I'm looking only for actual, in game experiences.
1) Share a time when you effectively learned about an upcoming encounter, prepared for it, and gained advantage based on the preparation.
2) Share a time when you effectively used a cheap, mundane item to good effect.
3) Are there any rules which made the game more gritty and realistic which you enjoyed?
1) Rise of the Runelord's AP. At one point you know you are going to take on 8 groups of wizards that all specialize in 1 school of magic. The players changed their spells to defend themselves from each school as they went.
2) This probably isn't what you mean at all but I'll say it anyways. I had a wizard that for his first 'wow' item he made a Ring of Telekinesis. Now you can go around picking up random trash to throw at things, but wizard plan ahead, right? So using 2 buckets I planned ahead. In one bucket I carried 9 large sized cold iron chakrum. They cost 4gp each, and when thrown with TK they do 2d6 each. So its a blast of 9-2d6 attacks that costs me nothing and hits 'cold iron' vulnerability. In another bucket I had 9 silver bars worth 75gp each...1 lbs of silver. Each hits for 1d6 damage when used to blast stuff and was only around so I could hit silver vulnerability. Adamantine ingots would be very unreasonable so I didn't bother. Oh, and they were in buckets so it was only a move action to deploy them from my Handy Haversack.
3) Actually I think most people enjoy the game more when you lighten up on the gritty realistic rules. I can't think of a single time when a rule like that was presented that it made the game better.
Thanks for sharing, Meirril.
It seems to me like generally the way to prepare for a fight beforehand is to change out spell selections. That's certainly an inherently good aspect of the game that rewards players for detail oriented planning ahead and good resource management. I'd love to figure out other ways to reward players for preparing that don't involve magic, so that other characters can contribute as well.
I'm also interested in spell based preparations.
Could you perhaps be a bit more specific about which spells the players used to defend against different schools? Were there any moments where things went particularly well?
#2 certainly wasn't what I was looking for, but it's still a cool story.
I expect a lot of people to post saying that they haven't had good experiences with gritty, realism oriented rules. But, perhaps some people will have had good experiences consistently with a rules modification, in which case I'll know I can use it.
Against the Evokers they layered on resist energy to all the common types. Against the Necromancers they had Life Ward and were ready to cast Restoration. Against the Illusionists they prepared True Seeing. Against the Enchanters they had Protection from Evil. They didn't have anything in particular against Transmutation, Conjuration, or Abjuration but they did prepare anti-caster spells like Feeblemind.
Also non-spellcasters can prepare for certain kinds of opponents but its not quite as easy. You take different feats, select different gear, change your methods. In one game we did our constant enemy through the entire advnture was Cultists of Asemodeus (and eventually the Demon Prince himself). The entire party had lots of specialized abilities to fight against undead and demons.
Also if you think a certain feat would really help you it only takes 3 days to retrain, I think? When you know who the opponent is, you can make sure you alter your tactics to compensate. Rangers obtain an enemy doll, everybody makes sure you have weapons that hit vulnerabilities, and maybe you look for some magic (or non magic) items to help.
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I'm the GM of a home game but I'll relate stuff my players have done. They are very experienced gamers so all they do is prepare ahead of time and gain advantages.
This past Thursday they were headed through a swamp to a ruin built on an island in the middle of open marsh. The party contains a Half-Elf Swamp Druid, a Ratfolk Investigator, a Human Warpriest, and a Half-Orc barbarian. Before setting off traveling for the day, they used the following skills:
Knowledge: Nature and Survival - what's the weather going to be like today to plan their travel
Knowledge: Geography - what's the fastest way through the swamps
Knowledge: Local and History: what are the common myths and legends around the swamp; what monsters of legend are there; what's the backstory on the ruins, other than they're currently being used as a dungeon lair by vegepygmies
After all of this, plus a Diplomacy check to gather info in a nearby village and thus gain a +2 on several other checks, they were able to cut a 6 hour trek to 4 hours. This in turn paid dividends later in Light conditions (since the Half-Elf and Human still need light to see by).
