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Post by grodog on Feb 13, 2022 21:08:10 GMT -5
The lich immunities are one reason why I recategorized undead immunities across the board. Doesn’t make sense to me that most low- and mid-level undead are immune to hold but liches aren’t.
I would likely still have allowed the Lanthorn to hold the lich anyway, given its artifact-level powers.
Sounds like a good session, Scott! If the drow noticed the PCs kill the lich, they’ll likely treat them with much more caution!
Allan.
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Post by Scott on Feb 13, 2022 21:26:56 GMT -5
The party killed the nearby drow and then went down the steps to Asberdies' lair looking for someplace safe to rest.
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Post by Scott on Feb 14, 2022 14:46:42 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? Asberdies is definitely iconic, but you can't escape the tournament background of this series. A lich in that spot seems so random and out of place. The party made this encounter much harder than it should have been. With no guardians or protection to start with, a party that attacks first, especially with quick casting time spells, could kill the lich pretty quickly. And now there's the cursed items to deal with. As written it's a total campaign derailer
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Post by Scott on Mar 11, 2022 9:58:14 GMT -5
The party plans on moving on towards the drow city ASAP, ignoring the rest of the Caverns and Warrens of the Troglodytes for now. Now I have to determine how much effort I need to put into prepping the Shrine of the Kuo-Too. They could pass through the Shrine without much fuss and continue on their way. The Kuo-toans are another race with a lot of variation and special abilities, and not being ready can really slow the game down, but that's a lot of prep if they just make a dash through the place. I forgot about the 7th level paladin prisoner in the Shrine dungeon that the party could save. He could be a nice addition to the party if they find him.
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Post by grodog on Mar 11, 2022 19:42:44 GMT -5
There’s also another drow noble captured in vile durance, who’s a badass fighter, and could potentially join the party for a little while.
Allan.
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Post by Scott on Mar 11, 2022 21:08:13 GMT -5
Yes, she's also good opportunity to give the party some direction on their mission and advice on navigating the city.
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Post by grodog on Mar 13, 2022 6:03:53 GMT -5
Of course, the likelihood of the PCs finding her is rather low….
Allan.
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Post by Scott on Mar 13, 2022 16:01:15 GMT -5
3/12 session notes. Our session got off to a late start because Mike got stuck at work late, and then Eric and my kid called and needed a ride home from the movie theater. They were going to see Batman, but the theater had a no kids without adults policy. Eventually we were rolling. After I prepped part of the Shrine the party decided to stay and explore the Caverns and Warrens of the Troglodytes after all. They headed east in the main cavern. While exploring the magic pool they were surprised by three trolls that snuck up on them. The party is strong enough at this point that it was a minor annoyance. Using the detect gems power of a sword they got a bunch of gems out of the pool. They couldn't figure out what was magic or what the gems did. They then went and ground it out with the bugbears. Early on they ran into the sub chief. The party rolled a perfect reaction roll, so Ruddug, the sub-chief, parlayed with them. His flunkies were like, "Ruddug, chief won't like this", or "Ruddug, we should take them to drow". Having his name they successfully trapped him in the Prison of Zagyg. They interrogated him and got some general info about the place, and then they let him go. Suddenly the conquest of the bugbear caves was interrupted by a thought, 'the pool might be a wishing well and if you throw a gem in you will get a wish, so they returned to the pool. Looking for a gem to throw in they discovered that all of their gems had been turned into 1 GP gems. They got pissed and threw all the pool gems and all their 1 GP gems back into the pool and decided to leave. Again, while camping in a small cave off the main passage I said, 'your guard hears a quiet thp thp thp sound.' It was nothing, but they panicked again and spent 15 minutes discussing strategies for securing camp: "cast a glyph of warding", "what about guards and wards?", etc. Nothing came, they went back to sleep. The next guard shift: "Suddenly from the man passage you hear a soft, tck tck tck tck". Same thing. Eventually they got through the night. They next dat they encountered the Kua=Toan ferryman and got across the Svartjet without incident. After that they made it to the intersection where the deep gnomes were camped. The deep gnomes were unseen, but again a magic sword let the party know there were gems nearby. At that point the deep gnome leader, Trosli Garnetgetter, came out of hiding and introduced himself. The party and the gnomes talked for a while. The party trying to get info about the area, the drow, and the Kuo-Toa. They gnomes tried to get the party to pay them some gems for aid in attacking the Kuo-Toa Shrine, but the party was fresh out. They parted ways and we called it.
