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7 months ago  ::  Nov 08, 2012 - 6:31AM #1
cave2626
Date Joined: Jan 10, 2008
Posts: 151

Field report for D&D Encounters: War of Everlasting Darkness (Week 2) now available at Dungeon's Master.com.

Two very different experiences at the two tables I ran. The first group was reluctant to role-play and when they did they didn't want to help any of the NPCs. The other group was completely on board. For both groups I beefed up the Orc assault, adding an Orc Reaver (pg#28). I made this change only because the players said they wanted a tougher, longer, more meaningful combat this week. I listened and the result was a 45-minute melee with the Orcs. Both groups loved it.

Sessions still ran long this week. A little over 2 hours each. There's certainly room to tighten it up but as long as the players are having fun and the FLGS isn't kicking us out I'm good to keep them in the 2 hour ball park.

We discuss the ups and downs, what worked and what didn’t in this week’s Recounting Encounters Podcast.

Visit the Dungeon’s Master D&D Encounters Archive for all of our ongoing weekly coverage as well as actual play podcasts and pre-generated characters.

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7 months ago  ::  Nov 08, 2012 - 6:38AM #2
AsmodeusLore
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Date Joined: Aug 24, 2005
Posts: 3,874
We did session 2 last night.

Several of my folks had trouble with the inherent bonuses, and we had to spend a little bit of time going over exactly how that worked.

On the way back from the ruins, we were greeted by Rennick. I found the suddeness of this shift in objective to be a bit jarring, especially since my party never got to talk to the orcs in session 1. He informed the party about the danger to the village of Winter Edge. The party immediately re-routed and headed towards the new village. On the way, I mentioned that they heard orc hunting horns. This actually led to confusion later about exactly where the orcs were coming from, in relation to the village of Winter Edge, the ruins of Methegrist, where the Darkening originated from, and the larger town where they started. (Ohrveall?)

At the town, they did very well organizing the panicking villagers into an orderly exodus after I had to prompt them towards evacuation, rather than standing their ground and fighting. I had a great scene where the little girl walks up to the biggest, meanest, toughest looking character, who would rather chew your bones than talk to you, tugs on his pant-legs, and hands him a dolly. Several other party members had a mild panic attack when they heard that a gnome was involved in giving it magical powers. However, they did keep the poppet. Once the advance party of orcs made their appearance, the group settled easily into the flow of combat, even though it was rather short.

I had another jarring moment when the party killed the minions, and were then redirected from further combat towards a diplomatic mission. However, the scene with Rhupp getting shot with arrows was hilarious. The cleric healed him, and everything went smoothly from there. 

At the audience with the orc king, the party was able to talk their way out of getting involved in a pit-fight. The line about the Broken Arrow did get used. Rhupp being alive gave them an automatic success. They earned two more successes with rolls and good role playing. Another character rolled a failure, and the king accused him of being useless as a Broken Arrow. At that point, the Broken Arrow quote was used, and the final success was scored. 

The crew ended the night by escaping out of the garbage chute.
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7 months ago  ::  Nov 08, 2012 - 10:21AM #3
nightwalker450
Date Joined: Jun 13, 2008
Posts: 2,031
So I had my full party here for this one (and sounds like I'll be gaining another young one next week)

The Party Show

Elven Druid (shapeshifter) -- My 7 year old daughter
Pixie Skald
Pixie Hexblade
Half-Orc Assassin
Human Wizard
Changeling Wizard
Dragonborn Paladin
Deva Pacifist Cleric


The Village
In the town of Winter's Edge, the group is all chattering at once at Goody Winn, about everything. So between them and the townfolk, she finally silences the lot of them, and starts asking questions directly to people. They work with her to organize the people and prepare them to flee from the village. Meanwhile the child comes up to the young druid and gives her a doll for luck. She keeps it, and it isn't until they are sending the last of the villagers on their way that anyone else notices it. They are slightly worried after detecting magic, but not finding anything bad with the magic they let her keep it.

