Detect Magic

How and Why to Make PCs Suffer

2015-09-01T00:14:00.000-05:00

This weekend I'll be playtesting a couple games I've been working on. If all goes well, there should be some interesting post material gained from that. And if all doesn't go well.

In the meantime, here's a table that's common to both of the games I'll be playtesting, as well as pretty much any game I run in the future.

It's six ways that you can make people suffer. This is good. You want to make your PCs suffer for their commitments—to people, to institutions, to ideas, to their own flaws, to ambitions—and see if they change.

WILLIAM BLAKE, illustration of the book of Job

(Man, Job is ripped in that pic. Must have had the juice hookup in the land of Uz.)

SIX WAYS TO MAKE THEM SUFFER (actually or potentially)

harm (physical, emotional)
isolation (social, physical)
dissonance (they see something that contradicts what they believe)
betrayal
loss (of goods, relationships, status)
humiliation

Example: Bard Wants to Train Under the Master

Our bard wants to take it to the next level. Everyone knows the only way to do that is to learn from the hand of Master Hovenbeet. But every time our bard seems to make progress in his lessons, he suffers for it:

rival students threaten to beat him up (threatened harm)
rival students actually beat him up (actual harm)
the master insults him before the whole class for making a single mistake, says he'll never be able to make it (humiliation)
one morning he finds himself unable to play the simplest tune (dissonance)
one evening he hears the master himself playing, but as many notes are off as on (dissonance)
rival punches him in throat; he can't sing for the recital (harm, loss)
master breaks the bard's mandolin (humiliation, loss)
none of the other students sit with him at mess (isolation), even his friend (betrayal)

Will he keep it up, or will he break, or will he decide that he was wrong to want this in the first place?

How will he react? Why?

That's what we want to find out.

That's where the story is.

Just a reminder

2015-08-04T00:51:00.001-05:00

fighter (battle master) Geth one-shotting down a staircase

In case you didn't know, I've started a podcast of our actual play sessions of Princes of the Apocalypse (and other stuff later): gg no re. We're on iTunes as well.

The latest episode is here:

Elemental, I choose you!

2015-07-18T14:24:00.001-05:00

source unknown

I think it'd be pretty cool if you're fighting an elemental, and, instead of killing it, you throw a pokéball at it and capture it. Then you treat it like a pet and toss it out to fight for you.

(I've been thinking about elementals a lot because I'm running Princes of the Apocalypse; listen to our campaign over at gg no re: http://ggnorecast.blogspot.com.) I'm thinking of putting these in our game. If you use them, let me know.

Table of contents:

Using them
Creating them
Generalizing the concept, for full on pokemans: TERATOSPHERES
A class: the KETCHUM

CATCHING THEM ALL

You must attune to the ball in order to use it. if you're not using D&D 5e, you can't use more than 2 other serious magic items while you're using a stoichesphere. Magical interference or something.

While you hold it against your skin and consider an elemental creature, the stoichesphere haptically alerts you to the current strength of the elemental's coherence. This means that, If it's below half hp, the GM will tell you exactly how much hp the creature has left.

Toss it at an elemental creature within 30'.

The elemental makes an hp save vs the sphere's DC. Making an hp save means rolling a d20 and adding the creature's current hp to the roll.

If the creature makes its save, the spell flares out of the sphere, but the creature is yet too coherent to be contained. The spell fails, and the ball is now inert until dawn.

If the creatures fails its save, you caught it.

If the creature hits 0 hp before you catch it, sorry! OR: you get one shot this round or the next to catch it before it fully dissipates.

IGNIS, I CHOOSE YOU!

You must be attuned to the ball in order to use its creature in combat.

Name the captured creature in order to use it in battle.

To make it fight for you, toss the ball within 30' of you and say earnestly, "[creature name], I choose you!" It fights as a normal creature and recovers hp in exactly the same way PCs do in your campaign.

The ball flies back to the caster's hand. The caster now controls the creature.

It shares your turn and will do whatever you say, but it will do nothing unless you issue a command properly: "[creature name], [command]!" Don't forget the exclamation mark when you say it. It doesn't really have an action economy, per se. You get one command per turn (just based on the six second round, and how much time you have to talk), and it does whatever is necessary and possible to complete it. So you don't have to command it separately to move and attack. Just tell it to attack or come back to you or whatever, and it'll do its best.

If the creature goes to 0 hp, it dies, and its ball shatters. Perhaps it looks at you with big sad eyes.

You can recall the creature by command.

CREATING THEM

When an elemental creature dies, it leaves behind an elemental mote that remains for an hour unless stored properly, e.g., in a stoppered glass vial. They are subtle and easy to miss unless you're looking for them. These are the components of the ritual to create a sphere. Note the HD of the creature that left the mote behind. This is the potency of the mote.

In order to be able to create stoichespheres at all, you must know the ritual. These are contained in schemata that the GM will place as treasure (or in shops possibly; see below). The schemata detail how to make the sphere and the spell required to imbue it with the relevant magic.

Any blacksmith can look at the schema and can create the object with a gold and a day, and any arcane caster can learn the ritual.

You need a suitable lab or arcane study. Surround / immerse it with the proper elements (burning fires, troughs of water, a dozen servants waving fans—the DM will tell you what).

Then decide which of your motes you will use as components. This determines the save DC of the sphere.

You must also expend a number of spell slot levels equal to the potency of the strongest mote used. Multiple casters can help to share the spell slot expense load.

The base DC is equal to:

caster's proficiency bonus* (x2 if all motes used are of the same element)

potency of strongest mote used

Thus a level 1 caster (prof bonus +2) who is performing the ritual with only an HD 5 elemental creature's mote will create a sphere with a save DC of 4 (prof bonus of 2, x2 since all motes are of the same element) + 5 = 9. The caster would need to expend 5 levels of spell slots, split up however: 2 level 2s and a level 1, for instance.

To increase the save DC beyond the base, you can add additional motes. Total the potencies of the lesser motes you are combining and divide by the potency of the greatest mote, rounding down. Add the result to the DC. You can't add more than 5 to the DC this way.

Example 1: You have 4 motes, each of potency 5 (these were 5 HD fire elementals). The greatest mote is set aside (since they're all the same, it doesn't matter which one we choose). This means, with our example above, we have a base DC of 9. But now we have 3 "lesser" motes to add into the mix. We sum their potencies and get 15 (5 + 5 + 5). We divide 15 by the potency of our "greatest" mote (5) and get 3. That's what's added to the DC for a total DC of 12.

Example 2: a level 1 caster (prof bonus 2) is going to create a stoichesphere using a greatest mote of potency 6. Base DC = 6 + 2 = 8. Caster has 5 other motes, of potencies 2, 3, 3, 4, and 5. These motes are a mix of fire, water, air, and earth. Summing those together we get 17. 17 divided by 6 (the potency of our greatest mote) gets us 2, rounded down. So probably the caster will want to reserve her potency-5 mote for later so as not to lose it to rounding. Removing that, we have a lesser total of 12, divided by 6, equaling 2 on the dot. We add that to the base DC of 8 for 10, again. Note that, because we used motes of different elements, we don't double the proficiency bonus when calculating DC.

BUYING THEM

If you can buy magic items in your game, these would be considered common to rare, depending on how plentiful and strong elementals are in your setting. Maybe 50g per point of DC. Schematics cost a flat 1000g.

You might also find elemental motes for sale. I'd say maybe 50s per HD, times the proficiency bonus* of the creature. I don't know. That number is mostly made up off the top of my head.

PLACING THEM AS TREASURE

Elemental cults will have them, as will wizards and magic merchants. Ruins of old cities, especially underdark cities would have them, as well, more rarely, schematics for them.

GENERALIZING THE CONCEPT

It should be reasonably clear how to turn this into all the way pokemans:

elemental mote > most iconic piece of carcass
"elemental" > creature type

For instance, say you find the schema for creating a goblin-ball. This will capture goblinoids (goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, bugbears, orogs, ogres maybe). Their "mote" is the liver, maybe, or the stomach, or the eyes. Try to find something evocative. Maybe goblins are iconic for their greed in your campaign. Then choose the part that most represents that: the eyes maybe, or the stomach. Then that's what the schema tells you that you need to grab. If you use all goblin eyes, then double your prof bonus, and the ball works only on goblins (or, don't double your bonus and have it usable against orcs too).

If you're using generalized balls, maybe call them TERATOSPHERES.

A CLASS: THE KETCHUM
This is just the skeleton of the class; I don't really care to go into the fine details now.

HD as wizard
no armor
+1/12 of XP needed for next level when you catch a new monster and add it to your teratotome (see below); this is the small quest XP award in the 5e DMG if you just want to use the chart
simple weapons like slingshots and sticks and stuff you might find at a disused park or an old shack
when you do damage, your dice is of the same size as your HD
no multiclassing
primary stat: charisma
good saves: charisma, wisdom
survival, nature, perception
goal: wants to catch them all and be recognized as the best
flaw: gotta catch em all
flaw: attracts rivals who try to foil plans, steal teratospheres, and show the ketchum up; the ketchum must save or try to do the same
bond: Magister X, who gave you your first teratosphere, containing your first monster
bond: your first monster
bond: your rival
bond: your first teammate
item: your teratotome, which has the notes from all the monsters you've caught; if you actually keep a physical teratotome with you and updated, gain +1 HP / level.
teratospheres don't count against attunement limit
can be attuned to a maximum of [proficiency bonus] spheres at once
your sphere DC is 8 + Charisma mod plus proficiency bonus; this puts a floor on the sphere DC of spheres you use; the save DC can never be lower than your personal DC
starts with 1 sphere and 1 creature, HD 1 probably, name it
your creatures don't die when reduced to 0 hp, and your spheres don't shatter; instead, the creature returns to the sphere and is exhausted and can't be roused until dawn
however, if the teratosphere is destroyed, your creature is too; the sphere is just as strong as the material it's made out of; give it an appropriate AC value + 5.
you don't need schemata; you got this naturally
you don't need to spend spell slots (you don't have them and can't gain them) to enchant pokeballs; you are born with THE TOUCH and simply hold the ball in one hand and the motes you wish to use in the other, and wham, there's your teratosphere
EVOLVE: your monsters level with you.

They get the same XP you do as long as they participated
They level by the same scheme as you, where HD = level
When they level, they get another HD (and thus more hp)
When they level, you learn something about them that you write in your teratotome

this is an opportunity to come up with something smaller that's still fun:

it's tougher than it appears because X: +1 AC
it's stronger than you'd think: +size to damage die

you can only make such a discovery once about a creature

When its proficiency bonus increases, the creature evolves

you learn a big feature about it: multiattack, elemental damage, etc.
you give this evolution of it a particular name

* 1 + # of caster's HD / 4, rounded up

Shrine of the Water Archomental

2015-06-27T00:22:00.000-05:00

Princes of the Apocalypse has 4 main villains, each with a backstory that, let's be real, will never be communicated. (Edit: a summary backstory of the earth prophet is revealed in room M10 of the Sacred Stone Monastery, but it's not personal history.)

But it would be nice if they could get a hold of that information. Maybe it will prove useful to them when they encounter the prophet.

Here's one way to do that.

Seed the hexmap with 4 shrines: one for each element.

When they pass through the closest hex with a town, give them a rumor about the shrine. It's just a local curiosity to the folks.

These shrines are dedicated to the good archomentals (the counterpart of the big bads summoned at the end).

Present each shrine with some being or creature or effect that asks for a particular offering. In exchange, the shrine offers information about the prophet of its archomental's hated counterpart.

For this example, the shrine of water, it eats the essences of earth and reveals the history of the water prophet.

