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[Actual Play] Encounter Critical
So, my group played Encounter Critical tonight. My god.
We did the whole thing – rolled up characters and then played the starter module in the main rules.
Roll-up characters: this system might possibly be the greatest character creation system of all time. We rolled up our characters as a group, moving from stage to stage to stage. We had 4 players to start: Mike, Bryan, Reza and Philip. Everyone rolled 3d6 for each stat in order: Adaptation, Dexterity, ESP, Intellect, Leadership, Luck, Magic Power, Robot Nature, and Strength. We then rolled randomly for race. Both Mike and Bryan rolled up Planetary Apes, Philip was Human, and Reza was Vulkin. Mike and Bryan decided to be Evolved Planetary Apes, named Ook Ook the Third and Shagmaster, respectively, while Philip decided to be a Cave Human named Og, and Reza a Cave Vulkin named Spuck.
That was when rolls were made on the mutation table. Bryan and Reza both got one extra roll on the mutation table for bringing printed out character sheets (I made some quick ones, they weren’t that great).
Shagmaster: Most normal food poisonous, cannibal urges, hair covering grows at 100%, and Trauma Mutant – gain an extra mutation every time you lose all your hit points but don’t die.
Ook Ook The Third: Non-magical poisons just perk you up, begin play with disease or curse (intestinal disease), Trauma Mutant – gain an extra mutation every time you lose all your hit points but don’t die.
Spuck: Limbs detachable, albino skin condition, hair covering grows at 100% speed (we decided this meant he had a huge afro), blind but with radar sense to compensate
Og: Death prone (half Saving Throw), can ignore gravity (we decided this meant levitation), blind but with radar sense to compensate
And that was when Seegar came over. Seegar, having not been to a Wednesday game for over a month, had no idea what we were playing. I enforced the rule that no one tell him what the game was, as he rolled up his character up to the point we gotten to.
“Robot Nature? What is this game?” Seegar rolled up a Cave Lizard Man. I don’t remember what he named his character. He then rolled his mutations: Immune to non-weapon temperatures (we decided this meant he ignored hot and cold as long as it wasn’t an attack), cannibal urges, and … dunt, dunt, DUH ….
EDIBLE EXCRETIONS. Everyone else got +10% to their Camping rolls. The poop jokes did fly.
We decided to roll randomly for class, just because. The game has six classes so everyone rolled a d6. Amazingly, no one had the same class. Shagmaster was an Evolved Planetary Ape Warrior, Ook Ook The Third was an Evolved Planetary Ape Psi Witch, Og was a Levitating Cave Criminal, Spuck was a Cave Vulkin Warlock, and Seegar rounded the team out with a Cave Lizard Man Pioneer. The only class that wasn’t used was Doxy, the harlot class. As we were statting up our various abilities we realized that our classes gave no extra ability, and had little to do with how good anyone was at anything. The level of the attributes was the determining factor.
The adventure module started in Mortorius, just north of the Great Spiney Wood. Our intrepid heroes began the game in the Rusty Sighing Panther, and were approached by Burke, a captain from the City of Blackhawk. He gave them a quest: rescue the village's virgin girls that have been kidnapped by the vile beasts of the warlock, Skulbryne. Some crude comments were made about the remaining virgin girls, and the crew was off.
I rolled on the wandering monster table, and got a couple pyrexis hounds attacking the adventurers, but they were easily dispatched. At night everyone made their Camping rolls, and watch was set up. I again rolled on the wandering monster table (wandering monster at night 90%!), and this time got a troupe of bee girls lead by their bee queen.
Spuck was standing guard, and told them to go away. The bee girls became very amorous of the other PCs, who were all sleeping, and begin stroking their bodies. Bee girls got in both Og’s and Seegar’s sleeping bags, as they didn’t wake up, due to missed Happenstance rolls.
Both Ook Ook The Third and Shagmaster attacked their bee girls, and Shagmaster decapitated his. Spuck turned invisible and dropped a warlock bomb on the bee queen killing her instantly. The remaining bee girls skedaddled, and Seegar woke up right when his bee girl had finished having her way with him in his sack. The resulting unpleasant odor sent Ook Ook The Third bolting out of the camping site. Og levitated in his sleeping bag, and killed the bee girl in there with him. All the other bee girls ran off.
The next day was uneventful, and that night a group of blink beasts invaded the campsite, but were dispatched fairly easily.
The next the day the group arrived at the warlock’s lair. They crossed a chasm by having Og levitate to the other side, grasp and tie off the rope bridge that was there, thus getting past the Great White Shark in the river below. Og also made it past a pit trap designed to grind PCs into meat paste. The whole group then encountered a Cave Ooze in the goblin barracks that crushed Og with its 2d20 damage and it’s 100% attack rating. Spuck detonated another warlock bomb and that was the end of that.
They then went straight to the final battle with Skulbryn who was starting up a space rocket on its launching pad, surrounded by goblin minions. The minions surrounded the PCs. Both Ook Ook The Third and Shagmaster were taking below their hit points, but made their Survival rolls, thus triggering their Trauma Mutant mutation. Ook Ook the Third rolled “Most normal food is poisonous,” and Shagmaster rolled “Edible Excretions (!)”. Spuck turned invisible and ran away, and Seegar was turned into a frog by Skulbryn. Seegar then leaped into the rocket. Using his “Explore” ability, he explored his way into Skulbryn’s space suit just when the transmogrify spell wore off. Now both he and Skulbryn were stuffed in the same suit, as the rocket sped off into the atmosphere. After a few exchanges in a fight and a flight across the land of Vanth, Seegar, Skulbryn, and the rocket plunged into the Amazon and Wooky Freeholds, never to be seen again.
The remaining goblins dragged Ook Ook The Third and Shagmaster into the prison chamber where the virgin girls were hooked up to psychic draining helmets. Spuck snuck in, waited for the goblins to leave, and then released the virgin girls, Shagmaster and Ook Ook The Third. They returned to Mortorius, got their reward from Burke, and Shagmaster offered everyone some of his poop.
THE END
And there you have it friends. Encounter Critical.
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Still an official D&D 4e enthusiast
Running: D&D 4e Forgotten Realms
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