This is the OOC thread for world's transformation. Discussion of events, rules, or whatever it is that discussion may occur about can take place here between sessions. I will also use this as a nice little link hideout, and may spend some time to write recaps of each session both for posterity, and for any reading pleasure that may or may not be derived from that.
It was a good session.
I specially liked maptools. And the Orc prisioners dilemma (although I know you hated me for making it too long xD)
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Lil' Edward stat block
Spoiler
Lil' Edward
Male - Human (srsly, I AM) Rogue, Level 1, Init +3, HP 7/7, Speed AC 13, Touch 13, Flat-footed 10, Fort +1, Ref +5, Will -1, Base Attack Bonus 0
(+3 Dex) Abilities Str 12, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10 Condition None
Here is a recap/writeup of session one. JackMage666 and the Wolf fellow were not able to attend, so their characters pretty much hovered around the party and didn't do anything.
QUICK RECAP:
The party was brought to Helmer's Mill for questioning regarding the event in Valzost. They are temporarily protected from the law, and agreed to delve into a set of tower ruins further south. Along the way, they stopped a few slavers.
FULL RECAP:
It is spoilered because it is not a small writeup. I can change the images to thumbnails if in case anyone is on a very bandwidth limited internet connection.
Spoiler
“You were flanked by many guards, in an exodus of bereaved refugees from Valzost. The source of the turmoil was unclear—the city simply plunged into what could be described by any person as a warzone overnight. By the end of it, the city was aflame, much of it destroyed—barely recognizable from the abandoned districts after the last great fire.
Rumours fly through the air of a Northlands attack. Others whisper in hushed tones of a conspiracy involving the city's lord, Setas Shispares. And yet more, in even more reserved voices, say it is a sign of the end times, of recent rumours of the nature of Edeth.
“About a day had passed from your leaving of Valzost. The great herd had fell off and split into many small, huddled packets of people on their separate ways. Some hurried far ahead, and many more pace sluggishly, far behind you. It is only you, and a few other strange acquaintances...”
And there's the intro.
The game began at a nondescript place along the road south of Valzost. The party had traveled for approximately two days at that point.
Faelon, being the only person to make a spot check, had noticed five armoured riders following them for the last two days. As the party had a quick discussion about them, they rode up.
The center rider approached the party, and revealed himself as Atheces, a member of the Sanguine Order.
The scene on the road.
ATHECES: "I am Atheces, with the Sanguine Order. I have orders to bring you to the capital for questioning. It would seem that the upper-ups think you to be implicated with the war. "
Furthermore, he added that they would receive due process in case they are not guilty of anything. After a small period of sense motive checks and questioning, the party decided to go with Atheces to Helmer's Mill, without a fight.
The party, getting their feet off of the ground, arrived at Helmer's Mill within a day.
The scene at Helmer's Mill.
They arrived meeting civil unrest. A small riot had formed outside what was formerly the centre of administration in the small town. The adventurers soon found out that there had been a rash of orcish raids and attacks upon the town and surrounding areas in the past month. In response to this, the Sanguine Order had occupied and garrisoned the area, stopped and slowed traffic on the roads, and the like.
According to the citizens, no orcs had been spotted in the area for weeks, and that the continued garrison was strictly unnecessary—but the Sanguines refused to move out for safety's sake.
The adventurers chose not to perform any actions with regards to riot, and stealthily snuck by into the offices. According to Atheces, the person they were supposed to meet for questioning had specifically come out to Helmer's Mill to speed the process along.
Inside the building, the party was led inside, and into a small office, where the Sanguine Earmaster (a relatively high position in the order.)
The office, and meeting with Biedas.
She introduced herself as Biedas, and performed a quick questioning against the party regarding the events at Valzost.
SANGUINE EARMASTER: "My original orders were to press charges and to pin this on you in any way I could, but I think it would be mutually beneficial for both yourselves and my organization if we instead cooperated. " SANGUINE EARMASTER: "I will not attempt to press any charges. Instead, I just want you to talk about the incident."
Jephton spoke next, and recounted the incident (which made up a large part of the previous campaign's events.)
JEPHTON:"As I recall, it was only Vinn and I who were there at the time. The others split up and went their own ways. We had recently signed up for the fighting tournament at the city, a while before the event. All of the competent or good fighters of the cities were there. After we were shown to be powerful adventurers, the lord of the city himself asked us to retrieve a book from a ruin he owned.