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Post by Scott on Apr 10, 2022 21:21:46 GMT -5
4/9/2022 Session Notes
The Party: Plāsolder: Human; 10th level fighter Corbek: Human; 10th level cleric of St. Cuthbert Jastra: Gray Elf; 5/10 level fighter/magic-user Ember: Human; 10th level cleric of Pelor Faeringar Bowman: Human; 7th level fighter; NPC henchman of Corbek Findros: High Elf; 5/9 level fighter/magic-user; NPC rescued from hill giant dungeons Ingo: Gnome; 5/8 level fighter/thief; NPC henchman of Jastra
Campaign Date: Patchwall 14th, 577 CY Picking up from the end of the last session: Before continuing on the party wanted to decide what to do with the incredibly valuable crown, scepter, and orb (195,000 GP total value) they discovered after defeating the lich in the last drow controlled outpost. The items radiated both magic and evil. The clerics thought that the items should be destroyed. Plāsolder believed there would be no harm just hanging on to the items and selling them once they got back to civilization. After several minutes of debating Corbek remembered he had a Rod of Cancelation and wondered if that would work. The party agreed to try it. The party placed the items on the ground, Corbek touched the rod to the crown. I rolled a saving throw for the crown: 2, the item failed and the magic was drained. There was a brief arc of energy and the rod corroded and crumbled in the cleric's hand, as they do after successfully draining an item. The party was not aware that the rod was a one shot item. Without trying to detect magic or evil again to see if anything changed they decided the crown was defending itself somehow, and must be very powerful if it could do that to the rod. They wrapped the items in a cloak and threw them into a crevasse. Now that that was resolved, the party continued on its way to Erelhei-Cinlu. They spent the rest of the day marching along the underground passage until they felt fatigue creeping in and found a small side alcove to camp in. The next day started with Ember casting create food and water, by now a standard routine. After eating they continued on their journey. About halfway through the day the party came to an intersection and threw me a curve ball and decided to take the smaller tertiary passage instead of continuing along the primary passage. The rest of the day and night passed without encounter. The next day started out the same. Early in the day they came to the spot on the map where the deep gnomes had told them the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa was located. What the party saw was a dead end. A search of the area discovered a secret door at the southern edge of the area. Being extremely paranoid, Corbek cast a true seeing spell to scan the area. He found no traps, but he did find another secret door on the western wall of the passage. The party decided to take the western secret door. Corbek took the lead, trying to get the max usage out of the true seeing before it expired. 10' beyond the secret doo the party found a 20' square chamber. Another secret door was revealed on the floor in the southwest corner of the place. There was another 10' wide passage heading west out of the north half of the west wall. The party examined the secret trap door. Under a loose stone there was a shaft going down. To avoid traps and noise, Corbek went down first, using his boots of levitation to float down the center of the shaft. At the bottom there was a small room and a narrow passage heading east. The rest of the party descended the shaft using the rungs set into the wall, and the headed east. After 40' the passage widened to 10' and ahead they could see another 20' square chamber with seven of large chests spread around the room. Before entering the room Ember cast a find traps spell and several traps were detected. With this knowledge the party was able to avoid or disarm the traps. The treasure haul was great, over 200,000 GP value in portable form. There were several magic items which the party was not able to identify, and an icon of Blibdoolpoolp. Plāsolder picked the icon up. Anyone touching has to make a saving throw vs magic or be transported to the elemental plane of water to stand before the goddess. I asked the player for his sheet and told him to roll a d20. He rolled exactly what he needed, just barely avoiding being transported. I said 'ok' and handed his sheet back. The party stowed the icon with the rest of the treasure. Somebody is going to end up in front of Blibdoolpoolp, the chance for being transported applies every time the icon is touched. To be continued.