They also knew to avoid a froghemoth in the area, to negotiate with some leshys warding an area of the swamp and informed the party that several tribes of boggards compete over the bulk of the wetlands. Finally they knew ahead of time that the marshes surrounding the dungeon were sometimes prowled by slimes or oozes.
So they get through the swamps, having dealt with some boggards and reached an accord with the leshys. As they're approaching the marsh the channel of water they're following is flanked by two long berms covered with foliage. The PCs spot three boggard corpses in the undergrowth. Another round of skill checks:
Heal - the creatures died from Russet Mold infection; something burst out of them and forcibly removed several bones from their hosts
Knowledge: Nature - the cavities in the boggard bodies were from "birthing" vegepygmies. They took bones as trophies and to make weapons.
Survival, Perception and Craft - Weapons: the leavings on the ground and disturbance in the local foliage suggests the vegepygmies made spears or javelins out of the larger bones. They also made a small amount of cordage; the earlier Knowledge check explained they also like to make keepsakes from the smaller bones of their "parents." The vegepygmies lingered in the area for some time, also crafting something from the dense, leathery hides of the boggards. Finally some of them ventured into the water heading northeast (where the ruins are) while four of them cut trails into the berms.
These checks and several high Perception checks at the far end of the berms where the channel narrows informed the party that four of the creatures were waiting in ambush. The PCs, knowing the vegepygmies were there and what kind of weapons (spears or javelins) they'd have had already formed a rough plan to fight them. They broke into two teams, one ranged person and one melee person per team, each facing one team of 2 vegepygmies hiding in the trees. Of course the PCs could see well enough despite the canopy overhead, since it was about 1 PM at the time.
Needless to say, they made short work of the vegepygmies. In fact, they didn't use a single consumable resource, except mundane arrows. Their foes were built to work as a team; the boggard hide had been turned into large, wooden (leather and wood) shields that the "tank" vegepygmy would use to guard himself and his companion, also utilizing a shortspear for Aid Another bonuses or attacks as needed. The other one in each pair threw spears.
Before they even came upon the ambush the party knew the general area where they'd be, what the terrain would be, the number of their foes and their skills and abilities in combat. They weren't surprised by the ambush. The battle was easily won by the party and, when two of the vegepygmies attempted to flee by water, they were ended quite easily.
As for using mundane equipment and gritty rules, I don't have anything for those points.
Thanks for sharing, Mark, I'd love to read more of your stories if you'd like to post them.
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Sometimes players know too much.
Early on in this campaign the Swamp Druid who, in her backstory had a mom that had been duped into a cult of Lamashtu operating around the bayou near their home and died in childbirth to an aberration, came upon a cave. I was ill-prepared for the party's choices that night so to stall for time I randomly rolled on a wilderness set-dressing type table.
Me: as the forest gives way to the hills here you see... *rolls on table* a small cave. *Reads boxed text* This is a shallow opening that expands into a natural chamber. The underground space is foul-smelling and soiled by soot and blood. Strange, runic markings are drawn on the threshold with a religious tone to them.
Druid player: A cave... with blood? Knowledge: Religion; is this something we've seen before...
Me: Ummm...
Druid player: ... maybe something I'VE seen before?
Me: *It dawns on me that the backstory mentioned the druid's mom was dragged into a cave* Sure... roll.
Druid player: 17... plus bonuses... 20... plus a Guidance spell... 21! So, does it seem familiar?
Me: Yes, it seems disturbingly familiar to your character...
This random roll and skill check ended up leading to the sudden and unexpected addition of a cult of Lamashtu, posing as Pharasmin-worshipping midwives, mutating children in during the pregnancies of the mothers of local villages. I hadn't counted on it but basically the Druid player and one of the other folks at the table did most of the work for me.
