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Hans has his good old reliable slumber hex - he'll find something to do...
Thank goodness everything in the dungeon's either an ooze or an outsider. Otherwise it'd just get stupid.
Though he does still have Baleful Polymorph queued up... and looking at outsiders, looks like even though they don't needto sleep, they can be slept.
*SIGH*.
Bad final boss fight here I come...
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GM Notes for the Session:This session really epitomized the whole disconnect between "how my players play" and "how the AP expects the players to play". They finished off the second level of the Mysterium without killing another soul, and without looting a single item. Because they were asked to be there. The Mysterium Guards were my favorite example of this: "Hey, look! Some Mysterium guards driven mad with fear! We should kill them and take all their stuff." Not exactly how I feel either Lawful (looting the place you've been asked to save isn't legal) nor Good (killing victims is bad) PCs should behave. But it's what the AP expects. Over, and over, and over again.
Couldn't they at least put an Imp (or maybe a Quasit) on one shoulder to urge the looting and murderhoboing, and then put a Lyrakien (unfortunately the Archon and Angel equivalents don't fit the part very well) on the other shoulder to actually urge them to be decent? It would be over-the-top, but sounds like it would be at least fitting . . . .
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I'm actually kind of enjoying having those hippie moonbeam Desna worshippers be their "mysterious benefactors", because I can give them gear that I feel is appropriate for their playstyles, thereby ignoring city purchase limits and the like, but it's just funny that the horror-themed APs expect the PCs to be monsters...
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^Now you've got to run an AP in which the PCs are monsters. (Example: Iron Gods: Robot problem? Monster solution!)
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I'm actually kind of enjoying having those hippie moonbeam Desna worshippers be their "mysterious benefactors", because I can give them gear that I feel is appropriate for their playstyles, thereby ignoring city purchase limits and the like, but it's just funny that the horror-themed APs expect the PCs to be monsters...
He who loots monsters, beware not to become a monster?
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Impus Major just called and won't be home 'til late tonight, so no game.
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*shakes fist* Damn kids! *shakes fist*
;)
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Well, it had me rather livid. He's falling behind in ALL of his classes, and last night was supposed to be a catch-up night, but as usual, one of his friends called him and it was her 18th birthday and she wanted to do stuff with him, so he dropped everything to hang out with her.
We had quite the argument about it: He pointed out that he only ditches his classwork when his friends are having significant events: Going-away parties, 18th birthdays, and the like.
And I pointed out that he's SO sociable and has SO many friends that that's nearly a weekly occurrence, meaning he'll be skipping work every single fricking week because of friends.
There's maintaining friendships, and there's endangering your future because you're putting too much time into your friendships. I'm afraid Impus Major is skewing that way, so corrective actions need to be taken...
Also, if I'm not mistaken, this is his senior year? Maybe a touch of early onset senioritis?
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Also, if I'm not mistaken, this is his senior year? Maybe a touch of early onset senioritis?
He's a freshman in college. He needs to get better at scheduling himself.
Right, right, right. Just graduated. I'm getting different people's kids mixed up.
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Did I mention the kids just both downloaded Age of Mythology?
I'd link to a livestream that might amuse you a bit. "A monkey and an elephant just walked into my camp! What is this, Aladdin?", but not much...
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So it's kind of funny; I got fed up of only running a game once a month or so, so I put my foot down and said, "That's it! Thursday nights! Strange Aeons! Period! No other socialization if you want to play!"
I figured that way I could blame all missed sessions on the kids and we'd be fine.
Two weeks ago it was indeed Impus Major flaking to go out with friends.
Last week it was a general lack of enthusiasm (GothBard, Impus Major, and I were mild, "No"s, while Impus Minor was a mild, "Yes.")
This week GothBard is sick in bed. And you have to know her to know just how sick she has to be to come home from work in the middle of the day.
So maybe this "only on Thursdays" idea wasn't such a good one after all...
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Hope she's feeling better soon! *gives homemade chicken soup*
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What's funny is that I did indeed make a huge pot of homemade chicken soup on Thursday, and she's been going through that. Today is the first day where she's feeling markedly better, but of course Impus Minor is miserable and sick in bed, and we have a ludicrous smokestorm outside.
So, since Thursday is Halloween, we can't play then.
Since half the household is sick in bed today, the idea of being free tomorrow is... dubious.
Another week, another lack of updates.
Curse you, biology!
Watch out for the smoke -- both bad for you in its own right and a sign of something worse on the way. Stay safe and ready to move.
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Thanks! After last year's fire we bought a set of filter masks for being outside, and air purifiers for most of the rooms, so the smoke isn't too much of an issue. And we're in a very urban part of the Bay Area. I'd say the fire couldn't get here at all, but I'm sure that's how people in Santa Rosa felt last year. But we're many, many miles away from the nearest fire (30+), so I'm fairly sure we're good.
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Well, we finally had a session and I'm writing it up, but 9+ fumbles in a 12-round frustration-fest?
Putting high-AC, DR/-, SR, elemental resisting, non-crittable, non-flankable critters in a fog was just punitive. A seemingly consistent theme with this AP: "We're going to make sure that no matter what class you chose, we neuter all your special abilities so you'll be unhappy with your choice."
As I think I've mentioned, NOT my favorite AP at all.
But it's still better than Council of Thieves. Ouch.
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Session 63: Fumblemania Played 07-Nov-2019
When the highlight of your evening is a plethora of fumbles because neither side can hit the other, it's not a great evening.
And I'll excuse myself because we were off for a month and then I had to cook dinner and get things set up instead of prepping, but the whole, "You get infected whenever the proto-shoggoth constricts you" instead of "hits you" tripped me up, so Neirida spent half the fight sickened when she shouldn't have been, adding to the sheer hopelessness of the whole thing.
