City of the Overmind: Of Beholders and Mind Control, Part 2

See part 1 here.

House of the all seeing Eye

As the PCs entered the administrative building of the re-education camp, I described how the first floor was deserted and was reminiscent of a U-store where the whole floor was separated in compartment where stuff could be stored.  Said stuff was mostly armor, weapons and clothing.

One such pile appeared to be valuables.  I described this as such because the players were going to level up to 12 after this session and I wanted to place the remaining 9000 gp worth of treasure parcel in this session.

Before looking at the loot, listen checks were made:

Chatty: Okay so you hear the steps of a few humanoids and what appears to be a Beholder talking in Deep Speech.

Yan (Who wasn’t paying full attention) Wha? How high was that listen check? Don’t Beholders fly?

Chatty: The Beholder talked…

Yan: Ohhh… Nevermind then.

Now the thing is, I had no encounter ready.  I had started prepping for one at home, something with an Eye of Frost and a few Foulspawns but I discarded it for my Set-piece encounter with a Grell Philosopher. I don’t know why I didn’t move my Grell encounter into the building. I guess my mind had crystallized around the idea that the camp was run by a Beholder.

Anyway, I opened the Monster Manual to the Eye of Flame (a level 13 Artillery IIRC), I took out stats for level 12 Foulspawn Manglers from another encounter I had and I chose the ‘good’ half of the Broken Demongate battlemap.

The PCs climbed up, many of them making a lot of noise… Stef wanted to know if he could get a jump on the monsters with stealth.  I initially said no… but remembered my ‘say yes’ promise and told him he could roll a Stealth check to allow him to start near the monsters, behind a corner.  He made it and a surprise round was had.

The fight was brutal for the players.  Foulspawn manglers, when working in teams are downright devastating.  This coupled with the very high damage dealing Eye of Flame beholder saw the party’s healing resources go down fast.  Eventually the Foulspawns were slain and the Beholder became bloodied.

At that point, the Beholder offered to surrender in exchange for his key part.  Everyone in the party accepted…. except Usul who attacked it, starting the fight again after a few short seconds.

When the Beholder was down to it’s last HPs, it tried to surrender again, offering to reveal a hidden cache of magic Items. Once again we waited for Usul’s response.

Chatty: Okay Mike, the beholder awaits your response.

Mike (making us wait… smiling): My PC takes 15 ongoing fire damage and falls unconscious.

Chatty: Is that so? Then in a cry of rage, spite and malice it shoots a beam of fire at your crumpled form.

Mike: What?

Yan: Who knows what happens in the mind of bloodied Beholders when controlled by insane DMs.

Chatty: You got that straight!

Six seconds later, the Beholder was chiseled Spam spread all over the place and Usul was healed back into positive HPs.  The party dusted itself, picked the key part and searched some more.  Ransacking the place showed several documents detailing how the various reprogramming archways worked and the PCs started to plan how to use this knowledge to break the Overmind’s control over the central part of the city.

Oh and they also found the hidden cache of magic items (I’m the one who decided to press on the attack after the Beholder’s apparent surrender, I needed to be fair) and a great big pile of treasure too!  Yay!

Resting Interlude

At this point, the group had gone through many of its resources and some PCs were down to their last Healing Surges.  The question of resting came up and we all agreed that the places to safely hole up were few.  Players discussed it at length and they decided that going back to the Merchant Quarters and try to find a discrete Inn that could be trusted was the best possible outcome.

So I asked for a Streetwise skill from the most skilled PC (Corwin the Halfling Sorcerer).  Corwin had already terrorized most of the merchants the day before so it was easier to get cooperation this time.  However, the roll failed by 4.  So after thinking about it and taking into account the Halfling’s prior performance I said:

Chatty: Okay, here’s the thing, you find a nice Inn reputed for it’s discretion.  They ask for 100 gp each.  However, something bad will occur.

Yan (Sensing an opportunity): Oh!  Nanoc asks for the ‘Special Treatment”

Chatty (An idea forming in my mind): Oh yeah.  You aare directed to a private massage room with mirrors everywhere.  A lithe woman comes in the room and start to spread oil on you. You look up and see that she’s a Medusa!

Yan: Wha?

The Medusa’s gaze attack struck Nanoc who slowly turned into stone.

Medusa (After the first failed save): What’s the problem Big Boy?  Feeling stiff?

Nanoc made his save.  To the Medusa’s slight displeasure.  However, he was tough enough to see the Massage to the end… keeping his eyes tightly closed.

Finally!  I was really happy with this as it became a nice, non-combat complication and created a funny situation.

When Success leads to short scenes.

Since attacking the Vats was supposed to be Fang’s goal, the group decided to tackle Rocco’s instead (Goal:  Break the Overmind’s hold on the citizen).   So I described that there were 3 runic brainwashing portals leading to the city’s 3 Grand Plazas.  I also declared that each portal would need a Thievery check, helped by an Arcana and a Religion check each.

The players discussed the plan and decided that they would modify the brainwashing apparatus to remove the Overmind’s influence and instill a sense of outrage and anger at the Overmind.

The checks were all successes and I really didn’t have much to say at this point (possibly a weakness of the model… with success comes less description… unless I ask player for more).  I guess I could have described what happened in the squares… but then again, the PCs didn’t hang around long enough.  Regardless, I plan on using the resulting change in mood of the inner city as the backdrop of the adventure’s climax in the next session or two.

Grisly finale

It was now 9h30 PM.  We had played a short session but I didn’t want to start another fight that would bring us to 11+ PM.  Also, some of us wanted to try Beatles Rockband some more.

I described the last scene:

Chatty: As you make your way to the Vats, you wonder what happened to Fangs.  A few moments later, you make a gruesome discovery.  You come up to the eviscerated remains of a Shifter, surrounded by Fang’s equipment.

Math: It’s really Fang’s equipment?

Chatty: As far as you can tell.

Stef: Does that mean we can sell it?

Franky: Dude, did you just kill Eric’s PC?  What does that mean?

Yan: It means yo better not miss another game!

(Laughter)

Roll Credits.

Like I said in the beginning.  It was an OK game.  Expecting more all the time isn’t realistic.

But I wouldn’t be me if I stopped expecting so much from each game… 🙂

Lessons Learned.

• If I prepare a Set-piece encounter, it needs to be unavoidable while still pushing the story toward the players’ goals.  Otherwise, I shouldn’t bother with them, they aren’t necessary to the game style we’re trying out.
• Complications other than combat can be built around monster abilities that cause interesting status effects (petrification, disease, semi-permanent penalties…)
• An adequate game is a good game. If all games were freaking awesome, we wouldn’t enjoy them as much.
• I actually need to learn to believe that sentence above 🙂

P.S.: What’s the deal with Fangs you ask?  Is Eric changing PCs?  Is he leaving the group?  No worries, Eric is still with us.  I can’t wait to tell you how that will turn out in the next game.