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Bobaloo

05-17-2005, 02:36 PM

Session 1

I've been meaning to write this since Saturday night, so the more time I waste, the more recall I'll lose. Here's what I can remember without the book, or my notes.

Our Sunday night gaming crew met Saturday night to kick off the World's Largest Dungeon for D&D v. 3.5

There will be spoilers for other WLD players, however, I'm going to try and make this readable for my players, so I won't do much "forward" spoiling. Not anymore than I would do FTF, anyways.

I don't necessarily want to do full blown play by play, but the characters entered the dungeon, went through the one-way doors and encountered the fatiuged orcs. The PCs engaged in minor talk, and did not attack. They moved on and explored about 20 rooms through the course of the night, first going generally eastward, until encountering the Kobolds. After that they bactracked, and headed north form the entry area. They actually covered more ground than I expected them to, and they went in different directions than I expected.

Some highlights of play follow:

The major Kobold Encounter was great from where I sat as DM. (There was a minor encounter where they ganked a lone kobold rider on a krenshar.) It was a great example of how important the inititiave process can be. In this particular case, the Kobolds in their mini-fortress had won inititave, so they were going to "firing squad" the First PC into the room. It turned out that the first PCto act called for parley. I want to give props to Taz for playing in character, as this behavior was well in line with his "exalted" character.

The other important thing that happened here was that they got to learn about the "hidden" plot, which is a common complaint regarding the Section A of WLD. So with the knowledge that Longtail, the wererat sorcerer had been the leader of a (now failed) humanoid coalition, the PCs went after the orc remnant. (Oh, BTW players: I figured out which secret door I have info to give you on.)

One lowlight of play form where I sat was getting bogged down looking for secret doors. To speed it up, I even fudge the official rules by not making PCs actually search each and every 5 foot section, taking it more as part of the general room search. The group may have been hurt by their rogue not being there as lead searcher. Generally this is a reminder to make more liberal use of the Take 10/20 rules in opposition to WLD's intro, for gameplay's sake.

Another highlight for spontaneous fun happened to be at the end of the session when they went into two room on opposite sides of the hallway, one had 2 fiendish darkmantles in it, the other 2 fiendish dire rats. So we had a split up party, who was technically out-flanked, leading to a pitched 4 round battle, where one of the PCs ended up unconcious and bleeding (but stabilized randomly!).

"Roll Call" (Which PCs appeared this session.)
Grunt, aka Grunty, Orc Barbarian 1
Warmage Bobaloo Jones, aka "W", Human Warmage 1
Theo, Human* Monk 1 (* going to take the Half-Fey template from Savage Progressions articles on Wizards' website)
Angelis, Astral Deva 1 (Monster class, from Savage Species)
Max, Ghaele 1 (Monster class, from Savage Species)

"Body Count"
Good Guys: 2 unconcious
Bad Guys killed or destroyed:1 kobold, 1 krenshar, 3 Fiendish Darkmantles, 1 Fiendish Rat Swarm, 2 Fiendish Dire Rats
Bad Guys surviving: 5 orcs, 5 kobolds and 1 krenshar

"Tale of the Trap" (This includes traps and hazards.)
4 activated: Acid Arrow, Black Mold, Burning Hands, Stale Trog stench
3 avoided: Black Mold x2, Filth Fever

Chiaroscuro

05-17-2005, 10:52 PM

Jim Hague

05-17-2005, 11:33 PM

Bobaloo

05-18-2005, 08:40 AM

Thanks for the write-up, it's very interesting. One question for you: The names seem kind of silly to me. Are they intended as comedy? Are you playing the game for laughs overall?

OKay, I lied, two questions: any observations on how the different classes did in the WLD combat scenes? I've heard that some of the rules of the module may alter spellcasting, so I'm wondering how your guys faired relative to each other. Especially without a cleric.

Thanks for posting!

-C.

