About three weeks ago, I undertook the task of DMing The Night Below. Armed with my copy of the adventure, a 3.5 conversion and sense of mindless conviction possessed only of DMs, I charged (read: stumbled) valiantly (read: blindly) into my task (read: trap). This is a record of my follies.
Some short background... (Purple, because why the fuck not?)
This is the fourth game I've run in Memphis in about as many years. These games always seem to fall apart after about five or six months because my group of friend-players have complicated relationships, but they're good friends, so I keep them around and about May/June of every year, they bug me into running a game of D&D (even though this time I said it would be Agon, or Mutants & Masterminds, or Bunnies & Burrows) and I always eventually agree.
I plan on running some side quests in the game that aren't even remotely implied by the books. Keep on the Borderlan and The Forgotten Temple of Tharzidun come to mind as ones I've been wanting to do. The Great Rock Dale and the mines could serve as the top layer of The Caves of Chaos (or just completely replace them, I suppose) and the Keep itself could come under attack by hobgoblins and trolls instead of a gnome village. That makes it more personal assuming the PCs want anything to do with it, but in case they don't come upon the idea by themselves, I'm going to have Parlfray's son suggest it to them -- "You could totally form an adventuring guild there! I'm sure my dad would let you have it!" or something along those lines.
I'm also changing a few things that I think make the adventure make more sense, namely: Count Parlfray and the Carmen family have been dominated by the conspiracy. How else have they tried to do nothing about the kidnappings? They must know about them. Folks disappear in their lands and others come looking for them. It's only so many times you can think, "Must of been lost in the marsh." or "Giants probably ate 'em." or "Did the Hobgobs up north kill 'em?" before any sane person starts to worry about an epidemic they have going on. So, they're dominated and under orders to not raise a militia or stop the kidnappings. Parlfray has sent most of knights on a quest (I haven't decided what yet) and Carmen has become aloof in the recent years, he's rarely seen outside his mansion and his son has begun running the Exchange at his order. Garyld doesn't like the way things have become but doesn't see anything sinister yet. That's about it. I'm going to make these two the first encounters with a dominated person the party has but play it off as an overly affectionate taste for fish, then dominated bandits will be encountered and hopefully they'll put two and two together.
I have three core players that have been with me since game one (my girlfriend and two guys), two players that have been around for a couple of campaigns but are still learning (both girls) and three new guys (two of them are boyfriends to the two intermediate players, and one is a cousin of my experienced players). My three new guys have caught on fast enough. The beguiler uses her morningstar more often than her spells but knows how effective they can be when she does.
I'm worried about half of my group will flake out for various reasons, but I'm determined to not let that ruin the game. With two play sessions under our belt, plus another tomorrow, it's going good so far. But I do have a very short (read: 1) wait list for my game -- turns out one of my player's younger sister also plays 3.5 and she's well liked in our group of friends, so that's good news if people start to drop out.
The PCs for this game are:
- Sigh, Human (Copper) Dragon Shaman 1
- Marat, Human Barbarian 1
- Kwyji, Elf Ranger 1
- ??? (I forgot his character name), Human Paladin 1
- Thumbalino Paragold, Gnome Rogue 1
- Charlee Mac Dennis, Half-Elf Beguiler (Always Sunny fan much?)
- Jet-Kit Windu, Human Thunder Sage Monk (I'll post homebrew later) 1
- Ahab, Dwarf
Sorcerer Warlock 1
The dragon shaman, thunder sage monk and sorcerer/warlock are my experienced players. The barbarian and beguiler are my two intermediates; and the last three are, well, the last three.
Uhm, house rules, that's a thing I have pretty simple house rules.
