she has all her equipment back and also got the others back the next day. the wizard suffered on his job and failed so both Kroop and the wizard were flogged, however the wizard not knowing when to back down backchatted and got the cat instead. The Swashie kept himself to himself and felt it wise to just work dilgentley.
Second night was another blast, the wizard was healed a bit by the druid and decided to go to bed. The swashie talked to Conch the Gnome fop but didnt really get anywhere however he did save Giffer from Coches adavnces which will stand him in good stead. Again the Druid came off on top with a stunning fumble on her intimadate roll on Conch who decided to take a liking to her. Conch thought she enjoyed it rough and it was a come on so now is in lust with her and will do anything for her.
Day three
Wizard fishing, swashie lookout and druid repairs on deck. Wizard decided he would get the swahies help and asked him to point with his sword when he spotted a shoal. In return The swashie slipped on the rigging but was saved from possible death from the wizard casting feather fall. Lucky for them Scourges attension was elsewhere (failed preception check). The wizard decided he would use mage hand to cast the net over the fish shoal then pull it in by hand. I decided rather than roll for a daily job as normal to play it out which worked rather well requiring help from the driud and Sandara the pull the net in. I also had a random encounter at this point of a shark and the druid decided she would use the harpoon the wizard had next to him to go shark fishing. They now have 27kgs of fish and 1 shark. It ended with the wizard making a good profession cook roll making the dinner for the night (His idea and recipe, fish and chips flavoured with the juice of cockroach and shark steaks). Kroop was suitibly impressed and now freindly.
First session was a blast, I think I will continue to use the rolling for ships task resloution in the AP but if the PC's come up with an idea to help with thier jobs then I will resolve them seperatly as in the example above. If the rest of the part one carries on like this then it's going to be a very enjoyable AP.
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Finished part one of the AP last night with the spotting of the Man's Promise on the horizon. Everyone is incredibly excited about their first real act of piracy next session.
I'm very pleased with how this AP is playing right now. It has been roleplaying heavy which is how my group likes it. I love the freedom the players have to make alliances or enemies as they see fit and to explore different aspects of life on the Fever Sea piece by piece. Hating Mr. Plugg and Master Scourge and their various lackeys has been too much fun. The seeds of mutiny have been well and truly sewn.
Our campaign journal continues here.
Hahaha! That is absolutely brilliant! :D
Conchobar, braised and battered. May I trouble you for the salt ?
Wait a second, did noone actually "miss" the gnome ? Even at the bloody hour ?
And yes, long sessions, six hour minimum, usually. Eight or more on weekends. Much better than watching the European Championship^^
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1st session 5 hours and we ended with evening of day 3. It is going to get interesting now, since the oni-tiefling has body parts now for alter self. I have 6 players and try to go around the table for each part of the day. Picked up a roster sheet that someone on here maid which I handed out so players can track attitudes to them.
Remainder of AP-1
Group setup : Half-Elf Oracle of Lore, Demon-tiefling Fighter/Rogue, Tiefling Witch, Rosie (now a PC) and Rattsberger (a PC, too )
Sessions 4
With the mutiny "achieved" (sans plundering the corpses) the "Man's Promise" was seized by a massive squall, taking away the top of her mizzenmast and rigging, leaning her 40° to the side and crippling her for hours... blowing her far to the south, while the players and the surviving crew tried to secure ship (minus the bound and gagged non-mutineers ) and get her back on course.
In the early morning hours, the "Promise" struck the reef once, then twice, and with a harsh lurch came to rest, shaking lie a beached whale. Utter chaos was heard from the lower deck, where a heavy barrel of catapult-shot had ripped itself loose, its stones causing havoc and several smashing through most of the the water barrels and foodstuff, as well as wrecking the armoury.
For another hour, chaos reigned, as the crew pumped against the tide, Owlbear especially heroic, and as the promise slowly settled on her battered side things finally calmed down.
Of course Sandara and Tilly were found to be absent, with a trail of blood leading to the railing and over. Examination of the hull showed the copper-plating to be ripped off in several places (which will require a stop-over in a dock, before the hull gets soaked with tornedo woodworms ), a frame broken and 3' of hull shredded by the corals. They also found damage to the rudder's pintels - another reason to dry dock in AP-2.
The crew has grown pretty skittish over the abductions and wants the players to investigate, especially because of the ever popular Sandara, yielding wild curses from our Witch. Crew intends to stay by the ship with Kroop, half-sober overseeing repairs, so the gang rowed ashore,taking the compass along (just in case). There is also some talk to leave Plugg's crew marooned on the island.