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Post by Scott on Apr 11, 2022 7:49:56 GMT -5
After stowing the treasure they could carry the party returned to the chamber at the top of the shaft. The passage to the west ended after 30', but there was a well. The surface of the water was 6' down. Plāsolder, Corbek, and Ember went down the well using the water breathing power of Ember's Ring of Water Elemental Command. At the bottom the three explorers discovered a 6' diameter shaft going south. The party proceeded south. After about 140' the party saw a stone block on the ceiling of the passage that looked different than the rest. A quick examination determined that it was a door of sorts. The party covered their lights and opened the door. Beyond they could see a large, dimly lit pool. Shapes could be seen swimming in the pool. They quickly closed the opening and decided to return to the rest of the party. Once the party was back together they decided to try the original secret door they discovered. Through the door they found a 10' wide passage going east/west. They decided to go west. After 40' or so they came upon a storage area: crates, barrels, etc of fish, seaweed, shells, etc. None of it looked valuable. There were two doors in the western wall of the place. They choose the northern door and went through. Beyond the door they found 5 large Kuo-Toans, two appeared to be fighting each other, the other three were watching. The party had surprise and decided to attack. Shortly after the combat started more fish men started arriving. The combat was still going on when our session ended. Because their first combat encounter was with the monitors, the party believes the Koa-Toans are much stronger than they are as a whole.
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Post by GRWelsh on Apr 11, 2022 15:46:01 GMT -5
I'm enjoying reading these write-ups. The G and D modules have a lot of nostalgic value to me. I first bought my AD&D books in the fall of 1981 from a kid who was "getting out of D&D" and G1-3, D1-2 and D3 were the first modules I acquired after B2 and X1. I studied the hell out of them. Since they were higher level I didn't get to use them as much as B2, but I loved reading them when I was trying to understand how to design my own adventures. I got to play and DM the G modules quite a bit over the years... A kid DMed G3 for us in study hall and let me play one of his high level characters, a 12th level ranger with a ring of flying! Later, I DMed one of my regular players through the G series with his magic-user and henchmen. For some reason, I very seldom got to play or DM the D series (certainly, never the whole way through) even though it's been a huge influence on me over the years. So, it is a thrill to see players getting to experience it in a long-running campaign with a seasoned DM.
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Post by GRWelsh on Apr 11, 2022 15:52:07 GMT -5
There were several magic items which the party was not able to identify, and an icon of Blibdoolpoolp. Plāsolder picked the icon up. Anyone touching has to make a saving throw vs magic or be transported to the elemental plane of water to stand before the goddess. I asked the player for his sheet and told him to roll a d20. He rolled exactly what he needed, just barely avoiding being transported. I said 'ok' and handed his sheet back. Yeah, with a name like "Placeholder" he's just never going to die, is he!
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Post by Scott on Apr 11, 2022 16:38:37 GMT -5
Yes, it's been a treat DMing the series. You notice some things about the game and the treasure driven experience system at high level, and you begin to understand why name level was generally considered retirement level for PCs. The amount of treasure is huge. Encumbrance is a big factor. We're using the by the book spell memorization rules so the players consider that when deciding on emptying their spell slots and who needs the most sleep to memorize spells is considered when determining who keeps watch overnight. The monsters you need to challenge the party are stacked with a ton os special abilities you have to remember, etc. The amount of treasure in this series is crazy. Even with a portable hole and a couple bags of holding the party will be leaving behind hundreds of thousands of GPs worth of treasure thanks to the teleportation nerf.
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Post by Scott on Apr 11, 2022 16:43:03 GMT -5
There were several magic items which the party was not able to identify, and an icon of Blibdoolpoolp. Plāsolder picked the icon up. Anyone touching has to make a saving throw vs magic or be transported to the elemental plane of water to stand before the goddess. I asked the player for his sheet and told him to roll a d20. He rolled exactly what he needed, just barely avoiding being transported. I said 'ok' and handed his sheet back. Yeah, with a name like "Placeholder" he's just never going to die, is he! I don't know about that. He's been wished back a few times already. Currently the party is all out of wishes.
