FOE Thoughts: July 2017

FOE Thoughts...

With no July FOE adventures, all I have for you is conjecture (and the cool logo I made while we weren't roleplaying). I tried to talk our DM into converting a Pathfinder module for us and running it when we start back up in August. He looked it over but decided to once again go homebrew with custom material set in a modified Forgotten Realms world. He tells me he's been making maps and setting up something for us.

I think the plan will be for us to play new recruits to the Federation of Explorers, possibly cleaning out a keep for Raylinn Sunsoaker (since he will be storyline dealing with other affairs, helping to build and run the organization). That means we will get to start at level 1 again (which I really enjoy) and I think the DM is willing to approve UA material. I'll need to come up with something creative and interesting.

I wonder how many years will have gone by and if it'll be too soon to play Thokson. Hmm.

Peace.

SAGA Thoughts: July 2017

My reflections on the recent RPG SAGA adventures...

There remains an art to DMing and running RPG sessions. One of my specialties that I take pride in is combining different modules/adventure paths and weaving the adventure concepts together. Sometimes this allows my players to finish the pre-made adventures much faster than expected and I sometimes feel conflicted about that.

Part of this situation is also that my players, after years of tabletop gaming and enjoying D&D 5E, have become master strategists. The modules are often made to start at low level and I have to modify them to adjust for the fact that I blend low-level stuff into our adventure paths at mid or higher level, but that isn't too tough. What happens though is that higher level character have access to spells (and money to buy scrolls or other magic items for spell effects), thus my players end up invisible and flying around after scrying on the locations they need to go to.

It's great. It's really fun. I applaud my players for being so clever and strategic. But it means that large portions of the pre-made adventures are useless. In the past we have had similar situations where a module like Storm King's Thunder expects players to sail around or travel across the continent. My players are just like "nah, we will just teleport there" which means they might miss out on XP (which they don't need if they are already higher level than the module assumed) or special items/knowledge that could help them. Instead of fighting the monsters in the forest on the way, in the hills, outside the enemy keep, inside the keep, etc. - they just teleport to the boss room (when it's not magically protected to prevent teleportation or scrying or whatever).

Despite me seeing this as somewhat of an issue, my players have pointed out that there have been several near TPK situations in recent sessions. They rightfully justify that when they basically "fast-forward" through some adventure paths they are just playing in character and using the logically consistent resources available in the fantasy multiverse that the characters live in. And I agree with them; they are right.

Additionally, my players are so good at befriending and/or threatening NPCs to get info that they are able to stay ahead of many situations. That's why I have to put mysterious political situations and mysteries in front of them. Of course, they tend to figure them (but that's good; players get joy from the satisfaction of deducing and being proven correct). For example, they knew Mercy's wife was actually evil, but they couldn't do anything about it for a while because he loved her. Only after he died did she reveal her true evil nature and long-term planning with the main enemies of our mega-campaign.

I guess the point I want to make with my reflections today is that I love my players and the more they challenge me, the more that I feel I improve as a DM. Also, I need to go prepare some more notes for next week's game...

Peace.

SAGA Log 1448: The Jade Throne

The RPG SAGA continues...
Module: Jade Regent Adventure Path

SAGA Log 1448: The Jade Throne 

Strahd, Pylia, Blue, Drizmar, Blood, and Goldy saw that the "Death Clan" barbarians had all been killed. They knew Veersalla had a team going after Suishen and now realized that group had killed the tribe. They followed the blood trail over the next ridge, where they found the "Angel of Death" lady in her planetar form, her basilisk mount, her boyfriend the empyrean, some undead minions, and 4 remorhazes. The team flew over the ridge and defeated the enemy team.

Blood plane-shifted them to their Feywild Palace to rest; they told their tales to Fluter. Blue left the gray dragon skull with their mage-smiths to turn it into a steam-breath helm. Pylia meditated, communing with the ancient emperor in the Suishen sword, learning that Kya's family was the ancient rulers of Kara-Tur and that they sat on the Jade Throne; he wanted her to find a Kara-Tur prince who would lead her to a lost library with knowledge of how to free the spirit of Suishen. Blue tried to attune the the "Angel of Death" greatsword, but it was cursed and they had to destroy the sword.

As usual, Force Green engaged in great strategy planning (plane-shift, scry, invisibility, teleport, silence, wall of force, etc.) before entering a huge battle at the Jade Palace with the Jade Throne; they skipped the quest to find a local prince with knowledge of the lost library and went right into the throne room battle against the current Jade Emperor (who turned out to be a demon in disguise with an army of oni samurai, human guards, spider demons, etc.). The ancient gold dragon sworn to defend the throne was forced to enter the battle, but Pylia held up Suishen and convinced the dragon to help them. The heroes and their new gold dragon ally defeated all of their foes; the dragon then convinced the servants to respect Pylia as an interim leader.

After the battle, they went into the secret family vault and met the ancient balenorn guard, who gave up his blood to allow Strahd to engage in blood magic. In celebration that night, Blue went drinking and ended up impregnating a random human woman. The next day, Pylia had meetings with nobles from the city. Goldy went to find the local prince with the info about the lost library. Strahd finished the blood magic potion and they used the interplanar scrying orb to find Kya, Borngray II, Borngray I, and Glora - who were trapped in a demi-plane prison room connected to Firth.