The filling of several casks in the abandoned village worked out , which they hauled back to the ship, then launching out again to find Sandara and Tilly, rowing by the shore trying to spot likely locations for abductors. There was amassive feeling of "Lost" going arund the table at this point, everyone wondering when the smoke monster would appear. They never went into the swamp: "too many bugs !", and only actually went ashore after spotting the abandoned fields down south. Once ashore, the hut in the hills was sighted, too. The Ankheg encounter went badly for them - one crit by the Ankheg almost cutting their Tiefling fighter in half - and left them worried because "what is only ONE Ankheg doing here ? There must be more..."
Climbing up to the hut proved not very worthwhile, though they had a lot of fun with Ivy , who incidentally infected Rattsberger with ghoul fever.
The plunder proved worthwhile, and they caught on to the location of the western cove.
we stopped there
and two weeks later
Session 5
Starting in the hut, everyone climbed downhill again, warily looking for more Ankhegs. None came.... The crew then proceeded south around the cape and into the bay, quickly discovering the sunk "Infernus". Some diving occured, unfortunately disturbing the Moray Eel who lunged, first for Rosie who escaped the grapple only through a natural "20" and then for Rattsberger, who got... munched on, sucked in, and bitten to death by the secondary jaws !
Rattsberger, our friend we hardly knew him ! The Morray finally fell prey to the sleep gaze (yawn) of the Witch, and sliced open, and the carcass of Rattsberger recovered. They quickly buried him on the island, (well, dividing his loot first!) rowed to the ship and asked Crimson to "join up".
Once the returned to the "Infernus", faking great "surprise" that Rattsberger was missing and actually now spotted the Grindlylow cave. With a few light spells they proceeded, and actually fared pretty well, with the Grindylows dropping left and right, and only the Devilfish not falling asleep under the witch's stares when glanced at, its poison weakening Rosie and Crimson. Much griping over the Oracle not being able to able to cast lesser restoration (yet).
The finale also well, if not great fun.... except for Crimson, with the Tiefling grappling the witch, pummeling her to death with Rosie chopping in and the whale falling asleep (again) to the witch (another victim of her DC17 sleep gaze), to be gutted, flensed and served up as sushi. Only Crimson went down (in every possible way), already weakened, to save Tilly and Sandara... and met the Lacedons, which quickly resulted in a failed fort save and some "deep-water-carnage". Rest of the troupe just about made it down to the bound victims in time to save Tilly and Sandara, but Crimson's guts had been spilled rather permanently. Finn, the player, has now lost three characters in as many sessions... He will rejoin at Rickety's
Character's rather soberly returned to the "Promise" (they almost forgot to plunder), and using cranking and the next-high tide, floated the "Promise" off the reef. The remaining five mutineers ( Maheem, Fipps, Sly, Arreta and Narwhale) were left on the island with a barrel of twice-baked and an axe. Good riddance and lots of sea-turtles !
...and the battered but free "Promise" slowly reaches north towards Rickety Squibs. Hoist the Crimson !
Overall, not the deadliest AP starter yet, although much depends on rolls, especially for saves. Just ask Finn...
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We've enjoyed some long sessions too. I've had my players roleplay influence rolls and such, but a couple of my players have been pretty conservative selecting "work diligently" and "sleep" almost every day after they've seen the brutatlity of the bloody hour. We have played 5 sessions and ended last with the wreck of the Man's Promise on the reef.
So far I'm greatly enjoying this AP.
We just finished our first session and got through Day 6 in a 4 hour game session.
My group consists of a Human Alchemist, Human Battle Oracle, ½ Elf Wizard, and a Human Rogue (who is planning on taking Ranger and Red Mantis levels).
The group really had fun playing out and role playing stuff. The task list was fun at first but got a bit tedious for them after a few hours. I’m thinking of cutting out some of the days where nothing is scheduled to happen.
Some highlights of our session:
My players really got into their character backgrounds which was great. I had them describe themselves on day one and that self description helped determine who was chosen as the cook’s assistant. That worked out really well.
The Oracle has the haunted curse and after hearing from Sandra that Grok was superstitious he went and talked to Grok and wanted to examine some items in the store he wanted to buy. But he pretended to drop them and the haunt moved the items scaring the crap out of Grok, and hence the player was able to get his equipment back by showing all of his items were haunted.
The alchemist tried to talk to Cogwood but couldn’t figure out what he liked to talk about and then failed miserably on a diplomacy roll pissing off Cogwood. Who go up and beat the crap out of the alchemist.
I had an encounter with 2 Zombie pirates on a raft ready as soon as I felt the players were getting bored. It worked well just as the players were getting tired of the tedious nature of rolling their daily tasks I threw in the encounter. It was a tough fight for them and the needed Sandra’s help to beat 2 of them. But it was a nice big battle to conclude the session.
So far no deaths but I think that will change soon.