All in all, it seems like the Impii were entertained solely by the appalling number of fumbles (Impus Minor even did a running comic of it that he's hoping to post here once he finds a good place to post images), but GothBard and I were fairly disappointed and frustrated by the whole thing. Which is a recurring theme in Strange Aeons: Everything's going to be save-or-suck, or, "none of your class abilities work because xxx", or some other punitive debuff on the PCs that makes fights take way longer than they should.
If you're planning on running this campaign, I strongly suggest convincing one of the PCs to play a bard. It goes from "useful" to "critical" in this campaign, in my mind.
Katheer, Day 1: As the first enemy came around the corner and loomed out of the fog, they realized they were being attacked by another strawberry shortcake! This would be a piece of cake, right? Unfortunately, even though only one of its four attacks connected (on Helden), Helden returned the favor by dropping his dagger on his very first attack. Neirida was in full, "One hit per round, ever." mode, and the 20% miss chance because of the fog caught her once. But in general, Helden and Neirida held the front line even as the second strawberry shortcake came in two rounds later, and Helden took most of the beating (on one set of attacks, needing a 16 to hit him, I rolled 17, 19, 18, 5). Hans, not able to see the creatures, first tried unsuccessfully to Dispel the fog (even using a Hero Point to reroll his natural 1 on his caster level check), then used his wand of Cure Light Wounds to try to keep Helden upright. Blackwarm in his Spawn of Yog-Sothoth body had no trouble seeing the creatures through the fog, and no trouble reaching them, but with his wizard's base attack bonus hitting them was another matter entirely. At one point he shifted to a couple of Fireballs, then rolled a 17 to Dispel the fog and tacked a Hero Point onto it for good measure, finally removing it so Hans could start channeling and healing the front liners without accidentally healing the oozes. (Selective Channeling requires that he be able to sense the people he's going to exclude, at least we rule it that way.) After he realized just how hopeless the battle was, Blackwarm put down his Portable Hole and had Stitch (ineffectively) join the fray.
Helden tried to amuse the group by fumbling over and over and over again. He got dazed for 3 rounds. He lost 2 points of Strength. He dropped his Returning dagger (he asked whether that counted and it would return to his hand, and I ruled it would). The strawberry shortcakes were no better, with one at a permanent -2 to attacks due to fumbles and the other at -4. Fumbling, fumbling, and more fumbling was the theme of the day.
Eventually, one of the shortcakes managed to roll well and grapple Neirida, so Blackwarm sucked it up and killed it with a Magic Missile. Unlike his and Helden's attack rolls, when it came to overcoming the shortcakes' SR he never rolled under a 16. The other shortcake lasted for quite a while, and eventually it, too grabbed Neirida, but it was unable to constrict her and the rest of the group was able to kill it.
At that point, Hans was completely out of channels and mostly out of spells (he'd even unsuccessfully tried to Baleful Polymorph an ooze). Blackwarm was similarly spent. Helden needed a Lesser Restoration. And Neirida was just plain tired. They recalled Elder Thyrr's suggestion that they rest in the Meditation Room on the first floor, so back up they went, into the "hidden" opening, and found the spherical room. As they settled in to rest, Hans asked them how they wanted him to prepare for their next assault.
Katheer, Day 2: With fresh spells prepared, and Hans now a stone shaman with Knowledge: Dungeoneering under his belt, the party decided to go back to third level and resume exploring.
For the record, the fight took 76 minutes, the cleanup took another 10, so at 8:26 pm we broke for the night so Impus Major and I could update our spell lists for the next set of fights.
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{. . .}
As I think I've mentioned, NOT my favorite AP at all.But it's still better than Council of Thieves. Ouch.
I thought this Council of Thieves was awesome, except for the last little bit in which (after having good luck with getting a new GM after losing one several time), their luck ran out with the last GM coming in at a point where they couldn't really get into the conclusion.
My issue with Council of Thieves was one of motivation. People specifically said that it would be a good campaign for evil-aligned PCs. But then the whole first book is centered around you trying to help out people from the goodness of your heart. So evil PCs didn't work.
Then as you move on, you have to overthrow the lawful government (so lawful PCs don't work), and we never got there but I heard the last 3 books were such a mishmash of ideas that you could run them in any order and they'd be equally coherent.
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
^I wasn't personally in it but I followed it from start to finish. I have heard that -- rather than any order being most coherent for the last 3 books -- that book 5 should specifically go before book 4, and this is in fact what that PbP did.
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We just started a new Shattered Star campaign! We only have one post so far and we sadly don't have an impus major but we do have others like Shiro and more!
Link to first post:
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42uf0?NobodysHomes-Shattered-Star-Campaign#1
We just started a new Shattered Star campaign! We only have one post so far and we sadly don't have an impus major but we do have others like Shiro and more!
Link to first post:
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42uf0?NobodysHomes-Shattered-Star-Campaign#1
Linkified for your convenience.
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So, I'm convinced that the author of Strange Aeons
(1) Hated rogues
(2) Hated crit builds
(3) Loved rolling dice for no reason.
Another entire evening dedicated to a single fight against an ooze. And there was nothing whatsoever interesting about the fight.
Round after round after round of DR 5/-, Fast Healing 5, no precision damage, no flanks, and no crits, so just an eternal beat-down. Round after round after round of SR 22 vs. 11th-level casters, so a 50/50 chance of a spell working at all, then 10 points of all elemental resistances so single-digit spell damage.
Just a hideous eternity of nickel-and-diming a creature to death for 10-15 rounds.
Over and over and over again. Every level of this dungeon is oozes and constructs and fog.
Just... hideously bad.
(And yeah, it grappled Neirida round 1 and had her grappled the entire combat, so she had to use a 1-handed dagger, cutting her damage in half.)
Yikes. I loved the beginning stages of Strange Aeons, but based on what I'm seeing in your campaign journals lately, it seems like it just becomes a boring slog. That, combined with low WBL, would make the one gaming group that might actually be interested in this AP hate it. Maybe I won't ever get the chance to run this.
I really enjoyed Books 1 and 2.