As the initial orcs break from the woods the group is ready for a fight, and take them out rather quickly within the 2 rounds. But they want to hold it longer and fight off the orcs, so they ready themselves for the rush. So third round I break out more orcs, only these I'm giving 40 hit points, and to do less tracking for me (and due to lack of figures) after each players turn I just have a couple orcs take actions.  At the end of the 3rd round they have not taken any of them out, and I sprinkle a handful of d6s across the board to represent more orcs. After each players turn I have 2-3 orcs take actions. By the end of the 4th round it finally sinks in that they should flee, and most of the players come up with various actions to preform in order to make their escape. The hexblade uses a daily blast, which I allow to clear some area as well as trigger her pact teleport getting her a good distance away. The human wizard uses a spectral image to distract the orcs on him just long enough to slip away. The dragonborn had a theme power that allowed him to fly after his attack, etc.. etc.. I just didn't want to call the battle saying they were captured, since that would probably not be taken well. Basically I just had Rhupp calling them crazy for staying, and finally taking off himself (with the skald who was sticking with him).

The Orcs
Being finally captured by the orcs, led to a lot of hasty weapons stowing. With two pixies shrinking weapons for people to hide, and the assassin concealing one of his blades. They almost forgot to heal Rhupp, and it wasn't until just before I was ready to move to the next scene that they finally said "what about him". The negotiations went very well, with the "broken arrow" line being the only thing missed (they pretty much blew off what Rhupp had said earlier). As soon as the orcs mentioned a challenge, the assassin slipped his bonds and pulled his sword saying he was ready, just point the way. Due to my table size though I had them choose 2 champions to go into the pit (and face a pair of drakes), so the Dragonborn Paladin went in with him.

So they square up in the pit, the dragonborn ready to take the initial rush, and the assassin waiting behind him. The drakes rush up with only 1 hitting (though for great damage due to having an ally). Up on the edge the rest of the group is cheering them on. The changeling wizard tries talking with the shaman in order to distract him, while one of the pixies is attempting to imitate his whistles and clicks (made easier by pixies naturally being able to speak with animals). The skald is close enough to the edge that the people in the pit are close enough to be affected by his motivating cheers. And the cleric is able to also shout advise provided by one of her "forseeing" powers.

So the assassin goes, against the dazed drake with his whirling kama... Trips the drake, and then unloads:
1d10 (kama) + 1d10 (half-orc) + 1d10 (Assassin Strike) + 1d8 (Assassin) + 2d6 (Rogue Multi) + 2d10 (Skald triggers his song) + ~10 (Cleric Bonus & Normal).. 
5d10 + 1d8 + 2d6 + 10 (+9 from the initial strike, due to cleric bonus)..

I then have the entire party roll intimidate checks, with only 2 of 8 people rolling below 15. The shaman calls the battle seeing no point in sacrificing another of his drakes when it is so obvious Gruumsh supports them. So they are treated and given a place to rest. When it comes time to flee the group splits into a couple groups to get out. The human wizard and pacifist cleric are all for the garbage chute and go without hesitation. Meanwhile the "champions" of the group decide, that they are just going to walk out. So escorted by the changeling (as an orc) they head to march right out of the keep. The pixies each hitch a ride with one of them, and the druid shifts into a mouse and goes scurrying before them. Rolling intimidate checks to the guards as they walk out, they are rewarded with salutes from the orcs and nobody wants to step up in front of them.

Overall session took 2 hours, I rushed through some of it, so I could avoid another 3 hour session and also to give the group a chance to just do some combat for a little while against the invading orcs. 
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7 months ago  ::  Nov 08, 2012 - 7:22PM #4
mcmillan
Date Joined: Aug 24, 2010
Posts: 158
My Party

Spoiler: Show
Dwarf Warpriest
Kobold Bard (part of session)
 Dwarf Blackguard
Elf Scout
Human Wizard (1st time player using the character from the pre-gen thread)


When the group arrived there was an entertaining exchange with Goody and the Blackguard, where he would provide part of the info, wait for Goody to calm people, and then add in some more details to get them worked up again, then repeat.

Once we had the introductions to Rhupp they got moving again and started the orc encounter. I ran this as written and mapless. Two orcs dropped the first round, then the new player showed up so I turned things over to an old Encounters DM that was in the store while I got him set up with a character. By the time we got back the fight was over.

The initial meeting with the orc sentries went pretty quickly, without much resistance after Rhupp was dropped.