The names are fairly comical, and it's a pretty light-hearted game. "Warmage Bobaloo Jones" is my son's character. He was trying to use my handle as his character's name in order to "suck up" to the DM, then added his class on the front of it. Then we spent the rest of the night trying to come up with a nickname to avoid the chosen name :). The only other one with real comedy is the Orc's name. The line is "Grunt, but Grunty for short." Theo, Max and Angelis would be considered fairly typical names in my games.

The "primary spellcasters" are the Warmage and the Ghaele. The Warmage class is a lot like the sorceror, with a focus on evocation, which was what my son was looking for as a first attempt at a spellcaster. The Ghaele has pretty close to clerical spellcasting ability. The only problem is that I don't think they're supposed to spontaneously cast curing spells, but I was allowing it. These particular spellcasters didn't have any of the spells which are supposed to be restricted, and my intention is to mostly ignore those rules anyways.

Bobaloo

05-18-2005, 08:42 AM

Huzzah! More victims for the WLD! Out of sheer ego, I'll be watching this thread for the PCs' arrival in Regions I, M and H! If you have any questions, feel free to post them - with the departure of Jim Pinto from AEG, it's kind of fallen to me to be the quasi-semi-official WLD person on the IntarWeb.

Thanks for checking it out. I've been following the other major threads here and at ENWorld, so I've read a lot of your help regarding the WLD, and I appreciate it.

Mr. Teapot

05-18-2005, 08:59 AM

They actually covered more ground than I expected them to, and they went in different directions than I expected.

You sound quite a lot like our GM after the first session.

Generally this is a reminder to make more liberal use of the Take 10/20 rules in opposition to WLD's intro, for gameplay's sake.

I really don't understand that advice in the intro when looking at the trap DCs we've encountered. I'm not sure if our thief has found any traps, or opened any locks, without using a Take 20. (Some of this may be our lower level but more numerous than average party.)

Jim Hague

05-18-2005, 11:10 AM

I really don't understand that advice in the intro when looking at the trap DCs we've encountered. I'm not sure if our thief has found any traps, or opened any locks, without using a Take 20. (Some of this may be our lower level but more numerous than average party.)

We-el, aside from some class abilities and Feats, you can't Take 10/20 to disarm a trap; that imminent danger problem and all of that. That said, I'm of the mind that several of the suggestions in the intro are easily ignored - the lack of Take 10/20 springs to mind.

Skadedyr

05-18-2005, 11:32 AM

We-el, aside from some class abilities and Feats, you can't Take 10/20 to disarm a trap; that imminent danger problem and all of that. That said, I'm of the mind that several of the suggestions in the intro are easily ignored - the lack of Take 10/20 springs to mind.
You can take 10 to disarm traps. Unless you're talking about WLD house rules and not the RAW.

Jim Hague

05-18-2005, 12:06 PM

You can take 10 to disarm traps. Unless you're talking about WLD house rules and not the RAW.

No house rule - Take 10/20 assumes there are no distractions or imminent danger. Traps qualify as imminent danger, and AFAIK, aside from the Rogue class ability that lets you take 10 in any situation (or similar abilities for PrCs), you can't Take 10/20 on traps. Mind, I could be wrong, and if you've a page reference (3.5 PHB or the relevant SRD text), I'll happily be so. ;)

Skadedyr

05-18-2005, 12:22 PM

The SRD says "threatened or distracted". There's no mention of "imminent danger" and I've never heard of anyone interpreting threatened to mean you couldn't use it on disable device.

http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/v35/SkillsI.rtf

Taking 10: When your character is not being threatened or distracted, you may choose to take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10. For many routine tasks, taking 10 makes them automatically successful. Distractions or threats (such as combat) make it impossible for a character to take 10. In most cases, taking 10 is purely a safety measure -you know (or expect) that an average roll will succeed but fear that a poor roll might fail, so you elect to settle for the average roll (a 10). Taking 10 is especially useful in situations where a particularly high roll wouldn’t help.

Jim Hague

05-18-2005, 01:45 PM

wdarkk

05-18-2005, 02:48 PM

I believe the danger from a failed roll doesn't count since you aren't concerned with that, merely focusing on the procedures. The example I remember from the books indicated climbing cliffs (dangerous) could be done with take 10, but not if an external hazard was present (goblins firing arrows at you, say).

