Dale's Campaign - Session #3
We had another nice session. This one was still among the standard low-level stuff, but as long as we move to a little more role-playing later on, I’m quite happy with it. Low level combats go much quicker than what we’ve been used to. Of course, having only 3 PCs probably matters just as much.
In our e-mail discussions to one another, we discussed the how the rules aren’t clear in magic item creation on some things. One thing that always kind of bugged me about the new rules of magic item creation was that if you took the feat, your reward for creating the magic item was to lag behind in XP. And if you were doing this to help your party, the way XP works, you might aid your party in getting more XP because you’re bringing down the party’s average level.
But Aaron pointed out that the rules allow people to help in item creation and that they can offer a needed aspect of the item’s creation. If you have an elf rogue, a wizard with the Invisibility spell, and a cleric with the Craft Wondrous Items feat, and they all spend the time needed to make it, then your group can craft a Boots of Elvenkind.
The rules aren’t clear about where the XP comes from; so we house-ruled it. First, anyone willing to spend the time can be involved in item creation and can offer XP for it, so long as the person isn’t there just as an XP battery.
And to help things out a bit, we decided to start, with the DM’s approval, an XP pool. This allows us to make some needed items without someone having to pay the price. And instead of saying that everyone has to put in x%, we just do what we can to make the value easier to divide. Since there are three of us, if the group’s total XP gained from a session is 700XP, everyone will get 200XP and the pool will get 100XP. And if the pool gets too big, or someone is irritatingly close to leveling, then we split up the pool. Basically it’s just to make it all easier for us.
Towards the end of the night we revised our group treasure policy. The party as a whole now only gets a share, rather than half. The party treasure is used for things like buying pearls for Identify spells, buying Wands of curing, and other things the party needs for its goals.
Dale grabs some figs to be elves we’re supposed to fight, with a wizardly one for an elf wizard;
Aaron: “Hey is that the figure we used for Joe’s character?”
Sean: “I think so.”
Aaron: “Alright!”
Sean: “Target that miniature and fire!”
We last stopped with us being heavily drained for a combat with the “Bonecrushers” (4 orcs) wielding battle-axes, a very nasty weapon, especially against lower level groups.
We still had to go after the “Broken Arrows” (4 elves) and Big Willy, the bugbear. We left the room where we fought the orcs and were ambushed by 4 elves, 3 warriors and 1 caster. We were lucky that there was only a single wizard as he was armed with two Sleep spells. After a couple rounds the elves were defeated and one escaped.
Well the Sleep spell wasn’t totally worthless; Kal had to spend a round waking up the dog so it wouldn’t drown in sewage.
But we couldn’t follow him because Big Willy was coming from the other direction. We were not in the best of shape because one of those thug elves had critted Culan and we were all low on spells. But thanks to being able to concentrate on one target and getting the all important flanking positions, Big Willy was taken down. We then blew our remaining spells to heal up, and still had to use a couple of charges from our Wand of Cure Light Wounds.
Now we still had one stinking elf running around the place. We didn’t want him to get away or worse, doing some hit and run attacks on us. So it was time for a little talking.
Kal yells out that the elf has a couple of options, he can surrender and be put to civil justice or he can be hunted down by some adventurers who are irritated with him. He wanted some conditions put to that and offered (ok, bribed) us a magic wand. So unlike the WLD, where the PCs were chained down by the Charter and exalted status, our PCs are free to make any deals they choose. We originally wanted his bow and sword as proof that we took him out or his ear if he didn’t like that. But the offer of the wand made us decide to let that go.
Later we told the townsfolk that an elf got away, but he probably wouldn’t bother them ever again.
The grateful business owners took up a collection for us and gave us some good deals on selling our loot.
While we talked with the elf, we found a collapsed wall of the sewer that led into a natural cave area. So after we rested up, we returned to the sewer and proceeded to clear out some more bad monsters. We had to re-defeat some zombified orcs and elves, and big zombified Big Willy. So a few more stirges, darkmantles, shocker lizard, and a nasty thoqqua later, we returned to the town and enjoyed our new wealth.
We achieved level three as well as well. Most casters love odd-numbered levels, and Kal is a double caster so I really love them. His deity, Herne, came to him again in a dream and basically said that we was being a good boy and gave him access to more druid spells. Kal’s access to level 2 wizard spells was not all that interesting though, he just took Summon Monster II and Levitate. Later, thanks to that name wizard being around (I was wrong about his name last time though), Kal bought a Melf’s Acid Arrow scroll and scribed it in his spell book. But the cost was a bit high; 150gp for the scroll and 200gp for the ink to put it in his book. Goodbye money!
We stayed in that town for a month while Culan forged himself a masterwork bastard sword and forged a friendship with the weaponsmith. It would have gone quicker, but Brian was sucking at the dice rolls.
Since we had plenty of free time, Kal went ahead and dipped into the XP pool to scribe 2 scrolls of Lesser Restoration and 3 scrolls of Identify. When he was done with that, he got to know the ladies of the town. (That’s about as much role-playing we did with that, because role-playing romantic stuff with a group of guys creeps me out.)
