Previously in Chatty’s game:
Our heroes discover that they have been setup to be ambushed by the duergar. Planning to catch the Grey dwarves at their own game, they partially succeeded in turning the tables but had to face a brood of Kruthiks (Think hive mind insects with knife-shape claws).
Our stalwart champions reached the duergar hold in Thunderspire Labyrinth and successfully managed to find a back way in. After having dispatched some orcs and an ogre, the party got ready to face the duergars’ leader.
The week had been long and I was dead tired. I thought of calling off the game a few times but decided against it… our current game is not very time consuming to prepare (you know, what with running a published adventure and all) and I really do enjoy hanging with my pals every two weeks.
This week, Stef, who plays Rocco the murderous Halfling rogue, was unable to be there and Math (Naquist, the Elven cleric) was home alone with his baby boy. So we all sauntered by Math’s place around five-ish and we spent some time playing Rockband 2 and leveling up some PCs to level 5.
Franky was quick to show me that he had achieved what he promised he would do, which was shrink his PC sheet to card size, just as the rest of his power and item cards. So for all intents and purposes, Franky now plays D&D 4e with nothing more than a deck of cards.
You read that right! I’ve long said that 4e has design elements that are similar to Magic the Gathering, Franky just brought it to another level. That being said, since we’re on average approaching 40, chances are this small character sheet won’t be adopted by the rest of the group anytime soon. !
As I am a D&D Insider subscriber and since I had my laptop with me, we got a few PCs done on the Character Generator. It’s a good thing we did as apparently Eric’s Wizard had a few ‘miscalculations’ that were soon addressed.
(He’ll deny it of course!)
What my players really liked about the Character Generator was that it prints out your powers and Items on individual cards, with all the rules text on them. This is one nifty time saving feature. There’s still a few bugs in the application but we truly are a long way from the Character Generator that was packed on a CD in the 3.0 Players Handbook.
As things stood, we weren’t expecting to start playing all that early since Math had to care for his son. However, his adorable little tyke gave us a superb gift in being exceedingly calm and allowing his father to stay at the table with the baby going from the arms of one gamer to the next.
He also loves to munch on dice tubes. Ah to be a 7 month old again!
I hadn’t prepped anything much for the game. I did have one little surprise. As I laid the battlemap and the minis, I put down a mini representing Stef’s Halfling Rogue.
“Hey, Stef’s not here and you still put his mini there?”
Me: “Yup”
“But that’s a precedent Phil”
Me: “I know”
“We don’t like this!”
The players characters, having kicked down a door in the last minutes of our previous game, were facing off against 4 duergars. Two were wearing chain mail and yielding warhammers (Shock-Guards), one was wearing no armour but also had a warhammer (a theurge, a sort of Fire mage) and the duergar’s leader, Murklemor, wearing plate mail and armed with a very large flaming maul.
The room the duergars were in was a two-tiered room featuring 2 10′ wide fireplaces and a set of stairs flanked by statues.
The players deployed in and outside the room. When Rocco’s turn came up, he smiled and backstabbed one of his buddies (Math’s eleven cleric if I recall). The players were surprised by this turn of event and assumed that he had been charmed or possessed sometime in the last session.
Turns out that I decided (with Stef’s consent) that he had been captured by a Dopplegagner working for the duergars during the last session (he was separated from the party for some time). He initially attacked the PCs but mostly let the duergars deal with them, hanging back outside the encounter’s main room.
The combat was preety standard D&D 4e fare, except I felt that it was a bit more dynamic (i.e. more manuvering) than previous fights. PCs and monsters deployed powers and several miniatures were marked, pushed, immobilized and knocked prone. The Duergar boss projected enemies away with his maul and followed through. He used that trick on Bjerm the Eladrin fighter twice, sending him into one of the Fireplaces at a certain point.
I never recall the details of a fight correctly because I’m usually crunching numbers, answering player questions and just try to keep up.