We were one of the few adventuring groups to come back. After we delivered the book to him, he revealed that he had all of the competent fighters in the city sent away on similar missions, to prevent anyone competent from being there when he chose to make his move. And then he disappeared. "
The Earmaster's suspicions about the incident were confirmed (that Shispares, the lord of Valzost at the time had instigated it), and offered a proposition for the party:
SANGUINE EARMASTER: The Sanguine Order has been also investigating a strange tower to the south, by Lake Bilres. From what I have heard, you and your companions are experienced ruin delvers. If you agree to investigate the tower and give information on the details within, I, as an earmaster, shall pledge to protect your group from any legal repercussions of the Valzost incident.
After questions from the party, the earmaster revealed that Shispares had wrote about a tower of very similar description at many points, alluding to something important inside. The party soon agreed on the deal. The party would investigate the strange tower, and would be permitted to keep anything of value inside for themselves, in exchange for legal protection and the promise to give whatever information may be inside.
Later in the day, the party set off down the road, off to the lake.
After about an hour of travel, a very heavy rain fell. The party happened to be close to an inn, and decided to stop there until the rain stopped, unaware of the happenings of the other clients stopped there.
Faelon first noticed something strange, when he heard voices outside, seeming to come from a wagon. Peering inside, he discovered that the wagon was filled with mostly unarmed, unarmoured, shackled orcs, presumably captured raiders being shipped off to be sold into slavery.
The Dragon's Flagon Rest Stop for Wagons
After his quick look, Faelon returned to the party to try and figure out what to do with this information. Jephton moved towards the wagon to check inside. As he did that, a person inside the inn yelled at him to get away.
TALKATIVE FELLOW 1: "HEY! Away from that wagon! It's carrying uh, valuable goods. Art objects. Market value of art objects drops as soon as ya look at 'em!"
Jephton looked inside anyways. The party questioned the fellow who stepped outside, who revealed that their activities were legally sanctioned, and had the papers to prove it.
After one untrained forgery check by Jephton, he determined that the papers were poorly forged, but had legitimate signatures by legal authorities. The party refused to accept the papers as genuine, and so the talkative fellow offered a bribe of 1500 gold (their down-payment for the shipment) to the party, to look the other way.
Attempting an intimidation check, Jephton rolls a natural 1. Despite this, one of the slavers began to count coins.
The situation quickly devolved into combat, as the four slavers were revealed.
Dramatization of round one.
The one counting coins turned out to be a wizard, and began casting a spell. Reacting supernaturally fast, Faelon bounded forward, and started whaling on Warrior 1. In the time meantime, Drogk'mak advanced towards Warrior 2, and kicked him to the ground, while cleaving him with his greatsword. Soon after, the slaver wizard finished his spell (Glitterdust), which blinded Jephton and Chad.
Jephton cast Bane upon the slavers. At the same time, Warrior 2, reeling, attempted to get back up, only to be knocked out by Drogk'mak.
The slaver warriors attempted to fight back, ineffectually. In the next round, Faelon initiated Burning Blade, punching Warrior 1 both to death, and until he combusted.
The remaining slavers surrendered soon after.
The party tallied their experience points, and divvied up the loot. After much debate, they had decided to ship the slaves back to Helmer's Mill, where the local authority could best decide how to handle them. Before doing so, one orc gave a small smith's hammer to Jephton, asking him to return it to a dwarf, of unknown location.
The party continued onwards to Lake Bilres. They arrived in the morning. The lake was extremely misty.
“Off in the distance, you see a massive stone tower. It looks like it's falling apart. It may once have been a mighty and proud spire of some large construction, but now it's at the edge of a lake for some reason. It looks almost ghostly--like a skeleton. It seems to glow very slightly behind the fog. As you get closer and closer, the waters in the lake seem to churn more and more. This is very obviously a dungeon.”
As souls that lived for adventure, the party dived right into the dungeon. They soon found themselves in a large room, that led to a smaller room with strange teeth-like objects. Upon each were engravings—and before them all a tome.
Definitely a good idea.
Before them was the first obstacle of the Spectral Tower, every D&D adventurer's best friend, the riddle room.
After much puzzling, Jephton acted upon his guess, and picked one tooth. Incanting its chant, it turned out he was correct, and the path further into the dungeon opened up...
Spoiler
He incanted the second tooth's chant.
End Session 1
Last edited by MageofMystra : 04-17-2012 at 07:04 PM.