Dragon Shaman, Warlock, Ranger and Paladin are all replaced with homebrew versions. Thunder Sage Monk is also a homebrew class (because someone will ask me where it is in Stormwrack if I didn't say that). I'll post these versions as I get around to it. Short notes are that Dragon Shamans get full BAB, more auras, a stronger breath attack; rangers get skirmish AND favored enemy AND animal companion AND duskblade casting; Paladins get some knight stuff, can be any alignment/god, get Duskblade casting and domains and a spiritual weapon; warlocks get more ER, DR, invocations and some other stuff I scrounged up from various homebrews I found. I've made it clear that if I find any of these get too over powered during play, I will begin to rescind and/or modify. I doubt they will though -- the dragon shaman and thunder soul are the two I'm most worried about.
Feats are handed out at every odd level. And certain feats are modified: Spring Attack and Short Haft only require a +1 BAB to use. Short Haft is also a non-action to use, this is my answer to EWP(Spiked Chain) showing up on all of my player's sheets. I actually did this on the fly to keep my girlfriend from taking it again, for the fourth game in a row (despite being oddly appropriate for a dragon shaman). TWF grants an additional off hand attack for each iterative attack granted (I also loosened the penalties for fighting with the Orc Double Axe for the barbarian, it's just -2/-2).
Character generation was 4d6 (reroll ones, drop the lowest) 7 times (drop the lowest) and full HP at first level (I considered doing double HP, but I decided against it). Rolled HP can't be less than half of the die size (2 on a d4, 3 on a d6, etc).
...I think that's about it.
Thoughts, Cares, Concerns My biggest concerns right now are the lack of caster fire power. Giving paladins and rangers improved casting will help bridge this gap but with the (level one, but still) sorcerer switching to a warlock, this is gonna hurt in the long run. I gave him the pros and cons of switching and told him that the sorcerer would be much more powerful in the long run.
Combat is going well other than my rustiness and the fact that with 9 aggressors, the players can steamroll pretty much anything they want to. Except for bears and werebears -- more on that later. I'm probably going to have to double on the mooks and maybe give Ranchefus and the Red Head (uhh...what's his name?) a right hand man a few levels lower than them just to balance out the challenge (maybe even introduce gestalt rules for them?).
Roleplaying, however, is top of this list. Some of my players are comfortable with it, some are when others are into it, and some just aren't at all. Compounding this is the lack of seriousness -- which is fine, this is, after all, a co-operative game. Given when I played through Book One years and years ago, we made jokes too (sometimes the same jokes), but it's starting to get in the way of them remembering what place is which and who is whom. To quote one player, "You're job is to tell us a name. Our job is to ignore that name and say something funny instead." To date, Milbourne is Nilbog (recorded as "Goblin spelled backwards" in at least one player log), Thurmaster is Thigh Master, Jelenneth (or whatever her name is) is whatever "black woman name that starts with a J" name they come up with on the fly (I just say Jenn), Garyld is Jared or Gerald or something. Surprisingly, Shiraz is known as Swanmay (they thought it was Swami at first) and Kuiper and Oleanne are all known by their name or nicknames (Bear Watcher and Crazy Bitch Druid). However, last session was mostly role playing and investigation with a goblin slaughtering at the end but was interspersed by some bitching and complaining about how "it's just one retarded idiot sending us to another retarded idiot." But if my players want a low roleplay game, that's what I can give. They give me mixed reactions when it comes to this though, because slaughtering a group of goblins who had surrendered became an issue (my girlfriend has something against goblins, it's like a blood feud).
My last major concern is the beguiler and her boyfriend the paladin. They are a new couple but we've known her for years but he's something special. However, when I looked over his character sheet before approving it, he had his deity listed as "Hitler" and his alignment as "Whatever." His girlfriend has told him that we won't sort through his bullshit, but I fear I may lose two players here if this goes south. He's picked up the game pretty quickly and seems into it, but I think it's more an excuse to spend more time with her than anything else. I'm not holding my breath on this one.
Well, that's pretty much it for background and notes. This is my first campaign with this group where my laptop is not involved at all in the game itself. So there's that. I've printed out all the needed materials and then my phone has some music (Dark Souls, some Dragon Age and some Skyrim) and effects I use for combat or whatever. Last session, I played the original Pokémon battle theme when they were fighting the werebear, and there was much rejoicing.