The roleplaying with the king went pretty well, a few notable events  - 1) they opened with the bard trying to convince the king to meet with them alone, which ended with a natural 1 on her diplomacy roll. We played it as her trying to use Giant to get on their good side (which wasn't one of her languages) and accidently insulting the king instead. 2) An appeal to the connection to Rhupp and his mother by pointing out how well she was treated by the residents of Winter's Edge. 3) After the leader of the Death Horns made her comments, the blackguard successfully bluffed that the drow they met in the last session had revealed that they intended to betray the orcs after the orcs had served their purpose in the inital attacks. This prompted divisions among the orcs which was resolved by Ehnk making his challenge.

I changed this encounter a bit to let everyone be directly involved. Instead of a one on one fight against a drake, they were asked to fight orc champions, I used 2 non-minionized Orc savages and two  Orc Archers from the Orcs of Stonefang Pass module for some variety. The whole party won initiative, so all the orcs were still clustered together when the wizard's turn came, so he cast sleep on all, and then used an action point for an area attack that hit all but one archer.  Being slowed from the sleep kept them from spreading out though only one failed the save to go unconscious. That also prevented the savages from being able to charge and do their extra damage. The party then focused fire on each of the savages, to drop them in the second round, and then mopped up the archers.

The extended encounter made things a bit longer and we had a bit of a late start so I ended up rushing through the escape scene, basically just asked what strategy they wanted to use to escape, and said they succeeded.

Overall seemed to be an enjoyable session, I think they liked the mix of roleplaying and combat. The new player also seemed to have a good time for his first exposure to 4e and seems that he will be a regular as well as was asking about any outside campaigns people people might running.
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7 months ago  ::  Nov 13, 2012 - 1:12PM #5
Vobeskhan
Date Joined: Feb 13, 2010
Posts: 538

I ran this in two session as usual.


Our first session the players really get the RP side of play and truly got into interacting with the villagers and later, the orc king. The brief combat with the scouts at the village lasted a couple of rounds and our berserker actually took some solid hits (thats what happens when you get flanked by a pair of orc savages lol) before the party were victorious. The scene with the orc king went well and the “challenge” fight worked well with the rest of the party using their skills to help out without being caught (the beserker interfering with the shamens whistling while the druid and mage used hidden casting to assist the cavalier) Fleeing the assassination threat the opted to head straight to the rubbish chute and avoided patrols on the way. The players enjoyed the session and all participated in the game throughout.


The second group was a different story. We have a bit of a divide in this group as one of the older players really gets the RP aspect while another seems to delight in being as awkward as possible (unfortunately this encourages his younger brother to also follow suit). This week saw his pixie skald ignore the villagers plight in favour of plundering the now abandoned village pub. After the skirmish with the scouts he bemoaned the lack of short rest even though the party were taking “a couple of days” to travel to Dark Arrow Keep (this is despite being told at session 0 that this season had no rests and a different narrative approach). When it came to the archers shooting Rhuup the cavalier took the hit, dropping him to unconsciousness so the party administered the tears of helm (their only healing since the skald used his encounter power in the skirmish earlier). While the hexblade and cavalier tried to interact with the King, the pixie and his brother (a drow revenant executioner) were more interested in antagonising the orcs. The hexblade took on the challenge while the others placed huge bets with the surrounding orcs. During the fight the cavalier tried to take a flagon of ale from an orc, resulting in him being knocked into the arena with a pair of surly drunken orcs. Once the party were victorious they went to claim their winnings to be told sorry due to the cavaliers interference all bets were off. During the Kings feast the pixie and cavalier decided to have a fist fight (for “entertainment&rdquo before retiring to the alloted chambers. They chose to escape via the chute also but the cavalier chose to grab pixie and throw him down first.


The contrast between the groups is evident, as most of the early group have played previous editions and are happy to RP, while the later group having played mainly 4e miss the “battle-a-week” format that Encounters had fallen into the trap of becoming.


Personally I like the style of this season and despite the disruptions of certain individuals am happy to continue running both sessions, though I think I’ll make the later sessions more combat intensive if necessary to keep them “on track”.

"Well that encounter was easy....er, guys, why is the DM grinning?" (party members last words)

It's not a party till the screaming starts!

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