Fun Stuff > CLIKC
D&D Pathfinder
hedgie:
So, in working on the pirate battle, I found a potential future plot-hook that the PCs may want to pick up, especially since we do have a halfling PC. In the background info-drop, I mentioned that pirate/slaver kingdoms have been encroaching upon the mainland, and have taken to raiding and encroaching upon halfling lands, taking many as slaves and creating a bit of a refugee crisis. The human empire nearby isn't yet acting because thus far it doesn't affect them, and that pirates/slavers aren't the targets of their Inquisition. Some go to one country that is primarily agrarian, but as that place has a long coastline on the seas where the pirates play, others are making the long journey to elven lands, where they're basically invited.[1] So, the pirate ship is full of halfling slaves doing grunt work, and will use goblin slaves as an expendable boarding party. Obviously, the goblins will have terrible morale, and will probably switch sides if it looks like the PCs' group has a chance of winning. The best ending to this scenario is that the "good guys" take the pirate ship, and free the enslaved halflings (the not so good ending is just driving the pirates off).
I'm not too worried about the PCs doing something horrible here,[2] especially with higher level NPCs around running the ship. The primary moral dilemma that they can influence (and it'll take some persuasion) is what to do with the goblins, such as kill them immediately, take them in for trial, or put them on a boat with some provisions and send them on their merry way. Unlike the humans running the pirate ship, the gobbos were forced into it, and will likely enough help the party, and that may earn them their lives. The freed halflings will want them dead, since the goblins, when kicked, would then do it to them, and were responsible for much of the abuse. The captain is amenable to the idea of letting them go[4] at a higher DC, or imprisoning them (with the PCs keeping watch) at a lower DC, if the party argues it. This is mostly for me to figure out how each PC will react to the situation, and even if the goblins are summarily executed, it'll be by kosher even by the paladin's rules.
If the pirates get away, they will most certainly be back as baddies, and I'm also going to keep the captain and first mate of the ship the PCs are on if they don't get killed. The captain is a CG swashbuckler, who goes for every Flynn moment he can get. The first mate is love-struck, not with the captain or any person, but with the idea of being one herself, and will be grateful if she gets to take the pirate ship as her own.
[1] Well, the high elves anyway, since the grasslands are in their border region, and they don't see the small folks as a threat. The shadow elves are just a little too spooky and militant for their empire to be the first choice.
[2] Even the token evil teammate, a shadow-elf[3] inquisitor isn't likely to cause a problem here
[3] I never liked drow since they're a race of OP murder-hobos. My "bad elves" are organised, and only evil due to their methods. Their aims are actually fairly lofty, but they will avoid, gut you or disable you (whatever is easiest) if you get in their way.
[4]
hedgie:
That went about as well as it could have given that I'm about 20 years out of practice running a game, and I had a cat-herd full of new players. The scripted combat went really well, and the PCs, while killing a few goblins in combat unwittingly got them on their side as they primarily targeted the overseers, and apparently, half the party could speak goblin which left the gobbos in a debate amongst themselves about what to do (especially when the pirate captain was charmed, which added confusion to their whole ship). With the PCs' rolls, and some failed saves by the NPCs, the goblins ended up switching sides (one player's larva who is also a player gave a good speech and rolled high on diplomacy), figuring that they could get away from their captors.
Unfortunately, the halflings enslaved on the pirate vessel had other ideas, but the party (even the halfling) ended up deciding that it'd be fair to let them go, although WITHOUT the human slavers that they requested as provisions. Those will be turned over for trial. Even though the session focused on combat, the real thing was what would happen after, with the morality play. The pally was given two acceptable choices, one more lawful, one more good, and chose good.[1] The halfling ended up being okay with letting the goblins who abused her people go, and taking the actual slavers in for trial. Everyone did amazing, especially since only one person had played Pathfinder before, and everyone was confused about the dice and their abilities, but when it came to their characters and their interactions, everything went perfectly. Which was brilliant, since it has been too long since I've herded cats, and this clowder could figure out how to make decisions as a group that were at least tolerable to all.
[1] Well, *more* good. He would have been justified helping the captain summarily execute the pirates, and even the goblins. He chose to take them to port to face trial.
Gyrre:
Well, guess who'se party had to go to the Faye Wild andeal with riddles and randomly changing seasons BS.
We also fought some weird faye "dog" things that looked sort of like they had a man's face. We had to go looking for the only other blood hunter in the area's nephew. The little idiot [1] wanted to make himself a blood hunter and ran off to get the rest of the materials he needed. We tracked him down to some Weaver ruins and found a portal to the Faye Wilds. Despite having 150ft darkvision (super from deep gnome +30ft from Umbral Sight), 'Welber'[2] mistook the four of them for raccoons at first and only sort of managed to pacify them. Our drow cleric of Lathandar was agitating them. After killing the lot of them with surprising ease, we determined that the kid had gone through the portal.
