|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So it was a marvelous last session. We played for 8 hours. We used the harrow cards like hero points and each of my 5 PCs had to use them to stay alive through the end. We played every other Saturday for 2.5 years. I was going to keep them going to level 20 but I am back in school and decided to pass the reigns. Next up is Jade Regent and I get to play this time.
Going to drop a few notes on each book in spoilers for y'all.
Good: Great story and excellent start to the AP. I really enjoyed the PCs having to do their homework to find out whats going on. The children singing the creepy song was a huge hit. I added my own NPC to the mix. He was a simpleton named Morty. I had the Splatter Man posses Morty. The party wizard was so freaked out he cast colorspray defensively. Lets just say the townspeople had trouble believing the wizard's story. Until the town-hall fire that is. The players really enjoyed bringing the alchemist and sheriff together. That red herring had the players all worked up! Haunts are fantastic my players love em and so do I.
Bad: Trust mechanic was no good. Thousand and one ways to lose trust but hardly anyways to gain it. I pretty much waved the system away. Splatter man was an absolute TPK machine unless you had him take a dive. This was a bummer for us because my players could tell I was playing SM stupidly. I added Adivion to the funeral so that the AP villain would be present much earlier. At this point the PCs and Kendra consider him an ally.
Good: New city to explore. Lots of RP potential. More investigation for the PCs! Trial was a blast. Adivion introduced the PCs to the judge as a member of the order. He later left with Kendra to take her to Caliphas. PCs help free beast and help free Alpon. Epic fight in schloss caromarc!
Bad: Story is a little far fetched. Why use the beast to simply break in and steal the statue? It works, but could be tighter. PCs make their money by looting Alpon's castle? (Pricing out a sarcophagus really???) I had Alpon pay them a reward and down payment to go after the WW.
Good: Cool werewolf fights. Decent investigations at Ascanor lodge but not as great as books 1 and 2. Played up the politics between werewolves.Finally meet up with some WW guys.
Bad:
Do not recall too much about this book failing us. Everyone was hoping book 4 would knock our socks off.
Good: We are Call of cthulhu players so we eat this stuff up. A fun module with plenty o' weird stuff going on. Some cool fights and unusual baddies like mi-go.
Bad: WOTW is an excellent module. However, its a pretty poor fit for CC. The story goes off track and the PCs struggled to put it together. We enjoyed it enough but this whole thing felt out of place by conclusion.
good: See bad.
Bad: I re-wrote this book because it didnt work for me. I kept the NPCs because many of them work. I changed it up and had the WW hire the witch sisters to turn the vamps against the order of the palatine eye. It was wonderful felt like playing Yo Jimbo the RPG for awhile. I was able to do damage control on the plot and get the PCs back into the game.
Good: sweet haunts and battles. Great dungeon crawl. Epic final battle. I had the PCs fight AA as a human magus. By killing him they turned him into a lich. They had to fight him again and it was awesome.
Bad: Not much role play opportunity in this module. High level play starts to eat all our session time.
Overall it was a pleasant experience. I am thankful to have finally completed an adventure path. I look forward to moving on to Jade Regent.
Congratulations are in order then! Cheers, mate!
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks guys!
Warning quite a read ahead!
The Dullahan in the begining worked my PCs so I used him as a BBEG for the module along with the witch sisters. AA assumes the PCs are dead based on what the Dullahan reports and tasks him with finding the lost decendant of the whispering tyrant. He also tasks him with keeping the order of the palatine eye and vamps occupied. The Dullahan is in possesion of the skull which he offers as payment to the witch sisters for their assistance in the matter.
PCs arrive in caliphas and check on Kendra. She introduces them to a friend she called in to town. This friend (paladin repalcement for killed PC) just arrived himself. Kendra sent him an urgent letter. Now though Kendra seems calm and at ease. PCs are not sure what is going on but agree to have Paladin join them. (AA is keeping Kendra as his prisoner/pet and replaced her with a wax golem. Awesome beastie guys!!)
The next morning a lot is going on. Town hall records was broken into and some men were murdered just before dawn. PCs have to chose what to follow up on. (murdered men were vamps, records hall was to steal a record book to find the decendant.)
