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Post by Scott on Aug 8, 2021 14:36:21 GMT -5
I am going to get strict with encumbrance now. They haven't been really abusing it. The worst thing is all the potions they carry around and never use. Also they will now have to carry spell books. They have a decanter of endless water, and two 10th level clerics that can cast create food and water. At that level one spell can create enough food to feed 30 people for a day, so they probably won't carry any rations or water. They have two bags of holding. Findros, the NPC elf, wears non-magical plate mail, so if that doesn't change they will stilll travel at a movement rate go 6", but they have the capacity to collect some treasure. If they encounter the lich and get his portable hole, that would be a huge win for the party.
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Post by grodog on Aug 8, 2021 14:45:02 GMT -5
If they encounter the lich and get his portable hole, that would be a huge win for the party. I began writing an entire sub-level complex for Asberides, with the cave in D1 as the front door Allan.
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Post by Scott on Aug 8, 2021 14:49:23 GMT -5
I always wanted to do more with Asberdies. He's just this lich chilling on a ledge at an Underdark rest stop. I pegged him as a Suel wizard who has a more elaborate lair that he can escape to. Or maybe he had to abandon his former lair and he's here slumming and plotting revenge.
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 8, 2021 15:44:30 GMT -5
I feel that way about any monster given a proper name in one of the classic modules. It always makes me want to develop them more and provide role-playing opportunities beyond just "fight the monster." I had imagined Asberdies to be Suel as well which is a logical choice considering where is he is located below the Hellfurnaces. I pictured him as a Pre-Cataclysm archmage, perhaps with some relationship to the Mages of Power and the Lost Passage of the Suloise. I always thought it might be a nice way to tie in some of the history of Oerth to have a monster the players could talk to who remembered ancient times. Perhaps the powerful wizards of the Grand Suel Empire were among those who frequently visited Erelhei-Cinlu in the old days...
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Post by Scott on Aug 8, 2021 18:27:34 GMT -5
On that note, Obmi escaped with 20 gnolls. He lost his equipment, but he wil be around to torment future PCs, finding that lab in the Greyhawk dungeons. Nedylene may show up again. There's a 5E adventure, Out of the Abyss, that I was thinking about converting to Greyhawk, and I would include her in that. Asberdies, if he survives the encounter I will definitely expand on him. Exlavdra: if she survives she will definitely return to cause more trouble. Maybe her and Obmi will meet up similar to the Gord books.
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Post by Scott on Aug 21, 2021 23:54:37 GMT -5
8/21/2021 Session Jastra teleported the rest of the party one at a time back to Istvin. It took six days, and I thought for sure there would be a wandering monster encounter when there was just one of two party members left in the cave, but they got lucky. With the experience gained from the last session Ember made it to 10th level and Ingo reached 8th as a thief. While they trained, Findros copied a few spells out of Jastra's book, including teleport. Brewfest started while the party was in town. I tried to lure them out for an urban adventure but they did not take the bait. Jastra paid to have some charges aded to her wand of frost and Corbek had some added to his staff of curing. The Earl's spell casters provided the party with some basic info about the drow and told the elves and clerics they would have to be extra careful. After training and Brefest the party decided to start their Descent into the Depths of the Earth. It was Patchwall 1, 577 CY. The current party: The Party: Plāsolder: 10th level human fighter Corbek: 10th level human cleric (St. Cuthbert) Jastra: 5th/10th level gray elf fighter/magic-user (F) Ember: 10th level human cleric (Pelor) (F) Findros: 5th/9th level high elf fighter/magic-user (NPC) Faeringar Bowman: 7th level human fighter (Corbek's henchman) Ingo: 5th/8th level gnome fighter/thief (Jastra's henchman) They teleported back to their cave base, but now that they had two casters that could teleport it did not take as long. The morning after everybody was there, they returned to the empty Hall of the Fire Giant King and made their way to the cavern with the river of lava. They took the northwest passage. When they were getting close to the hex with the eye image the party stopped and sent Ingo ahead, invisible and trying to move silently. I rolled some dice behind the screen and started counting off minutes. When I started getting close to 20 the party was ready to move ahead themselves, but suddenly Ingo appeared. He told the party that he saw a single drow who appeared to be on guard duty. The party decided to act like they were outlaws trying to escape trouble on the surface and heading to Erelhie-Cinlu to lay low. The party made its way to the spot where the guard was. He ordered them to stop and put out their lights. They mostly obeyed, hiding one continual light torch and dimming the other. The drow signaled his companions, and the party almost panicked when they saw one drown turn into 20. They came very close to attacking. Corbek convinced them to remain calm. They told their story to the drow. I rolled a reaction roll: 97%. The drow believed them. After a few more questions the drow let them pass. The party left the man passage. Their was animate on the map that they guessed meant mind flayers and the wanted to avoid them, so the took a western passage. They travelled until they felt it would be getting dark on the surface. They looked for a small cave or alcove to camp in, and found one without much problem. The party made a very bad decision here, and it hasn't hurt them yet, it has the potential to. They decided to post only one guard at a time. Corbek was the first guard. When everybody else was asleep, I said, "as you're on guard duty, you hear (softly) thp thp thp". It was nothing. It was just me playing up on the note that the party will hear strange noises. But this set off a 20 minute panic attack. Corbek woke everybody up. He cast true seeing. He shot a sunburst out of his wand of illumination down the hall. He placed overlapping continual light torches in a row lighting up a 240' length of the passage. He was sure something was coming for them. But nothing did. The rest of the night was uneventful. The party continued on their way back to the main passage. And as fate would have it, I rolled a random encounter: mind flayers and wererats. The party was surprised. Distance wa 10' so I ruled it was an ambush. It was late, so we decided to end it before starting combat.