One thing that stood out for me was the amazing healing powers of the cleric. Beacon of Hope and Consecrated Grounds are great daily spells. In fact, Consecrated Ground is one of the best powers I’ve seen yet. This little gem of a healing spell is a sustainable 3X3 healing zone (for allied) and a damage dealer for enemies. This means that the cleric player gets to heal buddies, bash baddies and still get to use more powers.
This is fun stuff for a player.
This little spell, combined with some stances taken by the fighter and warlord (that cause damage to whatever happens to start it’s turn beside the PCs) saved the day.
Yeah, a 5th level party with synergistic powers is a scary thing. I can’t imagine what the Paragon level will be like.
At a certain point, the party bloodied the boss. When that happened, all PCs were in the room and the rogue-turned-rogue was hanging back outside. The boss, standing in the fireplace (Duergar have some resistance to fire), turned around and opened a secret doors (placed in the fireplace) that led to the slave pens standing in the adjacent room.
This triggered the adjacent encounter where 2 duergar guards, an Elite Theurge (a fire-using controller) and 2 Spined devils were guarding a group of slaves.
Halfway-through Level 5 encounter? Meet level 6 encounter!
I knew this would be hard for the players, but since my players had been having an easy time mauling all encounters for some tome now, I wanted to see how they could handle 2 overlapping encounters.
As soon as the duergar boss invited the other room to join the fun, I described the rogue running through the hall outside the first room, morphing into a Duergar, open the door to the second room and call in the occupants.
I think at least one player groaned.
Within 2 rounds the PCs were mostly out of anything but at-will powers and the opponenents were still going strong. Since the PCs had managed to down the duergar boss, I tried to play the remaining opposition with less ‘enthusiasm’, trying to run away when bloodied and such.
Still, the PCs were having a hard time with both the cleric and the warlock finding themselves in melee and getting thier Hit Points in the single digits. Players were getting nervous (and tired, we were way past the 2nd hour of the fight) and tempers were staring to flare.
At one point, the cleric was down to 3 hit points with 5 ongoing fire damage. He stepped away from his assailant, and moved into his healing zone. When my turn came up, I had the cleric (and all other players sitting in the healing zone) lined up for an area attack power by the still unhurt elite Theurge .
I had reached a critical DM decision point (Note that any sustainable spell, like the Consecrated ground, stops when it’s controller becomes unconscious).
Players were all conscious but low on hit points. All powers were used. The fighter still had his damaging aura stance and had decent Hit points. The cleric was barely holding on his Consecrated Ground power. All others were down to At-wills and low on hit points.
They were still facing 1 bloodied duegar guard in the room while 2 mostly unhurt spined devils and the 168 hp Elite Theurge was sitting outside the room.
What would you have done?
I’ll tell you what I did in part 2…
‘ Two were wearing chainsaw and yielding warhammers (Shock-Guards), ‘
Those are real badass duergars. 😉
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Gah! Caught by the spell checker!
Fixing!
I’d have probably given them back their encounter powers entirely after they defeated the boss and started to look tired, and fudged the roll on that attack on the cleric to fail. Then I’d have continued the encounter normally.
Though I’d have also probably stuffed an angry combat lolita in there somewhere and had all the Duergars reading the module, and had a stuffed platypus in a wall somewhere, and signs written in Sanskrit with all the enemy ELs. Because modules bore me unless I mess them up really really wack.
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you know, now you will have to some time reasonably soon, include an absent player’s character in an adventure in a non-negative manner, or you’ll never be able to use that trick again. (I’d think about 5-1 would be the right ratio of benign to trap)
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I probably would introduce an opportunity to flee – just in case they forget the option.
I try to avoid fudging dice results – or publicly mentioning that I might do it it in a blog comment section – to keep the idea of danger present.
Oh, crap, did I type this out loud?
Eric Maziades last blog post..What We Learned – Because Every Game Session Yields Questions.
Nice fight . . . better cliffhanger 😉
I wonder if their will be an unexpected, beneficial side effect from the doppelganger trick? Perhaps, the players will put additional pressure on anyone who may not show up? Either way it will get them thinking . . .
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Yeesh. I figured you had learned from the online game we did. 😛
Level 5 encounter (1000 xp) + Level 6 encounter (1250 xp) = 2250 xp = Level 9 encounter
I mean, level+4 is still doable, though hard. But when you only find out halfway through? Ouch!