Book 1 was beautifully set up so that the PCs could manage to level up and fight level-appropriate encounters, all in the same building. It was really a very well-done book, although the amnesia aspect of it was hard for both the GM and the players to work with. But I think your mileage may vary, because some groups eat up that kind of stuff.
Book 2 was "good", but it had significant shortcomings:
- The clues weren't obvious enough (my group missed most of what was going on because of all the high-DC Knowledge checks required to identify the stelae, or clues hidden down narrow watery passages that the PCs had no reason to explore)
- The book really gives the PCs no reason to go to Fort Hailcourt first, but they desperately need that extra level before assaulting Iris Hill
- We saw the first of the, "I'm a psychic caster so I can cast spells right at the dinner table and no one will notice" phenomenae. If it provokes an attack of opportunity if you do it in combat, it's obvious if you do it at the dinner table
Book 3 was the first point at which the wheels really started falling off.
- My group saw no reason whatsoever to try to reproduce the rituals Lowls had performed; I honestly had to tell them out-of-context that if they didn't perform the rituals, they'd miss almost all of Book 3. And even then, after the first ritual failed and they were attacked by the animate dream, GothBard said, "My character would never participate in nor allow anyone else to perform that ritual near her again! WHY do we have to do this?!?!?"
- While some of the dreams are pretty cool, others are just, "Hey, since death doesn't count let's just kill the PCs if they do xxx." Free death because you can doesn't please most groups
- The river journey ends up being extremely boring, and, as I noted, unless you're willing to murderhobo your way down the river ("What? The tax collectors want to double-dip? Let's kill them and take all their stuff!"), you get virtually no loot
Book 4 has been terrible so far.
- You're asked to look into Mun's welfare, and you're supposed to loot his entire house in spite of ample evidence that he's been abducted by derro
- You're asked to help clean out a library, and you're supposed to loot everything not nailed down in the library
- The library is designed to hose everyone except full BAB PCs designed for massive single-hit damage. Everything is either magic-immune or has a high-enough SR that there's only a 50/50 chance of spells working. Everything has elemental resistance. Everything has DR/-. Everything has fast healing. Most of the creatures are neither crittable nor flankable, and don't take precision damage. So it's just a massive, "We hit this creature over and over and over again, for 20-30 hit points a round, as it heals 5 points a round for its full 138-200 hit points, meaning we're stuck here for 10-15 rounds of just beating on one another."
Not great.
If I asked Shiro and GothBard what their absolute, favorite "dungeon crawl" in any book in any AP was, they'd both say, "Foxglove Manor" without hesitation.
If you asked me about my favorite dungeon to run, it would have to be the Vivified Labyrinth. (Unless you count the entirety of Scarwall as a single "dungeon", but I think that's a stretch.)
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Session 64: MORE Slimes? Played 14-Nov-2019
And now Book 4. "Everybody loves constructs and slimes!"
Except they don't. The DR 10, magic-immune alchemical golem rendered everyone except Neirida useless. The hollow ones were nothing but beat-down fights. Over, and over, and over again. Then along comes an infinite number of respawning hounds of Tindalos! Yay? And then oozes. Oodles and oodles of oozes with DR and fast healing and immunity to critical hits and precision damage so yet more pounding and pounding and pounding…
...if you ever want to turn your AP into an appallingly-boring slog, I recommend constructs and oozes.
Once again, the party managed to finish only *one* fight over the course of the evening, and that one fight took so many resources (in an utterly uninteresting manner) that all in all, the evening would have been better-spent watching TV.
Katheer, Day 2: During the night, every party member had the same dream: They were standing in a vast desert, with shifting walls that reminded them of the caravanserai. Facing them was an old, dark-skinned woman. Or was it a bizarre creature with a conical body, tentacles, claws, and a spherical head? She/it reached for them, and they awoke.
Fortunately, Hans was communing with a Knowledge: Dungeoneering spirit that morning (seems really weird that he communes with spirits for particular skills, but whatever). He informed the party that they'd seen a yithian, an alien, telepathic race that explored the universe by projecting their psyches into others and living lives as natives of the planet.
Immediately Helden accused Hans of being a yithian, so the rest of the group accused Helden of being a Yithian, what with his obsession with wood and all. It was the most fun the party would have all night.
Hans could also finally identify the strawberry shortcakes: They were proto-shoggoths; vile oozes that existed for nothing more than infesting living flesh with their enzymes, which then devoured the poor infected creature alive until it became another proto-shoggoth. Fortunately, none of the party had been infested (yet), and Hans was fairly sure that a Heal spell would remove the condition. Unfortunately, considering the number of proto-shoggoths they'd already seen, they would in all likelihood eventually encounter a proto-shoggoth synctium. These were created when two proto-shoggoths merged. In short, they were larger versions of proto-shoggoths that were much deadlier, but that fortunately did not share their brethren's infection ability. They just screamed so incoherently that intelligent creatures around them became staggered.
Knowing what they were up against, the party went back down to the third level. Helden asked Blackwarm to dispel the Guards and Wards. Blackwarm refused. Helden started trying to draw a chalk line on the wall. It disappeared as he drew it. He asked Blackwarm again. Blackwarm refused. Helden asked Neirida for different chalk. It didn't work, either. Helden declared all of their chalk broken and seemed quite depressed by this fact.
Undaunted, the party moved forward, trusting at least one of the party members to choose the correct direction, and figuring that as long as they ran their hands along the wall, someone was bound to find any of the hidden doors. They turned left at the first intersection, and everyone except Helden could see an angel statue ahead. They investigated, and, sure enough, it was one of the statues whose heads turned. Unfortunately, it was a very creepy statue, with lustful eyes and a lolling tongue. Helden, undaunted, successfully saw the statue and then turned the head. It clicked into place. If this level was anything like the previous two, all they needed to do was find three more statues.
Continuing on their leftward bent, they started to move past a hallway on their right, but Helden insisted on stopping and listening. He heard the unmistakable sound of an ooze. The entire party groaned. They decided to skip the ooze and try the door that everyone except Helden could see. Unfortunately, it was locked and they couldn't convince Helden that it was there. Fortunately, Neirida had an adamantine greatsword that worked well as a door opener. Unfortunately, the noise attracted the proto-shoggoth synctium from down the hall, and it charged to engage them.