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Post by Scott on Sept 3, 2021 8:51:19 GMT -5
I will be out of town, so no descending this weekend. One knock on D1 I've noticed is that a party focused on reaching Erelhie-Cinlu, which is kind of how the adventure is set up, has a good chance of just skipping most of it. The party negotiated their way past the first checkpoint. They skipped the mind flayer encounter. I rolled for random encounters for the each hex on the way to Erelhie-Cinlu and there are only two, one of them was the session ender detailed above. The cavern complex at the end of the adventure is laid out so that the party could very easily walk right through it without an encounter, or possible one with the drow stationed there, and another good reaction roll would mean that was another quickie role playing encounter. I could fudge the roll and force a combat, but that's still not a lot of action for what's considered one of the all time classics.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 3, 2021 12:27:40 GMT -5
It does seem like a lot of detail for a places the players are not 'supposed' to go to. If their goal is to get to Erelhei-Cinlu, then it is intelligent to avoid as many encounters as possible. I've always tended to look at the Caverns and Warrens of the Troglodytes and the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa as being overly prepared in case the players get side-tracked as players often do. Most players have an instinct to explore what they see as interesting or different. Plus they're conditioned by AD&D to think monster lair = treasure. It's also possible to add in sub-plots along the way, such as to interact with and help out the deep gnomes or other non-evil denizens of the Underworld. To me, D1-2-3 are more like sourcebooks than adventures.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 3, 2021 15:35:13 GMT -5
It's like a how-to on handling underworld wilderness as a guideline. You're right, the whole city is blank for room to room dungeon mentality. I always pictured it as a Trampier town but not as cartoony as Wormy. Over play, I added too many unGygax elements but in the same vein. 2 main villainous races were there along with other drow visitors from elsewhere who later evolved from gameplay into a separate race. If I were to run it now I might do a different approach with more spider cult material possibly from a different Lolth site to not mulch up what's there. The EEG temple is a rehash creatively so I would expand that too.
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Post by Scott on Sept 18, 2021 22:14:52 GMT -5
We had a short session tonight. Eric and Jill are leaving for vacation early tomorrow morning, but they did want to get a few hours in. Our last session ended with an encounter, mind layers and wererats, and the plan was to start the next session from there. But then I thought that's a long time for them to plan, so I decided to re-roll the encounter at the start of tonight's session. I was correct, they admitted to planning for the mind flayers in between sessions. The new encounter was a mixed drow patrol with bugbear muscle. There were no drow spell casters, so it was kind of a slog. The drow and bugbears were too weak to really hurt the party, and the drow's MR and AC mean most encounters are just long, drawn out exchanges of melee attacks. After the encounter, the party continued on. until they found a spot that looked like a good camp site. Again they posted just one guard at a time. Sooner or later that is going to cost them I think, but this time they were lucky. Early the next day the reached the Warrens and Caverns of the Troglodytes. They entered the Grand Cavern and I described all of the entrances and options they had, but they did exactly what I mentioned above. They tried to ignore everything and pass through as quickly as possible, "We've got somewhere to go". The drow sentries did spot them and the party shouted out a 'we come in peace' to the approaching dancing lights. A few minutes later they were approached by the drow from area 6. Another large group with no spell casters. I rolled very low on the reaction roll, so the drow were hostile. The leader cast a suggestion spell on Corbek, and he failed his save. After getting him to tell her what they were up to the drow tried to capture the party. Ember cast a dispel magic to remove the suggestion, and it was another long melee. The leader's death lance did create some tension, but she missed on every attack. When she things started going bad she tried to escape via levitation, but the party cut her down before she could get away. Ember did use Daoud's Wondrous Lanthorn to hold two drow, so they do have some captives to interrogate next time. I'll try to come up with something to entice the party into exploring the place before they move on.