The shrines require offerings as follows:

Water shrine: earth essence

Earth shrine: fire essence

Fire shrine: air essence

Air shrine: water essence

I leave the other shrines as exercises for the reader.

Obviously you can adapt this method of content surfacing to other campaigns.

I've got more to say about the good archomentals, which will make some of these associations clearer, but that will have to wait for now.

Shrine of the Water Archomental
north of the stone bridge

The greenest hill, as tall as a horse.
A waterfall splashing into a clear pool.
A pink and purple sea anemone
reaches up from within.

FEED ME THE ESSENCE OF EARTH.
I AM MELANCHOLY, AND
DIFFERENCE IS HEAVY UPON ME.

When they slay an elemental monster, they find an ELEMENTAL MOTE, the elemental essence.

Perhaps they find these also sometimes as treasure. Perhaps there are other uses, consumable enchantments.

When they feed one (or whatever other rare thing they manage to think up that would qualify) to the creature,
it reaches and grasps the cranium and communicates in visionary flashes
the history of Gar Shatterkeel, prophet of Olhydra, enemy of Ben-hadar (Princes of the Apocalypse, p. 209)

Ryuken: a D&D Race-Class

2015-06-09T16:41:00.001-05:00

YOU MUST DEFEAT SHEN LONG TO STAND A CHANCE

3 moves:

Dragon uppercut

Hurricane kick

Hadouken

You have to shout the names of the moves when you use them.

When you level, get more hp as usual. Also, increase your damage. If your level mod to damage is less than 3, increase it by 1. If it's already 3, reset it to 0 and add another damage die instead. Like this:

Level 1: 1d6 + 0 + ability mod

Level 2: 1d6 + 1 + ability mod

Level 3: 1d6 + 2 + ability mod

Level 4: 1d6 + 3 + ability mod

Level 5: 2d6 + 0 + ability mod

Level 6: 2d6 + 1 + ability mod

Level 7: 2d6 + 2 + ability mod

Level 8: 2d6 + 3 + ability mod

Level 9: 3d6 + 0 + ability mod

Etc

Your hit die is a d6. This is also your damage die size.

Your moves all do the same damage: damage dice + ability score mod + level mod (if any)

You wear no armor, only a sweet cutoff gi. Headband optional.

Palette swap: pick the color of your sweet cutoff gi and hair. Headband optional.

Your relevant ability score is strength.

You can't multiclass. No feats.

Your class skills are athletics and acrobatics but not stealth and deception and slight of hand. You are a ninja but not that kind.

You are proficient in Str, Dex, and Con saves.

You're a human but you get no feats.

You get 1 attack at 1st level and another every 4 levels after (= prof bonus - 1, see)

If you use the same move twice in a row, you grant your opponent a +2 cheese bonus to AC vs your move, cumulative over the round.

Using hurricane kick, jump and start kicking. You can kick anyone next to you, then move 5' in the air and kick anyone next to you now that you haven't kicked already.

Dragon uppercut makes you jump real high and makes prone and knocks back. You move forward 5' and your extended legs are ability score off ground.

Hadouken is a fireball, man. Range = double your move. Force damage?

Transmutaton of Treasure Table Fluff Into Crunch

2015-06-02T01:06:00.002-05:00

I just finished rolling up some treasure off of tables (in 5e, but the experience holds across editions).

It's slow.

It's a bit boring, a bit okay.

But, really, players don't care about much of the fluff there.

B/X is nice in this regard. It just tells you how much the gems are worth, how much money there is, and what magic there is.

That's all the players really care about anyway, and all they really should care about.

That vase? Sure gonna make a fine 50 gp after I unload it in the nearest city.

AD&DI-V makes sure to tell you what kind of gems you have, as if the players will react like, "Banded agate!?!?!! Are you kidding me!?!?!"

When really it's, "Okay, how many gp?"

We're at a fork in the road.

Question: Do You Have the Energy To Care About This?

If no, then just cash them out and be on your way. Else, if this is you:

Then let's do this.

We'll do this categorically. Keep the gp value of course, and tell them. That's for selling in any reasonable town, no hassle, just get these off my sheet kind of deal.

Gems

Alright, five options here, all compatible.

1 Jewel Mongers
Big cities always have a jewel monger that pays d20% more than list price. Name that monger. Will continue to pay that much for the given jewels as they are locally in demand. Shouldn't be more than a few of these per metropolis.

2 Fashion Industry
As jewel mongers, but the reason is a fashion trend. If you instead of selling the gems wear them as dictated by the fashion in demand, you'll get a categorically better reception at places where fashion matters.

3 drugs drugs drugs
Grind them things and snort them. As jewel mongers, but shady folks want them (introduce this by having a shady person approach the PCs on the way to a jewel monger, having let's say off-camera visited a few with insufficient funds to deal) to grind into snortables. Determine the importance of the shady guy's people with a reaction roll. Neutral, and he makes a hard sell with indirect threats. Positive, and he makes threats and will carry them out. Next encounter in a city will be with muscle from the drug kingpin trying to rob you of the diamonds: hand them over, and there'll be minimal trouble.

Sell for d100% of the list price, or get them ground yourself for negligible cost and snort them.

The drugs work as drugs from your favored drug table, or have them mimic a potion, Con saving throw vs addiction.

Keep track of what gems have what potion effect. Should be randomized such that less valuable gems might have more potent snorted effects. You might over time increase the sell price of that gem accordingly.

4 Alchemy
As jewel mongers but alchemists also want them as the key ingredient in some alchemical mixture. Characters trained in alchemy know this and can brew the potion with negligible cost, providing sufficient lab / ritual space. Increase prices over time as desired.

5 Armor & Weapon Augments
A fancy smith can take gem powder and enhance gear with it.

The augment score is equal to a tenth of gem's value (e.g., 50 gp gem has augment score of 5).

Augmenting gear changes the color of the gear to match the color of the gem.

The gem may apply special effects. Augmenting a helmet with tiger's eye may grant proficiency bonus to spotting predators; augmenting with fire agate may provide double the damage reduction vs fire. A dagger augmented with fire agate does double the augment damage against foes vulnerable to fire.

When the augment score is 0, the remaining gem dust poofs away, leaving the gear merely stained.

Armor: when augmented, spend augment points 1:1 to reduce damage taken from attacks vs AC. The max you can spend vs one attack roll is = your proficiency bonus. If not proficient in the armor, the most you can spend is 1 + any magical pluses the armor has.

Weapons: as armor, but add augment to damage.

Jewelry & Art Objects

Jewelry is art; so let's collapse the categories.

1 It Belongs in a Museum
If you're in a city, a proper city, or in a 1-in-escalating-from-d4-die-size-chance-settlement, there's a museum that will buy your dungeon jewelry.

They want it because it:

belongs to some niche-famous historical figure
belongs to a historical figure everyone knows about
belongs to a mythological figure
"exemplifies material practices from which our vulgar overculture can learn a great deal"

Or whatever.

You get the default gold for it, but you get the added benefit: make a reaction roll, and a locally powerful person of the degree indicated by the roll now has a favorable opinion of you, trusts you, and will seek your good.

Also someone at the museum probably thinks you're dreamy.

2 Family Heirloom / Religious Relic / National Treasure

When you bring it to sell, someone recognizes it: they will pay double if the town makes that plausible, or they will pay standard and be in your debt or pay little to nothing and be tremendously in your debt. Make a reaction roll to see how important the person is. The more important, the more dicey the consequences of refusing a transaction with them.

Summary

Either way, you win.

You either get, "Okay, sweet, 10 gp for banded agate," or you get "Sweet, banded agate! We can snort this and float!" or "Sweet, a genuine von Kibblesworth! The baron will probably let us borrow his horses."

Princes of the Apocalypse Tactics: Black Earth Priest

2015-05-17T18:28:00.005-05:00

I've learned the hard way from DMing Princes of the Apocalypse for my podcast gg no re how NOT to run a black earth priest (p195-6). Let my humiliation teach you how to TPK.

The two places I know of that you will run a black earth priest are:

Levels 1-3: Tomb of Moving Stones (p153, area 9, Larrakh)
Levels 3+: Sacred Stone Monastery (p59, area 6/9, Qarbo)

Here's what you should do:

First: cast spider climb and get up on the ceiling
Thereafter:

cast shatter at the highest level you can, doing up to 4d8 in 10' radius, save 1/2
if you're hit, use your reaction to cast shield
if you need to jet, cast expeditious retreat and hit them the next day

It's very simple, but listen closely: slow is a trap. Each time I've led with that, and each time I've been disappointed. Even if everyone fails the save, they get to make new saves at the end of each of their turns, and your save DC is only 13. And generally your black earth priest isn't going to be leading a bunch of hard hitters who would benefit from the support.

Trust me: shatter them repeatedly and without remorse while you're running around on the walls and ceiling.

gg no re: my new podcast

2015-05-13T01:09:00.002-05:00

I'm DMing for a brand new actual play podcast. Check it out above.

We make characters and introduce the concept of the show. Skip if you like; episode 1, when we actually start playing, is uploading now.

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ggnorecast
G+: https://plus.google.com/113373938766046636485
Blog: http://ggnorecast.blogspot.com

We're running through the Wizards of the Coast 5e D&D module, Princes of the Apocalypse. It's an actual play and a review-in-process, where we'll pause to talk about our opinions of the product, and the DM will discuss techniques in general and specifically for this module.

Note: we are n00bs at the podcasting game! Expect chip crunching, dice clattering, and other background noise. We get better about it in later episodes, promise.

Ref Sheet for Princes of the Apocalypse

2015-04-25T01:58:00.002-05:00

image by +Jay Africa

This is something I'm making for myself: shops, rumors, faction lists. I'll probably keep it updated as I go because I don't think it's complete. But it's definitely good enough to start from. (HT: +Sean Ahern for updating and correcting my list of Believers.)

Shops

Gear

Helvur Tarnlar, Clothier (area 7)
Gaelkur's (poor tools)
Waelvur's Wagonworks (area 16; low quality)
Vallivoe's Sundries (area 22)
Chansyrl Fine Harness (area 6)
Thelorn's Safe Journeys (area 5)
Ironhead Arms (area 13)
Tantur Smithy (area 9)

Food & Drink

Lorren's Bakery (area 8)
Mhandyvver's Poultry (area 14)
Gaelkur's (area 17; poor tavern)
The Market (area 21)
Jalessa Ornra, Butcher (area 11)
Drouth Fine Poultry (area 10)
The Helm at Highsun (area 3; tavern)

Artisans

Mellikho Stoneworks (area 18)
Dornen Finestone (area 12)
Luruth's Tannery (area 19)

Services

Black Market (area 17)
Bethendur's Storage (area 20)
Constable Harburk (area 11; law)
Mother Yalantha's (area 4; lodging)
The Swinging Sword (area 2; lodging)
Allfaiths Shrine (area 1)
Gaelkur's (area 17; barber)
Haeleeya's (area 15; bath house & dress shop)

Trouble in Red Larch (low level rumors)

Bears and Bows

page: 149
giver: Constable Harburk (area 11)

Haunted Tomb

page: 149
giver: Pell Mhandyvver (area 14) or Mangobarl Lorren (area 8)

Bloody Treasure

page: 150
giver: Albaeri Mellikho (area 18) or Elak Dornan (area 12)

The Last Laugh

page: 150
giver: Endrith Vallivoe (area 22)

Lance Rock

page: 151
giver: Kaylessa Irkell (area 2) or Tarnlar children (area 7)

Tomb of Moving Stones

page: 153
giver: Stannor Thistlehair (area 3 or 16) or event: sinkhole opens up above area T1

Rumors of Evil (level 3+ rumors)

Beliard

page: 42
giver: Brother Eardon (area 2; delegation seen there) or Zomith (area 3; delegation)