I'd imagine disarming something that was currently superheated or any other situation where actually trying was dangerous even if you'd autosucceed wouldn't let you take 10.

And you can't take 20 on anything that has a consequence for failure. You _can_ take 20 on some pretty strange things, but it's not a good idea (you can take 20 on a spellcraft check to learn a spell by trying once to learn it every 20 levels and failing until the 20th, but it's rather silly).

Mr. Teapot

05-18-2005, 02:55 PM

We-el, aside from some class abilities and Feats, you can't Take 10/20 to disarm a trap; that imminent danger problem and all of that. That said, I'm of the mind that several of the suggestions in the intro are easily ignored - the lack of Take 10/20 springs to mind.

You'll notice that I specified finding traps (Search, not Disable Device) and opening locks, not disabling the traps.

Bobaloo

05-22-2005, 11:41 AM

On Saturday we had our second session of WLD. We had a player leaving town for the forseeable future and we're not playing next weekend, so we had a slightly long session.

The session started as the PCs were recovering from the wounds of their last battle from last time, where they basically took on two threats at once. This continued to be a slight topic of discussion, but I think I have it explained correctly in the both pairs of bad guys in rooms A13 and A15 are happy where they are (The Rats are feeding, the Darkmantles have an ambush set up.) So neither set is really looking to come on the PCs from behind, despite the logical opportunity.

Meanwhile, the recovery took some time where I mostly rolled random encounters, and applied the ones that made sense becasue the PCs had locked themselves in a room. So it mostly turned out to be A handful of tremors, a shriek, and the fiendish dire rats coming through the wall.

After they were recovered, they headed West (as much as they could, it ended up being mostly North), on the kobolds advice, in order to find Orghar's clan. The first encounter was with Stirges. If anybody out there can explain the rules-fu behind a Stirge's "effectively grappling" I'd appreciate it. It seems to me to be some sort of one way grapple, there the Stirge is grappling, but the victim is not. Anyways, they were dispatched without event.

Next they came across Bragdor the Ogre. This encounter went in bizarre directions, mostly because I screwed up Bragdor's starting position, and his hide check (I rolled rather than used what was in the book.) Bragdor is immediately spotted, and begins to charge the first PC into the room (Angelis). Once I realized that he couldn't get that far on a partial action, I had him throw his Javelin instead. This takes Angelis down. The Monk and Ghaele approach and the Barbarian charges? and does massive damage. Bragdor is "duly impressed" and offers parley (readying an attack if attacked). The monk comes in for a strike, Bragdor strikes the Barbarian down, but takes some more damage from the monk. Max the Ghaele is torn between who to heal, and how. He's going to have to grab a potion and administer it.

So, it comes around to Bragdor's turn again, and he offers parley again. Now I wasn't sure this was the way to go. He seemed to have the PCs on the ropes, in sight of the TPK. But, he was down to 5 hp, where a single strike coud take him down. The PCs accepted, and gained a new ally. (We also rolled it out for giggles. Bragdor would have missed the monk, and the monk then takes him down.) The PCs were very excited about the water being in the room and Grunty the Orc took the opportunity to shower. Bragdor, would not join them however.

We took a break here (I think), and I allowed the PCs to level. We also ordered pizza and watched the Preakness.

They checked out the other column rooms and continued North/Northwest. They fought some more F. Dire Rats and added Turag, Orc warrior, to their party. Grunty's clan gained its first member (the other PCs are Grunty's "advisors," in his mind.) From there they actually traveled into Region E. I explained the the walls were of a slightly different color and construction, in order to let them know they may have gone too far.

They explored the door with celestial writing, and noticed the hints of a trap beyond the door, at the end of the hallway. They turned back, as there were many other options to explore back in region A. However, this is direction they will probably go once done in A. (Since there's two celestials in the party, and they were intrigued.) Had they continued, I probably would have had a Lantern Archon make an appearance to dissuade them. I've decided that Region A doesn't have one, though.