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Post by Scott on Dec 29, 2021 12:15:39 GMT -5
The new baby and the holidays forced a hiatus on my gaming activities. I'll be in Florida next week, but I am ready to get back to the game after that. I didn't make it this far into the GD series to let it stall now.
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Post by geneweigel on Dec 29, 2021 14:45:59 GMT -5
It is walking around in the nude weather here in Florida. A police warning just said man stumbling around in just a blanket.
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Post by Scott on Dec 29, 2021 15:17:35 GMT -5
I know I asked before, but where are you at, north on the Atlantic side I think? I'll be in Bonita springs, near Naples. If I'm wrong and you're closer maybe we can grab a bite or a beer.
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Post by geneweigel on Dec 29, 2021 20:03:36 GMT -5
It is walking around in the nude weather here in Florida. A police warning just said man stumbling around in just a blanket. Yeah, I'm nowhere near there about 200 miles. That area Bonita Springs is more in the tropics. I'm in subtropics.
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Post by Scott on Dec 29, 2021 20:20:04 GMT -5
Ahh well, one of these days.
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Post by geneweigel on Dec 30, 2021 12:08:24 GMT -5
The nearest beach to me is Cape Canaveral which is an undeveloped "national seashore" and weirdly unFlorida-ish with no nearby watering holes (12 miles to civilization along a 25 mph desolate 2 lane road).
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Post by GRWelsh on Dec 31, 2021 15:23:23 GMT -5
The new baby and the holidays forced a hiatus on my gaming activities. I'll be in Florida next week, but I am ready to get back to the game after that. I didn't make it this far into the GD series to let it stall now. Congrats again on the new baby. I am glad you are continuing the GD series. I've played and DMed the G modules many times, but never made it very far into the D modules, so I'm looking forward to seeing how a competent, long term party will play them out.
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Post by Scott on Feb 13, 2022 0:47:09 GMT -5
2/12/2022 Session Report Finally picking the campaign again, taking over right where the last session ended. After searching the drow they had just killed they went to explore the caves where the backup drow came from. They found a small complex with lots of mundane supplies and personal items, but no real value. They encountered and quickly killed a nightmare that was stabled in a side cavern, but failed to search the stable and missed the treasure hidden there. The party then headed northwest up the main passage. The must have forgotten the previous plan to run through this place as quickly as possible, and they decided to explore the terraced stairs going down to the east they discovered. They sent Ingo the gnome down first to explore. He made it to the bottom of the steps, peered around, saw nothing, and returned to tell the party as much. so the party entered the cavern and immediately started casting deception spells, which triggered Asberdies. The party saw the rich rising from his ledge at the southern edge of the cavern and made a bad mistake. Instead of attacking immediately they spent a few rounds trying to buff and summon help. This allowed the litch to do the same and made the encounter much more dangerous. After a few rounds the lich had several mirror images to confuse the party and a pair of summoned succubi as fodder. After drawing the strong party members towards him Asberdies dimension doored to the rear of the party. After two rounds where the party learned the hard way that liches aren't affected by lightning and cold, 5 of the 7 party members were dead from magic missiles and a lightning bolt. Ember again used Daoud's Lanthorn to save the party from a TPK with a hold monster. Berserkers summoned with a horn of Valhalla had weakened the succubi and the party was able to finish them off. The party used the last wish from Corbek's ring to bring back the dead. After a very frustrating search the party finally found the portable hole and the treasures it held.
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Post by GRWelsh on Feb 13, 2022 12:10:59 GMT -5
I'm glad Asberdies put up such a good fight. I always thought that should be an iconic and memorable encounter. Did Asberdies get away?
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Post by Scott on Feb 13, 2022 19:51:02 GMT -5
They killed him, unless i rollout the Dragon phylactery rules. The cleric cast true seeing and was able to ignore the mirror images and then used the Lanthorn’s hold power. I thought for sure liches were immune to hold and it was going to be a TPK, but i couldn’t find anything to verify that, lucky for the party.
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