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Post by Scott on May 8, 2022 22:01:39 GMT -5
A lot of the GD series is slog. The series is so iconic, and they're great reads, but there are long sections that are just slog in play; giants, giants, giants, drow, drow, drow, etc.. That's what last night's session was. Encounter after encounter of kuo-toans. And they really are no match for a party in this level range. It might have been different if the party came up from the south, which seems to be the default expectation of the module, but my party came in from the secret door at the northeast corner, and it throws the Shrine's defenses off. The party also has a crossbow of speed, which was devastating during this session. Not doing a lot of damage, but it was one of those nights where the dice were going the right way for that weapon and and ruined so many spells. Every spell the priest-prince of the kuo-toans tried to cast was ruined because a crossbow bolt interrupted the casting. Va-Guulgh and his guards did inflict a lot of damage on the party, but they were never really in danger. The short version is the party just rampaged through the northern half of the shrine until they ran low on spells and then withdrew to rest and memorize.
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Post by GRWelsh on May 10, 2022 9:03:34 GMT -5
Those are combat heavy scenarios and I think the implication is to teach players to become something like a special forces team using stealth to get in, to strike hard, and then make a tactical withdrawal. The AD&D system tends to bog down when there are many combatants for the DM to roll for, and when the monsters don't have much chance against the player characters. Combats with masses of humanoids suck up a lot of time and can be tedious to adjudicate. I've DMed many a combat in which the players can't hit and the monsters can't hit and it seems to go on forever... and it's not just time consuming but also boring if the players don't feel threatened.
Did the characters try to talk to Kuo-Toa at all? I suppose that if they were caught 'breaking and entering' that wouldn't have been an option. But otherwise, it seems like it could have been possible to have some role-playing opportunities. It seems implied by passages in the text that there must be some options for player characters to travel in the Underworld without fighting all of the time -- especially in the Vault of the Drow, where they wouldn't last long if they did.
The D series is tough because it requires an expert DM to handle all of the variables. It's a very challenging environment.
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Post by Scott on May 10, 2022 15:03:59 GMT -5
The fact that they were tournament scenarios is a big factor too. They weren’t written for anything like a long term home campaign. Since it is the GD series I think I have to run them pretty straight, but they could use some heavy mods to work better as campaign adventures.
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Post by Scott on Jun 27, 2022 12:38:25 GMT -5
Somehow I missed a session write up detailing the party's rampaging through the Shrine. Not a lot of danger from the Kuo-Toans, the party has been good at not over extending themselves. They got lucky on a few rolls that could have teleported one or more of them to the elemental plane of water. With the items they have it's still a possibility. The party is currently camped in the tertiary passage to the east of the shrine and will likely pass through and head north along the main passage. They're approaching a super iconic encounter, Belgos and Silussa, but if they have their way, making it to Erelhie Cinlu as fast as possible, they will miss it. I thought the same thing about Asberdies and they found a way to stumble into his lair. The module text states: "There are three encounter areas which are possible along the route to the final section, although the players' hex map of the underworld shows but two ... are shown. but the really dangerous # is omitted- but hinted at through what a prudent group will hear when listening in the tertiary passage leading to the encounter area" What could they hear two miles away? Faint sounds of singing birds, a hint of light? Not sure but the intent would be that there should be some clue that something interesting is down the passage. I'll have to throw down the Reese's Pieces and see if they'll follow.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jun 27, 2022 14:15:19 GMT -5
I'm so glad you guys are still playing. I can't wait to read what happens when they get to the Vault of the Drow. It has been so many years since I had a high level party of regular players who could even possibly tackle such a scenario... I read D1-2 and D3 over and over again around 1982 as they were some of the first modules I ever owned and were a fascinating glimpse into high level play and also a non-standard environment. These modules have fired my imagination so much over the years!
I am still hosting Game Night and DMing but due to a series of circumstances we haven't been playing much. Last week I got Covid. Before that I had a grad party I had to go to. Before that Mark and Randy bailed at the last minute so I cancelled the game (I just wasn't prepared for the party to be down their two strongest fighters going into an undead barrow). In May I was in North Carolina. In April I had the cold from hell. I'm eager to get back to the AD&D game! The main player characters are finally getting into mid levels which is my favorite range for AD&D.
Belgos and Silussa are another one of those Gygaxian codes with letters moved around (and minimal addition): Bela Lugosi = Bel gos si lu (ss) a
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Post by Scott on Jun 27, 2022 15:25:15 GMT -5
I know the Bulges influence. I have never been able to figure out Silussa.
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