This is where the game got kind bogged down, in that they were back in "the maze" but weren't really encountering anything, just a couple of minor battles. The ended up doing a big circle and found themselves back near the Kobold "stronghold." They made their way back to Bragdor's room to rest/recover. This was time to wrap it up.

"Roll Call" (Levels as of end of session)
Theo, Half-Fey/Half-Human Monk 1
Grunty, Orc Barbarian 2
Max, Ghaele 2
Angelis, Astral Deva 2

"Body Count"
PCs: Four unconcious and bleeding (Angelis twice, Theo and Grunty)
Badguys killed/destroyed: 12 Fiendish Dire rats, 4 Fiendish Stirges, 2 Fiendish Darkmantles, 1 Fiendish Rat Swarm
Badguys allowed to live: Bragdor, Ogre; Turag, Orc Warrior (joined party)

"Tale of the Trap"
1 activated: Confusion Throne (Grunty is cursed)
1 avoided: Glyph of Warding

Bobaloo

06-10-2005, 09:23 AM

Last Sunday, we continued with WLD. I started a draft on Monday, but couldn't access where I saved it on Tuesday, and didn't have time to work on it Wed or Thu. I'm half tempted to post my notes, as they are succinct and almost accurate. I'll leave the notes in brackets, and elaborate.

[Too much fruitless searching. However, major plot point was paid off, although almost fatal.] It was our 3rd session, and we seemed to be dealing with one of the major pitfalls I've seen mentioned in complaint/failure threads: Too much travelling in empty hallways and repetitve combat encounters. The PCs didn't fight anything new this week. I intend to be prepared with some "alternatives" this week.

However, I did get to use the "Empty Rooms" section from the front of the book, turning a room into an 100' spiked pit. I also turned a random encounter (of Orcs and Kobolds) into an opportunity to bring the PCs in direct connection with Orghar, the Orc leader they sought.

The encounter with Orghar was almost a TPK. For most of the battle, only one or two PCs were active in each round. A Brb 5 is a little tough for 2nd level characters. (The players will love this next bit, which I have known for some time, and thought was ironic/funny until the almost TPK.) As written, the only way Orghar even reacts is if his leadership is challenged. The Orc PC, Grunty has been planning to do this since he knew of his existence. Also, Orghar, technically killed himself, as his rage ran out and he lost his temporary hp.

Another little cool roleplaying development is that the Ghaele's is reacting to the confused Orc in a much more wary way.

[I didn't scale anything up.] This week, anyways. They were at 4 PCs, but they needed all they had with Orghar, ultimately. I'm not sure one more Fiendish Darkmantle or extra Dire Rats would have mattered, though.

[Confusion table sucks.] The confusion table from the cursed throne is much more penal than the actual spell. There's no chance to a) Do nothing or b) Act normally. I have made minor modifications to it.

[I'm noticing minor editing issues that bother me, especially in the boxed text.] It's little things like subject/verb tense matching and incoinsistencies between the boxed text and room info. I'm big on boxed text, because I don't want to have to make up descriptions, and it's an indication I'm imparting "something important." In our group, the DM saying "I have boxed text..." means, "Shut up and listen."

Roll Call:
W, Human Warmage 2
Grunt, Orc Barbarian 2
Max, Ghaele 2
Angelis, Astral Deva 2

Tale of the Trap:
Falling blocks (2), black mold, scorching ray, 100' pit

Bad guys: 3 F. Darkmantles, 1 F. Rat Swarm, 8 Kobolds, 13 Orcs, Orghar (Orc Barb 5). All dead, save 5 Orcs. Also, Turag (orc Coward) was killed.