The Dessarin Road

page: 42

Shallow Graves

page: 43
giver: Larmon Greenboot (area 17; found freshly dug graves)

Womford Rats

page: 43
giver: Endrith (area 22; old dwarven book)

Scarlet Moon Hall

page: 69
giver: Thorsk (area 5; fire symbol on goods headed there)

Combined Rumor List

Bears and Bows

page: 149
giver: Constable Harburk (area 11)

Haunted Tomb

page: 149
giver: Pell Mhandyvver (area 14) or Mangobarl Lorren (area 8)

Bloody Treasure

page: 150
giver: Albaeri Mellikho (area 18) or Elak Dornan (area 12)

The Last Laugh

page: 150
giver: Endrith Vallivoe (area 22)

Lance Rock

page: 151
giver: Kaylessa Irkell (area 2) or Tarnlar children (area 7)

Tomb of Moving Stones

page: 153
giver: Stannor Thistlehair (area 3 or 16) or event: sinkhole opens up above area T1

Beliard

page: 42
giver: Brother Eardon (area 2; delegation seen there) or Zomith (area 3; delegation)

The Dessarin Road

page: 42

Shallow Graves

page: 43
giver: Larmon Greenboot (area 17; found freshly dug graves)

Womford Rats

page: 43
giver: Endrith (area 22; old dwarven book)

Scarlet Moon Hall

page: 69
giver: Thorsk (area 4; fire symbol on goods headed there)

Factions

Believers

Elak Dornen (area 12; leader)
Marlandro Gaelkur (area 17)
Mellikho Albear (area 18)
Luruth (area 19)
Aerego (area 20)
Grund (area 21; just hired muscle)
Ilmeth Waelvur (area 16)
Baragustus Harbuckler (area T8)
Rothar Hatherhand (no area, father to Braelen in area T4)

Wind Cult

Iraun Thelder (area 2; spy)

Earth Cult

6 guests in area 4

Water Cult

Justran Daehl (area 3; partner in tavern, spy)
Ghileeda (area 2; spy, reports to Justran)

Order of the Gauntlet

Imdarr Relvaunder (Red Larch, area 1)
Lady Ushien Stormbanner with the Knights of Samular (Summit Hall, p36)

Harpers

Endrith Vallivoe (Red Larch, area 22)
Darathra Shendrel, Lord Protector (Triboar, p37)

Emerald Enclave

Haeleeya Hanadroum (Red Larch, area 15)
Abbot Ellardin Darovik (Goldenfields, p33)

Zhentarim

Mangobarl Lorren (area 8)

Lord's Alliance

Helvur & Maegla Tarnlar (Red Larch, area 7)
Waterbaron Nestra Ruthiol (Yartar, p39)

Princes of the Apocalypse Quickstart

2015-04-20T21:56:00.000-05:00

image by +Jay Africa

How do you run this module? you may ask. Here's how, with page numbers and everything (c=chapter, p=page: e.g., c2p24 = chapter 2, page 24). You're looking at a single hour of prep to have all of your little ducks in row. If you don't have an hour, no biggie, you'll just have to do some page flipping.

lay out annotated map of Red Larch (you have to make / print one), including location names, numbers, important NPCs, and the factions they belong to; this is for you and the players
print/bookmark the wilderness encounter tables (c2p31)
assign hooks (c1pp13-14) and factions (c3p41)
tell them they've been sent by their factions to work together to do what their factions want them to do (c3p41), and that they have their own reasons for being here too (c1pp13-14)
introduce Red Larch (ch3p41 boxed text)
tell them that after asking around town that night, they're in the Helm at Highsun tavern discussing which of their rumors to follow up on first
give them a list of rumors

if starting at level 1, use the list on c2p21 and optionally the list on c2p22 (this lets them take any lead from the get-go, even ones that are meant for higher level PCs: recommended)
if starting level 3, use the list on c2p22 (expanded upon in the list on c3p41) and optionally the list on c2p21

have them pick one to follow up on
go to the person/area indicated by the rumor, give obvious info; obtaining non-obvious info is a challenge solvable by roleplaying, magic, or other lateral thinking
you should now be in a loop of going to an area for more information or to take action

if you get stuck, give them more information; if you don't know what information to give, take a break, flip to the earliest content they haven't been to yet, and give them the info they need to get there and why they might want to get there
keep an eye out for Cult Reprisal Triggers (c3p44):

when they visit the first locale (Beliard, Dessarin Road, Shallow Graves, Summit Hall, Womford Rats)
after they visit the first Haunted Keep (first: __________ second: __________ )
After they visit the third Haunted Keep

Keep an eye out for Cult Retaliation (c4p76)

after they defeat the first prophet (________), run Dire Tidings (c4p76) when they return to civilization; note also that now the remaining prophets should descend a level to wait in the chapter 5 dungeon complexes
After the party clears a second chapter 4 shrine (rooms A19, C25, B23, or E17), run Reckless Hate (c4p76) when they return to civilization
After the party clears a third shrine, run Race to Destruction (c4p77) when a character sleeps

Each time they return from the Fane of the Eye or finish exploring an elemental node:

If an elemental node is still active, roll 1d6 and consult c5p113:

1-2: if water node still active, Downpour
3-4: if fire node still active, Burning Hils
5-6: if earth node still active, Tortured Earth

Run Counsel of Despair (c5p113) if you have not done so; or, if the air and water prophets have been defeated, introduce Haayon the Punisher via if you have not done so (c5p114).

remember the structure:

Level 1-3 sidetreks (detailed in chapter 6, rumors c2p21)
Level 3+ rumors (c2p22)
Four Haunted Keeps (c3)
Four Temples (c4)
Temple of the Elder Elemental Eye (c5): the fane and four elemental nodes

side treks (c6p160): I don't like these because they take too long to read, and some of them ("New Management") baffle me when I try to think of how to present them as a thing to actually play. Here are their levels if you want to give rumors to them:

Level 3+: New Management (c6p160): who knows what this is
Level 4: Iceshield Orcs (c6p163): tower defense vs orcs, could be cool, kind of a B10 vibe
Level 5: The Long Road (c6p166): bandits attack caravans, I dunno
Level 6: Curse of the Fire Witch (c6p167): "Wiggan and Bertram Nettlebee have constructed an elaborate ruse"
Level 8: Vale of Dancing Waters (c6p172): go to a dwarf shrine for some reason, end up killing ppl
Level 9: Dark Dealings in Yartar (c6p175): stop a black market deal
Level 10: Rundreth Manor (c6p179): sort of talk to a thing that isn't what it seems like to get info maybe
Level 11: Halls of the Hunting Axe (c6p180): help a dwarf find a thing in a place

Quests as Campaign Structure

2015-02-28T12:24:00.001-06:00

Let's say you want to start a new campaign. It's about, I dunno, kids in a monster hunter academy.

To make sure it's about what you want, and to give yourself and players some direction and focus, set out 1-3 campaign/default quests. Like:

* graduate from monster hunter school

* make and maintain friendships

* find and maintain romance

Say, "these are the default quests. You never can lose them. As long as you're following a quest, you're playing the game right. This is what the game is about."

Say, "You can and should write down other quests for your character before and during play. When you're following those, you're also playing the game."

The objective of the game is to see what happens when you follow one or more of these quests, to see why you do what you do, and to see what comes of it.

When you as the the GM or you as the player don't know what to do next, follow a quest, present obstacles for quests, ask why someone is or is not following a quest, challenge that, or wrote and follow a new quest. .

Scary Combat Choreography

2015-01-11T02:16:00.001-06:00

I'm not a big fan of wargamey PvE or PvP (PvX?) fighting.

I want something quicker, more cinematic, more desperate and brutal.

So this.

I'm giving you the 5e version here, but it's pretty adaptable if you shove hard enough. Some steps have different settings; so just do you.

STEP 1: ROLL INITIATIVE
Everything is normal. Breathe.

STEP 2A: A PC WON INITIATIVE

Ask the player what they want to do.
If it's attack, say "Set up your finishing move."
Freeze the action at the moment of uncertainty before the finishing move happens, when it could go either way.
Judge: do we even need a roll here, based on what happened in the setup and what's happened with the fight so far and who the PC is and who the monster is? If not, it just happens. Return. Else, proceed.
Judge advantage or disadvantage.
Have the player make the roll (or rolls if they're using multiple attacks: multiple mechanical 'attacks' can and should group into one fictional attack)

On a hit, they do the finishing move. If the monster could reasonably still be up and kicking, apply hp damage and other effects as normal.
On a miss, apply miss effects as normal. If this kills the monster, then of course it's killed. If it doesn't kill the monster:

If this is a melee engagement, the monster seizes initiative.
If this was a missed ranged or spell attack and the monster isn't in melee range, initiative passes to the next character in order.

What's a finishing move? It's whatever they intend on doing to the monster when they get in position to do it.

What's 'setting up' that move mean? It's whatever's involved in getting to the moment of uncertainty before the finishing move might happen.

Example
Jansen, you have the initiative.

I attack the goblin.

Okay, set up your finishing move.

I run up to it and sweep its legs out from underneath it with my glaive.

And? [The player didn't set up a finishing move. This happened in my game tonight. It's more choreography-authority than people are used to; so the player stopped short.]

I want to drive the blade down into the middle of its back.

[There's our finishing move and set up. I would judge that the goblin may turn the situation around; so we do need to roll, but the PC will have advantage since the goblin's on its face.]

OBJECTION! Won't the players just put themselves in an advantageous position every time?

ANSWER: Yes. That's the point. They will have to engage the fiction at every point because they will want to find a way to give themselves advantage. There is fictional friction all the time. They can ask you questions about how the monster is reacting; you can just offer this information; it's not a problem for the PC; this is still part of their setup. But don't worry, we're making it harder on the PCs too; read on.

STEP 2B: A MONSTER WON (OR HAS SEIZED) INITIATIVE
Note that you can use monster-groups as a single monster here to simplify things and make them a little easier on the players. But feel under no compulsion to do so.

Set up their finishing move. Beat up the PC a bit in the process (not applicable to ranged or magic, of course; that's just chanting and aiming). It's okay to break gear here, put them in precarious positions, make them bleed. Or just to put them on their backs, crawling away.
Freeze the action at the moment of uncertainty before the finisher. (Before the spell goes off, before the arrow flies, before the blade falls.)
Ask if anyone who has held their initiative wishes to jump in now to interrupt; if so, resolve as 2A; if a missed attack wouldn't put the monster out of position, a miss might mean that the monster's attack continues straightforwardly—the arrow just flew past them.
Make your attack roll.

On a hit, subtract hp as normal. If they're dead they're dead. Otherwise, make things irrevocably worse in the most interesting way you can think of. If you can't think of anything, default to injury. If death is the last interesting and honest thing, then they die. Any special effects might proc here as well, like a ghoul's paralysis. You'll have to think about the fiction: how does the paralysis work? It may warrant a second save (the "AC save" being the first), depending on how you conceptualize it.
On a miss, the targeted PC seizes initiative if this is a melee engagement; otherwise, play passes to the next in the initiative order.

OTHER SITUATIONS

Other saves or dangers work the same way: choreograph to the moment of uncertainty, then make the save or attack roll (which is basically an armor save) to see what happens.

AN EXAMPLE FROM THE CINEMA

Roll for initiative!

Orc wins, sets up finishing move by tossing Aragorn against a tree the better to slice.