Kineo (Aaron’s PC) just enjoyed some quiet time.
When the time came to move along, someone mentioned to us that there were some ruins of a wizard’s tower not far out of way towards Darkenmoor.
So we continued our ride on the DM’s railroaded plot to the real story.
We rode to the “X” on the map we were given and went into an area of collapsed ruins. We left the horses and Kineo’s dog out front. It’s too dangerous for the dog anymore anyway.
It’s a good thing too. That dog would have been in bad shape had he joined us. The first area we entered contained a solo cockatrice. We should have turned around and went the other way, but I guess we weren’t thinking clearly. We attacked with as much of an “Alpha Strike” as we could.
“Alpha Strike” is a term from the game Star Fleet Battles. In SFB it means you shoot every single available weapon you can at the enemy ship. In the instance of D&D, I use it as a term to throw as much damage at your enemies as you possibly can, as soon as you possibly can.
So on initiative, all of us one. Nerveskitter paid off too.
(Brian had left, so Aaron and I controlled Culan.)
My dice were hot after that.
Round 1:
Culan charges, power attacks, and does some nice damage.
Kineo moves in and blasts it with a damage spell without getting into melee. He’s working towards getting into flanking position.
Kal (me) casts Magic Missile and rolls max damage for both missiles.
The cockatrice attacked Culan and missed by a little. We all exhaled.
Round 2:
I rolled for Culan’s attack. I rolled a natural twenty. That means 2d10+6 damage. For the 2d10 I rolled a 10 and a 10.
We survived! After rejoicing, we moved on.
We had to cross a small body of water. Kal’s skill at knowledge: nature told him that getting in the water would be bad. That’s all the information he was given.
So we chose the slow route of removing armor, moving over the water, and then putting the armor back on. Luckily this worked and we weren’t attacked.
The next room was almost as dangerous. We all made our spot checks and saw the gelatinous cube. It took us a lot of effort and resources, but we brought it down.
Kal even had a chance to use his new spell from the Spell Compendium; Mass Snake’s Swiftness. It allows everyone of your allies within a 20’ burst to take an immediate free attack on your action.
And boy were we rewarded. Between the two combats, we found a wand that turned out to be a Wand of Lightning Bolt and a jeweled horn worth over 10,000gp. Originally we thought the horn was a plot item, but the DM let it slip that it wasn’t.
Time for some new spells baby!
After that we called it a night.
Next week we kill more vile critters and cash in.
And we might even have a new player or three.
In our e-mail discussions to one another, we discussed the how the rules aren’t clear in magic item creation on some things. One thing that always kind of bugged me about the new rules of magic item creation was that if you took the feat, your reward for creating the magic item was to lag behind in XP. And if you were doing this to help your party, the way XP works, you might aid your party in getting more XP because you’re bringing down the party’s average level.
But Aaron pointed out that the rules allow people to help in item creation and that they can offer a needed aspect of the item’s creation. If you have an elf rogue, a wizard with the Invisibility spell, and a cleric with the Craft Wondrous Items feat, and they all spend the time needed to make it, then your group can craft a Boots of Elvenkind.
The rules aren’t clear about where the XP comes from; so we house-ruled it. First, anyone willing to spend the time can be involved in item creation and can offer XP for it, so long as the person isn’t there just as an XP battery.
And to help things out a bit, we decided to start, with the DM’s approval, an XP pool. This allows us to make some needed items without someone having to pay the price. And instead of saying that everyone has to put in x%, we just do what we can to make the value easier to divide. Since there are three of us, if the group’s total XP gained from a session is 700XP, everyone will get 200XP and the pool will get 100XP. And if the pool gets too big, or someone is irritatingly close to leveling, then we split up the pool. Basically it’s just to make it all easier for us.
Towards the end of the night we revised our group treasure policy. The party as a whole now only gets a share, rather than half. The party treasure is used for things like buying pearls for Identify spells, buying Wands of curing, and other things the party needs for its goals.
Dale grabs some figs to be elves we’re supposed to fight, with a wizardly one for an elf wizard;
Aaron: “Hey is that the figure we used for Joe’s character?”
Sean: “I think so.”
Aaron: “Alright!”
Sean: “Target that miniature and fire!”
We last stopped with us being heavily drained for a combat with the “Bonecrushers” (4 orcs) wielding battle-axes, a very nasty weapon, especially against lower level groups.
We still had to go after the “Broken Arrows” (4 elves) and Big Willy, the bugbear. We left the room where we fought the orcs and were ambushed by 4 elves, 3 warriors and 1 caster. We were lucky that there was only a single wizard as he was armed with two Sleep spells. After a couple rounds the elves were defeated and one escaped.
Well the Sleep spell wasn’t totally worthless; Kal had to spend a round waking up the dog so it wouldn’t drown in sewage.