Lord Shield

06-10-2005, 10:26 AM

Myself and one of my friends who I alternate GMing with had a long debate about the ability to take 10/20 when disarming traps. At the end of the day we took a vote on it in the whole group and decided taking 10 was feasible but not 20. I plan to keep that even though the WLD book says different since that's how we like it. It'll be some time before I can run it anyway

This journal of yours is handy though. When I was playing in a game with 2nd level characters the GM had placed a 5th level Barbarian. We caught him in such a way that the Fighter/Rogue got flanks as many of us surrounded him otherwise I think it would have gone a lot worse

orangefruitbat

06-10-2005, 11:07 AM

If I ever get around to running this, here is what I plan to do:
1) if the players are searching everything, they will progress as if they are taking 20, i.e., their travel takes 2 minutes/5 square. Not a big deal, unless they have buffs and proteciton spells up.

2) Everytime they pass a secret door/trap, I as DM will secretly make search checks for the party (having their #s written down on a cheatsheet).

3) While search checks are being made, the minimum roll will effectively be 10 (as opposed to an automatic 20). The rational for this is that while they are trying to be thorough, it's impossible to be totally focused on searching all the time, while also trying to keep a look out for monsters, not get lost, etc. Plus it's incredibly boring to do nothing but search.

Myself and one of my friends who I alternate GMing with had a long debate about the ability to take 10/20 when disarming traps. At the end of the day we took a vote on it in the whole group and decided taking 10 was feasible but not 20. I plan to keep that even though the WLD book says different since that's how we like it. It'll be some time before I can run it anyway

This journal of yours is handy though. When I was playing in a game with 2nd level characters the GM had placed a 5th level Barbarian. We caught him in such a way that the Fighter/Rogue got flanks as many of us surrounded him otherwise I think it would have gone a lot worse

Bobaloo

06-10-2005, 12:23 PM

As a reply to both:

The encounter with Orghar could have gone either way. He did have a helper, since this was the moment Turag turned on the party. Also, oth mook orcs were outside, behind a closed door. One of the PCs stayed at the door to keep others from coming in. The Good guy Orc Barbarian was confused so he spent some time doing nothing. The PCs never got a real chance to "gang up" on him.

The searching thing: Generally, they are travelling and mapping, and occasionally "Taking 20" to search for secret doors in corridors and such. They just happened to be travelling in un inhabited areas this session. In fact, every time a player said they were bored is when I checked for random encounters. (Which was "close enough" 1/hour in-game time.)

heap

06-10-2005, 12:38 PM

Myself and one of my friends who I alternate GMing with had a long debate about the ability to take 10/20 when disarming traps

This is a non-issue. You can take 10/20 when you Search for traps, assuming you are not threatened or distracted throughout the search. You can take 10 (but not 20) when disarming traps, again, assuming you are not threatened/distracted.

Why?
The PHB (in both 3.0 and 3.5) clearly states that you can take 10 when "your character is not being threatened or distracted". Taking 10 has nothing to do with possible bad outcomes. If I attempt to disarm a trap by taking 10, but the result is too low (i.e. if I failed by 5 or more), then I've triggered the trap. That's a bad thing, but it didn't prevent me from taking 10 on the skill check. If combat had been going on around me, I was in a hail storm, or was otherwise threatened or distracted, I would have been unable to take 10.

I would not be allowed to take 20 when disarming the same trap, even if I was not threatened/distracted. The PHB states that in order to take 20, you have to have plenty of time, not threatened/distracted, and "the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure." So I could take 20 on the Search roll (because there's no penalty for failing my search), but I could not take 20 to disarm the trap (because if I fail by a large enough margin, I could set off the trap - that's a penalty for failure).

----------------------
And so this post isn't totally off-topic, I have a question about the WLD. :rolleyes:
What's the estimated time for completing the module, assuming you play once a week? We started City of the Spider Queen a few weeks ago and are not very far though Part 1 yet. I'm figuring it will take us a good 6 months or more to complete.

Jim Hague

06-10-2005, 12:51 PM

This is a non-issue. You can take 10/20 when you Search for traps, assuming you are not threatened or distracted throughout the search. You can take 10 (but not 20) when disarming traps, again, assuming you are not threatened/distracted.

