D&D Nov-25-2003
Dec. 2nd, 2003 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ralphmeltonOverall, I was very pleased with this session of D&D. At least three out of four players were, too.
Kevin couldn't attend, and I refused to do the vampire battle without him. (Dani failed to get that point and was arguing for the vampire attack for quite some time.) So folks agreed to plan B, go down to the Dragon and try to heal the pool of sickness that surrounds it, in hopes that it will help heal other pools elsewhere. This was much better than my original plan, because the mystic correspondences for the Dragon's pool are stronger than those for pools elsewhere.
My previous attempts to make healing the pools interesting had not worked out so well. For this one, I gave Lori a ritual of four spells to be cast at four corners of the pool, plus a fifth in the middle. This was to be followed by as many cure spells as she could manage, to give them a reason to stay if they were still in good shape. Lori fleshed out that ritual with her own words and gestures in a really nice way.
The fight did work out in a very dramatic way: Kyle, Larissa, and Prolix were subduing monsters while Liandra was declaiming their ritual. I quite liked that aspect, and so did most of the players. (Dani didn't answer when I asked, "Was that a more enjoyable way of healing the pools?" I'm annoyed.)
The part I didn't like: the players quite dramatically outplayed me.
Before going in, the PCs decked themselves out with lots of buffing spells--fly on everyone, improved invisibility on the fighting PCs, invisibility on Liandra. And because of that combo, the PCs kicked butt. The monsters usually couldn't find them, and if they did know where to look, they usually couldn't get there in time. In addition, some strategic uses of wall of force allowed them to win handily, and dump all of Liandra's healing spells into the pool with little risk.
I made quite a few mistakes on my side, as usual:
- The half-fiend umber hulk and the half-fiend gargoyles didn't use any of their spell-like abilities. Unholy blight could be useful in-theme.
- I'd been attracted to the 'cursed wounds' ability of the clay golem, so I stuck in a clay golem in slight disguise as a slime creature. But as written, it turned out to be essentially invulnerable to all the PCs' attacks, and the special effects of earth-related spells made little sense. So I reduced its magic immunity to mere energy resistance--which meant, to my surprise, that magic missiles worked on it just fine. (I should have given it a high SR, too.)
- I threw in an umber hulk to give them a little trouble with their force dome. I remembered that the umber hulk could tunnel underneath the ground, but I forgot that it had tremorsense to let them find the PCs, so it just wandered around aimlessly instead of acting.
Those mistakes were real--but the real fact was that I just got outplayed, and the situation I'd meant to be threatening enough to make them worry about when to stop casting spells and run away turned out not to be that threatening.
And the even sadder thing is that I get outplayed all the time. It feels like I could throw the Tarrasque at them and have them emerge victorious. I'm not confident of my ability to give them a stiff fight when it's called for. It's very frustrating.
Part of the problem, no doubt, is that I've never played high-level D&D before, on either side of the GM screen. (Well, two sessions in Tal's campaign. It wasn't enough to give me a feel for the way the game works.) But that's only part of the problem, and I'm not sure what the rest is.
I am terribly afraid of my players winning their vampire battle trivially because of some loophole that I forgot and they didn't. I've had to weasel already to settle the question, "why don't the PCs just waltz in with a Bag of Holding full of garlic?" But I'm feeling doomed to being outplayed.
Another detail I need to deal with is that of NPCs. The PCs do have some good NPC friends that they've rescued--but should that allow them to get all the buffing spells of another spellcaster before going into battle, the way they did last session?
Another example of the same thing: Dani has proposed that the party should recruit a high-level NPC cleric to go along with them on their vampire hunt. (He proposed this in the same e-mail in which he complained about Liandra getting too much screen time with healing pools. I found the juxtaposition horribly rude.) I don't want them to bring a higher-level cleric along, because I want to keep the focus on the PCs, not the NPCs.
But I'm not sure how to handle this in-game. High-level NPC clerics are rare, but they do exist. And many of them are not suitable for adventuring, or encumbered by their ties to the Land and its disease--but it does seem likely that there should be at least a few NPC clerics that would be willing to help. And it does seem that there should be someone willing to help out with a problem that affects the whole Land. So I'm not sure what to do there.