Orc misses; Aragorn seizes initaitive by ducking out from under the shield

They fight and tumble as part of Aragorn's setup

Then Aragorn stabs orc in the leg to set up his finisher

But misses. Orc headbutts Aragorn, shoves him away, pulls knife out

Throws it for his finisher; we freeze here to roll

Miss; Aragorn blocks it (really?) and seizes initiative

Aragorn starts his 18 hit combo and does a bunch of parried strikes that puts orc off balance

Cuts arm off (I'd allow that as setup) then goes to decapitate; freeze; hit

That just happened.

Now for some memes.

COMPLEMENTARY HACKS
(Without the stackable and expanded inspiration hacks, players are going to be getting injured and killed left and right when you run out of interesting way to make things worse for them. It also lets you really incentivize whatever it is you require in order to get inspiration hint hint.)

Stackable inspiration: make inspiration stack. You can have as much as you can get.

Expanded inspiration use: you can spend inspiration after any d20 roll to reroll it: your attacks or saves, attacks made against you, attacks by teammates, whatever.

Inspiration marks: for some actions, don't award an entire point of inspiration but only a mark or tally. When the player has acquired X of these tallies (I'm thinking 3 for my game), they erase the tallies and gain another inspiration point. Recommended to incentivize those little things you want to see so badly, you pitiful control freak.

Despair: monsters have despair (like PC inspiration, get it) for use on attacks against them or saves they make. They have a number equal to HD (ignoring any pluses to HD, if you're running old school). So a 4 HD monster can force 4 rerolls for attacks against it or on saves it makes. Without this hack, humanoid creatures with discernible anatomy should be pretty quickly dispatched by the PCs, which may or may not be as you wish. Recommended for terror.

Add HD to initiative: I like this because winning initiative is really important, especially in this variant; so better fighters should win it more often.

HP damage on setup vs players: Roll damage as if you hit against PCs as part of setup, before the attack roll. If you kill them, kill them before the attack roll. Do not add any ability modifiers to this damage, just the dice. If you hit, reroll the dice and add the modifier this time. If you crit, roll the dice again. (This makes archers nasty: they do damage just by aiming at you; better hit the deck where you can't be a target.) Highly recommended.

HP damage on setup vs monsters: as above. Makes monsters even easier to kill. Not recommended.

Heroic setups: if you want a more LOTR vibe, just say that, as part of setup, your PCs can wipe out creatures of HD equal to their own. Not recommended; you should work for every goblin.

Heroic finishers: as above, but you get to take out the mooks after a hit only. Not recommended; you should work for every goblin.

Heroic half and half: as above, but maybe kind of split it up before and after the hit? Not recommended; you should work for every goblin.

Heroic randomness: as above, but roll a die with enough faces to accommodate your number of hit dice. This turn, you can take out the result in HD before the roll, up to your max number of HD. Not recommended; you should work for every goblin.

SOME CONSIDERATIONS
B-B-B-Balance! Yeah, it messes with everything. Some spells won't be as useful anymore. Some spells you might actually have to think about: what does this thing actually do, fictionally? You're a grownup, work it out. You can't tank as well now. But maybe you can kill multiple things with one melee attack action if you narrate it right? See, I'm sure it'll be fine, in the end.

It is not very wargamey. This is true. If the wargamey style of man to man combat inherited from Chainmail floats your boat, then just keep being awesome. It's how Gary intended, after all.

Mana System for 5e

2014-12-22T01:04:00.001-06:00

You don't have spell slots.

When you cast a spell, choose what level you cast it at. If you want to cast cure light wounds at 9th level, go ahead.

Targets save as normal, you apply the effects as normal.

Then you lose mana.

You start with mana = max hp.

The mana you lose is XdY, where:

X = the level of the spell you cast it at

Y = your HD size (or, if you're the kind of person that multiclasses, shame on you, you use the highest HD you have hahaha; but, since I am merciful, if you have only 1 level in fighter and cast a level 2 spell, "use up" your figher HD first, and then you can use your next highest HD size; so 1d10+1d6 mana).

However, don't count any die that comes up its max value.

So a level 1 wizard with 7 mana casts fireball (presuming the character somehow knows the spell). It's a level 3 spell. That means 3d6 mana loss after the spell takes effect. Death save time.

Mod to taste.

* you lose maximum hp and don't track a separate pool of mana; this way clerics can't be a mana fountain

* make a check to avoid mana loss

Magic Items Without the Plusses

2014-11-23T14:21:00.001-06:00

This hack removes the +X magic item scale.

Instead, if a weapon is magic, it does an additional die of damage, half damage on a miss (like saving vs dragon breath), and doesn't break except by magic.

If armor (or shield) is magic, your armor doesn't break except by magic; and, for piece of armor you wear, gain additional hp equal to your level: x3 if helmet, x2 if shield or covers vitals, and x1 otherwise.

Those are the new base properties. Carry on.

(This means you can give out a single magic shoe, and it will be great.)

Naumachia

2014-11-20T01:42:00.001-06:00

This is a staged naval warfare minigame for your fantasy adventure game based loosely on the real thing.

It's basically playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to choreograph staged naval combats in an arena.

Why should your players do it?

because it's fun
because you can give them, say 5-10% of XP to next level for winning
because you can use it to build their reputations, give them social leads, etc.

YES THERE ARE 33 STEPS BELOW BUT CHILL OUT IT'S ACTUALLY PRETTY SIMPLE.

HOW TO INTRODUCE IT

When you're giving the menu of things to do in the city (if you do that), mention, "Oh, you've heard about the naumachia. It's where you do naval warfare for sport. The winners are big celebrities. You'll get an XP reward if your team wins."
Put the above in your rumor table.
Have patrons at the tavern talk about the ludicrous display of last week's match, then reveal the aforementioned.
Put folks discussing/betting on it in your random encounter tables for your city.

BACKGROUND

Each participating ship is owned by a person, family, or guild
Each participating ship or fleet of ships belongs to a team, with distinctive costume and rabid fans, like pro sports
Each ship has rowers, which aren't competitors; they are slaves or laborers supported by the ship owner
Each ship has combatants, who are like gladiators and are paid according to the rules
Usually, nonlethal weapons are used, but deathmatches paid in gold rather than silver are a real thing

RULES

Explain the meta-rules: play Rock-Paper-Scissors with the GM. Characters proficient in heavy armor win ties. Characters only proficient in light armor lose ties unless they are monks or whatever, in which case they win ties like fighters. That's all the players need to know now.
Determine the number of participants. Each naumachia has at least 2-40 ships participating. You can roll 2d20 or just assign based on the relative size of the city in question.
Give a few options for the teams the PCs can join, 4 at most. Just riff on existing pro sports teams or pro wrestlers.
When they choose one, introduce the captain NPC. Create him as you would any other. Use a sports superstar for reference if you're stuck.
Captain explains the rules and tells them their pay if they pass tryouts: 1d10sp. The number rolled corresponds to the current hype around the team.
The rules are: board the enemy ships with grappling hooks and plans, or defend against boarding, and throw all enemy combatants overboard. Once you're overboard, you're out. Last team afloat wins.
Captain tells them when tryouts are: make them very soon.
Have them overhear or read on a notice board when the next deathmatch is coming up. Its rewards are paid in gold. Their first match won't be a deathmatch. It's against the rules.
Tryouts are just like a normal fight, except there's no winnings and no audience beyond the teams and their staff.
When they show up for tryouts, introduce a friendly or rival NPC on their team, who bets them they/he won't make it; ask how they react.
The captain hands out the team-appropriate weapons. They're all wooden unless it's a deathmatch.
Fanfare and introductions as teams board from the quays.
The horn sounds, and the rowers take off.
GM: have a maximum of 3 boardings at first. Later, you can do things however.
To do a boarding, say that the grapplers and plankers make contact with another team (specify one thing about them, their colors or mascot or what have you), and have each player roll his HD.
The highest HD roll has an encounter. If there is a tie, both do.
If the highest HD roll is 3 or less, it's a bad scene, and victory requires an additional win.
If the highest HD roll is maxed, describe how the PC comes to the encounter already at an advantage: victory requires only a single win.
Otherwise, describe how the PC in question is threatened by a reasonable group of opponents, and play RPS until there is a winner.
A player may ask another player to pinch-hit for his PC, but this is cowardice.
If the player wins and does not have advantage, ask how the player puts himself at advantage and play RPS until there is a winner.
If the player wins and has advantage, ask how the player finishes off the encounter.
If you win and don't have advantage, put the PC at a disadvantage and ask if anyone comes to the PC's aid.
If anyone does, they get two shots to get advantage.
Otherwise, simply play RPS again.
If you win while the PC is at a disadvantage, finish him off.
A boarding continues until all PCs are finished off or until a PC wins.
If all PCs are finished off, the game is over.
If a PC wins, proceed to the next boarding.
If the player team performed well, the captain invites them back with increased pay.
If the player team performed terribly, they'll probably have to find a different team.
In either case, add hostile opposing teams to the city encounter table.
Winning a real match means money and fame. Have people recognize them in the streets, buy them drinks; have kids surround them and ask them for pointers.

Cinematic Fights: Skeleton Warriors Example

2014-11-13T21:54:00.002-06:00

From this post, we extract these principles, with some revisions and additions:

RULES SUMMARY
Whenever you attack a creature, before you roll, just make sure we know who you're attacking and with what (e.g., keep using my sword, attacking the zombie in the funny hat).

When you miss, your opponent takes control; you mark a death slash (1/2 a death save failure—a whole death save failure is two slashes, an X), and the GM escalates the brutality of the fight.

When you hit a creature, roll and apply damage as normal.

When you hit without advantage, you may take control against them, providing you can think of some way in the fiction to do so that doesn't render the creature incapable of fighting.

When you hit with advantage or reduce a creature to 0 hp, what you intended to do to them happens.

When a creature attacks you, the GM makes it act against you at the current level of brutality (determined by the number of your death slashes). This is before any attack roll from the GM.

When a creature misses you, the GM will ask how you take control of the situation.

When a creature hits you, you lose hp as normal, mark a death slash, and the GM escalates the brutality of the fight.

When a creature hits you with advantage, you lose hp as normal and mark a death save failure (two death slashes), and the GM escalates the brutality of the fight.

When you hit zero hp, you fall, and we are agnostic about your fate (as long as you have less than 3 death save failures). The normal death save mechanic kicks in.

Whenever you use the environment to your advantage, the effects (however resolved) should bypass hit points and instead use your intent.

When you hit an enemy with a magic effect that could kill, resolve hp, etc. as usual. In addition, it does indeed kill the creature if you have advantage or the enemy is at disadvantage; otherwise, it's about to kill the creature; say how the effect is putting the creature at a disadvantage.

When you attack from range, resolve hp, etc. as usual. If you have advantage, you hit just where you intended. Otherwise on a hit, the GM says where you hit.

Here are the levels of brutality or escalation:

0 = no slashes: pressure/threat
1 = /: battered
2 = X: bleeding
3 = X /: screaming
4 = X X: broken / torn / disfigured / disabled
5 = X X /: maimed / permanently disabled
6 = X X X: dying / dead

Note that, although this is written for 5e, it's really system agnostic. Tracking HP just possibly makes it more deadly.

If you read the previous post, you'll notice I've replaced the "seize advantage" verbiage with "take control". I feel it's clearer and less mechanical.

Say we've got three skeletons as in the picture above. We're fighting in an unlit tomb with pillars and coffins everywhere.

To keep things simple, I'm not going to use fancy powers and such. I'll give AC, hp, attack bonus, and damage in the statblocks and then update them as the fight goes on. I'll be using a dice roller and not fudging.

I'm making one change to the monster: instead of having skeletons be vulnerable to bludgeoning, I'm having them be resistant to slashing and immune to piercing. And you have to break their spines to kill them.