Why?
The PHB (in both 3.0 and 3.5) clearly states that you can take 10 when "your character is not being threatened or distracted". Taking 10 has nothing to do with possible bad outcomes. If I attempt to disarm a trap by taking 10, but the result is too low (i.e. if I failed by 5 or more), then I've triggered the trap. That's a bad thing, but it didn't prevent me from taking 10 on the skill check. If combat had been going on around me, I was in a hail storm, or was otherwise threatened or distracted, I would have been unable to take 10.

I would not be allowed to take 20 when disarming the same trap, even if I was not threatened/distracted. The PHB states that in order to take 20, you have to have plenty of time, not threatened/distracted, and "the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure." So I could take 20 on the Search roll (because there's no penalty for failing my search), but I could not take 20 to disarm the trap (because if I fail by a large enough margin, I could set off the trap - that's a penalty for failure).

----------------------
And so this post isn't totally off-topic, I have a question about the WLD. :rolleyes:
What's the estimated time for completing the module, assuming you play once a week? We started City of the Spider Queen a few weeks ago and are not very far though Part 1 yet. I'm figuring it will take us a good 6 months or more to complete.

I'd say it's an issue, because you can Take 10/20 only in cases where you are not going to suffer some consequence/take damage from failing the roll. That's implicit in the way Take 10/20 works - you're simply assumed to roll until you succeed...and with traps, failing inflicts some form of consequence, damage or otherwise. Thus, no Take 10/20. Searching for traps in that matter's fine...but not disarming. I believe this is also covered in the FAQ.

As for time needed to complete the WLD - estimates run about 2 years or so if you run a standard 4 hour session once per week and simply treat it as a dungeon crawl. Using the hundreds of plots, subplots and storylines in there...well, it's a campaign.

heap

06-10-2005, 01:23 PM

I'd say it's an issue, because you can Take 10/20 only in cases where you are not going to suffer some consequence/take damage from failing the roll. That's implicit in the way Take 10/20 works - you're simply assumed to roll until you succeed...and with traps, failing inflicts some form of consequence, damage or otherwise. Thus, no Take 10/20. Searching for traps in that matter's fine...but not disarming. I believe this is also covered in the FAQ.

No, that's what I was trying to point out: taking 10 is not the same as taking 20 (although I'd be interested to read the FAQ section on it).

You *can* take 10 when there is a penalty for failure. The possibility of springing a trap will not prevent you from taking 10 on your Disable Device skill check. The example in the PHB talks about a character making a Climb check and taking 10. If he fails his climb check, there will be a penalty for failure (he'll fall and take damage). Also, taking 10 does not assume you are simply trying over and over again. You take 10 and determine the result.

A player cannot take 20 when there is a penalty for failure. So the climber in the PHB example cannot take 20 because there is a possibility for falling (and taking falling damage). Taking 20 does assume you are trying over and over again, which is why it matters if there's a penalty for failure. I usually equate this to a 4-year-old tying his shoes: he can take 20 on his Tie Shoes check because he can just try over and over till he gets it right.

As for time needed to complete the WLD - estimates run about 2 years or so if you run a standard 4 hour session once per week and simply treat it as a dungeon crawl. Using the hundreds of plots, subplots and storylines in there...well, it's a campaign.

WOWZERS!! O.o
That is a long-ass time. I'm kind of dreading being committed to the CotSQ for 6+ months. It will be fun, and it will give the players bragging rights when they finish it, but I think we will be sick of drow by the time it's over.

Has anyone actually finished the WLD? Based on Bobaloo's comments, it sounds like the dungeon is fairly deadly. Is there a built-in mechanism for substituting characters in case of a TPK? It sounds unlikely that a whole party would make it from start to finish...but I guess you could always Raise Dead or the like.

Jim Hague

06-10-2005, 01:39 PM

WOWZERS!! O.o
That is a long-ass time. I'm kind of dreading being committed to the CotSQ for 6+ months. It will be fun, and it will give the players bragging rights when they finish it, but I think we will be sick of drow by the time it's over.

Has anyone actually finished the WLD? Based on Bobaloo's comments, it sounds like the dungeon is fairly deadly. Is there a built-in mechanism for substituting characters in case of a TPK? It sounds unlikely that a whole party would make it from start to finish...but I guess you could always Raise Dead or the like.