As for what to do… well, knowing you, I imagine the Duergar, Devils, and Doppelgangers (will next week be the E chapter?) would begin getting into the politics of the situation, arguing about whether the Duergar could keep the PCs as slaves, the Devils could kill them and bind their souls, or the Doppelganger could do… whatever Doppelgangers like to do.
Or the halfling would miraculously escape and come to the rescue.
The Elite Theurge returns with a troupe of dancing girls, starts singing and the whole thing turns into a musical. No?
Oh, ok. The Elite Theurge returns and monologues for a while. You grant the players a short rest (enough for a healing surge), they regain their encounter powers and the battle begins anew.
That’s how I’d do it. Either that or the dancing girls.
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Well Retreat was not an option at that point since all exit of the room where controlled by enemy.
As for the Rogue, we though it was a story driven decision and teased Phil with setting a dangerous precedent. The first attack was a surprise which changed are situation to being surrounded but not that bad since we a serious control on the fight.
But then the boss opens the secret door changing the situation drastically, by bringing 5 fresh enemy while we had most of our daily and encounter power spent already…
At that point if they had come through the secret door I (the Fighter) would have been able to contain their progression but some went through the other door preventing me from keeping control on their move.
This is when the clerics got in trouble…
Well I think you know me by now. Of course killing the whole group would be a mistake. (You still want to have friends at the end of the night.) You mentionned there was a group of slave in the next room. I would bring even more duergars in the picture to make sure the PCs would at least try to surrender to them. If not, I would simply swamp them and knock them all out.
Waking up they would realize that they are completely stripped of their gear, chainned up with the group of slaves.
After that, there’s a lot of options:
– The doppelganger could take advantage of this. Using the duergars to get what he wants from the PCs… Or the other way around. The doppelganger could use the PCs, forcing them to help him get what he wants from the duergars in exchange for liberating them, holding the real rogue as a hostage.
– Like Graham said the rogue could escape and sneak in to save his friends.
– They could get split into two groups.
– One could die dramaticly… (it’s a joke!)
They would suffer a bit that’s for sure.
My delayed game is sort of in this situation – when we left off, my players had 4 fights in a row and there’s a 5th one on the horizon – which they might have to confront rapidly before something even worse happens.
(I originally planned to give them a restore potion, which I forgot to do. I chose to roll with it and not to make it appear.)
Right now, the players are considering either charging in, rest for a few hours in the enemy’s den… or running away and potentially allow what they’re trying to stop to happen.
I’ve also asked them what they thought might happen next. I’ve had a few interesting suggestions.
I’ll most likely decide on the spot, based on what the players will do then.
@Yan: I did not realize the situation was this dire! Eek! I feel an improvised skill challenge coming on…
@D_luck: That’s a cool idea 🙂 They “getting knocked instead of killed” is a classic, but I don’t think I ever played the “awaking enslaved” part. (which also feels classic, but cool nonetheless).
Our regular DM did “one dies dramatically” once. It was quite dramatic and introduced a new level of stress for future combats – death is a possibility.
After that (on another session) we wussed out before the end of the fight when we started feeling the odds was not in our favor 🙂
Eric Maziades last blog post..What We Learned – Because Every Game Session Yields Questions.
@ Wyatt: You know, it never occurred to me, that night, to recharge encounter powers… something that I’ve heard many DM would consider in such an event. I will in the future.
@Michael & Last Rogue: One of my unofficial goals of this string of D&D 4e mini-campaings is to visit a few classic D&D monsters/tropes just once. We covered the gelatinous cube and the doppelganger trick. I don’t plan to do it again. Anyway, the next time I try to play an absent player as a NPC the poor guy will get killed real fast!
@Eric Maze: I usually roll my dice in the open, making fudging harder. Although I’ve noticed that when Players are having a tough time, no one bothers to double check my attack modifiers when I roll… I’m just sayin’
@Graham: Some lessons I have trouble learning more than others. I’ll discuss triggering multiple encounters in my next post.