Once there, we found ourselves in a rimg of trees, each numbered and having a door. Naturally, the rope we had tied to a rock came through the portal along with said rock. Attempts to chuck the rock out of the portal resulted in the rock fwashing back into the clearing from the opposite side. In the middle of the clearing was a stone plinth with a riddle along with an old well. When we looked in the well, a hidden voice said "Now now. No entry without saying the magic word." Saying 'please' result in a Bigby's hand being summoned and attacking the three characters that said it. One of figured out that the answer to the riddle was 'hand' (I'll add them later), and one of the doors opened. I don't recall any of us going down the well, but one of our new party members[3] fired his bow to test the wrap around. It fwashed around 3 tomes before we heard it strike a little purple guy who proceeded to gasp "Why.....?" before falling out of the tree he was hiding in.[4] Anyways we solved the next three or so riddles easily enough [5] before getting the hard one.
There were signs of struggle and strands of spider silk with blood on them going up to the canopy. While everyone debated on an answer, 'Welber' decided screw it and wrote his on the plinth with blood so he could do two at once. 'Pain' and 'blood' were both wrong, so he got attacked by a floor-cloaker-thing [derp]. He evaded the first two attacks but got swallowed in the third round. Thankfully we managed to kill it and correctly answer the riddle, but not before two more wrong answers. Still not sure what bearing those wrong answers will have. But, we found the kid in the next room wrapped up in spider silk. "What do mean the answer was 'floor'!? How's anyone supposed to get that right???"[6] we also looted some other corpses in spider silk to close out the session, but I forgot what loot we got.
[1 high Int, low Wis
[2]] his real name is Velsignar
[3] kobold arcane archer
[4] We forgot to see if he was dead or not. Crap.
[5] and I got a 'leather vest that feels warm' when getting a frosted branch for one
[6] our current DM acknowledging that it was a hard riddle
Gyrre:
For my backup character, I made a storm sorcerer Tortle named Jiao-long. The the totally-not-Optimus-Primal warforged druid probably wouldn't fit into this campaign as well as I'd hoped.
Originally I wanted to go with the urchin background, but now I'm not so sure. I've been recently been looking at Hermit, Inheritor, and Archaeologist. IDK, playing high Wis - low Int is a bit weird for me. I usually go for high in both or at least middling high for one and high for the other. I've got 3 possible voices worked out, each has it's own personality quirks thanks to enclothed cognition.
If I went with the urchin background, it'd pretty much have to be the heavy Brooklyn accent[1] — which likely says something about my own presuppositions.
Anyways, if it helps any, he's got some mild draconic features thanks to a bronze dragon grandparent/great grandparent. His tail is longer, he's got six horns[2], nubby chin spikes, and a pair of foot-ish long or so vestigial wings that stick out of his shell like two long spindly fingers. I'm not sure is any of that helps with imagining what sort of background he might have or how he might sound.
[1] The other two are a Ringo Star impression, and a pretty good imitation of the Cantonese accent several of my cafeteria coworkers in college had.
[2] the zygomatic and mandibular horns fuse into a single pair.
EDIT: I've been poking around, and it turns out that Tortle sorcerer is one of thos rarer race-class combos. The high number of monks and druids didn't surprise me, though.
EDIT2: I've got a rough sketch done of Jiao-Long. Ignoring all previous statements about accents, what would you guess this guy would sound like?
hedgie:
So, session 2 went well as could be with only half the player base able to make it.[1] I had to toss the party a red herring that a few halflings were being re-enslaved by an 8' tall half-ogre who runs a local inn and tavern[2], but it was enough to get the plot going. I had written so many NPCs that when the party split, I let them play some of them to keep everyone involved, and just due to some amazeballs rolls, they managed to find who is responsible for the arson of the half-ogre's stables and a plethora of other crimes. At first, when the stable manager (a secret druid) wouldn't talk to the elves in the party, and blamed them for the fire, they started gunning for the fanservice girl[3] playing at the bar, and was ramping up paranoia all night until they managed to crack the who, but with no way to prove it yet. I threw in one combat, just so that I could toss them some XP at the end of an incomplete session, and the simple farmer they saved gave them an interesting item. Everything is primed for next session, and people had a blast despite most of the players being exhausted from work || finals.
[1] Seriously, if people know of some rituals to make things right, one player is incommunicado, and living in a major fire zone. The lure of game and awesome food was not enough.
[2] nah, they're just the newest employees of someone scary enough to protect them and pay them above the prevailing wage
[3] her costume is literally held on by alchemical/magical adhesive
Edit: Player is safe and sound, and I'm glad that even the exhausted players that made it had a great time. We ate until we were all bloat mages, and even after giving away food to their housemates and others, I'll be fed for the next week. It was also perfect timing that we broke when we did, since the PCs were getting close to other combat encounters, and after the paladin nearly died against the boar, even the nerfed NPC baddies seemed a bit much. Thankfully, this group is pretty good at working efficiently and knowing which plot threads they want to take. Well, all bits of the same plot really, but it's not railroading if they jump on the train and enjoy the ride.
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