Skeleton (mace + shield): AC 15 ATK +4 (1d6 + 2) HP 13
Skeleton (axe + shield): AC 15 ATK +4 (1d6 + 2) HP 13
Skeleton (dual wielding mace + sword): AC 13 ATK + 4 (1d6 + 2), +4 (1d6) HP 13
Fighter (L1, shield + mail + defensive + mace): AC 19 ATK +4 (1d6 + 2) HP 12
Wizard (L1, robes + out of spells, ray of frost cantrip): AC 12 ATK +5 (1d8) HP 7

I'm worried for my party. I think they should have run. But maybe they've triggered a trap that keeps them locked in the tomb until the skeletons are dead. Let's run with that. Time for initiative. Skeletons are +2; my characters are +1 for fighter and +2 for wizard.

INITIATIVE
Wizard: 15
Skeletons: 9
Fighter: 8

So that's it. In 5e, initiative order is static; so each round it will remain the same. Glad my wizard goes first :\

ROUND 1: FIGHT
Wizard: I'm shooting ray of frost at the dual-wielding one. [ROLL: natural 1]. Of course. You said there were pillars and sarcophagi around here, right? I'm going to go take cover behind one of those.

GM: The one with the mace is going around to get at the wizard, but the rest are converging on the fighter. We'll do the wizard first. You'll have cover for being behind the sarcophagus. [ROLL: natural 1 again]. So it swings and misses you, and chunks of marble are spraying everywhere; how do you take control?

Wizard: I'll reach out and freeze its hand to its mace, shatter them both on the lid of the sarcophagus, and kick it away from me.

[Notice that the player disarmed the skeleton and cut off its hand. That's fine. We don't care about the bodily integrity of the baddies. They are playgrounds of destruction, and the PCs are fragile as well. We don't need to carefully monitor things so that nothing awesome happens. Also note that the wizard will not have mechanical advantage against the skeleton because of this; he's just created distance and reduced the skeleton to unarmed damage. It's debuffing without having a power that tells you that you can debuff.]

GM: Cool, you do it. Now the other skeletons are coming up on the fighter. [DUAL WIELDER ROLLS TWICE: misses both times. AXE misses as well; fighter's AC is too good.] How do you take control?

[Notice I didn't even narrate the attacks of the skeletons at all. I'm not concerned about that. That they initiated an attack is assumed and will of course be incorporated into what the player says. If the player needs more info, they can just ask.]

Fighter: I'll block the dual wielder's attacks and shove him away while I break the knees of the other one with my mace. I want him on the ground when I attack him.

[Again, bodily destruction of the opposition is A-OK as long as they still might pose a threat.]

GM: your turn, fighter. [Previous action was just the fighter's response to the misses of the skeletons; now it's the fighter's turn proper.]

Fighter: I've got advantage, right? [Yes, he does.] I'm just going to stomp his skull with my boot.

GM: Okay, and go ahead and roll your mace's damage for this; I don't want to penalize you by making you do unarmed damage.

[Fighter ROLLS with advantage and hits, does 1d6+2 = 7 damage.]

[Notice, though: the player doesn't know that delivering a headshot doesn't matter for these skeletons. Their spine must be broken or crushed. I don't let on, though.]

GM: Okay, you smash his skull; go ahead, wiz.

ROUND TWO
Wizard: I'm going to keep skirting around the sarcophagus and shooting at its legs. [Hit for 5 damage.] Okay, I hit it; so I'm freezing it to the floor, and the frost is spreading up its legs.

GM: I'm going to have the skeleton try to come at the wizard. [Makes a STR check to have it break free of the ice; fail]. But it can't; its leg is frozen into the ground, and it only manages to break its leg off—which means your ice isn't creeping up its body anymore, wiz. It's crawling toward you, but can't reach you yet.

GM: The dual wielding skeleton is coming at you, fighter. [I'm also going to use the now headless skeleton at the fighter's feet, but I'm not giving that away yet. It'll attack with advantage because the fighter doesn't know it's still a threat.]

[Dual wielder rolls, hits with the main hand, misses with the off hand. The other skeleton attacks with advantage: miss. Since at least one attack hits, we use the hit rules rather than the miss rules: 5 damage, two death slashes, escalating to bleeding. I don't know if the fighter would have noticed the attack of the skeleton on the ground; I see that he does NOT have Perception trained. So that will mean he doesn't notice the skeleton's bump against his greaves. If he had been wearing no armor on the legs, maybe I would have ruled differently.]

GM: The skeleton drives you back against a pillar, and you're just barely able to keep him off you, and then he brings down his mace onto your thigh, and you can feel the broken mail biting in. [Note: if we were using an armor repair / damage system, here's one way you can bring it in.] It's angling its sword to stab you right in the face; what do you do? [Transitioning to fighter's initiative count; I'm still judging that the fighter wouldn't notice the other skeleton rising and approaching.]

Fighter: I'll keep fighting. I hit for 7 damage.

GM: Okay, how do you take control?

Fighter: I block the sword then smash its legs so it can't walk.

GM: You do, and then you notice [because the skeleton's not in the way anymore] the one whose skull you crushed advancing toward you. He's charging with the tip of his spine toward you.

ROUND THREE
Wizard: I'm going to try to freeze the headless one to the ground while running away from the one that's been fighting me; I'll circle around to try to get cover behind a pillar. Miss again!

GM: [I've got to think about what the skeletons are going to do now. I think the one engaged with the wizard would be crawling toward him. So he'll be crawling toward the dropped torch, putting himself between the wizard and fighter. I don't think he'll be able to threaten anyone this round.]

GM: wizard, you see the skeleton who was chasing you crawling toward the torch, but he can't get in range of either of you yet.

[Now, for the other two. Since the fighter's legs are armored, I'm thinking the main threat is the charging skeleton, but the other skeleton on the ground might hold him in place. So that's the situation I'll present. I'll be at disadvantage to attack from the ground but not to grab; so I'll try a grab and an attack.]

GM: fighter, the charging skeleton is coming right for you, and you can see the skeleton whose legs you just smashed stirring at your feet.

[The dual wielder successfully grabs, but the charging skeleton misses by 1.]

GM: as the skeleton gets even closer, you can feel the other one's hand grab your ankle; you're grabbed. How do you take control of the situation?

Fighter: I brace for impact and shove the charging skeleton on its back, then turn and stomp the arm of the skeleton that's holding me, then jump on top of—

GM: That's enough. We'll start your initiative with your breaking free of the skeleton.

[There's an art to knowing what's too much for one take control.]

Fighter: Well, obviously crushing their skulls isn't enough; so maybe I need to crush the spine? I've already got advantage since he's prone; so that's what I'm gonna do, just bring it down straight through the ribcage onto the spine. Hit for 4 damage.

[Note that this brings the dual wielding skeleton down to 2 hp; but, since the fighter already had advantage, it's treated as if the creature were at 0 hp, which means he gets to do whatever he wants. Crushing the spine will indeed kill the creature.]

GM: that's what happens. You break through the spine, and you can feel the impact on the stone beneath, and sparks fly up off your mace [insert weapon breakage/degradation rules here]. It's not moving.

ROUND FOUR
Wizard: I want to keep running from the one that was originally attacking me and keep trying to freeze the one to the ground that's grabbing at the fighter. Hit for 8 damage.

GM: [noting that it takes the skeleton to 0 hp] you do freeze it in place and can finish it.

Wizard: Okay, I close my fist, and it shatters.

GM: [judging that the remaining one really isn't a threat]. The last skeleton can't move quickly enough to threaten y'all.

Fighter: Okay, I just break it's spine like the other one.

GM: Done.

AFTERMATH
The wizard didn't get touched, luckily.

The fighter took one good hit to the leg, which broke some of his mail and caused bleeding. You can (and should I think) call in any subsystem you wish to handle this business. Maybe a surgeon needs to extract the broken links that might have been embedded in the flesh. Maybe it needs to be cauterized so there's no infection.

The wound is certainly painful but may not have any mechanical effects (at least not yet). If you wished, you could certainly implement such a system.

But, for those who are curious, that's an idea of how it would work.

How to Make a Serpent Cult Dungeon

2014-11-07T15:44:00.001-06:00

For use in Hoard of the Dragon Queen or wherever horrible serpent cults are sold.

How to make a serpent cult site:

Choose a transformer
Choose a main prize
Choose a guardian to guard it
Improvise area contents, peppering description with decor
Place special areas
Guard treasure and prizes with locks, supply lore as keys, and don't forget monsters and traps and guardians
Add your own content

Transformers are features that change the way you navigate or interact with the dungeon. Manipulating them can open new areas and close off others. Think gravity reversal buttons, items that open special doors.

Prizes are the main treasures. They're relevant to your campaign, worthy of setting out to obtain specifically. Like the holy grail, the shards of Narsil.

Guardians are big scary monsters that you shouldn't just be able to melee. Think cinematically. Think the huge boss fights from videogames. Just think of something awesome and don't worry about how to implement it.

Locks are anything that that bars the way to a reward and may be opened by a key, literal or not. If supplied an unsuitable key, a lock may present a risk: animating/releasing guardians, setting off a trap, destroying it's guarded treasure, or nothing may happen. Locks may reveal what they guard to tantalize players.

Lore should be personalized for your campaign. Give entities named and reveal them, maybe use them as keys. Lore can be revealed in statues, texts, murals, ghostly reenactments, interrogations, etc.

Lore (can be used as keys)

The ancients fed milk to the serpents and anointed their heads with it
The name of an entity
Musical notation pictured next to a snake charmer. It is a famous hymn.
The steps of a sacred dance
The mudras for a sacred ritual
The components of a holy potion
The site of a holy shrine
The weapon of a holy warrior
The face paint of a hated enemy
All the snakes in the world were almost killed in a fiery sacrificial pit by a god, but another god stopped it out of love for the serpent queen
The number of heads the serpent princess had at birth
How many heads the lover of the serpent princess cut off
How long the serpent princess's lover digested in her stomach
The name of the plump white rat that ever escapes the prince's jaws
The process for rendering the contact poison of suspended animation stable
The recipe for the contact poison of suspended animation
The markings of the spear that slew the serpent prince
The musical notation of the dirge for the serpent prince

The lyrics of the dirge for the serpent prince

The words of the vow of vengeance for the serpent prince

Locks

An empty bowl filled carved on the inside with magical writing having to do with presenting the proper offering: milk and blood are acceptable.
A statue of a snake set into a inverse some in the floor, with drains in it. The top of the head has a hole in it as well. Pour milk in the head so that it drains through the snake itself and through he floor drains, and the lock will open.
Gigantic snake statue made of bronze blocks the way. Grooves in the floor beneath apparently so to can be moved. If a serpent cult hymn is played, the statue will slowly approach the music while keeping on its track, so clearing or blocking the way.
Holes that need snakes in them.
Trough that needs 6 gallons of blood.
Wavy crawlspace, must be slithered through
An ear into which certain words must be spoken
A stage on which a danceidt be done
An amphitheater in which a performance must be conducted
An arena in which must be defeated
A bed missing a lover on which his corpse or someone dressed in his garb must lie
A diner to whom appropriate food must be served
A groom to whom the proper bride must be given
A rider to whom a proper mount must be supplied
A worker who needs a tool
A reader who needs a book
A nursing mother who needs an infant
A scribe who needs a stylus
A warrior who needs a weapon
A door that needs a key

Special Areas

Hatchery, incubated by giant horrible bloated thing, fed by blood tubes from sacrificial pit below obscured by its horrible encrusted bulk
- Treasure room beyond
- Treasure from dead heroes on floor near burst eggs
Room with bowed out door straight up filled with snakes subsisting on brimstone vapors
Karzum, city of the vanquished: dead god statue, king, soldiers and people, men women children. In miniature except for people. Lots of places to climb. Palace has treasure taken from city. Try to take it without the key, and literally every being will animate and attack.
Huge chasm, can be spanned by twisted cables that run along the ceiling, there may be snake holes in the ceiling or walls, some cables may be loose.
Ziggurat with altar on top. Blood everywhere. Blood elementals commanded by a skeletal high priest. Breaking the altar reveals a chute to a treasure room.
Beauty of the goddess. Vast room plated in bronze. At the end, a titanic naga statue. Viewing it transfixes you, and you see in your mind the life cycle of a serpent and the life cycle of a universe melded. You wake up hours later and cannot see a serpent without marveling at its beauty. You totally get snake worship now. If you begin to engage in acts of snake worship, gain d100% of the XP needed to level for each step you take toward the ultimate recapitulation of the full and ancient priesthood. So splashing milk on a snake grants d100% XP to level the first time you do it. Then if you sacrifice an animal to a snake, take that XP roll again, etc.