But we couldn’t follow him because Big Willy was coming from the other direction. We were not in the best of shape because one of those thug elves had critted Culan and we were all low on spells. But thanks to being able to concentrate on one target and getting the all important flanking positions, Big Willy was taken down. We then blew our remaining spells to heal up, and still had to use a couple of charges from our Wand of Cure Light Wounds.
Now we still had one stinking elf running around the place. We didn’t want him to get away or worse, doing some hit and run attacks on us. So it was time for a little talking.
Kal yells out that the elf has a couple of options, he can surrender and be put to civil justice or he can be hunted down by some adventurers who are irritated with him. He wanted some conditions put to that and offered (ok, bribed) us a magic wand. So unlike the WLD, where the PCs were chained down by the Charter and exalted status, our PCs are free to make any deals they choose. We originally wanted his bow and sword as proof that we took him out or his ear if he didn’t like that. But the offer of the wand made us decide to let that go.
Later we told the townsfolk that an elf got away, but he probably wouldn’t bother them ever again.
The grateful business owners took up a collection for us and gave us some good deals on selling our loot.
While we talked with the elf, we found a collapsed wall of the sewer that led into a natural cave area. So after we rested up, we returned to the sewer and proceeded to clear out some more bad monsters. We had to re-defeat some zombified orcs and elves, and big zombified Big Willy. So a few more stirges, darkmantles, shocker lizard, and a nasty thoqqua later, we returned to the town and enjoyed our new wealth.
We achieved level three as well as well. Most casters love odd-numbered levels, and Kal is a double caster so I really love them. His deity, Herne, came to him again in a dream and basically said that we was being a good boy and gave him access to more druid spells. Kal’s access to level 2 wizard spells was not all that interesting though, he just took Summon Monster II and Levitate. Later, thanks to that name wizard being around (I was wrong about his name last time though), Kal bought a Melf’s Acid Arrow scroll and scribed it in his spell book. But the cost was a bit high; 150gp for the scroll and 200gp for the ink to put it in his book. Goodbye money!
We stayed in that town for a month while Culan forged himself a masterwork bastard sword and forged a friendship with the weaponsmith. It would have gone quicker, but Brian was sucking at the dice rolls.
Since we had plenty of free time, Kal went ahead and dipped into the XP pool to scribe 2 scrolls of Lesser Restoration and 3 scrolls of Identify. When he was done with that, he got to know the ladies of the town. (That’s about as much role-playing we did with that, because role-playing romantic stuff with a group of guys creeps me out.)
Kineo (Aaron’s PC) just enjoyed some quiet time.
When the time came to move along, someone mentioned to us that there were some ruins of a wizard’s tower not far out of way towards Darkenmoor.
So we continued our ride on the DM’s railroaded plot to the real story.
We rode to the “X” on the map we were given and went into an area of collapsed ruins. We left the horses and Kineo’s dog out front. It’s too dangerous for the dog anymore anyway.
It’s a good thing too. That dog would have been in bad shape had he joined us. The first area we entered contained a solo cockatrice. We should have turned around and went the other way, but I guess we weren’t thinking clearly. We attacked with as much of an “Alpha Strike” as we could.
“Alpha Strike” is a term from the game Star Fleet Battles. In SFB it means you shoot every single available weapon you can at the enemy ship. In the instance of D&D, I use it as a term to throw as much damage at your enemies as you possibly can, as soon as you possibly can.
So on initiative, all of us one. Nerveskitter paid off too.
(Brian had left, so Aaron and I controlled Culan.)
My dice were hot after that.
Round 1:
Culan charges, power attacks, and does some nice damage.
Kineo moves in and blasts it with a damage spell without getting into melee. He’s working towards getting into flanking position.
Kal (me) casts Magic Missile and rolls max damage for both missiles.
The cockatrice attacked Culan and missed by a little. We all exhaled.
Round 2:
I rolled for Culan’s attack. I rolled a natural twenty. That means 2d10+6 damage. For the 2d10 I rolled a 10 and a 10.
We survived! After rejoicing, we moved on.
We had to cross a small body of water. Kal’s skill at knowledge: nature told him that getting in the water would be bad. That’s all the information he was given.
So we chose the slow route of removing armor, moving over the water, and then putting the armor back on. Luckily this worked and we weren’t attacked.
The next room was almost as dangerous. We all made our spot checks and saw the gelatinous cube. It took us a lot of effort and resources, but we brought it down.
Kal even had a chance to use his new spell from the Spell Compendium; Mass Snake’s Swiftness. It allows everyone of your allies within a 20’ burst to take an immediate free attack on your action.
And boy were we rewarded. Between the two combats, we found a wand that turned out to be a Wand of Lightning Bolt and a jeweled horn worth over 10,000gp. Originally we thought the horn was a plot item, but the DM let it slip that it wasn’t.
Time for some new spells baby!
After that we called it a night.
Next week we kill more vile critters and cash in.
And we might even have a new player or three.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 1:00 PM
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