And that right there is likely what saved the party from losing a couple of party members and an ignominious retreat. The unintelligent ooze had to squeeze to reach its prey, and that -4 to hit and AC made all the difference in the world. It staggered Neirida and Helden with its cacophony on the first round, then successfully grappled Neirida. She never got loose, and spent the entire combat stabbing it with a dagger while getting constricted, as it beat Helden and Hans nearly to death. Blackwarm failed to penetrate SR no fewer than 5 rounds in a row, and felt utterly useless. Hans had no trouble penetrating its SR, but one Inflict Critical Wounds and two Flame Strikes barely touched it, as it consistently made its saves. Helden nickel-and-dimed it with a few points a round.
But yet again it was Neirida, slowly and inexorably hitting it only once a round, ignoring all the crits she rolled, with no chance of Helden flanking, who slowly, eventually, carved it down. Blackwarm was entirely useless, as was Stitch. Helden was mainly useful as a hit point sink to prevent it from focusing all of its attacks on a single opponent. Hans' healing to keep Helden and Neirida up and his Spiritual Weapon to keep pace with its fast healing at least did something. The final round was the most frustrating. Blackwarm gave up and dropped a Cloudkill on it. With no SR, he finally did some damage to it as it lost 2 CON. It had 12 hit points left. Hans and Helden combined could not do 12 hit points. So it was up to Neirida to finally finish it off.
She stabbed the still corpse again and again and again, frustrated beyond belief. It only took Hans two channels to heal everyone fully, but the damage was done: Blackwarm had burned most of his offensive spells trying to hurt the thing, and Hans had burned both his offensive and his healing spells. They had only had a single encounter, but they were tapped for the day.
While they were waiting for the Cloudkill to disperse, Helden went into the room Neirida had smashed open. The first thing he noticed was the large fish skull in the middle of the room. He went to examine it, and heard the quiet turning of unseen pages. He ignored the noise, because fish skull. The haunt came alive, with books flying from the shelves, and ghostly images of screaming instructors and ranting fanatics all shouting a diatribe at Helden. He took a great deal of damage, but was otherwise unharmed, and searched the room for valuables. He found nothing but the fish skull. Which he proceeded to insist he was going to put on his head.
I told him it wouldn't fit.
He insisted he would use Escape Artist and rolled a natural 20.
Helden was now wearing a large fish skull.
Fed up with waiting and knowing he'd be resting again soon enough, Blackwarm Dispelled the Cloudkill. The room beyond was a horrific mess, with books thrown from the shelves and piled in a heap on the floor, and a bloody corpse in a corner.
Helden, being Helden, was interested in the books first. After he'd determined he wouldn't find anything of value there, he ased, "Is there anything else in this room?"
"Other than the bloodied corpse of one of the curators?"
"Yeah!"
Eventually, Helden decided the corpse was interesting and started looting it. When he realized that the corpse seemed to have magic items on it, he asked Blackwarm to identify them. As Blackwarm described +2 chainmail, a Ring of Protection +3, a Ring of Feather Falling, and a Rod of Escape, they realized that this was probably someone important.
A lightbulb went on for Neirida. "Weren't we supposed to find someone!"
The party finally realized that they had found the corpse of Elder Lythiin, and Elder Thyrr had been very clear that she wanted the corpse back. After some argument as to how to carry the corpse ("No. The Portable Hole is only for UNdead!"), they brought it to the front door and called out to the guards outside that they had found Elder Lythiin. The guards, eager to see their old boss resurrected, opened the door and let the party emerge.
It was time to turn in the corpse, get a reward, do some shopping, and sleep for the night.
At some point, I need to catch up on the various PbPs I have been following and see what somebody else did with this AP after getting into Books 3 and 4 (last time I looked, they were still in Book 2). Maybe they will have some useful insights for improving matters.
We definitely had a very different experience (I have journals on this site for the Strange Aeons campaign that I ran). We had an Oracle, Sorcerer, Barbarian and Investigator.
They really enjoyed book 3, I'd probably say that it ended up being their favorite. All the little vignette adventures appealed to them, and they really went with and got into each, except for possibly the redundant gugs one. Putting all the PCs in the middle of the ball, where they could joke around and wreak havoc turned out to be fairly inspired imho.
For book 4 they started Mun's house with the idea of respecting the house owner, but once they found the horror of what was going on upstairs (and they had been somewhat warned of what to expect by the bleaching gnome), they basically treated it like a corrupt lab that needed to be purified. The thing in the attic was turned out to be a fun encounter too.
The Mysterium turned out to be a bit more challenging, but we still only had a single death - to the Exscinder Archon in the final vault, before that I don't remember them being too sorely tested by anything they faced.
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(1) Well, the group enjoyed some of the dreams, but getting them to do the dreams in the first place made little sense to them, and once the dreams were over the river journey was insanely tedious, even hand-waving everything except the written encounters.
(2) That's the problem with the Mysterium: They aren't being challenged, but with only one full-BAB team member and no buffer (no cleric, oracle, nor bard), the slimes take forever to kill. It's tedious rather than dangerous.
Hopefully after a 3-week hiatus they'll be raring to go next week.
(I forget why we didn't game on the 21st, but the 28th was Thanksgiving and this week the living room and dining room are under construction so we don't have a gaming table, so our next scheduled game is the 12th, and that is "iffy" because I've been asked to help organize the choir fundraiser that day because our usual organizer is out of town.)
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No, "Impus Major is on a six-week break from college and socializing like only a charismatic 18-year-old with lots of geeky friends can socialize" happened.
We tried to run a game last night, but Impus Minor was tired.
We plan on resuming on Tuesday.
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Well, I'll give it to Impus Major: He gave it the old college try.