It even led to the current Big Bad of the game. Y'see, just prior to finding the cave the last encounter they'd had was tromping through the hunting ground of a tatzlwyrm. They dealt with a couple simple traps, rolled a phenomenal Perception check and spotted the dragon-kin at 80' through light forest. At the time they'd had with them a Hunter PC who is a sometime player in the game. He ended that session with us by firing an impossible shot, through cover, at the tatzlwyrm and got a Nat 20 which he confirmed and inflicted nearly max damage. Needless to say, the PCs bagged the dead dragon-kin as a trophy.
Well, when they got to the vile cave the party could sense that Negative Energy had been channeled here and that a very unsavory ritual had occurred. Being staunch roleplayers focused as much on story as grind, they wanted to cleanse the cave of evil but they were only 2nd level. I let them do an old-fashioned 4e Skill Challenge, using the spells Bless, Create Water, and Cure Light Wounds along with Knowledge: Religion, Spellcraft, and Heal checks.
The PCs only managed 2 successes before the 4 failures that would end the skill challenge with mixed results. Their hour-long cleansing ritual ended up being successful but the negative energies surged for some unknown reason, as if fighting back. The PCs all ended up Fatigued and the tatzlwyrm, who the barbarian for some unknown reason was dragging around on a leash like a pet or something, was suddenly reanimated and tore free!
The party gave a brief chase but the undead dragon-kin got away. It has since been revealed that over the past 12 months and 4 levels the party has been occupied, the tatzlwyrm has been EXTREMELY busy. It became a unique ghast (a play on its poisoned breath weapon) and is remarkably intelligent.
I am the GM, so like Mark I will tell how the party stymied me.
1) I made a Colossal creature, a living fortress a little Boss used as a workshop, filled with baddies. Now this is on a magical floating island, I foolishly used the crumbling, thin floor as a hazard against the party earlier. (If one side can use it, then so can the other).
Aware of the threat the party plans ahead, the stealthiest is buffed for speed (Longstrider, spider climb), stealth (invisibility, nondetection), and perception and sent to look for weaknesses, they find the little boss (gloves of reconnaissance), and a nest of baddies but no weaknesses they can hit this level, then retreats.
The party meanwhile has been digging. 3 NATURAL 20 geography, Engineering, and Nature checks help them make a trap, plus a 19 and 3 Aid another +2's Survival checks to disguise it. Then with ropes, shovels, and picks they set a trap. They enrage the beast with longbows and flashy magic (Snapdragon fireworks) then trick it into charging into a trap (Silent image) where it stomps onto a newly weakened part of the world and drop a tower on it for good measure (Iron pitons, rope, block and tackle).
Naturally the beast falls through and 2 major foes are dealt with in a single blow (except thankfully the little BBEG had dimension door and great concentration rolls)
2) Shovels in the above example to make a gigantic pit trap.
In a different campaign, a bucket was used against a particularly terrifying undead owl. They couldn't hurt it, but they could grapple it, but it kept biting them. So they out it under a bucket and then turned the bucket and the owl to ashes.
3) In a desert campaign, planning out water use was a fun side adventure. They settled on barrel sleds, where the barrel was a wheel filled with fresh water. When they ran low they had to stop and search and found a saltwater cave. They then made a simple solar still (They had some booze in glass bottles, buckets, and canvas tarps) to get valuable trade good salt and some extra water while they travelled, and used a traditional campfire at night. But in general we tend to handwave the gritty necessities in average environments. This was an interesting and creative exception for an exceptional environmental threat.
I think gritty is great in an intrigue game, or a low level survival based game. Pathfinder has too many ways to overcome gritty situations. The system is designed as a power fantasy more than anything else, in my opinion anyways.
My group had several experiences that meet the requirements for 1) and 2) while playing the Jade Regent Adventure path. I wouldn't call anything we ever did planning, it was more like stupid ingenuity. I'm going to start with 2) first because it happened shortly before my example for 1).