Lil' Edward
Male - Human (srsly, I AM) Rogue, Level 1, Init +3, HP 7/7, Speed AC 13, Touch 13, Flat-footed 10, Fort +1, Ref +5, Will -1, Base Attack Bonus 0
(+3 Dex) Abilities Str 12, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10 Condition None
Apologies for not mentioning this in-game, but before next session:
I'd recommend you start planning out your next level. Depending on how fast we move, there's a good chance you'll be levelling up either mid-session or near the end of the session. Don't want that to clog up the session. You probably shouldn't change your sheets (but know what you're adding/changing), as we're going to be using them at level 3, however.
Also, between this and next session, we can assume you hit up a large shopping centre. You don't have enough gold that I'd be worried about not putting an item availability list, so you can pretty much pick up anything you need that isn't excessively obscure. Once again, this is to not slow down play if you've got anything on your grocery list.
I guess that means we will start teleported into the mill reporting to teh sanguine guard.
I wanted so bad to screw my character drawing 10 or 12 cards
Also, about the money, are we allowed to save it? I would like to eventually get my hands into a mitrhil full-plate, that's arround 10000gp. So I better start saving now.
The deck was stripped of magic (artefacts are special? Whuh?). I know enough about the deck to know that giving it to a level 3 party is a profoundly bad idea.
Also, yeah, of course you're allowed to save your cash (though I'd suggest packing up a few adventuring essentials.)
Five scrolls (identified as best as possible, given that Read Magic is castable):
Scrolls of: Delay Poison (CL 3, 150 gold), Augury (CL 3, 175 gold), Inflict Light Wounds (CL 1, 25 gold), Calm Animals (CL 1, 25 gold), unsure/might not even be a scroll (nothing!)
All scrolls are on individual pieces of vellum. All identified spells are divine. Values are also given.
In addition, you found:
A chunk of a soft, silvery metal which is probably silver. Jephton estimates a value of 39 gold. (1d20+2)[8] (Appraise check by Drogk'mak) (1d20+1)[15] (Appraise check by Jephton)
A sliver of a somewhat cloudy, dull, yellow gem. Probably some obscure gem. Drogk'mak estimates a value of 30 gold, Jephton estimates 42 gold. (1d20+2)[15] (Appraise check by Drogk'mak) (1d20+1)[20] (Appraise check by Jephton)
A long, shard of a strange, tough, milky white metal. Drogk'mak estimates about 540 gold. (1d20+2)[19] (Appraise check by Drogk'mak) (1d20+1)[13] (Appraise check by Jephton)
A necklace made of intricately woven plant stems, leaves, and the like. Jephton estimates 85 gold. (1d20+2)[6] (Appraise check by Drogk'mak) (1d20+1)[17] (Appraise check by Jephton)
Last edited by MageofMystra : 05-08-2012 at 07:39 PM.
General policy for story level ups is that gain the exact amount to level up.
Also, nobody has a single rank in Appraise, nor any feats that'd mitigate that; all these items I am considering rare or above, and as such, an estimate is the best you can do.
I'm going to edit the OP with it. I haven't worked on populating it--I'm not putting the metal shard or the boots onto the list since those seem to be claimed cleanly enough.
Lil' Edward
Male - Human (srsly, I AM) Rogue, Level 1, Init +3, HP 7/7, Speed AC 13, Touch 13, Flat-footed 10, Fort +1, Ref +5, Will -1, Base Attack Bonus 0
(+3 Dex) Abilities Str 12, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10 Condition None
Hey guys, I'm going to have to cancel our next session on the 26th; I don't think I'm going to have enough time this week to be able to prepare the next session adequately.