Yesterday he came home from school with a 99.7°F fever (after leaving for school at 8:30 am and not getting home until 8:40 pm). Today he went to school anyway, for an 8:30 am - 5:00 pm session and a 99.6°F fever. He kept saying, "No, I want to play! No, I'm going to make it! We'll play!"
I went to the corner store for 15 minutes and found him sacked out asleep on the couch. He woke up and started doing homework, so I went into Impus Minor's room to tell him to get to work. And HE was sacked out asleep in bed.
There's a plague at our house, and our kids don't have the energy to play tonight.
On the bright side, I just re-read the Mysterium and I'm all ready to help them get back into the swing of things...
...once they're conscious again, that is...
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So here's an example of the issues you'll have running good-aligned PCs through this AP.
I've been keeping a spreadsheet of wealth in the AP to keep track of what the party leaves on the table for being decent human beings (or tengu, or whatever).
If you assume the PCs sell everything, so they only get half value for every item recovered, you get:
WEALTH AVAILABLE TO PCS IN THE MYSTERIUM: 143,112.5 gold pieces
WEALTH MY PCS WILL RECEIVE FROM THE MYSTERIUM: 5,000.0 gold pieces
Yep. Over 100,000 in PC wealth is tied to looting the library you've been asked to protect (23,337.5), or looting the people and guardians who perished trying to protect it (78,145). Don't forget that this is after you were specifically asked to, "say a prayer over each body," but I suppose looting them doesn't conflict with praying over them in murderhoboville.
The other 38,000 lies from the questionable (killing the extraplanar guardians for 20,810, since they seem to be gated rather than summoned), to the good old "looting the bad guy" (15,820 for Mun).
So yeah.
Just be aware that even if you HATE Wealth By Level (which I usually do), your 11th-level PCs will gain a grand total of 5000 gold pieces split four ways if they're not the "loot whoever's house you're in" type. That's just mean.
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^It's a good thing your PCs don't have access to Earth news . . . oh, wait . . . .
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Well, we finally got in a session for the first time in almost 2 months, and I was worried because I was feeling pretty terrible and I just wanted to remind them where they'd been, what they were doing, and let them roleplay a bit with Elder Lythiin once he was Resurrected. I didn't think the session would take more than 15-20 minutes, and the family would be disappointed that it was so short.
Fortunately, Helden went utterly insane. Impus Minor's explanation was, "I just don't know what came over me."
So we got in a 90-minute session, which, in Impus Major's description, was, "a lot like that episode of Avatar where it follows each character around Ba Sing Sei, showing 'a day in the life' vignettes, except it was just Helden."
Expect a writeup in a day or two...
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It's always fun when players jump in feet first and have fun roleplaying! It makes being a GM something enjoyable. :) I look forward to the write-up!
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Session 65: The Helden Show, played 04-Feb-2020
On the other hand, "If the PCs recover Elder Lythiin's body, he is raised…"
Impus Minor wasn't the only one to ask, "Hey, wait a minute! If they're cash-strapped and can barely afford to pay us, how can they afford to raise him?"
An excellent question.
I'm still trying to work out that "little" 138,000 gold shortfall, but I figure they're in Katheer; something'll come through.
Katheer, Day 2: As the party blinked in the bright midday sun, they became momentarily disoriented: What were they doing again? Helden and Blackwarm immediately declared that they wanted to go do some shopping, then find and inn and rest. Neirida reminded them that she was carrying Elder Lythiin's body on her back. Helden suggested just dumping it in the street, but promptly noticed that he was surrounded by curious Mysterium guards, and decided that body dumping was contraindicated. As the guards glared at him, he attempted to Intimidate them. His grand total of 5 further infuriated them, and it was up to Blackwarm and Neirida to defuse the situation. They asked for directions to Elder Thyrr, further annoying the guards as they responded, "She's right across the street, just like yesterday."
Crossing the street and knocking at the Elder's door, she immediately let them in, curious as to how they'd managed to exit the mysterium. "Yeah, it's pretty hard to keep us inside of a place," Blackwarm responded, making the Elder worry even more about other creatures escaping and wreaking havoc in the city. Blackwarm assured her that they'd killed most of the creatures within the Mysterium, then Neirida disagreed, then they had some discussion, and finally concluded that yes, they'd killed every abomination they'd seen, so at least the hallways of the Mysterium were clear. Thinking back on their journey, they realized they hadn't gone into a single room in the entire building until ONE room on the third level. "Well, that wasn't very tactical of us, now was it?" was Blackwarm's response.
Finally getting to the point, Neirida indicated the bundle she was carrying, and Elder Thyrr quickly cleared her sofa of the scattered papers and tomes she'd been researching. Neirida gently laid Elder Lythiin's body down on the sofa, and Elder Thyrr pulled back the covering to see his face. "Oh, Elder Lythiin! What on Golarion is happening here?"
Quickly composing herself, she recommended that the party stay in the city for the evening while she arranged to have Elder Lythiin raised. Once he was alive again, he would likely be able to answer everyone's questions more fully. Since they had fulfilled at least part of their promise, Elder Thyrr emptied her safe for them, giving them 200 pp for their work so far.
As they left, Helden asked why she was called "Elder" Thyrr, when she wasn't even as old as Hans. Hans retorted that he was only 17, but Helden replied that Hans was simply transposing the numbers like "all old people do", and Hans should take care of himself. As Helden kept taunting Hans about being an old man and Hans got visibly incensed, Helden suddenly suggested they all hug it out. Hans refused. Helden started making plans…
The shopping was rather uneventful. Hans used his share to buy materials for a Stoneskin spell. Blackwarm shopped for staves, but found them all appallingly expensive. Similarly, Neirida was saving her money to be able to afford something useful, such as better armor or a Cloak of Resistance. Helden went "gadget happy", picking up an Immovable Rod, a handful of Tree Feather Tokens, and other random gear. At dinner, Helden wandered into the kitchen and tried to convince the tavernkeep to let him cook. The tavernkeep refused. He stepped outside, used his Ring of Chamelon Power to make himself look different, and tried again. Unfortunately, the tavernkeep, having two people ask to cook for him in such a short time, was suspicious, and threw him out again. Helden used the ring again to make himself look like a chef and tried again. The tavernkeep called for the guards. Helden fled. Disguising himself yet again, he returned to the tavern, went to the bard's corner and started playing the banjo… badly. The clientele took pity on him and didn't throw him out, but they were none too happy with his performance.