Transformers

River of blood, dangerous, reroute, boats of scales
Hoods Ike cobra to glide around, air drafts and screw lifts
Musical instruments to charm snakes or snake like structures, moving things around. Different instruments charm different snakes or structures
Floating rideable poison clouds
Snake chains, shoot like grappling gun from anchor points, reload, repair, transport
Snake keys: particular species held or placed into lock for passage, must be living, pictures for clues
Poison as key in vials
Bones as keys, femurs, skulls, x#

Guardians

Ancient high priest Azathoth, reanimated, wants to take over cult from current leadership, will talk and cooperate if shown deference, will not tolerate disrespect
dragon
Monster king
Giant bone serpent
commander of insane paladins
avatar of the dead god

Decor:

Wavy motifs
Ouroboros
Circles, twists
Stone baths
Bloody altars
Braided hanging chains
Holes in surfaces, tons
Statues of kings, heroes, gods, priests (pro and anti cult)
Acrid smell
Bloodstains
Lab gear for body modification and poison milking
Snakeskin and human skin garb
Stone trees drapes with snakes or beds for humans
Rivers of blood or poison
Tunnels, rifles and scaled
Scaled surfaces
Forking paths like tongues
Doors opening like jaws
Slight slope with blood grooves in floor or contained in glass on walls, leading to bad things
Pens for humans and beasts, wavy bars
Storage on circular rooms like snake stomach
Bulging rooms like gorging snake stomach
Torture / medicine equipment: feeding tubes, clamps, straps
Serpentine columns, heads eating various things babies rabbits etc
Fangs everywhere, control mechanisms, inscribed
Mosaics of naturally colored or painted scales
Documents written on scales or snakeskin, bound with gut or ligament
Bones bones everywhere mixed
Things crushed from constriction
Eggs, man; death = bite; life = breaking though shells; shells and thin membranes everywhere

Traps:

Pits (snakes / spikes optional)
One way doors
Poison gas
Rotating floor
Guardian reanimation (drain the suspense-poison bath or pop off the poison IV when triggered)
snakes be everywhere
Animated statues (snakes, followers, defeated gods, slain kings coated in statue poison-resin)
Sacrificial pit

Prizes:

Dragon mask
Magic gear of slain dragon slayers
Horrible spells
Treasure (coins, ancient, horrible stuff, shed skin)
Serpent magic items
Poison and delivery systems for it

Monsters:

Cultists
Mercenaries
Paladins driven insane
Priests/kings in suspended poison-animation, awaiting reawakening to dominate, possible faction interest
Yuan-ti
Horrible experiments
Tons of snakes (poison!)
Bone serpents
Dragons
Kobolds
Lizardfolk
Troglodytes

AW-Style Dungeon Stocking

2014-11-07T13:16:00.001-06:00

Or hex-stocking or city-stocking or relationship-stocking.

Alternate title: Imperative Dungeon Stocking.

These are like Apocalypse World GM moves but for physical spaces. They focus on what game function the area fulfills.

This should let you improvise a dungeon or wilderness, provided you have some decent seed content in head or at hand.

Roll or choose:

Create mapping complexity
Offer toy or small reward, disguised, guarded, or not (usually not)
Offer lore (used to overcome risks or guardians, oversupply to create red herrings)
Offer reward, guarded or disguised
Offer reward, unguarded and plain
Offer risk, disguised or plain

Here's an example off the top of my head. Some of my players' favorite dungeons have been COMPLETELY IMPROVISED, and they had no idea I was doing it. I was "consulting my notes" by staring at a blank page.

THE TEMPLE OF THE CRAB

Area 1: (1) create mapping complexity. They enter a long staircase from a sinkhole, and the staircase spirals down along the edge of the hole. There's a door every fifty feet or so until it hits bottom in a pool (area 2). I'll also use (3) here and say that halfway down there's a landing with a relief carving showing this very place with jaws emerging from area 2, then retreating for years and years once sated by a human sacrifice. If the players sacrifice someone, they can bypass the monster.

Area 2: (4) reward, guarded. The crab god monster will eat them if they enter the pool unless sated with sacrifice. He guards an underwater treasury accessed via moon pool (area 3).

Area 3: reward, unguarded. The treasure guarded by the crab god is here. A staircase leads down to area 4.

Area 4: (6) risk, plain. Here are priest skeletons, 60 of them. They will animate if their rest is disturbed and go about collecting sacrifices.

Etc.

Drama Bombs for Hoard of the Dragon Queen

2014-11-06T23:57:00.002-06:00

A drama bomb is a situation a PC can't ignore that forces upon them an ethical or personally dramatic choice.

The reason they can't ignore it is that the PC wants something, is committed to defending or performing or upholding something, and the bomb represents an obstacle, opportunity, or threat in that context.

They each require some concrete action to resolve, during which time the PCs will have to take dramatic stands, but not in a way that's forced or mechanized. It's simply a consequence of the situation.

Use these one at a time. Probably don't introduce another while one is active. Don't need to use all of them or really more than one.

What these drama bombs say may or may not be true. Decide for yourself or randomly determine it, now or later. If you randomly determine, I'd prejudice the roll in favor of PCs that have suffered greatly in holding to their beliefs.

That said, I'm only presenting one drama bomb in this post. I'll provide more later.

HAIL TIAMAT
This one takes a bit of setup, and, to be effective, it has to be true.

Before you drop it proper, show that there is a war on by showing the horrors of war.

When they travel on the road, each 6 mile hex there is a 1/6 chance of encountering a city's army, mustering, retreating, what have you. This is flavor and theme. The point of it is to establish that it's going on and to drive home that it's awful. Amputees everywhere. Wounded screaming. Orphans following.
When they stop at a village, 1/6 chance it is burned out from war and has few to no survivors. Orphans. Invalids starving to death.
When they enter the wilderness, 1/6 chance of seeing mass graves or awful camps of the city militaries. Prisoners of war tortured, no one safe from rape and slavery.
In taverns, people are talking about the war. Escalates to violence 1/6 of the time.
In towns, orphans and invalids swarm the temples.
When they ask who's fighting whom or what about:

Northern confederation of city-states vs southern, with frequent backstabs and incursions
Rumors of terrible brutality on the other side
Territorial encroachments
Succession disputes
Religious apostasy
Political ideological zealotry

Now then, here's the bomb proper: when they capture or subdue a cultist, or if it seems fine to just let one surrender, use this one:

BET (cultist—Conservator), wiry, tattered robes, pensive, head half as large as it should be:

goal: persuade the characters to join the Conservators, who wish to summon Tiamat to usher in an age of equality and peace, with no war but lots of human sacrifice and vegetarianism: all meat belongs to the Great Queen
wants: to be accepted into the group; to know what it's like to hang out with friends
history: orphan librarian, fled the Stormfront cult faction

mother ran off, father executed in Baldur's Gate for theft, raised in Candlekeep with two sisters and a brother
learned about Tiamat @ Candlekeep, joined cult when Candlekeep was raided
part of a cult faction called the Conservators ("not a drop of blood wasted"), who follow an ancient cult of Tiamat who holds that violence is sacred and may only be used in self-defense or to sacrifice to Tiamat

when you want to humanize Bet:

have him suddenly give someone a massage—undeniably feels great, +1HD roll in temp hp if they let him finish it
ask for better clothes; he hasn't had any since he fled the Stormfront; is very grateful
have him get drunk and start telling you a story; +inspiration if you listen; it's basically Jack & the Beanstalk, his favorite story from childhood; it's the only thing he remembers his mother doing for him; he'll ask what your favorite story is; he'll say that's a good one too and fall asleep, preferably on or near you

useful because:

makes artfully styled maps of everywhere traveled
knows five languages
knows lead to dungeon guarding dragon mask
knows a friendly wearer of purple, Melshas (zany, nose like squid, stoner)

This bomb also unlocks a couple factions:

Stormfront, encountered in Greenest, are blue/black dragon flavored
Conservators, few in number, who are the purest and oldest strain of Tiamat worship, heavy on the Lawful

The Conservators are correct that Tiamat's reign would bring peace. The Drakarchy would enforce non-violence by constant threat of superior force, and would in return demand a constant stream of human sacrifice. But, on the upshot, her reign would mean only a tenth as many deaths as all the wars would claim in her absence.

The players and PCs will likely not believe this. Ensure that every avenue of research they pursue confirms it. They can still disbelieve it, of course, but the evidence is against them. Whenever they find draconic lore, confirm it there as well. It's like the ending of Watchmen.

So what do the characters do? If they help the cult summon Tiamat, they will save a ton of lives and be rewarded richly for their service. They may still have trouble with the more barbaric Stormfront faction as well as other factions in the cult, not to mention the five "heroic" factions and the city-states. But there you go.

Now the thing is, to make this mean something, you have to show consequences. So, if they stop the summoning of Tiamat, you have to make the war even worse: World War II on steroids, mass awfulness. The factions come together only to devolve into bloodshed. And, as the party stands athwart the carnage, ask them: did they make the right decision? Ask the players what they think. Do an epilogue, briefly, as a montage, showing the effect the campaign had on each PC. Etc.

Similarly, if Tiamat is summoned, present her reign of terrible peace; and do the same procedure above. How do the PCs react?

Their reaction determines whether it's a comedy or tragedy, regardless of what happens.

Road Encounters for Hoard of the Dragon Queen

2014-11-04T22:45:00.003-06:00

Last time we played, the players said they were going to go catch the cart of loot from Greenest.

I've got to figure out how to do that since, at this point, we're in full sandbox mode.

Time to break out the hexmap.

Now, there are lots of people on roads, not just cultists. (Although a cultist-road sounds great for a wilderness encounter.) So how does that work? We need road encounters.

This presents the question: what is a road encounter?

One: they're not caravan encounters. For those, when they're actually traveling with a caravan, we'll just use the encounters from Hoard of the Dragon Queen chapter 4.

In other words, what kind of fictional happening is worth spending time on in play?

If a road is deserted, any kind of social interaction is meaningful. But, in this scenario, the roads are just, you know, pretty much normal. They'll be getting less so as the cult gains power, but we should assume that seeing people on the road isn't of much consequence.

So let's focus our road encounters on interesting things:

cult caravan
lead to dungeon
village siege
special

At the start of each wilderness turn, roll 1d6. On 1, if you're on the road, roll on the road encounters table above.

If the party knows a certain thing is in a hex (a dungeon, a cult caravan) from a rumor or bit of lore or what have you, still check for a random encounter that will happen in addition to the known encounter.

