Primal/Within Chronicles: City of the Overmind, Part 3

See part 2 here.

Stealth and the Art of Not Getting Killed in a Hostile City

Chatty DM: So what do you want to do first?

Yan: Well, we’ll start my goal of trying to find rumors about the possible location of the key pats.

Chatty: All right then let’s make this a 5 part quest…

I drew 5 squares on the battle map sitting underneath all our gaming paraphelia, each representing one mini-scene:

• Sneaking out in the City to the Slave Pens to find the Warden Cleric’s doppelganger ally.
• Negotiate with the ally to obtain the likely emplacements of the remaining 3 key parts.
• Investigate piece # 1, then #2, then #3

Interestingly enough we organically ended up fusing two goals together and replaced ‘Investigate’ with ‘recover’ from the above list.  I quickly realized that I didn’t want to play out 5 skill checks to find key parts and then do another 5 series of check to recover them..

I started by telling them that the first part of the challenge would be a Stealth check to move from the Warden’s tower to the doppelgangers’ house in the Slave Pens, where it posed as a slave handler.

I told Stef that his PC  Rocco would be the leader of that particular scene and asked him to tell us how the group would move around the city.  Stef, getting used to the concept, eventually managed to describe how Rocco would instruct all PCs about dressing in somber clothes and about avoiding detection. He then described that he would keep the group from main avenues and stick to low population areas while making their way to the Slave Pens.

I then asked for a Stealth roll, DC 30 (Hard) but allowed all PCs to roll Stealth vs 10 to ‘aid’ Rocco.  The roll was made by a slight margin and I described the successful infiltration of the pens and the shapeshifter’s house.

Notice how we rolled just one skill check but we hand-waved everything else (Entering the pens, finding the house, entering the house)?  Had they missed the Stealth check, I would have been free to make any of those implied successes a failure by having the party spotted at the most importunate moment.

The next scene was played straight.  The players went in full role playing mode with the doppelganger and so I didn’t think it necessary to roll dice, I called the scene a success and gave the players the approximate location of all three other key-parts.

One emerging element  of this exchange was Rocco, usually a ruthless killer,  starting to badger the shapeshifter about it’s involvement…

Rocco: You say that you’re an disciple of the Warden Cleric?  You’re supposed to help the city?  How can you stomach playing the Slave Lord all day long then?

Changeling: You make the dangerous assumption that I care about any of this Halfling.

He he he!

Seeing Stef come out of his usual reserved shell was a nice surprise.  We’ve known that he was shifting from Butt Kicking Casual Player to Butt Kicking Storyteller, but it was very interesting to see him care so much about the citizens of the city and defend his stance so eloquently.  You rule Stef!

The game was already a hit!

The key parts were rumored to be (I made it up as I was telling the players):

• In the hands of one of the Overlord’s servant called ‘The Alchemist’ in the Vats (I linked some goals)
• In the possession of a Merchant Prince in the Market quarter near the city gate to the Underdark leading to Thunderspire Labyrinth.
• Somewhere in the Overmind’s Re-education Camps (making an involuntary opening for Rocco’s goal).

The House of Glass

So the player chose to make their way to the Market near the city gates and started investigating. I didn’t roll for Stealth again, I just assumed that the what the PCs did kept on working.

Math: Corwin is going to start hustling everything that looks like a merchant to find who the Merchant Lord with the key part is.

Chatty: Huh, shouldn’t the Barbarian do the Intimidation and you the Diplomacy?

Math: Screw diplomacy man!  I don’t have the time to be nice and this is a city filled to the brim with freaking monsters!

Yan: Yeah, I’ll help the halfling!

Chatty: Ah, I see, you’re basically doing the classic Bad Cop, Worse Cop technique.

(General Laughter)

So after we played that scene the PCs learned of a very reclusive Merchant Prince  who didn’t see anyone and who made a fortune selling a jewel that kept returning to him again and again (Yes, there’s a definitive Fridge Logic moment here, please close the fridge and ignore, that’s why the Rule of Cool was created).

The PCs started plotting the invasion of the house.

Chatty: Huh… I think it’s very unlikely you’ll convince anyone of the Merchant’s retinue to sell you the part?

Math: Don’t worry man, we’re going in to take it, by force if necessary.

Translation: It’s time for a fight Phil…

Here’s the second strength of the model.  During Prep, I had printed out a Far Realm themed level 11 adventure from Dungeon Magazine called Depth of Madness.  From that I took out 4 or 5 encounters that I found could be useful in the adventure.  I also brought all the battlemaps that might be useful in such a underdark/urban setting.

So when the players told me they were playing house invasion, I picked up a Drow Enclave map showing an apartment and an encounter featuring a female Cambion Hellsword (The Merchant Prince), a Shadar-kai Warlock (her lover) and 3 Shadar-Kai knights (her guards).

Voilà!  Instant encounter.

Interestingly enough, as the PCs progressed from room to room, looking for the opposition, I had the inspiration to describe how everything was spotlessly,unerringly clean.  So when the combat started…

Merchant: (To guards) Kill them!  (To PCs) Please excuse the mess, it’s not usually like that.

Instant groans!

I had just channeled that clean freak mom we all knew from our childhood!!!

The fight was somewhat short.  As soon as the guards were bloodied, they surrendered.  When the Warlock was bloodied by a vengeful barbarian (she beat him up real bad), the Merchant called a stop to the fight and yielded the key part.

Warlock (Bleeding everywhere, limping back to her lover): I’m…. all right.

Merchant: Good!  Now go fetch the mop and clean this whole mess!

Matt:  Dude!  When did you create that freak of a NPC???

This was the second high point of the night… the players were unable to spot the difference between what was prepared and what was improvised.  There’s no higher praise for a DM who’s been afraid to improvise games.

Up next: Final scene and new type of monster: The 2 hits Headcrab-Zombie!