So, without further ado, I present for your entertainment, The Night Below!
Night Below 1In which my players interrogate a merchant and forget what antsy meansThe first actual night we met was character generation. I'm not counting that, but if you want to, add one to my entries. This is going to be very self deprecating because I've been stressed out lately and that's taken a chunk out of my self-esteem. So, if you aren't into that, don't read this. If you feel the need to cheer me up, do so in a PM. I'm not a public touchy-feely type of guy.
The game opened up awkwardly -- there's nothing quite as awkward, for me at least, as shushing my friends as I attempt to set the scene. This time I opted to go, "You know that city we designed in the last session of the last campaign? You start there, as level one characters in an unnamed guild. A portly merchant has entered your guild chambers and requested a handful of reliable but cheap adventurers." I've done better but I've certainly heard worse -- not by much though. At this point, it is everyone but the dwarf sorcerer/warlock.
They haggle some and interrogate the poor guy ("I just need my wares delivered to Tauster, he gets very irrate if they are even a day late. My regular couriers have left me for better work!" "I roll sense motive." "He's not lying that you can tell." "He's lying. I rolled Intimidate! What's in the box, fat man!" "Bat shit and broken mirrors for a wizard, I will not stand for this abuse much longer!" "I still think he's lying.") which is interesting because only one player has ever been screwed by a mysterious merchant and that was in a sidequest (though that did also transform into a bigger sidequest in the main campaign that involved Incarnum Zombies). So that happened. Jokes about busty chests are exchanged and the adventure begins.
They travel by foot to Haranshire -- which they didn't attempt any knowledge or gather information checks to learn about the area, I'm kinda surprised and then surprised again by my surprise -- and get to a half a day from it before they meet some traveling farmers who seem a little anxious on the road. They stop and chat for awhile with these antsy farmers who mention the kidnappings (not expecting the unholy ass whooping they are about to get) before a couple of arrows fly out of the forest and strike the paladin (who doesn't get hurt) and the gnome rogue (who goes, that's half of my health
). The players spring into action and slaughter all but one of the farmers who they take pity on...sorta.
They knock him out with his own club and tie him up; when he wakes up, they interrogate the guy who caves and said he was being paid to rough up travellers with bad juju. "He paid me, some now and the rest when we was done." The farmer says he has a kid and that's actually a homeless guy who lives under the bridge outside of Milbourne. They try looting him, but the guy already gave the PCs his club (one player actually let out a sympathy Oh). They loot everyone else and march the guy to Milbourne, give him their combined copper pieces (because fuck copper pieces) and tell him to buy his son something good to eat. Aw, what good guys. Too bad his "son" is just a big ass rock he talks to, they found this out later and just went, "...oh, well then." I think I might have a dead homeless man turn up soon.
They bum around Milbourne for a bit and check into the Baron of Mutton. I decided to have the Disappearing Jenn scene play out in the morning to give an extra punch of "It could have been me." too bad that fact never sunk in; though, I should have had them roll listen checks at night or something to give them a feeling of "Uh-oh." (The last time I did that, my girlfriend, playing an elf crusader at the time, found a guy watching her from down the hallway and after chasing him around the inn's top hallway and waking everyone up, didn't find him. To be completely honest, it was a Marble Hornets drop in reference and it was Masky for anyone who follows; Slenderman had made an appearance in a dream sequence her character wasn't part of). They come down in the morning and seen Andren having a panic attack in the corner and several people trying various methods of calming him down. Eventually Sigh walks over and begins talking to the man to find out what happened. He revealed that his fiancee has disappeared in the night. The party assumes that his name is Scott Peterson and that he did it -- I have tried to disabuse them of this notion, but it keeps coming up; I might actually have him have something to do with it in the end. He gives them all of the details he can remember and even shows them the room. "She left her spell pouch. Why would she leave that if she was going back to Tauster's in Thurmaster?!" "Toaster? In Thigh Master? We're headed there ourselves." Now, they are locked into finding Jenn for the time being; I'm going to follow several suggestions and have her turn up much sooner than The Sunless Sea and instead make Layfayer much friendlier and helpful to the party and then rip him away from them and have him turn up there. Or even better, have them encounter a little kobold sorcerer named Meepo (a call back to my very first campaign, they befriended this little guy despite having a gnome in the party, and inspired him to become an adventurer, too; my core players bring him up every time we play). I actually have several NPCs whose shtick it is to be captured and become rescued by the PCs, so I'll have no shortage of fodder if needed.