Kevin couldn't attend, and I refused to do the vampire battle without him. (Dani failed to get that point and was arguing for the vampire attack for quite some time.) So folks agreed to plan B, go down to the Dragon and try to heal the pool of sickness that surrounds it, in hopes that it will help heal other pools elsewhere. This was much better than my original plan, because the mystic correspondences for the Dragon's pool are stronger than those for pools elsewhere.
My previous attempts to make healing the pools interesting had not worked out so well. For this one, I gave Lori a ritual of four spells to be cast at four corners of the pool, plus a fifth in the middle. This was to be followed by as many cure spells as she could manage, to give them a reason to stay if they were still in good shape. Lori fleshed out that ritual with her own words and gestures in a really nice way.
The fight did work out in a very dramatic way: Kyle, Larissa, and Prolix were subduing monsters while Liandra was declaiming their ritual. I quite liked that aspect, and so did most of the players. (Dani didn't answer when I asked, "Was that a more enjoyable way of healing the pools?" I'm annoyed.)
The part I didn't like: the players quite dramatically outplayed me.
Before going in, the PCs decked themselves out with lots of buffing spells--fly on everyone, improved invisibility on the fighting PCs, invisibility on Liandra. And because of that combo, the PCs kicked butt. The monsters usually couldn't find them, and if they did know where to look, they usually couldn't get there in time. In addition, some strategic uses of wall of force allowed them to win handily, and dump all of Liandra's healing spells into the pool with little risk.
I made quite a few mistakes on my side, as usual:
- The half-fiend umber hulk and the half-fiend gargoyles didn't use any of their spell-like abilities. Unholy blight could be useful in-theme.
- I'd been attracted to the 'cursed wounds' ability of the clay golem, so I stuck in a clay golem in slight disguise as a slime creature. But as written, it turned out to be essentially invulnerable to all the PCs' attacks, and the special effects of earth-related spells made little sense. So I reduced its magic immunity to mere energy resistance--which meant, to my surprise, that magic missiles worked on it just fine. (I should have given it a high SR, too.)
- I threw in an umber hulk to give them a little trouble with their force dome. I remembered that the umber hulk could tunnel underneath the ground, but I forgot that it had tremorsense to let them find the PCs, so it just wandered around aimlessly instead of acting.
Those mistakes were real--but the real fact was that I just got outplayed, and the situation I'd meant to be threatening enough to make them worry about when to stop casting spells and run away turned out not to be that threatening.
And the even sadder thing is that I get outplayed all the time. It feels like I could throw the Tarrasque at them and have them emerge victorious. I'm not confident of my ability to give them a stiff fight when it's called for. It's very frustrating.
Part of the problem, no doubt, is that I've never played high-level D&D before, on either side of the GM screen. (Well, two sessions in Tal's campaign. It wasn't enough to give me a feel for the way the game works.) But that's only part of the problem, and I'm not sure what the rest is.
I am terribly afraid of my players winning their vampire battle trivially because of some loophole that I forgot and they didn't. I've had to weasel already to settle the question, "why don't the PCs just waltz in with a Bag of Holding full of garlic?" But I'm feeling doomed to being outplayed.
Another detail I need to deal with is that of NPCs. The PCs do have some good NPC friends that they've rescued--but should that allow them to get all the buffing spells of another spellcaster before going into battle, the way they did last session?
Another example of the same thing: Dani has proposed that the party should recruit a high-level NPC cleric to go along with them on their vampire hunt. (He proposed this in the same e-mail in which he complained about Liandra getting too much screen time with healing pools. I found the juxtaposition horribly rude.) I don't want them to bring a higher-level cleric along, because I want to keep the focus on the PCs, not the NPCs.
But I'm not sure how to handle this in-game. High-level NPC clerics are rare, but they do exist. And many of them are not suitable for adventuring, or encumbered by their ties to the Land and its disease--but it does seem likely that there should be at least a few NPC clerics that would be willing to help. And it does seem that there should be someone willing to help out with a problem that affects the whole Land. So I'm not sure what to do there.
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part 1 of 2
Date: 2003-12-02 01:25 pm (UTC)For the big vampire fight (and any other major fights you have planned), it will probably be worth your time to play through some scenarios in advance. Look carefully at the character sheets and decide how you would attack the problem if you were the players. Go ahead and use your knowledge of the world; it'll make up for there being only one of you. Or if you're worried about blind spots, recruit some friends to help you with this. This will help you find and fix loopholes before the players point them out. (Of course, you still want the fight to be winnable, at the appropriate point in time, but you don't want to be one-shotted.)