Optionally the following table for flavor text to narrate as a transition into the encounter. E.g., "You pass a row of thirteen crosses. Only one of the people on them is still alive, a young man with his nose cut off and his legs broken. Then, as the road turns, you see …"

heap of charred bodies by the road
row of real crosses by the road
people buried up to their heads in the road
A procession of snakes across the road
Vultures circling above the woods to the east
A stream running red
Torn clothes and trinkets littering the road
Scorched or frosted or melted stones by the road
An army fresh and in high spirits
An army retreating screaming and bloody

1 Cult Caravan

The party has fallen in with or otherwise observed a caravan and has spotted cult activity in one of the parties. What so they do? Here are some tables to flesh that out.

Generate caravan

Caravans have 1d20 parties. 1 of those will be the cult if the cult is present.
Each party has d12-2 guards, with default cargo value = 100gp/guard. 50gp unguarded. 10x value for cult party.
1/6 chance of interesting cargo seller who might part w for coin or service.
1/6 chance of bard.

Identifying cult party

Cultists will give themselves away by:

Ritually murdering people and creating suspicion and/or physical evidence
Having cult periphernalia in their belongings
Wearing concealed cult insignia
Trying to convert other parties
Being super creepy and secretive
Retiring to a quiet place to perform:

Sinuous dances
Bloodletting
Poison eating
Sibilant chants
Snake adoration
Torturing

Typical approaches to identify cultists:

Just hang with the folks. They will tell you without prompting if weirdness has been going on.
Spy on a party
Rifle through a party's stuff
Talk with a party to get a feel for them

Complications and red herrings (1/3 of the time or as seems good)

The cult knows you're there and is simply waiting for a time to strike
The folks informing on the cult? ARE the cult. They hope to make you shed innocent blood, then kill you
Venomous snakes in your stuff
Poison in your drink
Not a cult party, just a greedy merchant trying to use party to elimate a rival
Not a cult party; just a jilted lover trying to get revenge
Cultists are actually trying to get out of the cult
Cultists are actually mercs who've had enough
Cultists are actually faction members
Cultists are members of the lawful good Conservators faction of Tiamat's cult; they will only fight in self defense and have stolen the goods from the rival Stormfront faction
Not a cult party, just weirdos
Not a cult party, just a poor desperate family who found the goods among the inexplicably dead cultists (they died from a wandering apothecary's dubious elixirs; he is a serial killer; add him to random encounters table; if asked family remembers bottles of cloudy red glass; the apothecary still uses such bottles)

2 Lead to Dungeon

Throw in a dungeon that contains a dragon mask, a wyrmspeaker (with dragonmask), a wearer of purple, an awesome magic item, a dragonslaying item, or some other campaign-specific prize.

3 Village Siege

Use my previous besieged village generator post. Its besiegement is visible from the road, either because it's on the road or because the you can see/hear the smoke/screams/refugees/massing attackers.

4 Special

When you get the special result:

cult assassins
monsters
bandits
bard
merchant
faction member
refugees
refugees

Cult assassins (5 of them, always) wait until the party is most vulnerable, then strike.

If striking from surprise, they attack with advantage and hit critically and force death saves. Keep making the saves until you get 3 failures or three successes.

They have five approaches which will correspond to the primary or accent color of their clothing. You can fake out the players by having innocent parties dress in similar colors.

ambush on road (blue)
open attack on road (red)
poison by putting snakes in belongings or by poisoning food/drink (green)
murder while sleeping (white)
disguise (black)

Ambush on road means that you make the surprise attacks and then have the cultists run off unless they are confident of victory.

An open attack on the road means that five guys show up and straight attack; party has time to prepare, no surprise.

Poison means they will attempt to poison food/drink without being detected by the players.

Murder while sleeping is like that scene in Bree from Fellowship of the Ring.

Disguise means the cultists appear to be a different special encounter (roll or choose again), and then they use one of the other approaches when they are in an advantageous situation.

Monsters means you show a monster attack:

having recently happened
in progress, PCs stumble on it
happening to PCs right now
about to happen, but PCs might prevent it

In any case, the monsters can be tracked to their lair in this hex. Treat as a lead to a dungeon (see dungeon rules above). The tracking roll should mean wasted time on < DC 12 and an encounter before the lair is found on < DC 18.

Bandits 2d8 of them are the same as monsters, but only 1/3 of the time will they lair in a dungeon. The other 2/3 of the time it's just a small camp.

They are risk averse and primarily want money, supplies, food, and fancy clothes. 1/3 of the time they want something worse. 1/3 of the time they are professional bandits; the others are deserters from one army or another and still have the modified regalia. Heads of such bandits are valuable to army commanders.

Bards traveling alone are desperate. They're running from:

the law
a creditor
a monster
bandits
cultists
relatives of someone with whom they've had a romantic disagreement

Having a a bard in your camp means you get +1 on all HD rolls in camp if you listen to his songs or stories and after a long rest you start with your proficiency bonus in temp hp.

You should use bards to ask the PCs dramatic questions and to provide alternate perspectives. Award inspiration if players make or accept an overture to bond or become more intimate with a bard (or any character). Bards make overtures wanting:

respect
reassurance
friendship
approval
confidence
relief

Bards also have a 1/6 chance of knowing what's up with any bit of lore. "Oh I know what that word means."

Give each bard a style. Just think of a band or musician and clone them.

Merchants have special stuff for sale. They may be running from something as a bard or may be part of a caravan (50/50 cult presence).

What they sell is special: cursed 1/3, amazingly campaign-relevant 1/3, otherwise very useful 1/3.

What they want is: a trifle as they have no idea what it is or think that it's cursed 1/3, a ton of money 1/3, a favor 1/3.

Their favors are from this list: kill, kidnap, humiliate, recover, escort, procure, convert, perform.

Faction members may be running from something as bards, but they want to join and help you. They know the location of a nearby dungeon, cult stronghold, urban cult hideout, or village soon to be under siege.

Refugees are running away from armies or cultists or destroyed villages.

They are pitiful and need your help. Use them to just see what the players do and to drain their resources and to ask them dramatic questions. Can also be used as red herrings if they behave or dress a bit like cultists.

1/3 of the time their village is still under attack and is nearby.

They are fated for disaster unless the party takes steps to care for them. If they don't, show the party the grisly outcome.

Actual Play: Hoard of the Dragon Queen Episode 3b

2014-10-18T00:24:00.001-05:00

Last session, the party entered the dragon hatchery and cleared a few rooms. Tonight, they bulldozed the thing, but it was tense the whole time.

I don't believe the dungeon is intended to be owned so hard, but I had my revenge.

Things that happened

The party encountered the half-dragon with his brace of berserkers in the dragon shrine. They took one surprise round and destroyed him, then killed the berserkers over the next couple of rounds.

The party didn't fall for the trapped small chest. They lassoed it from afar and dragged it toward them, triggering the trap from a safe distance.

The barbarian climbed up the chute to the wearer of purple's quarters, got her to investigate the rug that covers the chute, then grabbed her leg when she uncovered it. He threw her down to the bottom of the pit and fell on top of her.

They kept her alive and unconscious and investigated the hatchery.

Unfortunately, the roper killed the level 3 half orc barbarian. He was scouting via darkvision, got glued in place by hidden kobolds, lost initiative to the roper, and got chomped on. It was sad.

Silver lining: while the roper was digesting his meal, the party tossed a couple torches down to the pit and filled a couple dragon eggs with arrows.

The rest of the party (3 folks now) retreated from there, only to hear the wearer of purple screaming out in pain—she'd regained consciousness. The rogue euthanized her, but not before the guards in the room above heard the noise and came to investigate.

With some quick thinking, they dragged her body out of visual range; so, when the guards looked down the shoot, they saw nothing. At that point, I had them split into two groups: half waiting in the room and half circling around to investigate.

But before the other group could come and flank, the rogue decided to check out what was happening in the room above. He was instantly pulled up and overpowered. They interrogated him, and after some failed bluffing, hauled off to be interrogated more thoroughly in the next room.

That's when the paladin offered to parlay. He lied about their numbers and showed them the severed heads of the wearer of purple and the half-dragon and said, basically, give us our rogue back, or you guys get the same treatment.

The intimidation kinda worked. The guards retreated, but they slit the rogue's throat on the way out.

Or at least tried to.

I ruled that it wouldn't be necessarily fatal; they were doing it in a rush, and who knows?

The rogue made all his death saves, and they made a bandage and kept pressure on the wound.

At that point, they took their treasure and left. On their way out, they could see the cultists booking it and the remaining hunters watching the scene with amusement.

The hunters took a liking to the half-dragon's severed head and offered basic medical treatment to the rogue and lookout service to the party while they took a short rest. In exchange, they got to keep the head.

"Just feel of it, Jethro."

"Aw, that's nice. Got a good weight to it. Y'all want some of this grizz jerky?"

Next time

Next time, they're off to chase down the goods stolen from Greenest. I imagine they'll ambush the cult's carts, interrogate those who live, and we'll be done with that bit within an hour or two.

It was a ton of fun, and the surviving members level to 4. The poor barbarian's player is going to jump in with a level 1 healbot for next session.

Taverns

2014-10-17T15:21:00.001-05:00

Taverns are content generation/distribution hubs for your game. They are the Assassin's Creed-style synchronization points where the new quests become visible. They offer several activities:

Rest
Rumors
Minigames
Bards

Rest. Rest is the obvious one. There are beds, food, and drink here.

But you can spice it up by offering small XP rewards for trying the house dish or the speciality drink. Perhaps = coin spent. Exaggerate some feature of normal cuisine and go over the top with it: the cruelty of veal, the mushiness of mashed potatoes, the spiciness of chili, the size of the biggest hamburger you've ever seen.

If you're in a big city and want to encourage them to take a tavern as a home base, you could offer XP only for items from this tavern.

Or more likely they'll pick a favorite anyway, no need to incentivize. If you want the fiction to exist, just be sure to ask what they're having and present interesting options.

Rumors. Learn of rumors by eavesdropping, chatting people up, or asking the bartender.

The procedure for doing this is: just ask if they're looking for rumors. If so, dock them time and money: that's what they're doing this city turn.

Then generate the rumor. Then decide what source best suits it: eavesdropping maybe. Then transition into the fiction: "You're sitting at the table—what are you having, by the way? The neon pheasant? Then you hear a heavyset fellow with a beard like a waterfall of pitch mention sonething about that cult getting more pushy. What do you do?"

In that example, the players might fail to get the rumor. But other times you can just say, "you heard some folks talkin about the Marseltons: they just up and abandoned their mansion—probably lots of loot still there for the taking."

Minigames. These are fun diversions. If you're playing face to face, let the players wager money on things like:

Thumb wrestling
Darts
Dexterity games
Paper rock scissors
Guess a number
That hand slapping game
Blackjack
Liar's dice
Dice tower building
Jenga

Either (a) always generate their opponent and play the person up, or (b) just use skill checks until the player misses: a miss indicates a worthy opponent; generate her now and actually play out the game.

These opponents can turn into allies or enemies, and you've already got some shared history.

Bards. Bards spout lore, usually unintentionally. Check to see if there's a decent bard playing. 1/6 of the time, yes, and he's spouting lore in his verses. Generate the bard and his lore according to the procedures detailed elsewhere or upcoming.

Bards always need something: fame, money, drugs, love; and if you can help then out maybe they'll go on tour with you and tell of your exploits.

Describing a tavern. Give it a name if you must, then describe one unique thing. Like a bunch of goth teenagers hang out here because the drinks are all red and black.

Or just make them boring. That's fine too.

Terse Hexcrawl Encounters

2014-10-17T11:46:00.001-05:00

Most of these are stolen from fiction, mostly Vance and Clark Ashton Smith.

An ogre living in a house, 12 young kids captive, oldest a tyrant, farming cabbages, eats excess children. Has potions in a cabinet. d20 doses of each. Each sip takes you up or down a size category: min small, max large. (Vance, Suldrun's Garden)

Mirrormere. Lake shiny like glass. Shows you how you really are. If you don't know, ask the PC. If the mirror is broken and a PC falls in, the PC can reject what the mirror showed her and change, just like that, if desired.