Once the party went to bed, Helden went to Hans' room and picked the lock. Then thought better of it, re-locked the door, and went to bed.
Katheer, Day 3:
An hour before dawn, Helden went downstairs and convinced the morning cook to let him cook. And he did an amazing job. For the next two hours, the breakfasts pouring out of the kitchen were nothing short of astonishing. The regulars commented on the quality of the food. The tips were rolling in, so the morning chef didn't complain at all about being upstaged. Helden watched in anticipation as Hans came down from his morning rituals… and walked straight out the door without breakfast!
D'oh! He'd totally forgotten that the party tended to meet up and then go to breakfast together! Abandoning his very part-time job, Helden pursued Hans, the group got together, chose a restaurant, and sat down for breakfast. For the third time in under 18 hours, Helden raced to the kitchen and asked to cook. For the second time, he was refused. So he went back to the table and used Sleight of Hand to put a Vomit Capsule in Hans' food. As Hans erupted, Helden jumped up and hugged him. "Gotcha!"
As soon as Hans recovered, he Sleep Hexed Helden into oblivion and stormed off. Blackwarm used Prestidigitation to clean the restaurant while Neirida went after Hans to calm him down. Once Helden was awake and Hans was (somewhat) mollified, the group returned to Elder Thyrr. Elder Lythiin, looking weak and pale but alive, was there as well.
Elder Lythiin thanked them for what they had done for the Mysterium so far, then warned them of the dangers ahead: Some guardians were programmed to attack all non-Stewards, so he was hoping they would take the Stewards' Oath at least temporarily to bypass any guardians that were still loyal to the Stewards. He showed them a map of the Mysterium, and where the remaining angels were. He described the puzzle box they would need to solve to reach "The Soul", the core of the Mysterium where the most dangerous books were kept, and he described the exscinder archon that guarded The Soul. His primary concern was that the archon might have been corrupted, and the party would have to fight it. On the bright side, Hans had both Banishment and Stoneskin prepared. On the down side, even those spells might not stop it.
He asked the party whether they had any further questions, and much to his astonishment, they didn't. He swore them in as Stewards, gave them their robes and holy symbols, and wished them well. They moved to the front door of the Mysterium, where the guards glared at Helden but did not interfere, the guards opened the doors, and the party stepped into the Mysterium once more…
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{. . .} Helden fled. Disguising himself yet again, he returned to the tavern, went to the bard's corner and started playing the banjo… badly. {. . .}
Could be worse. He could have been singing like Bob Dylan . . . .
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Not to continue beating a dead horse, but...
GothBard and I were comparing Mummy's Mask, Shattered Star, and Strange Aeons today, and noting that (so far), Shattered Star allows the PCs to be the active protagonists. "Here's your next mission. Solve it any way that you see fit." Mummy's Mask pretends to give the PCs agency ("Your next mission is to locate the flying pyramid.") but then takes it away ("In the morning the flying pyramid shows up over town and starts attacking you. What do you do?") Strange Aeons Book 4 takes away even THAT agency, and takes the approach of, "If you don't murderhobo your way through every situation, you will receive no rewards whatsoever."
Which is pretty odd, all in all.
Shiro has run Call of Cthulu games at conventions for over 30 years now, and I've played dozens of sessions under multiple GMs. The general rule is, "The monsters are too tough for you to fight directly. You need to use your brain, set up questionable alliances, and use every means at your disposal to have a hope of winning."
Murderhoboing will always get you killed and make you lose in the most horrible manner possible.
So having one of the books of Strange Aeons directly contradict a fundamental aspect of Call of Cthulu gameplay while claiming to be an homage to same, is just... jarring.
EDIT: And honestly, it's two books. Book 3 mostly took place in the Dreamlands and had a lot of really fun ways to solve problems, but resulted in no real-world loot. For the real-world loot, the PCs had to resort to murderhoboing.
I have issues with Call of Cthulu as a roleplaying game in general, largely due to the varied nature of what "using your brain" and "winning" means. I am not at all surprised by the disconnect here- pathfinder and most d&d style games in general do not do well with retreat, wait-and-see, and let's you and HIM fight approaches to combat.
I don't think call of Cthulu does it well either, mind.
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I have issues with Call of Cthulu as a roleplaying game in general, largely due to the varied nature of what "using your brain" and "winning" means. I am not at all surprised by the disconnect here- pathfinder and most d&d style games in general do not do well with retreat, wait-and-see, and let's you and HIM fight approaches to combat.
I don't think call of Cthulu does it well either, mind.
Oh, Shiro's games are a blast! It was just last year that I had the first-ever session where I neither died nor went insane... and I was sorely disappointed.
In Shiro's games, "losing" is a blast because you finally get to see how all the pieces fit together. In CoC, it's not whether you win or lose (you're almost always going to lose). It's the journey that's fun.
I have issues with Call of Cthulu as a roleplaying game in general, largely due to the varied nature of what "using your brain" and "winning" means. I am not at all surprised by the disconnect here- pathfinder and most d&d style games in general do not do well with retreat, wait-and-see, and let's you and HIM fight approaches to combat.
I don't think call of Cthulu does it well either, mind.
Oh, Shiro's games are a blast! It was just last year that I had the first-ever session where I neither died nor went insane... and I was sorely disappointed.
In Shiro's games, "losing" is a blast because you finally get to see how all the pieces fit together. In CoC, it's not whether you win or lose (you're almost always going to lose). It's the journey that's fun.
which is fine.
But it is for a rather small percentage of tabletop gamers.