I liked this attempt to heal the pools. And going straight to the source rather than the other pools in Cardior was a good idea (Lori's, IIRC).
The monsters usually couldn't find them, and if they did know where to look, they usually couldn't get there in time.
Perhaps the monsters can learn from this, and dedicate one member of their group to finding invisible opponents. Detect magic? See Invisible + bags of flour? Dispel magic? (We knew going in that dispel magic would suck.) Of course, this assumes there's an intelligent force involved, and I don't know if that fits your model of the pools. But it's a thought. If we go back in the next day to do more healing, it's reasonable to assume that we will face tougher challenges based on recent learning opportunities.
I threw in an umber hulk to give them a little trouble with their force dome. I remembered that the umber hulk could tunnel underneath the ground, but I forgot that it had tremorsense to let them find the PCs, so it just wandered around aimlessly instead of acting.
This was an error that I wish I'd noticed at the time. Most of the characters had Fly, but Larissa did not. Larissa was polymorphed into a gargoyle, which is how she flew. Gargoyles cannot hover. So she would have been standing, or at least touching down periodically, on the floor. (It was only a 9' radius dome; I don't think she had room to zip around in little circles with three other characters in there.) I don't know if that's enough to make a difference to the gollum, but it's worth noting.
Of course, having said that, if we should find ourselves in the vicinity of another umber hulk, the obvious thing for Larissa to do is to spend a full round polymorphing into something that can hover. :-) (Unless, of course, you tell me that the characters don't know from umber hulks, which would be perfectly reasonable given that we didn't see it do anything.)
the situation I'd meant to be threatening enough to make them worry about when to stop casting spells and run away turned out not to be that threatening.
The first several rounds were threatening because we had to protect Liandra out in the open. Increasing the number of monsters coming at us (flying or with ranged attacks) would have had dramatic results. And maybe Agondre should be able to see invisible, so more of the breath attacks would have hit. (Though granted, that first one was a doozy!)
part 2 of 2
Date: 2003-12-02 01:26 pm (UTC)Neither have I. I wonder if Dani has; most of these suggestions have been coming from him. I wonder if he would be open to a direct conversation about how to make things challenging but not fatal. (Unfortunately, his track record on responding to requests for feedback has not been good, so you may have to push some.)
but should that allow them to get all the buffing spells of another spellcaster before going into battle, the way they did last session?
We didn't do that, though we talked about it. All the buffing came from Prolix (and Larissa for those using Mage Armor, and maybe Liandra for Barkskin). You rightly ruled that if we used the NPC spellcasters we'd have to share the XP with them even if they weren't in the fight, and we got greedy.
Larger parties cut down on the effectiveness of buffing, too. We left Turok out of the fight not just because Kevin wasn't there but also because we wouldn't all be invisible and/or flying with him included. In a normal fight we also have Slade, Tasha, and Hrolf to worry about; it was an unusual setting that allowed us to leave them out.
The high-level NPC cleric is a harder case. As you point out, since the matter is central to restoring the land, there should be some suitable cleric who's motivated to help. But finding him might be hard, and do we want to spend valuable time hunting one down? Or perhaps the clerics who are qualified are affected in greater degree by the malaise of the land (like the priests of Agondre) -- so they're all sick, or they will get sick if they get close to the pools or Weeping Wounds. Or maybe there is some metaphysical reason that the gods won't intervene in this matter (on either side) -- druids are different, and so far the clerics we've seen have limited themselves mostly to support (healing etc). Just some ideas, not necessarily useful.
errata
Date: 2003-12-02 01:43 pm (UTC)Re: part 1 of 2
Date: 2003-12-02 02:12 pm (UTC)I have been thinking of the pools as fairly unintelligent, just spewing monsters randomly. But I have thought of some ways to put some risks there...
Going back for mor ehealing the next day is probably not called for--it would be the same old same old.
an error I wish I'd noticed at the time
The error of overlooking that Larissa couldn't hover to avoid the tremorsense pales in comparison to my error at not remembering that the umber hulk had tremorsense at all. :-) If it came inside the force dome, hovering would not have been much of an escape.
And maybe Agondre should be able to see invisible, so more of the breath attacks would have hit.