Tunnels of the centipede people. They inject you with venom to make you love them. Whenever hit on an injection attempt, keep making death saves until you succeed. Success means the injection wasn't precise enough. 3 failures means you love the centipede and all centipedes now; they are your only loyalty. Venom wears off after a week or so. They have sweet loot and will oppose the dragon cult because the world is theirs by right; they have tunneled up to claim it. They speak draconic and are 4d4' long, top chitin AC 20, bottom chitin AC 14. (Arnold K at Goblin Punch, I believe.)

Necromancer with tragic childhood in ruined tower with eight apprentices. Building a masterpiece of a necromorph that will express the trait that he himself was mocked for lacking. (Gargantuan size is always great.) Will be done in a week, and then he will use it to wreak havoc across the macro-hex until visiting the nearest city and getting his revenge on those who mocked and scorned him (Clark Ashton Smith). Example: if a dwarf, builds a giant. If ugly, builds a thing of exquisite and horrible beauty. If missing an arm, builds something with four arms.

Naiad pool. The trio desires polite conversation and will reward with riches from bottom of pool. You cannot fight them; they are made of water and can meld into the pond. Magical ice and so forth might work. Offend them, and they will send bees to live in your eyes and blind you. Counts as a curse. Beautiful music agitates them, and they will leave if it is loudly maintained (Vance)

Orc camp (generate as cult camp but fewer and more barbarous). They are preparing to ravage a nearby village, which contains a wonderful megalith-library where you will find the answers to three likely questions. If the orcs are not prevented, they will shatter the library in three days.

Sunken library: an elegant tower emerges from the earth (or water). If the window is opened, you may descend into a majestic forgotten library. When a character has a question, roll a d6. On 1-3, the library has the answer. On a 4, it has a lead to the answer. Per character per day there is a cumulative 1% chance of finding the answer to that question—if the library has the answer. It has a guardian. A huge flying fox who must agree with the reasons for study and has many arbitrary rules. He is suspicious of practicality and is not naive. He is a sad fox, for he has seen much of the world. If he dies, the library begins to crumble and sink. (avatar the last air bender)

Blighted land: manor house and village overgrown. Twig blights. Magical secrets inside, and wealth.

Dead field. Bodies not decomposed dead from battle. In the middle of the field are two piles of bodies twice as tall as a person. All armor is the same; they do not appear to have been on different sides. No signs of violence. Rubble around; this used to be a castle. The bodies cover a mound of earth. Inside is a sarcophagus containing a princess who still lives. The other mound has a prince. They were to be married when the oxygen-eater attacked. They don't like each other though and are relieved not to have to marry now. She is prideful, and he is prejudiced, being richer and classier. They have fancy jewelry and clothes.

Exploding parasites from beyond. As you arrive in the village a man climbs to the top of the church and looks to the sun and explodes. Worms burst from his body and enter those standing nearest. The others creep toward people. People are running. Save a kid that's fallen behind or help a mother run inside to get her newborn. Help invalids lying against walls, or help the fallen grandfather left to die by family. What do they do with the worms? The infected? The hard liners? The bleeding hearts? Ask about patient zero, he was a treasure hunter, gone off that way. Meteor impact site. Awesome tech. Also meterorite from which the worms are spreading. They halt at chanted scripture.

Hamlet of Felix. Unwilling ghoul haunting graveyard, still remembering past life. Gnolls in caves. Compromised cleric. Manslaughtering sheriff. Corrupt dwarf merchant. Dragon items / lore for sure in gnoll cave.

Grassy Gnoll. Tough gnoll covered in grass. Animates and tries to pulp you into nutrients. The grass here is pink and is an organism. Those sleeping are encased or used as zombie or else pulped to enrich the soil. Cursed land. Hut nearby. Man with child on leash. Skeletons. Child skeleton is killing another with a knife, and both are eating the third. Necromancy and warlock books. Dispel the curse by burying the child and victim and burning the man's bones.

City Encounters for Hoard of the Dragon Queen #hdqRemix

2014-10-17T02:06:00.000-05:00

So the players go to a city (as opposed to a village). Here's what you do.

I apologize for having only 6 real encounters. I'm trying to get something written up quickly before tomorrow's game. I'll revisit this and update it with more content.

Cross off each entry as you use it, then replace with a new one of your own devising. Each encounter should present and risk and/or reward (tailored to the campaign, in this case Hoard of the Dragon Queen) or a dramatic situation.

I'll expand in later posts about what I mean by "cult lore". For now, just treat them as rumors—leads to risky reward or simply reward.

By "transition" I mean, effectively, a cutscene or establishing shot. Something brief that establishes where we're resuming the fiction, what's around, and what it looks/feels like.

Procedure:

begin turn (I use 6 hours)
ask the players what action the want to take (hit taverns for rumors, for example)
check for random encounter (1/6)
transition into encounter, preempting or interrupting action
resolve encounter
if players wish to change action, fine
transition into action
resolve action
end turn

Encounters:

A hurrying porter drops a book without realizing. It's a freshly copied codex containing 1 item of actionable cult lore (q.v.).
The most observant PC notices an elderly man watching them intently, then looking away.

That's it. Proceed with the action.
For the next turn, if the players say they're looking out for trouble, or are otherwise taking precautions against ambush, they spot an ambush of 3 cultists and can react normally when they attack.
Otherwise, DC 15 Perception check using the best stats among the PCs.
On a failure, 3 cultists surprise attack a single PC (the weakest looking or most exposed, or randomly). That PC needs to make 3 death saves.
The cultists retreat to a safehouse (for instance, Jotan's Jewelers) as soon as possible unless they're positive they can finish the job.

A three year old girl (named Faun, faded flower-pattern dress, yellow ribbon in hair)

yells "Mommy" or "Daddy" and runs up and hugs one of the PCs
then looks up to realize it's not Mommy or Daddy. Collapses in sobs.
A kind-hearted priestess (Aster, shaved head, missing eye) rounds the corner,
says "Oh, Faun," tries to pick her up and hold her, but Faun resists and cries on ground.
Aster: "I'm sorry; she's always getting out. She thinks she's going to find her parents."
She's not. Her parents were killed by the cult.
Aster: "The orphanage is over that way. I hate to ask everyone, but we could really use some money. And if you could come by and tell some stories or play some music or whatever you can do, I'm sure the kids would appreciate it."
Proceed with play.
In a few days, if no one has gone to talk with Faun, present this encounter instead of a random one: Faun, half-hidden under a dirty blanket, dead by violence.
If, before then, a PC does go to visit her, have her be unresponsive.

If the PC remains patient and genuine, Faun will want to sit on the PC's lap and will ask for a story. This will be relaxing for her.
She will cry and not want the PC to go and make the PC promise to visit her again. If the PC doesn't, the party will find Faun dead as above.
If the PC does visit her again, she will be responsive to what the PC says, will grow up and have an ordinary but mostly happy life, taking over Aster's duties, unfailingly loyal to the PC and holding resolutely to the PC's ideals and attitudes.

A pair of cult thugs shaking down a merchant for protection money. Can be tracked to their hideout (say the Silver Horn tavern's basement), where 2d4 of their fellows reside.
A busker like Bob Dylan. No one pays attention to him, but he unknowingly spouts a piece of cult lore. He doesn't know anything about it; it's just a story his mother used to tell him.
Three fancy cultists at a mask vendor.

They're being real jerks, asking to look at every mask. "No, something with horns on it, don't you have something with horns on it? I was told you have something with horns on it. Anything blue, then?"
They're trying to find a lost dragon mask.
If the PCs wait to eavesdrop, the fanciest hatted one provides his card to the merchant: "Bertram Wooster, Solicitor—Inquire at the Barded Heifer"
The Barded Heifer has a locked upstairs wing containing a cult safehouse as well as storage for three wyrms (Alien-ish chestburster leech-things that turn people into kobolds, who later turn into halfdragons) in suspended animation, courtesy of as many vats of amber jelly

City Procedure

2014-10-15T12:05:00.001-05:00

I love procedures. I need them. I like to look at a list and see the next thing I need to do. Do it enough, and it's internalized.

I've got dungeons. I know exactly how to run them, as does practically everyone else.

I've more recently acquired hexcrawl competence, and now I want to expand that to settlements (not that lacking that competence stopped me from muddling my way through a city campaign).

So here is a first stab at a city procedure, together with a sketch of a city to be passed through in Hoard of the Dragon Queen. There's not enough there to use for a whole campaign, but cities in HDQ are just meant to be stopped in briefly.

The elements of the city (look, encounters, taverns, etc) have generative procedures, but I'm not going into that now. What I'm trying to hammer out here is the procedure for actually linking up the elements of the city into a smooth, gameable thing.

You know how it's no sweat to run a dungeon, and you're not fumbling for what to do next?

The idea is to reproduce that in the city.

CITY PROCEDURE

Begin turn.
Ask the players what they want to do, and tell them options if they don't have something in mind.
1. Tavern: here they can find rumors, bards, and rest.
2. Shop: shopping.
3. Contact: if they know of someone or a group (like a faction of which they're a member), let them know that they can get in touch with a bit of asking around
4. Explore: if you have points of interest or random encounter tables, you can present this as an option.
5. Special: any special features of the district that are obvious, like if you've made a coliseum where they can participate in gladiatorial matches for cash.
6. Objective: anything else they want to do falls under this category.
Once they've told you what they want to do, check for random encounters, if you're going to.
Determine the turn length. This is how long it takes to get something done (like getting rumors from a tavern), and it's the schedule random encounters are checked on. 6 hours is fine, but scale up or down as feels right, from hours or minutes to months.
If a random encounter is indicated, interrupt their action with it and resolve it.
If they wish to change their action because of the encounter, accommodate it.
If the action involves entering a new district (including the first time they enter a city), narrate a transition.
1. If it's a boring village or district, or a place you don't intend to be a play hub, then it's either "average village", or "unremarkable district"
2. If it's not boring, take a moment to think about what makes it unique and describe one or two of those things (pink gulls, towering walls, skull-lined gates) and how the people look, if interesting (pirates, metal, bird costumes)
3. If it's not boring, do an encounter as part of the transition from wilderness/district to district. This is part of its intro cutscene, so to speak. Examples: a rowdy duel between outlandish personalities, a market where all are masked and selling items hidden beneath velvet drapes, mounted bullfighting.

If they would encounter a special feature of the area (you've found the blue palace!), handle it as a random encounter.

Cut to the interesting part of their chosen action and resolve it.
End of turn.

Baldur's Gate

People are aggressively insecure
Cracked wood white sails, salt and trade, casual violence
Pirate haven, founded by pirates, rum in everything, argh me mateys

The Sugar (rowdy market on harbor)

mostly sellers of sugar from all over, in all colors, for consumption and display
+1% XP to next level if you become enthralled with a piece of sugar jewelry and simply must have and wear it (1d20 gp, random color and shape)
Kurtz (desperate female Clint Eastwood, wants to buy a stilt-house and sell jewelry, ah, that's the life), sugar merchant (specialty: magenta, with chartreuse particles in the crystals, from an island called The Croaks where giant frogs grow legs on their backs and are essentially reversible), extorted by cult; you see two thugs demanding money and threatening her, then leaving. She'll tell you about them and will try to kill them if you don't. She'll succeed 50/50. She'll team up and join party if prospects for cash look better.
Broadsides: buy a share in a cheaply made boat rigged with cannons. Make it a QTE game or push your luck game with death saves. Generate a captain; or, if you're trained, you can captain your own and get double the payout.