@Greywulf & Dluck: I spent a lot of brain juice that night going through different scenarios should the PCs be defeated and yes, using the Rogue PC to stage a rescue while all PCs were chained in the slave pits was the most likely option.
I’ll get cracking on part two rapidly enough.
@ Eric Maze: The thing about ‘waking up enslaved’ is that it touches so many of the player’s main ‘no fun’ buttons that it needs to be played carefully.
You rob players of everything they worked to get and you place them in a situation where they feel they are at the mercy of the DM’s whim. In a group where trust is high (like ours is) this can be pulled off and lead to a great session. In others, maybe not so much.
@ Chatty
See, killing the next absent player’s character when you use him/her is the exact opposite direction from what I was talking about, but delicious none the less.
I don’t know about the waking up enslaved scenario. So long as they don’t stay captured too long and they get their own stuff back by about a quarter of the way through the adventure, it isn’t too hard to convince your players that it is ok. (I’d make sure that anyone with weapon type dependant abilities gets to capture the right type of weapon quickly, but overall, since 4.0 is very non-gear dependant for doing cool stuff.
Also, the bad guys don’t know the heroes are heroes, or they would never have brought them into their stronghold as slaves. Deep inside the bad guys’ defenses? The potential to bring massive amounts of maximally effective “boom” into play makes getting captured worth it all by itself. (I mean, the routes into a stronghold should be well guarded, the slave pens should be guarded, but less well, since you know, a bunch of unarmed slaves, but the rest of the strong hold? Squishy killy fun. Getting captured is like getting a coconut without the husk.
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@Chatty:
You got a point there!
I wouldn’t dream of trying it with my group of children….
Eric Maziades last blog post..What We Learned – Because Every Game Session Yields Questions.
Caught another typo:
Should of course be:
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Option one: Offer a chance to surrender. If declined, see option number two.
Option two: Right, what are you doing? The duergar is starting to cast a spell… If nothing smart is done, see option three. Smart, in this case, meaning something that might work.
Option three: Fireworks. The dice fall as they may. TPK, imprisonment, slavery, etc., should that be what the dice will.
Great stuff!. You’ve actually managed to get me interested in 4e. ^_^
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Man I wish you guys were there with me during that game… I could have used your wisdom. Maybe I should start twittering again while I play to ask for advice.
Therein lies madness says my conscience.
Anyhoo, part two is written up and scheduled for tomorrow. I’ll catch you all later.
Bacon of Hope!
Does Bacon of Hope come with a side order of Eggs of Charity?
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Beware the Mushrooms of Despair!
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There’s a community 4e project we should work on… the Points of Light cookbook!
I have to say, this really got me on the edge of my seat.
I’m a new DM lookin for ideas. I started learning 3.5e so that a few friends of mine could start our adventuring careers…only to find out 4e would be out soon, so we opted to postpone our plans. I’m actually quite happy with how 4e has some really streamlined combat encounters and i can focus more on the story or coming up with unique encounters like you’ve described here. None of my players have played before, and there’s only four of us (so i kinda have to run a character in battle) but we have had excellent fun so far. I will definately be paying alot of attention here for any good ideas that i can incorporate.
Thank god for the internets!
Hey PhysicsLB, welcome to the blog. Feel free to browse my archives for ideas. I suggest you have a look at my tropes posts. There’s some good system neutral stuff.
As for D&D 4e, you can browse my campaign logs. We’ve been playing every two weeks since September.
@chatty
Points of Light Cookbook? Would that need 1,000 recipes?
BTW also a noob GM. I’ll take it that your invite PhysicsLB is an open one.
I enjoyed your write-up.
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I apologize for my rude manners. A warm welcome to the Blog Vulcan Stev!
Thanks for the kudos. More will come (I’m going to nudge tomorrow’s post to later tonight instead)
A one card character sheet is the most awesome thing I heard this week…
I’ll try to get the file from Franky and post it as jpg later.
It truly was weird to see him playing with a stack of cards.
At least he had the decency of not flicking them…
Magic the Gathering tournement players will know what I’m talking about…