Blood plane-shifted the team to their Feywild palace gardens and they used the blood magic to pass through the "Godwar Barrier" and rescue their 4 trapped family members. The groups updated each other. Glora and Borngray I went back to the Sapphire Coast to help fix politics on the Sword Coast while the group took Kya and Borngray II to Kara-Tur to rule over the Jade Empire. They gave Kya her family vault key and the sword Suishen. Goldy was still on his mission so Pylia magically messaged him to let him know to report back to Kya and Borngray II, not the "Core 4" team.

[Next time the group wants to have Borngray II speak to Corellon, find out Veersalla’s “1 way to die” and where she is and see if Corellon’s god allies will join in the “Godswar.” They are considering going to Firth themselves...]

SAGA Log 1447: Rescuing Strahd & Brodo

The RPG SAGA continues...
Module: Jade Regent Adventure Path

SAGA Log 1447: Rescuing Strahd & Brodo

Force Green's "Core 4" (Pylia the half-elf bladesinger, Drizmar the drow assassin, Blue the satyr paladin, Blood the gnome cleric) plus Goldy the gold dragonborn wizard and Fritz the half-elf bard finished their planning and went to Oerth...

The team saved a halfling from goblins in the forest, avoided more monsters via their flying and invisibility, and flew into top of Greyhawk Tower (to a scrying room where they threw out the magic talking orb and set off traps burning books) They defeated a room of darkness, left behind riding drakes, defeated the evil pixie Spivey and his lover the female quickling, hung out with talking Portal Room 3 Door, found the secret vault and normal vault, went down more stairs to Portal Room 2 and Portal Room 1 (where they changed the magic passwords to doors). As they continued, they defeated 2 ogre guards and saved Brodo the halfling thief (member of GOAT) from an anti-magic room.

They found the second anti-magic room, with Strahd inside. Blue went into Strahd’s room not knowing it was enchanted so that it would trade places - someone had to go in for the person inside to be freed; Pylia was able to dispel the trap and free Blue. After some discussion with Strahd (involving him and Drizmar arguing about which of them loved Pylia more), the group teleported to the City of Greyhawk, to dragon-bros home, and yet another character once again expressed his desire to be with Pylia. There was lots of group talk.

Fritz and Brodo stayed behind to secure Castle Greyhawk, but said to contact them when the team was ready to assault Veersalla. The rest of the team plane-shifted back to Kalibruhn-Toril to some snow mountains in Kara-Tur, to follow the trail of Kya's family by tracking down the sword "Suishen" that Strahd told them about...

The team (with Strahd) found some frost barbarians led by a witch lady; she agreed to scry on a half-troll sorcerer for them. They spent the rest of the day going to the sorcerer. They rescued Ulf the barbarian of the “Death Clan” from the sorcerer's cave (defeating the half-troll and his girl) and spent 4 days flying him home. They spoke with the chief of the “Death Clan” and Blue agreed to join the clan after the group went to slay the gray dragon and get back the legendary sword Suishen.

They had a big battle in which they defeated an ancient gray dragon with steam breath, a cold chimera, centaur, and ice toad. The team collected treasure from ice, took the heads from monsters, and collected a bag's worth of dragon’s blood. The team rested and travelled back to meet up with the "Death Clan" frost barbarians...

SAGA Log 1446: Mercy's Wife

The RPG SAGA continues...
Module: Carrion Crown Adventure Path

SAGA Log 1446: Mercy's Wife

After the rest (in which they distributed loot/re-attuned to items/learned spells/etc.), the Force Green "Core 4" (Pylia, Blue, Blood, Drizmar) and Goldy put the gem back in the portal and used it to go up to the ground level of Bloodstone. Veersalla had left with her personal wizard guard, but Mercy’s wife (it turned out she had been evil and working with the enemy the entire time) attempted to fight them with an army of liches and undead.  Force Green convinced the army to turn on her, but then the army turned back against them to try to get their phylacteries back. In the end, Mercy's wife was captured and the undead were all destroyed. During the battle, Goldy was turned into a nightmare thing and ended up trapped on the Ethereal plane.

Afterward, the heroes looted the area. They gathered the wandering zombies together to destroy them; they realized 2 of the undead were Mercy and the elf cleric. By destroying them, the team knew they were releasing their souls. Pylia spoke with some scared human merchants at the southeast tower, also known as Swift manor.

They found Fritz, who had been imprisoned by the enemy. He told them everything he knew about Veersalla, Cap, and Strahd having taken over Castle Greyhawk and magically mind-controlled GOAT. The evil trio used GOAT's magic items and wishes to make themselves more powerful and alter reality. Fritz said he would help the group, but for now was staying in Bloodstone to start fixing things and organize a rebuilding effort; Pylia asked Fritz to help them find Goldy; they left the 40,000 gp (from the Dracolich’s hoard) in the town. After an hour rest in the anti-magic room in Swift Tower, Drizmar decided to no longer wear the humanity ring.

Fritz found a servant girl who said Veersalla had used blood magic, but had said something about “Kya Kaysu” being her weakness - the bloodline of Kya. The group realized that Kya, Borngray II’s wife, was on the world Firth (the “sexy elf world”) with the rest of their missing family members. They interrogated Mercy’s wife. She told them about Strahd being held prisoner on Oerth because he was betraying Veersalla by helping Pylia; Blue executed Mercy’s wife. The group teleported to Cobalt Castle and, again, sent servants to go buy scrolls for them.

They spending time planning and decided to prioritize saving Strahd before going to investigate Kya’s family/bloodline. They found Goldy, killed him in his new form, and paid for a true resurrection. They sent a servant with a message for Fritz to let him know they got Goldy and invited him to join in on the mission to Oerth.