I had both the vamps and the order of the palatine eye gone to ground at this point. The PCs had to slowly find out why both sides were at each others throats. The book keeper for the palatine eye meets with the PCs and fills them in on the latest war between the vamps and order. He offers them a job to strike back at the vamps but the PCs are not hot on the idea. Instead they offer to work as body guards.
PCs save Galdana that night from vamp lackies looking to settle a precieved score. Galdanna is hell bent on going to war but PCs are still not convinced that the WW is out of the picture. The PCs do some investigating. They dont find much and call it a night. Next morning they hear of a disaperance of a minor noble in the papers. (dullahan kidnapped the descendedant) There is signs of a severe struggled at the scene. As the sun rises several of the bodies turn to dust. PCs not sure what to think.
The dhamphir quimbly (I think is his name) apporaches the PCs. He tells them he was able to shadow a figure responsable for the crime. He offers to tell them if they promise to let him kill the criminal. (Dullahan killed his vampire wife during the struggle.) PCs agree they track down the Dullahan and kill him. They retrieve his amulet but no sign of the missing lord. Quimbly says he will assist them with the vamps as they need for helping him.
PCs go back to bookeeper with amulet from dulahan. They are able to find a WW hidden hideout. I made this a small dungeon crawl under a facotry. Lots of WW agents and the skull the witch sisters are looking for. Still no sign of the missing lord. (dullahan had WW cultist take him to renchurch PCs took too long to find him)
Book keeper for the order starts to believe the PCs but Galdana is a lost cause. PCs decide they should meet the vamps. Ludvic (once again not sure of name) meets with them and offers them a job to kill the order members. PCs are done at this point working for the order or the vamps. That night the PCs are attacked by the witches as they try to retirieve the skull from them. PCs drive the witches off but do not defeat them.
PCs are lost at this point. I have quimbly tell them he discovered that ludvic is keeping a prisoner locked up tight and maybe he can help them. PCs find out a decadent ball is being held at a vamps mansion so they have to sneak in classic style as caterers. PCs manage to sneak into the dungeon and find a nearly broken Ramoska. Ramoska asks them to help him escape and promises he will tell them all he knows. (Ramoska was working for AA as the AP states. He has been tortured by ludvic because at this point ludvic suspects AA as an order memebr not WW. Ramoska is hanging on for dear life because he knows ludvic will kill him if he finds out he was working for the WW.)
PCs are attempting to get Ramoska out. They end up getting caught by the druid vamp in the back yard and are attacked by the topiary as well. The fight is not going great for the PCs since they lack equipment. The anti-paladin vamp shows up. The paladin reconginses his Ozem armor and begs him for assistance. (diplo check success.) The anti paladin hates what he has become and decides to assist the PCs. (ludvic and the others have been mocking him for his unwillingness to fully embrace his new nature. The anti-pally is weak natured but seeing a paladin again in action has stoked his resolve.)
The PCs win the fight and escape. The whole group including the anti-paladin listen to ramoksa's story. They now realise the missing lord and the WW full plan. Reluctantly the paladin agrees to let Ramoska go. The anti paladin asks to come with them. Pcs decide to leave immediately and screw the vamps and order. As mornign approaches the anti-pally asks the paladin to help him die. In the mornign as the sun comes up the anti-pally tries to seak cover because he is affraid to die. eventually the pally and anti come to blows. The paladin drops the anti pally and he dies in a RP glorius moment. Pally gets some cool new armor and it helps give them an in with the knights of ozem. PCs head for renchurch. The witches would follow and be a PITA along the way.
The PCs blew several chances to identify the witches. They didnt even really figure out why they were bugging them until they were ont he road to renchurch. Teh PCs eventually killed one of them and the other ran off cursing vengance. (was going to be a villian I used had we kept going after the AP)
I fired all this off from memory and not sure it all makes sense. There is a lot going o here but my players love investigation and red herrings are not something that bugs them. Some groups heads would explode on this i'm sure. I am willing to take questions I am sure people will have them.
|
|
This is pretty good stuff. I want to think on this some as I can put the headless horseman trope in AND still have my Vamps. When and how did you first add in the Dullahan?
That sounds awesome. I'm preparing to launch this AP as GM, so I'm eager to hear everyone's experience and how they got around the AP's weaknesses.