On the other hand, it- along with L5R and White Wolf and other non "traditional" tabletop RPGs- has inspired me to look at victory and defeat in games differently.
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My understanding of Call of Cthulhu that having more than minimal brain to use is treated as a liability, because if you understand what is going on, you go insane.
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Session 66: The Not-So Helden Show, played 11-Feb-2020
But Book 4 really is that appalling.
Section 1: No matter how the PCs are steered to Miacknian Mun's estate, the general impression of him is, "Definitely misguided, possibly evil pillar of Cassomir Society". Yet they're supposed to murderhobo their way in (or make a DC 30 Perception check to notice that the man politely asking them to leave is a construct), then loot everything not nailed down in the house.
My party found all the evidence and turned it over to the authorities for… no reward.
Section 2: This is the one that appalls me. They're sent in to help restore the library. Yet 70% of all the loot is clearly library property (either stuff found in the library, or guard gear, or Lythiin's gear), and another 15% is "iffy" (if you kill the called outsider guards who haven't been corrupted, is it really OK to take their stuff?). So again, if you actually do what you're asked to do and don't murderhobo the guards or loot the library's valuables, you lose out on most of the loot.
Section 3: As I mentioned, the whole, "Make a DC 25 Diplomacy roll or at least a DC 10 Diplomacy roll followed by a DC 30 Perception roll or the AP grinds to a halt."
Section 3: The PCs haven't gotten there yet, but have you read the beast tamer encounter? If I'd been an editor, I would have thrown the manuscript back in the author's lap and said, "Stop screwing around and write something reasonable!"
If you're not familiar with it, the only way the hard-of-hearing beastmaster is willing to talk to the party is if they squeeze into a small cage with him and a mastodon, and then every failed Diplomacy roll adds up to the mastodon trampling the now-squeezing party. Even crappy sitcom writers do better.
So the writing is awful, and then you have the punitive nature of the creatures. Constructs and oozes, oozes and constructs. Haunts instead of traps. Rogues are hated enough in Pathfinder, but this entire book is one big F U to rogues. Then the battle at the end of the Mysterium. Gaze attacks are inherently "broken" in Pathfinder in the sense that they break the action economy that Pathfinder worked so hard to fix from D&D 3.5. Looking at a creature with a gaze attack automagically makes you save, so the whole party got hit by the 1d4 Str, Con, AND Cha drain (not damage). Plus a +23 touch attack that takes the PC out of the combat on a failed DC 23 Fortitude save.
All in all, Call of Cthulu scenarios are all about being intelligent, doing your legwork and your investigation, doing a lot of diplomacy, and only resorting to combat as a last, desperate measure, because you're likely to lose. In Book 4, virtually every encounter is a fight, and many of those fights involve permanent save-or-sucks. (The two Bestow Curse traps in Mun's; the Dark Young doing Strength drain in Mun's; the Dread Wraith doing Con drain in the Mysterium; the Proto-Shoggoths' Infect Flesh ability (a permanent disease, in effect); the Inmost Blot curse haunt; and the Keeper's gaze.)
An occasional dangerous permanent-damage enemy is exciting. Being bludgeoned with them one after the other in an unrelenting stream is demoralizing and exhausting.
Anway, /tirade.
This session was extremely frustrating for the party. They first realized that they really should check all the rooms in the Mysterium for more monsters or haunts, and managed to fail to eliminate any of the haunts, nor find anything else useful. Then they faced the Keeper, and on round 2 Hans hit him with a Slumber Hex and both Impii got fairly peeved that I was doing it again, and I reassured them the Keeper couldn't possibly fail his save, then Impus Major said, "Watch him roll a natural 1," and he did.
Impus Minor cried foul, which explains Hans' reluctance to do any additional save-or-sucks after Round 1.
Katheer, Day 3: As the doors shut behind them, Blackwarm and Neirida discussed what they should do. If they really had been hired to "fix" the library, and not just reset the wards, then they really should check all the rooms they hadn't been in. Helden protested mildly, figuring that once the wards were reset the Stewards would be able to take care of things themselves, but Blackwarm and Neirida finally decided that the right thing to do was find and identify all the haunts.
On the first floor, exploring the classrooms and the study cubicles, they came across one haunt: In one of the classrooms the books flew up, the pages started turning wildly, and the words and diagrams manifested and assailed everyone in the room… which was… nobody, since all four party members made their Perception rolls and knew they were looking for haunts, so they'd fled the room at the first sign of trouble. Unfortunately, Hans and Blackwarm put their heads together and couldn't make heads nor tail(feathers) of the haunt, so they simply used some chalk to mark the room as haunted, and made a few notes as to the nature of the haunt, hoping the Stewards would have better luck with it than they had.
The second floor had the haunt that Helden had triggered before, with the Force Cage and the fire and lightning and freezing and so forth, but once again Hans and Blackwarm couldn't figure out what it could possibly be. (A lot of very low Knowledge rolls this evening.) Hans suggested that maybe if he saw it again he'd have better luck identifying it, so Helden cheerfully volunteered and jumped in, and proceeded to succeed at 10 Reflex saves in a row to walk out of the haunt with no damage taken. This time, Hans successfully identified the haunt as one that required a Greater Dispel Magic to remove, so he cast his and (of course) failed. They dutifully marked this haunt off for the Stewards as well, along with the warning as to how to disable it.
Also on the second floor they encountered a haunt they hadn't run into before, in a room dedicated to occult matters. Once again the entire party succeeded on their Perception rolls except Neirida, and with the rest of the party's warning and her high Initiative roll she was able to get out of the area before the haunt manifested. This haunt was some kind of fungal infestation, and Hans immediately suggested that the name of a Great Old One must be recorded in one of the books, so the name had to be stricken and the area had to be Consecrated. Not wanting to spend an hour or two searching the books, and also not having a Consecrate prepared, the party marked off one more haunt for the Stewards to deal with. While they were on the second floor, Helden sneaked up to the mind-shattered guards and verified they'd recovered the food the party had left for them, so they'd be fine for a couple more days. One more matter for the Stewards.