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My first session was short, but everyone seemed to love it. At first I was worried about having two of my three party members be CE, but it's working out so far.
Erech - Human Bladebound Magus
Originally from the Dragon Empire, his family was killed by pirates, so he's gone a-viking since the best way to find and kill pirates, he reasons, is to be a pirate. Also very creepily obsequious to those he's planning to kill later.
Anghyddnaws - Elf Mysterious Gunslinger
Having been exiled from her tribe for experimenting with gunpowder and burning down a chunk of the forest, she took the name "Anghyddnaws" - which means "unsympathetic" in her dialect. When she discovered the sea, suddenly everything made sense as she realized that she was called there by Besmara.
Anathema - Half-Elf Ninja
Trained from birth in a clan of ninjas, she doesn't know any other life and is filled with hatred towards her former master for inflicting such an existence on her. Taking to sea was a fine way to get away from the dojo and hone her skills so that one day she can get her revenge.
And yes, we've got a cowboy (even if she's an elf), a viking (even if he's a hun), and a ninja (even if she's a pirate). The only thing we're missing is a dinosaur.
The PCs wake up in the hold with their underclothes. The ladies have both managed to keep hold of daggers, somehow, but they're not given much time to wonder how they ended up here, since Scourge shows up and hauls them abovedecks. The ninja takes her sweet time and is beaten half to death for her trouble.
On deck, Plugg gives them his tests. Even though the ninja led through most of the climbing challenge, she fell at the very end and Erech was assigned to be the rigger. Looking at the other two, Plugg decided to make the ninja the cook's mate since, unlike the anorexic elf, she looked like she had eaten more than once in her life.
The chores went ok above, but down in the galley, Kroop was drunk out of his mind. Anathema tried to follow his directions, and ended up having to cook the whole meal herself. Luckily her knife skills were put to good use, and she discovered that some of the kitchen knives were actually more suited to throwing than cookery.
When it came to the Bloody Hour, the magus earned himself some lashes by being weirdly fond of Plugg - even calling him beautiful and trying to touch him. The keelhauling went off and everyone was suitably impressed. Erech drank his rum straight, while the other two decided theirs was best shared with other crew members. The ninja split hers with Kroop while the elf gave hers to Grok, who is quickly becoming fond of the two ladies.
That evening, Erech tried to ingratiate himself with Scourge, and it ended with Scourge and his cronies giving him the nickname "Catamite", so not so well for him. The gunslinger had a much better time when she met Sandara and Grok. The extra rum got her clothes back from the store, and when Sandara realized that Anghyddnaws was marked by the pirate god, she suddenly became very interested and gave her back her pistol and one cartridge.
Day One ended with everyone going to sleep.
Ang woke up in Sandara's bunk, and when the gang tried to jump them, started laying about with the butt end of her pistol, largely to no effect. The magus, however, unleashed a color spray that took out two of the four, leaving Jape and Syl. Erech and Syl shared a moment as they looked into each other's eyes and recognized that they were both unhinged serial killers. She backed off, and the other two PCs took the opportunity to run upstairs and get to roll call. Jape took a couple swings at the magus, but went down eventually.
Erech earned more lashes for being late, and everyone went off to their work. Ang was sent to the bilges, and discovered she had a fear of spiders. Anathema had to help slaughter a pig, and since Kroop was relatively functional, had to be on best behavior too. For some reason, she kept the pig's bladder.
At the bloody hour, more lashes were handed out, leaving the magus barely standing while he drank his rum straight again. The ladies shared theirs out, as before, and it worked splendidly. Grok is quickly becoming friendly with Ang, and the ninja is well on her way to getting Kroop in her pocket.
We ended the session there, since we had started late and all of us needed to be up early the next morning. We were also all rip-roaring drunk, having each drunk roughly a rum ration ourselves, which didn't make paying attention easier. The next session is tonight, and hopefully we can make it most of the way through Part One.
Wow, talk about meta gaming. Take a drink of rum whenever your character drinks. :)
The Tibbit Captain of the newly renamed ship "The Morbid Cry" decided he needed some help to watch for mutineers among the crew. He got a couple of cats from their first port of call, and charged them with listening for mutterings of mutiny among the crew.
He can speak to cats, but overlooked the fact that the cats don't speak/understand Common. >:D
He can speak to cats, but overlooked the fact that the cats don't...understand Common. >:D
Balderdash! Do you actually have a cat? ;D
Of course they understand Common - when they want to.(One of my favorite bits in 3.5 Forgotten Realms was the stat block for the Tresym flying cats: "Understands but cannot speak Common". That was obviously written by someone with cats! ;D)
Congratulations, I think that has to be one of the most ridiculous necro-bumps I've ever seen on the pathfinder boards.