There's several areas in the WLD that're decidedly un-dungeonlike, including an entire Elven garrison in one part that can actually leave and return to the WLD at will. There's several suggestions on introducing new characters, and if you hunt around a bit, many of the fine folks playing it have come up with excellent solutions the book doesn't cover.

Bobaloo

06-10-2005, 02:51 PM

Has anyone actually finished the WLD? Based on Bobaloo's comments, it sounds like the dungeon is fairly deadly. Is there a built-in mechanism for substituting characters in case of a TPK? It sounds unlikely that a whole party would make it from start to finish...but I guess you could always Raise Dead or the like.

FWIW, and since it's something I've been meaning to mention: I allowed players to make two characters. It covers two issues: character death, and party make up for absent players. The characters level up at the same time, and I'm allowing limited sharing of equipment.

The assumption is that the alt-PCs are there, just not "active."

Bobaloo

06-15-2005, 07:18 PM

Our 4th session occurred this past Thursday. We had quite the switch-up in Character mix because, one player used his "alternate" to cover the missing healing of the Ghaele character (Max). A new player started this week as well, giving our intrepid band their first real Rogue.

The goals set by theplayers were to fill in the "black holes" on the map. These were areas "behind" their progress which they hadn't explored yet.

The first one was a huge room with a couple-dozen Fiendish Stirges. The PCs baited them out on small groups, and handled them fairly easily. They explored more mostly-empty rooms, and encountered some traps. I switched out a Fiendih Darkmantles encounter with Lemures, mostly because I wanted to use one of the new figs I had purchased that day. (I decided the Fiendish Monstrous Scorpion would probably be too tough.)

We took a break, and the characters leveled. With the "backtracking" complete, the PCs set out with two new goals: to find silver weapons, then find Longtail. They came upon the twice-trapped armory, avoiding both traps, and found silver weapons.

Roll Call:
W., Human Warmage 3
Gunn, Human Cleric (Pelor?) 3
Angelis, Astral Deva 3
Rhys, Elf Rogue 3

Tale of the Trap:
Falling Block, Color Spray, Scything Blade, Lightning Bolt

Body Count:
22 Fiendish Stirges, 2 Lemures. I just realized that no PC went down this session, which I believe is a first.

Mr. Teapot

06-15-2005, 07:41 PM

We took a break, and the characters leveled. With the "backtracking" complete, the PCs set out with two new goals: to find silver weapons, then find Longtail. They came upon the twice-trapped armory, avoiding both traps, and found silver weapons.

We didn't need any silver weapons in the fight against Longtail, favoring instead the method of overcoming DR through doing lots of damage (Large size barbarian + two handed greataxe + critical = dead wererat).

Zoombaba

06-15-2005, 08:01 PM

I'm actually running WLD for a group since March (I think), and they moved from Region A to the top of Region E. We've been pretty laided back about the whole thing, and I've been using miniatures.

My group pretty much skipped the areas your band concentrated on, and moved up and to the right in Region A, avoiding the kobolds and the orcs. The "grappling" rules for stirges became a big issue for my group also -- especially when one character tried to "whack-off" attached stirges. It turns out there's a big hole in the rules here. No penalty exists for hitting characters involved in a grapple, and there's no chance of missing someone whose grappling and hitting the other guy. Odd I thought, especially with how stirges are so small in relation to their opponent.

All in all, I'm lukewarm on the WLD personally. There's parts I like (it's very logical, I actually like the general set-up), and things I don't. We're taking a short break, and I'm going to run some Eberron adventures.

Zoombaba

Mr. Teapot

06-16-2005, 08:30 AM

All in all, I'm lukewarm on the WLD personally. There's parts I like (it's very logical, I actually like the general set-up), and things I don't. We're taking a short break, and I'm going to run some Eberron adventures.

Did the party get far out of Region A? The other regions thus far have been far better/more interesting.

Bobaloo

06-16-2005, 08:47 AM

We didn't need any silver weapons in the fight against Longtail, favoring instead the method of overcoming DR through doing lots of damage (Large size barbarian + two handed greataxe + critical = dead wererat).