The third floor was a bit more embarrassing because everyone except Blackwarm failed their Will saves to see anything. Under Blackwarm's guidance, they found one more haunt, and yet again Hans failed to identify it. This one involved shouting books and raging fanatics. Another chalkmark, another note, and moving on…
Their next check was on a room full of axiomites Elder Lythiin had warned them might be corrupted. If they weren't corrupted, the party's position as Stewards should protect them as long as they were truthful. So the party prepped around the door, opened it, and found the non-corrupted axiomites demanding to know the group's business. The party was extremely forthright: Some of the wards of the Mysterium had become corrupted, and they had been appointed as Stewards to seek out and purge the corruptions. The axiomites ordered them to search the room for corruption, which the party dutifully did. Finding none, the two groups left each other, both feeling a bit more respect for the other.
Another room had a group of clockwork mages. They stood down as soon as they saw that the party consisted entirely of Stewards, and the group was able to check on the angel head in the room. It was damaged, but it took Helden almost no time at all to remove the head and trigger the internal mechanism without the head.
It was time to go to the Soul. Following Elder Lythiin's instructions, they turned the other three angel heads and headed down. Once they reached the Door to the Soul, Hans found the correct angel to reset the wards (and the bell started tolling), and Helden out-and-out goofed off solving the puzzle box. He first threw a piece of wood at it to succeed at the first check. Then he tickled it with a feather to succeed at the second. At that point his imagination failed him and he just solved the third part of the puzzle.
The puzzle box slowly started grinding and expanding, revealing a black extradimensional portal into the Soul. The party buffed up, preparing for a fight with a corrupted exscinder archon, and Helden jumped in ahead of the rest of the party.
He landed in a vast stone chamber and spotted an obviously-corrupted archon coming towards him. He went total defense, but not before he felt staggering pain as the gaze of the archon drained his strength, constitution, and charisma. The archon stepped up and tried to perform a full-round attack, but although the first attack hit and drew blood, the second attack hit a pillar and the sword went flying from the archon's hand, landing nearly fifteen feet away! Hans came next, and cast Banishment at the creature. It didn't take. Neirida followed Hans, raged, and tried to strike at the creature, but missed. Blackwarm was the last to enter, and he opened a pit beneath the creature. Although it hadn't been flying, it managed to easily dance backwards out of harm's way. Both Hans and Blackwarm were affected by the creature's gaze, but Neirida was unimpressed.
Helden figured that the best thing he could possibly do was to get the sword away from the archon, so he moved over to it and picked it up. The archon let out an Agonized Wail. Hans, Blackwarm, and Helden were all shaken. Neirida was unimpressed. It flew over next to Helden, obviously intent on retrieving its sword. Hans cast a Slumber Hex that ended the fight cast Spirit-Bound Blade to give Neirida a Menacing weapon, figuring that any help he could provide in hitting it would be appreciated. Helden tried to move away from the creature, but it reached out and touched him. Hideous wounds opened across Helden's body and he collapsed to the ground in a fit of convulsions.
The rest of the fight was fairly straightforward: Blackwarm put down his Portable Hole to let out Stitch, and Stitch provided Neirida with the flank she needed to put a serious beat-down on the creature. The creature touched Neirida over and over again, but as with everything else it tried to do to her, she was unimpressed. Hans did a bit of healing, cast a Bless, and flung a few stones, but generally stood back waiting to see whether he was needed to do something more significant. Blackwarm made off with the creature's sword and hid it in his Portable Hole, daring the creature to go in and get trapped, but it wasn't that stupid.
In a final bit of agony for Helden, Neirida dropped the creature to negative hit points on the very round that Helden came out of being dazed.
In a rage, Helden picked up the sword and declared it his. Blackwarm looked longingly at the archon's body and asked how wrong it would be to raise an archon as undead. Neirida and Hans assured him it would be horrible, and he'd be hunted down by every paladin they ever met if he did such a thing. Blackwarm argued that it was dead anyway, so it wouldn't care, but Neirida and Hans stood firm that wandering around with an undead angel was a great way to get townsfolk to attack you, so Blackwarm backed down… kind of. "What about if I just gouge out its eyes and make an isitoq or two?"
Once the group convinced Blackwarm that undead archons weren't on the menu, and calmed Helden down enough to not kill all the Stewards upon returning, they went back upstairs to report to Elders Lythiin and Thyrr. As they left the Soul, they saw a vision of Lowls tearing the Necronomicon from its stand and pulling a scroll from his coat. He used the scroll to teleport away. Once he was gone, the scene shifted to allow a glimpse of a steep-walled, cylindrical building brimming with gnolls and topped with a lush garden. They all heard a tired voice say, “Come. He may have the tome, but it is not too late. Come now!”
The party went upstairs and exited. Having heard the bells, both Elders were waiting at the exit. The party described their encounters with the haunts and the Keeper, but Helden was still waiting to storm off. Elder Lythiin said that they should sell the sword to a temple (such as the temple of Sarenrae), and offered them the rest of their reward: Another 3,000 gold pieces. He also mentioned that he overheard several of Lowls' guards talking about a gnoll slaver in Okeno named Biting Lash. When the party indicated that they'd have to travel there next, Elder Lythiin offered to arrange to have them teleported. They agreed, and Elder Lythiin asked them to return the next day.
They spent one more night in Katheer…
The party leveled up to level 12.
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{. . .}
Section 3: {. . .}
If you're not familiar with it, the only way the hard-of-hearing beastmaster is willing to talk to the party is if they squeeze into a small cage with him and a mastodon, and then every failed Diplomacy roll adds up to the mastodon trampling the now-squeezing party. {. . .}
Well no wonder. If the party is having to squeeze, the mastodon must be outright being compressed!
Excinder (Censor) Archons sound Evil to begin with . . . the Order of the Rack must love them. Better take their stuff. For investigational purposes, at least . . . .