Anyways. The party marches ever onwards to Thurmaster. Uneventfully. "Uneventfully? We wanna fight something." "Alright, you see up on the road, ... *rolls dice* a single black bear. It doesn't look happy to see you." Paladin: "I go to pet it. I want a bear." "...really? Roll a handle animal and I'll check the rules." "Uh...17!" "I have rules for raising an animal from a cub but nothing about angry black bears." -- side note: I don't think I read the rules close enough and the ranger totally had Wild Empathy, we forgot -- "So nothing? Whatever then, I walk away." "You walk away? What's your armor class." "Yeah. Uh, 14?" "*three rolls* The bear claws you twice and tries to bite your shoulder off. 12 damage." "...Uh oh. I have one HP left.
" "Roll initiative." They proceed to kill the poor thing after being bandied around by it for a round or two only to discover it had three cubs following it, "Fuck yeah, bears!"
They arrive at night at Thurmaster (one of the guards sleepily comments on the number of bears) and proceed to rouse Tauster, who grumpily countersigns their document and they chat a bit about Jenn before he mentions going back to sleep and see you adventurers in the morning. They then travel to Squire Marlen -- who I've decided is a dick because Parlfray has been dominated and has been a dick to him -- and wake his punk ass up. He is especially grumpy. One of my players finally goes, "Is it night time? Are we just going around and banging on doors and waking everyone up? I'm sorry, sir."
The next morning, they are paid and receive some information about Jenn from Tauster -- she liked to pick herbs along Hog Brook, see Kuiper on his little farm there, he may have seen her. Item Added: Letter of Introduction. They go to see Kuiper, who also comments on the number of bears and asks a few prying questions ("Where'd these bear cubs come from? Did you kill that bear? How do you plan on the druid not finding out if you're leading bear cubs around?" things of that nature...pun intended). Finally they cut a deal that if he takes the bears off their hands, he'll raise them for now and they can potentially come see them when they want. They set out for a bit -- I missed an opportunity for some of them to share back stories here -- before encountering an oddly alluring and wildly attractive but extremely dirty female druid everyone rolls their eyes until I show them the picture in the module then more jokes about busty chests and the girls going, "Of course she is." I shrug and go on. Kuiper and Oleanne speak for a bit until he motions for Kwyji to join them. She explains that there is a werebear on the loose; Kuiper says it's probably the Johnson boy. They need to do something about it, Jenn can wait. He gives Kwyji four nets to give to whomever he trusts most in the party.
Kwyji returns to the party and explains the situation, they agree it's more dire than finding Jenn but ask why they can't kill the werebear. He explains that part again and they set off, eventually Oleanne gets tired of doubling back and tells Kuiper where she last saw the werebear and wanders off to go bandit hunting. The party decides to rest at dusk and set camp -- another missed opportunity to share role playing, damn it -- and decide watches. The night passes with a few twig snaps and some light rainfall beginning
but then everything changed when the fire nation attacked but then the rangers spot some orcs moving quickly away from something in a quasi-military fashion. The obvious decision is rouse everyone quickly and out flank them. The orcs go down without much fuss, they did almost kill the thunder sage monk and did some serious damage to the barbarian. The session ended here.