I think that was plan A (With a medium sized Barb and Greatsword) however, The Barb might end up being a part time character, as the player also plays the "backup" cleric. I was kind of throwing them a bone, to encourage them to continue on.

Bobaloo

06-16-2005, 08:52 AM

Mr. Teapot

06-25-2005, 01:14 PM

as some rumbling have begun about "not enought treasure"

I think we've found a sum total of 90GP, and the party is 4th or 5th level each and fighting CR 7 or 8 creatures, I think (we're a large party). So if they want gold, they might be disappointed, but there's been enough magic items and other stuff to keep us satisfied.

Bobaloo

07-01-2005, 04:05 PM

Well, I'm basically going to post my rough draft. It's just been too long. (I typed up the draft Monday, but filled it out today.)

It was a shortened session, and we only had only 3 players.

A fun aside was had during a pretty geeky conversation regarding the Dianoga in SWANH, once the PCs came upon Refuse room. The conversation was about the internal logic as to why a creature like that would be in the Death Star. My contention is that it's space vermin, and vermin will show up anywhere...

There was great IC play throughout the session. Rhys has become the extremely greedy rogue. She argued in favor of exploring the refuse room, and set off an energy field trap that was disguised in the form of a giant ruby crystal. Maybe I should bring up the 80' spiked pit with some dead bodies in it, that the others have avoided so far. The Trap detection whiff factor seems a little high, so far, especially in this session. Other good IC stuff included the Orc Barb playing a Int 6 and Cha 6 very well. Lastly, Angelis (the group's leader, so far) has expressed her exasperation with the dumb Barb and Greedy Rogue.

Only 3 battles, 2 reruns: F DMs and F Stirges. Also, Trogs. 2 of them were random encounters, no less.

There was lots of search/trap action, though. And by action I mean there were Secret Doors/Traps and Treasue on the line in many of the cases. They also found a decent bit of treasure (a diamond, scrolls and a wand), so I think that may have allyed those fears I mentioned before.

The Open Door/Closed Door conundrum. Doors are defaulted to open (in section A, at least.) So every closed door brings about a new level of tension. It's a cool subtle thing that I really dig. It's a slight change from the "standard dungeon" that really creates a different approach in play.

No lists this time, sorry.

Bobaloo

07-11-2005, 01:44 PM

[I tried to post this Fri, w/o success, FWIW...]

The Defeat of Longtail.

We met Monday July 4 and had an entended session, with a planned dinner barbecue break.

The intrepid PCs began by going in circles before being given a clue by a hapless kobold krenshar-rider as to a more direct path to Longtail's lair.

I had a very bad day in terms of description. I missed the original Fiendish Owlbear encounter (something the PCs shouldn't be able to miss) and never really accurately described Longtail's gear until about 6-7 rounds into the combat. All my bad. This issue continued into Region E exploration. (After the break.)

The F. Owlbear was defeated easily. The PCs then went into the portal room and immediately began attempting to close the portal. Aschyyx the Imp retaliated. Longtail began his buffing. The battle was epic, at least for D&D 3.5 terms. 4 PCs vs. 2 NPCs and it went like 13-14 rounds. It started off as a pair of 2 on 1s until Aschyyx went down. Longtail hung in for a long time due to his DR. His "escape gambit" failed miserably, though.

The battle had worn on for about 10 rounds, and Longtail had decided to finally bail. However, at this moment, he had no escape route, except back into his quarters. He avoided many AoOs and set himself up to be able to hit 3 of 4 with Color Spray, which should have taken down at least 1 or 2. All the PCs made their saves with the rolls alone.

After that the PCs went back into Region E, where that had begun exploring before. They found a handful of traps and empty rooms. Then they met up with Phinadar, Inhuman Necromancer. He went on a "Region E Plot Points Monologue" and was then killed post haste. (I actually owe my players some major updates here.

It looks loke we'll be taking about a month off, so there may not be updates for awhile...

Again, no lists.