Lil' Edward
Male - Human (srsly, I AM) Rogue, Level 1, Init +3, HP 7/7, Speed AC 13, Touch 13, Flat-footed 10, Fort +1, Ref +5, Will -1, Base Attack Bonus 0
(+3 Dex) Abilities Str 12, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10 Condition None
Lil' Edward
Male - Human (srsly, I AM) Rogue, Level 1, Init +3, HP 7/7, Speed AC 13, Touch 13, Flat-footed 10, Fort +1, Ref +5, Will -1, Base Attack Bonus 0
(+3 Dex) Abilities Str 12, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10 Condition None
The leg 2 ended so mysteriously for me. A building starts rumbling, I see a flash of light and then everything goes to hell xD
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Lil' Edward stat block
Spoiler
Lil' Edward
Male - Human (srsly, I AM) Rogue, Level 1, Init +3, HP 7/7, Speed AC 13, Touch 13, Flat-footed 10, Fort +1, Ref +5, Will -1, Base Attack Bonus 0
(+3 Dex) Abilities Str 12, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10 Condition None
Salder's Reconstructed Relocation Conjuration (Teleportation) Effective Level: 5th? Kind of. Skill Check: Knowledge (Arcana) DC 25, 1 success (see Teleportation Nodes) Spellcraft DC 27, 3 successes, Perform (oratory) DC 22, 1 success. Components: V, M, F, SC, B Casting Time: 90 minutes / 1 minute Range: Close (for other travelers), otherwise, see below. Targets: Caster, plus up to nine other creatures. Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless, DC 15 + caster's CHA modifier) SR?: Yes (harmless)
Salder's Reconstructed Relocation is a teleportation ritual/incantation based upon partial ancient teleportation spells found in the ruins. The spell has been reworked by modern arcanists into an incantation, to get around limitations of modern Edeth (components which do not exist, the spell being too high of a circle, very specific limitations/restrictions, etc.)
Before casting the incantation, research must be done on the specifics of the spell as it relates to the destination (see Teleportation Nodes section.)
To cast the incantation, the caster must place down spell components and the focus down in a very specific manner (Spellcraft DC 27, 2 checks) The process takes 90 minutes, and can be retried as many times as one desires without any fear of backlash. The caster does not know the results of the spellcraft check, but is aware if he fails horrendously (missing the DC by 6 or more.)
The actual casting of the incantation takes one minute. It must be done within two hours of preparation, and requires one Spellcraft check, and two Perform (oratory) checks. If the spellcraft checks failed earlier (or the three new checks fail), then backlash now occurs. The material component is expended at the end of the spell. The focus appears with the teleporters at the new destination, usually appearing two feet in the area, and then clattering down.
If you are performing the incantation at a teleportation node, then all checks are made a +2 bonus.
The actual teleportation is fairly limited. Firstly, one may only teleport to a destination within 900 miles. Secondly, one may only teleport to specific teleportation nodes (explained later.) Thirdly, it can be somewhat inaccurate, though with a successful ritual, you will almost always end up in the general area.
Teleportation Nodes
Teleportation nodes are specific areas that are particularly conducive as destinations. Reconstructed Relocation can only teleport to these nodes.
Discovery of a node/determining whether a node exists requires a Knowledge (Geography) (DC 25) check. The spell's material components are specifically honed to each node; a Knowledge (Arcana) (DC 25) check is needed to understand how to perform the ritual.
Ancient codices exist which list many nodes—only a Knowledge (Geography) (DC 15) check is required, to account for the ravages of time changing what the location listed is now. In most casts, a Knowledge (Arcana) check is not required with a codex, as they often list the materials and arrangement.
These nodes were almost certainly laid out in the past by ancient wizards—to be particularly profitable areas to teleport between—profitable enough to set up a node to facilitate easy teleportation (remembering that this ritual is not what they used to teleport.)
Material Component
Specific components depending on the destination. 500 gp per person to be teleported—you must at minimum prepare for five people.
These components are usually grinded gems (until they become almost dust), certain types of rock, or specifically prepared herbs and other magical reagents.
Focus
A golden metronome, prepared with runes and other magical preparations. The metronome usually costs 1000 gold, the preparations cost 3000 gold.
Backlash
Upon arriving, the caster is exhausted, regardless of success or failure.
If the ritual fails, the caster is exhausted, and takes 4d6 damage. Moreover, the teleportation may fail in one of three ways:
1. Nothing happens. (rare!)
2. You wind up in a similar area that is similar visually or thematically—or may just be sent to another node.
3. You wind up a random, but appreciable distance from the destination in a mostly random direction. You usually appear mostly safely.
NOTES ON LEGACY ITEMS
Legacy items in this campaign will not progress by character level. Instead, their abilities will be upgraded after performing a legacy ritual, in addition to receiving legacy abilities. Moreover, the personal costs for unlocking higher powers of the items will be relatively low (haven't worked out exact numbers/details.)
Legacy items, owing to their nature, will tend to be a fair bit stronger than regular magic items--especially given the limited magic due to the nature of an E6 world.
Last edited by MageofMystra : 06-09-2012 at 07:55 PM.
Question: Can I retrain some skills upon levelling? I certainly don't need some of them, and getting some ranks in spellcraft seems rather important...
__________________ Xykon avatar by Elagune. Innistrad, coming soon to a D&D 3.5 game near you!
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[OOC] world's transformation