2) We came across a small castle we needed to raid. The front gate was shut and the walls were lightly defended. We debated several strategies: waiting until nightfall, using a grappling hook, attempting to break the gate open. We decided that we didn't have the time or equipment to perform any of these and if we waited too long outside the guards would notice us and begin shooting at us.
So our plan was to vault onto the wall using the cleric's tower shield as a platform. We had two characters run toward the wall as fast as possible and set up the shield as a platform. The following characters jumped up onto the shield and then were able to climb onto the wall easily. We pulled the characters left on the ground up with rope after the fight.
We found out later that we had the key to the front gate the whole time and could have just walked in from there.
1) While inside the castle, we came across a sarcophagus containing a Hellwasp Swarm. We rolled a high knowledge check and could tell that the creature was very hard to damage with weapons or fire (our two primary damage sources). So we decided "if you can't beat 'em, drop a building on 'em and let gravity do the work." We set makeshift explosives up in a circle on the floor above the sarcophagus and set them off. The ceiling crushed everything flat. The poor thing didn't stand a chance.
1 & 2: We use craft alchemy and scouting to help prepare for the enemy fairly frequently. Typically the scout will look ahead and tell us if they think we need to avoid things like grappling, disease, poison, stench, nausea, etc. Then we dip into a fairly sizable stash of antitoxins, antiplagues, soothe syrups, alchemical grease, etc. Also we always make sure to have one Soul Stimulant for every breath of life prepared in a day, and one per scroll of breath of life, to keep us going on bad days. Party has an alchemist to readily supply these, and in downtime they often spend a lot of time working from their portable lab to get cheap access to these.
3: As a GM I find the weather tables make the game a tad more interesting. In addition to helping set a backdrop for the passage of time, they make the party Sylph and the party Druid feel more rewarded for preparing for weather ahead of time, the sylph having Weather Reader and the Druid adapting by changing prepared spells to match weather, using Call Lightning only in storms, as well as spells like control winds or cloak of shade to help bring about more favorable conditions. As a player, I kinda like unusual weather occasionally to add a bit of spice.
Interesting story, Mark, sounds like you're a GM who's good at adapting on the fly and catering to your players, two good qualities.
One must never underestimate the power of the common shovel, thanks for the story, Guardianlord. Likewise, I'll keep in mind the water supply tracking as something that has had some limited success.
Stupid, reckless attacks that come faster than anticipated are often quite successful, in my experience, Cthulhu Panda. How did you make the explosives?
Paradozen, of the various alchemical items which provide sizable bonii, which have you found to be the most and least useful? And about how frequently does the weather become interesting?
Thanks again for the stories, all of you.
Alchemical grease has been the most useful. Putting it on the barbarian means their impressive CMD is able to keep up (and usually get slightly ahead) of monsters with grab. There are a lot of monsters with grab (and we often find constrict in there as well) Putting it on me or the oracle means we stand a better chance against the grapple monsters. The arcanist has freedom of movement, but not a ton of spell slots to go sharing with the party so we still bother with the grease.
Antiplague is probably the least useful alchemical big bonus item, alongside soothe syrup. We have a wand of diagnose disease, and the oracle took remove disease, so with the onset time and frequency disease is usually better countered by magic. Soothe syrup isn't terribly useful simply because of how hard it is to predict nausea/sickening. We might get lucky and smell something with scouting, but usually it winds up being a spell or unique activated ability so we don't know to take it ahead of time. After being nauseated it isn't terribly useful and taking it mid fight is kinda risky.
As to weather, it probably only comes up about 10% of the time, considering how many adventures take place in dungeons (which are usually protected against outside weather). I value the 10% for adding a little to the backdrop and occasionally changing the dynamic of fights, but even using the table most results are normal weather. Otherwise, it wouldn't be normal. Comes up even less when I am playing, because most GMs don't bother with the table.
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