Agondre still hasn't really taken notice of you--the breath he's hit you with is just spillover from him breathing on himself and monsters attacking him. If he ever does attack you deliberately, the question of whether he can see invisibility will become relevant. :-)
Re: part 1 of 2
Date: 2003-12-02 02:50 pm (UTC)Unless the pool looked better the next day than it had before we started -- that is, curing that lasts more than a day. (We would check. Or, at least, I would want to check, and I think so would Liandra.)
Umber hulk: ok, I remembered you mentioning the tremorsense, but I had forgotten when. I guess it was in the post-game discussion, not during the game itself.
Agondre: I certainly hope that Agondre does not view us as enemies. But if he's sufficiently far gone, he might view anything that moves as hostile. (On the third hand, though, the fact that I have my sword suggests that there's some level of awareness that there are good guys out there.)
Re: part 2 of 2
Date: 2003-12-02 03:00 pm (UTC)I've been so irritated by his e-mail of late that I'm not willing to try at this moment.
We didn't do that, though we talked about it.
I thought you had ended up getting one fly spell from Olver. Did your polymorph eliminate that?
NPC cleric stuff
At least some of the clerics who are otherwise qualified are hindered by their connection to the land--that's part of why Mairead isn't taking a more active role, for instance. But would that hinder all of them?
no subject
Date: 2003-12-02 03:19 pm (UTC)Re: part 1 of 2
Date: 2003-12-02 03:33 pm (UTC)Re: part 1 of 2
Date: 2003-12-02 05:35 pm (UTC)Re: part 1 of 2
Date: 2003-12-02 05:53 pm (UTC)Re: part 2 of 2
Date: 2003-12-02 05:59 pm (UTC)I wish I knew what else to try from my end. Various suggestions beginning "I think Ralph wants" have not been effective. I have not said anything beginning "Ralph said" unless you said it at a game, just because I don't know how much of what you tell me is meant for others. If you want me to be more direct, let me know. I am baffled by some of the behavior, particularly with the current vampire discussion, and am feeling frustrated there. (Presumably not as frustrated as you, but frustrated nonetheless.)
I thought you had ended up getting one fly spell from Olver. Did your polymorph eliminate that?
I thought it did -- otherwise I would have taken the Fly regardless of polymorph status (for the speed and the hover). I believe that Prolix cast Fly on three people, Improved Invisibility on three people, Invisibility on one, and See Invisible on one. (And the bull strength/endurance/etc, which I didn't track, the greater magic weapon for his +3 bolts, and of course the two walls of force.) His effective int is now up around 20, so that that seems plausible.
But would that hinder all of them?
That's for you to determine. It's your world. :-)
Re: part 2 of 2
Date: 2003-12-02 10:02 pm (UTC)I wrote a strong note just before the last game, but I didn't send it, because he was more pleasant during the session. And now, I feel that I've missed the moment.
Particularly now that we're moving towards the end of the campaign, I spend rather a bit of time fantasizing about not inviting him to my next game. Usually my fantasies are fairly polite: "Oh, I don't think this would be your sort of game."
In the meantime, I really appreciate your assurances about how much you're enjoying the game, for my ego is fragile like unto spun glass, and sometimes the reassurances are what keep me going when Dani's being unpleasant.
The part I didn't like: the players quite dramatically outplayed me.
Date: 2003-12-03 04:33 am (UTC)And that's because you let them. You need to realize that any time they do things like this, you're allowed to improvise to respond with an appropriate challenge. They don't know what goes on behind your DM screen, and you don't have to let them know.
The monsters usually couldn't find them...
...so the monsters got a magic boost from the pool...
...didn't use any of their spell-like abilities...
...so next time, you'll have a DM control sheet, shorthand for each monster, it's stats, and its important special abilities.
So I reduced its magic immunity to mere energy resistance...
So boost it back. Have it jump in the pool and jump back out, augmented.
When people GM, it's hard to match the players. It's hard to plan for everything they'll throw at you. Therefore, you have to improvise when they circumvent your plans. This will help to keep you from being unsatisfied.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 02:51 pm (UTC)One possibility is in twiddling the direction of influence some. Perhaps the land affects Larissa more than the other way around (not that she'd agree to get sloppy about that), while perhaps for Liandra it's the reverse -- she affects the land more than it affects her (except when she's right there on top of a pool).
Or maybe dealing with pools fatigues Liandra (in a non-standard way) -- she can heal them, but she has to direct some healing toward herself (even without HP damage), or healing spells the next day are reduced in effectiveness (because some is being channeled to sustaining her), or something like that.
Just throwing out ideas.